Secret Societies: Inside the World's Most Notorious Organizations (22 page)

Bruno, one of history's most intriguing and mysterious characters, was the ultimate ecclesiastical rebel, a man who insisted on being free to ponder questions of spirituality and
existence unbound by Church restrictions. Traveling widely in Europe and England, where he was received by the court of Queen Elizabeth i, Bruno's imagination and perception carried him into territory that was both uncharted by lesser beings and denied by papal authority. Rejecting beliefs in alchemy and supposed powers of the occult, Bruno trusted only his own deductive reasoning and focused insight. He perceived the universe as infinite space harboring other forms of life, and sharpened the concepts of Copernicus in understanding how the earth moved about the sun. He also pioneered the study and evaluation of statistics, proposed social assistance for the needy, and explored notions that in the sixteenth century were unfathomable by scientists and blasphemous to clerics, yet today are easily articulated by schoolchildren.

The father of Rosicrucianism may be Giordano Bruno, whose dark statue broods over the Campo di Fiori in Rome.

Bruno's writings became widely circulated after his martyrdom, especially in Protestant countries where the Copernican theory and other concepts were being proposed without fear of punishment from the Inquisition. Andreae, an admirer of Bruno, may well have been inspired by the Dominican's rejection of alchemy as a serious subject for consideration, and his proposal of performing good deeds on behalf of the poor, free of oversight by the church. If
The Chemical Wedding
is seen as a reflection of Bruno's mockery of alchemy, and Rosenkreuz's directive to dispense charity without acknowledgment or Church involvement as an expression of Bruno's philosophy, this could answer the question of Andreae's inspiration.

Inspired by Bruno or not, the concept of Rosicrucianism continued to gain momentum well past Andreae's death in 1654, thanks to a combination of an old mystical attraction and a new mechanical contraption—the printing press.

Christians, Templars, Gnostics, Druids and early Kabbalah advocates had spread their word in the ancient oral tradition, supported by limited distribution of hand-copied manuscripts. Rosicrucianism was the first society of its kind to take advantage of Gutenberg's invention and its ability to produce thousands of copies of its tracts cheaply and quickly. Within a few years after the appearance of
The Chemical Wedding
, copies were being distributed, translated, and reprinted all across Europe with an impact far beyond that of similar philosophies distributed prior to Gutenberg. It had been one thing to hear a tale of magic whispered by a passing stranger; it was quite another to read the same tale, unsullied by new interpretations or ornamentations, on the printed page.

Exclusivity added another boost to the sudden spurt of growth. The ability to read was restricted to the best educated and most privileged class of society, and their embrace of Rosicrucian principles added veracity to a movement rooted in a hoax.

The wave of new adherents to the loosely established philosophy grew so fast and wide that the movement began simultaneously absorbing beliefs of other groups and splintering into competing factions, each division claiming to be the “true” fraternity of the
Fama
. Hermetists, Gnostics, Pythagoreans, Magi, Platonists, Alchemists and Paracelsians, minor coteries all, huddled beneath the Rosicrucian umbrella even as mainstream members began to be absorbed within larger, more tightly constructed groups. With a philosophical interbreeding between Rosicrucianism and Freemasonry around 1750, the splinters became slivers when factions such as St. Germaine, Cagliostro, Schropfer, Wollner and others spun off from the mainstream. Within a century, certain Master Masons in the U.K. and U.S. had created “colleges” of a Masonic Rosicrucian society. Meanwhile, Rosicrucian members not associated with the Masons began referring to their organization as “The Brethren of Light.”

The dilution and fragmentation might seem to dim the prospects of the Rosicrucians’ survival, but the organization managed
to widen its geographical reach if not its membership numbers. Most of the growth through the years from 1850 to 2000 came from supporters in the U.S., inspired by individuals such as George Lippard, who employed their often-bizarre backgrounds to create colorful and charismatic personas as Rosicrucians.

If you believe Rosicrucian claims, “precocious” fails to describe the man. After graduating from Wesleyan College at age fifteen, the Philadelphia-born Lippard determined that any preacher who failed to live under the same conditions as Christ was a charlatan. Not wishing to be associated with charlatans, Lippard became a law student under the tutelage of a future Pennsylvanian attorney-general. Four years of associating with lawyers seems to have persuaded Lippard to categorize that profession with men of the cloth. With that much cynicism in hand, Lippard believed the only pastime that suited him was journalism, and he began writing romances and nonfiction historical features for the prestigious
Saturday Evening Post
.

He still retained the adolescent ideas of an unbending morality, and in 1847 at age twenty-five he became a Rosicrucian as a means of combating the evil he encountered in life, including the American policy of slavery. Later, he launched the Brotherhood of the Union, a secret arm of the movement whose objective was to spread the basic principles of the Rosicrucians to a wider public.

Lippard published over a dozen books in his short life—he died at age thirty-four—and moved in exalted circles, claiming friendship with men such as Horace Greeley and Edgar Allan Poe, whom he might have influenced in the development of the mystery novel. Something of a romantic, Lippard spent much of his time in solitary walks along the banks of the Wissahickon River; he was even married on the river's banks at sunrise. Romantic notions aside, however, Lippard's greatest achievement lay in his embrace of Rosicrucian teachings and his impact on U.S. history.

According to Rosicrucian documents, Lippard met future U.S. president Abraham Lincoln soon after subscribing to
Rosicrucian principles, and claimed he was responsible for arousing Lincoln's interest in abolishing slavery. If this is true—while Lincoln and Lippard appear to have met each other, no one except the Rosicrucians claim Lippard influenced the future president's actions—Andreae's prank had indeed changed the world.

