AMORC'S SECOND ADVERTISEMENT

 

This seems to be the second newspaper advertisement to promote the recent AMORC organization that Harvey Spencer Lewis had founded in February 1915 in New York. This article was published in The Port Wayne Journal-Gazette on April 2, 1916, page 46, and the text reads as follows:

 

 

 

WHY THE ROSAECRUCIANS CAME TO NEW YORK

 

Prophecies Dating Back 1,500 Years Before the Wise Men of the East Followed the Star to Bethlehem Are Now Fulfilled in the Advent of This Ancient Mystic Order to "The Land Where the Eagle Spreads Its Wings [U.S.A.]."

 

 

The symbols on this page are copyrighted, 1915, by "The American Rosae Crucis."

 

By Charles W. Wood

 

The Ancient and Mystical Order Rosae Crucis has come to America [AMORC]. It is the most ancient and most mystical of all orders; so ancient that the encyclopedists have never been able to trace its origin, and so mystical that even the mystics of other cults have never been able to divine its meaning. Every one has heard of Rosaecrucianism. Few have any conception of what it stands for. Lexicon makers have disputed about the spelling of the word. But now the thing itself, Roseacrucianism, is here. And it is here to direct the course of America during the next five wonderful years; to point out the course written in the stars in the dawn of civilization and interpreted by the Wise Men of the East years before their successors followed the Star to Bethlehem.

 

There was no air of mysticism about the rooms at No. 80 Fifth Avenue, where I talked with the young Grand Master General of the long-looked-for American Grand Lodge. But the story he unfolded was one that brought the hearer back to the earliest councils of the Egyptian pharaohs, and threw about our whole modem civilization the glamour of the cryptic past.

 

H. Spencer Lewis is the American Grand Master General, or Imperator. He received his commission eight years ago from the Supreme Council of the World, through the Grand Lodge of France, to establish the order in America. This Supreme Council is the great autocratic authority of Rosaecrucianism. Its very membership is secret and it enforces its dicta in ways that mystify even the Illuminati. With his commission Mr. Lewis received orders not to begin the work until 1916. He was then only twenty-five years old, but had already become one of the Twelfth Degree Illuminati in Toulouse. His previous life had been a preparation for this commission. He is known as a student of psychical research and has aided in exposing many of the so-called spiritualistic frauds.

 

"Roseacrucianism is true mysticism," he told me. "It is not a religion. It has nothing in common with theosophy or Hindu and Yogi philosophy, and has no connection with the new thought movement, spiritualism or mentalism. We call it, rightly, the Alpha and Omega of all learning. It is a philosophy, a science, an art and a secret – all of these, inseparable and one."

 

"It could not be established here until the year 3268," he added. "That year was fixed in the stars. It was read by Hermes 1,300 years before Christ; but the secret was kept, even from Rosaecrucians, until the time of fulfillment. There have been many earnest attempts to found the order here before. The enthusiastic propagandists themselves did not know why permission was withheld. Some of them have founded Rosaecrucian societies, clubs and fellowships. But you will note that none of these have used the name of the order or its official emblems. That could not be done until the year 3268."

 

"The year 3268?" I asked.

 

"Yes, that is the present year, according to the Rosaecrucian calendar. March 21 is the Rosaecrucian New Year. It begins at 1.06 A.M.", he answered me. "Reckoning according to our present calendar, it was in the week of March 28 to April 4,1489 B.C., when Thutmose III., Ruler of Egypt, and his little group of advanced thinkers, organized the first Council of the order out of the class in philosophy, which had been meeting in the royal chambers and represented the highest learning of the world. There were twelve in the group, nine men and three women.

 

There are twelve degrees in Rosaecrucianism. The figures 9 and 3 have ever since been recognized as mystic symbols. The name of the order was not adopted at once, but the principles, rules and modes of procedure outlined by Thutmose have come down, it is claimed, practically unchanged in the ritual of all Roseacrucian lodges. Thutmose erected two obelisks outside the Temple of Karnak, where the order met.

 

According to a tradition of the order one of these obelisks was to stand some day in the 'Land where the Eagle spreads its wings." It does. It stands in Central Park, in the metropolis of the world, full of inscriptions meaningful to Rosaecrucians."

 

"How was America associated with the eagle twenty-eight centuries before Columbus?" I asked.

 

"I can only say that it was," said Mr. Lewis. Then he produced a map, a map of the world showing the Roseacrucian symbols of an eagle, a pyramid and a black bird (the "vulture") covering the area of the United States. "This map," he said, "was taken from the pyramid of Cheops and from the oldest Rosaecrucian tablets. The eagle and the pyramid were adopted in due time by the new government at Washington as emblems of the American Republic. Thousands of your readers will understand the significance of the vulture."

