﻿Rosicrucianism has a complex and intricate history. We covered its inception in the 17th
century in a previous episode and here we’re going to tackle its developments
in the 18th century. The influential role of the Order of the Golden and Rosy Cross,
the interest Goethe took in Rosicrucianism and the connection with Freemasonry.
Have I sparked your interest? Come along and let’s find out!
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Hello everyone, I’m Dr Angela Puca and welcome to my Symposium. I’m a PhD and a University
Lecturer and this is your online resource for the academic study of Magic, Paganism,
Shamanism, Esotericism, and all things occult.
Today’s episode is brought to you by the supporter of the Symposium, Refining Fusion!
Thank you so much for commissioning this video and I hope you find it interesting!
Now, let’s dive into the 18th century Rosicrucian movement.
In 1710, about a century after the original Rosicrucian manifestos,
Samuel Richter published in Breslau, under the pseudonym Sincerus Renatus,
a book whose title included the term ‘Golden’ in association to ‘Rose Cross’.
This was possibly intended to reframe the meaning of the original myth by emphasising the alchemical
Theo-Philosophia Theoretico-Practica, which could be confirmed by the title
of a work published by Sincerus Renatus in 1711.
To the 1710 book, he added fifty-two articles on the practical
organization and continuation of what he called the “Society of the Golden and Rosy Cross”.
At its head would stand an Imperator appointed for life. The members, differently from those
of the original Rose Cross described in the manifestos, could be Catholic. Members could
not marry but were allowed to have sexual relations if their desire was too intense.
– how do you get if your desire is too intense though? Isn't every desire...–
Anyway… Some of these articles mentioned the brothers’ alchemical powers and their ability
to materialise the philosopher’s stone, precious gems and pearls and to rejuvenate
and renew themselves. There’s an emphasis in the preface on the divine character of true alchemy,
whose goal is the purification of Man and Nature. Interestingly, we now know that a Society of the
Golden and Rosy Cross did not exist at the time when this book was published.
The complete works of Sincerus Renatus appeared later in 1741, highlighting regeneration and
alchemy as a secondary vocation while warning that the “theosophical doctrines” must not be read
with the eyes of reason but rather with those of the spirit. The title of the complete edition,
Theo-Philosophia Theoretico-Practica, is explained by a sentence in the preface:
‘We say that philosophy without true theology has nothing enduring in it’.
Referring to the Paracelsian doctrine of “signatures”, the author states that God
manifests himself through nature like the soul manifests itself through the body.
This shows that from around 1750, a “Rosicrucian tradition” henceforth came to be opposed
to the rationalism that, notably in the case of Helvetius, led to a materialistic atheism.
In 1751 Germany, doctor Johann Ludolph printed a new edition of Conrad Orvius’s Occulta
Philosophia, first published in 1737, claiming it to be from a Rosicrucian society in Holland.
In 1761, a member of the “Assembly of Prague” published a text containing the statutes,
rituals and membership list of a “Society of the Golden and Rosy Cross”;
though this document repeats several words from the work published in 1749
by Hermann Fictuld, who’s often considered the founder of this order.
In 1762 France, Baron Schoudy, originally from Metz, established the Adonhiramite Freemasonry,
the seventh grade of which was called Knight of the Rose Cross or of the “unknown philosopher”,
thus introducing a Rosicrucian affinity to articulating itself in lodges.
From a later controversy. it appears that the first creation of a Rosicrucian order
in Germany can be dated from 1763.
In 1782, Phoebron wrote his book ‘The Rosicrucian Radiant in the Light of Truth’, stating that all
the knowledge of the patriarchs had been transmitted to the accomplished Rosicrucians.
