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What Can You Tell Me About the Rosicrucians?
Q: I was
wondering about the Rosicrucians?
RK: There are three groups in the United States that use that term.
There is one group called AMORC which is probably the most popular today. They
are out in San Jose, California. There is a Rosicrucian
Fellowship in Oceanside, California
and then there is a Rosicrucian organization in Quakertown, Pennsylvania
which has been around for over two-hundred years in this country.
Essentially, they derive information from Brotherhood teachings from a
long-time back; things which were kept underground and passed along from one
student of metaphysics to another. They take their name from the Rosicrucian
Brotherhood. I do not know if the three were ever associated officially with
the Rosicrucian Brotherhood. They just adopted the name.
The name Rosicrucian came
to the fore back in the 1600s in Germany
and in France,
but then they went underground again and have not really done much. AMORC,
for instance, which is the largest and you probably see their ads quite
frequently in various magazines, are collections of lore that they were able
to glean from such things the Masons have been passing on for a long time,
things from Theosophical books essentially derived from translations made
from things in India where they promoted metaphysical ideas. They pulled
together a lot of esoterical information; a lot of it was handed down through
Arabian tradition. Wherever they could gather together the stuff they brought
together and much of it has pretty practical usage. The AMORC group gives a
lot of lessons relative to mentally having control over your environment, but
unfortunately, in many ways it definitely works by manipulating other people,
mentally. That, of course, goes against the Brotherhoods’ teachings. But,
they do work. Essentially, they were concerned with making a compilation of
things that they found which a person could test for themselves. But,
witchcraft works too. But just because it works does not mean that you should
get involved with it or that you should work it on other people. (03-1982)
Short
History of the Rosicrucian Brotherhood
RK: But, there is a Rosicrucian Brotherhood, and many different
schools in Europe and Asia and the United States have sprung up from
students of that Brotherhood. They really have quite separate approaches from
one another. But, which are valuable because that is why there are seven
Lesser Brotherhoods because each one is able to appeal to a different
personality type. A person has to connect with a philosophy in someway which
is familiar to them which really appeals to them. That is why there are seven
different Brotherhoods rather than just one, with one school. These various
schools change their modus operandi,
century by century, depending upon where people's popular thinking has gone,
so that they still have a way of appealing to them.
When you talk about the
Rosicrucians, you are talking about a host of different Mundane schools, but
also just one Brotherhood. People normally do not deal with Representatives
of the Brotherhood itself, but rather through the Mundane schools which have
something to offer. Some organizations which have the name, “Rosicrucian,” in
them have nothing to do with the Mundane schools or with the Brotherhood
itself. I mean, they just adopted the name because it is a popular name.
Back in the 1600s in France,
the name Rosicrucian came out more or less publicly for a short period of
time. They were very much involved with underground transmission of
scientific information between the savants
of France and Germany and England
and Italy
who were then beginning to get into the preliminary grounds of the scientific
method and science itself or what eventually became science.
And even they—those early
scientists—had some real difficulty distinguishing between natural phenomenon
and metaphysical-type things. Indeed, they kind of had a mixture of both of
them in their understandings of things. Many of them started out as
alchemists, which was a sort of a ritualistic way of dealing with natural
phenomenon, particularly in the area of chemistry and physics. The scientists
really kind of came out of the alchemist tradition which, in many cases, was
associated with the name Rosicrucian.
I am trying to make a very
short history out of a very long and complicated kind of association between
the various groups of scientists in Europe.
The people who were Rosicrucians in that time, back in the sixteen-hundreds,
were, for the most part, people who were free-thinkers and who did not
necessarily go along with the theological views of the church, at that time.
They were investigating things and proving them, passing information along to
other places through coded writings, which traveled underground from one
nation's scientist to the other nation's scientists. Many of them, in that
day, were involved with the Rosicrucian movement. So, Rosicrucians, at one
time, were very, very important in getting the facts of natural science into
the public realm. It had to be done very, very carefully. People who were
caught with that kind of information—since it very frequently disproved
things which were in the Bible—ended up in front of the Inquisition of one
sort or another. It was risky business and the Rosicrucians, being a secret
order in the first place, it kind of helped that they knew how to get that
information around.
That is where the Rosicrucians
became well-known, and you can find out about the Rosicrucian in just about
any good encyclopedia; what their history was and what is known about them.
But, for the most part, it is just presented as an organization which existed
a few hundred years ago and ceased to exist. If somebody wants to get it
conveyed to the general public that they are involved with that same line of
reasoning or purpose, they adopt the name Rosicrucian not realizing that, in
many cases, they really should take that name only if they are associated
with the Brotherhood, which they never heard of. It is not in the
encyclopedias or anything. What about the Rosicrucians?
Q: Well, that is very true. I was not aware that there was more
than one Rosicrucian society in the United States.
RK: Well, there are a lot more of them outside of the United States, too, which are not associated
with the ones in the United
States. I understand that the most active
Rosicrucian school, at the present time, is one-hundred percent underground
and operates in Portugal
and Spain.
(09-1982)
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