What is the Rose Croix ?

One myth that has had an incomparable and lasting destiny in esoteric circles is that of the Rose Croix (also spelled Rose Cross or Rosycross). Books devoted to the Rose Croix, its symbolism, the various Rosicrucian orders that refer to it, and the form it has taken within Freemasonry fill entire shelves of our libraries. The Rose Croix stimulates our imagination and its fictitious nature has made it the ideal medium for all kinds of mystical and esoteric speculation. But what is the Rose Croix ? Where does it come from? Does Rose Croix have anything to do with Freemasonry, or is it even the origin of it ?

The Rose Croix : myth or reality ?

Between 1614 and 1616, three mysterious writings appeared in Germany, known as the Manifestos of the Rose Croix : the "Fama Fraternitatis" (Echoes of the Brotherhood), the "Confessio Fraternitatis" (Confession of the Brotherhood) and "The Chymical Wedding of Christian Rosenkreutz". These strange writings purported to reveal the existence of a mysterious "Brotherhood of the Rose Croix", which offered the world its supposed scientific, medical, philosophical and spiritual knowledge. Allegedly founded in the 15th century by a certain Christian Rosenkreutz, it even claimed to be able to solve any problem with the help of an unprecedented “axiomatic", which, of course, it did not reveal.

The manifestation of this alleged Brotherhood aroused a passionate response that was unprecedented throughout seventeenth-century Europe. It also unleashed many passions, and pamphlets and libels favourable or, on the contrary, hostile to the Rose Croix multiplied. It is amusing to note that René Descartes (1596-1650), considered to be the father of rationalist thought, believed this fable and travelled to Germany in the hope of meeting these mysterious initiates. In vain, as you can imagine.

The Brotherhood of the Rose Croix was nothing more than a hoax, the brainchild of a small group of Lutheran theologians and theology students who wanted to challenge the dry orthodoxy of the Lutheran Church of their time, as one of the main protagonists, Pastor<h2>The Rose Croix: myth or reality?</h2> (1586-1654), would later admit. Close to the thought of the mystic Lutheran pastor Johannes Arndt (1545-1621), influenced by the great utopias of Thomas More (1478-1535) and Tommaso Campanella (1568-1639), fascinated by the medical theories of Paracelsus (1493-1541), and nourished by Hermetic terminology, the members of this group, known as the "Cenacle of Tübingen", belonged to the movement known as Pansophy, or the wisdom of the whole, emblematic of the blend of science, philosophy and theology that characterised the Renaissance and the Baroque period.

But it is worth emphasising a point that was generally forgotten or misunderstood by those who wanted to create Rosicrucian groups based on the mysterious original Rose Croix : even if the Cenacle of Tübingen stigmatised the immobility and lack of living spirituality of the Lutheran Churches of the time, their aspirations and the model they proposed remained resolutely Protestant, and fundamentally hostile to Catholicism, considered to be an authoritarian factor of regression and conservatism. The association of the Rose and the Cross, which can lead to all sorts of mystical and esoteric interpretations, was originally a nod to the Reformer Martin Luther (1483-1546), whose famous seal depicts a cross on a rose. And Jakob Andreae (1528-1590), Johann Valentin's grandfather, a theologian and an eminent figure in the second generation of Lutheranism, also chose a coat of arms for his family in homage to Luther, combining a St Andrew's cross and five roses...

Even if the Rose Croix was no more than a "ludibrium" (game, mockery), as Andreae himself put it, the members of the Cenacle of Tübingen were no less sincere in their aspirations and did indeed dream of a world where Faith and Reason would be reconciled, to create a fairer and more enlightened society. They did so through fiction that was entirely in keeping with the Baroque taste for utopias and key narratives. 

While the Rose Croix is indeed real as a myth, embodied in three rather mysterious writings, the existence of the alleged Brotherhood from which these documents are said to have originated was no more than a skilfully orchestrated fable.

From Rose Croix  to Rosicrucians

The Rose Croix undeniably have one thing in common with the Knights Templar : you can attribute all the doctrines you want to them, they're not there to defend themselves ! Thus was born Rosicrucianism, a constellation of esoteric and mystical doctrines and practices with ill-defined boundaries. We could say that the seventeenth century was Rosicrucian, not because the Rose Croix (which never existed) influenced it, but because this heterogeneous construction known as Rosicrucianism was the crystallisation of the aspirations and speculations of the time.

