HARVEY SPENCER LEWIS WAS ACCUSED OF SCAM

 

 

There is a matter that arouses suspicion among researchers in the history of esoteric associations, and it is the arrest of Harvey Spencer Lewis by the New York police on June 17, 1918.

 

In principle, this episode should not be very important, since anyone can be detained by mistake or unfairly, and be released after the appropriate verifications without this implying any discredit for the arrested person.

 

However, it does raise serious doubts and suspicions when it is discovered that the story told in the biography written by Ralph Lewis, son of Spencer Lewis, entitled "Cosmic Mission Fulfilled", contains falsehoods and contradictions. So if there hadn't been something wrong, then there wouldn't have been a need to distort the events.

 

Ralph Lewis wrote:

 

« At the time the United States declared war on Germany, Germany had a large ocean liner moored at the docks in New York Harbor, but immediately after the declaration of war and in accordance with established custom, the United States confiscated the German assets that were in the country, and one of them was the gigantic German ocean liner whose name was "Imperator".

 

And since letters, cables and telegrams concerning Rosicrucian matters were sent from time to time to the AMORC Imperator [i.e. Harvey Spencer Lewis], this aroused suspicion among the investigative staff of the New York Police Department, since the word Imperator it seemed to create a bond between AMORC and the nation against which America had declared war.

 

In their enthusiasm and hoping to show their zeal to their superiors, the policemen  obtained as a matter of war an investigative mandate allowing them to search the premises of AMORC, and all by reason of the title of Imperator. »

(p.95)

 

 

Ralph Lewis pretends that the New York cops are stupid and arrested his father because he was using the same name as the German ocean liner. And he also considers that the judges are highly ignorant since let's not forget that in the United States for the police to enter a property to search and seize documents, they need a court order, and the judges are people with university studies in law, so it doesn't make sense that they would authorize a search without a valid reason, let alone for such a ridiculous reason.

 

Also, while this liner was part of a trio known as "The Imperator Class," this liner was known as Vaterland , while instead the liner that was called Imperator remained moored in the port of Hamburg throughout World War I.

 

So Ralph Lewis takes us for stupid.

 

We see that the son picked up his father's bad habits of fabricating lies, and in reality the arrest was prompted by a complaint from a woman, Ms. Elisabeth Meeker, who had been a former member of AMORC and who accused Lewis of appropriation. misuse and diversion of funds.

 

And on this matter of the missing funds, without ever citing any arrests, Ralph Lewis in his book says that these were appropriated by an AMORC member in whose hands they had been left to take home one weekend and the Monday deposited it in the bank, but that disloyal member ran off with the money, never to be found.

 

In other words, Ralph Lewis wants us to believe that his father naively gave him $20,000 from that time, which would now be a fortune, to a member to take home and on Monday to the bank, and the very perfidious man stole them...

 

That sounds like another Ralph Lewis lie.

 

 

The whole matter began when Spencer Lewis decided to acquire a property to establish there the temple and the offices of AMORC, and for this reason he contracted the purchase of the property of the famous American singer Lily Langtry, located at number 361 West, 23rd Street in New York; and Lewis asked the members of his organization for donations to be able to buy it since he had to meet the purchase deadlines and the corresponding deferred payments.

 

But this coincided with the fact that one of Lewis's closest associates, Mr. Saunders, who had been editor of AMORC's magazine "The American Rosae Crucis" and who had reached the 33rd degree in Freemasonry, getting to know the Lewis's quackery and shady dealings, and thats is why he resigned from all his posts and renounced his affiliation with AMORC.

 

Many members of AMORC, upon learning that Mr. Sanders, a man who had a reputation for great honesty, had left, they also decided to leave AMORC and the result was a significant decrease in membership, for which Lewis was very upset. difficult to continue paying the mortgage, and that is why he decided to issue some bonds at 6% interest with the excuse of undertaking the works on the house and fitting out the new temple.

 

But as time passed and the works and conditioning of the building and the hall of the temple were not undertaken, many members began to worry and when they did not receive satisfactory answers, this caused discontent among many, which led to Miss Elisabet Meeker to make the complaint that led to Lewis's arrest and the search of AMORC's premises.

 

This fact was recorded in the newspapers, which totally discredits the story invented by Ralph Lewis of the German ocean liner.

 

In this other chapter you can see the article published by The Sun newspaper in New York on June 19, 1918 (p.14) and in which the news of Lewis's arrest and its causes is given, and in which a important statement by Spencer Lewis who was interviewed by the newspaper and in which he acknowledges that he was never sponsored by any French Rosicrucian Order (see link).

 

 

In the end the charges were considered insufficient and the accusation was withdrawn, but the matter was never fully clarified, and as we saw Ralph Lewis wanted to disguise it in his book.