Rose-Cross Degrees in
Freemasonry
According to
Jean-Pierre Bayard,
[13] two Rosicrucian-inspired
Masonic
rites emerged towards the end of 18th century, the Rectified
Scottish Rite, widespread in Central Europe where there
was a strong presence of the "Golden and Rosy Cross", and
the Ancient
and Accepted Scottish Rite, first practiced in France, in
which the 18th degree is called Knight
of the Rose Croix.
The change from "operative" to "speculative" Masonry
occurred between the end of the 16th and the beginning of the
18th century. Two of the earliest speculative Masons for which
a record of their initiation exists were Sir Robert
Moray and Elias
Ashmole. Robert Vanloo states that earlier 17th century
Rosicrucianism had a considerable influence on Anglo-Saxon
Masonry. Hans Schick sees in the works of Comenius
(1592–1670) the ideal of the newly born English Masonry
before the foundation of the Grand
Lodge in 1717. Comenius was in England during 1641.
The
Gold und Rosenkreuzer (Golden and Rosy Cross) was founded
by the alchemist
Samuel Richter who in 1710 published Die warhhaffte und
vollkommene Bereitung des Philosophischen Steins der
Brüderschaft aus dem Orden des Gülden-und Rosen-Creutzes in
Breslau under the pseudonym Sincerus Renatus
[14] in Prague in the
early 18th century as a hierarchical secret
society composed of internal circles, recognition signs
and alchemy treatises.
A Loge de Parfaits d' Écosse was formed on 12 April
1764 at New
Orleans, becoming the first high degree lodge on the North
American continent. Its public life, however, was short, as
the Treaty
of Paris (1763) ceded New Orleans to Spain, and the
Catholic Spanish crown had been historically hostile to
Freemasonry. Documented Masonic activity ceased for a time
and did not re-appear publicly in Louisiana
& New Orleans until the 1790s.
[13]
Under the leadership of
Hermann Fictuld the group reformed itself extensively in
1767 and again in 1777 because of political pressure. Its
members claimed that the leaders of the Rosicrucian Order had
invented Freemasonry and only they knew the secret meaning of
Masonic symbols. The Rosicrucian Order had been founded by
Egyptian “
Ormusse” or “
Licht-Weise” who had emigrated to Scotland with the name
“Builders from the East”. Then the original Order disappeared
and was supposed to have been resurrected by Oliver
Cromwell as “Freemasonry”. In 1785 and 1788 the Golden
and Rosy Cross group published the Geheime Figuren or
“The Secret Symbols of the 16th and 17th century
Rosicrucians”.
Led by Johann Christoph von Wöllner and General Johann
Rudolf von Bischoffwerder, the Masonic lodge (later: Grand
Lodge) Zu den drei Weltkugeln was infiltrated and
came under the influence of the Golden and Rosy Cross. Many
Freemasons became Rosicrucianists and Rosicrucianism was
established in many lodges. In 1782 at the Convent of
Wilhelmsbad the Alte schottische Loge Friedrich zum goldenen
Löwen in Berlin strongly requested
Ferdinand, Duke of Brunswick-Lüneburg and all other
Freemasons to submit to the Golden and Rosy Cross, without
success.
After 1782, this highly secretive society added Egyptian,
Greek and Druidic mysteries to its alchemy system.
[15] A comparative study of what
is known about the Gold and Rosenkreuzer, appears to reveal, on
one hand, that it has influenced the creation of some modern
Initiatic
groups and, on the other hand, that the National
Socialists (see The
Occult Roots of Nazism) may have been inspired by
this German group.
According to the writings of the Masonic historian E.J.
Marconis de Negre,
[16] who together with his father
Gabriel M. Marconis is held to be the founder of the
"Rite
of Memphis-Misraim" of Freemasonry, based on earlier
conjectures (1784) by a Rosicrucian scholar Baron de
Westerode
[17] and also promulgated by the
18th century secret society called the "
Golden and Rosy Cross", the Rosicrucian Order was created
in the year 46 when an Alexandrian
Gnostic
sage named Ormus and his
six followers were converted by one of Jesus'
disciples, Mark;
their symbol was said to be a red cross surmounted by a
rose, thus the designation of Rosy
Cross. From this conversion, Rosicrucianism was
supposedly born, by purifying Egyptian
mysteries
with the new higher teachings of early Christianity.
[18]
According to Maurice Magre (1877–1941) in his book
Magicians, Seers, and Mystics, Rosenkreutz was the last
descendant of the Germelshausen, a German family from the 13th
century. Their castle stood in the Thuringian
Forest on the border of Hesse, and
they embraced Albigensian
doctrines. The whole family was put to death by Landgrave
Conrad of Thuringia,
except for the youngest son, then five years old. He was
carried away secretly by a monk, an Albigensian adept from
Languedoc
and placed in a monastery under the influence of the
Albigenses, where he was educated and met the four Brothers
later to be associated with him in the founding of the
Rosicrucian Brotherhood. Magre's account supposedly derives
from oral tradition.
Around 1530, more than eighty years before the publication
of the first manifesto, the association of cross and rose
already existed in Portugal in the Convent
of the Order of Christ, home of the Knights
Templar, later renamed Order
of Christ. Three bocetes were, and still are, on
the abóboda (vault) of the initiation room. The rose
can clearly be seen at the center of the cross.
[19]
[20] At the same time, a minor
writing by Paracelsus
called Prognosticatio Eximii Doctoris Paracelsi
(1530), containing 32 prophecies
with allegorical
pictures surrounded by enigmatic texts, makes reference to
an image of a double cross over an open rose; this is one of
the examples used to prove the "Fraternity of the Rose
Cross" existed far earlier than 1614.
[21].
In 1909 a Masonic Rito Filosofico Italiano was
founded in Florence. Within its hierarchy an "Italic
Rose+Croix" degree - largely based on the esoteric legacy of
Italian Renaissance - was soon to be developed as the fifth.
This Rito Filosofico Italiano is now led by
Michele Moramarco, who has extensively dealt with
Rosicrucian subjects in his Nuova Enciclopedia Massonica
(1989-1995).
18° Knight of the Rose Croix jewel (from
the Masonic Scottish
Rite)
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