ROSICRUCIAN ORDER

A M O R C
TRADE

MARK

Supplementary Monograph
PRIN TED

IN

U . S . A.

T h e subject m atter of this m onograph m ust be understood by the reader or student

of same, not to be the official Rosicrucian teachings. These m onographs constitute a series
of supplem entary studies provided b y the Rosicrucian Order, A M O R C , both to members
and nonm em bers, because th ey are not the secret, private teachings of the Order.
T h e object of these supplem entary m onographs is to broaden the mind of the student b y
presenting him w ith the w ritings, opinions, and dissertations of authorities in various fields
of hum an enterprise and endeavor. T herefore, it is quite probable that the reader w ill
note at times in these supplem entary m onographs statements made w hich are inconsistent
w ith the Rosicrucian teachings or view point. But with the realization that they are m ere
ly su p p lem en tary and that the Rosicrucian Organization is not endorsing or condoning
them, one mUst take them m erely for their prim a facie value. Throughout the supple
m en tary series the authors or translators of the subject w ill be given due credit w henever
w e have knowledge of their identity.

ROSICRUCIAN PARK, SAN JOSE, CALIFORNIA

"Consecrated to truth and dedicated to every Rosicrucian"

S P E C IA L S U B J E C T

LECTURE NUMBER

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The following lecture is intended to present the philosophy of a mystic

in a way that will make it understandable to present-day mystics, and
at the same time to retain as much as possible the language and style
of the original work. To this end, the work in question has been ed
ited and to some extent reworded. Except where explanation seems
obvious, comments added by the lecturer have been put in parentheses to
distinguish them from the original.
Ruth Phelps, Librarian

MYSTICS FOR MODERNS

Francis Bacon, Mystic
England in 1600 was a curious mixture of the old and the new, of the
Middle Ages and the Renaissance. Amid the new-found interest in sci
ence and classical thought, medieval habits lived on. In Bacon's work
too we find acceptance of the old ways as well as rejection or modifi
cation of them. We^find, also, empiricism and mysticism fused into an
harmonious philosophy^
= =

The Middle Ages had no doubt carried the use of allegory and symbolism
to extremes, both in religious and secular life. Yet this habitual use
of symbolism was still in vogue in Bacons time in religious art and
books, in books of emblems, etc. It was common to associate Moses as
the precursor of Christ with Jesus, and they were often pictured to
gether. The sepulcher of Jesus was associated with Daniels lions'
den. The wine of the Last Supper was associated with the symbol of the
grapes and with the symbol of Jesus as the fruit of the vine which was
cut and pressed on the cross. This was a habit which Bacon accepted
and used, though without carrying it to extremes.
The philosophy of the Middle Ages was based on authority. In philoso
phy, Aristotle was considered to be the unalterable foundation on which
theology and philosophy must be based. This is one thing to which both
Bacon and the Rosicrucians wore very much opposed. Bacon's criticism
of Aristotle is at least as much a reaction against blindly accepted
authority as against Aristotle himself.
The philosophy of medieval times was founded largely on introspective
deduction rather than on observation and experiment. It tended to
begin with assumptions and jump to unfounded conclusions. This type of
thinking was what Bacons inductive method was to correct. It was to
put in place of both faulty deduction and induction an orderly step by
step method based on experiment.
Bacon said the sciences are like pyramids erected on the basis of his
tory and experience. Natural history is the base of the pyramid of
natural philosophy. Next to the base is physics, and next to the ver
tex is metaphysics. The vertex, Bacon tells us, is "The work which God
worketh from the beginning to the end," or the summary law of nature,
and he doubts whether human inquiry can reach it.

(A diagram of Bacons pyramid of natural philosophy would look like

this:

The problem of what Bacon meant by the top of the pyramid may be solved
by studying his use of this Biblical quotation in other parts of his
works, and especially in the essay on Cupid or Love in the Wisdom of
the Ancients.) This love is not the son of Venus, but the most ancient
of all G'ods, and the most ancient of all things except Chaos. He was
without parent, born of an egg of the Night. Out of Chaos, Love begot
all things.
This love Bacon understands to be the appetite or instinct of primal
matter, or the natural motion of the atom, which is the original and
unique force that constitutes and fashions all things out of matter.
There is nothing before it, no efficient cause, neither kind, nor form.
It is a thing positive and inexplicable. Even if it were possible to
know the method and process of it, to know its cause is not possible,
since it is, next to God, the cause of causes, itself without cause.
This is what the sacred philosopher means when he says, ''He hath made
all things beautiful according to their seasons; also he hath submitted
the world to mans inquiry, yet so that man cannot find out the~work
which God worketh from the beginning to thcT^end^" The summary law of
nature is that impulse of desire impressed by God upon the primary par
ticles of matter which makes them come together, and which by repeti
tion and multiplication produces all the variety of nature. It is a
thing which mortal thought may glance at but can hardly take in.
(This impulse of attraction which God impressed on matter is the first
form. It is the single and summary law of nature which is subject and
subordinate to God. It is the appetite or instinct of primal matter,
or the natural motion of the atom, and the original force that

constitutes all things out of matter. This first form is the work
which God works from the beginning to the end, and which cannot be
fully known by man. This is the apex of the pyramid of natural phi
losophy. )
(Now let us descend from the apex and find out what Bacon meant by
metaphysics and form. The concept of form is an idea which goes back
at least as far as Plato and Aristotle. Bacon used the word form, but
as he often did, he used it in his own way to mean what he wanted it to
mean. Since it is basic to his philosophy, it is well that we try to
understand what he meant. First, however, we must not associate the
word form in this sense with the idea of shape or figure.)
(I believe what Bacon meant by form may be put in this way:) The form
is the essence of a thing. It is not the mass, but the order and dis
position of that mass, which is the primary law. The first form was
the summary law, the attraction of primal matter, which is the apex of
pyramid. But the first created form was Light. So Bacon calls the
the form of forms.
All things, Plato says, ascend to unity. Hence that science is best
which is simplest. This property is found in metaphysics as it contem
plates those simple forms of things, density, rarity, etc. He that
understands a form knows the ultimate possibility of superinducing that
nature upon all kinds of matter. Form is not separated from matter,
but is confined and determined by matter. Physics inquires into the
nature of things, but only as to the material and efficient causes of
them. Metaphysics inquires as to their forms and end. For example,
the cause of whiteness in snow may be said to be the intermixture of
air and water, but this is the efficient cause of whiteness, not its
form.

In each branch of learning there is a law which is the foundation both

of theory and practice. This law, and its parallel in each science, is
(>what we understand by the term form.
(This is important: The parf^ticular lav; in each science which is theToundation of^^he^y^gpd^pi^c^-i
1 tice is what we understand by form. _Form is the primary law Tri eacTT
'science.f~

------------------------------------- -----

V _

L~He who is acquainted with forms, comprehends the unity of nature in

substances apparently most distinct from each other. He can disclose
things which neither chance nor experiment would ever have brought
about. Therefore, from the discovery of forms results genuine theory
and free practice.
(Form reveals the unity in nature.)
The practical rule is that method should be certain, free or not re
stricted, and have relation to practice. This is the same thing as the
discovery of true form. For the form of any nature is such that when
it is assigned, the particular nature infallibly follows. Form is al
ways present when that nature is present, and is inherent in the whole
of it. If the form be removed, the nature of the thing is absent.
The thing differs from Its form as the apparent from the actual object,
as the exterior from the interior, or as that which has relation to man
from that which has relation to the universe. It follows that no na
ture can be considered a real form which does not uniformly diminish

-APage Pour
and increase with a given nature.
When we speak of forms, we mean those laws of simple action which ar
range and constitute any simple nature, such as heat, light, weight in
every spccies of matter. The form of heat or the form of light, there
fore, is the law of heat or the law of light.
In the works of creation, we see a double emanation of divine power
from God, Wisdom, and Power. Power is expressed in mass and substance
and is studied in physics. Wisdom is expressed in form and is studied
in metaphysics.
(Wisdom and Power correspond to Wisdom and Darkness or
potential power in Robert Fludd's Mosalcal Philosophy.) In the crea
tion the mass of Heaven and Earth was created in a moment of time. The
order and disposition was the work of six days, such a difference did
God make in the works of Power and those of Wisdom.
(The mass corre
sponds to Power or matter; the order, to Wisdom or form.)
(To summarize what we have found out about form: It is the primary law
in each science which may be discovered by the certain, free, and prac
tical method. It reveals the unity in nature, and is the inherent es
sence determined by matter, but is not matter itself. It has relation
to what Bacon calls Wisdom. The first form was the summary law, or the
appetite or instinct of primal matter, the natural motion of the atom
symbolized by the First God, that of Love. The first created form was
Light, and mind is the form of forms.)
Philosophy, Bacon says, has three objects: God, nature, and man. So
we may divide philosophy into the doctrine of the deity, the doctrine
of nature, and the doctrine of man. Nature is understood by man like
three rays. He understands nature as with a direct ray. God, because
of the inequality of God and his Creature, is understood like a re
fracted ray. Man is represented to himself as with a reflected beam.
Divine philosophy, knowledge of God, is a science derivable from God by
the light of nature and the contemplation of his creatures. Natural
philosophy is divided into physics and metaphysics. It regards the
things which are wholly immersed in matter and movable. Metaphysics
relates to the investigation of form and end. It is not the primary or
universal philosophy, but is a part of natural philosophy (as we saw in
the pyramid). It regards what is more abstracted and fixed.
The primary philosophy in the tree of knowledge is like the trunk, be
ing parent to the rest. It docs not have an opposite and differs from
other sciences in the limits by which it is confined rather than in the
subject. It is general science whose axioms are not peculiar to any
one science but common to a number of them. This primary philosophy is
not the same as metaphysics.
(it is like the trunk of the tree whose
branches are the parts of philosophy, divine, natural, and human.)
Human philosophy, the third ray, has two parts. One considers man seg
regate (or individual) and the other considers man congregate (or so
cial). Individual human philosophy consists of knowledge with respect
to the body and knowledge with respect to the mind, as well as knowl
edge concerning the sympathies and concordances between mind and body.
Knowledge concerning the sympathies between mind and body has two

parts. Discovery is how one discloses the other. Impression is how

one works on the other. Discovery has two parts which are both predic
tion, one being physiognomy, the other the exposition of natural
dreams. Physiognomy discovers the disposition of the mind by the
lineaments of the body. Exposition of dreams discovers the state of
the body by the imaginations of the mind. The other part of tihe knowl
edge of sympathy between mind and body, Impression, is also dual; how
the functions of the body affect the mind, and how the passions or ap
prehensions of the mind affect the body.
Bacon compares knowledge to the waters. Some descend from the heavens,
which is theology or divine inspiration (comparable to the rational
soul). Some waters spring from the earth, which is philosophy, or
knowledge from external sense (comparable to the sensible soul). (We
might call these knowledge derived by the psychic and physical minds.)
Human knowledge which concerns the mind or soul of man has two parts.
One treats of the reasonable or rational soul, which is a thing divine
and has its original form in the breath of life which God breathed into
man's face. It is the inspired soul. The other is the unreasonable or
sensible soul, which is common with beasts and has its original form
from the matrices of the elements.
(The rational soul is the psychic
mind, while the sensible so\il is the physical mind.)
The rational soul was not extracted from the mass of heaven and earth,
but was breathed in or inspired. Therefore, the knowledge of the sub
stance of the rational soul must be drawn from the same inspiration
from whence its substance first flowed (that is, from God.) (The na
ture of the rational soul, or psychic mind, must therefore be known by
inspiration from God, or psychically.) In beasts the sensible soul is
the principal soul, of which the body is the organ. But in man, this
soul is itself an organ of the rational soul.
Knowledge of the mind has two parts. One inquires of the substance or
nature of the mind, the other of the faculties or functions of the mind.
(Bacon, like Descartes, uses the terms mind and soul synonymously. We
have said that the nature of the rational soul can be known only by in
spiration.) Its faculties may be known by other methods, and they are
understanding, reason, imagination, memory, appetite, will, and all
those powers about which logic and ethics are conversant.
Knov,-ledge of the faculties of the mind has two appendices, natural
divination and fascination. Divination is of two kinds. Artificial
divination argues from causes, the other which argues from experiments
and is mostly superstitious, such as inspection of the flight of birds.
Natural divination, the second kind, argues from internal divination of
the mind without assistance of signs. It too is of two sorts, one na
tive, and the other by influxion. This kind supposes that the mind
when it is withdrawn and collected into itself and not diffused into
organs of the body (that is, when it is in attunement), has from the
natural power of its own essence some prenotion of things future. This
appears in sleep, ecstasies, nearness of death, and more rarely in wak
ing and healthy states. It is commonly furthered by those observances
which retire the mind into itself from the functions of the body.

Divination by influxion supposes that the mind like a mirror should

take a secondary kind of illumination from the foreknowledge of God
and Spirits. The same state of the body as with natural divination is
conducive to this kind of divination, because it causes the mind to
employ its own essences more severely.
Fascination is the power and intensive act of the imagination upon the
body of another. This act of imagination includes irradiations of the
senses, transmissions of thoughts from body to body, conveyances of
magnetic powers.
(These we might call psychic perception, projection,
telepathy, radiations of the aura, etc.)
(To further emphasize Bacons mysticism, in his Advancement of Learning,
he goes into the Celestial Hierarchy of Dionysius the AeropagTte.) LeT
us proceed from God to Angels or Spirits, whose nature in order of dig
nity (or degrees of correspondences) is next to God's. In the order
of Angels, the first place or degree is given to the Seraphim, Angels
of Love. The second is to the Cherubim, Angels of Illumination. The
third and following places are to Thrones, Principalities and the rest,
which are Angels of Power and Ministry. (First we have Angels of Love,
corresponding to the summary law or Love, then Angels of Knowledge and
Illumination, and last, Angels of Power and Ministry.) To descend from
intellectual forms to sensible and material forms, we read that the
first of created forms was Light, which corresponds to knowledge.
(This not only outlines the hierarchy, but makes a clear reference to
the doctrine of correspondences.)
After the creation was finished, we read that man was placed in the
Garden to work therein. (Note here, as in many places, Bacon makes use
of the Biblical account of^creation, even though he elsewhere criticises"
those who erect an entire natural history on the First Chapter of~
Genesis. What he is criticising is the extreme use of the doctrines,
''hot the doctrines themselves on which mysticism is based.-}
-This work man was to do in the Garden of Eden was that of contemplatioh',
for man did not work for necessity but for delight and exercise without
trouble. The first acts man performed in Paradise comprehended the two
parts of knowledge. Those were the view of creatures, and the imposi
tion of names. The knowledge which produced the fall of man was not
the natural knowledge concerning the creatures, but the moral knowledge
of good and evil, which man aspired to know so as to make a total de
fection from God and to depend wholly upon himself and his freewill.
(Bacon takes pains to point out that knowledge in itself is not wrong.
It is the defection from God that is evil. The two parts of knowledge
are the viewing of the creatures, which corresponds to philosophy, and
the imposition of names according to the signatures, which corresponds
to divine inspiration.)
(We might say that the signature is the manifestation of the psychic
being or inner nature. John Heydon in his Holy Guide explains the law
of correspondences in this way: "That which is inferior or below is as
that which is superior or above, there being one universal matter and
form of all things, differenced only by accidents, and particularly by
that great mystery of rarefaction and condensation." The degrees of
the hierarchy of creation are symbolized by the rungs on the ladder of
Jacob's dream. One series of degrees corresponds to another. There is
a basic pattern which appears in the Cosmic pattern and is repeated in

all levels of the ladder.)

There is, Bacon says, a great difference between the Idols of the human
mind and the Ideas of the divine, between certain empty dogmas and the
true signatures and marks set upon the works of creation as they are
found in nature.
(These true signatures which Adam understood in the
Garden were the basis of the names which he gave things.) It was not
the pure knowledge of nature by whose light man gave names to other
creatures in Paradise which occasioned the fall. It was the proud
knowledge of good and evil with the intent to shake off God and to give
law to himself.
Knowledge and the mind of man are defined in these words. "God hath
made all things beautiful and descent in the true return of their sea
sons; also he hath placed the world in man's heart, yet cannot man find
out the work which God worketh from the beginning to the end." Bacon
explains this further. God has framed the mind of man as a mirror or
glass capable of the Image of the universal world, and as joyful to re
ceive the impressions thereof as the eye enjoys receiving light. Man's
mind is delighted in beholding the variety of things and the vicissi
tudes of times, but it is raised also to find out the inviolable laws
and infallible decrees of nature. That no parcel of the world is de
nied to man's inquiry Solomon declares where he says, The spirit of a
man is as the Lamp of God wherewith he searches the inwards of all se
crets. (The symbol of light as knowledge is one Bacon uses often, as
when he compares God's first creature Light with the Angels of Light,
again using the doctrine of correspondences.)
X These teachings of mysticism, along with the fundamental doctrines of
alctiemy~an<^~astroToe:yBacon accented. What he~ clrTticized severeTy W s
the absurd use of such ideas, ridiculously stretching them to nonsensT'cal ends. This has led many modern readers, who do not always _under-
"stand these~mvstical teachings, to deny Bacon1s be 1ief in them.)
Near the close of the Great Instauration, Bacon wrote: For God defend,
that we should publish th airy dreams of our own Fancy, for the real
Ideas of the world! But rather may he be so graciously propitious unto
us, thair we may write the Apocalypse, and true vision of the impres
sions and signets of the Creator, upon the Creature!
(Impressions and
signets of the Creator is another reference to the signatures. Fur
thermore , the use of the word apocalypse is significant. It means a
prophetical revelation such as "the last book of the New Testament. It
would seem the reference is plainly mystical, for Bacon could surely
have used a word that did not have that prophetical, mystical connota
tion.
(Bacon's mysticism is again brought out in the beginning of the Ad
vancement of Learning when he refers to Plato's opinion that all knowl
edge Is but remembrance. The mind of man by nature knows all things
and has her own native and original notions revived and restored.
(Bacon's Great Instauration Is a restoration, a remembrance of innate
knowledge which comes to man through the Cosmic mind in himself.) The
mind's own notions by the strangeness and darkness of this tabernacle
of the body are sequestered.
(Man is a duality, body and soul, matter
and mind. The Instauration is to be brought about by the restoration
of the knowledge lost by the fall and man's expulsion from Paradise,

but which may be regained through mans own psychic mind, jyhose who
take Bacons inductive process to be of the physical mind, and...the
"physicalmirld alone miss the important and essential part jtfjiis
*metho'flT;
(The principle of duality in man and the universe is shown by Bacon in
many ways. In the title page to the 1640 edition of the Advancement of
Learning there are two obelisks, two worlds, the terrestrial and the
"intellectual. The six parts of the Great Instauration are divided into
two groups of three each. It is also apparent in the pairs sciencephilosophy, physics-metaphysics, body-mind, Power-Wisdom, philosophy
speculative and operative, knowledge intuitional and sensible, the ra
tional and sensible souls, matter-form, Idols of the human mind and
Ideas of the divine mind.)
Indeed, invention is of two kinds. One is of the arts and sciences.
The other is of arguments and speeches, or that of ordinary logic. Or
dinary logical induction is inference and is utterly vicious and incom
petent. Rather than perfecting nature, it perverts and destroys it.
What is needed is an art of discovery or direction by which the mind
with the help of art might equal nature.
Discovery proceeds either from experiments to experiments or from ex
periments to axioms, from which we may likewise design new experiments.
When a man tries all kinds of experiments without sequence or method,
it is mere palpatation; but when he proceeds by direction and order in
experiments, it is as if he were led by the hand. Man may feel his way
in the dark, or being weak-sighted may be led by the hand of another.
Or he may direct his footing by a light. (This third way is to be de
rived from the Interpretation of Nature, or the method of the Novum
Organum.)
Bacon retains the evidence of the sense, but helped and guarded by a
certain process of correction. The mental operation which usually fol
lows, he rejects for the most part. Instead he lays open a new and
certain path for the mind to proceed in, starting directly from the
simple sensuous perception. The work of the understanding must be com
menced afresh and the mind from the outset not left to take its own
course. Rather it must be guided at every step and the business be
done as if by machinery. The previous method Bacon calls Anticipation
of the Mind, and the new method Interpretation of Nature. (Interpretation proceeds by slow and careful steps, as by a ladder. Also, in the
New Atlantis the last group of fellows of Salomons House is called
Interpreters of Nature.)
(In the Novum Organum, Bacon outlines certain procedures of the mind.
These we may tabulate in this manner. To this classification we shall
add one taken from the Advancement of Learning.
1.

Deductive

2.
3.
4.

Subjective
Self-centered
Unconscious ideas,
emotions, etc. Idols
Centered in the rational
or psychic mind

5.

Inductive
a) common
b) Baconian
Objective
Not self-centered
Conscious ideas, emotions, etc.
Ideas of the Divine Mind
Centered in the sensible or
physical mind

Since it is a summary of mental processes, the table shows the dangers

and faults of logical thinking. Both deduction and common induction
are dangerous because they omit the step by step progress necessary to
scientific invention. Deduction does so because it begins with gener
alities, and induction because it .jumps from particulars to, generali
ties without the necessary intermediate steps.)
(When we begin with the subjective, we may start with our own "specious
meditations, speculations and glosses," from our own ideas and emotions
rather than from actual fact. Assumptions we make before we inquire
begin with self, with what we want to believe. The Idols which we sub
stitute for the Ideas of the Divine Mind are those we take for granted
through upbringing, association, etc. They fall into four classes:)
Idols of the Tribe are those of the group or race to which we belong.
.Idols of the Cave are those of the individual man, for each has a cave
of his own which refracts and discolors the light of nature according
to his own peculiar nature, education, reading, and the like. Idols
formed by association with other men are called Idols of the Market
place. And Idols which have entered mens minds from dogmas of philos
ophy, and laws of demonstration, are Idols of the Theater, because all
accepted systems are but so many stage-plays representing worlds of
their own creation after an unreal and scenic fashion. This applies to
many principles of science which have been accepted by tradition,
credulity and negligence.
False philosophy is of three kinds: Sophistical is based on too narrow
a foundation of experiment and natural history, and decides on authori
ty of too few cases. Empirical philosophers bestow much labor on a few
experiments and construct systems from them. Superstitious philosophy
mixes philosophy with theology and traditions. Among these are philos
ophers who have attempted to found a system of natural philosophy on
the first chapter of Genesis, on the Book of Job, etc. (Yet Bacon him
self uses Genesis in his idea that God first created Light7 therefore,""
man should perform experiments of light.)
'The true method of experience first lights the candle and then by it
shows the way, commencing from experience duly ordered and digested,
and from it educing axioms, and from established axioms again new ex
periments. So it was not without order and method that the divine word
operated on the created mass. The beginning is from God, for the busi
ness at hand has the character of good impressed upon it, and appears
to procced from God, who is the author of good and the Father of Light.
No one, says Bacon, has yet been found so firm of mind and purpose as
resolutely to compel himself to sweep away all theories and common no
tions and to apply the understanding to a fresh examination of particu
lars. (Whether or not he derived the idea from Bacon, this is what
Descartes not long after Bacon's time attempted to do.) Nor has any
search been made to collect a store of particular observations suffi
cient in number or in kind or in certainty to inform the understanding.
(This is what Bacon meant to begin with his Natural and Experimental
History.)

After these particulars have been set in order in Tables of Discovery,

we may educe by a certain method and rule the new light of axioms, and
these shall in their turn point the way to new particulars, that great
er things may be looked for. (This is the step by step process which
is the Scala or Ladder, the true steps of the inductive method which we
met in the New Atlantis, and which builds the corresponding ladder of
creation.) Our road does not lie on the level but ascends and descends.
First it ascends to axioms, then descends to works. (The ascension may
be ssd-d'tobe induction, Baconian varietyt and descenslon to be deduction,
from generals to particular works, although Bacon does not use that
expression himself.)

We

may only hope well of the sciences when in a just scale of ascent
and by successive steps not interrupted or broken we rise from particu
lars to lesser axioms; and then to middle axioms, one above the other,
and last of all to the most general.
(Lesser, middle, and highest
axioms remind us of the outline of duties In the New Atlantis. It is,
of course, the Ladder of the Great Instauration, as we shall see.) The
middle axioms are the true and solid and living axioms on which depend
the affairs and fortunes of men.
The understanding must not be supplied with wings, but rather hung with
weights to keep it from leaping and flying. I am not, Bacon insists,
raising a capitol or pyramid to the pride of man, but laying a founda
tion in the human understanding for a. holy temple after the model of
the world. (This is the Holy Temple, The Sanctus Spiritus of the Fama
Fraternitatis, and Salomon's House in the New Atlantis. It is also the
Globus Intellectualis, the Intellectual Globe on the title page of the
Advancement of Learning.)

