of the fraternities in Europe. After this time, Heindel wrote immense amounts of information on the Rosicrucian cosmology and many books on astrology, most of which are still in print today.
Societas Rosicruciana in Anglia (SRIA): This was one of the most infamous of the Rosicrucian groups of its time, due to some of its celebrity participants. These include John Yarker, P.B. Randolph, E. Bulwer-Lytton, Dr. Wynn Westcott, S.L. MacGregor Mathers, Eliphas Levi, Theodor Reuss, Kenneth Mackenzie, Paul Foster Case and Frederick Hockley. The SRIA was founded in 1860 by R.W. Little, an active freemason. Most of the members of this society were both freemasons and Rosicrucians. Little is said to have been introduced to the material when he came across some Rosicrucian documents from the much more ancient “August Order,” but these were never seen by anyone verifiable. The SRIA spread abroad after infiltrating Canada and the United States. The Scottish Rite Freemason Albert Pike was chartered to head a branch of the organization in the U.S. around 1879, which eventually transformed into the Societas Rosicruciana in America. Today, the S.R. in America have no ties to the original lodges in Europe, reportedly due to the fact that they admit women into their ranks. The original SRIA got into all kinds of trouble on account of sexual issues, and several of its members were tried in court for Sex Magic rituals.40 The teachings of the Rosicrucians, and the Hermetics for that matter, did include quite a bit of sexual material.
Hargrave Jennings, a founder of the Societas Rosicruciana in Anglia, “hinted as strongly as he could that these rites and mysteries were of a fundamentally sexual nature, though to make his point in Victorian England he was obliged to resort to some involved and often poetically purple prose. Dancing around the theme of Tantric sex as the basis of the Rosicrucian philosophy, Jennings was almost specific when he pointed out that . . . the Masonic seal of Solomon symbolizes the intertwined triangles of male and female, which in conjunction represent life . . .”
—Peter Tompkins, The Magic of Obelisks
Fraternitas Rosæ Crucis (FRC) was founded in 1912 by Reuben Swinburne Clymer. Clymer was a student of the eminent mulatto occultist Pascal Beverly Randolph, and he claimed that Randolph had originally founded the Order in secret in 1856. Randolph was initiated into the SRIA in 1868, and was also a member of the Hermetic Brotherhood of Luxor. For one of Randolph’s ethnicity to rise to the ranks he achieved, at his time, was nothing short of astonishing. A good amount of time and effort in Clymer’s Rosicrucian career was spent battling with H.S. Lewis of AMORC, who devoted much of his writings to countering and disproving anything and everything Lewis had to say. This created a rivalry between the groups, and is why, if members of AMORC are asked what they think of Clymer of Randolph’s writing, they will usually respond negatively.
It is entirely possible to attract, direct and redeem by the thoughts we hold in the mind, those who are inclined to follow destructive tendencies. Our thoughts become magnets, continually attracting to us those things and people toward which our thoughts are turned, thus the nature and quality of Man’s thoughts become the ruling power in his life.41
Societas Rosicruciana Civitatibus Foederatis: This organization was founded in Pennsylvania in 1879, and the only ones welcome to join were “Master Masons.” It received many members from defunct lodges of the SRIA.
The Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn: This was an offshoot of the original SRIA, and all of its founders were members of this organization. It was started in 1888 by S.L. MacGregor Mathers, William Robert Woodman and Wynn Westcott. This society probably had the most influence on the occult world as it exists today. The writings of some of its members are widely circulated and looked upon as bibles by occultists the world over. Individuals such as Aleister Crowely, Paul Foster Case, William Butler Yeats, Bram Stoker, Israel Regardie and Dion Fortune represent some of the magi who came out of this organization.
Ordo Templi Orientis (OTO) was originally founded by Carl Kellner, Heinrich Klein and Franz Hartmann in 1895. Franz Hartmann’s works were particularly popular, and continue to influence students of occult history today. The Order defined itself as Rosicrucian and belonging to the original Knights Templar. The Rosicrucian influence was reinforced when Theodore Reuss became its chief, as Reuss had been a member of the Societas Rosicruciana. Under Reuss’ leadership, the organization grew throughout Europe and into the U.S. After Reuss stepped down, he appointed Aleister Crowley to lead the organization.
Collegium Pansophicum: This organization was founded by Heinrich Tranker in 1923 after he left the OTO, upset that Crowley and not himself had been asked to take over. Tranker said that his group was the only one to teach the “true” Rosicrucian secrets, but he worked closely with H.S. Lewis of AMORC in several endeavors.
Ordre Kabbalistique de la Rose Croix (the Kabbalistic order of the Rosy Cross): This group began in Paris in 1888, headed by Count Stanislas de Guaita. Like the Societas Rosicruciana, this group attracted many famous participants and had some crossover with the SRIA, including Eliphas Levi and E. Bulwer-Lytton. H.S. Lewis was also rumored to have been a member of this group at one time. This fraternity worked with another esoteric group in Paris headed by Papus called The Martinist Order.
The Rosicrucians provided a template (and much written material) for the New Thought writers, who further extrapolated and developed the concepts formed by the unification of the Christian and Hermetic philosophies. But how was it that the Rosicrucians came upon this information to begin with? What exactly are the Hermetic teachings and where do they come from?
The Hermetic Origins of the Mind Cure
Mind leads phenomena
Mind is the main factor and forerunner of all actions
If one speaks or acts with a cruel mind,
Misery follows, as the cart follows the horse.
Phenomena are led by the mind.
Mind is the main factor and forerunner of all actions.
If one speaks or acts with pure mind,
Happiness follows, as a shadow follows its source.
—Dharmapada
The idea that the body can be healed by a suggestion of the mind, either one’s own or that of another, is an ancient one indeed. In Pharoahnic Egypt, where many place the origins of medicine,42 the soul and the mind act directly on the state of the body’s health. The Aesculapian temples of Alexandria utilized the same healing methodologies of the Mesmerists and even Jesus, predating them by some hundreds of years.
Old temple disciplines included purification, temple-sleep, and various hypnotic rest states. Bodily processes were aroused and focused through intensities of suggestion, through touching the patient, along with lifting the faith of one who was ill.43
Such recommendations and cures have been found on Egyptian papyri dating as far back as 2000 BC. And they always speak of Thoth and Hermes.
Eventually all the great medical centers were located at the chief capitals along the Nile. These shrines were depositories of medical lore, and the ancient traditions are confirmed by the lists of diseases and their cures. Clement refers to forty-two Hermetic books at the temple of Hermopolis, of which six were medical texts giving formulas and remedies. On the walls of sanctuaries were inscriptions and tablets in commemoration of miraculous cures with statues and steles erected by former patients in grateful recognition of cures effected by the divinity.44
The
