CHAPTER XXXIV

THE ASTROLOGERS AND THE FREEMASONS


We have seen, in the preceding chapter, that Nicolai had sought to
trace the origin of Freemasonry to a society organized in 1646 by
a sect of philosophers who were contemporary with, but entirely
distinct from, those who founded the Royal Society.  Though he does
not explicitly state the fact,  yet, from the names of the persons
to whom he refers, there can be no doubt that he alluded to the
Astrologers, who at that time were very popular in England. 

Judicial astrology, or the divination of the future by the stars,
was, of all the delusions to which the superstition of the Middle
Ages gave birth, the most popular.  It prevailed over all Europe,
so that it was practiced by the most learned, and the predictions
of its professors were sought with avidity and believed with
confidence by the most wealthy and most powerful. Astrologers often
formed a part of the household of princes, who followed their
counsels in the most important matters relating to the future,
while men and women of every rank sought these charlatans that they
might have their nativities cast and secure the aid of their occult
art in the recovery of stolen goods or the prognostications of 
happy marriages or of successful journeys.

Astrology was called the Daughter of Astronomy, and the scholars
who devoted themselves to the study of the heavenly bodies for the
purposes of pure science were often called upon to use their
knowledge of the stars for the degrading purpose of astrological
predictions.  Kepler, the greatest astronomer of that age, was
compelled against his will to pander to the popular superstition,
that he might thus gain a livelihood and be enabled to pursue his
nobler studies.  In one of his works he complains that the scanty
reward of an astronomer would not provide him with bread, if men
did not entertain hopes of reading the future in the heavens. And
so he tampered with the science that he loved and adorned, and made
predictions for inquisitive consulters, although, at the same time,
he declared to his friends that "they were nothing but worthless
conjecture."

Cornelius Agrippa, though he cultivated alchemy, a delusion but
little more respectable than that of astrology, when commanded by
his patroness, the Queen mother of France, to practice the latter,
expressed his annoyance  at the task.  Of the Astrologers he said,
in his great work on the Vanity of the Arts and Sciences, "these
fortune tellers do find entertainment among princes and
magistrates, from whom they receive large salaries; but, indeed,
there is no class of men who are more pernicious to a commonwealth. 
For, as their skill lies in the adaptation of ambigu ous
predictions to events after they have happened, so it happens that
a man who lives by falsehood shall by one accidental truth obtain
more credit than he will lose by a hundred manifest errors."

The 16th and 17th centuries were the golden age of astrology in
England. We know all that is needed of this charlatanism and of the
character of its professors from the autobiography of William
Lilly, himself an English astrologer of no mean note; perhaps,
indeed, the best-educated and the most honest of those who
practiced this delusion in England in the 17th century, and who is
one of those to whom Nicolai ascribes the formation of that secret
society, in 1646, which invented Freemasonry.

It will be remembered that Nicolai says that of the society of
learned men who established Freemasonry, the first members were
Elias Ashmole, the skillful antiquary, who was also a student of
astrology, William Lilly, a famous astrologer, George Wharton,
likewise an astrologer, William Oughtred, a mathematician, and some
others.  He also says that the annual festival of the Astrologers
gave rise to this association. "It had previously held ," says
Nicolai, "one meeting at Warrington, in Lancashire, but it was
first firmly established at London."

Their meetings, the same writer asserts, were held at Masons' Hall,
in Masons' Alley, Basinghall Street.  Many of them were members of
the Masons' Company, and they all entered it and assumed the title
of Free and Accepted Masons, adopting, besides, all its external
marks of distinction.

Such is the theory which makes the Astrologers, incorporating 
themselves with the Operative Masons, who met at their Hall in
Basinghall  Street, the founders of the Speculative Order of Free
and Accepted Masons  as they exist at the present day.

It is surprising that in a question of history a man of letters of
the reputation of Nicolai should have indulged in such bold
assumptions and in statements so wholly bare of authority.  But
unfortunately it is thus that Masonic history has always been
written.

I shall strive to eliminate the truth from the fiction in this
narrative.  The task will be a laborious one, for, as Goethe has
well said in one of his maxims " It is much easier to perceive
error than to find truth.  The former lies on the surface, so that
it is easily reached ; the latter lies in the depth, which it is
not every man's business to search for."

The Astrologers, to whose meeting in the Masons' Hall is ascribed
the origin of the Freemasons, were not a class of persons who would
have been likely to have united in such an attempt, which showed at
least a desire for some intellectual progress.  Lilly, perhaps the
best-educated and the most honest of these charlatans, has in the
narrative of his life, written by himself, given us some notion of
the character of many of them who lived in London when he practiced
the art in that city. (1)

Of Evans, who was his first teacher, he tells us that he was a
clergyman - of Staffordshire, whence he " had been in a manner
enforced to fly for some offences very scandalous committed by him
" ; of another astrologer, Alexander Hart, he says " he was but a
cheat." Jeffry Neve he calls, a smatterer; William Poole was a
frequenter of taverns with  lewd people and fled on one occasion
from London under the suspicion of complicity in  theft; John
Booker, though honest was ignorant of his profession ; William
Hodges dealt with angels, but " his life answered not in holiness
and sanctity to what it should," for he was addicted to profanity;
and John A Windsor was given to debauchery.

Men of such habits of life were not likely to interest themselves
in the advancement of science or in the establishment of a society
of speculative  philosophers.  It is true that these charlatans
lived at an earlier period than  that ascribed by Nicolai to the
organization 

(1) "The Life of William Lilly, Student in Astology, wrote by
himself in the 66th year of his Age, at Hersham, in the Parish of
Walton upon Thames, in the County of Surrey, Propria Manu."

of the society in Masons' Hall, but in the few years that elapsed
it is not probable that the disciples of astrology had much
improved in their moral or intellectual condition. 

Of certain of the men named by Nicolai as having organized the
Society of Freemasons in 1646, we have some knowledge.  Elias
Ashmole, the celebrated antiquary, and founder of the Ashmolean
Museum in the University of Oxford, is an historical character.  He
wrote his own life, in the form of a most minute diary, extending
from July 2, 1633, to October 9, 1687. In this diary, in which he
registers the most trivial as well as the most important events of
his life-recording even the cutting of his wisdom teeth, or the
taking of a sudorific-he does not make the slightest allusion to
the transaction referred to by Nicolai.  The silence of so babbling
a chronicler as to such an important event is itself sufficient
proof that it did not occur. What Ashmole has said about
Freemasonry will be presently seen.

Lilly, another supposed actor in this scene, also wrote his life
with great minuteness.  His complete silence on the subject is
equally suggestive. Nicolai says that the persons he cites were
either already members of the Company of Masons or at once became
so.  Now, Lilly was a member of the Salter's Company, one of the
twelve great livery companies, and would not have left it to join
a minor company, which the Masons was.

Oughtred could not have been united with Ashmole in organizing a
society in 1646, for the latter, in a note to Lilly's life, traces
his acquaintance with him to the residence of both as neighbors in
Surrey.  Now, Ashmole did not remove to Surrey until the year 1675,
twenty nine years after his supposed meeting with Oughtred at the
Masons Hall.

Between Wharton and Lilly, who were rival almanac-makers, there
was, in 1646, a bitter feud, which was not reconciled until years
afterward.  In an almanac which Wharton published in 1645 he had
called Lilly " an impudent, senseless fellow, and by name William
Lilly." It is not likely that they would have been engaged in the
fraternal task of organizing a great society at that very time.

Dr. Pearson, another one of the supposed founders, is celebrated in
literary and theological history as the author of an Exposition of
the Creed.  Of  a  man  so  prominent  as  to  have  been  the 
Master  of  Jesus College, Cambridge, and afterward Bishop of
Chester, Ashmole makes no mention in his diary.  If he had ever met
him or been engaged with him in so important an affair, this
silence in so minute a journal of the transactions of his every-day
life would be inexplicable.

But enough has been said to show the improbability of any such
meeting as Nicolai records. Even Ashmole and Lilly, the two
leaders, were unknown to each other until the close of the year
1646.  Ashmole says in his diary of that year: Mr. Jonas Moore
brought and acquainted me with Mr. William Lilly: it was on a
Friday night, and I think on the 20th Nov. (1646)."

That there was an association, or a club or society, of Astrologers
about that time in London is very probable.  Pepys, in his memoirs,
says that in October, 166o, he went to Mr. Lilly's, "there being a
club that night among his friends." There he met Esquire Ashmole
and went home accompanied by Mr. Booker, who, he says, " did tell
me a great many fooleries, which may be done by nativities, and
blaming Mr. Lilly for writing to please his friends, and not
according to the rules of art, by which he could not well eue as he
had done" The club, we may well suppose, was that of the
Astrologers, held at the house of the chief member of the
profession.  That it was not a secret society we conclude from the
fact that Pepys, who was no astrologer, was permitted to be
present.  We know also from Ashmole's diary that the Astrologers
held an annual feast, generally in August, sometimes in March, 
July, or November, but never on a Masonic festival.  Ashmole
regularly attended it from 1649 to 1658, when it was suspended, but
afterward revived, in 1682.  In 1650 he was elected a steward for
the following year he mentions the place of meeting only three
times, twice at Painters' Hall, which was probably the usual place,
and once at the Three Cranes, in Chancery Lane. Had the Astrologers
and the Masons been connected, Masons' Hall, in  Basinghall Street,
would certainly have been the place for holding their feast.

Again, it is said by Nicolai that the object of this secret society
which organized the Freemasons was to advance the restoration of
the King.  But Lilly had made, in 1645, the year before the
meeting, this declaration: "Before that time, I was more Cavalier
than Roundbead, but after that I engaged body and soul the cause of
Parliament." He still expressed, it is  true, his attachment to
monarchy; but his life during the Commonwealth showed his devotion
to Cromwell, of whom he was a particular favorite.  After the
Restoration he had to sue out a pardon, which was obtained by the
influence of his friends, but which would hardly have been
necessary if he had been engaged in a secret society the object of
which was to restore Charles II to the throne.

But Charles I was not beheaded until 1649, so that a society could
not have been organized in 1646 for the restoration of his son. 
But it may be said that the Restoration alluded to was of the
monarchy, which at that time was virtually at an end.  So this
objection may pass without further comment. 

But the fact is that the whole of this fiction of the organization,
1646, of a secret society by a set of philosophers or astrologers,
or both, which resulted in the establishment of Freemasonry, arose
out of a misconception or a misrepresentation-whether willful or
not, I will not say-of two passages in the diary of Elias Ashmole. 
Of these two passages, and they are the only ones in his minute
diary of fifty-four years in which there is any mention of
Freemasonry, the first is as follows :

"1646, Octob. 16- 4 Hor. 30 minutes post merid.  I was made a Free-
Mason at Warrington in Lancashire, with Colonel Henry Mainwarring
of Karticham in Cheshire; the names of those that were then at the
lodge, Mr. Richard Penket Warden, Mr. James Collier, Mr. Richard
Sankey, Henry Littler, John Ellam, and Hugh Brewer."

