by Midnight Freemason Contributor
James E. Frey 32°

According the legend Rosencrutz was a pious German scholar who wanted to learn the mysteries so he ventured on a Pilgrimage to Damascus where he studied Alchemy and magic, then he traveled to the mysterious city Domcar in Arabia then into Egypt where he studied Hermetics and then into Morrocco and Fez and up through Spain and back into Germany. Upon his return he founded a study group to teach all he had learned which were called the Rosicrucians.
The legend ends with the death of Christian Rosencrutz and his followers building him a secret vault with seven sides to deposit his body. It is said that each of the walls had a variety of cryptic occult symbols that surrounded the body above which was placed an ever burning light. Then one hundred and six years later his followers opened the tomb as directed and discovered the body had not decayed still grasping his secret book. They then took the book and each went their own way to spread the secrets taking vows to heal the sick and afflicted only using their powers to help humanity.
So a variety of these pamphlets such as the Confessio and the Chemical Wedding of Christian Rosenkrutz began to circulate this legend to replace Hermes as a pagan teacher with Christian Rosenkrutz, who was a Christian and would be acceptable in this new Reformed environment. This Christianized Hermeticism and Kabbalah spread around Western Europe and became somewhat of a folk story gaining cultural momentum in academic circles.
There is no clear evidence to show that the Rosicrucians themselves ever existed, but the Rosicrucian manifestos helped to promote the study of Christian esoteric thought which influenced some of the most influential thinkers in society, and even from its inception freemasonry.
Well the First connection of Rosicrucianism and Freemasonry is found in a poem published in Edinburgh in 1638, “For what we do presage in not in groose, For We be brethren of the Rosie Crosse: We have the Mason word and Second Sight, Things for to come we can fortell aright.” (Regis Poem, 1638)

~JEF
James E Frey 32° classifies himself as a gentleman of the old world, which means he is known to stand in the great forests reciting poetry to fair-haired damsels while wrestling bears for sport. He is a District Education Officer for the Grand Lodge of Illinois, a Past Sovereign Prince of the of Danville AASR, member of the Oak Lawn York Rite, Medinah Shriners, Royal Order of Scotland, Quram Council Allied Masonic Degrees and initiate of the Golden Dawn Collegium Spiritu Sancti. He is also a guest lecturer on Occultism and Esoteric studies in masonry for the R.E.B.I.S Research Society.
An interesting article. However-- "We have the Masons word and second sight" does not appear in the Regius MS of 1390. It is found in a description of Perth and area in Scotland, published in 1638 by Henry Adamson titled "The Muses Threnodie."
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