Regarding his inductive method, Bacon says: I pledge mankind in a

liquor strained from countless grapes, from grapes ripe and fully sea
soned, collected in clusters, and gathered, and then squeezed in the
press and finally purified and clarified in the vat. (The symbol of
the grapes is found In the ritual in the New Atlantis. The grapes rep
resent the fruit of the Tree of Knowledge. But it would have recalled,
even in Bacon's time, Jesus who was also symbolized by the bunch of
grapes that was pressed on the cross. The grapes were used in water
mark symbols in Rosicrucian works of Bacon's time. Today we miss the
meanings of such symbols and consequently much of the meaning of even
Bacon's philosophical works.)
Bacon's mysticism is not often stated in so many words, but underlies
sail his work. It is the assumption or basis on which his thinking is
built, the premise with which he begins.
'The Great Instauration which Bacon outlined and which he partly wrote
was In six parts. Part one deals with fields of knowledge or divisions
of sciences. This Bacon took up in his Advancement of Learning, espe
cially part two. The second part is an outline of the new inductive
method and is represented by his Novum Organum, or New Organon. The
third part is the phenomena of the universe and was begun by Bacon's
Natural and Experimental History. It is the facts from observation and
experiment on which the phiTosophy is to be based. About these three
parts there is no difficulty, since Bacon states them and his own works
concerning them explicitly.

*The other three. however, are not, so.clear, partly because he_ did no t
outline anv specific works concerned with them. Again, to understand
what he means, we must consider all that he has said about these parts
in his own works, and in different versions and editions of his works.
We must understand, too, the symbols he uses and their background.
The fourth part Bacon calls the Ladder of the Intellect, which is to
give some things it seems necessary to premise for convenience and
present use. It is to set forth examples of inquiry and invention ac
cording to his method, choosing subjects that are most noble in them
selves and different from each other. These are to be actual types and
models by which the entire process of the mind and the fabric of inven
tion should be set forth. The ladder is the step by step process given
in the New Organon and the New Atlantis, the individual steps of the
inductive method in particular applications. But the ladder in this
sense is taken from the symbol of the ladder of creation which extends
from earth to heaven. The ladder of the intellect is that by which the
mind climbs the steps of the inductive method, but it corresponds to
Jacob's ladder, which is a symbol of the cosmic pattern of creation,
and the degrees of creation.
The ladder also symbolizes the steps leading to the intellectual sphere
rectified to the globe of the world which is on the title page of the
1640 edition of the Advancement of Learning, and which was referred to
by Bacon several times in his worksT It is the ladder leading to the
holy temple in the New Atlantis. In the New Organon, the ladder is the
ascending and descending scale of axioms and experiments by which one
reaches the Globe of the Intellect or the holy temple.
In his Confession of Faith, Bacon refers to "the Person of the Mediator
(Jesus, in whom") tKe true Ladder might be fixed; whereby God might de
scend to his creatures and his creatures might ascend to God." Jesus
*too is the ladder. The symbol , then, is both mystic and material,
psychic and physical/ This constant union of the duality of man and
cosmic "Has not ~Eeen~grasped by students of Bacon, and without it
his philosophy cannot be properly understood. The ladder is the means
or mystical and psychic ascent and descent, and it is at thesame time
~
^a symbol of natural and scientific phenomena and the inductive method

zho

The Fifth and Sixth parts of the Instauration refer to the New Philoso
phy as it is put in the usual English version. Reference to other edi
tions, however, brings this terminology about the sixth part: Philosophia Secunda, or Active Philosophy. Second Philosophy should recall
the Philosophia Prima or Primary Philosophy which is the Universal
Philosophy symbolized by the trunk of the tree of sciences. The sec
ondary philosophy would logically be the branches of the tree, which is
truly the active or practical philosophy or science. This is what was
missing in the tree, and what Bacon's method was to invent or discover.
The sixth part of the Instauration is derived from the new method and
is the result of the other parts.
The fifth part in English is called the Forerunners, but in the 167^
edition of the Advancement of Learning it is more accurately called the
anticipations of second philosophy emergent upon practice. We remember
that Bacon called his inductive method Interpretation of Nature as com
pared to the old method which he called Anticipation of Nature. The

fifth part, then, is

phy which he himself
used until the sixth
lifetime. It is the
according to the old
It is, he says, like
ing.

the old method, the anticipation, and the philoso

and others should derive from it, which should be
part was more complete than it could be in Bacons
forerunner, to be used temporarily; or philosophy
method to be used until the new should be ready.
interest payable until the principal is forthcom

That Bacon had in mind by the last three parts of the Instauration
philosophy, and not other types of works, seems to be evident in this
quotation from the 1653 edition of the History of Winds. Speaking of
the Natural History, Bacon says,
. . this present Historie doth not
only supply the place of the third part of the Instauration, but also
is a not despicable preparation to the fourth, by reason of the Titles
out of the Alphabet and Topicks, and to the sixth, by reason of the
larger Observations, Commentations, and Rules." The six parts of the
Instauration are meant to be a well integrated whole dealing with
science and philosophy.
The Great Instauration is a plan for the restoration of philosophy and
science. It does not include the literary renaissance in which Bacon
was very much interested. Nor does it include his more strictly Rosi
crucian activities represented by the Rosicrucian manifestoes and the
New Atlantis. Nor does it include the Shakespeare plays. All these, I
believe, are part of a larger, and certainly no less important, plan of
^which the Instauration was itself a part. What Bacon was apparently
trying to do was to start a complete rebl^T^o? literature, art, scfenceand~phllosophy" for his own and later times, uslne; the Rosicrucian
Order and teachings as, the almost unseen and unknown foundation*of the
whole .

!A*^-^WS/-:^V^-VPUJ

LV/J

L-V*/:

l^yiXSyj

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l-^J

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ROSICRUCIAN ORDER
A M O R C
TRADE

MARK

Supplementary Monograph
PRIN TED

IN

U . S . A.

T h e subject m atter of this monograph m ust be understood by the reader or student

of same, not to be the official Rosicrucian teachings. T h ese m onographs constitute a series
of supplem entary studies provided b y the Rosicrucian Order, A M O R C , both to members
and nonm em bers, because th ey are not the secret, p rivate teachings of the Order.
The object of these supplem entary m onographs is to broaden the mind of the student by
presenting him with the w ritings, opinions, and dissertations of authorities in various fields
of hum an enterprise and endeavor. T herefore, it is quite probable that the reader w ill
note at times in these supplem entary monographs statements made which are inconsistent
with the Rosicrucian teachingss or viewpoint. Bu
But with the realization that they are meree Rosicrucian Organization is not endorsing or condoning
Iv su pplem entary and that
them, one must take them m erely for their p rim a facie value. Throughout the supplemlen
en tary series the authors or translators
translf
of the subject w ill be given due credit w henever
we have knowledge of their identity.

ROSICRUCIAN PARK, SAN JOSE, CALIFORNIA

"Consecrated to truth and dedicated to every Rosicrucian"

S P E C IA L S U B J E C T

LECTURE NUMBER

361

RAD

rTg?: r/yvi rygYi rTgvi

R -2

039

r7y\i r^gv:ryfev;r7^,v:

r?yvi rv^r;

rTsv: r7y%i rv^

The following lecture is intended to present the philosophy of a mystic

in a way that will make it understandable to present-day mystics, and
at the same time to retain as much as possible the language and style
of the original work. To this end, the work In question has been ed
ited and to some extent reworded. Except where explanation seems ob
vious, comments added by the lecturer have been put in parentheses to
distinguish them from the original.
Ruth .Phelps, Librarian
MYSTICS FOR MODERNS
The Allegory of the New Atlantis
The New Atlantis was published with Bacon's Sylva Sylvarum or Natural
and Experimental History in 1627. John Heydon's version of the work
appeared in his English Physltlans Guide, or a. Holy-guide Leading the
Way _to Know all Things Past, Present and to Come . . . published in
. The" Preface, which is the New AtTanTis is often called "A
Journey into the Land of the Rosicrucians.11 This, however, is incor
rect since Heydon gives it no other title than "Preface." The main
difference between these two versions is the terminology, and I have
U3ed whichever terms make the allegory clear.

TS62

The title page of the Sylva Sylvarum has two pillars, the ocean, and
between the two pillars the World of the Intellect which Bacon refers
to at the end of the Advancement of Learning: "I have made as it were
a small Globe of the Intellectual World." The Novum Organum had on
its title . page the two pillars with a ship sailing out to sea, the
perfect symbol of our Philosophical Voyage. To link Bacons works to
gether more thoroughly, the 1640 edition of the Advancement of Learn
ing has two pillars or obelisks with the ship, and at Che top of the
pillars two worlds, labelled Visible World and Intellectual World,
symbolizing the duality of the world and of man. Since the New At
lantis is itself the Philosophic Voyage, Bacon's most important works
are united by the same symbol.
In works such as the Bible, Dante's Divine Comedy, and the New Atlantis
there are three levels of allegorical meaning. The literal
histor
ical level corresponds to every day events and to the physical mind In
man. The spiritual or psychological level corresponds to man's inner
development and to the psychic mind. The third level, the mystical
meaning, corresponds to the cosmic mind in man, to initiation and
mystical attunement. These three kinds of meaning may also be said to
correspond to the national, organizational, and personal interpreta
tion of the history, ~in this cane of the Rosicrucian Order.

or

The ocean in our Philosopical Voyage represents the psychic mind, while
the land, the island of Bensalem, represents the physical mind. The
name Bensalem means Son of Peace. The New Atlantis, like the Fama
Fraternitatis, begins with a reference to the New World.

We sailed from Peru, where we had continued for one year, for China
and Japan by the South Sea. After five months of good wind, it set
tled in the west, and we were sometimes in purpose to turn back.
Finding ourselves in the midst of the greatest wilderness of waters in
the world, without food, we gave ourselves up for lost men and pre
pared for death.
(This is the beginning of the Philosophical Voyage mentioned by
Michael Maier, and pictured in one of his books. We begin our voyage
from the edge of the known world into an unknown world. On the ocean
of the psychic mind we sail toward that part of the world called the
East, toward enlightenment. The wilderness of waters is comparable
to Dante's wilderness in the Divine Comedy, "I came to myself in a dark
wood.")
(The ship, like the seeker, is lost, blown here and there and nowhere
by the winds, until he gives himself up for dead. Not only that, but
he is without spiritual food. Surely this is a good picture of most
of us who are driven by trouble and conflict to seek a solution in
mystical philosophy, and yet we often find it seemingly by accident.)
Yet we did lift up our hearts and voices to God who shows us his won-'
ders in the deep, beseeching him of his mercy, that as In the begin
ning (meaning the creation story in Genesis) he discovered the face of
the deep, and brought forth dry land, so he would now discover land
to us that we might not perish. The next day about evening we saw
toward the north thin clouds which put us in hope of land. And in the
dawning of the next day, we plainly discerned land. We entered into
the port of a fair city, and came close to shore and offered to land,
but we saw divers people forbidding us, yet without fierceness, but
only as warning us off.
(Devolution comes before evolution, death before rebirth, the Dark
Night before the Golden Dawn. So in our Voyage, we are seemingly lost,
hopeless. Yet we appeal to the cosmic; we put our lives in the hands
of the cosmic, so to speak. And our appeal is answered. Sincere seekis rewarded. In the midst of the vast ocean we have discovered the
island symboXlzing the Rosicrucians, as in the Dark Night we discover
our true selves and the Order and God. But eager as we are, we must
go through the proper procedure.)
After some negotiation, one of the officials of the island meets with
men from the ship in a small boat, saying: If you swear by the merits
of the Savior that you are no pirates, nor have shed blood lawfully
or unlawfully within forty days past, you may have license to land.
We said we were ready to take that oath. After while the notary came
on board our ship, holding in his hand a fruit like an orange but of
a coler between orange-tawny and scarlet, which he used as a preserva
tive against infection. He gave us our oath and told us that the next
day by six in the morning we should be brought to the strangers1 house
where we should be accommodated both for our whole and for our sick.
(The voyager coming to the island of the Rosicrucians must take an oath
as every Rosicrucian takes an oath on entering the Order. The

-A -

red fruit symbolizes the Philosopiher's Stone, Maier* s Golden Medicine,

or Cosmic consciousness.)
The next morning we were shown our chambers in the strangers' house,
and our guide said to us, "After this day and tomorrow, you are to
keep within doors for three days. Do not think yourselves restrained,
but rather left to your rest. Six of our people are appointed to
attend you." (No doubt the numbers mentioned in the allegory are sym
bolic. The stay in the strangers' house represents a period of proba
tion, of which the voyagers make good use.)
Our dinner was served, which was good both for bread and meat. We had
also three sorts of drinks, wine of the grape, a drink of grain, and
a kind of clear cider. Besides, there were brought to us a great
store of those scarlet oranges for our sick, and box of grey or whit
ish pills, which our sick should take. (The three drinks may symbol
ize the alchemical principles, sulphur, salt, and mercury, or body,
mind, and soul in the manner of the three elements. The red fruit
this time is accompanied by whitish pills, so we have the alchemical
red and white symbolizing duality. These will heal the sick, or re
store harmony in them.)
The next day I said to our company: Let us know ourselves. We are
men cast on land, as Jonah was out of the whale's belly, when we were
as buried in the deep. (Jonah in the whale's belly is a symbol of the
descent into the subconscious, the Dark Night, just as is being lost
at sea. Cast on land, they are emerging from that trial.)
Now we are on land, we are but between death and life, for we are be
yond both the old world and the new. Therefore, let us look up to God,
and every man reform his own ways. Let us behave ourselves so we may
find peace with God and grace in the eyes of this people. Our company
thanked me and promised to live soberly and civilly. So we spent our
three days joyfully and had every hour joy of the amendment of our
sick, who thought themselves cast into some divine pool of healing.
(The period of probation is spent by the seeker in knowing himself,
mending his ways, and in being healed, in beginning a new life.)
When our three days were past a new man came, clothed in blue with a
white turban having a small red cross on the top. He spoke with six of
us. I am governor of this hoiise of strangers, a Christian priest, and
of the Order of the Rosie Cross, and am come to you to offer you my
service. The state has given you license to stay on land for six
weeks. I do not doubt I shall be able to obtain for you such further
time as shall be convenient. None of you may go above a mile and a
half from the walls of the city without special leave.
We answered we wanted words to express our thanks and his noble offers
left us nothing to ask. It seemed to me that we had before us a pic
ture of our salvation in heaven.
(The student is joyful at having
passed his probationary period, and he may now leave the strangers'
house, but he may not go beyond certain limits.)
The next day the governor came to us again and some ten of us sat down
with him. He began thus: Because of our solitary situation and the

laws of secrecy which we have for our travelers, and the rare ad
mission of strangers to our island, we know most of the habitable
world but ourselves are unknown. Since he that knoweth least is fit
test to ask questions, it is more reason that you ask me than that I
ask you. We desired to know, because that land was so remote, who
was the apostle of that nation and how it was converted to the faith.
He showed contentment in this question, saying: It shows that you
first seek the kingdom of heaven.
About twenty years, he told us, after the ascension of our Savior it
came to pass that there was seen by the people of Renfusa (Heydon has
Damrar) a city on the east coast of our island, when the night was
cloudy and calm, about a mile in the sea (meaning the psychic mind)
a great pillar of light in the form of a column or cylinder, rising
from the sea a great way toward heaven. On top of it was a large
cross of light.
(The pillar of light, of course, recalls the pillar
of cloud and fire in the Book of Exodus.) The people gathered on the
sands to wonder and then put themselves into small boats to go nearer
this marvelous sight. When the boats were come within about sixty
yards of the pillar, they found themselves all bound and could go no
further. So they all stood as in a theater, beholding this light, as
an heavenly sign. There was in one of the boats a wise man of the
Society of Rosie Crucians (or Salomon's House) which house or college
is the very eye of this kingdom. The Rosie Crucian, having attentively
and devoutly viewed and contemplated this pillar and cross, fell down
upon his face, and then raised himself upon his knees, and lifing up
his hands to heaven, made his prayers in this manner:
Lord God of heaven and earth, thou hast vouchsafed of thy grace to
those of our order to know thy works of creation and true secrets of
them, and to discern between divine miracles, works of Nature, works
of art and impostures, and illusions of all sorts. I do here acknowl
edge and testify before this people, that the thing we now see is thy
finger and a true miracle. We most humbly beseech thee to prosper
this great sign, and to give us the interpretation and use of it in
mercy.
When he had made his prayer, he found his boat was movable whereas the
rest remained still fast. Taking that for an assurance of leave to
approach, he caused the boat to be softly and with silence rowed
toward the pillar. But before he came near it, the pillar and cross
of light broke up as it were into a firmament of many stars, which also
vanished soon after, and there was nothing left but a small ark, or
chest of cedar, which was dry though in the water. In the fore end of
it grew a small green branch of palm. When the Rosie Crucian had
taken it with all reverence into his boat, it opened by itself, and
there were found in it a book and a letter, both written on fine
parchment and wrapped in linen. The book contained all the canonical
books of the Old and New Testament and the Apocalypse, and some other
books of the New Testament which were not at that time written, were
nevertheless in the book.
(in Heydon*s account, it is the apostle John who put the ark to sea,
as we shall see. The background of the ark symbol Includes the Ark of
Noah, the ark which the children of Israel made on the Exodus, and ark

In which Moses was placed in the bulrushes. In the New Atlantis the
ark symbol has the same meaning that the opening of"the tomb does in
the Fama Fraternitatis. It represents the teachings which were handed
down through the centuries from one cycle of activity to another. The
historical meaning of the allegory pertains to the officer who opens
the symbolic tomb. The book and letter symbolize the body of teach
ings but also the knowledge acquired by the individual student. Mys
tically the account symbolizes an initiation Into a higher level of
consciousness. __Bacon savs knowledge begins with light which is God's
first creature.. Divine knowledge comes by Inspiration. The light in
_the allegory symbolizes divine knowledge.)
There was in both these writings, the book and letter, wrought a great
miracle, like that of the apostles, in the original gift of tongues.
For there being at that time in this land Hebrews, Persians, and In
dians, besides the natives, every one read the book and letter as if
they had been in his own language. Thus was this land saved from in
fidelity, as the remain of the o]d world was from water, by an ark,
through the miraculous evangelism of St. John.
(Knowledge received psychically is understood by the student in his
own language, as it wore, according to his interpretation of the sym
bolic language of the experience. This is an inner psychic experience,
and the gift of tongues is one of wisdom and understanding.)
The next day the same governor came to us again and after we were set
he said: Well, the questions are on your part. We observed the island
was known to few and yet knew most of the nations of the world. This
might be accounted for by its being in the secret conclave of such a
vast sea. But we could not tell what to make of their knowledge of
language, books, and affairs of those at such a distance from them.
He replied: In what I shall tell you I must reserve some particulars
which it is not lawful for me to reveal, but there will be enought left
to give you satisfaction.
(in Bacon's day, when the Fama created such
a stir, the Rosicrucians were unknown themselves, while they knew and
associated freely with all people.)
About three thousand years or more ago the navigation of the world,
especially for remote voyages, was greater than at this day. The
Phoenicians and the Carthaginians had great fleets. The shipping of
Egypt and Palestine and China was likewise great. And the great
Atlantis, that you call America, abounded in tall ships. Our island
had fifteen hundred strong ships. Of all this there is with you but
sparing memory, but we have large knowledge thereof.
("The great Atlantis, that you call America" can mean that America
symbolizes the New Atlantis. The New World then being settled should
be the ideal country, the Land of the Rosicrucians. The travels of
the brethren of the fraternity were a part of the training of an ed
ucated young man, but this too is symbolic of the Philosophical Voyage,
and of the spread and acquisition of knowledge. This is made plain
again when we come to the outline of the duties of the fellows of the
college. The great shipping and commerce may mean that the ancient
world had more commerce than is realized. But it may also symbolize
the mystical philosophy of the ancients.)

(in the allegory of Atlantis, we see the different levels of meaning.

In the first place, it is a utopia within a utopia, like a play within
a play. America, which is both the old and the new Atlantis, stands
for the Rosicrucian Order, as well as for the ideal state. Historically
the tale is the history of the rise and fall of a country, or of an
organization, or for that matter of an individual. Spiritually, it
symbolizes knowledge, mystical philosophy, its misuse and consequences.
Also spiritually, it is an allegory of inner conflict and struggle.
Eecause both Atlantis and Bensalem represent a mystical fraternity,
it is a struggle within the self. Since America is the New Atlantis,
it symbolizes rebirth, both of the Order and the individual.)
At that time this island was frequented by ships of all the nations
before named. Men of these countries who were not sailors came with
them, and we have some little tribes of them witxh us at this day, such
as Persians, Chaldeans, Arabians. Our own ships went to your straits
called the Pillars of Hercules, to China and the Oriental Seas, and as
far as the borders of East Tartary. (Perhaps the people named repre
sent areas of ancient mystical knowledge. Tartary was a region in Asia
from the Sea of Japan to the Dnieper River; hence, it symbolizes the
East. But Tartarus was a mythical place, a region below Hades, so it
may be meant to emphasize the different levels of the allegory, as
well as different levels of the mind.)
At this time, the inhabitants of the Great Atlantis, the Holy Land,
flourished. Though the account by Plato, that descendants of Neptune
settled there, and of the magnificent temple, city and hill, and the
several degrees of ascent whereby men climbed up to the same, as if it
had been a Ladder of Heaven, though these are poetical and mythical,
yet this much is true. The country of Atlantis as well as Peru and
Mexico, were mighty and proud kingdoms. (The Ladder of Heaven is the
Ladder of the Intellect which leads to the Temple of Wisdom, the House
of the Holy Spirit. It is the Ladder of Bacon's Great Instauration
or Reformation and stands for the steps of the Inductive Method.)
Within ten years both Peru and Mexico made expeditions, Mexico through
the Atlantis to the Mediterranean Sea, and Peru through the South Sea
upon our Island. The former expedition was related to Plato by the
Egyptian priest whom he cites. Whether the ancient Athenians repulsed
them, I cannot say. Certain it is that neither man nor ship came
back from that voyage. Neither had the voyage of Peru upon us any
better fortune. The king of this island named Altabin (Heydon has
Phoates) compelled them to give themselves up without striking a stroke.
After they were at his mercy, he contented himself with their oath that
they should no more bear arms against him, and dismissed them all in
safety. The divine revenge (which we might call karma) overtook those
proud enterprises, for within less than a hundred years the Great At
lantis was utterly lost and destroyed; not by a great earthquake, as
your man says, but by a deluge or inundation. It was not deep, not
past forty foot, so that it destroyed man and beast generally, yet
some wild inhabitants of the wood escaped. Men who were not drowned
peris bed for want of food. So do not marvel at the thin population of
America nor the rudeness and ignorance of the people, for they are
younger by a thousand years than the rest of the world. (Atlantis
was lost as karma for aggression against other nations, or misuse of