And then, after an interval of thirty-five years, during which
there is no further allusion to Masonry, we find the following
memoranda: " 1682, Mar. 10.  About 5 Hor. Post merid.  I received
a summons to appear at a lodge to be held the next day at Masons
Hall, London.

II. Accordingly I went, and about noon was admitted into the
fellowship of Freemasons, by Sir William Wilson Knight, Captain
Richard Borthwick, Mr. William Wodman, Mr. William Grey, Mr. Samuel
Taylour, and Mr. William Wise. 

" I was the senior fellow among them (it being thirty-five years
since I was admitted) there was present besides myself, the fellows
after mentioned. Mr. Thomas Wise, Master of the Masons Company,
this present year; Mr. Thomas Shorthose, Mr. Thomas Shadbolt,
Wardsford, Esq; Mr. Nicholas Young, Mr. John Shorthose, Mr. William
Hamon, Mr. John Thompson, and Mr. William Stanton. We all dined at
the Half-Moon-Tavern, in Cheapside, at a noble dinner prepared at
the charge of the new accepted Masons." 

Without the slightest show of reason or semblance of authority,
Nicolai transmutes the Lodge at Warrington, in which Ashmole was
made a Freemason, into an annual feast of the Astrologers.  The
Society of Astrologers, he says, "had previously held one meeting
at Warrington, in Lancashire, but it was first firmly established
at London." And he cites as His authority for this statement the
very passage from Ashinole's diary in which that antiquary records
his reception in a Masonic Lodge.

These events in the life of Ashmole, which connect him with the
Masonic fraternity, have given considerable embarrassment to
Masonic scholars who have been unable to comprehend the two
apparently conflicting statements that he was made a Freemason at
Warrington in 1646 and afterward received into the fellowship of
the Freemasons, in 1682, at London.  The embarrassment and
misapprehension arose from the fact that we have unfortunately no
records of the meetings of the Operative Lodges of England in the
17th century, and nothing but traditional and generally mythical
accounts of their usages during that period.

The sister kingdom of Scotland has been more fortunate in this
respect, and the valuable work of Brother Lyon, on the History of
the Lodge of Edinborough, has supplied us with authentic records of
the Scottish Lodges at a much earlier date.  These records will
furnish us with some information in respect to the contemporaneous
English Lodges which was have every reason to suppose were governed
by usages not very different from those of the Lodges in the
adjacent kingdom. Mr. Lyon has on this subject the following
remarks, which may be opportunely quoted on the present occasion.

" The earliest date at which non-professionals are known to have
been received into an English Lodge is 1646.  The evidence of this
is derived from the diary of one of the persons so admitted ; but
the preceding minutes (1) afford authentic instances of Speculative
Masons having been admitted to the fellowship of the Lodge of  

(1) Minutes of the Lodge of Cannongate, Kilwinning, for 1635,
quoted by him in a precedding page.

Edinburgh twelve years prior to the reception of Colonel Main
warring and Elias Ashmole in the Lodge of Warrington and thirty-
eight years before the date at which the presence of Gentleman
Masons is first discernible in the Lodge of Kilwinning by the
election of Lord Cassillis to the deaconship.  It is worthy of
remark that, with singularly few exceptions, the non-operatives who
were admitted to Masonic fellowship in the Lodges of Edinburgh and
Kilwinning, during the 17th century, were persons of quality, the
most distinguished of whom, as the natural result of its
metropolitan position, being made in the former Lodge.  Their
admission to fellowship in an institution composed of Operative
Masons associated together for purposes of their Craft would in all
probability originate in a desire to elevate its position and
increase its influence, and once adopted, the system would further
recommend itself to the Fraternity by the opportunities which it
presented for cultivating the friendship and enjoying the society
of gentlemen to whom in ordinary circumstances there was little
chance of their ever being personally known.  On the other hand,
non-professionals connecting themselves with the Lodge by the ties
of membership would, we believe, be actuated partly by a
disposition to reciprocate the feelings that had prompted the
bestowal of the fellowship partly by curiosity to penetrate the
arcana of the Craft, and partly by the novelty of the situation as
members of a secret society and participants in its ceremonies and
festivities.  But whatever may have been the rnotives which
animated the parties on either side, the tie which united them was
a purely honorary one." (1) 

What is here said by Lyon of the Scottish Lodges may, I think, be
with equal propriety applied to those of England at the same
period.  There was in 1646 a Lodge of Operative Masons at
Warrington, just as there was a similar one at Edinburgh.  Into
this Lodge Colonel Mainwarring and Elias Ashmole, both non-
professional gentlemen, were admitted as honorary members, or, to
use the language of the latter, were " made Freemasons," a
technical term that has been preserved to the present day.

But thirty-five years afterward, being then a resident of London,
he was summoned to attend a meeting of the Company of Masons, to be
held at their hall in Masons' Alley, Basinghall Street, 

(1) Lyon, "History of the Lodge of Edinburgh," p. 81

and there, according to His own account, he was " admitted into the
fellowship of Freemasons." How are we to explain this apparent
double or renewed admission ? But mark the difference of language. 
In 1646 he was "made a Freemason."  In 1682 he was admitted into
the fellowship of Freemasons." The distinction is an important one.

The Masons' Company in 1682 constituted in London one of those many
city companies which embraced the various trades and handicrafts of
the metropolis.  Stowe, in his Survey of London, says that " the
Masons, otherwise termed Freemasons, were a society of ancient
standing and  good reckoning, by means of affable and kind meetings
divers time, and as a loving brotherhood should use to do, did
frequent their mutual assemblies in the time of King Henry IV, in
the 12th year of whose most gracious reign they were incorporated."

In Cheswell's New View of London, printed in 1708, it is said that
the Masons' Company "were incorporated about the year 1410, having
been called the Free Masons, a Fraternity of great account, ,who
have been honored by several Kings, and very many of the Nobility
and Gentry being of their Society.  They are governed by a Master,
2 Wardens, 25 Assistants, and there are 65 on the Livery.  "

Maitland, in his London and its Environs, says, speaking of the
Masons: "This company had their arms granted by Clarencieux, King-
at-Arms, in the year 1477, though the members were not incorporated
by letters patent till they obtained them from King Charles II. in
1677.  They have a small convenient hall in Masons' Alley,
Basinghall Street."

There were then, in the time of Ashmole, two distinct bodies of men
practicing the Craft of Operative Masonry, namely, the Lodges which
were to be found in various parts of the country, and the Company
of Masons, whose seat was at London.

Into one of the Lodges, which was situated at Warrington, in
Lancashire, Ashmole had in 1646 received honorary membership,
which, in compliance with the technical language of that and of the
present day, he called being "made a Freemason." But this did not
constitute him a member of the Masons' Company of London, for this
was a distinct incorporated society, with its exclusive rules and
regulations, and admission into which could only be obtained by the
consent of the members.  There were many Masons who were not
members of the Company. 

Ashmole, who had for thirty-five years been a Freemason, by virtue
of his  making at Warrington, was in 1682 elected a member of this
Masons' Company, and this he styles being "admitted into the
fellowship of Freemasons "-that is, he was admitted to the
fellowship or membership of the Company and made " free " of it.

From all of which we may draw the following conclusions: First,
that in 1646, at the very date assigned by Nicolai for the
organization of the Freemasons as a secret political society, under
the leadership of Ashmole and Lilly, the former, being as yet
unacquainted with the latter, was at Warrington, in Lancashire,
where he found a Lodge of Masons already organized and with its
proper officers and its members, by whom he was admitted as an
honorary non-professional member of the Craft.  And secondly, that
while in London be was admitted, being already a Freemason, to the
fellowship of the Masons' Company.  And thirdly, that he was also
a  member of the fraternity of Astrologers, having been admitted
probably in 1649, and regularly attended their annual feast from
that year to 1658, when the festival, and perhaps the fraternity,
was suspended until 1682, when it was again revived.  But during
all this time it is evident from the memoranda of Ashmole that the
Freemasons and the Astrologers were two entirely distinct bodies. 
Lilly, who was the head of the Astrologers, was, we may say almost
with certainty, not a Freemason, else the spirit of minuteness with
which he has written his autobiography would not have permitted him
to omit what to his peculiar frame of maid would have been so
important a circumstance as connecting him still more closely with
his admired friend, Elias Ashmole, nor would the latter have
neglected to record it in his diary, written with even still
greater minuteness than Lilly's memoirs. 

Notwithstanding the clear historical testimony which shows that
Lodges of Freemasons had been organized long before the time of
Ashmok, and that he had actually been made a Freemason in one of
them, many writers, both Masonic and profane, have maintained the
erroneous doctrine that Ashmole was the founder of the Masonic
Society.

'Thus Chambers, in their Encyclopedia say that " Masonry was
founded by Ashmole some of his literary friends," and De Quincey
expressed the same opinion.

Mr. John Yarker, in his very readable Notes on the Scientific and 
Religious Mysteries of Antiquity, offers a modified view and a
compromise of the subject.  He refers to the meeting of the
chemical adepts at Masons' Hall (a fact of which we have no
evidence), and then to the " Feast of the Astrologers " which
Ashmole attended.  He follows Nicolai in asserting that their
allegories were founded on Bacon's House of Solomon, and says that
they used as emblems the sun, moon, square, triangle, etc.  And he
concludes, " it is possible that Ashmole may have consolidated the
customs  of the two associations, but there is no evidence that any
Lodge of this, his speculative rite, came under the Masonic
Constitution."' (1)

We may also say that it is possible that Ashmole may have invented
a speculative rite of some kind, but there is no evidence that he
did so.  Many things are possible that are not probable, and many
probable that are not actual.  History is made up of facts, and not
of possibilities or probabilities. 

Ashmole himself entertained a very different and much more correct
notion of the origin of Masonry than any of those who have striven
to claim him as its founder.

Dr. Knipe, of Christ Church, Oxford, in a letter to the publisher
of Ashmole's Life, says: " What from Mr. E. Ashmole's collections
I could gather was, that the report of our society's taking rise
from a bull granted by the Pope in the reign of Henry III, to some
Italian architects to travel over all Europe, to erect chapels, was
illfounded.  Such a bull there was, and these architects were
Masons; but this bull, in the opinion of the learned Mr. Ashmole,
was confirmative only, and did not, by any means, create our
Fraternity, or even establish them in this kingdom."

This settles the question.  Ashmole could not have been the founder
of Freemasonry in London in 1646, since he himself expressed the
belief that the Institution had existed in England before the 13th
century.

