The Rosicrucians
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The Rosicrucians
The Rosicrucians were an exceptionally dedicated group of esoteric students with an inclination towards occult understanding. They lived by the creed that our only purpose in life is to return to Soul and thus every facet of their way of living was dedicated to this.
As a group, they held the understanding that we are each the equal parts of a far greater whole that forms when we unify or ‘come together’. This means that we are all part of one brotherhood, one humanity, and that every movement made is done so in and with respect to the whole of humanity: the way we walk, talk, eat, speak and treat each other affects the whole we belong to. All are held equally as we are all part of a divine universal order that we can either move in tune with or out of sync to.
History
There are in effect two histories here — the true one and the ‘official’ one.
In terms of recorded history, very little of truth is documented of the Rosicrucians and because their focus was life lived in the Livingness, they did not leave behind many writings except for some pieces on symbolism and alchemy. What we do know is that the Rosicrucians have lived amongst many religions and been around since well before the 1400CE date given to us by history books. In one respect, we could say that the Rosicrucians have always been there and have been around since Egyptian times, even though they were not always called ‘Rosicrucians’, because a Rosicrucian was a particular type of person and character that exemplified true strength and commitment to the work of the Ageless Wisdom.
It was a way of living in the knowingness that we are from the divine essence of God and that all men and women are Sons of God on Earth, microcosms of the universe – the ‘Universal man’, as depicted through the work of Leonardo da Vinci during the Renaissance period. This can be lived in a very human and temporal sense.
The official history is as follows:
The name Rosicrucians or ‘The Order of the Rosy Cross’ was derived from the name of a man called Christian Rosenkreuz who lived at the end of the Cathar period in the 1300s. He was a boy from a Cathar family in Germany and was rescued by a Cathar monk before his family was killed. He was taken to the south of France and raised by Cathar monks. As a young adult, he travelled to the Near East and studied with the masters of the Ageless Wisdom and when he returned, he brought back with him the truth of the ages. As the story goes, he wanted to give it all to the nobility in Europe at the time but they did not show any interest so he established his own study group. Many considered Christian Rosenkreuz a mythical figure, which meant they were doubting that he was a real person and were assuming his character had been invented in order to bring across a somewhat complex piece of history. Much later the Rosicrucians became publicly known through three manifestos that were published during the Renaissance Period, between 1614 and 1616. These were Fama Fraternitatis RC (The Fame of the Brotherhood of RC, 1614), Confessio Fraternitati (The Confession of the Brotherhood of RC, 1615), and The Chymical Wedding of Christian Rosenkreuz (1616:1690) This was the time they outed themselves as an order, inviting interested parties to join their teachings.
There was a lot going on prior to 1300 in Europe. A lot more than history wants us to know. The power of the Catholic church had been under threat because so many people were not only aligned to the light of the Soul, they were actually living it. Since the death of Yeshua (Jesus) the Cathars had become a large and strong movement. After the genocide of the Cathars at the hands of the Catholic church, the Rosicrucians were the only ones left standing, so to speak. It is from this time that they and the symbol of the rose and cross became known to history.
There have been many members of the Rosicrucian sect throughout history, and of course with this comes the many ‘wannabe’ pretenders and fakes. However, the true Rosicrucian was known, revered and admired for their solidness, steadiness, immense loyalty and unfailing commitment to the work of the Ageless Wisdom. This was not a lofty cerebral or spiritual understanding but a full-bodied Livingness that was lived, breathed and walked in their everyday lives and in everything they did.
Many great men have been associated with the Rosicrucians over time. As one example, Martin Luther was a German Catholic monk who spoke out against the evil antics of the Catholic church at that time. He wrote a declaration exposing the church’s offers to ‘buy your way into Heaven’ and nailed it to the church door so others would be aware of exactly how the church was attempting to stand between man and his/her divine nature (God). At the time, this was an incredibly courageous act as he was basically risking persecution by his superiors with possibly dreadful consequences. His actions started a large public movement and ended in the church splitting into two factions – the new church (Evangelistic/Lutheran) and the old church.
Values
Rosicrucians were known for their values and deep love of rituals, symbols and alchemy.
It was their shared values that unified them as a group. As such, Rosicrucians dedicated their life to living the value of Brotherhood and true equality. They worked on themselves individually and then together as a group in order to achieve a oneness of expression where no one point of light (the student) was expressing at either a greater or lower vibration than another unit of equally expressing light. Ultimately this would be their downfall, but until then they were able to reach a very high point of advance where no energy was given to surpassing anyone by any member of the group.
During the dark ages, when they met they wore simple hooded robes that covered their skin, and conversed looking downwards, not as a sign of demureness, but so that no distinguishing features such as skin, hair or eye colour were visible. This was a mark of respect to the equality of all.
As the Rosicrucians were not intimidated in any way to step back from showing who they were and what they were aligned to, they did not disrobe when they stepped out in public but simply pulled the hood back and were not concerned if they were seen. This was a considerable achievement in a time when the Catholic church had a stronghold on what people could and could not do in society and thus many were hiding their allegiance to any group that was not the church and were therefore too scared to step out of the house without the dictated regulatory cross of the church around their neck for fear of persecution. To not be fazed by evil intimidating and oppressing people in this way gives us an idea of their strength that came from the deep knowing that we are far greater than anything that can ever be put in place to stop us living this. It was this absoluteness that gave the Rosicrucians the ability to look evil in the eye and not waver.
Rosicrucians knew truth to the core of their being and understood that this truth was never static but constantly evolving. They were unshakeable in their knowing that we are each a Son of God on the path of return to this expression and therefore understood that there are varying stages along the path that we all must go through. This is known esoterically as the ‘path of initiation’ or ‘the way of the initiate’.
