In Notes and Queries for Nov. 15th, 1886, we find the following:—“In the Student’s EncyclopÆdia, published by Hodder and Stoughton in 1883, I find the following twofold statement: ‘Even to-day a Rosicrucian lodge is said to exist in London, whose members claim by asceticism to live beyond the allotted age of man, and to which the late Lord Lytton vainly sought admission.’ May I ask whether anything authentic can be learnt (1) as to the existence of these modern Rosicrucians, and (2) as to Lord Lytton’s failure to gain admission among them?”

In the number of Dec. 13 of the same year, the above query was thus answered: “The Soc. Rosic. in Anglia still holds several meetings a year in London. The Fratres investigate the occult sciences; but I am not aware that any of them now practice asceticism, or expect to prolong life on earth indefinitely. It is not customary to divulge the names of candidates who have been refused admission to the first grade, that of Zelator, so must ask to be excused from answering the question as to Lord Lytton.

WYNN WESTCOTT, M.B., Magister Templi.”

In September of the previous year a correspondent asked if any one could inform him if there were still any members of the society of the Rosy Cross (or Rosicrucians); and if there were, how could one communicate with them? Also if there were still any alchemists searching for the philosopher’s stone and the transmutation of metals? This evoked the following reply:—

“Some say the modern Rosicrucians are the same as the Freemasons; but as in the main they lived isolated, they could have been but slightly connected with the masons. The range of celebrated men included in the society is large:—Avicenna, Roger Bacon, Cardan, down to Mr. Peter Woulfe, F.R.S., who lived at No. 2, Barnard’s Inn, and was, according to Mr. Brand, the last true believer in alchemy. But no doubt some few still dabble in these occult things.” Notes and Queries, Series 6, vol 8, 317.

On the same page of the same volume we have:—“The Rosicrucians are now (how I know not) incorporate with, and form one of the highest ranks, if not the highest rank, of English Freemasons.” Also:—“In reply to Charles D. Sunderland, allow me to say there are yet living both Rosicrucians and Alchemists.”

De Quincey does not hesitate for a moment in deciding as to the identity between Rosicrucianism and Freemasonry. He says:—“I shall now undertake to prove that Rosicrucianism was transplanted to England, where it flourished under a new name, under which name it has been since re-exported to us in common with other countries of Christendom. For I affirm as the main thesis of my concluding labours, that Freemasonry is neither more nor less than Rosicrucianism as modified by those who transplanted it to England.” He then proceeds with an argument to shew this identity between the two, an argument to which our limited space forbids us to do more than briefly allude. He says:—“In 1633 we have seen that the old name was abolished; but as yet no new name was substituted; in default of such a name they were styled ad interim by the general term, wise men. This, however, being too vague an appellation for men who wished to form themselves into a separate and exclusive society, a new one had to be devised bearing a more special allusion to their characteristic objects. Now the immediate hint for the Masons was derived from the legend contained in the Fama Fraternitatis, of the “House of the Holy Ghost.” This had been a subject of much speculation in Germany; and many had been simple enough to understand the expression of a literal house, and had inquired after it up and down the empire. But Andrea had made it impossible to understand it in any other than an allegoric sense, by describing it as a building that would remain invisible to the godless world for ever.” Theophilus Schweighart also had spoken of it thus: “It is a building,” says he, “a great building, carens fenestris et foribus, a princely, nay an imperial palace, everywhere visible, and yet not seen by the eyes of man.” This building in fact, represented the purpose or object of the Rosicrucians. And what was that? It was the secret wisdom, or, in their language, magic—viz., 1. Philosophy of nature, or occult knowledge of the works of God; 2. Theology, or the occult knowledge of God himself; 3. Religion, or God’s occult intercourse with the spirit of man, which they imagined to have been transmitted from Adam through the Cabbalists to themselves. But they distinguished between a carnal and a spiritual knowledge of this magic. The spiritual knowledge is the business of Christianity, and is symbolised by Christ himself as a rock, and a building of human nature, in which men are the stones and Christ the corner stone. But how shall stones move and arrange themselves into a building? “They must become living stones.” But what is a living stone? “A living stone is a mason who builds himself up into the wall as a part of the temple of human nature.” In these passages we see the use of the allegoric name masons upon the extinction of the former name. In other places Fludd expresses this still more distinctly. The society was therefore to be a masonic society, in order to represent typically that temple of the Holy Spirit which it was their business to erect in the spirit of man. This temple was the abstract of the doctrine of Christ, who was the Grand-master: hence the light from the East, of which so much is said in Rosicrucian and Masonic books. After pursuing the matter in a similar strain somewhat further, De Quincey sums up the results of his inquiry into the origin and nature of Freemasonry as follows:—1. The original Freemasons were a society that arose out of the Rosicrucian mania, certainly within the thirteen years from 1633 to 1646, and probably between 1633 and 1640. Their object was magic in the cabbalistic sense—i.e., the occult wisdom transmitted from the beginning of the world, and matured by Christ; to communicate this when they had it, to search for it when they had it not: and both under an oath of secrecy.