While the first Rosicrucians, such as the English physician Robert Fludd (1554-1637), studied the Manifestos of the Rose Croix seriously in order to unlock their secrets, later Rosicrucians increasingly diverged from them, generally retaining only the alchemical dimension, to the point where the term " Rose Croix " became virtually synonymous with alchemy in the seventeenth and then eighteenth centuries. Alchemy, although present in the three Manifestos, was portrayed by them with reserve, and only spiritual alchemy was valued, while material alchemy was rejected.

More or less informal groups were formed, based on affinities with Rosicrucian themes. Over time, however, reference to the original texts faded in favour of adherence to a Rosicrucianism that each group interpreted according to its own beliefs.

Rosicrucianism and Freemasonry 

The seventeenth century in England was the fertile ground from which speculative Freemasonry was born. Did the Rose Croix play a role in this genesis ? Not the Rose Croix itself, but Rosicrucianism, as a movement that brought together all the mystical, spiritualist and hermetic aspirations of the time, certainly did.

The earliest written record of a link between Freemasonry and Rosicrucianism in Great Britain dates from 1638. It is the "Muses Threnodie" by the Scottish poet Henry Adamson, published in Edinburgh. It reads: "For we be brethren of the Rosie Crosse; We have the Mason word, and second sight". This testimony obviously proves nothing, except that in 1638, a link had been made in Scotland between Freemasonry and Rosicrucianism, whether this link was proven or not.

In England, to name but one, Elias Ashmole (1616-1692), a famous antiquary, historian and politician who was received a Freemason in 1646, was very involved in alchemy in the 1650s, publishing in 1652 an imposing "Theatrum Chemicum Britannicum", a commented compilation of numerous alchemical texts, in the purest tradition of the prevailing Rosicrucianism.

The mystery of Rosicrucianism therefore hangs over the ancient English Freemasonry of the seventeenth century, and it appears that Rosicrucian circles and Masonic Lodges knew each other and clearly recruited from the same milieux. It is even possible that Rosicrucian circles adopted the form of the Masonic lodge to give themselves a structure. But there is no trace of Rosicrucianism in the rituals of the English and Scottish lodges, which remained resolutely Masonic.

It was in Germany and France in the eighteenth century that appeared rituals which combined more explicitly Freemasonry and Rosicrucianism. In 1710, an alchemical book was published in Germany ("The true and perfect preparation of the Philosopher's Stone by the Brotherhood of the Order of the Golden Rose Croix") by Sincerus Renatus, the pen name of the Lutheran preacher Samuel Richter. This book claimed that there existed a Rosicrucian order called the "Golden Rose Croix" and set out its rules in 52 articles. This order was fictitious, but later gave German Freemasons the idea of actually setting it up. In the 1750s, Rosicrucian circles practising Masonic-inspired rituals sprang up in several cities in the German-speaking world, as well as in the Netherlands and Russia. Claiming to be the "Golden Rose Croix", these lodges professed to be descended from the Knights Templar, through the intermediary of the Rose Croix. They were therefore probably the originators of the Templar legend in Freemasonry.

This loosely-organised movement disappeared fairly quickly, but the idea was revived in 1777 when the "Three Globes" Lodge in Berlin, which at the time still belonged to the Strict Templar Observance, formed the "Order of the Golden Rose Croix of Ancient System", under the leadership of Rudolf Bischoffswerder (1714-1803), a former Prussian officer, and Johann Christophe Wœllner (1732-1800), a former Protestant pastor. According to this Order, Rosicrucianism goes back to Adam himself, through all the ancient initiations and the Essenes, to an Egyptian priest named Ormus, who was converted to Christianity by Saint Mark and was the direct founder of the Order. The new system was very successful and attracted several Lodges of the Strict Templar Observance. However, as the founders of the Order later acquired high office within the State, they preferred to disband the Order in 1786. The influence of what was probably the first structured Rosicrucian Order was nevertheless important later on : the scale of degrees it practised inspired those of the "Societas Rosucruciana in Anglia" and the "Golden Dawn" in the 19th century, and the legend of Ormus was taken up by Jacques-Étienne Marconis de Nègre when he created the Rite of Memphis in 1838.

As for France, it was in Lyon (and not in Scotland, as we often read) that a grade called Knight or Sovereign Prince of the Rose Croix appeared around 1760, which still exists in various forms (18th degree of the Ancient Accepted Scottish Rite and the Rite of Memphis-Misraïm, IVth Order of the French Rite, 46th degree of the Rite of Misraïm, Royal Order of Scotland...).