their knowledge. The inhabitants of America, the Indians, are a new

race, further emphasizing America as the symbol of the New Atlantis.
The inundation of Atlantis was the symbolic 40 feet of the Biblical
deluge.)
So you see, the governor continues, we lost our traffic with Amer
icans with whom, because they lay nearest us, we had most commerce.
As for other parts of the world, in the ages following, navigation
everywhere greatly decayed. (The spread of knowledge, represented by
shipping and commerce, declined until Europe in the Middle Ages was
almost ignorant of knowledge outside its own immediate area and inter
ests. The struggle between the countries symbolizes the conflict be
tween the mystical and other philosophies, as well as the conflicts
within the individual. The deluge again stands for the submergence
in the psychic or subconscious mind, the Dark Night. The decline of
commerce may also represent the cycles of the Oder, the periods of
quiescence and activity, and the periods of meditation and activity in
the life of the student.)
There reigned in this island about 1,900 years ago, a king whose memory
of all others vie most adore, not superstitiously but as a divine in
strument, though a mortal man. His name was Salomona, and we esteem
him as the lawgiver of our nation.
(Heydon calls the king Eugenius
Theodidactus, which is the pseudonym Heydon uses as author of his
books.) This king ordained the prohibitions we have on the entrance
of strangers. Of those that should land, as many should be permitted
to depart as would, but as many as would stay should have very good
conditions. Now in so many ages since that time, but 13 persons at
different times chose to return. What they reported abroad cannot be
known. Our lawgiver saw fit to restrain our travel abroad with one
exception. And here I may seem a little to digress, but you will byand-by find it pertinent. The exception was the erection of Salomons
House.
(Heydon calls Salomons House the Temple of the Rosie Cross and the
Holy House, which of course is the Sanctus Spiritus of the Fama. It
should be remembered that the terms all symbolize the same thing, the
Rosicrucian Order and its teachings, the individual student and the
knowledge he acquires, and the Royal Society of London. Salomon is
used, as usual, as a symbol of wisdom. As the Order builds its sym
bolic Temple, the Sanctus Spiritus, so each member builds his own
Temple or House of the Holy Spirit. It is the point from which the
philosophical voyages of the society are made and to which they return.
It is the eye of the kingdom.)
It is the noblest foundation that ever was upon the earth, and the
lantern of this kingdom. It is dedicated to the study of the works
and creatures of God. I take it to be named for the king of the
Hebrews, of whose works we have some parts which with you are lost,
namely, that natural history which he wrote of all plants, from the
cedar of Lebanon to the moss that grows out of the wall, and of all
things that have life and motion.
(in place of Salomons natural his
tory, Heydon has: "The Rosie Crucian M. which he wrote of all things
past, present or to come. This would lead one to equate the book M.
and natural history.) Our king, finding himself to symbolize, in many

things, with that king of the Hebrews, honored him with the title of
this foundation. This order or society is sometimes called the College
of the Six Days Works, by which I am satisfied that our king had
learned from the Hebrews that Gcd created the world in six days. He
instituted that house, therefore, for the finding out of the true
nature of all things, whereby God might have more glory and men more
fruit in their use of them.
(However, provision must be made for obtaining knowledge.) When the
king had forbidden his people to navigate to any part of the world not
under his crown, he made this ordinance; that every 12 years there
should be sent from the kingdom two ships appointed to several voyages,
that in either of them should be a mission of three of the fellows or
brethren of the Temple of the Rosie Cross, whose errand was to give
us knowledge of the affairs and state of those countries to which they
were designed, and especially of the sciences, arts, manufactures, and
inventions of all the world, to bring us books, instruments, and pat
terns in every kind. The ships, after they landed the brethren, should
return and the brethren should stay abroad till the new mission. Thus
you see, we maintain a trade, not for any commodity of matter, but
only for Gods first creature, which was light. (Men should, like God,
create light first. Again, we see, these are Philosophical Voyages.)
(The founder of Salomons House, which symbolizes the Rosicrucian
Order, is comparable to the founder or author of the fraternity in
Maier's Themis Aurea. The quotation about the cedars of Lebanon is
one of Bacons favorites and comes from I Kings, 4:33. The interesting
thing about this is that the following chapter begins the description
of the erection of the Temple of Solomon, including the cherubim
carved over the altar.)
(The third law in the Fama Fraternitatls is that the brethren should
meet every year on the Day C In the House of the Holy Spirit. The
feast of the family or fraternity which follows in the New Atlantis
corresponds to this gathering.) One day two of our company were
bidden to a feast of the family, or as Heyaon puts it, of the frater
nity. It is granted to any man that lives to see thirty persons de
scended of his body, alive together, and all above three years old, to
make this feast at the cost of the state. The father of the frater
nity they call the Rosie Crucian.
(Maier said, by the name Rosie
Crucian they mean their founder.) The Rosie Crucian chooses one man
from among his sons to live in the house with him. (This refers to
the fourth lav/ of the Fama instructing each member to choose a fit
successor.) After divineservice the father comes forth with all his
generation of lineage and sits in the chair at the upper end of the
room. There comes in from the lower end a herald with two young lads
one on either side. One carries a parchment scroll, the other a clus
ter of grapes of gold. (The parchment again symbolizes the teachings,
or knowledge, as well as the authority of the father. The grapes
are the fruit of the Tree of Life, which Maier said was human wisdom.)
The scroll is read aloud and is the kings charter, containing gifts
of revenue and privileges to the Rosie Crucian, and is then given to
him. The grapes also are given to the father who gives them to that
son he chose to be in the house with him, who bears it before the
Rosie Crucian as a sign of honor when he goes in public.

The Rosie Crucian retires and then comes forth to dinner. None of the
descendants sit with him unless they be of the Temple of the Rosie
Cross. After dinner the Rosie Crucian retires again to make private
prayers, and then comes forth to give the blessing. He calls his
descendants one by one by name. The person called kneels down and the
father lays his hand on his head, giving the blessing in these words:
"Son (or Daughter) of the Holy Island, thy father speaks the word; the
blessing of the everlasting Father, the Prince of Peace, and the Holy
Dove be upon thee, and make the days of thy pilgrimage good and many."
If there be any sons, not above two, of eminent merit, he calls for
them again and says, laying his arm over their shoulders, "Sons, it is
well you were born, give God the praise, and persevere to the end."
He delivers to him a jewel, made in the figure of an ear of wheat,
which they wear on the front of their turban or hat. This done, they
fall to music and dances and other recreations.
(We have not only the symbol of the grapes, but that of the ear of
wheat which appears in ancient mysteries. It is possible, since the
feast of the family honors a father and his offspring, the celebration
also symbolizes the Chymical Marriage.)
One of the fathers of the Temple of the Rosie Cross came to the city
and sent word to us he would admit all our company to his presence, and
have private conference with one of us that we should choose. I was
chosen, and when we were alone, he spoke to me in Spanish:
I will give you the greatest jewel I have. I will impart to thee for
the love of God and men, a relation of the true state of the Temple
of the Rosie Cross, or Salomon's House. To do this I wrill first set
forth the end of our foundation, secondly, the preparations and instru
ments we have for our works, and thirdly the employments and functions
whereto our fellows are assigned, and fourthly the ordinances and rites
which we observe.
The end of our foundation is the knowledge of causes, and secret motion
of things; and the enlarging of the bounds of human empire, to the
effecting of all things possible,
(Knowledge and philosophy must be
put to practical use.) The preparations and instruments are these. We
have large and deep caves, high towers, lakes, great houses (observa
tories), chambers of health, baths for the cure of disease, orchards
and gardens, parks and enclosures for beasts and birds, pools for fish,
brewhouses, bake-houses, kitchens, shops of medicines, mechanical arts,
furnaces, perspective-houses, sound-houses, perfume-houses, enginehouses, mathematical-houses, houses of deceits of the senses. These
are the riches of the Rosie Crucians.
One of the most important parts of the New Atlantis outlines the employ
ments and offices of the fellows of Salomonrs House, or the Temple of
the Rosie Cross. This may be an allegory on the teachings of the Order
as well as on the structure and function of a scientific society such
as the Royal Society of London later became. It certainly is a prac
tical outline of the working of Bacon's experimental, Inductive method

There are nine groups of fellows, the first consisting of twelve, the
others of three each. The first group sail to foreign countries to
bring back books, experiments, etc. These are called merchants of
light. (Light, of course, symbolizes knowledge, and it is light or
knowledge we must obtain first.) The second group collect experiments
in books and are called depredators. The third, or mystery men, col
lect experiments of mechanical arts and liberal sciences, and prac
tices not brought into arts. (This first section of three groups col
lect information and experiments.)
The fourth group try new experiments, and are called pioneers or min
ers. The nuxt three draw former experiments into tables and titles
to give better light from drawing observations out of them. (in other
words, they report on them.) They are compilers. The sixth group
draw out of experiments things for use in man's life. They apply the
knowledge and are called Dowry-men or benefactors.
(in the second
section, the groups experiment, report, and apply the knowledge. This
same pattern is repeated in the last section, but on a higher level.)
The seventh group direct new experiments of a higher light, and are
called lamps. Three others execute the experiments so directed, and
report on them, and are called inoculators (which means literally to
furnish with eyes). Thu ninth and last group raise former discoveries
into greater observations, axioms, and aphorisms. They are called
Interpreters of Nature.
(Bacon's inductive method is Interpretation
of Nature rather than Anticipation of Nature as he called the old
method. The name of the last group of fellows, then, is a direct
reference to Bacon's inductive method.)
The fellows have consultations to decide what should be published and
what not, and they take an oath of secrecy to conceal what they do not
make public.
(Heydon adds to this section a reference .to two of the
laws of the Fama: Our seal is R. C. and we meet upon the day alto
gether. The fourth rule of the Fama is that every year upon the day
C. they should meet together at the house S. Spiritus. The fifth law
is that the word C. R. should be their seal, mark and character. The
steps of the inductive method are not only the basis of the scientific
method, but of the Rosicrucian method and philosophy. It must be used
for psychic and physical experiments. Furthermore, knowledge is built
up inductively, but on that basis, it is applied by deductive reason
ing, although Bacon does not use that term. And the deduction is as
different from ordinary deduction as Bacon's inductive method from
the ordinary kind.)
The Rosie Crucian goes on: For our rites we have two galleries. In
one are samples of inventions, and in the other statues of principal
inventors. Upon every invention of value we erect a statue to the
inventor, and give him a liberal and honorable reward.
We have certain hymns and services which we say daily of praise and
thanks to God for his marvelous works, and prayers imploring'his aid
and blessing for the illumination of our labors and turning them to
good and holy uses.

As he stood up, I knelt down, and he laid his right hand on my head
and said, "God bless thee, my son, and God bless this relation which
I have made. I give thee leave to publish it, for the good of other
nations, for we here are in GodTs bosom, a land unknown." And so he
left me. (Earlier, Bacon said that the fellows of Salomons House
publish some things and keep some secret. So here, too, we have a
reference to the policy of secrecy in the simple statement, "I give
thee leave to publish it." Before the end of this last paragraph,
Heydon inserted a strange biography of himself. But that may be an
other Rosicrucian puzzle.)
We have now progressed from the beginning of the Philosophical Voyage
and being lost in the wilderness of waters, or the subconscious mind,
to finding the Island of Bensalem, or Apamia as Heydon sometimes calls
it, that is, to finding the Rosicrucian Order. We have seen, in the
form of symbol and allegory, some of the rites, beliefs and accom
plishments of the fraternity. The allegory may be interpreted on
different levels of meaning, and it may apply to the individual stu
dent as well as to the fraternity.
Seventeenth century ideal states such as the New Atlantis were not
just utopian in the sense of being impractical dreams. They were
meant to be realizable in time. They were not castles in the air,
but ideals to strive for. Some writers of these works were connected *
.
with the-Rosicrucian Order, and some were friends of members of the
fraternity. Some were members of the Invisible College which later
became the Royal Society of London. These men were practical reform
ers .
The New Atlantis is said to have been unfinished, and it is interest
ing to speculate on the possibility that Bacon did finish It and pub
lished it either anonymously or under a pseudonym. It might be prof
itable to study other utopias of the seventeenth century with this
idea in mind.
Harringtons Oceana Is a study of governmental and political theory.
Campanellas City of the Sun has some similarities to Bacons work.
In both, it is" learning that is most important, and the head of the
state amounts to a philosopher-ruler. Andrea's Christianopolis Is
even more like the New Atlantis. The Nova Solyma published anonymously
in 1648 has some ideas in common with these, but it concentrates more
on the moral and religious aspects of the state and personal life.
All of these works could very well be considered Rosicrucian in spirit.
Although their similarities are striking, there are things which make
the New Atlantis a work by itself. There is nothing in the otriers to
compare to l) the Allegory of the Ark, 2) the Feast of the Family,
3) the allegorical History of Atlantis, 4) the Duties of the Fellows
of Salomons House. These are the foundation of the mystical and the
scientific ideals of Bacons work. In some ways, the New AtlarTTs~ Ts~
closer to the Fama and Confossio Fraternitatis than to the utopias'
mentioned.
-

y*v: t>S\i r^!':r?i^r?^';rys^-;rrv;r/#Mr/nr^vir?%s^ r^vir?tf\i

r?<vir/*\ir^v: r?a^'r/#x^r?Sxif?N'fr<ft'.r?ivirrih'r^tfv'ifsvirrTav;rPifcv;rPiv;rr^x

ROSICRUCIAN ORDER
A M O R C
TRADE

MARK

Supplementary Monograph
IN

U. S . A.

Th e subject m atter of this monograph m ust be understood b y the reader or student

of same, not to be the official Rosicrucian teachings. These monographs constitute a series
of supplem entary studies provided b y the Rosicrucian Order, A M O R C , both to members
and nonmembers, because they are not the secret, private teachings of the Order.
T h e object of these supplem entary m onographs is to broaden the mind of the student by
presenting him with the w ritings, opinions, and dissertations of authorities in various fields
of hum an enterprise and endeavor. T herefore, it is quite probable that the reader w ill
note at times in these supplem entary m onographs statements made which are inconsistent
w ith the Rosicrucian teachings or viewpoint. But with the realization that they are m ere
ly su pplem entary and that the Rosicrucian Organization is not endorsing or condoning
them, one must take them m erely for their prim a facie value. Throughout the supple
m en tary series the authors or translators of the subject w ill be given due credit whenever
we have knowledge of their identity.

Sirfsti i

r?v.r

.
r?S~fox; r?+\',

fox, ?g\

PRIN TED

(7\U U ^

ROSICRUCIAN PARK, SAN JOSE, CALIFORNIA

"Consecrated to truth and dedicated to every Rosicrucian"

S P E C IA L S U B J E C T

RAD

R -2

889

LECTURE NUMBER

J62_

The following lecture is intended to present the philosophy of a mystic

in a way that will make it understandable to present-day mystics, and
at the same time to retain as much as possible the language and style
of the original work. To this end, the work in question has been ed~
ited and to some extent reworded. Except where explanation seems ob
vious, comments added by the lecturer have been put in parentheses to
distinguish them from the original.
Ruth Phelps, Librarian
MYSTICS FOR MODERNS
The Allegory of the Fama
The Fama Fraternltatis was a Rosicrucian manifesto printed first in
Germany in 1614 and subsequently in several editions. It was, however,
circulated in manuscript form at least as early as 1610. The first
English version was not published until Thomas Vaughans in 1652. Ten
years later John Heydons English Physltlans Guide contained in the
last book a version of the Fama. I have also used one of the manu
script copies of the Fama in the Ashmole collection, and two of the
early German editions. After comparing these editions, I have used the
wording that seems most meaningful. The symbolism of the tomb in the
Fama has been correlated with Bacons division of knowledge. The name
Fama Fraternltatis means the Fame or Report of the Fraternity. It was
an advertisement of the mysterious Rosicrucians and was meant to appeal
to the learned in Europe, who were to show their interest by publishing
communications to the Brethren of the Rosy Cross.
The initials C. R., R. C., or C. R. C. used in various copies of the
works mean Christian Rosenkreutz, the allegorical originator of the
brotherhood. The House of the Holy Spirit is usually given its Latin
name, Sanctus Spiritus, but I have translated such terms into English.
The three levels of symbolism, historical or literal, spiritual or psy
chological, and mystical may be applied to the Fama and the New Atlan
tis. In the Fama these also correspond to the history of the Order in
any cycle, to "its history In a particular cycle, and to the development
of the individual student.
Before we begin the allegory, it might be well to explain a few terms.
The Axiomata of the Fama are basic laws or axioms. Like many such sym
bols, the Axiomata is a multi-level one, referring to the mystical
principles themselves, as well as to interpretations or expressions of
them at a particular time. The term is a symbol for both the princi
ples and a particular oral or written expression of them, such as
Heydons, Maier1s, or Bacon's books. These may vary from cycle to
cycle, while the principles themselves are the same.
The Rota Mundi, or wheel of the world, has been interpreted to mean the
Tarot cards, since if you use R 0 T A as an anagram, you may make
T A R O . But you may just as well get T 0 R A, or the Torah, referring
to the books of Moses. One reference to the Rota in the Fama is par
ticularly revealing. It says rthe Rota began when God spoke, "Let it be

done and will end when he will speak, "Let it be destroyed." Yet
God's clock strikes every minute,
ours scarce strikes perfect
hours. Long before Newtons time, the universe was compared to a piece
of machinery such as a clock. The Rota symbolizes the seemingly me
chanical universe and the application of the Axiomata or principles to
the motion and change in the world. Specifically, it may refer to as
trology or geomancy as a particular expression of the mechanical
principles.

where

Regarding the book M., also conspicuous in the Fama, Michael Maier says
that in it the brethren saw many mysteries, and the anatomy and idea of
the universe, as well as the perfection of all the arts, beginning with
the heavens and descending to lower sciences. Heydon refers to his own
book The Wise-Man's Crown as being the book M. It has been said that
the Latiri"Liber M. means Liber Mundi, or Book of the World, but the M.
may also refer to Moses, meaning the Book of Moses, or Genesis. Since
this is another multi-level symbol, it may very well include all these
meanings. It is a symbolic body of knowledge, as well as an actual
printed book or books which during a particular cycle of activity em
bodies knowledge of that time.
The Book of Nature is a similar multi-level symbol referring to the
whole of nature as a symbolic book, to ancient knowledge symbolized by
reference to Salomon's supposed Natural History, and it may be justi
fiable to include Francis Bacon's Natural History in this symbol.
It seems quite significant that Heydon's Holy Guide begins with a ver
sion of Bacon's allegory the New Atlantis, and the last section of the
book includes Heydon's version of the Fama Fraternltatis.
The first paragraph of the Fama sets the scene for the allegory itself.
Like Bacon's New Atlantis, it begins with a reference to the New World,
"the half part of the world, which was heretofore unknown and hidden."
The New World symbolizes the restoration of the knowledge of the an
cient mystics, for which Rosicrucians work. It is, in the seventeenth
century history, the Baconian-Rosicrucian instauration. Thisparagraph
also makes reference to the renewal of all arts to perfection, which
again, recalls Bacon's Great Instauration, or renewal. We are also
given the aim and purpose, not only of the Fama, but of the Order: To
attain knowledge of Jesus Christ and Nature so that finally man might
thereby understand his own nobleness and worth, and why he is called
Microcosmus, and how far his knowledge extends in Nature. (The Microcosmus is a reference to the hermetic philosophy and the law of corre
spondences, since the Microcosmus is the little world corresponding to
the Macrocosmus or greater Cosmic world.
If the learned were united, says the Fama, they might collect the Book
of Nature, or a perfect method of all arts, whereof (Heydon says) this
is the chief, and therefore called the R. C. Axiomata. The learned,
however, esteem the Pope, Aristotle, and Galen more than the.clear
light of truth. (This too sounds like Bacon's arguments.) To such a
general"reformation the most Godly and highly illuminated Father, our
Brother C. R., the chief and original of our Fraternity has labored.
(The Axiomata is the chief part of the Book of Nature, which is a per
fect method of all arts.)

At five, Prater C. R. was placed in a cloister where he learned Greek

and Latin. (Before he starts his philosophical journey, he has had the
usual classical education of the time.) When he was still In his grow
ing years, on his own desire and request, he was associated to a Broth
er who determined to go to the Holy Land, or, as Heydon has it, Apamia.
(The word Apamia is significant because it is the same one Heydon used
in his version of the New Atlantis for the island of Bensalem, and it
thus links the New Atlantis and the Fama together. Instead of the Holy
Land the German lias Heiligen Grab, holy grave or tomb, so that C. R. at
the beginning of his journey was searching for the Holy Tomb, or the
tomb In the House of the Holy Spirit.) Although this brother died, and
so never came to Apamia, yet Brother C. R. did not return but went to
Damasco, minding from there to go to Apamia.
He remained in Damasco and obtained much favour with the Ishmalites.
(Boehme in I^ysterium Magnum says Ishmael symbolizes the kingdom of na
ture and Isaac 'the kingdom of grace. Christ was represented in Isaac
and Adam in Ishmael. The Ishmaelites, then, would be those who under
stand the book of nature.) He became acquainted with the wise men of
Damcar in Arabia and beheld how nature was discovered unto them. So he
made a bargain with the Arabians that they should carry him to Damcar.
(The word Damcar is spelled at least three ways: Damcar, Damear, and
Damrar. If we omit the fourth letter, and use the rest as an anagram,
we have drama.) There the Wise received him not as a stranger, but as
one whom they had long expected (as Apollonius was received in India).
They called him by his name and showed him secrets out of His cloister,
whereat he could not but mightily wonder. He learned better the Ara
bian tongue, so that the year following he translated (or brought
forth) the book M. into good Latin, and I (says Heydon) have put it
into English wearing the title The Wlse-Man1s Crown, whereunto is added
A New Method of Rosie Crucian Physick. This is the place where Prater
C. R. learnecTTTis physics, mathematics and philosophy.
(The founder of the Fraternity has labored, like Bacon, for the general
reformation. He started out on his philosophical journey in search of
the tomb. The journey, like the voyage in the New Atlantis, is the
symbolic philosophical voyage. He intended to go to Jerusalem or
Apamia, symbolizing the Rosicrucian Order. Like the allegorical head
of the fraternity, each member begins a philosophical voyage when he
joins the brotherhood. He begins searching for and building the sym
bolic tomb or Temple of Wisdom or House of the Holy Spirit. The jour
ney to the East symbolizes the knowledge derived from the East and from
the Arabs of the Middle Ages, and also the Light in the East or the
East of the Temple.)
At this point in the allegory, Heydon inserts a short discourse on
raising the dead, a favorite subject of his. (By this he means concen
tration and meditation which results In freeing the psychic mind' from
the physical, which in turn brings about spiritual rebirth. Perhaps it
symbolizes reincarnation as well.) This is the place where R. C. did
learn his physics and philosophy how to raise the dead; for example as
JL snake cut in pieces and rotted in dung will every piece prove a whole
snake &c. And at last they could restore every Brother that died to
life again, and so continue many Ages. Is it anything else but a part
of man, except his mind, rooted in a continual, even, gentle, moist,

and natural heat? (Heat and rotted in dung represents concentration

and meditation.) Hermes was after this manner raised from death to
life; so was Virgil the Poet. (The physical self, symbolized by the
snake, Is destroyed, Dut'reborn by what the alchemists symbolized as
putrefaction, by meditation and descent into the subconscious psychic
mind.)
After three years C. R. shipped himself into Egypt, where he remained
not long, and then sailed over the Mediterranean Sea to Fez where the
Arabians had directed him. In Fez he found better grounds of his
faith, agreeable with the harmony of the whole world, and thence pro
ceeds that concord, that as in every seed is contained a whole tree or
fruit, so in the body of man is contained the whole great world.
(As
is the great world, so is the small world, man. And just as the seed
contains the whole plant, so man contains within himself the great
world.)
After two years in Fez, Brother C. R. went to Spain, hoping that the
learned in Europe would order their studies according to those sure
foundations (which he had discovered in his journey). So he conferred
with them, showing them the errors of our arts, and how they might be
corrected; also how the faults of the church and the whole moral phi
losophy were to be amended. He showed them new growths, new fruits and
beasts, and prescribed them new Axiomata, whereby all things might be
'fully restored.
(This is the purpose of Bacon's Great Instauration.
No doubt this has been the experience of every man who has begun a cy
cle of the Order's activity. In a smaller way, it is typical of the
experience of the individual members. They are eager to share their
new-found knowledge. But their experience is often that of the alle
gorical Father C. R. C. Their efforts are rebuffed.)
Having showed the learned in Spain the new fruits, etc., it was to them
a laughing matter. Being new to them, they feared their name would be
lessened if they acknowledged their errors, to which they were accus
tomed. Who-so loveth unquietness, let him be reformed. The same song
was sung to him by other nations, which moved him more because he had
not expected it, being ready to impart his arts and secrets to the
learned, if they would have but undertaken to write the true and infal
lible Axiomata of all faculties, sciences and arts. (He would give
them the principles, if they would but write the books containing them
for their own age. Heydon has, instead of, "showing them the errors of
our arts," "showing them the errors of Sodom and Gomorrah," which
emphasizes the allegorical nature of the Fama.)
The true and infallible Axiomata, C. R. C. knew would direct the
learned like a globe or circle to the only middle point the center.
(By the basic principles of the Axiomata the student is led to the core
of knowledge, and to the center of his own being.) It should serve to
the wise and learned for a rule, that there might be a society in Ca
naan which would have gold, silver and precious stones sufficient to
bestow them on kings for necessary use and lawful purposes.
(The jew
els, etc. symbolize the wisdom and knowledge which C. R. C. and the
student have won. They are like the fruit of the tree of knowledge in
Maier and the grapes of the vine in the New Atlantis. With these the
governors might be brought up to learn all that God suffered man to
know, and thereby be enabled to give counsel to those that seek it,

like the heathen oracles.

