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THE ROSY CROSS UNVEILED The History, Mythology and Rituals of an Occult Order by Christopher McIntosh Foreword by Colin Wilson THE AQUARIAN PRESS LIMITED Wellingborough, Northamptonshire First published 1980 C CHRISTOPHER McINTOSH 1980 This book is soldsubject to thecondition that it shall not, by way of trade orotherwise, belent, re-sold, hiredout, orotherwise circulated without thepublisher's prior consent in anyform of binding orcover other thanthat in which it is published and withouta similarcondition including thiscondition being imposed onthesubsequent purchaser. ISBN 0 85030 228 5 Photoset by Specialised Offset Services Ltd, Liverpool. Printed by Biddies Ltd., Guildford, Surrey and bound by Redwood Burn Ltd., Esher. Contents List of Illustrations ~~~ Introduction Chapter 1. Ancient Doctrines Rediscovered 2. The Esoteric Tradition in Germany 3. The TUbingen Circle 4. The Aftermath of the Manifestos 5. The Spread of Rosicrucianism 6. The Search for the Philosophers' Stone 7. The Golden and Rosy Cross 8. A Rosicrucian Monarch 9. The Revival in France to. The Golden Dawn, its Antecedents and Offshoots 11. The Rosicrucian Adept as Hero and Villain 12. Modern Rosicrucian Movements 13. Conclusion Appendix The Rose Croix of Heredom Degree Notes Select Bibliography Index Page 6 9 17 24 32 42 53 60 72 82 95 101 109 118 129 145 148 151 156 159 List of Illustrations between pages 80 and87 1. Prophetic drawings from Simon Studion's Naometria (1604) 2. Johann Valentin Andreae 3. Rose design from a Christmas message sent by Michael Maier to King J ames I of England 4. Title page from Robert Fludd's Summum Bonum, Part IV (1629) 5. Title page to the first part of Secret Symbols of the Rosicrucians (1785) 6. Pendant from the Secret Symbols 7. Rose Cross with Christ in the centre, from Secret Symbols 8. The Emerald Table of Hermes 9. Creation of the world from fire and water, from Compass der Weisen (1779) 10. German masonic jewel of the Rose Cross (18th) degree 11. Il1ustration from Aleph (1802) by Archarion 12. The Trinity, from Aleph 13. Stanislas de Guaita 14. Josephin Peladan 15. Variations of the Rose-Cross motif 16. Lamen used by A.E. Waite's Fellowship of the Rosy Cross 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 doctrines, nor even if you still have local habitation on the earth. Edward Bulwer-Lytton, Zanoni. Foreword n 1895, W.B. Yeats wrote an essay entitled 'The Body of the Father Christian Rosencrux', which begins by describing how the founder of Rosicrucianism was laid in a noble tomb, surrounded by inextinguishable lamps, where he lay for many generations, until it was discovered by chance by students of the same magical order. Having said this; Yeats goes on to attack modern criticism for entombing the imagination, proclaiming that 'the ancients and the Elizabethans abandoned themselves to imagination as a woman abandons herself to love, and created beings who made the people of this world seem but shadows ... ' On the whole, the image of Christian Rosencrux seems irrelevant until we come to this sentence: 'I cannot get it out of my mind that this age of criticism is about to pass, and an age of imagination, of emotion, of moods, of revelation, about to come in its place; for certainly belief in a supersensual world is at hand ... ' In this sentence, Yeats has shown his own deep understanding of the whole Ro