There is no doubt, as I have already said, that he was very
intimately connected with the Astrologers.  Dr. Krause, in his
Three Oldest Documents of the Masonic Brotherhood, quotes the
following passage from Lilly's History of my Life and Titles. (I
can not 

(1) "Notes on the Scientific and Religious Mysteries of Antiquity,"
p. 106
(2) "Die drei altesten Kunsturkunden der Freimaurerbruderschaft,"
IV., 286

find it in my own copy of that work, but the statements are
corroborated by Ashmole's diary.) " 

"The King's affairs being now grown desperate, Mr. Ashmole withdrew
himself, after the surrender of the Garrison of Worcester, into
Cheshire, where he continued till the end of October, and then came
up to London, where he became acquainted with Master, afterwords
Sir Jonas Moore, Mr.  William Lilly, and Mr. John Booker, esteemed
the greatest astrologers iii the world, by whom he was caressed,
instructed and received into their fraternity, which then made a
very considerable figure, as appeared by the great resort of
persons of distinction to their annual feast, of which Mr. Ashmole
was afterwards elected Steward."

Ashmole left Worcester for Cheshire July 24, 1646, and moved from
Cheshire to London October 25, of the same year.  In that interval
of three months he was made a Freemason, at Warrington.  At that
time he was not acquainted with Lilly, Moore, or Booker, and knew
nothing of astrology or of the great astrologers.

This destroys the accuracy of Nicolai's assertion that the meeting
held at Masons' Hall, in 1682, by Ashmole, Lilly, and other
astrologers, when they founded the Society of Freemasons, was
preceded by a similar and initiatory one, in 1646, at Warrington.

A few words must now be said upon the subject of Bacon's House of
Solomon, which Nicolai and others supposed to have first given rise
to the Masonic allegory which was afterward changed to that of the
Temple of Solomon.

Bacon, in his fragmentary and unfinished romance of the New
Atlantis, had devised the fable of an island of Bensalem, in which
was an institution or college called the House of Solomon, the
fellows of which were to be students of philosophy and
investigators of science.  He thus described their occupations :

"We have twelve that sail into foreign countries, who bring in the
books and patterns of experiments of all other parts ; these we
call merchants of light.  We have three that collect the
experiments that are in all books; these are called depredators. 
We have three that collect experiments of all mechanical arts, and
also of liberal sciences, and also of practices which are not
brought into the arts; these we call mystery men.  We have three
that try new experiments such as themselves think good; these we
call pioneers or miners. We have three that draw the experiments of
the former four into titles and  tablets to give the better light
for the drawing of observations and axioms out of them; these we
call compilers.  We have three that bind themselves looking into
the experiments of their fellows and cast about how to draw out of
them things of use and practice for man's life and knowledge as
well for iworks as for plain demonstrations and the easy and clear
discovering of the virtues and parts of bodies ; these we call
doing men and benefactors. Then after divers meetings and consults
of our whole number to consider of the former labors and
collections, we have three to take care out of them to direct new
experiments of higher light, more penetrating into nature than the
former; these we call lamps.  We have three others that do execute
the experiments so directed and report them ; these we call
inoculators.  Lastly we have three that raise the former
discoveries by experiments into greater observations, axioms and
aphorisms; these we call interpreters of nature." (1)

It is evident from this schedule of the occupations of the inmates
of the House of Solomon that it could not in the remotest degree
have been made the foundatiort of a Masonic allegory.  In fact, the
suggestion of a Masonic connection could have been derived only
from a confused idea of the relation of the House to the Temple of
Solomon, a misapprehension which a reading of the New Atlantis
would readily remove.

As Plato had written his Republic and Sir Thomas More his Utopia to
give their ideas of a model commonwealth, so Lord Bacon commenced
his New Atlantis to furnish his idea of a model college to be
instituted for the study and interpretation of nature by
experimental methods. These views were first introduced in his
Advancement of Human Learning, and would have been perfected in his
New Atlantis had he ever completed it.

The new philosophy of Bacon had produced a great revolution in the
minds of thinking men, and that group of philosophers who in the
17th century, as Dr. Whewell says, "began to knock at the door
where truth was to be found " would very wisely seek the key in the
inductive and experimental method taught by Bacon.

To the learned men, therefore, who first met at the house of Dr.
Goddard and the other members, and whose meetings finally ended in
the formation of the Royal Society, the allegory of the House of 

(1) "New Atlantis," Works, vol. ii., p. 376

Solomon very probably furnished valuable hints  for the pursuit of
their experimental studies. 

To Freemasons in any age the allegory would have been useless and
unprofitable, and could by no ingenious method have been twisted
into a foundation for their symbolic science The hypothesis that it
was adopted in 1646 by the founders of Freemasonry as a fitting
allegory for their esoteric system of instruction is evidently too
absurd to need further refutation. 

In conclusion, we may unhesitatingly concur with Bro.  W. J.
Elughan in his opinion that the theory which assigns the foundation
of Freemasonry to Elias Ashmole and his friends the Astrologers "
is opposed to existing documents dating before and since his
initiation." It is equally opposed to the whole current of
authentic history, and is unsupported by the character of the
Institution and true nature of its symbolism.





CHAPTER XXXV

THE ROSICRUCIANS AND THE FREEMASONS



Of all the theories which have been advanced in relation to the
origin of Freemasonry from some one of the secret sects, either of
antiquity or of the Middle Ages, there is none more in. teresting
than that which seeks to connect it with the Hermetic philosophy,
because there is none which presents more plausible claims to our
consideration.

There can be no doubt that in some of what are called the High
Degrees there is a very palpable infusion of a Hermetic element. 
This can not be denied, because the evidence will be most apparent
to any one who examines their rituals, and some by their very
titles, in which the Hermetic language and a reference to Hermetic
principles are adopted, plainly admit
the connection and the influence.

There is, therefore, necessity to investigate the question whether
or not some of those High or Philosophic Degrees which were
fabricated about the middle of the last century are or are not of
a Hermetic character, because the time of their invention, when
Craft Masonry was already in a fixed condition, removes them
entirely out of the problem which relates to the origin of the
Masonic Institution.  No matter when Freemasonry was established,
the High Degrees were an afterthought, and might very well be
tinctured with the principles of any philosophy which prevailed at
the period of their invention.

But it is a question of some interest to the Masonic scholar
whether at the time of the so-called Revival of Freemasonry, in the
early part of the 18th century, certain Hermetic degrees did not
exist which sought to connect themselves with the system of
Masonry.  And it is a question of still greater interest whether
this attempt was successful so far, at least, as to impress upon
the features of that early Freemasonry a portion of the
characteristic tints of the Hermetic philosophy, some of the marks
of which may still remain in our modern system.

But as the Hermetic philosophy was that which was invented and
taught by the Rosicrucians, before we can attempt to resolve these
important and interesting questions, it will be necessary to take
a brief glance at the history and the character of Rosicrucianism. 
On the 17th of August, 1586, Johann Valentin Andred was born at
Herrenberg, a small market-town of what was afterward the kingdom
of Wurtemburg. After a studious youth, during which he became
possessed of a more than moderate share of learning, he departed in
1610 on a pilgrimage through Germany, Austria, Italy, and France,
supplied with but little money, but with an indomitable desire for
the acquisition of knowledge. Returning home, in 1614, he embraced
the clerical profession and was appointed a deacon in the town of
Vaihingen, and by subsequent promotions reached, in 1634, the
positions of Protestant prelate of the Abbey of Bebenhausen and
spiritual counsellor of the Duchy of Brunswick.  He died on the
27th of June, 1654, at the ripe age of sixty-eight years.

On the moral character of Andred his biographers have lavished
their encomiums.  A philanthropist from his earliest life, he
carried, or sought to carry, his plans of benevolence into active
operation.  Wherever, says Vaughan, the church, the school, the
institute of charity have fallen into ruin or distress, there the
indefatigable Andred sought to restore them.  He was, says another
writer, the guardian genius and the comforter of the suffering;  he
was a practical helper as well as a theoretical adviser; in the
times of dearth and famine, many thousand poor were fed and clothed
by his exer- tions, and the town of Kalw, of which, in 1720, he was
appointed the superintendent, long enjoyed the benefit of many
charitable institutions which owed their origin to his
solicitations and zeal.

It is not surprising that a man indued with such benevolent
feelings and actuated by such a spirit of philanthropy should have
viewed with deep regret the corruptions of the times in which he
lived, and should have sought to devise some plan by which the
condition of his fellow-men might be ameliorated and the dry,
effete 

(1) Biographical Sketch by Wm. Bell, in Freemasons' Quarterly
Magazine, London, vol. ii., N.S., 1854, p. 27

theology of the church be converted into some more living, active,
humanizing system.

For the accomplishment of this purpose he could see no better
method than the establishment of a practical philanthropical
fraternity, one that did not at that time exist, but the formation
of which he resolved to suggest to such noble minds as might be
stimulated to the enterprise.

With this view he invoked the assistance of fiction, and hence
there appeared, in 1615, a work which he entitled the Report of the
Rosicrucian Brotherhood, or, in its original Latin, Fama
Fraternitatis Rose Crucis.  An edition had been published the year
before with the title of Universal Reformation of the Whole World,
with a Report of the Worshipful Order of the Rosicrucian
Brotherhood, addressed to all the Learned Men and Nobility of
Europe. (1) There was another work, published in 1616, with the
title of Chemische Hochzeit, or Chemical Nuptials, by Christian
Rosencreutz.

All of these books were published anonymously, but they were
universally attributed to the pen of Andred, and were all intended
for one purpose, that of discovering by the character of their
reception who were the true lovers of wisdom and philanthropy, and
of inducing them to come forward to the perfection of the
enterprise, by transforming this fabulous society into a real and
active organization

The romantic story of Christian Rosencreutz, the supposed founder
of the Order, is thus told by Andrea.  I have borrowed for the most
part the language of Mr. Sloane, (2) who, although his views and
deductions on the subject are for the most part erroneous, has yet
given us the best English epitome of the myth of Andred.

According to Andrea's tale, a certain Christian Rosencreutz, though
of good birth, found himself compelled from poverty to enter the
cloister at a very early period of life.  He was only sixteen years
old when one of the monks purposed a pilgrimage to the Holy
Sepulcher, and Rosencreutz, as a special favor, was permitted to
accompany him.  At Cyprus the monk is taken ill, but Rosencreutz
proceeds onward to Damascus with the intention of going on to 

(1) " Allgemeine und General Reformation der ganzen, weiten Welt.
Beneben der Fama Fraternitatis des Loblichen Ordens des
Rosencreutzes, an alle Gelehrte und Haupter Europae geschreiben,"
Cassel, 1614.
(2) "New Curiosities of Literature," vol. ii., p. 44

Jerusalem.  While detained in the former city by the fatigues of
his journey, he hears of the wonders performed by the sages of
Damascus, and, his curiosity being excited, he places himself under
their direction.

