THE REAL HISTORY OF THE ROSICRUCIANS.
Reading edition
Founded on their own Manifestoes, and on Facts and Documents collected from the Writings of Initiated Members, by Arthur Edward Waite, author of “The Mysteries of Magic: a Digest of the Writings of Eliphas Levi.”
Influence of the Secret Societies.—Derivations of the name Rosicrucian.—On the State of Mystical Philosophy in Germany at the close of the Sixteenth Century.—The Prophecy of Paracelsus.—The Fama Fraternitatis of the Meritorious Order of the Rosy Cross.—The Confession of the Rosicrucian Fraternity.—The Chymical Marriage of Christian Rosencreutz.—The Connection of the Rosicrucian Claims with those of Alchemy and Magic.—On the Antiquity of the Rosicrucian Fraternity.—Theories as to the Authorship of the Rosicrucian Manifestoes.—Progress of Rosicrucianism in Germany.—Rosicrucian Apologists: Michael Maier, Robert Fludd, Thomas Vaughan, &c.—Rosicrucianism in France.—Connection between the Rosicrucians and Freemasons.—Modern Rosicrucian Societies, &c., &c.
In the present work every important and available fact has been carefully collected, and the manifestoes and other documents of the Fraternity are republished in revised versions. The Rosicrucians as represented by themselves are, therefore, offered to English readers for the first time in the literature of the subject. The task has been performed by a sympathetic but impartial writer, purged from the bias of any particular theory, and above all uncontaminated by the pretension to superior knowledge, which claimants have never been able to substantiate.
A few copies only remain of the following important work, by the author of “The Rosicrucians.”