This curious degree is Rosicrucian in name only and is even the antithesis of the original Rose Croix which, as we recall, was resolutely Protestant-Lutheran. In its ancient forms, it is a fundamentally Catholic degree, whose themes are the discovery of the theological virtues, of the Calvary, of the word Emmanuel (God with us) and the monogram INRI, and which culminates in the Agape, a parody of the Eucharistic celebration. None of these themes appear in the three Manifestos of the Rose Croix. It is certain that this ritual is of Catholic origin, as attested by the kneeling and the mention of the archangel Raphael : no kneeling is done in the Protestant tradition, and Raphael appears in the Book of Tobit, a deutero-canonical book written in Greek which appears in the Catholic Bible but is not accepted in the Protestant Bible.

Jean-Marie Ragon (1781-1862), one of the most important and prolific French Masonic writers of the 19th century, attributed the creation of this degree to the Jesuits, in their attempt to infiltrate Freemasonry. This opinion is undoubtedly exaggerated, but it is clear that the Knight of the Rose Croix is an attempt to marry Catholicism and Hermeticism. As this degree was born in Lyon around 1760, how can we not immediately think of Jean-Baptiste Willermoz (1730-1824), who would later be at the origin of the Rectified Scottish Rite, and the very mystical Masonic milieu that surrounded him.

Finally, still in France, in 1767 Martinès de Pasqually (1727(?)-1774) founded the "Order of the Knights Masons Elect Coens of the Universe", a theosophical Masonic order whose final grade is called Réau-Croix, a thinly veiled allusion to the mythical Rose Croix. Willermoz joined enthusiastically, and it was Martinezist mysticism that he subsequently instilled into the rituals of the Rectified Scottish Rite.

Rosicrucianism in the 19th century 

In the nineteenth century, Freemasonry hardly innovated on the subject of Rosicrucianism, contenting itself with maintaining the degree of Knight of the Rose Croix, regularly updated to take account of changing mentalities. From then on, Rosicrucian organisations developed outside Freemasonry, even if the protagonists were often Freemasons.

The relationship with the "religious" in the broadest sense changed considerably in the 19th century. Romanticism was to imbue it with a strong sentimental and mystical charge, both within and outside Christian churches. It was also the century of the clash between rationalism and spiritualism, science and faith, which previous eras had always more or less managed to reconcile. In the second half of the century, this ideological clash gave rise to what is known as occultism, a surge of spiritualists in the face of rationalism, positivism, free thought and growing atheism, as well as a rejection of the narrow, exoteric conservatism of the Churches. The Rosicrucian myth played a key role in this occultist constellation.

In England, the first Rosicrucian order, the "Societas Rosicruciana in Anglia", emerged from the fringes of Freemasonry. It was founded around 1865 by Robert Wentworth Little (1840-1878), who also created the Order of the Red Cross of Constantine and the Ancient and Archaeological Order of Druids, and introduced the Rite of Memphis Misraïm to England. His Society, with its alchemical and Christian symbolism, was based on the nine degrees of the former "Golden Rose Croix of Ancient System". The number of members was limited to 144, and it was necessary to be a regular Master Mason to be admitted. Éliphas Lévis (alias Alphonse Louis Constant, 1810-1875), a leading figure in nineteenth-century French occultism, became a member. The Order, which still exists today, spread to many countries (United States, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, France, Germany, Hungary, India, etc.).

In 1888, three of its members, William Wynn Westcott (1848-1925), William Robert Woodman (1828-1891) and Samuel Liddell Mathers (1854-1918), founded the "Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn", which increased the number of degrees from nine to eleven. Aleister Crowley (1875-1947), the most controversial figure in twentieth-century occultism, belonged to this Order, before creating his own in 1907, the "Astrum Argentinum". The "Golden Dawn" underwent various schisms that gave rise to different orders, such as the "Stella Matutina" and the "Builders of the Adytum" (B.O.T.A.), some of which still exist today.

In France, there was an active Hermetic circle in Toulouse, sometimes referred to as the "Rose Croix of Toulouse", of which little is known other than that Dr Adrien Péladan (1844-1885), one of the first French homeopaths, was a member. It was Adrien Péladan who enrolled his younger brother Joséphin Péladan (1858-1918), a writer, art critic and occultist who played a key role in the revival of French Rosicrucianism at the end of the 19th century.

Joséphin Péladan introduced the poet and occultist Stanislas de Gaïta (1861-1897) to Rosicrucianism and together they founded the "Kabbalistic Order of the Rose Croix" in 1888. Guaïta was not a Freemason, and neither was Péladan, but he had many Freemasons in his entourage, starting with his private secretary, Oswald Wirth (1860-1943). The Supreme Council of the new Order included great occultist and Masonic figures such as Papus (Dr Gérard Encausse, 1865-1916), who had already created the Martinist Order and later introduced occultism into the Memphis-Misraïm Rite.