(The knowledge of the student is to be used
to help others, to give counsel to those that seek it.)
The world in those days was already big with those great commotions,
laboring to be delivered of them; and brought forth painstaking, worthy
men who broke through darkness and barbarism. They have been the up
permost point in the triangle of fire whose flame now should be bright
er and shall give to the world the last Light. (in the time when C. R.
C. was supposed to have lived, about 1400, the world was great with
commotion, that of the renaissance which was truly a rebirth of learn
ing. It experienced a similar growth in Bacon's time. Then, as in
other periods, the philosophical and mystical fraternal orders were the
leaven, so to speak, which caused it. Yet this is not simply a cultur
al rebirth. The great commotion takes place also within the individual.
He too, through his own development and rebirth, creates good works.
Through the teachings he becomes an integrated individual working to
achieve greater harmony in the world.)
Brother C. R., after many travels and fruitless instructions, returned
to Germany. There he built a fitting habitation, upon a little Hill or
Mount, and on the Hill there rested always a cloud, and he did there
render himself visible and invisible at his own will. Here he pondered
his voyage, and philosophy, and reduced them in a true memorial. He
spent a great time in mathematics and made many fine instruments. (Af
ter his disappointment in the learned, C. R. C. went back to his stud
ies. He built himself a fitting habitation, which he called the House
of the Holy Spirit, which is another multi-level symbol. It represents
the student's own sanctum and the body of knowledge he builds for him
self. But it also symbolizes the Rosicrucian teachings, its temples,
and perhaps what we now call the Cathedral of the Soul.)
After five years came again to his mind the wished for reformation, or
return of the children of Israel out of Egypt, how God would bring them
out of bondage with the Instrument Moses. (Again Heydon's Biblical
reference clarifies the allegory. As the Israelites after the Exodus
recreated the Jewish state, so the Order is recreated after each inac
tive period of its cycle. The leader in each cycle corresponds to Mo
ses. In the same way, in each incarnation the student may rebuild his
membership in the mystical fraternity. What leads people out of bond
age, individually or collectively, is the restoration of knowledge
which Brother C. R. C., Francis Bacon, and each Rosicrucian work to
establish.)
Frater C. R. undertook the reformation, and to that end he took out of
his first cloister three of his brethren, and bound them to himself to
be faithful, diligent, and secret. They were to commit to writing all
he should direct and instruct them in, to the end that those who were
to come might not be deceived of the least syllable and word. (Heydon
again inserts the death and rebirth theme.) After this manner began
the Fraternity of the Rosie Cross, first by four persons, who died and
rose again until Christ, and then they came to worship as the star
guided them to Bethlem of Judea, where lay our Savior, and then they
opened their treasure and presented to him gifts, gold, frankincense,
and myrrh, and by the commandment of God went home to their habitation.
These four waxing young again successively many hundreds of years, made
a magical language and writing with a large dictionary, and they made

the first part of the book M. (They made a copy of the teachings for
their own study. The book M. is a complex symbol, meaning the unwrit
ten teachings, as well as those that are given in written form in each
successive cycle, part of which may be published for the world in gen
eral. So, in a sense, each student makes for himself a copy of the
book M.)
Because the labor was heavy, they decided to receive others into the
fraternity, so in all there were eight in number, all Germans except
one. (It is interesting to note that the word german or germane was
used in Bacon's time to mean closely akin or related, or to mean genu
ine or true. Perhaps in the Fama it was intended to be a pun.)
(it is said that Bacon established English as a literary language in
his day. Certainly he was in part responsible for the literary renais
sance of his time. The reference to the magical language may be to his
work, as well as to a secret language. It may also symbolize the lan
guage of the psychic mind, the symbols of psychic experiences and
dreams.)
Although the world is much amended in an hundred years, yet our Axio
mata shall remain to the world's end. The world in her highest and
last age shall not attain to see anything else; for our Rota takes her
beginning from the time God spoke Let it be done, and shall end when he
shall speak, Let it be destroyed. Yet GocFs clock strikes every minute,
where ours scarce strikes perfect hours. (The Rota symbolizes the uni
versal machine, its motion and cycles, and ways of measuring these cy
cles and changes. The mystical principles will remain in spite of
change. They begin and end with God's creation.)
When they had ordered all things in such manner, and when they were suf
ficiently instructed and able to discourse of the secret and manifest
philosophy, they would not remain any longer together. As they had
agreed in the beginning, they separated into several countries so that
their Axiomata might in secret be more profoundly examined by the
learned, and so they might, if they perceived some error or observed
anything, inform one another of it.
(The six laws of the fraternity given at this point were the main topic
of Maier's Themis Aurea. They are not simply rules of conduct, but
principles fundamental to the Rosicrucian philosophy and way of life.
The first rule, that they should profess nothing but to cure the sick
gratis, means that mystics do not live to themselves alone. We are
here not only to develop ourselves, but to help those around us. The
second rule is that none should wear one certain kind of habit, but
follow the custom of the country. They do not set themselves apart by
clothing, or in any other way seem to be special. They live according
to the customs of the people among whom they dwell. The third rule is
important to the life of the Order. It is that every year on the day C.
they should meet together at the House of the Holy Spirit or write the
cause of their absence. It is by meeting together that the work of the
Order is accomplished, that its material and spiritual strength is re
newed. Next, every brother should look about for a worthy successor.
It is self-evident that the Order must be perpetuated by new members.
The word R. C. should be their Seal, Mark, or password, and Character.
The seal and password are symbolic of the ideals and teachings of the

Order, and the members strive to live up to these. The sixth rule is
that the fraternity should remain secret one hundred years, which is a
reference to the active and passive cycles of the Order. This too Is a
basic principle which insures the renewal or rebirth of the brother
hood. )
These six articles they bound themselves to keep, and five of the
brethren departed leaving two to remain with the Father, Frater R. C. a
whole year, so that he had with him all the days of life two of the
brethren. Every year they assembled together with joy, and made a full
resolution of that which they had done.
In this most laudable way they spent their lives. Yet they could not
live and pass their time appointed of God. So they all died, at the
death of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, and their spirits attended
him into glory. (Since the process of integration and the Chymical
Marriage includes death of the self, and the symbolic descent into hell,
the phrase, "they all died at the death of Jesus" symbolizes this death
and descent, while "their spirits attended him into glory" refers to
the Chymical Marriage and union with God. Heydon said in The WiseMan's Crown, "We must die to the world, to the flesh and all the senses
who would enter these closets of secrets because the soul leaves the
body." He meant by this that we must subdue the physical mind and
senses in psychic meditation and attunement. But this too refers to
the seeming death of the self, the descent into the subconscious, the
Dark Night of the Soul which is part of the total process of integra
tion that leads to the Chymical Marriage.)
Now the second row of these men, Heydon's version goes on, by many were
called the wise men of the East; and eighty-one years the secrets of
this fraternity were concealed.
They concluded their burial place-should be kept secret, and at this
day it is not known to us what is become of some of them. Yet every
one's place was supplied with a fit successor. Whatever secrets we
have learned out of the book M. , although before our eyes we behold the
image and pattern of all the world, yet we are not shown our misfor
tunes, nor hour of death, which is known only to God, who thereby would
have us keep in continual readiness. We promise more gold than both
the Indies bring to the King of Spain; for Europe Is with child and
will bring forth a strong child, who shall stand in need of a great
godfather's gift. (The child is still another multi-level symbol, rep
resenting first America as the child of Europe, second the rebirth of
learning, third the Rosicrucian Order's rebirth, and last, the rebirth
of the individual student.)
None of us of the third row or succession had known anything of the
Brother R. C. and his first fellow-brethren than that which was in our
Philosophical Library, amongst which our Axiomata was held for the
chiefest Rota Mundi, for the most artificial, and Protheus the most
profitable.
(This passage may be poorly punctuated to make It confus
ing. Bacon says that Proteus symbolizes matter and Its states.)
Now the true relation of the finding the memory of the Fraternity of
the Rosie Cross is this; Brother N. N. repaired to us to take his sol
emn oath of fidelity and secrecy. The year following, after he had

performed his school right, he was minded now to travel. He thought,

being a good architect, to alter something of his building. In this
renewing (Bacon's instauration again, because we are altering the House
of the Holy Spirit, or the Intellectual Globe) he lighted upon the
memorial table cast in brass, which contained all the names of the
brethren and some few other things. This he would transfer to a more
fitting vault. In the table he struck a great nail, so that when it
was with force drawn out, it took with it a stone out of the thin wall
or plastering of the hidden door. So, unlooked for, he uncovered the
door, wherefore we did with joy and longing throw down the rest of the
wall and clear the door. Upon the door was written in great letters
Post 120 annos patebo (After 120 years I shall be open). We gave
thanks and let it rest that same night, because we would overlook our
Rota first. As our door was after so many years wonderfully discovered,
there shall be opened a door to Europe, when the wall is removed, which
already begins to appear, and with great desire is expected of many.
(The tomb in the House of the Holy Spirit contains the mystical Rosi
crucian teachings passed on from one cycle of activity to another. It
is also a symbolic vault of wisdom opened by each student during his
studies.
notice that the Brother in the Fama did not open it until
a year after he had taken his oath. The tomb is also the symbol of the
beginning of an active cycle of the Order. So the symbol applies to
the individual member and to the Order as a whole. The background of
the meaning of the tomb is the tomb in which Christ was buried after
the crucifixion, Daniel in the lions1 den, Noah's Ark, and the Great
Pyramid of Egypt,'a pyramid-temple. The lions' den was intended as a
'tomb for DahTel'. fee ark 3aved those in it from death in the flood.)
In the morning following we opened the door, and there appeared a vault
of seven sides and corners, every side five foot broad and the height
of eight (Heydon has nine) foot. Although the sun never shined in this
vault, nevertheless it was enlightened with another sun which was situ
ated in the upper part in the center of the ceiling. In the midst, in
stead of a tombstone was a round altar covered with a plate of brass on
which was this engraving:
A.C. R. C. I have made this sepulcher for me a compendium of the one
universe.
Round about the first Circle or Brim stood,.
Jesus is all to me.
In the middle (of the altar) stood four figures inclosed in circles
whose circumscription was:
1.
2.
3
4.

By no means empty.
The yoke of the law.
Liberty of the gospel.
The undefiled Glory of God.

(The compendium, being an abridgment is a little world.)

We kneeled down and gave thanks to the sole wise, sole mighty, and sole
eternal God, who taught us more than all men's wits could have found
out.

This vault we parted in three parts, the ceiling, the wall, and the
ground or floor. Of the upper part you shall understand no more at
this time, but that it was divided according to the seven sides in the
triangle, which was in the bright center. What therein is contained
you that are desirous of our society shall, God willing, behold with
your own eyes. Every wall or side is parted into ten squares, every
one with their several figures and sentences, and set forth here in
this book (Heydon says, meaning the Holy Guide).
The bottom or floor is parted in the triangle, but because therein is
described the power and rule of the inferior Governors, we leave to
manifest the same, for fear of the abuse by the evil and ungodly world.
Those that are provided with the heavenly antidote, they do without
fear tread on and bruise the head of the old and evil serpent (of the
physical self) which this our age is well fitted for. (The knowledge
the fraternity has to offer will help the student overcome or bruise
the head of the serpent symbolizing the physical nature of man.) Every
side of the tomb had a door for a chest where lay divers things, espe
cially all our books, and all the Works of C, R. how he and his breth
ren raised each other to Life again: In those Books were written of
their going to Bethlehem to worship our Savior Jesus Christ, and of the
itinerary and Life of C. R. (The books teach them how, through medita
tion and attunement, to achieve rebirth and the Christ Spirit. But the
reference to being raised to life again may be to reincarnation.) In
other chests were looking glasses, bells, lamps, and chiefly wonderful
artificial songs, which, Heydon adds, they had kept ever since God
Spoke to Moses in the Mount. (The looking glasses, lamps, etc. refer
to objects used in temples and in the student's sanctum.)
They kept the old Testament carefully, and expected Christ to be born;
and chose forty-five more to bear witness to the incredulous world and
superstitious sects that Christ is the Son of God" and was crucified at
Jerusalem! They left these Brethren all the wonderful works of God,
and the Acts of Moses and the Prophets, to the end, that if it should
happen, after many hundred years the Order should come to nothing, they
might by this vault be restored again. (So the vault is for restoring
the Order and its teachings in future cycles.) There is another vault
or habitation of the Brethren in the West of England, and there is re
corded all the New Testament and every chapter explained. (The Order
is restored at the beginning of each active cycle by the contents of
^the tomb or vault, that is, by the teachings which are handed down
through the centuries. The student's knowledge is restored in each
incarnation by the symbolic vault or Temple of Wisdom he builds.)
As yet we had not seen the body of our wise father. We therefore re
moved the altar and lifted up a strong plate of brass, and found a fair
and worthy body, whole and unconsumed. In his hand he held a parchment
book called T, divided into two parts. The first was the Old Testament,
and every chapter interpreted. The other is the Book I, which next to
the Bible is our greatest treasure, which ought (or ought not, depend
ing on which version you read) to be delivered to the censure of the
world. At the end of this book stands the following:
Inscription: A grain planted in the breast of Jesus. C.R.C. sprung
from the noble German family of R. C.; a man admitted into the myster
ies and secrets of heaven and earth through the divine revelations,

subtle cogitations and unwearied toil of his life, etc. (The Rosicru
cian is like a grain planted in the breast of Jesus. Through his own
rebirth, he attains the Christ Spirit, Cosmic Consciousness. We have
had the seed symbol once before, when it said, As in every seed is con
tained a whole tree or fruit, so in the body of man is contained the
whole great world. Man contains within himself the Cosmic. At the
same time, man himself is the seed of Cosmic Consciousness.)
Underneath they inscribed themselves: and here follows a list of ini
tials of members of the fraternity which has puzzled many students of
Rosicrucian literature since. At the end was written:
We are born of God, we die in Jesus, through the Holy Spirit we come to
life again. (We are reborn through the Holy Spirit and the teachings
of the House of the Holy Spirit, or the vault.)
(It seems that this vault in the House of the Holy Spirit has a very
definite symbolism. If Bacon was responsible for the Fama, then the
tomb which represents the teachings of the Order ought to~"correspond to
Bacons analysis of knowledge in his own works. In the plate in the
1640 edition of the Advancement of Learning his division of knowledge
is symbolized by the Two triangles under the pillars^. But besides the
six categories, there is another which is considered In the last book
of his work, and that is what Bacon calls inspired theology or divinity.
(See figures 1 and 2.)
If we draw a plan of the vault as given in the Fama and put in these
seven divisions of knowledge, we have the diagram in Figure X. We will
put the seventh category at the top,_divinity or inspired theology.
Bacon says there are two methods of reason, one by the senses, which we
may call the physical mind, and the other by conscience, which we may
call the psychic mind. .Divinity is connected with knowledge derived
psychically, by revelation or inspiration.
As Bacon's frontispiece does, we shall put ^History, Poesy, and Philoso
phy on the left. These correspond to the three functions of the mind,
memory, imagination, and reason. On the rfght we will have the three
sciences which correspond to God, nature, and man, or natural science,
the science of man, and divine science. This gives us the seven sides
of the vault.
Furthermore, on-each side we may, as Bacon did in the case of the natu
ral science, build a pyramid as shown in Figure 2. The base of the
pyramid is natural history and corresponds to the triangle on the floor
of the tomb. The part next to the base is physics, which corresponds
to the wall, which in the tomb is divided into ten squares. On top of
this is metaphysics which is comparable to the triangle in the ceiling.
And last, the top or cone of the pyramid is the Summary Law, which is
the God of Love, the attraction of matter in the natural science cate
gory. This is the sun in the ceiling, for the Summary Law is the same
in all departments of knowledge. Its application only is different.
Bacon did not confine knowledge to that of the physical self and the
physical world alone, but included the psychic and mystical too. The
symbol of the vault is again multi-level, the floor representing the
more physical aspects and the ceiling and sun the more mystical levels
of knowledge. And the vault, as well as representing knowledge in a

concrete way, does so in a more mystical way too*.

Bacon said, "I am laying a foundation for the holy temple. I have made
a small Globe of the Intellectual World." The temple and the Intellec
tual World are symbols representing the same thing as the House of the
Holy Spirit and the Tomb of C. R. C. They are the teachings of the Or
der, the ancient wisdom which is renewed in each successive rebirth of
the Order, and in each incarnation of the individual. It is the symbol
of the New Philosophy of Bacon's Great Instauration. It is one of the
most profound symbols in Rosicrucian literature.)
The Fama continues: So we have covered it again with the plates and set
the altar thereon, shut the door and made it sure with all our seals.
Finally we departed the one from the other, and left the natural heirs
in possession of our jewels.
We know, after a time there will be a general reformation, both of di
vine and human things, according to our desire and the expectation of
others. It's fitting that before the rising of the sun, there should
break forth Aurora or divine light in the sky. (The activity of the
Order which the Fama heralded was to be the aurora, the dawn before an
even greater cycle.) In the meantime some few may join together to in
crease the number and respect of our Fraternity, and make a wished for
beginning of our philosophical Cannons, prescribed to us by our brother
R. C. They will be partakers with us of our treasures in all humility
and love to be eased of this world's labor, and not walk so blindly in
the knowledge of the wonderful works of God.
Our philosophy is not a new invention (it is, as Bacon put it, an in
stauration or restoration) but as Adam after his fall received it, and
as Moses and Solomon used it, she ought not be doubted. As Jesus is
the true image of the Father, so is our philosophy his image. Wherein
Plato, Aristotle, Pythagoras, and Enoch, Abraham, Moses and Solomon ex
cel, and wherewith the Bible agrees; all these concur together and make
a sphere or globe (Bacon's intellectual globe again) whose parts are
equidistant from the center.
Men of discretion hold that transmutation of metals is the height of
philosophy. Wo therefore publicly testify that the true philosophers
are of another mind, esteeming little the making of gold, which is but
an incidental work, for besides that they have a thousand better things.
We say with our Father C. R. C. that we are glad to see the heavens
open and the angels of God ascend and descend (on the ladder, of
course) and his name written in the book of life. (The gold making is
incidental. What is important is attunement and the Cosmic Conscious
ness. )
In Heydon's version of the Fama, he has inserted an account of a castle
in the West of England, which is in the earth, and not on the earth,
and there the Rosie Crucians dwell; guarded without walls, and possess
ing nothing, they enjoy all things. They have power to renew them
selves, and wax young again, as those' did before the birth of Jesus
Christ.
And there is a vault, but it is bigger than that in Germany, which is
as clear as though the sun in the midst of the day had entered in at

1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.
7.

Divinity
Philosophy
Poesy
History
Natural science
Human science
Divine science

ten windows, yet it is sevenscore steps under ground. There are ten
servants of the Rosie Crucians, fair young men. And C. B. reports
this; I saw a great oven with two mouths, by which four young men made
paste for bread, and two delivered the loaves to other two, and they
sit them down upon a rich cloth of silk. Then the other two took the
loaves and delivered them into one man by two loaves at once, and he
set them into the oven to bake. At the other mouth of the oven, there
was a man that drew out the white loaves and pastes, and before him was
another young man, that received them, and put them into baskets, which
were richly painted.
(White loaves is another symbol for the Philoso
pher^ Stone, but the bread is made from grain symbolizing rebirth.)
C. B. went into another chamber eighty one cubits from this and the
Rosie Crucians welcomed him; for he found a table ready set, and the
cloth laid, and there stood pots of silver, and vessels of gold. And
Heydon goes on describing the fabulous chamber. On the walls were writ
ten and engraven all things, past, present, and to come, and all manner
of golden medicines for the diseased. (Maier's Golden Medicine was a
symbol for the Philosophers Stone. This vault, like the other one,
represents the Rosicrucian teachings.) In this place, Heydon says,
have I a desire to live, if it were for no other reason, but what the
Sophist at sometimes applied to the Mountains. "These the sun salutes
first and deserts last. Who does not love the place. They have longer
days."
According to the will and meaning of Fra. C. R. C. we his brethren re
quest again all the learned in Europe, who shall read this our Fame and
Confession, that it would please them with good deliberation to ponder
this our offer, and to examine most nearly and most sharply their arts,
and behold the present time with all diligence and to declare their
mind.
Whosoever shall earnestly, and from his heart, bear affection unto us,
it shall be beneficial to him in goods, body and soul; but he that is
false-hearted, the same shall not be able in any manner to hurt us but
bring himself to utter ruin and destruction. Also our building shall'
forever remain untouched, undestroyed, and hidden to the wicked world,
under the shadow of thy wings Jehova.

In each cycle of the Orders activity, the wisdom and teachings of the
Order are found in the symbolic tomb. The House of the Holy Spirit is
rebuilt during each cycle and the tomb made for the following one to
discover. In a similar manner, during each incarnation the individual
rediscovers the teachings and creates his own Temple of Wisdom. These
ideas are paralleled by symbols in the New Atlantis, as well as in
works such as Goethes Faust.
We may summarize the steps in the students evolution by comparing them
as they are given in the Fama and the New Atlantis. First is the desire
for knowledge and the beginning of the Philosophical Voyage or Journey.
In the New Atlantis they sail from the New World toward the unknown Far
East. Iln the Fama, C. R. C. journeys to the countries of the East.

The second step may be called the descent into the subconscious and the
death of the self. In the New Atlantis the descent is symbolized by
being lost in the wilderness of waters, and in the Fama by the death of
C. R. C's companion, as well as by the symbol of the snake rotted and
reborn.
The third step is the birth of the inner self and integration of the
duality into a whole. In Bacon's work, after being lost at sea, they
discover the Island of Bensalem or Apamia and are sheltered in the
House of Strangers. There the leader of the group admonishes the men,
"Let us know ourselves. We are men cast on land, as Jonah was out of
the Whale's belly, when we were as buried in the deep." After descent
into the deep of the psychic mind, they find themselves, and integra
tion is symbolized by the island and the period in the Strangers House.
In the Fama self-integration is represented by the building of the
House of the Holy Spirit, and by the part in Heydon1s version which
says that each man was restored to life again. Out of disintegration
comes integration.
The fourth step is destruction, or apparent destruction, of the inner
self, symbolized by the deluge and destruction of Atlantis, and by the
symbol in the Fama, "Each died in Christ." The result is the next or
fifth step, integration with the Cosmic, enlightenment, represented in
the New Atlantis by the Temple in Atlantis and the ladder of Heaven
meaning ascent to the Cosmic, and by the Ark found after the pillar of
fire. This is, of course, the same symbol fundamentally as the opening
of the tomb in the Fama. Both of these works, incidentally, contain
the ladder symbol which Bacon used also in his Ladder of the Intellect
in the Great Instauration. Enlightenment, attunement with the Cosmic,
is the major part of the Chymical Marriage, the first being self
integration.
But this is really only the beginning. Man must return to the world,
both for his own development and to help others. The Fama is primarily
an advertisement for the Order, that they may help others by extending
the knowledge they have to those who are worthy. This corresponds to
the duties of the fellows of Salomon's House in the New Atlantis.
Every mystic must live and work and evolve in the world of everyday
affairs.

VSA3

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ROSICRUCIAN ORDER
A M O R C
TRADE

MARK

T.

Supplementary Monograph
PRIN TED

IN

U . S . A.

kx?/r.v*y:

T h e subject m atter of this m onograph m ust be understood by the reader or student

of same, not to be the official Rosicrucian teachings. These monographs constitute a series
of supplem entary studies provided b y the Rosicrucian Order, A M O RC, both to members
and nonmembers, because th ey are not the secret, private teachings of the Order.
T h e object of these supplem entary m onographs is to broaden the mind of the student by
presenting him with the w ritings, opinions, and dissertations of authorities in various fields
of hum an enterprise and endeavor. T herefore, it is quite probable that the reader wall
note at times in these supplem entary monographs statements made w hich are inconsistent
w ith the Rosicrucian teachings or view point. Rut with the realization that they are m ere
ly su p p lem en tary and that the Rosicrucian Organization is not endorsing or condoning
them, one m ust take them m erely for their p rim a facie value. Throughout the supple
m en tary series the authors or translators of the subject w ill be given due credit w henever
w e have knowledge of their identity.

