Rosicrucianism is the ideology of the Rosicrucians, a mysterious, possibly apocryphal, religious sect announced in early-seventeenth-century Germany. The existence of a secret Brotherhood of the Rosy Cross, the Rosicrucians, was proclaimed in Fama Fraternitas (Rumor of the brotherhood), a short treatise that circulated in manuscript several years before it was published by Wilhelm Wessel in Kassel in 1614. Further details about the brotherhood followed in the Confessio Fraternitatis (1615; Confession of the brotherhood), ostensibly the secret society's manifesto. A spate of "Rosicrucian" treatises ensued, written by a cadre of radical reformers associated with several princely courts and universities of Germany and published mainly in Kassel, Frankfurt, and Danzig.
Although these earliest treatises were anonymous, it appears that the Fama was written, perhaps as early as 1608, by Tobias Hess (1558–1614) and circulated by Adam Haslmayr (1588–1602) and Benedict Figulus (1567–1624). These three appear to have played key roles in codifying the fundamentals of Rosicrucianism from the philosophical and theological ideas of the German reformer Paracelsus, but drawing on material from John Dee (1527–1608), Cornelius Agrippa (1486–1535), and other "Hermetic" authors. The religious teachings of Paracelsus (1493–1541), who despaired of the institutionalized church and urged focus on a German mystical, inner realization of divinity, were especially amenable to Protestants who felt that the Reformation had stopped short and abandoned its original principles. This same impulse had produced numerous radical sects, but the especially attractive claim of the Rosicrucians was their call for a reform of all society to bring it a unified ideology based on a true, irenic (peaceful) religious movement, and a scientific and technological enlightenment.
Many of the Rosicrucian ideas and mode of expression are chemical in nature, clearly evident in Johan Valentin Andreæ's (1586–1654) Chemical Wedding of Christian Rosencreutz (1616; Chymische Hochzeit Christiani Rosencreutz) and blended readily with Hermetic philosophy and religion in treatises like the Secretioris Philosophiæ Consideratio Brevis (1615; Brief consideration of the very secret philosophy) of Philip a Gabella (a pseudonym, possibly for Raphael Eglinus or Johannes Rhenanus), which was largely extracted from works by John Dee, Sendivogius (1556–1636), and other Paracelsian writers. The Rosicrucians' calls for a refounding of society along radical Calvinist and natural philosophical lines struck a chord with a broad audience, piquing the curiosity of the Danish physician Ole Worm (1588–1654) and the Englishman Robert Fludd (1574–1637), a contemporary of William Harvey (1578–1657) and fellow member of London's elite Royal College of Physicians. Men such as these sought further information about the brotherhood or, in the case of Fludd, promoted its aims through his own Hermetic publications and correspondence.
Soon, too, a number of condemnations arose, penned by those fearful that the Rosicrucians presented a real threat to the status quo, or merely convinced that they were yet another heretical sect bent on contributing to Europe's disquiet in the tumultuous years leading up to the Thirty Years' War (1618–1648). Chief among these from the scientific community was Andreas Libavius (1560–1616), who attacked the Rosicrucians as heretics and proponents of false, Paracelsian chemical philosophy. But theological censure was particularly energetic, coming from all orthodoxies. A wellknown episode, the "Rosicrucian furor" that erupted in Paris after the discovery of publicly posted Rosicrucian placards in the summer of 1623, is now known to have been the work of a cabal of French Jesuits, who sought to link dissident, freethinking libertines with Hermetic and Rosicrucian heresies of the sort promoted by Rudolph Goclenius, Jr. (1547–1628), painting them as the dangerous devil-spawn of Lutheranism.
Efforts to see in the Rosicrucians a specific political movement centered on the Calvinist Palatinate aiming to wrest the kingdom of Bohemia from the Catholic Holy Roman emperor have now been discredited, as it is evident that the main actors were not in Heidelberg, but in other courts. The question of the Rosicrucians' contribution to the development of modern science is still unresolved. While the Hermetic and Calvinist ideas they promoted encouraged the development and deployment of technology for social betterment, an idea taken up and publicized by Francis Bacon (1561–1626), the historical connections remain to be clarified. Likewise, their ideas on the importance of fathoming the divine mind by empirical study of creation and experimentation with natural processes must be discerned from contemporary attitudes among Lutherans and other denominations. Yet it is undeniable that many of the champions of scientific reform, particularly the influential Hartlib Circle (a group of scientists and philosophers that formed around Samuel Hartlib [1640–1656]) and its Continental correspondents were keenly interested in finding and studying the Rosicrucian tracts. Continuity between the seventeenth-century Rosicrucians and the eighteenth-century Freemasons and modern Rosicrucianism has been adduced, but the historical connections have not been convincingly teased out.
Bibliography
Gilly, Carlos. "'Theophrastia Sancta'—Paracelsianism as a Religion, in Conflict with the Established Churches." In Paracelsus: The Man and His Reputation, His Ideas and Their Transformation, edited by Ole Grell, pp. 151–185. Leiden, 1998.
Kahn, Didier. "The Rosicrucian Hoax in France (1623–24)." In Secrets of Nature: Astrology and Alchemy in Early Modern Europe, edited by William R. Newman and Anthony Grafton, pp. 235–344. Cambridge, Mass., 2001.
Montgomery, John Warwick. Cross and Crucible: Johann Valentin Andreae (1586–1654), Phoenix of the Theologians. 2 vols. The Hague, 1973.
Moran, Bruce T. The Alchemical World of the German Court: Occult Philosophy and Chemical Medicine in the Circle of Moritz of Hessen (1572–1632). Stuttgart, 1991.
Yates, Frances. The Rosicrucian Enlightenment. London, 1972.
—JOLE SHACKELFORD
