The Real History of the Rosicrucians

The Real History of the Rosicrucians, by British poet, occultist, mystic and co-creator of the Rider-Waite tarot deck, was originally published in 1887. The work is Waite's masterpiece history of the elusive Rosicrucians, a mysterious secret society which came to public attention in early 17th century Germany. Despite there being much literature written about this order, no confirmed members were ever proven to exist. Over the centuries a mythology grew around the Rosicrucians, and groups dating back to the 19th century claimed the name. Themselves claiming to go back further to ancient Egypt or Atlantis. Waite presents complete translations of the core texts in the Rosicrucian canon, including the Fama Fraternitatis, the Confessio Fraternitatis, and the Chemical Wedding of Christian Rosencreutz. The Chemical Wedding is a dream text as a thinly-veiled alchemical allegory. Nobody knows the true authorship of these documents, though the German theologian and writer Johann Valentin Andreas is given as one possibility. Waite also looks at Rosicrucian literature from successive centuries, including quotes from authors who wrote about the Rosicrucians such as Michael Maier, Robert Fludd, Thomas Vaughan and John Heydon. Waite also includes Heydon's Voyage to the Land of the Rosicrucians, which is very similar to Thomas More's Utopia, in its entirely.