The True And Invisible Rosicrucian Order
“Venerable Brotherhood, so sacred and so little known, from whose secret and precious archives the materials for this history have been drawn, ye who have retained, from century to century, all that time has spared of the august and venerable science…. Many have called themselves of your band; many spurious pretenders have been so called by the learned ignorance which still, baffled and perplexed, is driven to confess that it knows nothing of your origin, your ceremonies or your doctrines, nor even if you still have local habitation on the Earth.”
- Edward Bulwer-Lytton
Zanoni, p.165
The Rosicrucian title has been variously bandied about in modern esoteric circles with so many paths being described as Rosicrucian with seemingly little in common other than their common title. Some have even felt so assured in their validity that they have felt warrant in declaring themselves a more true manifestation of the Rosicrucian doctrine than the various other groups. But what is this mysterious Rosicrucianism, what is this spiritual stream and is there a true manifestation of it today?
The first stirrings of a knowledge of the Rosicrucian stream occurred in 1610 with the publication of Fama Fraternitatis, commonly translated as meaning the declaration of the fraternity, although fama can also be translated as common talk, or rumour. More or less, a myth or legend.
The Fama claims to tell the story of a Christian Rosenkreuz, a mystic who lived to the ripe age of 106. His brotherhood, the Fraternity of the Rosy Cross or the Rosicrucians is also declared in this momentous work.
Between Fama Fraternitatis and Confessio Fraternitatis, published four years following, there was formed a complete foundation for spiritual renewal.
Who was the author or group of authors behind the mysterious public declarations of the Rosicrucian brotherhood? Was it truly an active Rosicrucian order or an ideal perpetuated by those behind the Fama?
It says in the Fama all interested in joining the work of the brotherhood should openly declare such and the brotherhood would find the aspiring candidate. It is debatable if any of the many kindred souls who declared an interest in the brotherhood were contacted because it is utterly debatable if the brotherhood ever existed.
In his history of Roscrucianism from ancient to modern, The Rosicrucians, Christopher McIntosh postulates the Fama and Confessio were written by a group of philosophers who expounded the Rosicrucian ideal, that being transformation.
The form this was to take was left open as the Fama states on the purpose of the brothers:
“Howbeit we know that after a time there will now be a general reformation, both of divine and human things, according to our desire…”
This little statement, declaring change in both the micro and macrocosms has been left open to interpretation the form it is to take.
The purpose was openly declared as the reformation of philosophy, the art of mystical thought:
“So that man might thereby understand his own nobleness and worth, and why he is called Microcosmus, and how far his power extended in Nature”
A promise of nothing short of the knowledge of the place and purpose of man in the universe.
From these first stirrings many manifestations of this spiritual stream, with the expression and flavour of many other movements placed as a framework for the new reform, have appeared. Each group, each organisation and each individual aspiring to the Rosicrucian enlightenment has manifest, with varying degrees of success, the aspiration, the journey man seems to constantly be on, and providing a road each man and woman can follow in seeking their place in the universe.
One could easily fault the writers of Fama as giving an inadequate structure for the wisdom of Christian Rosenkreutz, but I cannot help but feel that it is the formlessness, the lack of description of the physical vehicle of the new philosophy that has kept it alive and made it a timeless wisdom.
If one were to ask me the most important point of a modern Rosicrucian tradition I would look to the words of Rudolf Steiner who said:
“Rosicrucian wisdom must not stream only into the head, nor only into the heart, but also into the hand, into our manual capacities, into our daily actions.”
Rosicrucianism is nothing short of the cosmic aspirations of humankind, for the true knowledge of the self and the self’s place in the scheme of the universe.
It has and will continue to have many manifestations which should be judged not on “claims” of validity, but on the reform of the individual under its stream and the manifestation of the reform, human and divine, in everyday life.
FURTHER READING
Allen, Paul M. ed, A Christian Rosenkreutz Anthology (1968)
Steiner, Rudolf Theosophy Of The Rosicrucians (1952)
White, Ralph ed, Rosicrucian Enlightenment Revisited (1999)
Yates, Frances The Rosicrucian Enlightenment (1972)