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.”_