Three years having been spent in the acquisition of their most
hidden mysteries, he sets sail from the Gulf of Arabia for Egypt. 
There he studies the nature of plants and animals and then repairs,
in obedience to the instructions of his Arabian masters, to Fez, in
Africa.  In this city it was the custom of the Arab and African
sages to meet annually for the purpose of communicating to each
other the results of their experience and inquiries, and here he
passed two years in study. He then crossed over to Spain, but not
meeting there with a favorable reception, he returned to his native
country.

But as Germany was then filled with mystics of all kinds, his
proposals for a reformation in morals and science meets with so
little sympathy from the public that he resolves to establish a
society of his own.

With this view he selects three of his favorite companions from his
old convent.  To them, under a solemn vow of secrecy, he
communicates the -knowledge which he had acquired during his
travels.  He imposes on them the duty of committing it to writing
and of forming a magical vocabulary for the benefit of future
students.

But in addition to this task they also undertook to prescribe
gratuitously for all the sick who should ask their assistance, and
as in a short time the concourse of patients became so great as
materially to interfere with their other duties, and as a building
which Rosencreutz had been erecting, called the Temple of the Holy
Ghost, was now completed, he determines to increase the number of
the brotherhood, and accordingly initiates four new members.

When all is completed, and the eight brethren are instructed in the
mysteries of the Order, they separate, according to agreement, two
only staying with Father Christian.  The other six, after traveling
for a year, are to return and communicate the results of their
experience.  The two who had stayed at home are then to be relieved
by two of the travelers, so that the founder may never be alone,
and the six again divide and travel for a year.

The laws of the Order as they had been prescribed by Rosencreutz
were as follows:

1. That they should devote themselves to no other Occupation than
that of the gratuitous practice of physic.

2.  That they were not to wear a particular habit, but were to
conform in this respect to the customs of the country in which they
might happen to be.

3.  That each one was to present himself on a certain day in the
year at the Temple of the Holy Ghost, or send an excuse for his
absence.

4.  That each one was to look out for a brother to succeed him in
the event of his death.

5. That the letters R. C. were to be their seal, watchword, and
title.

6.  That the brotherhood was to be kept a secret for one hundred
years.

When one hundred years old, Christian Rosencreutz died, but the
place of his burial was unknown to any one but the two brothers who
were with him at the time of his death, and they carried the secret
with them to the grave.

The society, however, continued to exist unknown to the world,
always consisting of eight members only, until another hundred and
twenty years had elapsed, when, according to a tradition of the
Order, the grave of Father Rosencreutz was to be discovered, and
the brotherhood to be no longer a mystery to the world.

It was about this time that the brethren began to make some
alterations in their building, and thought of removing to another
and more fitting situation the memorial tablet, on which were
inscribed the names of their associates.  The plate, which was of
brass, was affixed to the wall by means of a nail in its center,
and so firmly was it fastened that in tearing it away a portion of
the plaster of the wall became detached and exposed a concealed
door.  Upon this door being still further cleansed from the
incrustation, there appeared above it in large letters the
following words: POST CXX ANNOS PATEBO-after one hundred and twenty
years I will be opened.

Although the brethren were greatly delighted at the discovery, they
so far restrained their curiosity as not to open the door until the
next morning, when they found themselves in a vault of seven sides
each side five feet wide and eight feet high.  It was lighted by an
artificial sun in the center of the arched roof, while in the
middle of the floor, instead of a tomb, stood a round altar covered
with a small brass plate, on which was this inscription :

A. C. R. C. Hoc, universi compendium, vivus mihi sepulchrum feci-
while living, I made this epitome of the universe my sepulcher.

About the outer edge was:

Jesus mihi omnia-, Jesus is all things to me.

In the center were four figures, each enclosed in a circle, with
these words inscribed around them:

1.Nequaquam vacuus.
2.Legis Jugum.
3.Liberias Evangelii
4.Dei gloria intacia.

That is- 1.  By no means void. 2. The yoke of the Law. 3. The
liberty of the Gospel. 4. The unsullied Glory of God.

On seeing all this, the brethren knelt down and returned thanks to
God for having made them so much wiser than the rest of the world. 
Then they divided the vault into three parts, the roof, the wall,
and the pavement.  The first and the last were divided into seven
triangles, corresponding to the seven sides of the wall, each of
which formed the base of a triangle, while the apices met in the
center of the roof and of the pavement.  Each side was divided into
ten squares, containing figures and sentences which were to be
explained to the new initiates.  In each side there was also a door
opening upon a closet, wherein were stored up many rare articles,
such as the secret books of the Order, the vocabulary of
Paracelsus, and other things of. a similar nature.  In one of the
closets they discovered the life of their founder; in others they
found curious mirrors, burning lamps, and a variety of objects
intended to aid in rebuilding the Order, which, after the lapse of
many centuries, was to fall into decay.

Pushing aside the altar, they came upon a strong brass plate, which
being removed, they beheld the corpse of Rosencreutz as freshly
preserved as on the day when it had been deposited, and under his
arm a volume of vellum with letters of gold, containing, among
other things, the names of the eight brethren who had founded the
Order.

Such is an outline of the story of Christian Rosencreutz and his
Rosicrucian Order as it is told in the Fama Fraternitatis.  It is
very evident that Andrea composed this romance-for it is nothing
else not to record the existence of any actual society, but only
that it might serve as a suggestion to the learned and the
philanthropic to engage in the establishment of some such
benevolent association.  " He hoped;" says Vaughan, " that the few
nobler minds whom he desired to organize would see through the veil
of fiction in which he had invested his proposal; that he might
communicate personally with some such, if they should appear, or
that his book might lead them to form among themselves a practical
philanthropic confederacy answering to the serious purpose he had
embodied in his fiction." (1) 

But his design was misunderstood then, as it has been since, and
everywhere his fable was accepted as a fact.  Diligent search was
made by the credulous for the discovery of the Temple of the Holy
Ghost.  Printed letters appeared continually, addressed to the
unknown brotherhood, seeking admission into the fraternity-a
fraternity that existed only in the pages of the Fama.  But the
irresponsive silence to so many applications awoke the suspicions
of some, while the continued mystery strengthened the credulity of
others.  The brotherhood, whose actual house " lay beneath the
Doctor's hat of Valentin Andred," was violently attacked and as
vigorously defended in numerous books and pamphlets which during
that period flooded the German press.

The learned men among the Germans did not give a favoring ear to
the philanthropic suggestions of Andred, but the mystical notions
contained in his fabulous history were seized with avidity by the
charlatans, who added to them the dreams of the alchemists and the
reveries of the astrologers, so that the post-Andrean
Rosicrucianism became a very different thing from that which had
been devised by its original author.  It does not, however, appear
that the Rosicrucians, as an organized society, made any stand in
Germany.  Descartes says that after strict search he could not find
a single lodge in that country.  But it extended, as we will
presently see, into England, and there became identified as a
mystical association.

It is strange what misapprehension, either willful or mistaken, has
existed in respect to the relations of Andrea to Rosicrucianism. 
We have no more right or reason to attribute the detection of such 

(1) "Hours with the Mystics," vol. ii., p. 103

a sect to the German theologian than we have to ascribe the
discovery of the republic of Utopia to Sir Thomas More, or of the
island of Bensalem to Lord Bacon.  In each of these instances a
fiction was invented on which the author might impose his
philosophical or political thoughts, with no dream that readers
would take that for fact which was merely intended for fiction.

And yet Rhigellini, in his Masonry Considered as the Result of the
Egyptian, Jewish, and Christian Religions, while declining to
express an opinion on the allegorical question, as if there might
be a doubt on the subject, respects the legend as it had been given
in the Fama, and asserting that on the return of Rosencreutz to
Germany " he instituted secret societies with an initiation that
resembled that of the early Christians." (1)   He antedates the
Chemical Nuptials ials of Andred a century and a half, ascribes the
authorship of that work to Christian Rosencreutz, as if he were a
real personage, and thinks that he established, in 1459, the Rite
of the Theosophists, the earliest branch of the Rose Croix, or the
Rosicrucians; for the French make no distinction in the two words,
though in history they are entirely different.  History written in
this way is worse than fable-it is an ignis fatuus which can only
lead astray.  And yet this is the method in which Masonic history
has too often been treated.

Nicolai, although the deductions by which he connects Freemasonry
with Rosicrucianism are wholly untenable, is yet, in his treatment
of the latter, more honest or less ignorant. He adopts the correct
view when he says that the Fama Fraternitatis only announced a
general reformation and exhorted all wise men to unite in a
proposed society for the purpose of removing corruption and
restoring wisdom.  He commends it as a charming vision, full of
poesy and imagination, but of a singular extravagance very common
in the writings of that age.  And he notes the fact that while the
Alchemists have sought in that work for the secrets of their
mysteries, it really contains the gravest satire on their absurd
pretensions.

The Fama Fraternitatis had undoubtedly excited the curiosity of the
Mystics, who abounded in Germany at the time of its appear. ance,
of whom not the least prominent were the Alchemists.  These, having
sought in vain for the invisible society of the Rosicrucians, as it
had been described in the romance of Andred, resolved to form 

(1) "La Maconnerie consideree comme le resultant des Religions
Egyptienne, Juive et Chretienne," L. iii., p. 108

such a society for themselves.  But, to the disappointment and the
displeasure of the author of the Fama, they neglected or postponed
the moral reformation which he had sought, and substituted the
visionary schemes of the Alchemists, a body of quasi-philosophers
who assigned their origin as students of nature and seekers of the
philosophers stone and the elixir of immortality to a very remote
period.

Thus it is that I trace the origin of the Rosicrucians, not to
Valentin Andrea, nor to Christian Rosencreutz, who was only the
coinage of his brain, but to the influence exerted by him upon
certain Mystics and Alchemists who, whether they accepted the
legend of Rosencreutz as a fiction or as a verity, at least made
diligent use of it in the establishment of their new society.

I am not, therefore, disposed to doubt the statement of L. C.
Orvius, as cited by Nicolai, that in 1622 there was a society of
Alchemists at The Hague, who called themselves Rosicrucians and
claimed Rosencreutz as their founder.

Michael Maier, the physician of the Emperor Rudolf II., devoted
himself in the early part of the 17th century to the pursuits of
alchemy, and, having adopted the mystical views of the
Rosicrucians, is said to have introduced that society into England. 
Maier was the author of many works in Latin in defense and in
explanation of the Rosicrucian system.  Among them was an epistle
addressed " To all lovers of true chemistry throughout Germany, and
especially to that Order which has hitherto lain concealed, but is
now probably made known by the Report of the Fraternity (Fama
Fraternitatis) and their admirable Confession." (1) In this work he
uses the following language:

"What is contained in the Fama and confessio is true.  It is a very
childish objection that the brotherhood have promised so much and
performed so little.  The Masters of the Order hold out the Rose as
a remote reward, but they impose the Cross on all who are entering. 
Like the Pythagoreans and the Egyptians, the Rosicrucians extract
vows of silence and secrecy.  Ignorant men have treated the whole
as a fiction ; but this has arisen from the probation of five years
to which they subject even well qualified novices, 

(1) "Omnibus verae chymiae Amantibus per Germaniam, et precipere
illi Ordini adhue delitescenti, at Fama Fraternitatis et
confessione sua admiranda et probabile manifestato."

before they are admitted to the higher mysteries, and within that
period they are taught how to govern their own tongues!

