THE MYSTIC SYMBOL OF THE ROSICRUCIANS ACCORDING TO WILLIAM ATKINSON

 

 

William Atkinson published in 1918 a book entitled "The Secret Doctrine of the Rosicrucians", and at the beginning of the first chapter he put the following image with the following indication:

 

This is the mystic symbol of the Rosicrucian Brotherhood

 

 

But that statement made by William Atkinson is false as I am going to demonstrate you below.

 

 

To elaborate this figure, William Atkinson relied on the English translation made in 1888 by esotericist Franz Hartmann of an old German book entitled "The Secret Symbols of the Rosicrucians of the 16th and 17th centuries", and more precisely of two figures that appear in that book and below I show them in their original versions:

 

 

 

 

 

So the matter begins very badly because the symbol that William Atkinson put in his book is not genuine, but he made it from two different figures.

 

And to make matters even worse, these figures deal with very different topics because the first figure represents the four elements (earth, water, air and fire), while the second figure is related to Jesus; in other words, William Atkinson is combining disparate concepts.

 

And to make the situation even worse, William Atkinson deformed the first figure by replacing the number four with a cross with a "sun behind it."

 

 

In his book William Atkinson assures that this is "The conventionalized symbol of the Rosy Cross", which is false because this symbol does not appear in the Rosicrucian doctrine, but in fact this symbol belongs to Catholicism where it is used for ritual of the sacrament of the Eucharist.

 

 

 

 

 

 

CONCLUSION

 

This is an example of how lousy the William Atkinson’s teaching can be, who made a tremendous mess with symbols, showing his profound ignorance in that matter.