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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