ROSICRUCIAN PARK, SAN JOSE, CALIFORNIA

"Consecrated to truth and dedicated to every Rosicrucian"

S P E C IA L S U B J E C T

RAD

R -2

659

LECTURE NUMBER

362.

The following lecture is intended to present the philosophy of a mystic

in a way that will make it understandable to present-day mystics, and
at the same time to retain as much as possible the language and style
of the original work. To this end, the work in question has been ed
ited and to some extent reworded. Except where explanation seems
obvious, comments added by the lecturer have been put in parentheses to
distinguish them from the original.
Ruth Phelps, Librarian

MYSTICS FOR MODERNS

Michael Maier
Grand Master of the Rosicrucian Order
Emperor Rudolph II, Michael Maier was
mythology. He no doubt spent much of
on these subjects because he realized
truths contained In spiritual alchemy

in Germany, physician to the

a student of alchemy and ancient
his own money publishing books
the importance of the mystical
and mythology.

Mystics in all ages have frequently found it more understandable to

clothe mystical principles in symbol and allegory. But aside from
this, there were other reasons in the seventeenth century for using
symbols in this way. It was often safer to hide the mystics philoso
phy behind alchemical and mythological symbolism. It might prevent
accusations of atheism and heresy, but it also kept that philosophy
from those who were unworthy of it.
If we are going to understand the literature and history of mysticism,
we must understand the symbolism used to express mystical principles.
What we call Cosmic consciousness was expressed by symbols such as the
Philosopher's Stone, the Golden Medicine, the Tincture. Maier points
out the fact that the meanings of the myths and the alchemical writings
are the same. The labors of Hercules set forth the alchemical process.
So do the adventures of Ulysses and other ancient myths. He is inter
preting the ancient myths In terms of transcendental alchemy. The two
correspond, however, because both the mythology and alchemy come from
the subconscious workings of the human mind. They correspond because
consciously, or unconsciously, they are derived from the same psycholo
gical and psychic processes. They symbolize man's striving for under
standing and enlightenment, his search for the goal of all mystics,
union with God or Cosmic consciousness.
The Fama Fraternitatis, which appeared early in the seventeenth century,
was a manifesto heralding the activity of the Rosicrucians. And it was
the Fraternity of the Rosy Cross which taught the mystical principles
which would enable the student to achieve this goal. It contained
among other things six rules of the brethren of the fraternity. These
rules are discussed In Maier's Themis Aurea or Golden Themis.
Themis was the Greek goddess of lav/ and justice. Maier explains why
he uses this title. The goddess Themis after the deluge was asked by

Deucalion and Pyrrha, the two humans left on earth, how mankind should
again be restored and multiplied. The goddess commanded them to throw
the bones of the Great Mother over their heads. The couple interpreted
the words to mean the stones of the earth, which they did throw over
their shoulders, thereby creating a new race of men. For this Themis
was accounted the first creator of laws.
However, the ancient poets understood Themis1 answer to mean that man
kind was generated by two stones, male and female (representing the
positive and negative polarities), whence proceeds the wonder multi
plication of that Golden Medicine. The man Deucalion and his wife
Pyrrha are the sun and moon. Very few have attained the true knowledge of
the oracle spoken by Themis, because most men take it to be a history
and draw only wholesome morals from it.
The poets thought Themis to be the daughter of heaven and earth, and
celebrated her fame because she constantly administered justice. She
taught men to live justly and contentedly, to shun violence, injuries,
and robbery. They should ask nothing of the gods but what conforms
with honesty and religion, or their prayers would have no good issue.
Themis said furthermore that the great God viewed the actions of men,
whether good or evil, and punished the wicked for their iniquity. He
rewarded the good with a life which shall neither end nor decay.
Although there was never any such Themis, we confess that the true idea
of justice or a universal notion of virtue may in this myth be occultly
insinuated. Out of her spring good laws, and not out of vice, which is
a thing accidental.
(Maier, in speaking of the founder of the fraternity, does not tell us
whether he refers to a particular head of the Order, or to the symbolic
Christian Rosenkreuz.) The laws which the founder of this fraternity
prescribed to the R. C. are all good and just. Their number is six,
which has much of perfection in it. The society is not confused by too
many laws, yet by paucity of them is not tied up from all liberty. The
scope and intention of the laws is the glory of God and the good of
their neighbors.
(Maier then goes on to show that the author of the
laws had the power and authority to make them for himself and others,
and of requiring obedience to them.)
This author was indeed a private man, and no magistrate; but he was
invested with authority to be both lord and father of the society, and
the first author and founder of this Golden Medicine and Philosophical
Orderr* The laws have been kept and observed for many ages, and this
strengthens the first authority.
To some it seems a strange thing that our authors name should not be
known, to which we answer: Our father indeed has lain hid as being long
since dead. His brethren live and retain in record and memory his
sacred name, but because of some secret and weighty reasons, they are
not willing to have his name or person known. They can read the
authors soul in his books, view the true feature in the picture,
judge of the truth of the cause by the effect.
(Note that Maier says
the author has lain hid as being long since dead, not that he was dead.)

Our author is nameless, yet worthy of credit, unknown to the vulgar,

but well known to his own society. Some may ask the reason of his
concealment. Ancient philosophers counted themselves happy in a private
life, and why may not modern enjoy the same privilege. The father
of this fraternity was not so much careful of concealing himself for
his own interest, but for the good of his successors and the whole fra
ternity. Our author and his successors conceal themselves, very well
knowing what a sting honor and popularity carry on their tail.
Now we shall treat of the effects and circumstances of these laws. If
our author was an upright man, these laws which flow from him shall be
good. If reason, nature, and truth had not justified their proceed
ings, doubtless they had long since been ruined and come to nothing.
The brethren have not repented of their condition, neither will they,
being servants to the King of Kings. All the fruits of their labors
they dedicate to him. In the Book of Nature as in the written word,
they read and study Gods omnipotency, his providence, and his mercy.
They account it their duty to help and relieve the poor and oppressed.
It is not necessary that any should know their place of meeting, but
they whom it properly concerns. We are sure that it is not in Utopia,
or among the Tartars, but by chance in the middle of Germany. (The
Order, in other words, is not a utopian dream, nor does it have its
headquarters in a distant country. It is in Germany.) Maier goes on,
Europe seems to resemble a Virgin, and Germany to be her belly. We
know her not to be barren, to have conceived and brought forth this
happy fraternity. Germany at present flourishes and abounds with roses
and lilies growing in philosophical gardens where no rude hand can crop
or spoil them.
(This symbol of birth was used twice in the Fama. Once it says, MThe
world in those days was already big with those great commotions, la
boring to be delivered of them; and did bring forth painful, worthy men,
who brake with all force through Darkness and Barbarism Painful
means painstaking. Later in the Fama we find, "We do promise more gold
than both the Indies bring to the King of Spain; for Europe is with
child and will bring forth a strong child, who shall stand in need of
a great godfather's gift."
(In one case it is "painful and worthy men who are delivered, and in
another "a strong child, who shall stand in need of a great godfather's
gift," and in the third case, the Virgin has conceived and "brought
forth this happy Fraternity," and she yet teems with rare and unknown
arts and sciences.) We mean, the Themis Aurea continues, Germany which
at present flourishes and abounds with Roses and Lilies, growing in the
Philosophical gardens where no rude hand can crop or spoil them. (This
is the philosophical garden to be found in Maier's Atalanta Fugiens,
and in one of Heydon's books.) In this garden are the Hesperian nymphs
from which Hercules took the golden apples, and also the bulls of
Geryon whom Hercules also got away with. Here is the Golden Fleece and
the sheep and oxen of the sun called Pecudes. (This may be taken to
mean that Germany is the garden where the fraternity grows, or that the
fraternity is the garden where is found the Golden Medicine, the Rose
Tree.)

The means by which these things were deduced from their first author
are declared in the Fame and Confession and other writings. He brought
them first from Arabia into Germany. These made the first part of the
Book called M. which was afterward translated out of Arabic into Latin.
Out of the Book M. they learned many mysteries, and in it as in a glass
they clearly saw the anatomy and idea of the universe. Doubtless
shortly they will let the Book M. come abroad into the world, that
those who covet after knowledge may receive satisfaction; indeed, Maier
believed that day was at hand. As the ebbings and flowings of the sea
carry much wealth to divers kingdoms, so these secrets coming into
public view, having much in them of the worlds harmony may yield us no
less profit and content. Neither, says Maier, has it been known that
two have been so much alike as this to the M.; yes, this F. is the M.;
neither must we expect another M.
The first law of the fraternity is that those brethren who travel shall
profess medicine and cure gratis without any reward.
(Several chapters
are devoted to this, and they show Maiers interest in and knowledge of
medicine. It is impossible to even summarize them here, so I shall
concentrate on some of the symbolic elements in connection with the
first law.)
The brethren compound the medicine which they administer, it being, as
it were, the marrow of the great world. To speak more plainly, their
medicine is Prometheus; his fire, which by assistance of Minerva he
stole from the sun and conveyed to man. This fire was spread over all
the world conducing to the good both of body and mind, freeing the one
from infirmities and the other from grievous passions. Nothing more
cheers and gladdens the heart of man than this Universal Medicine. Its
ingredients are precious stones made into a powder and leaf gold, and
it is commonly called true heart powder. A fourfold fire is required
to bring this medicine to perfection, and if one of them is wanting,
the whole labor is lost.
After considering the faults of many physicians, Maier says: The Book
M. declares the skill of the brethren as well in other arts as in
medicine. If any one please to consult their other books, and weigh
diligently their nature and all circumstances, he shall find what we
have said abundantly there confirmed.
The second law is that none of the brethren shall be commanded to wear
one habit, but may suit themselves to the custom and mode of those
countries in which they are. By this law, the brethren are secure and
fear no danger. Without it they would have no opportunity of doing
good, and it therefore gives birth to the first lav;. Being inconspic
uous in clothing, they are free to help others. In history, many have
been discovered by their enemies from their apparel, whereas disguise
has often procured liberty. Besides, a poor habit is sufficient to
cover learning, and a cottage may become wisdoms habitation.
If the intentions are sincere not to wrong anyone but to do good, we
may allow not only change of clothes but a change of names. The sign
does not alter the thing signified. Names are notes by which one man

is known and distinguished from another. Clothes are coverings.

hides our nakedness, the other keeps from obscurity.

One

The third law commanded each brother to appear on a particular day at

a certain place every year that they may all meet together and consult
about their affairs.
Every society has laws and rules binding them to some duties. Their
governor may summon all to one place when he pleases, to consider
what is most fit to be done. If a company is separated, their counsels
are disjoined, and one cannot be helpful to the other either in example
or advice. The Brethren of the R. C. at their convention relate what
rare cures they have done, what progress they have had in the arts and
sciences, and observe how their practice agrees with their principles.
If any new knowledge is confirmed by experience, they write it in
books that it may safely come to the hands of their successors. (This
is reminiscent of Francis Bacons New Atlantis and the duties of the
fellows of Solomon's House.)
Ancient philosophers have searched after experimental knowledge and
studied nature more than art,^more^the thing than the signification and
name, such as the Magicians among the Persians, the Brahmans amid the
Indians, andcthe priests in Egypt, and now the Brethren
fe. c. in
Germany. They assemble to vindicate abused nature, to settle truth in
her power, and chiefly that they may with one accord return thanks to
God for revealing such mysteries to them.

of

We cannot set down the places where they meet, neither the time. I
have sometimes observed Olympic Houses not far from a river and a
known city which we think is called^S. Spiritus. I mea n Helicon or
_Parnassus in which Pegasus opened a"spring of overflowing water, where
in Diana washed herself, to whom Venus was handmaid and Saturn gentle
man usher. This will sufficiently instruct an intelligent reader but
more confound the ignorant.
(The S. Spiritus refers to the Domus Sanctus Spiritus, House of the
Holy Spirit of the Fama Fraternltatls. It is an Olympic House, meaning
it is ji_ symbolic house, the abode of the /yds . as Olympus was. On
Parnassus, the winged horse Pegasus, who represents fame, opened the
spring Hippocrene. It was on Parnassus that Deucalion and Pyrrha
landed after the deluge. The fraternity is an actual group existing
in Germany, but the Sanctus Spiritus is a symbolic house on Parnassus.)
The fourth law is that every brother shall choose a fit person for his
successor after his decease, that the fraternity may be continued. In
choosing such a person, they look to qualifications, such as learning,
secrecyj piety, and the like. The philosophers would have mysteries
revealed to none but those who God Himself shall enlighten. We may
lament the loss of ..secrets which being written have been burned, or
not written have be"en forgotten. For the prevention of both, it is
convenient that they should be entrusted to a few hands and by them
carefully be transmitted to others. That all who desire the fraternity
are not chosen is not the fault of the fraternity. In royal courts,
they are promoted who are most pleasing to their princes.

The fifth law is that the letters R. C. shall be their seal, character,
and cognizance. The Egyptians had two sorts of letters, one called
_hieroglyphic which were holy and known only to the priests. The other
were profane and commonly known. The holy were images of animal,
vegetable and mathematical figures. The_profane were made by lines as
the Greek and Hebrew. Hieroglyphics were signs and characters of deep
knowledge which none migK't expound to others under oath and the pleasure
of the Gods. The phoenix, properly belonging to chemistry, was ac
counted a creature dedicated to the sun, and this emblem agrees with
all the holy marks. So likewise the R. C. have diverse letters to dis
cover
their
minds to their friends and ^ to conceal
it from
others.

....................

. .
Their characters are R. C. which they use that they may not be without
name, and everyone according to his capacity may put an interpretation
upon the letters, as soon as their first writing come forth. Shortly
after they were called Rosie Crucians, for R. may stand for roses and
C. for cross, which appellation yet remains, although the brethren have
declared that thereby they symbolically mean the name of their first
author.
Each order has its formalities, coat of arms, or emblem. The brethren
have the letters R. C., and as some'of the others are hieroglyphics
and serve to cover mysteries, so the brethren have a particular intention in this. R. Signifies Pegasus, C. Iullum if you look not to the
letter but right interpretation. Have" a key to open secrets and at
tain the true knowledge thereof. D. wmml. zu. w. fgqq hka x_, under
stand if you can. You need make no further search. Is not this a
claw of the Rosy Lion, a drop of Hippocrene? Yet I have not been so
unfaithful as- to puBTisTT their holy mysteries. I rather take R. for
the substantial part, C. for the adjective.
The sixth and last law is that the Fraternity of the R. C. shall be
concealed a hundred years. (in the Fama it said on the tomb of C. R.
C. after 120 years I shall be open.) The brethren are thought guilty
for concealing themselves, because they might do more good if they
were known. But they travel, and like all wise men, they acknowledge
no particular country_but .the whole world as"their own native soil.
The Scripture calls men pilgrims who have no true country but heaven.
TEelr actions become those who hope to appear in heaven though they
are obscure below.
The 4rst autho- by this law would give the world time to lay aside
thelr^vanities , folly, and;.'"madness, and by that time be fit to receive
such knowledge. Every man that has eyes may see a great and happy
change in the world, that many rare inventions are discovered, many
abuses of the arts rectified. They shall shine to perfection, and
what then should hinder the name of that fraternity being published
in the Fama Confesion and other books?
The poets report of Anteus that, fighting with Hercules, when he was
beaten to the ground recovered strength and was always victorious.
Hercules, finding out this mystery, caught him in his arms and held
him aloft, crushing him to death. Maier explains the allegory this

way: Hercules means a skillful philosopher, and Anteus the subject to

be wrought upon, in which are contrary qualifications. This matter is
not easily known, because it lies hid everywhere, and at the same time
lies open. Understand the first in respect of men's intellects, and
the other in respect of sense. Even if it were known, the preparation
is so difficult that little good can be expected. The philosophical
earth is his parent whose virtue (meaning power) is not easily at
tained. Hence it is that this Anteus is secretly strengthened from
his mother, and all endeavor of killing him is in vain.
(Anteus is the matter from which the Philosopher's Stone is made, the
self that must be transmuted. The matter is hidden from the intellect
but open to the sense. Until it is separated from the sense, its
preparation is impossible. Transmutation, like attunement, necessi
tates withdrawal of the mind from the material world of the senses.
The mind must be held off the ground like Anteus.)
The Fraternity of R. C. have overcome Anteus. They have sufficiently
declared the Herculean strength, the wit of Mercury, the providence
of Prometheus. This is the knowledge in which the fraternity is
skilled, fetched from the innermost depths of nature, which to neglect
or to suffer to perish were folly and madness.
They who voyage to the East Indies make special note of any springs
of fresh water they find so that others travelling that way may benefit
from them. So In the philosophical voyage, having gotten a fountain
sending forth pleasant streams, how great reason is there that this
should be highly esteemed and valued. I mean here the philosophers'
living water and not any dead, which when once attained, the business
will succeed. For the whole work is perfected by one artifice, by
one way, by one fire which is natural (not neglecting the other three,
unnatural, against nature, and occasional) in one vessel, at one time,
with one labor, which must be cautiously understood.
The Book M. always in the hand and mind of the fraternity, and trans
mitted to posterity, sufficiently lays open the knowledge of this
nature, in which book is contained the perfection of all the arts,
beginning with the heavens and descending to lower sciences. For the
mind of a wise man covets after the knowledge of all truths, to confute
errors, and to adorn itself with glory and excellency. But this is not
obtained by idle vain speculation, but by diligent practise, which is
the only true wisdom.
The brethren neither dream of, hope for, nor endeavor any reformation
in the world by religion, but that they both acknowledge and show
themselves lovers of truth and justice. Are there not many even in
our age, who being ambitious to be ringleaders in new ways, instead
of a reformation, have disturbed all order and law? They would have
religion and learning suit their fantastical opinions. These people,
when they heard of the society, thought their desires would be ful
filled, and they doubted not but that they would employ their talents
for the Universal Reformation in the world. Therefore they promised
themselves one empire, one religion, unity and concord. But in these
things they were belled and abused. The brethren did not assert any
such thing.

Out of their books something may be gathered about the reformation of

the arts which was endeavored by their first author about 217 years
ago, or about 1400, and at that time they had need of a reformation;
witness the labor and study of eminent men as Rudolphus Agricola,
Erasmus of Rotterdam, D. Lutherus, Philippus Melanchthonus, Theop.
Paracelsus, Joh. Regiomontanus, Copernicus, with many others. No
doubt the arts may be more increased, their luster more polished and
many more secrets discovered. But herein religion is not at all
concerned. But let Rome return to the right way. So may a reformation
be produced, and piety and religion shall flourish. Such a reformation
belongs more to God than man, who can turn the hearts of men at his
pleasure. However, the brethren count it their duty to pray for and
expect such a reformation. The business lies more in the enlightening
of the understanding than changing the will, which is God's own work.
As it is impossible to separate the heat from the fire, so it is im
possible to separate virtue from this society. They bestow their time
in duty to God, in diligent search of the Scripture, in charity, in
healing gratis, in experimenting the secrets of nature. They have
the true astronomy, the true physics, mathematics, medicine, and
chemistry by which they are able to produce rare and wonderful effects.
They are very laborious, frugal, temperate, secret, true, and make it
their business to be profitable and beneficial to all men. When we
have spoken the highest commendations, we must confess our insuffi
ciency to reach their worth.
(As the Themis Aurea gives the laws of the fraternity, so Atalanta
Fugiens, or Atalanta Fleeing, gives the search for the Philosopher's
Stone or the Golden Medicine.)
Atalanta, swift and beautiful, was warned against marriage by an or
acle. She met her suitors by challenging them to a race. Those whom
she defeated were killed. If she were defeated, she would marry the
victor. Hippomenes challenged her, and during the race dropped one by
one three golden apples which Atalanta stopped to pick up, thereby
losing the race.
Maier's book consists of fifty engravings, each with a caption at the
top, an epigram under the picture, and a discourse following. In the
original edition of l6l7> the epigrams were accompanied by three part
fugues, some of which are reproduced in Read's Prelude to Chemistry.
The second edition, Secretoris Naturae Secretorum ScrutTnium Chymicum.
. . published in 1687* is the same except that it does not have the
music. The book was adapted to the eyes, the understanding, the ears,
and the refreshment of the mind.
Part of the Emerald Tablet of Hermes reads, "As all things were pro
duced by the one word of one Being, so all things were produced from
this one thing by adaptation. Its father is the sun, its mother the
moon; the wind carries it in its belly, its nurse is the earth. It
is the father of perfection throughout the world."
Maier's first caption is, The wind carries it in its belly, The
second one is, The earth is its nurse. He brings out a similar point

later when he says, The stone is projected from the earth, and exalted
in the mountain, lives in the air, and is nourished in the river. The
emblem, which is number 3 6 , is a pleasant landscape, having three
stones in the air, four in the water, five in the earth, and six in
the mountain. (This thing we seek is to be found in all four elements,
or in all aspects of life and being. The fire refers to the meditation
and attunement by which we achieve Cosmic consciousness.)
Join together the brother and sister (the positive and negative
elements) and give them the cup of love. (The Emerald Tablet says its
father is the sun, and its mother the moon. Again the sun and moon
symbolize the two polarities. Man must unite the duality within him
self to attain integration and Cosmic consciousness.)
The young bird flies from the nest and falls back into it in emblem
number seven. It ascends from earth to heaven and descends again to
earth. (Like the bird, in attunement and meditation, man learns to
ascend and descend. This is the same idea represented in Thomas
Vaughan's metaphor of the water being drawn up into the sky and
falling to earth again as dew and rain. The consciousness of man
rises in meditation and falls back to earth again, but, like the bird,
man must learn to do this.)
(The book, Behold the Sign, by Ralph M. Lewis contains a few of the
emblems from Atalanta Fuglens. On page 92 of the former is the old
philosopher. The caption in Maierfs book says, Enclose the tree with
the old man in the bedewed house and he is made young again eating
its fruit. Later the author says, The fruit of the tree of life is
human wisdom.
The fourteenth emblem, reproduced in Behold the Sign on page 89, is
the dragon eating its tail. Maier says he will' be tamed by the sword,
by hunger, and imprisonment till he completely devours and recreates
himself again. (The dragon, like the phoenix, is reborn out of his
own destruction. So man is not only reincarnated on earth, but re
born spiritually out of the apparent death of the self. This is the
Dark Night of the Soul, the descent into Hades, or into the whale.
Through this, man is integrated within himself and achieves Cosmic
consciousness. Then the dragon is reborn and the symbol represents
reborn man, and also wisdom, eternity, and the wholeness of the uni
verse, as well as of man.)
The dragon, we are told, does not die unless it is destroyed by its
brother and sister, which are the sun and moon. (This emblem is on
page 93 in Behold the Sign. Man himself, the brother and sister or
psychic and physical parts of the being, must destroy the dragon
in order to achieve Cosmic consciousness.)
One emblem shows a lovely garden. Who undertakes to enter the rose
garden without the key of philosophy is like the man wanting to walk
without feet. The tree of life with the fruit of human wisdom is In
the center of the garden.

On page 97 in Behold the Sign is the emblem number 21 in Maier's book.

It shows an adept"with a compass drawing on a brick wall a large
circle, which has other figures within it, as explained below. The
caption says, Make from man and woman a circle, from there a quad
rangle, and from here a triangle; make a circle and you will have the
Philosophers Stone.
(In the center are the man and woman corresponding to the sun and
moon and representing the duality of man. They are in the small
circle symbolizing the microcosm. This in turn is in a square which
represents the four elements and stability in matter. The square is
inside a triangle symbolizing the perfection of creation, while the
outer circle symbolizes the macrocosm, the greater world. This is
explained in Behold the Sign. We may, however, interpret the symbol
in another way too. TFTe Chymical Marriage is twofold. The small
circle in the symbol represents the Integration of the self. This
self-integration must occur in the material world symbolized by the
square. The triangle means the perfect expression of the unified
man on the earth plane. The greater circle represents the last step
in the Chymical Marriage, man's union with the Cosmic. So the emblem
symbolizes the relation of the microcosm and macrocosm, and the two
fold Chymical Marriage. This is the Philosopher's Stone, or the Gold
en Medicine. It is this that the members of the Fraternity of R. C.
achieve by their knowledge of mystical, Rosicrucian teachings.)

1
Ft

p*

ROSICRUCIAN ORDER
A M O R C
TRADE

MARK

Supplementary Monograph
PRIN TED

IN

U . S . A.

