Real History Of The Rosicrucians by Waite A. E

Author:Waite, A. E [Waite, A. E]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Global Grey
Published: 2013-10-11T23:00:00+00:00

I am in a position to maintain that this was the true and esoteric symbol of the Society, as the Crucified Rose was the avowed, exoteric emblem, because in a professedly authoritative work on the secret figuren of the Order--"Geheime Figuren der Rosenkreuzer ans dem 16ten und 17ten Jahrhundert"--I find the following remarkable elaboration of the Lutheran seal, which practically decides the question.

Taking into consideration that the "Naometria" of Simon Studion and the original draft of the "Nuptiæ Chymicæ" both belong to nearly the same period, and that Andreas was undoubtedly acquainted with the work of the mystical teacher of Marbach, as a passage in the "Turris Babel" makes evident, it is not an impossible supposition that the young student of Tübingen came into personal communication with Studion, who was only some fifty miles distant in the cheapest days of travelling, and having a natural inclination to secret societies, became associated with the Militia Crucifera Evangelica. Out of this connection the "Nuptiæ Chymicæ" might naturally spring, and the subsequent Rosicrucian society was the Militia transfigured after the death of Studion,[ 16 ] and after the travels and experience of Andreas had divested him of his boyish delusions. Having proved the hollowness of their pretensions, but still bound by his pledge, he speaks of them henceforth as a deception and a mockery, and attempts to replace them by a practical Christian association without mysticism and symbols, making no pretension to occult knowledge, or to transcendant powers.

This view is not altogether a new one, and undoubtedly has its difficulties. It cannot account for the publication of the "Nuptiæ Chymicæ" in 1616, nor for the revision which it apparently underwent at the very period when Andreas was projecting the unalchemical Christian Fraternity; but so far as it extends, it does not torture the facts with which it professes to deal. I present it not in my character as a historian, but simply as a hypothesis which may be tolerated.

To my own mind it is far from satisfactory, and, from a careful consideration of all the available materials, I consider that no definite conclusion can be arrived at. There is nothing in the internal character of the "Fama" and "Confessio Fraternitatis" to shew that they are a jest. On the other hand, they embody a fabulous story. There is no proof that they did or did not emanate from a secret society.[ 17 ] The popular argument that the manifestoes were addressed to "the learned of Europe," but the earnest entreaties of the flower of theosophical literati for admission into the ranks of the Fraternity remained unanswered, is no proof that the Society itself did not exist, for the statement is vicious in the extreme.

We have absolutely no means of ascertaining with whom it may have come into communication, or what letters and applications were answered, because inviolable secrecy would cover the whole of the proceedings, and those who might have the best reason to know that the Society existed would be most obliged to hold their peace.

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