Chapter 4
CHAPTER 11.
Historical Notices of the Eosicrucians.
0 mysterious a sect were the Rosicrucians, and so involved in
doubt and obscurity are most of their movements, practices
and opinions, that nearly everything connected with them has been
denied or doubted at one time or another by those who have
written about them. Dr. Mackay says : " Many have denied the
existence of such a personage as Rosencreutz, and have fixed the
origin of this sect at a much later epoch. The first dawning of it,
they say, is to be foxmd in the theories of Paracelsus and the
dreams of Dr. Dee, who, without intending it, became the actual,
though never the recognised foxmders of the Rosicrucian philosophy.
It is now difficult, and indeed impossible to determine whether
Dee and Paracelsus obtained their ideas from the then obscure and
imknown Rosicrucians, or whether the Rosicrucians did but follow
and improve upon them. Certain it is, that their existence was
never suspected till the year 1605, when they began to excite
attention in Germany. No sooner were their doctrines promulga-
ted, than all the visionaries, Paracelsists, and alchymists, flocked
around their standard, and vaxmted Rosencreutz as the new
regenerator of the human race." According to Mayer, a celebrated
physician of the times, who published a report of the tenets and
ordinances of the new fi:utemity at Cologne in the year 1615, they
asserted in the first place that the meditations of their founders
surpassed everything that had ever been imagined since the
creation of the world, without even excepting the revelations of
the Deity; that they were destined to accomplish the general
peace and regeneration of man before the end of the world arrived ;
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that they possessed all wisdom and piety in a supreme degree ;
that they possessed all the gnuses of nature, and could distribute
them among the rest of mankind according to their pleasure ;
that they were subject to neither hunger, nor thirst, nor disease,
nor old age, nor to any other inconvenience of nature ; that they
knew by inspiration, and at the first glance, every one who was
worthy to be admitted into their society ; that they had the same
knowledge then which they would have possessed if they had
lived from the beginning of the world, and had been always acquir-
ing it ; that they had a volume in which they could read all that
ever was or ever would be written in other books till the end of
time ; that they could force to, and retain in their service the most
powerful spirits and demons ; that by the virtue of their songs,
they could attract pearls and precious stones from the depths of the
sea or the bowels of the earth ; that God had covered them with a
thick cloud, by means of which they could shelter themselves from
the malignity of their enemies, and that they could thus render
themselves invisible from all eyes ; that the first eight brethren of
the Rosie-Cross had power to cure all maladies ; that by means of
the fraternity, the triple diadem of the Pope would be reduced
into dust; that they only admitted two sacraments, with the
ceremonies of the Primitive Church, renewed by them : that they
recognised the Fourth Monarchy and the Emperor of the Romans
as their Chief, and the Chief of all Christians ; that they would
provide him with more gold, their treasures being inexhaustible,
than the King of Spain had ever drawn firom the golden regions of
Eastern and Western India.
Things went on pretty quietly for some time, converts
being made with ease in Germany, but only with difficulty
in other parts. In 1623, however, the brethren suddenly made
their appearance in Paris, and the inhabitants of the city were
surprised on the 3rd oi March to find placarded on the walls a
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manifesto to this effect : — " We, the deputies of the principal
college of the brethren of the Rosie Cross, have taken up oiur
abode, visible and invisible, in this city, by the grace of the
Most High, towards whom are turned the hearts of the just We
show and teach without any books or symbols whatever, and we
speak all sorts of languages in the countries wherein we deign to
dwell, to draw mankind, our fellows, from error and to save them
from death."
Whether this was a mere joke on the part of some of the wits of
the day, it is certain that it created a very wide-spread sensation, and
no little wonder and alarm, particularly amongst the clergy.
Very soon pamphlets in opposition, and intended to warn the faith-
frd, began to make their appearance. The earliest was called '' A
History of the Frightful Compacts entered into between the Devil
and the Pretended Invisibles, with their Damnable Instructions,
the Deplorable Ruin of their Disciples, and their Miserable End."
This was followed by another of a far more ambitious character,
pretending to ability to explain all the peculiarities and mysteries
of the strange intruders. It was called *^ An examination of the
New Cabala of the Brethren of the Rosie-Cross, who have lately
come to reside in the city of Paris, with the History of their Man-
ners, the Wonders worked by them, and many other particulars."
As the books sold and circulated the sensation and alarm in the
breasts of the people largely increased, approaching almost to a
kind of panic. Ridicule and laugh as some would, it was impos-
sible to disguise the fact that a vast number of the population
went in bodily fear of this mysterious sect, whose members they
had never seen. It was believed that the Rosicrucians could
transport themselves from place to place with the rapidity almost
of thought, and that they took delight in cheating and tormenting
unhappy citizens, especially such as had sinned against the laws of
morality. Then very naturally came the wildest and most unlikely
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stories, which, as is usual with such things, in spite of M. their
folly, were soon propagated far and wide, and increased the general
alarm.