2. The object of Freemasonry was represented under the form of Solomon’s Temple, as a type of the true Church, whose cornerstone is Christ. This Temple is to be built of men, or living stones: and the true method and art of building with men it is the province of magic to teach. Hence it is that all the masonic symbols either refer to Solomon’s Temple, or are figurative modes of expressing the ideas and doctrines of magic in the sense of the Rosicrucians, and their mystical predecessors in general.

3. The Freemasons having once adopted symbols, &c., from the art of masonry, to which they were led by the language of Scripture, went on to connect themselves in a certain degree with the order itself of handicraft masons, and adopted their distribution of members into apprentices, journeymen, and masters. Christ is the Grand-Master, and was put to death whilst laying the foundation of the temple of human nature.

4. The Jews, Mahomedans and Roman Catholics were all excluded from the early lodges of Freemasons. The Roman Catholics were excluded on account of their intolerance: for it was a distinguishing feature of the Rosicrucians that they first conceived the idea of a society which should act on the principle of religious toleration, wishing that nothing should interfere with the most extensive co-operation in their plans except such differences about the essentials of religion as make all co-operation impossible.

5. Freemasonry, as it honoured all forms of Christianity, deeming them approximations more or less remote to the ideal truth, so it abstracted from all forms of civil polity as alien from its own objects, which, according to their briefest expressions, are (1) The Glory of God; (2) The service of men.

6. There is nothing in the imagery, mythi, ritual, or purposes of the elder Freemasonry, which may not be traced to the romances of Father Rosycross, as given in the Fama Fraternitatis.

De Quincey is not the only writer who has expressed himself to the effect that the systems of Freemasonry and Rosicrucianism are virtually identical; others have said so as well, and in stating their views have not scrupled to write most severely respecting what they believed to be the tricks and impositions of both. Mr. George Soane in his “New Curiosities of Literature,” says of the Freemasons, that he can shew their society sprang out of decayed Rosicrucianism just as the beetle is engendered from a muck-heap. And further he says, “not a few of the old nursery tales still maintain their ground amongst us; and of these Freemasonry is the most disseminated and the most ridiculous.” “Of course,” he continues “such an opinion will shock many gentlemen, who wear aprons, leather or silk as the case may be, and who amuse themselves with talking of light from the east, and the building of Solomon’s Temple, and with many other childish pranks, which if played off in the broad daylight would be ridiculous.”

He goes on to say:—“In wading through a mass of alchemical trash for very different purposes, I was struck by the great similarity both of the doctrine and symbols existing between the Rosicrucians and the Freemasons. With more haste than judgment I at first imagined that the brethren of the Rosy Cross were only imitators of the Freemasons, but after a long and patient enquiry, pursued through more volumes than I should like to venture upon again for such an object, I was forced to abandon my position. The Freemasons did indeed, like the Rosicrucians, lay claim to great antiquity, but while some of them modestly dated the origin of their order from Adam, I could by no means trace it back farther than the first half of the seventeenth century. Their historical assertions, when fairly tested and examined, crumbled into dust; the negative proofs were as strong against them as they well could be; and at length the conclusion was to my mind inevitable.”

Soane then proceeds to say:—“I feel not the slightest hesitation in saying that the Freemasons have no secret beyond a few trumpery legends and the attaching of certain religious and moral meanings to a set of emblems, principally borrowed from the mechanical art of the builder. I affirm too that all such symbols, with their interpretations, are of Rosicrucian origin, and that the Freemasons never belonged to the working guilds, their objects being totally different.”

Professor Buhle in his last chapter maintains that “Freemasonry is neither more nor less than Rosicrucianism as modified by those who transplanted it into England.” Dr. Mackey, however, takes a contrary view, and in the Synoptical Index to his “Symbolism of Freemasonry, and Rosicrucians,” says:—“A sect of hermetical philosophers, founded in the fifteenth century, who were engaged in the study of abstruse sciences. It was a secret society much resembling the masonic in its organization and in some of the subjects of its investigation, but it was no other way connected with Freemasonry.”