Although Maier died in 1622, it appears that he had lived long
enough to take part in the organization of the Rosicrucian sect,
which had been formed out of the suggestions of Andred.  His views
on this subject were, however, peculiar and different from those of
most of the new disciples.  He denied that the Order had derived
either its origin or its name from the person called Rosencreutz. 
He says that the founder of the society, having given his disciples
the letters R. C. as a sign of their fraternity, they improperly
made out of them the words Rose and Cross.  But these heterodox
opinions were not accepted by the Rosicrucians in general, who
still adhered to Andrea's legend as the source and the
signification of their Order.

At one time Maier went to England, where he became intimately
acquainted with Dr. Robert Fludd, the most famous as well as the
earliest of the English Rosicrucians.

Robert Fludd was a physician of London, who was born in 1574 and
died in 1637.  He was a zealous student of alchemy, theosophy, and
every other branch of mysticism, and wrote in defense of
Rosicrucianism, of which sect he was an active member.  Among his
earliest works is one published in 1616 under the title of A
Compendious Apology clearing the Fraternity of the Rosy Cross from
the stains of suspicion and infamy cast upon them.

There is much doubt whether Maier communicated the system of
Rosicrucianism to Fludd or whether Fludd had already received it
from Germany before the visit of Maier.  The only authority for the
former statement is De Quincey (a most unreliable one), and the
date of Fludd's Apology militates against it.

Fludd's explanation of the name of the sect differs from that of
both Andrea and Maier.  It is, he says, to be taken in a figurative
sense, and alludes to the cross dyed with the blood of Christ.  In
this explanation he approaches very nearly to the idea entertained
by the members of the modern Rose Croix degree.

No matter who was the missionary that brought it over, it is very
certain that Rosicrucianism was introduced from Germany, its
birthplace, 

(1) "Apologia Compendiaria, Fraternitatem de Rosea Cruce
suspicionis et infamiae maculis aspersum abluens."

into England at a very early period of the 17th century, and it is
equally certain that after its introduction it flourished, though
an exotic, with more vigor than it ever had in its native soil.

That there were in that century, and even in the beginning of the
succeeding one, mystical initiations wholly unconnected with
Freemasonry, but openly professing a Hermetic or Rosicrucian
character and origin, may very readily be supposed from existing
documents.  It is a misfortune that such authors as Buhle, Nicolai,
and Rhigellini, with many others, to say nothing of such nonmasonic
writers as Sloane and De Quincey, who were necessarily mere
sciolists in all Masonic studies, should have confounded the two
institutions, and, because both were mystical, and one appeared to
follow (although it really did not) the other in point of time,
should have proclaimed the theory (wholly untenable) that
Freemasonry is indebted for its origin to Rosicrucianism.

The writings of Lilly and Ashmole, both learned men for the age in
which they lived, prove the existance of a mystical philosophy in
England in the 17th century, in which each of them was a
participant. The Astrologers,who were deeply imbued with the
Hermetic philosophy, held their social meetings for mutual
instruction and their annual feasts, and Ashmole gives hints of his
initiation into what I suppose to have been alchemical or
Rosicrucian wisdom by one whom he reverently calls " Father
Backhouse."

But we have the clearest documentary testimony of the existence of
a Hermetic degree or system at the beginning of the 18th century,
and about the time of what is called the Revival of Masonry in
England, by the establishment of the Grand Lodge at London, and
which, from other undoubted testimony, we know were not Masonic. 
This testimony is found in a rare work, some portions of whose
contents, in reference to this subject, are well worthy of a
careful review.

In the year 1722 there was published in London a work in small
octave bearing the following title:  (1)

"Long Livers: A curious History of such Persons of both Sexes who
have lived several Ages and grown Young again: With the rare Secret
of Rejuvenescency of Arnoldus de Villa Nova.  And a 

(1) A copy of this work, and, most probably, the only one in this
country, is in the valuable library of Bro. Carson, of Cincinnati,
and to it I am indebted for the extracts that I have made.

great many approved and invaluable Rules to prolong Life: Also how
to prepare the Universal Medicine.  Most humbly dedicated to the
Grand Master, Masters, Wardens, and Brethren of the Most Ancient
and Honorable Fraternity of the FREE MASONS of Great Britain and
Ireland.  By Engenius Philaiethes, F. R. S., Author of the Treatise
of the Plague. Viri Fratres audite me.  Act. xv. 13. Diligite
Fraternitatem timete Deum honorate Regem.1. Pet. ii.  17. LONDON. 
Printed for J. Holland, at the Bible and Ball, in St. Paul's Church
Yard, and L. Stokoe, at Charing Cross, 1722." pp. 64-199.

Engenius Philalethes was the pseudonym of Thomas Vaughn, a
celebrated Rosicrucian of the 17th century, who published, in 1659,
a translation of the Fama Fraternitatis into English.  But, as he
was born in 1612, it is not to be supposed that he wrote the
present work.  It is, however, not very important to identify this
second Philalethes.  It is sufficient for our purpose to know that
it is a Hermetic treatise written by a Rosicrucian, of which the
title alone-the references to the renewal of youth, one of the
Rosicrucian secrets, to the recipe of the great Rosicrucian Villa
Nova, or Arnold de Villaneuve, and to the Universal Medicine, the
Rosicrucian Elixir Vitae-would be sufficient evidence.  But the
only matter of interest in connection. with the present subject is
that this Hermetic work, written, or at least printed, in 1722, one
year before the publication of the first edition of Anderson's
constitutions, refers explicitly to the existence of a higher
initiation than that of the Craft degrees, which the author seeks
to interweave in the Masonic system.

This is evidently shown in portions of the dedication, which is
inscribed to - the Grand Master, Masters, Wardens, and Brethren of
the Most Ancient and Most Honorable Fraternity of the Free Masons
of Great Britain and Ireland"; and it is dedicated to them by their
" Brother Engenius Philalethes."  This fraternal subscription shows
that he was a Freemason as well as a Rosicrucian, and therefore
must have been acquainted with both systems.

The important fact, in this dedication, is that the writer alludes,
in language that can not be mistaken, to a certain higher degree,
or to a more exalted initiation, to the attainment of which the
primitive degrees of Ancient Craft Masonry were preparatory.  Thus
he says, addressing the Freemasons: " I present you with the
following sheets, as belonging more  properly to you than any else. 
But what I here say, those of you who are not far illuminated, who
stand in the outward place and are not worthy to look behind the
veil, may find no disagreeable or unprofitable entertainment; and
those who are so happy as to have greater light, will discover
under these shadows, somewhat truly great and noble and worthy the
serious attention of a genius the most elevated and sublime-the
spiritual, celestial cube, the only true, solid, and immovable
basis and foundation of all knowledge, peace, and happiness." (Page
iv.)

Another passage will show that the writer was not only thoroughly
acquainted with the religious, philosophical, and symbolic
character of the institution, but that he wrote evidently under the
impression (rather I should say the knowledge) that at that day
others besides himself had sought to connect Freemasonry with
Rosicrucianism.  He says:

"Remember that you are the salt of the earth, the light of the
world, and the fire of the universe.  Ye are living stones, built
up a spiritual house, who believe and rely on the chief Lapis
Angularis, which the refractory and disobedient builders
disallowed; you are called from darkness to light; you are a chosen
generation, a royal priesthood."

Here the symbolism is Masonic, but it is also Rosicrucian.  The
Masons had derived their symbol of the STONE from the metaphor of
the Apostle, and like him had given it a spiritual signification. 
The Rosicrucians had also the Stone as their most important symbol. 
"Now," says one of them, "in this discourse will I manifest to thee
the natural condition of the Stone of the Philosophers, apparelled
with a triple garment, even this Stone of Riches and Charity, the
Stone of Relief from Languishment-in which is contained every
secret; being a Divine Mystery and Gift of God, than which there is
nothing more sublime."' (1)

It was natural that a Rosicrucian, iii addressing Freemasons,
should refer to a symbol common to both, though each derived its
interpretation through a different channel.

In another passage he refers to the seven liberal arts, of which he
calls
Astronomy "the grandest and most sublime." 

(1) Dialogue of Arislaus in the Alchemist's Enchiridion, 1672.
Quoted by Hitchcock in his "Alchemy and the Alchemists," p. 39

This was the Rosicrucian doctrine.  In that of the Freemasons the
precedency is given to Geometry.  Here we find a difference between
the two institutions which proves their separate and independent
existence.  Still more important differences will be found in the
following passages, which, while they intimate a higher degree,
show that it was a Hermetic one, which, however, the Rosicrucian
writer was willing to ingraft on Freemasonry.  He says: 

"And now, my Brethren, you of the higher class (note that he does
not call it a degree) permit me a few words, since you are but few;
and these few words I shall speak to you in riddles, because to you
it is given to know those mysteries which are hidden from the
unworthy.

" Have you not seen then, my dearest Brethren, that stupendous
bath, filled with the most limpid water, than which no pure can be
purer, of such admirable mechanism, that makes even the greatest
philosopher gaze with wonder and astonishment, and is the subject
of the contemplation of the wisest men.  Its form is a quadrate
sublimely placed on six others, blazing all with celestial jewels,
each angularly supported with four lions.  Here repose our mighty
King and Queen, (I speak foolishly, I am not worthy to be of you),
the King shining in his glorious apparel of transparent,
incorruptible gold, beset with living sapphires; he is fair and
ruddy, and feeds among the lilies; his eyes, two carbuncles, the
most brilliant, darting prolific never-dying fires; and his large,
flowing hair, blacker than the deepest black or plumage of the
long-lived crow; his royal consort vested in tissue of immortal
silver, watered with emeralds, pearl and coral. O mystical union !
O admirable commerce!

" Cast now your eyes to the basis of this celestial structure, and
you will discover just before it a large basin of porphyrian
marble, receiving from the mouth of a large lion's head, to which
two bodies displayed on each side of it are conjoined, a greenish
fountain of liquid jasper.  Ponder this well and consider.  Haunt
no more the woods and forests; (I speak as a fool) haunt no more
the fleet; let the flying eagle fly unobserved; busy yourselves no
longer with the dancing idiot, swollen toads, and his own tail-
devouring dragon; leave these as elements to your Tyrones.

