By Fr John Flader
A friend of mine has been invited to a meeting of the Rosicrucians. He says they are some sort of quasi-religious group. Can you tell me anything about them?
The name Rosicrucian comes from the surname of its purported founder, Christian Rosenkreuz (meaning “rose cross”), a German nobleman and former monk (1378-1484), who is supposed to have founded the Rosicrucian Fraternity, or brotherhood, in 1408. It seems that while travelling through the Middle East he became acquainted with a form of Arabian magic and founded the fraternity as an anti-Catholic Christian group tinged with theosophy, his ideal of a religion.
The group’s teaching was based on “esoteric truths of the ancient past”, unknown to the average person, which gave insight into nature, the physical universe and the spiritual realm. In this sense it was a medieval form of Gnosticism, which also proposed to know truths not accessible to the general public. Thus their members considered themselves an intellectual elite.
When Rosenkreuz was unable to find followers among the prominent figures of Europe, he is supposed to have gathered together a small circle of friends and disciples and founded the fraternity named after him. During his lifetime the fraternity was said to have had no more than some eight members, each a medical doctor and a bachelor committed to remain single. They took an oath to heal the sick without charge, to maintain a secret fellowship and to find a replacement for themselves before they died. They were to apply themselves zealously and in all secrecy to the study of nature in its hidden forces, and to make their discoveries and inventions known to the other members of the order and to be of benefit to humanity.
Whether or not Rosenkreuz actually existed, the organisation remained largely unknown until around 1610, when it began circulating in manuscript form a manifesto entitled “Fama Fraternitatis R.C.”, “Fame (or tradition) of the Fraternity of the Rose Cross”. The work came to be published as a pamphlet in 1614. Beginning with the fourth edition in 1615 another tract entitled “Confessio Fraternitatis” or “Profession of the Fraternity” was added to the “Fama”. It set out the nature and aims of the fraternity, promoting the “universal reformation of mankind”. The “Fama” invited all the scholars and rulers of Europe to support the cause and eventually seek to join it.
The writings were hostile to the Catholic Church. The rose cross was chosen as the symbol of the order, both because of the name of the founder and because the rose and cross were ancient symbols of the occult.
It appears that the author of the “Fama” was the Lutheran theologian John Valentin Andrea (1586-1654) from Würtemberg or a close associate of his. In any case Andrea composed a book about the Rosicrucians which was published in 1616 and has many similarities with the “Fama”.
The manifestos caused excitement throughout Europe by declaring the existence of a secret brotherhood of alchemists and sages who were preparing to transform the arts, sciences, religion, and political and intellectual landscape of Europe. Given the fascination of the age for the esoteric, magic and the occult, between 1614 and 1620 some four hundred manuscripts and books were published which discussed the Rosicrucian documents.
After 1750 Rosicrucianism was propagated by the Freemasons, especially in England and Scotland. In the hierarchy of the many degrees in Scottish Freemasonry, the eighteenth degree was called the Knight of the Rose Cross. There was clearly a mutual influence between the Rosicrucians and the Masons.
Since the late nineteenth century especially in England, Scotland and the United States, numerous Rosicrucian groups have been formed with different names and aims. The largest appears to be the Ancient Mystical Order Rosae Crucis (AMORC) founded in the United States in 1915.
Today the Rosicrucians claim to be a world-wide fraternal organisation devoted to the study and application of the natural laws that govern the universe to enable everyone to live in harmony with the creative, cosmic forces for the attainment of health, happiness and peace.
Given the anti-Catholic origins and the aims and methods of the organisation, Catholics would not be interested in it. After all, we have the fullness of truth in Jesus Christ.