T h e subject m atter of this monograph m ust be understood b y the reader or student

of same, not to be the official Rosicrucian teachings. T h ese monographs constitute a series
of supplem entary studies provided b y the Rosicrucian Order, A M O R C , both to members
and nonm em bers, because they are not the secret, private teachings of the Order.
T h e object of these supplem entary m onographs is to broaden the m ind of the student b y
presenting him w ith the w ritings, opinions, and dissertations of authorities in various fields
of hum an enterprise and endeavor. T herefore, it is quite probable that the reader w ill
note at times in these supplem entary m onographs statements made which are inconsistent
W 'ith the Rosicrucian teachings or view point. Rut w ith the realization that they are m ere
ly supplem entary and that the Rosicrucian O rganization is not endorsing or condoning
them, one m ust take them m erely for their prim a facie value. Throughout the supple
m en tary series the authors or translators of the subject w ill be given due credit whenever
w e have knowledge of their identity.

CAAiU^

ROSICRUCIAN PARK, SAN JOSE, CALIFORNIA

"Consecrated to truth and dedicated to every Rosicrucian"

S P E C IA L S U B J E C T

RAD

LECTURE NUMBER

364

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The following lecture is intended to present the philosophy of a mystic

in a way that will make it understandable to present-day mystics, and
at the same time retain as much as possible the language and style
of the original work. To this end, the work in question has been ed
ited and to some extent reworded. Except where explanation seems
obvious, comments added by the lecturer have been put in parentheses to
distinguish them from the original.
Ruth Phelps, Librarian

MYSTICS FOR MODERNS

Thomas Vaughans Mystical Writings
The first works of Thomas Vaughan appeared in 16 5 O and were mystical
and alchemical. Thomas was the younger brother of Kenry Vaughan, the
metaphysical poet, and he used the name Eugenius Philalethes, not to be
confused with Eirenaeus Philalethes. Thomas Vaughans works were ed
ited by Waite and published in 1919. VJhat follows is a summary of some
of the more important ideas and principles.
All compositions are made by an active, intelligent life. What was done
in the composure of the great world in general, the same is performed
in the generation of every creature.
The building of the sanctuary which is here below is framed according
to that sanctuary which is above. There are two worlds, visible and
invisible. So there are two universal natures, visible and invisible,
out of which both these worlds proceeded. The passive universal nature
was made in the image of the active universal one, and the conformity
of both worlds or sanctuaries consists in the original conformity of
their principles.
There is an universal agent, Who, when He was disposed to create, had
no other pattern whereby to frame and mould His creatures but Himself.
But having infinite inward ideas or conceptions in Himself, as He con
ceived so He created. That is to say, He created an outward form an
swerable to the inward conception of His mind. There is an universal
patient, and this passive nature was created by the universal agent.
This general patient is the immediate, universal character of God Him
self in His unity and trinity. It is that substance which we commonly
call the first matter.
(The agent and patient are positive and negative polarities. The her
metic principle as above, so below may be reworded*, as within, so
without ; as the conception, so the creation; as creator, so the
created; as the spiritual or psychic, so the material.)
There are two natures, material and spiritual. One nature may be seen
with eyes and felt with hands and is subject to alteration In every

moment. It is the first, visible, tangible substance that God made. It

is white in appearance. The fire of nature is her husband, and she is
mother to animals, vegetables, and minerals. She has been called the
twofold Mercury and Azoth, begotten by influences of two globes, celes
tial and terrestrial. The second nature is incorruptible, constant,
one and the same forever, and always existent.
(The first nature is
comparable to Spirit, the second to the Vital Life Force.)
Nature has two extremes and between them a middle substance. The first
extreme was a cloud or darkness, the invisible chaos. This is the En
Sof outwardly, and is the Orphic night. Out of this darkness, all
things in this world came. The middle substance is the water into which
that night or darkness was condensed, and the creatures framed out of
the water made up the other extreme. Man therefore must recede to one
of the two extremes, either to corruption as men commonly do, or to a
spiritual, glorified condition like Enoch and Elijah.
In Euphrates Vaughan says, There is nothing above but the very same is
also here beneath, but in a more gross, material complexion. For God
has ordained that the gross and corpulent seed of inferiors should
afford a body to the animating and subtle influx of their superiors.
(in other words, the body receives the soul.) Heaven is on earth, but
after the manner of earthly things, and earth is in heaven but after the
manner of things celestial. (Both positive and negative polarities mani
fest in both Cosmic and earthly realms.) Therefore in this universe are
four luminaries. Two are celestial and two are central. The clestial
are the sun and moon, and they are known to all the world. The central
are not known and therefore not believed, for the one is overcast with
earth and the other with water. In the center of the earth there is
hid a fire which is of nature solar, but more gross than that which is
in the sun. In the water is carried a viscous, gross air, or lunar
nature, but not so bright and subtle as that which is in the moon.
Thus there are four luminaries brought together, the superior contrib
uting that to the seed which is subtle and vital, and the inferior
that which is corpulent and material. The seed is carried invisibly in
the wind and is manifested in water, and out of water it must be drawn
for there is not under heaven any other body where it may be found.
(The superior or celestial luminaries contribute the subtle and vital,
or the psychic nature. They refer to the two polarities of the Vital
Life Force. The central or inferior luminaries contribute the material
part of the seed and correspond to Spirit. We have the following dia
gram:
NOUS
VITAL LIFE FORCE
SPIRIT
Plus
Minn.s
Plus
Minus
Celestial Sun
Celestial Moon
Central Sun
Central Moon
Psychic Mind
Psychic Bcdy
Physical Body
Physical Mind)

Dionysius the Areopagite styles God the Father "the arcanum of Divinity
"that hidden, supersubstantial Being." Elsewhere he compares Him to a
root whose flowers are the second and third persons. This is true, for
God the Father is the basis or supernatural foundation of His creatures.
God the Son is the pattern in Whose express image they were made. God
the Holy Ghost is the Creator Spirit, the Agent Who framed the creature
in just symmetry to his Type. (These correspond to the idea, word, and
expression in the Sepher Yezirah, and to sulphur, mercury, and salt.)
God the Father is the metaphysical, supercelestial sun. The second
person is the Light, the third is Fiery Love, proceeding from both.
Without the presence of the Fiery Love there is no reception of the
Light, and no influx from the Father of Lights. God, before His work
of creation, was wrapped up and contracted in Himself. (This is like
the nolunty of Fludd's philosophy, while the emanation is volunty.)
When the instant of creation came, the first emanation was that of the
Holy Ghost into the bosom of matter. Then the pattern of the whole
material world appeared in those primitive waters, like an image in a
glass. By this pattern the Holy Ghost framed the universal structure.

nature} the

As God is unity with triune nature, so

elements, and man
are threefold unity. The great world consists of three parts, elemental,
celestial, and spiritual, above which is God. So man has in him his
earthly elemental parts, together with the celestial angelical nature,
in which moves and shines the Divine Spirit.
The normal part of man is that whereby we move, see, feel, taste, and
smell, and have commerce with all material objects. Next to the
sensual nature of man is the angelical or rational spirit. It adheres
sometimes to the superior portion of the soul, and then it is filled
with the Divine Light. More commonly it descends into the inferior
portion where it is altered by the celestial influences and distracted
with affections and passions of the sensual nature. Above the rational
spirit is the Mens or hidden intelligence, the superior portion of the
soul, the illuminated intellect. This is the spirit which God breathed
into man and by which man is again united to God.
There is another triplicity, which is the key to all magic, and without
which you cannot understand the idioms of nature. The first principle
is pure, white virgin, the first created unity. By this all things
were made. The second principle differs from the first not in sub
stance and dignity but in complexion and order. It was the first and
is so essentially still. By adhesion to the matter it contracted an
impurity and fell from its first unity. The third principle is
properly no principle but a product of art. It consists of inferior
and superior powers and is the magician's fire, the Mercury of the
philosophers.
(These are the three principles shown in one of the
plates in the Secret Symbols of the Roslcrucians.)
There are four elements. Each of them is threefold, so the number four
makes up the number twelve. In the first order are the pure elements,
neither compounded nor changed. Of the second order are elements that

are composite, manifold, various, impure, though reducible by art to a

pure simplicity. The third order of elements are not elements in
reality, being twice compounded and changeable, so they are called the
middle nature, or soul of the middle nature.
Every element is threefold. There is a threefold earth. First,
there is elementary earthy then there is celestial earth, and lastly
there is spiritual earth. The influences of the spiritual earth, by
mediation of the celestial, are united to the terrestrial and are the
true cause of life and vegetation. These are the three fundamentals of
art and nature.
The first is a visible tangible substance, pure, fixed, incorruptible,
cold, dry, and consequently a fit receptacle of moisture. This is the
Created, Aleph or the true Adamic Earth. It answers to God the Father,
being the natural foundation of the. creature, as He is the supernatural.
Second_is _the celestial earth. The second principle is the infallible
magnet, the mystery of union. By this all things may be attracted,
whether physical or metaphysical, be the distance never so great.
This is Jacob's Ladder. Without this there is no ascent or descent,
either influential or personal. This answers to God, the Son, for it
is that which mediates between extremes and makes inferiors and superi
ors communicate. Third is the spiritual earth. The third principle is
properly no principle. It is not~~Trfrom which11 but >fby which all things
are," This can do all in all. It answers to the Holy Ghost, for among
naturals it is the only agent and artificer.
The earth is the remains of that primitive mass which God formed out of
darkness and is feculent, impure. It is spongy, porous, and magnetical.
She is nature's Etna. Here vulcan exercises himself. We have
astronomy under our feet. The stars are resident with us. The superi
or natures engulf themselves into the earth. What she receives this
age she discovers to the next.
The water is the first element we read of in scripture, the most
ancient of principles, and the mother of all things amongst visibles.
Without mediation of water, earth can receive no blessing, for moisture
is the cause of mixture and fusion. Here below, in the circumference
of all things, it is volatile and crude. So nature rectifies it,
exhaling it up with her heat, and then condensing it to rains and dews
in which state she uses it for nourishment. Somewhere it is interior,
vital and celestial, exposed to the Breath of the First Agent, and
stirred with spiritual winds. In common elemental water there are
hidden treasures, but so enchanted we cannot see them.
Air is a miraculous hermaphrodite, the cement of two worlds and a medley
of extremes. It is nature's index where you may find all that ever she
did or intends to do. It is the world's panegyric, and the excursions
of both globes meet here. It is the sea of invisible things, for all
conceptions of the higher nature wrap themselves in this tiffany before
they embark in the shell.

The fourth.essence is a moist, silent fire. It passes through all

things in the world and is nature1a chariot. In this she rides. When
she moves, this moves, and when she stands this stands like the wheels
in Ezekiel, whose motion depended on that of the spirit. This is the
mask and screen of the Almighty. Wherever He is, this train of fire
attends Him. This fire is the vestment of the Divine Majesty, His
back which he showed to Moses, but his essence none may see and live.
(To summarize, we have one God, two natures, three principles, and four
elements:
GOD
DIVINE
NATURAL
SPIRITUAL CELESTIAL
ELEMENTAL
FIRE
AIR
WATER
EARTH)
True knowledge, says Vaughan, quoting "he to whom the Brothers of R. C.
gave the title of Sapiens," the wise one, True knowledge begins when
after a comparison of the imperishable with the perishable, of life
and annihilation, the soul, yielding to the superior attraction of that
which is eternal elects to be made one with the higher soul. The mind
emerges from that knowledge and as a beginning chooses voluntary
separation of the body, beholding with the soul, on the one hand, the
foulness and corruption of the body, and on the other, the everlasting
splendor and felicity of the higher soul. Being moved thereto by the
Divine inbreathing, and neglecting things of the flesh, it yearns to be
connected with this soul. It desires that which it finds comprehended
by God in salvation and glory. But the body Itself is brought to
harmonise with the union of both.
This is that wonderful philosophical transmutation of body into spirit
and of spirit into body about which an instruction has come to us from
the wise men of old: Fix that which is volatile and volatilize that
which is fixed, and you shall attain our Mastery. The wise man seeks
that he loves and loves only that which he knows. Otherwise he would
be a fool. Out of knowledge comes love, the truth of all, which alone
is esteemed by all just philosophers.
Learn from within yourself whatever is in heaven and on earth, that
you may become wise in all things. Heaven.-and the elements were once
one substance and were separated one from another by Divine skill for
the generation of yourself and all that is. In every generation, such
a separation is necessary. You will never make out of others that one
thing which you need unless first you shall make out of yourself that
one of which you have heard. This is the true mystery of regeneration
or the spiritual death.
(The following, on spiritual ascent or attunement, and the allegory of
the mountain given later in the discourse, should be read in connection
with the Secret Symbols of the Rosicrucians.)
Let us go up into that high mountain before us, from the pinnacle of
v/hich I will show you that place where two ways meet, of which Pythag-

oras spoke in cold and darkness. Our eyes are opened. Now shines
the sun of holiness and justice, guided by which we cannot turn aside
from the way of truth. Let thine eyes look first upon the right path,
lest we behold vanity before wisdom is perceived. See you not that
shining and impregnable tower? Therein is Philosophical Love, a foun
tain from which flow living waters, and he who drinks thereof shall
thirst no more after vanity. From that most pleasant and delectable
place goes a plain path to one more delightful still, wherein Wisdom
draws the yoke. Out of her fountain flow waters far more blessed than
the first, for if our enemies drink thereof, it is necessary to make
peace with them. Most of those who attain here direct their course
still further, but not all attain the end. Whoever advances beyond
these three regions passes from the sight of men. If it be granted us
to see the second and the third, let us seek to go further. Behold,
beyond the first and crystalline arch, a second arch of silver, beyond
which is a third of adamant. But the fourth comes not within our vi
sion
the third lies behind us. This is the golden realm of abid
ing happiness, void of care, filled with perpetual youth.
(This is the
end of the quotation from the Brother of R. C.)

till

This is the place to which if any man ascends he enters into chariots
of fire. Such was Enoch, Elijah, Esdras, St._Paul, and Zoroaster,.
Such, comments Vaughan, I suppose was R. C., the founder of a most
Christian and famous Society. Such Elijahs also are the members of
this Fraternity who, as their writings testify, walk in the supernatural
light.
Magic attains the throne of Jove. It ascends by the light of nature to
the light of Grace, The mystery is perfected when the light strikes
from the center to the circumference, and the Divine Spirit has so
swallowed up the body that it is a glorified body. This is the invis
ibility of the Magi. Whoever approaches unpurified calls down judgment
on himself.
Demand a healthy mind in a healthful body. You must prepare yourself
till you are conformable to Him Whom you would entertain. Fit your
roof to God in what you can, and in what you cannot, He will help you.
No man can give that which he himself has not. But no man has save he
who having suspended the elementary forces, having overcome nature,
having compelled heaven, having reached the angels, has ascended to
the Archetype itself, as coadjutor whereof he can accomplish all things.
This is the Christian Philosopher's Stone, the rock in the wilderness,
the stone of fire in Ezekiel, the stone with seven eyes in Zechariah,
the white stone with the new name in the Revelation. This is the salt
which you ought to have in yourselves, the water and spirit whereof
you must be born again, that seed which falls to the ground and multi
plies to an hundredfold.
As man fell, so he is to rise. He must be united to the Divine Light
from which he was separated by disobedience. The soul of man while she
is in the body is like a candle shut up in a dark lantern. This makes
her subject to many passions. Now she flourishes, now she withers.

This is because of her vast capacity, which is satisfied with nothing

but God. She spans kingdoms in a thought. In her are patterns of all
things in the world. She makes an invisible voyage from one place to
another and presents to herself things absent as if they were present.
She can, by a union with the universal force, infuse and communicate
her thoughts to the absent. Remaining in one place, she can acquaint
herself with the actions of all places. With her magnet, she can at
tract all things, spiritual and natural.
Vaughans Lumen de Lumine contains 11A Letter from the Brothers of R.
C. concerning the Invisible, Magical Mountain and the Treasure therein
contained."
There is a mountain in the midst of the earth which is both small and
great, soft and hard, far off and near at hand, but by the providence
of God invisible. In it are hidden treasures which the world is not
able to value. This mountain is compassed about with very cruel beasts
and ravening birds, which make the way thither difficult and dangerous.
To this Mountain you shall go on a certain night, when it comes, most
long and most dark, and see that you prepare yourselves by prayer. In
sist upon the way that leads to the Mountain, but ask not of any man
where the way lies. Only follow your Guide who shall offer himself to
you and meet you in the way. But you shall not know him. He will
bring you to the Mountain at midnight, when all things are silent and
dark. It is necessary to arm yourself with a resolute, heroic courage.
You need no weapons. Only call on God sincerely and heartily.
When you have discovered the Mountain, the first miracle that will
appear is this; A most vehement wind will shake the Mountain and shat
ter the rocks to pieces. (These are the spiritual winds of which
Vaughan spoke earlier. The ascent of the Mountain is symbolic of
spiritual ascent or attainment of Cosmic Consciousness.) You shall be
encountered by lions and dragons and other terrible beasts.
(The
terrible beasts symbolize the physical nature.) Fear not these things.
Be resolute. Your Guide will not suffer evil to befall you. After
this wind, will come an earthquake that will overthrow these things
which the wind has left. Be sure you do not fall off. There shall
follow a fire that will consume the earthly rubbish, and discover the
treasure. But as yet you cannot see it. (These correspond to the
Dark Night of the Soul and purification.) Near daybreak there shall be
a great calm. You shall see the day-star rise and dawning will appear
and you shall perceive a great treasure. The most perfect thing in it
is a certain exalted tincture, with which the world might be tinged and
turned into most pure gold, if it were worthy.
This tincture, (which symbolizes Cosmic consciousness) used as your
Guide shall teach you, will make you young when you are old. By means
of it you shall find pearls whose excellency cannot be imagined. Do
not arrogate anything to yourself because of your power. Praise God
for His gift and use it not for worldly pride. (This concludes the
letter from the Brothers of R. C.)

(Meditation and attunement are symbolized in various ways in Vaughan.)

First Matter is a dissolved and flowing water, a solution of earth. It
is a union of spirit in matter, of masculine and feminine spirits. The
Mercury is cold and passive and lies in subterranean caverns. When the
sun ascends in the east, his heat sublimes the heat of the Mercury in a
thin vapor to the top of its cavern. Toward night, when the sun sets
in the west, the heat of the earth grows weak so that the vapors of the
Mercury are condensed and distill in drops to the bottom of her cavern.
When the sun comes out again, it sublimes the moisture as formerly.
This continues until the Mercury takes up the subtle sulphureous parts
of the earth and is incorporated with it so that the sulphur coagulates
the Mercury and fixes it at last so that it lies still in a ponderous
lump and is concocted to a perfect metal.
(The inner self is purified
by successive ascent and descent in attunement.)
(Meditation is symbolized by the section on Philosophical Fire.) Fire
is one thing from one root. Nothing in the world is generated without
fire. It is at the root and center of all things, visible and invisi
ble. I may now teach you how to use this fire. Take our two serpents.
Tie them in a love-knot.
(integrate or unite the two selves.) Shut
them up in the Arabian Caraha. (Withdraw from the outer world.) Then
encamp against them with the fire of nature. Be sure you bring your
line round about. Circle them in and stop all avenues.
(That is,
concentrate.) Continue this siege patiently. They will turn to an
ugly, shabby, venomous, black toad, which will be transformed to a
horrible devouring dragon, creeping in the bottom of her cave. (This
is the descent into the subconscious mind.) The dragon will turn into
a swan, more white than the virgin snow. (Like Leda and the swan, this
symbolizes attunement.) Fortify your fire until the phoenix appears.
It is a red bird of a most deep color with a shining fiery hue. Feed
this bird with the fire of his father and the ether of his mother. The
first is meat, the second is drink. Without these, he cannot attain
his full glory. (Without both physical and psychic minds, attunement
is not possible.) Feed your bird as I have told you, and he will rise
like a star of the firmament.
You seek an indissoluble, miraculous, transmuting, uniting union. But
such a tie cannot be without the first unity. (Without self-integra
tion, union with the Cosmic is not possible.) To create essentially
and naturally without violence is the on]y proper office of the first
power, the first Wisdom, the first love. Without this love, the ele
ments will never be married. They will never inwardly and essentially
unite.

* * * * * * *

ROSICRUCIAN ORDER
A M O R C
TRADE

MARK

Supplementary Monograph
IN

U . S . A.

T h e subject m atter of this monograph m ust be understood by the reader or student

of same, not to be the official Rosicrucian teachings. These monographs constitute a series
of supplem entary studies provided b y the Rosicrucian Order, A M O R C , both to members
and nonm em bers, because th ey are not the secret, private teachings of the Order.
T h e object of these supplem entary m onographs is to broaden the m ind of the student b y
presenting him w ith the w ritings, opinions, and dissertations of authorities in various fields
of hum an enterprise and endeavor. T herefore, it is quite probable that the reader w ill
note at times in these supplem entary m onographs statements made which are inconsistent
with the Rosicrucian teachings or viewpoint. But with the realization that they are m ere
ly su p p lem en tary and that the Rosicrucian O rganization is not endorsing or condoning
them, one must take them m erely for their prim a facie value. Throughout the supple
m en tary series the authors or translators of the subject w ill be given due credit w henever
we have knowledge of their identity.

ROSICRUCIAN PARK, SAN JOSE, CALIFORNIA

"Consecrated to truth and dedicated to every Rosicrucian"

S P E C IA L S U B J E C T

-EML

LECTURE NUMBER

3Qx
A!'A*A'tv*/;:

R -2

39

a*/;

',vgg:

-^1^1

PRIN TED

The following lecture is intended to present the philosophy of a mys

tic in a way that will make it understandable to present-day mystics,
and at the same time to retain as much as possible the language and
style of the original work. To this end, the work in question has
been edited and to some extent reworded. Except where explanation
seems obvious, comments added by the lecturer have been put in paren
theses to distinguish them from the original.
Ruth Phelps, Librarian

MYSTICS FOR MODERNS

John Heydon, Rosicrucian
The English Physitians
know all Things, Past,
of Questions . . .
By
page of a book by John

Guide: or a Holy-Guide, Leading the Way to

Present and to Come, To Resolve all manner
J. H. Gent. . . . This is part of the title
Heydon published in London in 1662.

In the dedication of Book II, Heydon says that the Rosie Crucians
have a very excellent opinion that we ought to labor in this life
that we do not degenerate from the excellency of the mind by which we
come nearest to God, and to put on the divine nature. We ought so to
order our mind that it by itself, being mindful of its own dignity
and excellency, should always think, do, and operate worthy of itself.
But the knowledge of divine science powerfully performs this for us
when we, being always busied in divine studies, every moment contem
plate divine things by a sage and diligent inquisition, and by all
the degrees of the creatures ascending even to the Archetype himself,
to draw from him the secret practical theory of art and nature,
according to the doctrine of the Holy Guide.
The understanding of the Holy Guide purges the mind from errors, and
renders it divine; gives infallible power to our Rosie Crucian Guide.
It compels good angels and all the powers of the world unto our
service, the virtue of our art being drawn from the Archetype himself.
When we ascend to him, all creatures necessarily obey us, and all the
choir of heaven follow us.
God is our Holy Guide, wherefore Eugenius Theodidactus says there
remains nothing but God and his happiness to be sought and set before
our eyes.
The numbers have names answerable to each days work (of creation),
which is a very high probability that the Rosie Crucians had an
Infallible Guide, referring to Moses his text.
Philo makes the first day spent in the creation of immaterial and
spiritual beings of the intellectual world, taking it for the world

of life and forms. A unit is indivisible. You cannot make two of

one of them, as you may make one piece of corporeal matter two by
actual division. So what was created the first day was immaterial,
indivisible, and independent of the matter.
One is the number of God and of happiness. It is called the number
of concord, piety, friendship, and form. Unity is the common measure,
fountain and original of all numbers, contains every number joined
together in itself entirely. It is the beginning of every multitude.
Being multiplied into itself, it produces nothing but itself. It is
indivisible, void of all parts. No unity is greater or lesser than
the whole Unity. It is named Cupid (remember J3acons Cupid or love,
the top, of the pyramid of knowledge), because It is made alone and
will always bewail itself. Beyond itself one has nothing. It is the
beginning and end of all things. All things which are, desire that
one because all things proceed from one. So all things endeavor to
return to that one 1. from which they proceeded.
One is therefore referred to the high God, who is one and innumerable
yet creates innumerable things of himself, and contains them within
himself. There is therefore one God, one world of the one God, one
sun of the one world, one phoenix in the world, one king among the
bees, one ruler amongst herds of beasts. There is one element over
coming and penetrating all things, namely, fire. From one man Adam
proceed all men, and from him became mortal. From that one Jesus
Christ, they are regenerated. There is one thing created of God, the
subject pf all wondering, which is animal, vegetable, and mineral,
found everywhere, known by few, called by none by Its proper name,
but covered with figures and riddles, without which neither alchemy
nor natural magic can attain their complete perfection.
(This is the
First Matter, Prima Materia.)
(in giving examples of units, Heydon also gives an example of corre
spondences.) In the exemplary world there is 1 Divine essence, the
fountain of all power, whose name is expressed with one most simple
letter, Yod. In the intellectual world there is one supreme intelli
gence, the first creature, the fountain of lives, the soul of the
world. In the celestial world there is one king of stars, fountain
of life, the sun. In the elemental world there is 1. subject and in
strument' of all powers natural and supernatural, and that is the
Philosopher's Stone. In the lesser world there is 1. first living
and last dying, the heart. In the infernal world there is one Prince
of Rebellious Angels, Lucifer. The angel Agiel rules the number 1.
Two is the number of matter, and it unites arts and nature. On the
second day of creation corporeal matter was made. The number two is
called unfigured, undeterminated, unlimited, for such is matter till
form takes hold of it. When souls are joined with matter, the conse
quences are contention, fate, death. Motion, generation, and division
are properties of bodies. The celestial matter consists of two dis
tinguishable parts, the most subtle material and the round particles.