A contemporary of Lippard, Paschal Beverly Randolph, was also acquainted with Lincoln and had an even greater influence on Rosicrucian activities in the U.S. Randolph's life story has all the drama of a nineteenth-century romantic novel awaiting its conversion into a Hollywood drama. Claiming a mixture of Spanish, East Indian, French, Oriental and “Royal Madagascar” blood (he vehemently denied rumors that he was descended from a dalliance between an Afro-American slave and white plantation owner), Randolph spent time in a New York poor-house before being informally adopted by a failed actress and her husband. Like Lippard's disillusionment with religion and lawyers, this experience scarred Randolph, who claimed he witnessed the husband forcing his wife into prostitution as a means of earning household income. “Thus, at less than ten years old,” Randolph wrote, “I had become proficient in knowledge of the shady side of human nature…. Up to my fifteenth year, I was cuffed and kicked about the world.”

After wandering the globe for several years, during which he became an accomplished journalist, Randolph grew interested in the Rosicrucian movement. He first joined the organization in Germany before returning to the U.S. in 1851 where he, like Lippard, was also introduced to Lincoln. Unlike Lippard, Randolph never claimed to having persuaded Lincoln to take a stand against slavery, but the two men established a close relationship. In fact, Randolph had been invited to travel with the train carrying the president's body back to Illinois following Lincoln's assassination, but he was ordered off because of his Afro-American appearance.

Paschal Beverly Randolph. His close relationship with Abraham Lincoln did not qualify him to ride on the funeral train.

Soon after, Randolph was awarded the title of Rosicrucian Supreme Grand Master for the Western World at a German conclave. He founded the Fraternitas Rosae Crucis as the true center of Rosicrucianism in America, and dedicated the rest of his life to promoting Rosicrucian ideas of achieving ultimate wisdom via ancient mystical means, and writing books—many books. Rosicrucian historians claim he wrote and published over two dozen books and pamphlets, most of them proselytizing the Rosicrucian association with love, health, mysticism and the occult. Boasting titles such as
Dealing with the Dead
(1861),
Love and Its Hidden History
(1869) and
The Evils of the Tobacco Habit
(1872), Randolph managed to attract a number of readers who normally might pass up the opportunity to absorb thoughts of oriental mysticism and medieval occult practices.

In the end, Randolph's life proved to be almost as tragic as Lincoln's. In 1872, he was arrested and charged with the crime of promoting “free love” and immorality, a charge, court documents revealed, that had been trumped up by former business associates seeking copyright privileges of his books. Although eventually acquitted, Randolph never overcame the humiliation of defending himself, and was found dead of a self-inflicted gunshot wound. Just 49 years old, Randolph had managed to elevate the awareness and power of the Rosicrucian movement throughout the U.S., and the momentum of his work carried it well into the next century.

Randolph may have helped improve the state of the Rosicrucians, to the point where it ranked second in membership numbers to the Freemasons, but he couldn't overcome the splinter effect that plagued the group from the beginning. Each offshoot imposed its own beliefs and restrictions on members. These variations were often the result of cultural differences between nations, and by the early 1900s American
Rosicrucianism had evolved into a branch distinct from other countries.

Each of the various organizations claimed to be the true home of the movement. The most prominent included Randolph's Fraternitas Rosae Crucis; the Societas Rosicruciana in Civitatibus Foederatis (sricf), a smallish group that originated with British and Scottish Masons and required Masonic membership prior to acceptance; the Societas Rosicruciana in America (sria), a sliver from the splinter sricf that accepted non-Masons as members; The Rosicrucian Fellowship, launched in Oceanside, California, to promote mail order courses in astrology and the occult; the Rosicrucian Anthroposophic League, dedicated to investigating the occult laws of nature and helping mankind “attain self-conscious immortality, which is the crowning feat of evolution”; Lectorium Rosicrucianum, an American cousin of a branch originating in the Netherlands whose objective is to disseminate the teachings of its founder, J. Van Rijckenborgh; the Ausar Auset Society, created to foster Rosicrucian values exclusively to Afro-Americans; and the Ancient and Mystical Rosae Crucis (amorc).

Of these, amorc claims the largest, most active membership, the only “true believers” in principles extending back to the organization's roots. Its founder, a man named Harvey Spencer Lewis, spent much of his life moving back and forth both spiritually and geographically. Born in New York City in 1883, Lewis pursued occult interests there and in France and Florida before settling in San Jose, near San Francisco. The amorc's San Jose headquarters complex includes Rose-Croix University, a planetarium, the Rosicrucian Research Library and, most prominent of all, the Egyptian Museum, which has become a prominent local tourist attraction in its own right.

On the basis of facilities alone, amorc rightfully calls itself the world's largest Rosicrucian order. Although the organization refuses to divulge the size of its membership, it lists lodges in ninety countries, holds annual conventions, and publishes two magazines, one for the general public (
The Rosicrucian Digest
) and one restricted to members only (
The Rosicrucian Forum
).

AMORC TAKES
great pains to identify itself not as a religious order but as “a non-profit educational charitable organization,” helping its members “find a greater appreciation of the mystical principles underlying their individual religions and philosophical beliefs.” The order claims its members “are practical men who believe in progress, law and order and self-development…. [They] frown… on all wrong-doing, seek… to elevate man in his own esteem [and] teach… due and loyal respect to woman, the laws, society and the world.” This is a club John Wayne might have been proud to join.