 

 

According to Mr. Lewis, Rosaecrucianism has had a continuous history from the day of its birth. And there is no reason, he says, why this outward history should be withheld from the world. The Supreme Council has permitted him to publish the chronicle and it will appear in the near future. In this history he states that Freemasonry is only an off shoot of Rosaecrucianism, resulting from a visit of an earnest young seeker after truth named Saloman, or Solomon, to the Masters in Egypt 2,000 years ago.

 

No one knows how many members of the order are in America today. About two hundred and fifty have been permitted to "cross the threshold" since Mr. Lewis received his commission; but aside from these there is a small army of initiates especially prepared for the great work of the next few years in the European and Oriental lodges. So far they do not know each other, and they do not know what particular work will be assigned to them. But they are waiting for orders from the Supreme Council of the World and all are confident that the destiny of America is wrapped up with the Rose and Cross.

 

With Mr. Lewis's commission as Grand Master General came official seals and symbols of authority. Then, through devious sources, which he says were unknown even to the Grand Master, came some treasured jewels of the order. Most treasured of all was the original SCARAB of Thutmose III, used by the ancient founder to impress his cartouche upon his royal decrees.

 

This cartouche was adopted as the first seal of the order and the SCARAB was used for hundreds of years in Egypt by the Supreme Masters who succeeded him. The obelisk in Central Park bears this cartouche of Thutmose. The presence of the original Scarab in the hands of the Master of the New World is taken to symbolize the passing of the founder's spirit from Egypt to America.

 

 

"Rosaecrucians have been anticipating the great change in America for centuries," said Royle Thurston, summarizing the forecast for the American Rosae Crucis, official magazine of the Order, published at No. 80 Fifth Avenue. "It was decreed that beginning with the year 1916 these States should come under the Uranian influence of the Spirit. Gradually the change has occurred and more visible becomes the influence in all the affairs of life. We find Thursday becoming the day of choice, subconsciously, for the starting and accomplishing of important things. In even minute matters we find the number 7 figuring conspicuously.

 

We find the CROSS in various forms being adopted in place of more decorative or more representative symbols. We note that the mind of the nation inquiries rather of the Laws and Causes of things than of results. We see the desire for peace and harmony supplanting the 'glories' of war and strife. The inner desire for religious study, for attunement with the Infinite and a more intimate acquaintance with God and the Divine Laws of Love, Peace, Power and Knowledge is more manifest than ever before."

 

 

WHAT ROSAECRUCIANISM IS   By a Rosaecrucian.   Rosaecrucianism is the Alpha and Omega of all learning, a philosophy, a science, an art and a secret – all of these, inseparable and one.   It teaches the world's most profound secrets. It explains life and its phenomena; it makes plain biology and ontology; it reveals life and death in a different light than that generally understood. It deals as comprehensively with cosmogony, astrology (the original science of astronomy as first taught by Rosaecrucians) and geology as with metallurgy, medicine, art and philosophy.   It reveals the life we have lived and the life we shall live as plainly as the life we are living. It takes from science in all its branches the great mysteries which have defied solution by the lay mind and the uninitiated.   It makes of all members real brothers and sisters; it makes the humble mechanic or artisan in America the equal, the peer, of the most powerful ruler in Europe, not by humiliation, but by the true law of equality.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

THE IMAGES

 

Above within the article is a drawing that I have not seen elsewhere and that represents the history of the Rosicrucians according to Harvey Spencer Lewis:

 

 

 

 

In the middle is a portrait of Lewis:

 

 

 

And the little figures that appear in the article are the "official seals of AMORC", most of them were invented by Lewis and do not have a Rosicrucian base.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

THE MAP

 

The so-called "Rosicrucian Map of the World" Lewis published in his magazine The American Rosae Crucis of February 1916, p.8:

 

 

It is absurd to consider that the "ancient Egyptian Rosicrucians" (which is false) anticipated that AMORC (a false Rosicrucian organization) would settle thousands of years later in the United States. But it is also evident that this map was drawn up in the 20th century because in ancient times much less was known about the geography of our planet .

 

And contrary to what Lewis claimed, nothing similar to this map has been found anywhere in Ancient Egypt, and even less in the Cheops Pyramid because it turns out that unlike the tombs of the pharaohs, in the Cheops Pyramid there is no no images or hieroglyphics painted on its walls.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

OBSERVATIONS

 

In this interview Harvey Spencer Lewis repeats the falsehoods that he was teaching his students, such as: the false history of the Rosicrucians that Lewis made up, the false Rosicrucian map that I showed you above, the false initiations that Lewis pretended his disciples received, the false directives from the Rosicrucian Supreme Council of the World which was a fictitious organization invented by Lewis, the false jewels that Lewis claimed to have received from the Rosicrucians but never showed anyone nor was heard from, etc.

 

This article sums up very well the immense charlatanism of the founder of AMORC and I can assure you that this organization is not at all "the oldest and most mystical of all orders" (as Lewis claimed) but in reality Lewis created it to profit with people