Two is the number of science and memory, of light, and the number of
man who is called the lesser world. It is also the number of charity,
mutual love ? marriage, and society. Two is the first multitude and
can be measured by no number except units.
(One is the beginning of
multitudes, but two is the first multitude.)
There were two tables of law in Sinai; two natures in Christ, divine
and human; Moses saw two appearances of God, his face and back. There
are two Testaments, two first people, two great lights, and two poles.
There are two intellectual creatures, angels and souls, and two
elements producing a living soul, earth and water. The name of God
in the exemplary world is expressed with two letters, Yod and Lamed.
Jejajel is the angel that rules two, and 325 by that number was this
book made. (Using the numbers attributed to the Latin letters by
Heydon, Francis Bacon equals 325. It is the Holy Guide which contains
Bacon's New Atlantis as the Preface.)
Three is the number of the soul, ideal forms, perfection, and long
life. In the third day the waters were commanded into one place,
Paradise created, wherein the serpent beguiled Eve.
The earth consists of three elements. Minerals, plants, and all ter
restrial bodies have the three chemical principles in them, salt, sul
phur, and mercury.
The number three is uncompounded, a holy number, a number of perfec
tion. There are three persons in God, and three theological.virtues
in religion. This number conduces to the ceremonies of God and
'religion.
Corporeal_ and spiritual things consist of three things: beginning,
rfa~ddle,~and endT~~The^measure
time is concluded in three: past,
present, and to come. All magnitude is continued in Hree: line,
superficies, and body. There are three kinds of souls:" vegetative,
sensitive, and intellectual. God orders the world by number, weight,
and measure. The number 3 is"deputecT~to the ideal form s . as the
number 2. is to the creatTng matter, and u n i t y T o G o d. There are
three powers of inte'lle ctual ere a ure s : memory, mind, and will.
tTonas was..''three days in "the whale's "belly, and three Jlays was Christ
jin_the_grave .
Four represents_the_garth and is the number of nature and health.
The earth was created on the fourth day, when matter was created into
sun'and planets, for the etherial vortices were then set going. The
ordering of the corporeal world may be said to be transacted into the
number four, four being the first body in numbers, and t_h_JfQundation
and root of all number is four. All foundations in artificial things/
natural and divine are four square'."" It signifies solidity, which is
demonstrated by a four square figure, and in an equilateral pyramid,
which figure also is a symbol of'light, the rays'-entering the eye~ in
pyramidal form. The Pythagoreans call this number body and the world,
signifying in what excellent proportion and harmony the world was
made. They call this number 4 harmony and Urania (astronomy). The

Rosie Crucians say that this number 4- contains the most perfect
proportions in musical symphonies.
Ten is made of the parts of four: put one, two, three, and four to
gether and they are ten. The tetractys of Pythagoras seems to have
been of two kinds, the single number of four, and the thirty-six
which is made up of the first four masculine numbers 1, 3,
and
the first four feminine numbers, 2, 4, 6, 8. Even numbers are divi
sible, whence they are called feminine. The odd are indivisible,
impassible, and active and are called masculine. The tetractys was
the symbol of the whole system of Pythagoras, which is the very same
with the Mosaical or Rosie Crucian Infallible Axiomata. The root of
this tetractys is six, which signifies the six days work.

5>

The great name of the Divine Trinity of God is written with four
letters, Jod, He, Vau, He. The aspiration, He, signifies the
proceeding of the spirit from both. So the number four is the fountain
and head of the whole Divinity, for there are four degrees in nature:
to be, to live, to be sensible, and to understand. There are four
motions in nature: ascendant, descendant, forward, and circular.
There are four elements under heaven: fire, air, water, and earth;
four qualities under heaven: cold, heat, dryness, and moisture; four
humors: blood, phlegm, choler, melancholy; four parts of the year.
The number four comprehends all nature in four terms: substance,
quality, quantity, and motion. Metaphysics is comprehended in four
bounds: being, essence, power, and action. Moral philosophy is
comprehended with four virtues: prudence, justice, fortitude, temper
ance. There are four consecrated animals: the lion, the eagle, the
man, and the calf; four elements in man: mindy spirit, Soul, and body;
four powers of "the soul: intellect, reason, fantasy, sense.
Five is the number of youth and consists of the first odd number three,
which is masculine, and the first even number two, which is feminine.
Five is the just middle of the universal number which is ten. There
fore it is the number of mirth and good fellowship, and is called by
the Pythagoreans the number of wedlock and of justice, because it
divides the number ten evenly.
There are five senses in man; five powers in the soul: vegetative,
sensitive, concupiscible, irascible, and rational; and five wandering
planets in the heavens. Five is the seal of the Holy Ghost, and the
number that God loves. It is the number of the cross, being eminent
with the wounds of Christ. The philosophers dedicated it as sacred to
Mercury, esteeming it more excellent than the number four, as a living
thing is more excellent than a thing without life.
In the exemplary world, the name of God is expressed with five letters,
Eloim, and the name of Christ with five letters, Ihesu. In the intel
lectual world there are five intelligible substances: spirits of the
first hierarchy called Gods or Sons of God; spirits of the second
hierarchy called Intelligences; spirits of the third hierarchy called
Angels or Messengers; souls of celestial bodies; and Heroes or Blessed
Souls.

The number six symbolizes the universe and man, and is the number of
riches. It has a double reference, one to the sixth day's work and
the other to the whole creation. In the sixth day's work it is the
creation of land animals, and the number six is made up of male and
female; for two times three are six. The Pythagoreans call this
number matrimony, adding that they did it in reference to the creation
of the world set down by Moses.
In the whole creation the Pythagoreans and Rosie Crucians conceive it
as significant of creation and call it the articulate and complete
efformation of the universe, the anvil, and the world. It is the
anvil because of the indefatigable shaping out of new forms and
figures upon the matter of the universe, by the power of the active
principle that busies itself everywhere.
The world is itself complete, filled, and perfected by its own parts;
so is the number six complete and perfect, since its parts, one, two,
and three together make the number six. The world consists of an
active and passive principle, the one brought down into the other from
the world of life. The number six is made by drawing of the first
masculine number three into the first feminine number two.
Six is the most perfect number in nature and all numbers desire this
perfection. Hence by the Rosie Crucians it is said to be applied to
'generation and marriage and is called the balance of the world. It
is also called the number of man because the sixth day man was created.
It is the number of our redemption, whence^ ithas affinity with the"
cross, labor, and servitude.
There are six substantial qualities in the elements: sharpness, thin
ness, motion, and dullness, thickness, rest. There are six differences
of position: upwards, downwards, before, behind, on the right side,
and on the left side. There are six natural offices, without which
nothing can be: magnitude, color, figure, interval, standing, motion.
A solid figure of a four square thing has six superficies. The name
of God in the exemplary world is written with six letters, Elohim.
Seven is the number of virtue, and the symbol of God. as He in con
sidered having finished these six days' creation; for then as this
Holy Guide intimates, he creates nothing further. Therpfnrp his
conditionals fitly set out by the number seven.
"
---- -

seven is not'so divisible, nor can it be ,iiultlplled wi?hin th4 number

ten.

Seven is various and manifests power; for it consists of 1 and 6, 2

and 5, or of 3 and 4. And it consists of 1 joining 3 and 3; hence it
is called a number of marriage. It contains body and soul, for the
body consists of four elements and is endowed with four qualities, and
three is the number of the soul. The cycles of man's life are based
on seven. The number seven has great communion with the cross..
The Rosie Crucians call seven the number of virginity because it is
neither generated nor generates, and cannot Be-divided into two equal
parts, nor be doubled and yet contained within the number ten. There
fore they dedicate seven_to Pallas (Athena, the Speare Shaker).
Seven is the number of purification, repentance, and remission. It is
ascribed to the Holy Ghost, who is sevenfold according to his gifts,
namely: 1. the Spirit of Wisdom, 2. understanding, 3. the spirit of
council, and 4. strength, 5. the spirit of knowledge, and 6. holiness,
and 7. the spirit of the fear of the Lord, which is the seven eyes of
God.
Seven lamps burn before the throne of God, and seven golden candlesticks, and in the middle was one like the Son of God. A lamb had
seven horns and seven eyes, and a book was opened with seven seals.
In seven thousand years there_will be so great union between God and
man that man shall not die, but partake of his spirit. And the
inhabitants of the etherial region will openly converse with these of
the terrestrial.
Eight is the number of wisdom. The Rosie Crucians call eight the
number of justice and fulness, because it is divided into numbers
equally even, namely into four, and four is divided into two and two.
It is called fulness by reason of the contexture of the corporeal
solidity. Eight signifies diseases or death. It belongs to eternity
and the end of the world because it follows the number seven which is
the mystery of time. It is dedicated to Dionysius who was born in the
eighth month.
Nine is the number of changing bodies. It is a powerful number in
all things. There are nine spheres corresponding to the nine muses:
Calliope, heroic poetry, corresponds to the primum mobile; Urania,
Astronomy, to the starry heaven; Polymnia, song and oratory, to
Saturn; Terpsichore, dancing, to Jupiter; Clio, history, to Mars;
Melpomene, tragedy, to the sun; Erato, love and marriage songs, to
Venus; Euterpe, music, to Mercury; Thalia, comedy, to the moon.
There are in the intelligible world nine choirs of angels: Seraphim,
Cherubim, Thrones, Dominations, Powers, Virtues, Principalities, Arch
angels, Angels. Nine senses there are, inward and outward, In man:
memory, cogitative, imaginative, commonsense, hearing, seeing, smelling,
tasting, touching. Nine is a year eminent for some remarkable change.
Sometimes nine signifies imperfectness and incompleteness because it
does not attain to the perfection of the number ten, but is less by
one.

The number ten is the number of medicines and of honor and preferment.
X L is the. universal number. Plato by this number had the knowledge of
the more sacred mysteries of God, and the state of the soul of man In
this world.
Socrates, the day before Plato came, dreamed
in his lap, which putting forth of a sudden,
sang very sweetly. Wherefore, the next day,
to him by his father, Socrates said, this is
received him for his pupil.

that he had a young swan__

flew up into the'~aTr and
when Plato was brought
the bird, and so willingly

The number ten is called, every number, complete signifying the full
course of life, for beyond that we cannot number within ten itself, or
explain them by itself, and its own by multiplying them.
It is accounted to be of a manifold religion and power, and is applied
to the purging of souls. The ancients called ceremonies denary, be
cause they that were to offer sacrifices were to abstain from certain
things for ten days.
There are ten commandments. The tenth day after the ascension of
Christ, the Holy Ghost came down. There are ten names of God, and ten
messengers that carry the souls down from God through the heavens (the
ten sephiroth of the cabalistic tree): Kether, Hochmah, Binah, Hesed,
Geburah, Tiphereth, Nezah, Jod, Hesod, Malcuth. This number is as
circular as unity, from whence it has its beginning, and it is the end
and perfection of all numbers and the beginning of tens.
As the number ten flows into unity from whence it proceeded, so every
thing that is flowing is returned back to that from which it had the
beginning of its flux. So water returns to the sea, the body returns
to the earth, time returns to eternity, the spirit shall return to
God, and every creature returns to nothing from whence it was created.
The number eleven represents the preparations of gold. As eleven
exceeds the number ten, which is the number of the commandments, so it
falls short of the number twelve, which is of grace and perfection, and
eleven is therefore called the number of sins and the penitent. It
has no communion with Divine or celestial things, neither has it any
reward. Yet sometimes it receives a gracious favor from God, as he
who was called the eleventh hour to the Vineyard of the Lord, who re
ceived the same reward as those who had born the burden and heat of
the day. (it Is this chapter which has to do with Theophilus Fulwood,
the Rosie Crucian, as we shall see later.)
The number.-twelve symbolizes knowledge and ls_._divine. It is the number of dissolving gold, and that whereby the~celestlals are measured.
It is the number of the signs of the zodiac over which there are
twelve angels. In twelve years Jupiter completes his course, and the
moon runs__ through twelve signs in twenty-eight (or four times seven)
days. There are twelve tribes, twelve prophets, twelve apostles,
twelve months.

The safest magic, Heydon says, is the sincere consecrating a man's

soul to God, and the aspiring to nothing but so profound a pitch of
humility as not to be conscious to ourselves of being at all touched
with the praise and applause of men, and to such, ji free and universal
sense of charity, as to be delighted with the welfare of another as
much as our own.
Along with a great deal of alchemy, both the Holy Guide and the Wise
Man1s Crown contain sections on mysticism and philosophy. In one of
these, Heydon discusses the problem of the body and soul, defining
the faculties of the soul as two: it can understand, and it can move
corporeal matter.
Now this, he says, will have very great consequence for our design
in this new method of physics and philosophy.
(The new method may
well refer to Bacon's inductive method.) For it is obvious that the
soul of man is, as it were, an abridged statue of the Deity. There
fore, as we consider the substance and motion of the vast heavens on
the little globe, so we may contemplate the nature of the Almighty
in this little model of God, the soul of man. We may enlarge to in
finity what we observe in ourselves when we transfer it to God, as we
imagine these circles which we view on the globe to be vastly bigger
while we fancy them as described in the heaven.
(Heydon then gives an exercise.) There is a spiritual substance in
ourselves in which both these properties reside, that of the under
standing, and that of moving corporeal matter. Let us then enlarge
our minds so as to conceive as well as we can a spiritual substance
that is able to move and actuate all matter whatsoever, no matter how
far extended or in what way it please. Let us conceive that it has
not only knowledge of particular things, but a distinct and plenary
cognizance of all things. Then we have indeed a very competent appre
hension of the nature of the eternal and invisible God, who, like the
soul of man, does not indeed fall under sense, but does everywhere
operate so that his person is easily to be gathered from what is dis
covered by our outward sense.
There remains nothing but God and his happiness to be sought and set
before our eyes, not with the hope to overtake and reach God, but with
desire to attain as much thereof as the proportion between him and us
will suffer.
It is my thoughts that that which is inferior or below, is as that
which is superior or above, there being one universal matter and form
of all things, differenced only by accidents, and particularly by
that great mystery of rarefaction and condensation, the inferior and
superior, to work and accomplish the miracles of one thing, and to
show the great variety and diversity of operations wrought by that
spirit that worketh all things, in all things. As all things were
from One, by the mediation of one God, having created all things in
the beginning, so all things sprang and took their original from this
one thing, by adoption, or fitting itself accordingly in number,
weight, and measure, for wisdom builds her own house.

I would have you know my philosophy is to know God himself, the worker
of all things, and to pass into him by a whole image of likeness, as
by an essential contract and bond, whereby we may be transformed and
made as God. This is the true Rosie Crucian philosophy of wonderful
works. The key thereof is the Intellect. But our intellect, being
included in the corruptible flesh, unless it shall exceed the way of
the flesh and obtain a proper nature, cannot be united to these vir
tues. How shall he apprehend spiritual things that is swallowed up
in flesh and blood? What fruit shall a grain of corn bear if it be
not first dead? We must die to the world, to the flesh and all senses
who would enter these closets of secrets, because the soul leaves the
body. This happens to very few, first to those that are born, not of
the flesh and blood, but of God, (that is, to the reborn) and secondly
to those that are dignified by the blessed assistance of angels and
genii, and the virtues of the figures and ideas at their birth. (in
order to attune oneself with the Cosmic, with the psychic or subconcious mind within himself, man must die to the world, to the flesh
and all senses. He must subdue the physical, objective mind.)
Plato says that justice and holiness together with wisdom make us
like God. Pythagoras says there are two sorts of men, one disposed to
deal with others, which are called worldly men. The other are bent to
live alone, and seek knowledge and are called philosophers. So there
are two aims in life; first for virtue garnished with outward helps
and gifts of body and fortune; and second for knowledge of the best
things. This he sets before the other because God, whom we ought to
follow, leads the same life. So we see the divine pattern of happiness
which we ought to strive for is that worthy couple of wisdom and
virtue (or power) knit together in that bond of fellowship which may
never be parted asunder.
(This is similar to Bacons wisdom and power,
the double emanation of God.)
We ought to labor in nothing more in this life than that we degenerate
not from the excellency of the mind by which we come nearest to God,
and to put on the divine nature.
Moses delivers a double science, one of cosmology (Bresith) explaining
the power of things created, natural and celestial, and expounding the
secrets of the law and Bible by philosophical reasons. The other is
Mercara, which concerns the moie sublime contemplation of divine and
angelic virtues, and of sacred numbers, being a certain symbolical
divinity in which numbers and letters are ideas of most profound things
and great secrets. This is the Rosie Crucian Infallible Axiomata.
(Two ways in which we come closer to God are pursuit of knowledge in
emulation of the philosophers, and the contemplation of numbers and
letters as symbols of profound ideas and great secrets.)
The problem concerning John Heydon and his works is threefold, why he
"borrowed" from the works of other people, whether the name Eugenius
Theodldactus is his pseudonym, and whether he was a Rosicrucian.
In the Wise Mank Crown, Heydon says, "The Holy Guide, Elhavereuna,
being an introduction to the Rosie Crucian philosophy, and diversely

compiled in these books in short words, yet sufficient for those who
are wise . . ."(Diversely compiled must mean that the books are meant
to be a collection of Rosicrucian philosophy. He says elsewhere they
were gathered together in his works so the student would not have to
read other books. This seems to answer the first question. Heydon
made a compendium of Rosicrucian knowledge, deliberately "borrowing"
from others for this purpose.)
In the Holy Guide, the name Eugenius Theodidactus is not used as the
author on any of the title pages. The top of the title page to Book
Four reads, "The Holy-Guide: Leading the Way to The Golden Treasures
of Nature. How all may be happy in this world; Enoch and Elias
knowledge of the Mind and Soul. Eugenius Theodidactus his discovery
of the manner and matter of the Philosophers Pantarva, or Anontag.ius,
and the manner of working Canonically and orderly made manifest in the
secrets of Nature and Art, by which Philosophy is restored."
(The Pantarva is the Philosopher's Stone. Note that philosophy is
restored as in Bacon's Instauration.) Lower down the page we read,
"By John Heydon Gent. Philonomos, A Servant of God, and a Secretary
of NatureT"
The title page to Book Three of the Wise Man's Crown says the book is
"by Eugenius Theodidactus, Philonomos, a Servant of God and Secretary
of Nature." The book is alchemical and contains material on the
"Celestial Matrimony."
In the Holy Guide, Book Four, Chapter IV, there is a reference to
Eugenius Theodidactus. The chapter is on "What the Pantarva _is: The
true matter in Nature and Art: The manner of working: Canonically
and orderly made manifest In this Book." lTT~begins, "Eugenius
Theodidactus heares them muTTer among themselves, that there is never
a reason given as yet, no not one, because all standeth upon a fained
and supposed ground, which being nothing, all that is built upon it
must needs come to nothing:"
The Preface to the Holy Guide is a version of Bacon's New Atlantis.
In talking to the men from the ship, the governor says "There raigned
in this Island, about nineteen hundred years agoe,
King, whos~e
memory of all others we most adore; Not supersTitious1y , but as a
divine Instrument, though a"mortall man: his name was Eugenius Theo
didactus, you may read this at large in our Idea of the Law: and we
esteem him as the Law-giver o!r our NaTTon." The Idea of the Law is
one of Heydon1s books.

In Book Two, Heydon says, " . . . and we may be sure that is that which
Eugenius Theodidactus, The Rosie Crucian would aim at, and lay stresse
upon, in the Book M." In Book Three he speaks of "that fine and
Aetherlal oyle, often discribed by Eugenius Theodidactus in his book
entituled the Rota Mundl, and in my Rosie Crucian~~Axiomata . . . "
These references indicate that Eugenius Theodidactus may have been
someone other than Heydon, and indeed may have referred to an allegor
ical person similar to C. R. C. in the Fama Fraternitatls.

Book Two of the Holy Guide refers to the experiences of Theophilus

Fulwood, the Rosie"Crucian, "Wherefore from that time, saith Eugenlus Theodldactus, he (meaning Theophilus Fulwood) did affirm, that
this Spirit was alwayes with him, * .
In the same chapter are the
following references. "He told Eugenius also, how he was often admon
ished to give almes, . . ." "Eugenius asked him why he would not
speak to the Spirit . . . "
"Eugenius further enquiring, whether he
ever did see the shape and form of the Spirit; . . . "
And this was
the first Rosie-Crucian that ever I saw, being about seven yeares
since; but being now one of the fraternity, I asked him of souls and
spirits; . . . "
In Book One we find, "What shall I say of Eugenius Theodidactus, that
durst in times past own no other name whose whole care and practice,
drift & studies, now'Is' nothing else but to finde and set down the
truth?11
This is not a complete set of references to the name even in the Holy
Guide, but they are typical ones. They could be taken to refer either
"to Heydon or to some other actual person, or to an allegorical person.
It is, from this, by no means certain that in using Eugenius Theodl
dactus, Heydon was referring to himself. In order to decide the ques
tion, the entire set of references to the name in all Heydon*s works
would need to be collected and compared.
Heydon both denied and affirmed that he was a Rosicrucian. Once he
says, "Nor am I a Rosie Crucian." Later he says, "Although I am no
Rosie Crucian." Yet one poem addressed to Heydon is headed, "Most
illustrius and truly reborn Frater, I. H. R. C." (The text in Latin
reads, Illustrissimis, & vere Renatis Fratribus, I. H. R. C.) The
initials mean John Heydon, Rosie Crucian. And, as stated above,
Heydon himself says, "being now one of the fraternity. . ." This
would seem to be sufficient evidence, along with his expounding Rosi
crucian philosophy, of his membership in the Rosicrucian Fraternity.

ROSICRUCIAN ORDER
A M O R C
TRADE

MARK

Supplementary Monograph
PRIN TED

IN

U. S . A.

T h e subject m atter of this monograph m ust be understood b y the reader or student

of same, not to be the official Rosicrucian teachings. These monographs constitute a series
of supplem entary studies provided b y the Rosicrucian Order, A M O R C , both to members
and nonm em bers, because th ey are not the secret, private teachings of the Order.
Th e object of these supplem entary m onographs is to broaden the m ind of the student by
presenting him with the w ritings, opinions, and dissertations of authorities in various fields
of hum an enterprise and endeavor. Therefore, it is quite probable that the reader w ill
note at times in these supplem entary m onographs statements made w hich are inconsistent
w ith the Rosicrucian teachings or viewpoint. Butw with
they are merea m
m the
m
mrealization
w
m
mthat
m
lv su pplem entary and that the Rosicrucian Organization is not endorsing or condoning
em, one must take them m erely for theirr P3
prim a facie value. Throughout the supplem en tary series the authors or translators of the subject w ill be given due credit w henever
we have knowledge of their identity.