Fifty years ago a writer in the Penny CyclopÆdia said:—“Some say that the order of Rosicrucians is identical with that of Freemasons, one of whose degrees or dignities is called in some countries the degree of the Red Cross. The Rosicrucians have not been heard of as a separate order for nearly a century past, but some have thought that they continued to exist under the name of the Illuminati, who were much talked of in Germany and France in the latter part of the eighteenth century. Barruel, after describing the ceremonies with which candidates were admitted to the degree of Red Cross in some Freemasons’ Lodges, which however, he says, vary in different countries, observes that these ceremonies which were apparently allusive to the Passion of Jesus Christ, were differently interpreted, according to the dispositions of the candidates; that some saw in it a memento of the Passion, others an introduction to the arcana of alchemy and magic, and others at last a blasphenous invective against the founder of Christianity which the Rosicrucians had derived from the Templars of old.”

THE ROSIE CRUCIAN PRAYER TO GOD.

Jesus Mihi Omnia.

?

“Oh Thou everywhere and good of All, whatsoever I do, remember, I beseech thee, that I am but Dust, but as a Vapour sprung from Earth, which even thy smallest Breath can scatter; Thou hast given me a Soul, and Laws to govern it; let that Eternal Rule, which thou didst first appoint to sway Man, order me; make me careful to point at thy Glory in all my wayes; and where I cannot rightly know Thee, that not only my understanding, but my ignorance may honour thee. Thou art All that can be perfect; Thy Revelation hath made me happy; be not angry, O Divine One, O God the most high Creator, if it please thee, suffer these revealed Secrets, thy Gifts alone, not for my praise, but to thy Glory, to manifest themselves. I beseech thee most gracious God, they may not fall into the hand of ignorant envious persons, that cloud these truths to thy disgrace, saying, they are not lawful to be published, because what God reveals, is to be kept secret. But Rosie Crucian Philosophers lay up this Secret into the bosome of God, which I have presumed to manifest clearly and plainly. I beseech the Trinity, it may be printed as I have written it, that the truth may no more be darkened with ambiguous language. Good God, besides thee nothing is. Oh stream thyself into my Soul, and flow it with thy Grace, thy Illumination, and thy Revelation. Make me to depend on Thee; Thou delightest that Man should account Thee as his King and not hide what Honey of Knowledge he hath revealed. I cast myself as an honourer of Thee at thy feet. O establish my confidence in Thee, for thou art the fountain of all bounty, and canst not but be merciful, nor canst thou deceive the humbled Soul that trusts Thee: And because I cannot be defended by Thee, unless I live after thy Laws, keep me, O my Soul’s Sovereign, in the obedience of thy Will, and that I wound not my Conscience with vice, and hiding thy Gifts and Graces bestowed upon me; for this I know will destroy me within, and make thy Illuminating Spirit leave me: I am afraid I have already infinitely swerved from the Revelations of that Divine Guide, which thou hast commanded to direct me to the Truth; and for this I am a sad Prostrate and Penitent at the foot of thy Throne; I appeal only to the abundance of thy Remissions. O my God, my God, I know it is a mysterie beyond the vast Soul’s apprehension, and therefore deep enough for man to rest in safety in. O Thou Being of all Beings, cause me to work myself to Thee, and into the receiving armes of thy paternal Mercies throw myself. For outward things I thank Thee, and such as I have I give unto others, in the name of the Trinity, freely and faithfully, without hiding anything of what was revealed to me, and experienced to be no Diabolical Delusion or Dream, but the Adjectamenta of thy richer Graces; the Mines and deprivation are both in thy hands. In what thou hast given me I am content. Good God ray thyself into my Soul, give me but a heart to please Thee, I beg no more than thou hast given, and that to continue me, uncontemnedly and unpittiedly honest. Save me from the Devil, Lusts and Men: and for those fond dotages of Mortality, which would weigh down my Soul to Lowness and Debauchment, let it be my glory (planting myself in a Noble height above them) to contemn them. Take me from myself, and fill me but with thee. Sum up thy blessings in those two, that I may be rightly good and wise; And these for thy eternal Truths’ sake grant and make grateful.”[5]

THE END.

S. & J. Brawn, Printers, 13, Gate Street, Holborn, London, W.C.

Footnotes:

[1] Mackay, Pop. Delusions.

[2] Hist. of Philosophy, ii. 462.

[3] Mackay.

[4] New Curiosities of Literature, vol. 2, p. 46.

[5] The Holy Guide, 1652.

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