Alchemy
Contrary to the ill-seeded notion that alchemy is the literal transformation of lead into gold, true alchemy has nothing to do with metals in the physical sense. The ‘lead to gold’ process is symbolic of the energetic transmutation of the denseness of the physical human form (lead) into a vehicle through which the light and the love of the Soul can express (gold). It is the process of arising our physicality back to the divinity/light that is our true self – the ‘son of man’ resurrected and restored as the Son of God we each in essence are. It was the transformation of individuality back into Brotherhood – the reintegration of the fragment (spirit) back into the Whole (Soul) it first separated from.
In order for this transmutation to take place, the etheric spirit, that part of us that separated from the love and light of the Soul, must be rendered naught as the source of expressing light in the human form. This means that the aspect of us that has sought to control life and all we have created for ourselves for thousands of years, must hand over the reins to our Soul and allow our being to once again attune itself to the divine particles of its human form and the wisdom contained therein.
The Rosicrucians were true alchemists in their understanding that the physical body is comprised of earth and water, the spiritual body is comprised of ether (air) and the Soul is of pure Fire. Thus, the alchemical process was one of bringing the Soul’s Fire into and through the physical form so that the ether is eventually ‘engulfed by the flame’ it first separated from in order to become a spirit (a ‘fragment’).
As the human etheric spirit likes to use its carnal vehicle to joyride through life with no respect for, and at great expense to, the body and its divine particles, the purpose of the alchemical process was to resurrect the kingly body – a physical form/vehicle through which the warmth, depth and richness of Heaven can express, in and with respect to the form it is expressing through and thus all other forms it lives amongst in this plane of life. Such a body was also one that could withstand the forces that oppose this expression.
As such the Rosicrucians were deeply committed to all aspects of human life and in bringing their innate Godliness through into temporal expression. This meant that they lived a normal life in and amongst the communities they lived within (the Rosicrucians did not live together but amongst other members of society) and they contributed to their everyday life with meaning and purpose, never letting go of their connection to Divinity.
Symbols
Symbols were an everyday part of life for a Rosicrucian, as they had an understanding that everything has a unique geometry through its various shapes and sounds – a geometry that presents symbolism of the highest order that is reflected back to life on Earth and thereby offers the key to how to live Divinity in our daily lives.
The specific symbols worn by each Rosicrucian indicated which stage of the Path of Return they were working on. They did not need to discuss their issues; they just let the symbol communicate what stage they were at. There was a complete transparency here in that they never hid what the symbol represented and therefore, welcomed the support and understanding of others in the natural unfolding steps in the path of initiation.
The symbol of the rose and the cross
The Rosicrucian cross has equal arms in terms of the vertical and horizontal dimensions. The vertical line represents the Soul and all that is divine while the horizontal line represents the earthly aspect. Therefore, the cross was (as it had always symbolised until the church got hold of it and extended the downward dimension) symbolic of Heaven and Earth or earthing the divine in equal proportion.
The rose in the middle is symbolic of the inner heart – the place where our true self, our Soul resides, and indicative of the process of unfoldment back to who we truly are, as symbolised by the way a rose unfurls its petals in accordance to the warmth and light of the sun’s rays (the Fire of the Soul). The thorns represent our protection/security and that which must be surrendered in our return to Soul. The scent of the rose reminds us of the exquisiteness of our innermost truth.
So, the very specific placing of the rose at the centre of the cross is significant because it is positioned at the meeting point of Heaven and Earth as a reminder of our true purpose here on Earth which is to bring the higher truth and all that is divine and godly, the light (as above), in and through the physical earthly form via our expression of love (as below). Heaven and Earth in union.
Rituals
Even though the Rosicrucians are renowned for their ability to not cower in the face of evil, this was not their focus. Their focus was on the ritual of daily living infused with their values and it was this that gave the Rosicrucian true strength.
Their unshakeable solidness and steadiness was due to the absolute knowing that we are each a Son of God. In respect to this, they understood that there is a way to move that does not allow the force of evil to enter. That is, the energy of evil has no power over a body that it cannot enter.
Therefore, the rituals were the detail of their living way that made them for the most part impenetrable to the forces of darkness. It was an absolute commitment to consistently live their love and know this to be the rhythm that held them, as it was an understanding that the human form is the temple through which Divinity is expressed and such rituals are enacted.
Downfall
Unlike the previous movement of the Cathars, the Rosicrucians were not persecuted by the church of the time but rather left alone. They demonstrated an unwavering strength and solidness to be unashamed in their chosen way to live and they never hid or retreated from anyone knowing who they were, which was a fearless stance the church had not quite seen before – at least not in the thousands of Cathars they killed. The study of how such strength and brotherhood could have had a ‘downfall’ is an important lesson for all developing initiates and could be simply said as follows: As we are in constant relationship with the Universe, so too do we constantly expand as the Universe does. Whatever is brought of truth in one instant must be made more (expanded) in the next. Hence, in their absolute devotion to brotherhood and equality they stayed too ‘static’ in its offered equality and harmony and did not grasp the concept of true leadership – allowing a leading impulse to pull the group up to the next level of evolution/energetic vibration.
The New Era
The Rosicrucian strength is alive and well today in those who dedicate their lives to the purpose of our return to Soul and do so in accordance with the energetic impulses available to us in the New Era of Aquarius we now live under. It lives too in the Rosicrucians around us who have returned to continue their work of centuries past.
Filed under
Religion, Lineage, Philosophy, Son of God, Ageless Wisdom, Evolution, God, Livingness, Spirit, Soul