" The object of your wishes and desires (some of you may, perhaps
have attained it, I speak as a fool), is that admirable thing which
has a substance, neither too fiery nor altogether earthy, nor
simply watery; neither a quality the most acute or most obtuse, but
of a middle nature, and light to the touch, and in some manner
soft, at least not hard, not having asperity, but even in some sort
sweet to the taste, odorous to the smell, grateful to the sight,
agreeable and delectable to the hearing, and pleasant to the
thought; in short, that one only thing besides which there is no
other, and yet everywhere possible to be found, the blessed and
most sacred subject of the square of wise men, that is....... I had
almost blabbed it out and been sacrilegiously perjured.  I shall
therefore speak of it with a circumlocution yet more dark and
obscure, that none but the Sons of Science and those who are
illuminated with the sublimest mysteries and profoundest secrets of
MASONRY may understand.  . . It is then what brings you, my dearest
Brethren, to that pellucid, diaphanous palace of the true
disinterested lovers of wisdom, that triumphant pyramid of purple
salt, more sparkling and radiant than the finest Orient ruby, in
the center of which reposes inaccessible light epitomized, that
incorruptible celestial fire, blazing like burning crystal, and
brighter than the sun in his full meridian glories, which is that
immortal, eternal, never-dying PYROPUS; the King of genius, whence
proceeds everything that is great and wise and happy.

" These things are deeply hidden from common view, and covered with
pavilions of thickest darkness, that what is sacred may not be
given to dogs or your pearls cast before swine, lest they trample
them under foot, and turn again and rend you."

All this is Rosicrucian thought and phraseology.  Its counterpart
may be found in the writings of any of the Hermetic philosophers. 
But it is not Freemasonry and could be understood by no Freemason
relying for his comprehension only on the teaching he had received
in his own Order.  It is the language of a Rosicrucian adept
addressed to other adepts, who like himself had united with the
Fraternity of Freemasons, that they might out of its select coterie
choose the most mystical and therefore the most suitable candidates
to elevate them to the higher mysteries of their own brotherhood.

That Philalethes and his brother Rosicrucians entertained an
opinion of the true character of Speculative Masonry very different
from that taught by its founders is evident from other passages of
this Dedication.  Unlike Anderson, Desaguliers, and the writers
purely Masonic who succeeded them, the author of the Dedication
establishes no connection between Architecture and Freemasonry. 
Indeed it is somewhat singular that although he names both David
and Solomon in the course of his narrative, it is with little
respect, especially for the latter, and he does not refer, even by
a single word, to the Temple of Jerusalem.  The Freemasonry of this
writer is not architectural, but altogether theosophic.  It is
evident that as a Hermetic philosopher he sought to identify the
Freemasons with the disciples of the Rosicrucian sect rather than
with the Operative Masons of the Middle Ages.  This is a point of
much interest in the discussion of the question of a connection
between the two associa- tions, considering that this work was
published only five years after the revival.  It tends to show not
that Freemasonry was established by the Rosicrucians, but, on the
contrary, that at that early period the latter were seeking to
ingraft themselves upon the former, and that while they were
willing to use the simple degrees of Craft Masonry as a nucleus for
the growth of their own fraternity, they looked upon them only as
the medium of securing a higher initiation, altogether unmasonic in
its character and to which but few Masons ever attained.

Neither Anderson nor Desaguliers, our best because contemporary
authority for the state of Masonry in the beginning of the 18th
century, give the slightest indication that there was in their day
a higher Masonry than that described in the Book of Constitutions
of 1723.  The Hermetic clement was evidently not introduced into
Speculative Masonry until the middle of the 18th century, when it
was infused in a fragmentary form into some of the High Degrees
which were at that time fabricated by certain of the Continental
manufacturers of Rites.

But if, as Engenius Philalethes plainly indicates, there were in
the year 1723 higher degrees, or at least a higher degree, attached
to the Masonic system and claimed to be a part of it, which
possessed mystical knowledge that was concealed from the great body
of the Craft, " who were not far illuminated, who stood in the
outward place and were not worthy to look behind the veil "-by
which it is clearly implied that there was another class of
initiates who were far illuminated, who stood within the inner
place and looked behind the veil-then the question forces itself
upon us, why is it that neither Anderson nor Desaguliers nor any of
the writers of that period, nor any of the rituals, make any
allusion to this higher and more illuminated system ?

The answer is readily at hand.  It is because no such system of
initiation, so far as Freemasonry was concerned, existed.  The
Master's degree was at that day the consummation and perfection of
Speculative Masonry There was nothing above or beyond it.  The
Rosicrucians, who, especially in their astrological branch, were
then in full force in England, had, as we see from this book, their
own initiation into their Hermetic and theosophic system. 
Freemasonry then beginning to become popular and being also a
mystical society, these mystical brethren of the Rosy Cross were
ready to enter within its portals and to take advantage of its
organization.  But they soon sought to discriminate between their
own perfect wisdom and the imperfect knowledge of their brother
Masons, and, Rosicrucian-like, spoke of an arcana which they only
possessed.  There were some Rosicrucians who, like Philalethes,
became Freemasons, and some Freemasons, like Elias Ashmole, who
became Rosicrucians.

But there was no legitimate derivation of one from the other. 
There is no similarity between the two systems-their origin is
different; their symbols, though sometimes identical, have always
a different interpretation; and it would be an impossible task to
deduce the one historically from the other.

Yet there are not wanting scholars whose judgment on other matters
has not been deficient, who have not hesitated to trace Freemasonry
to a Rosicrucian source.  Some of these, as Buhle, De Quincey, and
Sloane, were not Freemasons, and we can easily ascribe their
historical errors to their want of knowledge, but such writers as
Nicolai and Reghellini have no such excuse for the fallacy of which
they have been guilty.

Johann Gottlieb Buhle was among the first to advance the hypothesis
that Freemasonry was an off shoot of Rosicrucianism.  This he did
in a work entitled On the Origin and the Principal a Events ,of the
Orders of Rosicrucianism and Freemasonry  (1) published in 1804. 
His theory was that Freemasonry was invented in the year 1629, by
John Valentin Andrea, and

(1) "Uber den Ursprung und die vornehmstem Schicksale des Ordens
der Rosenkreutzen und Freimauer."

hence that it sprang out of the Rosicrucian system or fiction which
was the fabrication of that writer.  His fallacious views and
numerous inaccuracies met with many refutations at the time,
besides those of Nicolai, produced in the work which has been
heretofore cited.  Even De Quincey himself, a bitter but flippant
adversary of Freemasonry, and who translated, or rather
paraphrased, the views of Buhle, does not hesitate to brand him as
illogical in his reasoning and confused in his arrangement.

Yet both Nicolai and De Quincey have advanced almost the same
hypothesis, though that of the former is considerably modified in
its conclusions.

The flippancy and egotism of De Quincey, with his complete
ignorance as a profane, of the true elements of the Masonic
institution, hardly entitle his arguments to a serious criticism. 
His theory and his self-styled facts may be epitomized as follows:

He thinks that the Rosicrucians where attracted to the Operative
Masons by the incidents, attributes and legends of the latter, and
that thus the two Orders were brought into some connection with
each other.  The same building that was used by the guild of Masons
offered a desirable means for the secret assemblies of the early
Freemasons, who, of course, were Rosicrucians.  An apparatus of
implements and utensils, such as was presented in the fabulous
sepulcher of Father Rosencreutz, was introduced, and the first
formal and solemn Lodge of Freemasons on which occasion the name of
Freemasons was publicly made known, was held in Masons' Hall,
Masons' Alley, Basinghall Street, London, in the year 1646.  Into
this Lodge he tells us that Elias Ashmole was admitted.  Private
meetings he says may have been held, and one at Warrington in
Lancashire, which is mentioned in Ashmole's Life, but the name of
a Freemasons' Lodge, with the insignia, attributes, and
circumstances of a Lodge, first, he assures us, came forward at the
date above mentioned.

All of this he tells us, is upon record, and thus refers to
historical testimony, though he does not tell us where it is to be
found.  Now, all these statements we know, from authentic records,
to be false.  Ashmole is our authority, and he is the very best
authority, because he was an eye-witness and a personal actor in
the occurrences which he records.

It has already been seen, by the extracts heretofore given from
Ashmole's diary, that there is no record of a Lodge held in 1646 at 
Masons' Hall; that the Lodge was held, with all ,the attributes and
circumstances of a Lodge," at Warrington; that Ashmole was then and
there initiated as a Freemason, and not at London; and finally,
that the record of the Lodge held at Masons' Hall, London, which is
made by the same Ashmole, was in 1683 and not in 1646, or thirty-
five years afterward.

An historian who thus falsifies records to sustain a theory is not
entitled to the respectful attention of a serious argument.  And so
De Quincey may be dismissed for what he is worth.  I do not concede
to him the excuse of ignorance for he evidently must have had
Ashmole's diary under his eyes, and his misquotations could only
have been made in bad faith.

Nicolai is more honorable in his mode of treating the question.  He
does not attribute the use of Freemasonry directly and immediately
from the Rosicrucian brotherhood.  But he thinks that its mystical
theosophy was the cause of the outspring of many other mystical
associations, such as the Theosophists, and that, passing over into
England, it met with the experimental philosophy of Bacon, as
developed especially in his New Atlantis, and that the combined
influence of the two, the esoteric principles of the one and the
experimental doctrines of the other, together with the existence of
certain political motives, led to a meeting of philosophers who
established the system of Freemasonry at Masons' Hall in 1646.  He
does not explicitly say so, -but it is evident from the names that
he gives that these philosophers were Astrologers, who were only a
sect of the Rosicrucians devoted to a specialty.

The theory and the arguments of Nicolai have already been
considered in the preceding chapter of this work, and need no
further discussion here.

The views of Rhigellini are based on the book of Nicolai, and
differ from them only in being, from his Gallic ignorance of
English history, a little more inaccurate.  The views of Rhigellini
have already been referred to on a preceding page.

And now, we meet with another theorist, who is scarcely more
respectful or less flippant than De Quincey, and who, not being a
Freemason, labors under the disadvantage of an incorrect knowledge
of the principles of the Order.  Besides we can expect but little
accuracy from one who quotes  as authentic history the spurious
Leland Manuscript.

Mr. George Sloane, in a very readable book published in London in
1849, under the title of New Curiosities of Literature, has a very
long article in his second volume on The Rosicrucians and
Freemasons.  Adopting the theory that the latter are derived from
the former, he contends, from what he calls proofs, but which are
no proofs at all, that " the Freemasons are not anterior to the
Rosicrucians; and their principles, so far as they were avowed
about the middle of the 17th century, being identical, it is fair
to presume that the Freemasons were, in reality, the first
incorporated body of Rosicrucians or Sapientes."

As he admits that this is but a presumption, and as presumptions
are not facts, it is hardly necessary to occupy any time in its
discussion.

But he proceeds to confirm his presumption, in the following way.

" In the Fama of Andrea," he says, " we have the first sketch of a
constitution which bound by oath the members to mutual secrecy,
which proposed higher and lower grades, yet leveled all worldly
distinctions in the common bonds of brotherhood, and which opened
its privileges to all classes, making only purity of mind and
purpose the condition of reception."