ROSICRUCIAN PARK, SAN JOSE, CALIFORNIA

"Consecrated to truth and dedicated to every Rosicrucian"

S P E C IA L S U B J E C T

RAD

R-2

659

LECTURE NUM BER

366

The following lecture is intended to present the philosophy of a mystic

in a way that will make it understandable to present-day mystics, and
at the same time to retain as much as possible the language and style
of the original work. To this end, the work in question has been ed
ited and to some extent reworded. Except where explanation seems
obvious, comments added by the lecturer have been put in parentheses to
distinguish them from the original.
Ruth Phelps, Librarian

MYSTICS FOR MODERNS

A Rosicrucian Reformation
The Fama Fraternltatis published in Germany in I6l4 to 1617 was accom
panied Fy the lesser known, but no less important Confessio Fraternltatls. The Fama was an advertisement or announcement of the existence
of the FraterniTy of R. C. It was the aurora before the sunrise, which
may explain the headpiece in Bacon's works with the dawn and the four
horsemen. The Fama gave the allegorical story of C. R. C. and the
symbolic tomb. The Confessio gave in more detail the aims and doc
trines of the Order."
Bacon's Great Instauration was a plan for the renewal of knowledge. It
consistecTof six parts, the final one being the New Philosophy result
ing from the previous parts. Probably the two most important sections
were the second and third. The second was represented by Bacon's Novum
Organum which outlined his inductive method to replace the old Aristo
telian deductive method. The third part, which will be discussed
together with the Confessio, was the Natural History. It is signifi
cant that the New Atlantis was first published at the end of Natural
History about a year after Bacon's death.
We may divide the whole Rosicrucian Reformation into three main parts:
l) a reformation of the arts, of which the Shakespeare plays are evi
dence. 2) the reformation of philosophy and the sciences, as shown by
Bacon's Great Instauration. 3) a reformation of esoteric and mystical
teachings. The Fama and^Confesslo announced the Rosicrucian Order,
which presented these teachings to those worthy of them.
The Preface to the Confessio states that the reader will find incor
porated in it thirty-seven reasons of our purpose, which he may seek
out and compare. The reader may then consider with himself if the
reasons are weighty enough to persuade him to take the part of the
Fraternity.
(These thirty-seven reasons no doubt refer to the aims given in the
Confessio. The number is also symbolic and mystical, and may have been
used in ciphers. Heydon says the number 7 represents Athena, and 3 the
soul. Valerianos Hieroglyphica says that the number 30 means marriage.
In a simple alphabetic cipher, 37 is 0. C. R. C., F. B. Kt., and I. H.
R. C., meaning John Heydon, Rosie Crucian.)

The Preface continues, As we now freely and without any hurt call the
Pope of Rome antichrist, so we know that the time shall come when that
which we yet keep secret we shall openly and with a loud voice publish
before all the world.
The Confesslo was meant to be more scholarly than the Fama, but it
warns, whatever is published concerning our Fraternity by the Fama, let
no man esteem lightly of it, nor hold it as an idle or invented thing.
It is -the Lord Jehovah, who threatening the fall of the world and al
most the complete (or perfect) period, turns the order of nature around
to its first beginning. What before has been sought with great labor
is now manifested to those who make small account. It is in a manner
forced upon those who desire it, that thereby the life of the godly may
be eased of all their toil and be no more subject to the storms of
unconstant fortune.
Although we cannot be suspected of the least heresy, or of any wicked
beginning, or purpose against the worldly government, we do condemn the
east and the west, meaning the Pope and Mahomet, blasphemers against
our Lord Jesus Christ, and offer with a good will to the head of the
Romish Empire our prayers, secrets, and great treasures of gold.
We have thought good for the sake of the learned to add more to this,
and make a better explanation, if there is anything too deep or hidden
in the Fama, or for certain reasons was altogether omitted. We hope
with this explanation that the learned will be more addicted to us, and
be made more fit and willing for our purpose. (The learned must be
attracted to the Fraternity that life may be eased of toil. One of the
primary aims of Bacon's work was that it benefit mankind practically.)
(We should establish Bacon's attitude toward such a fraternity as the
Rosicrucians. He, of course, never mentioned the fraternity by name
in his known works.) He said, I have no desire to found a sect after
the fashion of heresiarchs; and to look for any private gain from such
an undertaking as this, I count both ridiculous and base. In another
place he wrote, Surely as nature creates brotherhood in families, and
mechanical arts contract brotherhoods in communalties, and the anoint
ment of God superinduces a brotherhood in kings and bishops; so in
like manner there cannot but be a fraternity in learning and illumina
tion, relating to that paternity which is attributed to God, who is
called the Father of Illuminations. (The word nillumInation,, would
have been significant to Rosicrucians.) In a letter to Fulgentius,
Bacon says the Natural History is a work for a king, a Pope, or for
some college or order.
(Certainly this establishes his desire for a
fraternity in learning and illumination such as the Rosicrucians.)
To return to the Confessio, Concerning the alteration and amendment of
philosophy, we have sufficiently declared that philosophy is altogether
weak and faulty. Although most people allege she is sound and strong,
yet she fetches her last breath and is departing. But as in some
country where there breaks forth a new disease, nature also discovers
a medicine against the same; so there appears in the infirmities of

philosophy, the right means whereby she may become sound again, and by
which she is to be renewed.
Bacon1s Clue to the Maze, addressed to his sons and written in the
third person, says, Francis Bacon thought in this manner. The knowl
edge whereof the world is now possessed, especially of nature, does not
extend to magnitude and certainty of works. Chance sometimes discovers
inventions; but that works not in years but in ages. So he saw well,
that the inventions known are very imperfect; and that new are not
likely to be brought to light but in great length of time; and those
which are did not come to light by philosophy.
In the Great Instauration he wrote, There is now but one course left,
to try the whole thing anew upon a better plan, and to commence a total
reconstruction of sciences, arts, and all human knowledge, raised upon
the proper foundations. Though in the undertaking, this may seem a
thing beyond the powers of man, yet when it comes to be dealt with, it
will be found sound and sober, more so than what has been done hitherto.
And although he was well aware how solitary an enterprise it is, and
how hard a thing to win faith and credit for, (which is reminiscent of
the C. R. C. in the Fama) nevertheless he was resolved not to abandon
either it or himself; nor to be deterred from entering upon that one
path, which is alone open to the human mind.
The state of knowledge, Bacon says, is not prosperous nor greatly ad
vancing; and a way must be opened for the human understanding entirely
different from any hitherto known, and other helps provided, in order
that the mind may exercise over the nature of things the authority
which properly belongs to it.
The Confessio continues, If we behold our age, we have no other philosophy than that which is the sum, foundation, and contents of all facul
ties, sciences, and arts. It contains much of theology and medicine,
but little of the wisdom of the lawyers. So the learned who will make
themselves known to us, and come into our brotherhood, shall find more
wonderful secrets with us than heretofore they knew. (Bacon, of course,
was a lawyer.)
We ought to labor carefully that everyone may know that although we
highly esteem such mysteries and secrets, we nevertheless hold it fit,
that the knowledge thereof be manifested and revealed to many. It is to
be believed that our offer will raise many thoughts in men, unto
whom the unknown wonders of the sixth age are hindered through all
manner of importunities of this time, sc they esteem the things to come
like the present.
Of all the knowledge which from the beginning of the world, man's wis
dom has found out, invented, brought forth, corrected, and till now has
been propagated and transplanted, we hold that the meditations, knowl
edge, and inventions of our loving Christian Father (meaning Christian
Rosencreutz) are so excellent, that if all books should perish, and by
God's sufferance, all writings and all learning should be lost, yet
posterity will be able by this to lay a new foundation and bring truth

to light again. This would not be so hard to do as if one should be

gin to pull down and destroy the old ruinous building, and then begin
to enlarge the forecourt, afterwards bring the lights in the lodgings,
and then change the doors, staples, and other things according to our
intention.
(in the Fama the teachings of the Order might be restored by the sym
bolic vault. In the Confessio it is the meditations, knowledge, and
Inventions of C. R. C. that will enable posterity to lay a new founda
tion in philosophy. A similar idea is expressed by Bacon.)
In his Preparatory to the History Natural and Experimental, he des
cribes the third part of the Instauration. He is moved to add and
set forth the description of such a Natural and Experimental History
as may be in order to the building of philosophy. Such a history Is
a thing of exceeding great weight, nor can it be compassed without vast
labor.
If all the wits, Bacon wrote, of all ages were clubbed together, if
all mankind had given or should hereafter give their minds wholly to
philosophy; and if the whole earth were composed of nothing else but
academies, colleges, or schools of learned men, yet, without such a
Natural and Experimental History, we deny that there could be or can be
any progress in philosophy and other sciences worthy of mankind. But
on the contrary, such an History as this being well compiled, joining
experiments of use and experiments of light together, the inquest of
nature and all sciences would be the business of a very few years.
Either this must be put in action, or the work must be deserted; for
by this one way alone the foundations of a true and active philosophy
can be established.
(Like the symbolic tomb in the Fama, and the meditations, knowledge,
and Inventions of C. R. C. in the Confessio, the Natural History is
the foundation on which a true philosophy can be built or rebuilt. The
Fama, Confessio, and the work of Bacon came from the same man working
for the same ends, and gathering around him a small group of dedicated
men to create a Rosicrucian Reformation, a renewal of all arts,
sciences, and philosophy.)
It would be contemptible, the Confessio says, to know this knowledge
and not to give it as an ornament to"better ages. Who would not
acquiesce to the one truth, If God had wished to light for us the sixth
candelabrum.
(One part of the section of the Confessio would be easy to overlook,
so I have kept it out of its proper context.) The knowledge of C. R. C.
is about all that which from the beginning of the world, either through
God's revelation, or through the service of the angels or spirits, or
through the sharpness and deepness of understanding, or through long
observation, use, and experience, mans wisdom has found out, invented,
brought forth, corrected, propagated and transplanted knowledge.
(These are the methods of obtaining knowledge, and it is the last with
which Bacon was most concerned.)

Were it not good, the Confessio goes on, not to fear hunger, poverty,
sickness, and age? that you could always live as if you had lived
from the beginning of the world and would still live to the end of it?
or if you dwell in one place, that neither the people which dwell be
yond the Ganges, nor those which live in Peru might be able to keep
secret their counsels from you? Were it not good that you could read
in one book and by reading understand and remember all that which in
all other books has been, is, and shall be learned; or that you could
so sing that instead of rocks you could draw to the pearls and precious
stones, and Instead of wild beasts, spirits, and instead of hellish
Pluto move the mighty princes of the world?
0 mortals, otherwise is God's counsel and your fitness. God has re
solved to multiply and increase the number of our Fraternity. We have
undertaken this with alacrity, as a treasure has been sent to us with
out our merit, without any hope or expectation, and we purpose to put
this into practice with fidelity, so that the compassion of our children
shall not draw us from it, because we know that these unhoped for goods
cannot be inherited, nor by chance be obtained.
If there be somebody who will complain of our discretion, that we offer
our treasures so freely and without any difference to all men, and do
not rather regard more the godly, learned, wise, or princely persons
than the common people; those we do not contradict, seeing it is not a
slight matter. We signify this, that our secrets will not be common
and generally made known. Although the Fama be sent forth in five
languages and is manifested to everyone, yet we well know that the un
learned will not receive nor regard the same. The worthiness of those
who shall be accepted into our fraternity are not esteemed by man's
carefulness, but by the rule of our revelation and manifestation. If
the unworthy cry a thousand times, or if they shall offer themselves
to us a thousand times, yet God has commanded our ears to hear none of
them. God has so compassed us about with his clouds that to us his
servants no violence nor force can be done. Wherefore we neither can
be seen or known by anybody, except he has the eyes of an eagle.
It has been necessary that the Fama be set forth in everyone's mother
tongue, because those should not be defrauded of the knowledge of it,
whom, although they be unlearned, God has not excluded from the happi
ness of this Fraternity. The Fraternity shall be divided into certain
degrees, as those which dwell in the City Damear in Arabia, who have
a far different political order from the other Arabians. For there
govern only wise and understanding men, who by the king's permission
make particular laws, according to which example the government shall
be instituted in Europe. Of this we have a description set down by
our Christian Father, v/hen first is done and come to pass that which is
to precede.
(The City Damear is the Damcar of the Fama and the Damcar or Apamia of
Heydons version of the New Atlantis. The government of this city is
not like others in Arabia. A description of its government was given
by C. R. C., but this pertains to the degrees of the Fraternity men
tioned in the beginning of the paragraph. We see, then, that the

places in the New Atlantis, the Fama and Confessio are the same. They
are all the allegorical, ideal city or island symbolizing the Fraterni
ty. Possibly the utopia was traditional in the Order and was given a
particular form by Bacon. The degrees of the Fraternity correspond to
the duties of the fellows of Salomon's House in the New Atlantis.)
The Confessio says, Our trumpet shall publicly sound with a loud sound,
when this which at present is showed by few, and is secretly declared
in figures and pictures as a thing to come, shall be freely and pub
licly proclaimed, and the whole world filled with it. In such a
manner as heretofore many godly people have secretly and violently
driven at the Popes tyranny, who with special zeal in Germany was
thrown from his seat, whose final fall is delayed for our times. This
we know Is manifest and known to many learned men in Germany, as their
writings and secret congratulations sufficiently witness.

vie

could here relate what has happened all the time from the year of
our Lord 1378, in which year our Christian Father was born, till now.
We might rehearse what alterations he has seen in the world these one
hundred six years of his life, which he has left to our brethren and
us after his decease to peruse. Brevity will not permit this till a
more fit time. At this time, it is enough for these which do not des
pise our declaration thereby to prepare the way for their acquaintance
and friendship with us. (The date of C. R. C.s birth may have been
intended to suggest that of the Egyptian Pharaoh, Akhnaton, and the
one hundred six years of his life the active and passive cycles of the *
Orders activity.)
Whoever is permitted to see and read those great letters of God which
he has written In heaven and earth's edifice, and who seek again
through the alternation of authority, the same person is already ours,
although yet unknown. And as we know he will not neglect our invita
tion, so he shall not fear any deceit. For we promise that no man's
hopes shall deceive him who shall make himself known to us under the
Seal of Secrecy, and desire our Fraternity.
(Bacon in the Preface to his History of Winds wrote, Men are desired
to humbly and with reverence draw near and turn over the great Volume
of the Creatures, stop and meditate upon it; and being cleansed and
free from opinions, handle them choicely and entirely. This is the
speech and language that went out into all the ends of the world, and
suffered not in the confusion of Babel. Let men learn this, and becom
ing children again, not scorn to take the A. B. C. thereof in hand, and
in searching out the interpretation of it, let them spare no labor, but
let them persist and even die in the quest of it.)
(Bacons Volume of the Creatures is the symbolic Book of Nature in
the Fama, or in the Confessio the great letters of God written in
heaven and earth's edifice. In the discourse on the Fama these were
interpreted as meaning Bacon's endeavor to establish English as a
literary language, and as the language of the subconscious mind. But
we find here a third meaning, the characters in the Book of Nature.

These three levels of meaning correspond to the three parts of the

reformation, the arts, sciences and philosophy, and mystical teach
ings.)
To the false hypocrites, to those that seek other things than wisdom,
we say and witness publicly we cannot be made known and betrayed to
them. Much less shall they be able to hurt us in any way without the
will of God. They shall certainly be partakers of all the punishment
spoken of in our Fama. So ..their wicked counsels shall light upon.
themselves, and our treasures shall remain untouched until the lion
comes, who will ask them for his use, and employ them for the confir
mation and establishment of his Kingdom. (The lion symbolizes Christ,
but also the inner self.)
We ought to make it known to everyone that God has concluded to grant
to the world before her end, which presently thereupon shall ensue,
such a truth, light, life, and glory as the first man Adam had. He
lost it in Paradise, after which his successors were driven with him
to misery.
(Philosophy is to be renewed to the state it en.ioyed
before the faXl of Adam.) Then shall cease all servitude, falsehood,
lies, and darkness, which little by little, with the great world's
revolution, have crept into all arts, works, and governments of men.
From this proceeded innumerable false opinions, so that the wisest of
men scarce knew whose doctrine he should follow, since on one part
they were hindered through the fame of the philosophers, and on the
other part through true experience.
(This is exactly Bacons argument,
that science was hindered by the fame of a few men and by the lack of
practical experience.) When all this shall be abolished and removed,
and instead of it a true rule instituted, then there will remain
thanks to them which have taken pains therein. But the work itself
shall be attributed to the blessedness of our age, (The true rule is
Bacons inductive method, and also txhe rule of the Fraternity.)
We now willingly confess that many men by their writings will further
this reformation which is to come, so we desire not to have this honor
ascribed to us, as if such work were imposed only on us. We witness
openly with the Lord Jesus Christ that it shall first happen that the
stones shall offer their service before there shall be any want of ex
ecutors of God's counsel. Yea, God has already sent before certain
messengers, which should testify to his will, to wit, some new stars
which appear in the firmament in Serpentarius and Cygnus, which sig
nify themselves to everyone that they are powerful signatures of great
matters. So the secret hidden writings and characters are most neces
sary for all such things which are found out by men. Although the
great Book of Nature stands open to all men, there are but few who
can read and understand it.
As there is given to man two instruments to hear, two to see, and two
to smell, but only one to speak, so there have been ages which have
seen, ages that have heard, smelt, and tasted. Now there remains that
which in short time honor shall be given to the tongue. What before
has been seen, heard, and smelt, now finally shall be spoken forth,

namely, when the world shall awake out of her xheavy sleep, and with an
open heart, barehead and barefoot, shall joyfully meet the now arising
sun.
As God has here and there incorporated these characters and letters in
the Bible, so has ne imprinted them most apparently into the wonderful
creation of heaven and earth, yea in all beasts. From these characters
or letters we have borrowed our magic writing, and have found out, and
made a new language for ourselves, in which is expressed the nature of
all things. So it is no wonder we are not so eloquent in other lan
guages, which we know altogether disagree with the languages of our
forefathers, Adam and Enoch, and were through the Babylonical Confusion
wholly hidden.
Every character and letter which is in the world ought to be learned
well. So those people are like us and are very near allied to us who
make the holy Bible a rule of their life, and an aim of all their
studies. Let it be a compendium and content of the whole world, not
'-only to have continually in the mouth, but to know how to apply the
true understanding of it to all ages of the world. From the beginning
of the world there has not been given to men a more worthy, a more ad.mirable and wholesome book than the Bible. Blessed is he that has the
same, more blessed is he who reads it diligently, but most blessed of
all is he that truly understands the same, for he is most like God.
Whatever has been said in the Fama concerning the deceivers against
the transmutation of metals and the highest medicine in the world, is
to be understood thus. This great gift of God we in no manner set at
nought. Alchemy does not always bring with her the knowledge of nature,
which brings medicine and makes manifest to us innumerable secrets and
wonders. Therefore, it is requisite that we attain the understanding
and knowledge of philosophy. Moreover, excellent wits ought not to be
drawn to the tincture of metals before they are exercised in the knowl
edge of nature.
He must be insatiable who can bear poverty, disease, and danger,
who is so elevated above men that he has rule over that which anguishes,
injures, and tortures others, yet who will revert to idle things,
building, and making war, because he has of gold and silver infinite
store.
God is pleased by other things, for he exalts the lowly, and pulls down
the proud with disdain. To those which are of few words, he sends his
holy angel to speak with themT but the unclean babblers he drives in
the wTlderl^ss. This is the right reward of the Romish seducers, wKo
have poured forth their blasphemies against Christ, and as yet do not
abstain from their lies in this clear shining light. In Germany all
their abominations and detestable tricks have been disclosed, that
thereby Christ may fulfill the measure of sin, and draw near to the end
of his punishment. One day It will come to pass that the mouths of
those vipers will be stopped, and the three double horn (the Popes
miter and tiara) will be brought to nought, as thereof at our meeting
more plainly shall be discoursed.

(in Bacons time, books on alchemy were like books on occultism and
mysticism today.) In conclusion of our Confession, we earnestly ad
monish you to put away, if not all, yet most books written by pseudo
alchemists, who think it a jest when they either misuse the holy
Trinity, apply it to vain things, or deceive the people with most
strange figures and dark sentences, and cozen the simple of their
money. Too many of these are produced in our age, one of them a dis
tinguished actor of the amphitheater, a man clever enough in deception.
This the enemy of mans welfare mingles with good seed to make the
truth more difficult to obtain, which in herself is simple and naked.
Contrarily, falsehood is proud and colored with a kind of luster seeming
godly and ornamented with human wisdom.
You that are wise, flee from such books and turn to us, who do not seek
your money, but offer to you willingly our great treasures. We hunt
not after your goods with invented lying tinctures, but desire to make
you partakers of our goods. We do not produce enigmas, but we invite
you to the simple and clear explanation of all secrets. We desire not
to be received of you, but invite you to our houses and palaces, and
that not by our own proper motion, but that you likewise may know it,
as if we were forced to it by the admonition of God, and by the occa
sion of this present time.
What do you think now, loving people, seeing that you now understand
that we acknowledge ourselves sincerely to profess Christ, condemn the
Pope, addict ourselves to the true philosophy, lead a worthy human
life, and daily invite more into our Fraternity, to whom the same Light
of God appears. Do you not consider how you might begin with us, by
pondering the gifts which are in you, by experience which you have in
the Word of God, by the careful consideration of the imperfection of
all arts, to seek an amendment therein, to extend the work of the hand
of God, and serve the government of your time? If you will perform the
same, this profit will follow: That all those goods which nature has
in all parts of the world wonderfully dispersed, shall at one time be
given to you, and shall disburden you of all that which obscures the
understanding of man, and hinders its working.
Those pragmatical and busyheaded men, who either are blinded with the
glittering of gold, or who are not honest, but by thinking such great
riches should never fail, might easily be corrupted and brought to
idleness and riotous proud living; those we desire not to trouble us
with their vain crying. Let them think that, although there is a medi
cine to be had which might fully cure all diseases, nevertheless those
whom God has destined to plague with diseases and keep under the rod
of correction, shall never obtain any such medicine.
Although we might enrich the whole world and endue them with learning,
and might release the world from innumerable miseries, yet shall we
never be made known to any man without the special pleasure of God.
Whoever thinks to get the benefit and be partaker of our riches and
knowledge without the will of God shall sooner lose his life in seeking
for us than to find us and attain the wished happiness of the Fraternity
of the Rosie Cross.

Bacon believed that two of the most important ailments of philosophy

were, first, that it was not grounded ln_ nature ~ana~~experimen t , and
se_condT that it was deliberately designed to cripple enterprise. The
'only hope of any progress', he said, lies in a reconstruction~~of the
sciences. Of this reconstruction, the foundations must be laid in
natural history, and that of a new kind and gathered on a new princi
ple. My history differs from that in use, as my logic does, in many
things--in end and office, in mass and composition, in subtlety, in
selection and setting forth, with a view to the operations which are to
follow.
The object of the natural history is to give light to the discovery of
causes and supply a suckling philosophy with its first food. I mean
it to be a history not only of nature left to her own course, but of
nature under constraint; that is, when by man she is forced out of her
natural state.
Therefore, I set down at length all experiments of mechanical arts, of
the operative part of all liberal arts, and of the crafts. Nor do I
confine the history to bodies, but I have thought it my duty to make
a separate history of such powers as may be considered cardinal in
nature. I mean those original passions of matter which constitute
the primary elements of nature, such as dense and rare, hot and cold,
solid and fluid, heavy and light, and others.
Those who aspire not to guess and divine, but to discover and know;
who propose not to devise fabulous worlds of their own, but to examine
and dissect the nature of this very world itself; must go to facts
themselves for everything.
For man is the servant and interpreter of nature. What he does and
what he knows is only what he has observed of nature's order "in Tacf
^ r in thought. Beyond this he knows nothing and can do nothing." For
thfi r-haln of causes cannot by any force be loosed or broken, nor can
^nature be' commanded except bvJbeing ol)eyed~
^
The natural history is twofold in its use. It is used either for the
knowledge contained in it, or as the principal matter of philosophy,
and the substance of true induction. The extent of the natural history
must be large, so that it be made after the measure of the universe,
for our intellect should be stretched and widened so as to be capable
of the image of the world as we find it.
(Bacon's work parallels and supplements the Rosicrucian teachings of
the Fama and Confessio. They both aim at a reformation and renewal
of learning in all fields. Bacon believed in a fraternity in learning,
but he wanted to found no sect, and he wanted no private gain from his
work. Rather he believed he was born for the service of mankind. No
doubt we are too little aware of the services he performed.)