An innkeeper declared that a mysterious stranger entered his
inn, regaled himself on the best of everything, and suddenly
vanished in a cloud when the reckoning was presented. Another
was patronised by a similar stinger, who lived upon the choicest
fare and drank the best wines of the house for a week, and paid
him with a handful of new gold coins, which turned into slates
the following morning. It was also reported that several persons
on awakening in the middle of the night found individuals in
their bedchambers, who suddenly became invisible, though still
palpable when the alarm was raised. Such was the consternation
in Paris, that every man who could not give a satisfactory accoimt
of himself was in danger of being pelted to death ; and quiet
citizens slept with loaded guns at their bedside, to take vengeance
upon any Rosicrucian who might violate the sanctity of their
chambers. No man or woman was considered safe ; the female
sex especially were supposed to be in danger, for it was implicitly
believed that no bolts, locks or bars could keep out would be in^-
truders, and it was frequently being reported that young women
in the middle of the night found strange men of surpassing beauty
in their bedrooms, who vanished the instant any attempt was made
to arouse the inmates of the house. In other quarters it was re-
ported that people most imexpectedly found heaps of gold in their
houses, not having the slightest idea from whence they came;
the feelings and emotions thus excited were consequently most
conflicting, no man knowing whether his ghostly visitant might be
the harbinger of good or evil.
While the general alarm was at its height, another mysterious
placard appeared, which said : — " If any one desires to see the
hrdhren of the Eose-GT^joss from curiosity only^ he will never communis
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mte vfitk U8. But if his will really induces him to inscribe his name
in the register of <mr hrotkerhoody we, who can judge qfthe thoughts
of aUm^eny will convince him of the truth of our promises. For this
reason wedo notpMishto the world the place of our abode. Thought
alone, in unison with the sincere vnll of those who desire to know us,
is sufficient to make us known to them, and them to us."
The imposition thus perpetrated upon the credulily of the people
had but a comparatively short life in Paris, a deal off controversy was
engendered between those who r^arded the whole affsur as a stupid
hoax, and those whose superstitious fears made them think there
was truth in it, and the efforts made by its disciples to defend
their theories overshot the mark, and exposed the Mlaoies of that
which they were intended to support. The p<^ce were called upon
the scene to try and trace out and arrest the authors of the
troublesome placards, and the Church took up the moral and
theological aspect of the sensation, and issued pamphlets which
professed to explain the whole as the production of some disciples
of Luther, who were sent out to promulgate enmity and opposition
to the Pope. The Abb6 Gaultier, a Jesuit, distinguished himself
in this direction, and informed the public that the very name of the
disciples of the sect proved they were heretics ; a cross surmounted
by a rose being the heraldic device of the arch-heretic Luther.
Another writer named Garasse, declared they were nothing but a
set of drunken impostors ; and that their name was derived from
the garland of roses, in the form of a cross, hung over the tables
of taverns in Germany as the emblem of secrecy, and firom whence
was derived the common saying, when one man communicated a
secret to another, that it was said, ** under the rose." Other ex-
planations were also freely offered, which we have not space to
describe, but which may be reached by the aid of the learned works
^given in our list of authorities.
The charges of evil connections broi^ht against the Rosicrucians
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were repudiated by those people with energy and determination ;
they affirmed in the most positive manner that they had nothing
to do with magic, and that they held no intercourse whatever with
the deviL They declared, on the contrary, that they were faithful
followers of the true Qod, that they had already lived more than,
a hundred years, and expected to live many hundred more, and
that God conferred upon them perfect happiness, and as a reward
for their piety and service gave them the wonderful knowledge
they were possessed of. They declared that they did not get their
name from a cross of roses, but from Christian Rosencreutz, their
founder. When charged with drunkenness, they said that they
did not know what thirst was, and that they were altogether proof
against the temptations of the most attractive food. They pro-
fessed the greatest indignation perhaps at the charge of interfering
with the honour of virtuous women, and maintained most posi-
tively that the very first vow they took was one of chastity, and
that any of them violating that oath, would be deprived at once of
all the advantages he possessed, and be subject to hunger, thirst,
sorrow, disease and death like other men. Witchcraft and
sorcery they also most warmly repudiated ; the existence of incubi
and succubi they said was a pure invention of their enemies, that
man " was not surrounded by enemies like these, but by myriads
of beautiful and beneficent beings, all anxious to do him service.
The sylphs of the air, the undines of the water, the gnomes of
the earth, and the salamanders of the fire were man's friends, and
desired nothing so much as that men should purge themselves of
all uncleanness, and thus be enabled to see and converse
with them. They possessed great power, and were unrestrained
by the barriers of space, or the obstructions of matter. But
man was in one respect their superior. He had an immortal
soul, and they had not. They might, however, become sharers
in man's immortality if they could inspire one of that race with
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the passion of love towards them. Hence it was the constant
endeavour of the female spirits to captivate the admiration of
men, and of the male gnomes, sylphs, salamanders, and undines
to be beloved by a woman. The object of this passion, in re-
turning their love, imparted a portion of that celestial fire, the
soul; and from that time forth the beloved became equal to
the lover, and both, when their allotted course was run, entered
together into the mansions of felicity. These spirits, they said,
watched constantly over mankind by night and day. Dreams,
omens, and presentiments were all their work, and the means by
which they gave warning of the approach of danger. But though
so well inclined to befriend man for their own sake, the want
of a soul rendered them at times capricious and revengeful;
they took ofifence at slight causes, and heaped injuries instead of
benefits on the heads of those who extinguished the light of reason
that was in them by gluttony, debauchery, and other appetites
of the body."* Great as was the excitement produced in the
French capital by these placards, pamphlets and reports, it lasted
after all but a very few months. The accumulating absurdities
became too much, even for the most superstitious, and their
fears were overcome by that sense of the ridiculous which
speedily manifested itself. Instead of trembling as before, men
laughed and derided, and the detection, arrest and summary
punishment of a number of swindlers who tried to pass off
lumps of gilded brass as pure gold made by the processes of
alchemy, aided by a smartly written exposure of the follies|,of
the sect by Gabriel Naud^, soon drove the whole thing clean
off the French territory.
* Macka J.
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