This is not correct.  Long before the publication of the Fama
Fraternitatis there were many secret associations in the Middle
Ages, to say nothing of the Mysteries of antiquity, in which such
constitutions prevailed, enjoining secrecy under the severest
penalties, dividing their system of esoteric instruction into
different grades, establishing a bond of brotherhood, and always
making purity of life and rectitude of conduct the indispensable
qualifications for admission.  Freemasonry needed not to seek the
model of such a constitution from the Rosicrucians.

Another argument advanced by Mr. Sloane is this:

"The emblems of the two brotherhoods are the same in every respect-
the plummet, the level, the compasses, the cross, the rose, and all
the symbolic trumpery which the Rosicrucians named in their
writings as the insignia of their imaginary associations, and which
they also would have persuaded a credulous,,, world concealed
truths ineffable by mere language; both, too, derived their wisdom
from Adam, adopted the same myth of building, connected them.
selves in the same unintelligible way with Solomon's Temple,
affected to be seeking light from the East-in other words, the
Cabala-and accepted the heathen Pythagoras among their adepts."

In this long passage there are almost as many errors and mis-
statements as there are lines.  The emblems of the two Orders were
not the same in any respect.  The square and compasses were not
ordinary nor usual Rosicrucian emblems.  In one instance, in a
plate in the Azoth Philosophorum of Basil Valentine, published in
the 17th century, we will, it is true, find these implements
forming part of a Rosicrucian figure but they are there evidently
used as phallic symbols, a meaning never attached to them in
Freemasonry, whose interpretation of them is derived from their
operative use.  Besides, we know, from a relic discovered near
Limerick, in Ireland, that the square and the level were used by
the Operative Masons as emblems in the 16th or, perhaps, the 15th
century, with the same signification that is given to them by the
Freemasons of the present day.  The Speculative Masons delved
nearly all of their symbols from the implements and the language of
the Operative art; the Rosicrucians took theirs from astronomical
and geometrical problems, and were connected in their
interpretations with a system of theosophy and not with the art of
building.  The cross and the rose, referred to by Mr. Sloane, never
were at any time, not even at the present day, emblems recognized
in Craft Masonry, and were introduced into such of the High Degrees
fabricated about the middle of the 18th century as had in them a
Rosicrucian element.  Again, the Rosicrucians had nothing to do
with the Temple of Solomon.  Their " invisible house," or their
Temple, or " House of the Holy Ghost," was a religious and
philosophic idea, much more intimately connected with Lord Bacon's
House of Solomon in the Island of Bensalem than it was with the
Temple of Jerusalem. And, finally, the early Freemasons, like their
successors of the present day, in "seeking light from the East,"
intended no reference to the Cabala, which is never mentioned in
any of their primitive rituals, but alluded to the East as the
source of physical light-the place of sunrising, which they adopted
as a symbol of intellectual and moral light.  It would, indeed, be
easier to prove from their symbols that the first Speculative
Masons were sun-worshippers than that they were Rosicrucians,
though neither hypothesis would be correct.

If any one will take the trouble of toiling through the three books
of Cornelius Agrippa's Occult Philosophy, which may be considered
as the text-book of the old Rosicrucian philosophy, he will see how
little there is in common between Rosicrucianism and Freemasonry. 
The one is a mystical system founded on the Cabala ; the other the
outgrowth of a very natural interpretation of symbols derived from
the usages and the implements of an operative art.  The
Rosicrucians were theosophists, whose doctrines were of angels and
demons of the elements, of the heavenly bodies and their influence
on the affairs of men, and of the magical powers of numbers, of
suffumigations, and other sorceries.

The Alchemists, who have been called " physical Rosicrucians,"
adopted the metals and their transmutation, the elixir of life, and
their universal solvent, as symbols, if we may believe Hitchcock 
(1) by which they concealed the purest dogmas of a religious life.

But Freemasonry has not and never had anything of this kind in its
system.  Its founders were, as we will see when we come to the
historical part of this work, builders, whose symbols, applied in
their architecture, were of a religious and Christian character;
and when their successors made this building fraternity a
speculative association, they borrowed the symbols by which they
sought to teach their philosophy, not from Rosicrucianism, not from
magic, nor from the Cabala, but from the art to which they owed
their origin.  Every part of Speculative Masonry proves that it
could not have been derived from Rosicrucianism.  The two Orders
had in common but one thing-they both had secrets which they
scrupulously preserved from the unhallowed gaze of the profane.

Andrea sought, it is true, in his Fama Fraternitatis, to elevate
Rosicrucianism to a more practical and useful character, and to
make it a vehicle for moral and intellectual reform.  But even his
system, which was the only one that could have exerted any
influence on the English philosophers, is so thoroughly at variance
in its principles from that of the Freemasonry of the 17th century,
that a union of the two, or the derivation of one from the other,
must have been utterly impracticable.

It has been said that when Henry Cornelius Agrippa was in London,
in
the year 1510, he founded a secret society of Rosicrucians.  This
is possible
although, during; his brief visit to London, Agrippa was the guest
of the
learned Dean Colet, and spent his time with his 

(1) "Remarks upon Alchemy and the Alchemists," passim.

host in the study of the works of the Apostle to the Gentiles.  "
I labored hard," he says himself, " at the Epistles of St. Paul."
Still he may have found time to organize a society of Rosicrucians. 
In the beginning of the 16th century secret societies "chiefly
composed" says Mr. Morley, " of curious and learned youths had
become numerous, especially among the Germans, and towards the
close of that century these secret societies were developed into
the form of brotherhoods of Rosicrucians, each member of which
gloried in styling himself Physician, Theosophist, Chemist, and
now, by the mercy of God, Rosicrucian."' (1)

But to say of this society, established by Agrippa in England in
1510 (if one was actually established), as has been said by a
writer of the last century that " the practice of initiation, or
secret incorporation, thus and then first introduced has been
handed down to our own times, and hence, apparently, the mysterious
Eleusinian confederacies now known as the Lodges of Freemasonry,"
(2)  is to make an assertion that is neither sustained by
historical testimony nor supported by any chain of reasoning or
probability.

I have said that while the hypothesis that Freemasonry was
originally derived from Rosicrucianism, and that its founders were
the English Rosicrucians in the 17th century, is wholly untenable,
there is no doubt that at a later period, a century after this, its
supposed origin, a Rosicrucian clement, was very largely diffused
in the Hautes Grades or High Degrees which were invented on the
continent of Europe about the middle of the 18th century.

This subject belongs more appropriately to the domain of history
than to that of legend, but its consideration will bring us so
closely into connection with the Rosicrucian or Hermetic philosophy
that I have thought that it would be more convenient not to
dissever the two topics, but to make it the subject of the next
chapter.

(1) "The Life of Henry Cornelius Agrippa von Netteshuri," by Henry
Morley, vol. i., p. 58
(2) Monthly Review, London, 1798 vol. xxv., p. 30





CHAPTER XXXVI

THE ROSICRUCIANISM OF THE HIGH DEGREES



The history of the High Degrees of Masonry begins with the
inventions of the Chevalier Michael Ramsay, who about the year 1728
fabricated three which he called Ecossais, Novice, and Knight
Templar.  But the inventions of Ramsay had nothing in  them of a
Rosicrucian character.  They were intended by him to support his
hypothesis that Freemasonry originated in the Crusades, and that
the first Freemasons were Templars.  His degrees were therefore not
philosophic but chivalric.  The rite-manufacturers who succeeded
him, followed for the most part in his footsteps, and the degrees
that were subsequently invented partook of the chivalric and
military character, so that the title of " Chevalier " or "
Knight," unknown to the early Freemasons, became in time so common
as to form the designation in connection with another noun of most
of the new degrees.  Thus we find in old and disused Rites, as well
as in those still existing, such titles as " Knight of the Sword,"
" Knight of the Eagle," " Knight of the Brazen Serpent," and so
many more that Ragon, in his Nomenclature, furnishes us with no
less than two hundred and ninety-two degrees of Masonic Knighthood,
without having exhausted the catalogue.

But it was not until long after the Masonic labors of Ramsay had
ceased that the element of Hermetic philosophy began to intrude
itself into still newer degrees.

Among the first to whom we are to ascribe the responsibility of
this novel infusion is a Frenchman named Antoine Joseph Pernelty,
who was born in 1716 and died in 1800, having passed, therefore,
the most active and rigorous portion of his life in the midst of
that flood of Masonic novelties which about the middle quarters of
the 18th century inundated the continent of Europe and more
especially the kingdom of France.

Pernelty was at first a Benedictine monk, but, having at the age of
forty-nine obtained a dispensation from his vows, he removed from
Paris to Berlin, where for a short time he served Frederick the
Great as his librarian.  Returning to Paris, he studied and became
infected with the mystical doctrines of Swedenborg, and published
a translation of one of the most important of his works. He then
repaired to Avignon, where he established a new Rite, which, on its
transference to Montpellier, received the name of the " Academy of
True Masons." Into this Rite it may well be supposed that he
introduced much of the theosophic mysticism of the Swedish sage, in
parts of which there is a very strong analogy to Rosicrucianism, or
at least to the Hermetic Doctrines of the Rosicrucians. It will be
remembered that the late General Hitchcock, who was learned on
mystical topics, wrote a book to prove that Swedenborg was a
Hermetic philosopher; and the arguments that he advances are not
easily to be confuted.

But Pernelty was not a Swedenborgian only.  He was a man of
multifarious reading and had devoted his studies, among other
branches of learning, to theology, philosophy, and the mathematical
sciences.  The appetite for a mystical theology, which had led him
to the study and the adoption of the views of Swedenborg, would
scarcely permit him to escape the still more appetizing study of
the Hermetic philosophers.

Accordingly we find him inventing other degrees, and among them
one, the " Knight of the Sun," which is in its original ritual a
mere condensation of Rosicrucian doctrines, especially as developed
in the alchemical branch of Rosicrucianism.

There is not in the wide compass of Masonic degrees, one more
emphatically Rosicrucian than this.  The reference in its ritual to
Sylphs, one of the four elementary spirits of the Rosicrucians ; to
the seven angels which formed a part of the Rosicrucian hierarchy
; the dialogue between Father Adam and Truth in which the doctrines
of Alchemy and the Cabala are discussed in the search of man for
theosophic truth, and the adoption as its principal word of
recognition of that which in the Rosicrucian system was deemed the
primal matter of all things, are all sufficient to prove the
Hermetic spirit which governed the founder of the degree in its
fabrication.