Joséphin Péladan had reservations about operative magic and objected to the anti-Catholic and Orientalist orientation of the new order. In 1890, he split from it and founded the "Aesthetic Rose Croix", also known as the "Order of the Temple of the Rose Croix" or simply the "Catholic Rose Croix", which had a real artistic influence, particularly on the composer Erik Satie (1866-1925). Sâr Péladan, as he became known, organised several "Salons de la Rose-Croix" in Paris between 1892 and 1897, hosting works by numerous French and foreign painters and sculptors. These cultural and social events were a huge success, with over 20,000 visitors to the first one. An eccentric character, Péladan was a rather surprising figure, combining his southern and neo-templarian ardour with a very Sulpician Catholic sentimentalism !

Rosicrucianism in the twentieth century 

The Rosicrucian vein did not die out with the nineteenth century, and the three Rosicrucian organisations best known today were all created in the twentieth century. We will only give a brief description here, as these three Orders are very active and it will be easy for the reader to find more information about them.

The first such organisation is the "Rosicrucian Fellowship", founded in California in 1909 by the Dane Max Heindel (1865-1919). Influenced by Rudolf Steiner, whom Heindel met in Berlin at the Theosophical Society before he founded Anthroposophy in 1912, the "Rosicrucian Fellowship" defines itself as a non-dogmatic Christian mystical movement, respecting the religious convictions of its members. Its reference text is Max Heindel's "The Rosicrucian Cosmo-Conception" (1909), which deals with the mysteries of the universe and its development. Heindel claimed to have been commissioned by the Elder Brothers, the mysterious invisible Rosicrucians. The "Rosicrucian Fellowship" marks a change in the way the Rosicrucian Orders of the previous two centuries functioned. The latter operated in a Masonic manner, with initiation ceremonies for each degree, whereas in the "Rosicrucian Fellowship", teaching is given by correspondence, meetings are optional and public lectures are organised. These features were to be found in many Rosicrucian organisations in the twentieth century.

The second organisation, and the largest in numerical terms, is the "Ancient and Mystical Order of the Rose Croix" (Antiquus Mysticusque Ordo Rosae Crucis - AMORC), founded in California in 1915 by the journalist and writer Harvey Spencer Lewis (1883-1939). Lewis claimed to have been mysteriously initiated in Toulouse in 1909, reminiscent of the "Rose Croix of Toulouse" which was at the origin of Joséphin Péladan's adventure in the previous century. Following in the footsteps of the German "Golden Rose Croix of Ancient System" of the 18th century, Lewis traces the origins of the Order back to ancient Egypt, to Pharaoh Tuthmosis III to be precise. Now an international organisation, AMORC teaches mainly by correspondence, but also has Temples where those who wish can gather for ceremonies.

The third organisation was founded in 1945 in Haarlem, the Netherlands. It is the "School of the Golden Rose Croix", also known as the "Rose Croix of Haarlem", and better known as the "Lectorium Rosicrucianum". It is the creation of Jan van Rijckenborgh (alias Jan Leene, 1896-1968) and Catharose de Pétri (alias Henny Stok-Huyser, 1902-1990), who had joined the Dutch section of Max Heindel's Rosicrucian Fellowship in 1924. Despite its name, this movement bears no relation to the former German "Golden Rose Croix". Referring to the three original Manifestos, the "Lectorium Rosicrucianum" develops a Christian esotericism with a strong emphasis on Gnosticism and Catharism, and retains the influence of Rudolf Steiner and Max Heindel. This school does not offer correspondence courses, but distributes numerous publications and regularly organises public conferences and seminars.

In conclusion

As we have seen, the Rosicrucian theme has evolved considerably over time, in terms of both content and form. In terms of content, the utopia born on the fringes of German Lutheran pietism in the seventeenth century quickly provided a haven for all sorts of Hermetic, alchemical, occultist and mystical speculations, often unrelated to the original purpose. In terms of form, the various Rosicrucian organisations followed the zeitgeist : informal groups in the seventeenth century, structured para-Masonic orders in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, and finally societies open to the world through modern means of communication in the twentieth century. Like Freemasonry, it has had its share of esoteric adventurers, eccentrics and charlatans.

The fact remains, however, that the symbol of the Rose Croix, which anyone can interpret as they wish, retains a considerable power of attraction for all those who are engaged in a spiritual quest. This is undoubtedly the strength of symbols.