A professor of medicine at the University of Marburg, Friedrich Joseph Wilhelm
Schroder (1733-1778), between 1766 and 1774 fostered a significant activity within the
circles of Rosicrucians that existed at the time. Interesting to notice that Ralph
Christian Zimmermann has assembled documentation strongly suggesting that the Swabian Pietist
Friedrich Christoph Oetinger (1702-1782), who theorised a “philosophia sacra”, had connections
with the founders of Order of the Golden and Rosy Cross due to a work [Patriarchalphysik] published
in 1772 that seems to show some theoretical influence on the order.
Interesting to notice that the poet and novelist Goethe took an interest in the Rosicrucian myth.
He read the novel ‘Chymical Wedding of Christian Rosenkreutz’ and was clearly influenced by
Rosicrucian symbolism in writing - around 1786 - his ‘The Mysteries’ [Die Geheimnisse] and how
the pilgrim Brother Markus reaches an idealized Montserrat. A monastic order - which appears
as a mix of the Templars, the community of the Holy Grail and the Rosicrucian Society.
Here displaying the figure of the Humanus as prior. This is a symbol of the Total Man,
destined to accomplish the new Easter, Passover, of a humanity finally reconciled,
and promote the synthesis of all forms of religiosity; Christian, Masonic or Spinozist.
In 1782, Goethe was accepted into the Inner Order of the high grades of the Strict Observance,
and the following year he entered, with Duke Charles-August de Weimar,
the Bavarian Order of the Illuminaten, whose purpose was to combat the ‘enemies of reason
and of humanity’.The Bavarian Illuminaten were not keen on the Rosicrucians, whose alchemical
theories were opposed to scientific materialism and who had now gained a significant influence in
Freemasonry. Indeed the proliferation of numerous texts, editions and reprints on Rosicrucianism
in the late 18th century testifies the interest of many readers in Christian theosophy and
testifies to the prominent role that the “Golden Rosicrucianism” had come to play in Freemasonry.
Roland Edighoffer explains that – ‘According to some of these publications - Master Masons
possessed no more than a “reflection of the Light” and had, therefore, access
only to the outer Temple. As adepts of the philosophia perennis, the Rosicrucians considered
themselves heirs to a gnosis transmitted by the angels to one of Noah’s descendants,
who had not participated in building the Tower of Babel;
and Abraham had benefited from a supernatural knowledge subsequently cultivated by Nazarean
Magi. Moses had been initiated in Egypt, and the tradition had been nurtured by the great biblical
prophets, the adepts of the Eleusinian mysteries, the Pythagoreans, the Druids and the Bards.
In Egypt, where St Mark preached the Gospel, an Alexandrian priest named Ormus had been
baptized in the year 46 together with six other adepts. His name was a deformation of Ormazd,
the god of light and goodness, who had revealed the mysteries of Mazdaism to the great prophet
Zoroaster. Still, according to the same legend, Ormus, once converted to Christianity, had
founded the Society of the Sages of Light, whose symbol was a gold and red cross. Its members,
established in Palestine, had left the country in 1118 after the defeat of the Crusaders
and had spread all over the world. Three of them had created in Scotland “The Scottish
Order of the ‘Builders of the East’”, as a foundation for their confraternity.
Ramon Llull had been one of its directors, and King Edward I (1239-1307) one of its members
and descendants of the families of Lancaster and York, whose coats of arms comprised of a
white rose and a red rose. It was from these blazons, blended with Ormusian Christianity,
that the name Rosicrucian had been derived. Over the centuries, the Order had declined,
until Cromwell reactivated it and changed the denomination of “Constructors”
into “Freemasons”. This legend thus strongly emphasized the precedence of the Rosicrucians with
respect to the Freemasons, who were considered no more than spiritual descendants of the former,
and who possessed merely a reflection of the true Light of the ancient Rosicrucian tradition’.
The ideology of the Golden Rosicrucians of the Ancient System certainly influenced the
Rosicrucian tradition, which continued throughout the following century
and has had an impact into the opposition to Enlightenment rationalism characteristic
of the German movement of Sturm und Drang as well as European Romanticism.
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