There have been many other degrees, most of which are now obsolete,
whose very names openly indicate their Hermetic origin. Such are
the " Hermetic Knight," the " Adept of the Eagle" (the word adept
being technically used to designate an expert Rosicrucian), the "
Grand Hermetic Chancellor," and the " Philosophic Cabalist." The
list might be increased by fifty more, at least, were time and
space convenient.  There have been whole rites fabricated on the
basis of the Rosicrucian or Hermetic philosophy, such as the " Rite
of Philalethes" the " Hermetic Rite," and the " Rite of Illuminated
Theosophists," invented in 1767 by Benedict Chartanier, who united
in it the notions of the Hermetic philosophy and the reveries of
Swedenborg.  Gadicke tells us also, in his Freimaurer-Lexicon, of
a so-called Masonic system which was introduced by the Marquis of
Lernais into Berlin in 1758, the objects of which were the Hermetic
arcana and the philosopher's stone.

But the Hermetic degree which to the present day has exercised the
greatest influence upon the higher grades of Masonry is that of the
Rose Croix.  This name was given to it by the French, and it must
be noticed that in the French language no distinction has ever been
made between the Rosenkreutzer and Rose Croix; or, rather, the
French writers have always translated the Rosenkreutzer of the
German and the Rosacrucian of the English by their own words, Rose
Croix, and to this philological inaccuracy is to be traced an
historical error of some importance, to be soon adverted to.

The first that we hear in history of a Rosicrucian Masonry, under
that distinctive name, is about the middle of the 18th century.

The society to which I allude was known as the " Gold-und-
Rosenkreutzer," or the "Golden Rosicrucians." We first find this
title in a book published at Berlin, in 1714, by one Samuel
Richter, under the assumed name of Sincerus Renatus, and with the
title of A True and Complete Preparation of the Philosopher's Stone
by the Order of the Golden Rosicrucians.  In it is contained the
laws of the brotherhood, which Findel thinks bear unmistakable
evidence of Jesuitical intervention.

The book of Richter describes a society which, if founded on the
old Rosicrucians, differed essentially from them in its principles. 
Findel speaks of these " Golden Rosicrucians " as if originally
formed on this work of Richter, and in the spirit of the Jesuits,
to repress liberty of thought and the healthy development of the
intellect.  If formed at that early period, in the beginning of the
18th century, it could not possibly have had a connection with
Freemasonry.

But the Order, as an appendant to Masonry, was not really perfected
until about the middle of the 18th century.  Findel says after
1756.  The Order consisted of nine degrees, all having Latin names,
viz.: 1, Junior; 2, Theoreticus; 3, Practicus; 4, Philosophus; 5,
Minor; 6, Major; 7, Adeptus; 8, Magister; 9, Magus.  It based
itself on the three primitive degrees of Freemasonry only as giving
a right to entrance ; it boasted of being descended from the
ancient Rosicrucians, and of possessing all their secrets, and of
being the only body that could give a true interpretation of the
Masonic symbols, and it claimed, therefore, to be the head of the
Order.  There is no doubt that this brotherhood was a perfect
instance of the influence sought to be cast, about the middle of
the 18th century, upon Freemasonry by the doctrines of
Rosicrucianism.  The effort, however, to make it a Hermetic system
failed.  The Order of the Golden Rosicrucians, although for nearly
half a century popular in Germany, and calling into its ranks many
persons of high standing, at length began to decay, and finally
died out, about the end of the last century.

Since that period we hear no more of Rosicrucian Masonry, except
what is preserved in degrees like that of the Knight of the Sun and
a few others, which are still retained in the catalogue of the
Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite.

I have said that the translation of the word Rosicrucian by Rose
Croix has been the source of an important historical error.  This
is the confounding of the French degree of " Rose Croix," or "
Knight of the Eagle and Pelican," with Rosicrucianism, to which it
has not the slightest affinity.  Thus Dr. Oliver, when speaking of
this degree, says that the earliest notice that he finds of it is
in the Fama Fraternitatis, evidently showing that he deemed it to
be of Rosicrucian origin.

The modern Rose Croix, which constitutes the summit of the French
Rite, and is the eighteenth of the Ancient and Accepted Scottish
Rite, besides being incorporated into several other Masonic
systems, has not in its construction the slightest tinge of
Rosicrucianism, nor is there in any part of its ritual, rightly
interpreted, the faintest allusion to the Hermetic philosophy.

I speak of it, of course, as it appears in its original form.  This
has been somewhat changed in later days.  The French Masons,
objecting to its sectarian character, substituted for it a
modification which they have called the " Philosophic Rose Croix."
In this they have given a Hermetic interpretation to the letters on
the cross, an example that has elsewhere been more recently
followed.

But the original Rose Croix, most probably first introduced to
notice by Prince (Charles Edward, the " young pretender," in the
Primordial chapter which he established in 1747, at Arras, in
France, was a purely Christian, if not a Catholic degree.  Its most
prominent symbols, the rose, the cross, the eagle, and the pelican,
its ceremonies, and even its words and signs of recognition, bore
allusion to Jesus Christ, the expounder of the new law, which was
to take the place of the old law that had ceased to operate when "
the veil of the temple was rent."

The Rose Croix, as we find it in its pure and uncorrupted ritual,
was an attempt to apply the rites, symbols, and legends of the
primitive degrees of Ancient Craft Masonry to the last and greatest
dispensation; to add to the first temple of Solomon, and the second
of Zerubbabel, a third, which is the one to which Christ alluded
when he said, " Destroy this temple, and in three days will I raise
it up "an expression wholly incomprehensible by the ignorant
populace who stood around him at the time, but the meaning of which
is perfectly intelligible to the Rose Croix Mason who consults the
original ritual of his degree.

In all this there is nothing alchemical, Hermetic, or Rosicrucian
and it is a great error to suppose that there is anything but
Christian philosophy in the degree as originally invented.

The name of the degree has undoubtedly led to the confusion in its
history.  But, in fact, the words " Rosa Crucis," common both to
the ancient Rosicrucian philosophers and to the modern Rose Croix
Masons, had in each a different meaning, and some have supposed a
different derivation.  In the latter the title has by many writers
been thought to allude to the ros, or dew, which was deemed by the
alchemists to be a powerful solvent of gold, and to crux, the
cross, which was the chemical hieroglyphic of light.  Mosheim says:

" The title of Rosicrucians evidently denotes the chemical
philosophers and those who blended the doctrines of religion with
the. secrets of chemistry.  The denomination itself is drawn from
the science of chemistry ; and they only who are acquainted with
the peculiar language of the chemists can understand its true
signification and energy.  It is not compounded, as many imagine,
of the two words rosa and crux, which signify rose and cross, but
of the latter of these words and the Latin word ros, which
signifies dew.   Of all natural bodies dew is the most powerful
solvent of gold.  The cross, in the chemical style, is equivalent
to light, because the figure of the cross exhibits at the same time
the three letters of which the word lux, i.e., light, is
compounded.  Now, lux is called by this sect the seed or menstrum
of the red dragon,- or, in other words, that gross and corporeal,
when properly digested and modified, produces gold." (1)

Notwithstanding that this learned historian has declared that it
all other explications of this term are false and chimerical,"
others more learned perhaps than he, in this especial subject, have
differed from him in opinion, and trace the title to rosa, not to
ros.

There is certainly a controversy about the derivation of
Rosicrucian as applied to the Hermetic philosophers, but there is
none whatever in reference to that of the Masonic.Rose Croix. 
Everyone admits, because the admission is forced upon him by the
ritual and the spirit of the degree, that the title comes from rose
and cross, and that rose signifies Christ, and cross the instrument
of his passion.  In the Masonic degree, Rose Croix signifies Christ
on the cross, a meaning that is carried out by the jewel, but one
which is never attached to the rose and now of the Rosicrucians,
where rose most probably was the symbol of silence and secrecy, and
the cross may have had either a Christian or a chemical
application, most probably the latter.

Again, we see in the four most important symbols of the Rose Croix
degree, as interpreted in the early rituals (at least in their
spirit), the same Christian interpretation, entirely free from all
taint of Rosicrucianism.

These symbols are the eagle, thelelican, the rose, and the cross,
all of which are combined to form the beautiful and expressive
jewel of the degree.

Thus the writer of the book of Exodus, in allusion to the belief
that the eagle assists its feeble 

(1) Mosheim "Ecclesiastical History," Maclane's Translation, cent.
xvii., sec. i., vol. iii., p. 436, note

younglings in their first flights by bearing them on its pinions,
represents Jehovah as saying, "Ye have seen what I did to the
Egyptians, and how I bore you on eagle's wings and brought you unto
myself."  Hence, appropriating this idea, the Rose Croix Masons
selected the eagle as a symbol of Christ in his divine character,
bearing the children of his adoption in their upward course, and
teaching them with unequaled love and tenderness to poise their
fledgling wings, and soar from the dull corruptions of earth to a
higher and holier sphere.  And hence the eagle in the jewel is
represented with expanded wings, as if ready for flight.

The pelican, "vulning herself and in her piety," as the heralds
call it, is, says Mr. Sloane Evans, " a sacred emblem of great
beauty and striking import, and the representation of it occurs not
unfrequently among the ornaments of churches. (1)" The allusion to
Christ as a Saviour, shedding his blood for the sins of the world,
is too evident to need explanation.

Of the rose and the cross I have already spoken.  The rose is
applied as a figurative appellation of Christ in only one passage
of Scripture, where he is prophetically called the " rose of
Sharon," but the flower was always accepted in the iconography of
the church as one of his symbols. But the fact that in the jewel of
the Rose Croix the blood-red rose appears attached to the center of
the cross, as though crucified upon it, requires no profound
knowledge of the science of symbolism to discover its meaning.

The cross was, it is true, a very ancient symbol of eternal life.
especially among the "Egyptian, but since the crucifixion it has
been adopted by Christians as an emblem of him who suffered upon
it.  " The cross," says Didron, " is more than a mere figure of
Christ ; it is, in iconography, either Christ himself or his
symbol." As such, it is used in the Masonry of the Rose Croix.

It is evident, from these explanations, that the Rose Croix was, in
its original conception, a purely Christian degree.  There was no
intention of its founders to borrow for its construction anything
from occult philosophy, but simply to express in its symbolization
a purely Christian sentiment.

I have, in what I have said, endeavored to show that while
Rosicrucianism had no concern, as 

(1) "The Art of Blazon," p. 130

has been alleged, with the origination of Freemasonry in the 17th
century, yet that in the succeeding century, under various
influenced especially, perhaps, the diffusion of the mystical
doctrines of Swedenborg, a Hermetic or Rosicrucian element was
infused into some of the High Degrees then newly fabricated.  But
the diffusion of that element went no farther ; it never affected
the pure Masonic system ; and, with the few exceptions which I have
mentioned, even these degrees have ceased to exist.  Especially was
it not connected with one of the most important and most popular of
those degrees.

From the beginning of the 19th century Rosicrucianism has been dead
to Masonry, as its exponent the Hermetic philosophy, has been to
literature.  It has no life now, and we preserve its relics only as
memorials  of a past obscuration which the sunbeams of modern
learning have dispersed.