This
letter says the following:
September 1,
1915
MWGMGH
Spencer Lewis, FRC. (This means “Most Worthy General Master Grand Harvey
Spencer Lewis, Fraternity Rosae-Crucis”)
New York
City, New York
Greetings to
a Brother ∵
I am
visiting your magnificent Country and City in companionship and fellowship with
the Supreme Magus (13th Illuminati A.M.O.R.C. England) and it gives to me the
extreme pleasure to present to you the compliments of the Order R.C. en France
and prey for an informal interview at either your home or at my hotel.
I rest
assured that the Respected Secretary of our Grand Lodge has informed you of my
unofficial visit to this country, and while I shall not be able to remain in
New York City longer than several days (being en route with the Supreme Magus
to the Canadian Grand Lodge) it will confer upon me pleasure to examine any
reports you may have prepared and to tender any help or advice you feel may
supplement the able instructions of our Supréme Concile.
If it is
possible I would like to cross the T... [Temple?] of the Grand Lodge of America
at your next conclave, although I fear I may not be able to make myself
understood as well as I would like. However our silent greetings will serve me
as they have in England.
May I have
your kind appointment of time and place for the interview at your earliest convenience?
Accept, Brother, my good wishes for your health and the success of our noble
work.
Fraternally.
Jerome J.
Verdier.
13th FRC
France
Hotel
Biltmore
New York
City.
THE STORY OF THIS LETTER
Many of the
persons who had entered in AMORC had done so on the Spencer Lewis word who
had assured them that he and his organization were being sponsored by the
French Rosicrucians.
But with an
increasing skepticism, they asked to Lewis for evidence and documents that he
had not presented despite his claims that he received letters of authority and
documents after his "initiation" in 1909 in Toulouse, France, where
French Rosicrucians allegedly he had been commissioned to found the Rosicrucian
Order in America.
Lewis, to
counteract mistrust, presented them this letter and later published in his
pamphlet The Rosicrucian Initiation
(1917) the following text:
« In September [1915], after the Grand Lodge
of America had begun its activities in New York, Monsignor Jerome T. Verdier,
magician of the Supreme Council of France in Toulouse, visited the Grand Master
[Spencer Lewis]. He gave his approval to the plan for the establishment of state lodges in each State of the American Union and of local lodges in the
principal cities. Final instructions, seals, and secret documents were
hand-delivered to the Grand Master General of America [Spencer Lewis] after
examination of the official reports. »
(p.16)
Later this
letter was reproduced in the book Rosicrucian
Documents (GLS AMORC Inc., 1975, p.7).
Below the
letter is written in English and Spanish:
“Official letter from the Rosicrucian
Legate Jerome Verdier of France, to Dr. H. Spencer Lewis, First Imperator and
founder of AMORC in America. Note statements that he extends the compliments of
the Rosicrucian Order in France to Dr. Lewis, and that he is accompanied by
another high officer of the Rosicrucian Order in Europe.”
WHAT IS ITS AUTHENTICITY?
This letter
has a few words in French to imply that it was written by a Frenchman, but with
spelling errors so gross that no educated Frenchman would have made them,
while the rest of the letter is in impeccable English, so this supposed
Frenchman who does not know how to write his own native language, on the other
hand he knows how to write English very well. And also in the letter there are big
errors of occultism.
Let's look
at some examples:
1) The
letter begins by saying “Greetings to a Brother”, which is the traditional Anglo-Saxon
way of greeting, but it is not the way of greeting in France where the way of greeting is writing “Cher frère” (Dear brother).
2) After the
word brother, Mr. Verdier puts the three points in the form of a triangle that
is usually used in occult brotherhoods, but he puts them with the point
downwards when all genuine esoteric organizations, regardless of whether they
are Masonic, Theosophical or Rosicrucian, put the three points with the point
up.
And it turns
out that Lewis decided to put the three points with the point
downwards because the symbol he chose
for AMORC is a cross inside an inverted triangle, but this is not a symbol that
has been used by real Rosicrucians (see link).
3) Mr.
Verdier says that he is accompanied by a high Rosicrucian dignitary from
England who has the 13th Illuminati degree, which does not make sense since the
Illuminati were great adversaries of the Rosicrucians as the esotericist Franz
Hartmann specified (see link).
4) In the
last line of the second paragraph, in the last words Mr. Verdier wrote: Supréme
Concile. But in French it is not written like that but rather Suprême Conseil
(Supreme Council). And an educated Frenchman would use accents correctly as
they are very important in the French language.
5) Mr.
Verdier's signature, as you can see in the image, and even better in the
enlarged image below, is Jerome J. Verdier.
And it turns
out that when an American signs he puts his first name first, then the initial
of his middle name, and last his last name. That is to say, the same as the
signature that appears from Mr. Verdier.
On the other
hand, a Frenchman, and even more a cultured Frenchman of 1915, would put his
full name and surname. For example, if Mr. Verdier's middle name had been Jean,
then he would have signed Jerome Jean Verdier, that is, in the French style and
not the American style.
6) But what
is most disconcerting is that Mr. Verdier does not know how to write his own
name since Jerome is not written like that in French, but Jérôme, which is very
different, and as you can see in the image, his name is
misspelled.
In addition,
this is a salutation letter, so it is unthinkable that a well-educated
Frenchman would send in 1915, at a time when forms were very careful, a
typewritten greeting letter since French protocol dictates that you must write
that type of letter by hand.
The second
curiosity is that the letterhead of the letter is from the Bilmore Hotel in New
York, and although it is true that a traveler would write a letter with the
letterhead of the hotel where he is staying, it is most likely that this traveler did not
have a typewriter in his room, and less in 1915.
It could
well be that he had gone to the hotel offices where the workers could have lent
him the typewriter so that he could write his letter, but as I pointed out above,
that makes no sense because why complicate his life typing that letter with a typewriter when
the protocol dictates that it must be written by hand, which would also be the
most practical in thissituation.
_ _ _
All this leads me to conclude that it was Spencer
Lewis himself who wrote this letter and he typed it to hide his handwriting.
BIG CONTRADICTIONS
In addition:
Why didn't Lewis take the opportunity to introduce Mr.
Verdier to AMORC members?
Why was the interview not held in the Lodge so that
AMORC members could see and greet Mr. Verdier and the Supreme Magus of England?
Why, being Lewis a professional photographer, didn't
he take the opportunity to take a picture of Mr. Verdier and also of the
Supreme Magus who was traveling with him?
And how is it that Mr. Verdier was traveling with the
Supreme Magus of England?
If Lewis had
previously stated that the Rosicrucian Order was totally secret in Toulouse and
was only made up of a few members, how is it that it is now so thriving that
it is even established in England and even has its Supreme Magician?
And how is
it that the scholars and historians of esotericism, taking into account the
tradition of freedom for esoteric associations such as Freemasonry, Martinism,
the Golden Dawn, the OTO, etc., and which were so active in France and in
England, were known to all; while the Rosicrucians associated with Lewis are
not known to anyone?
And it also happens that they are on a trip to the
Grand Lodge of Canada!
But how is
it that a Rosicrucian Grand Lodge could already have been founded in Canada in
September 1915?
Hadn't we
agreed that it was Lewis who was to establish the Rosicrucians in America, and
now it turns out that there was already a Rosicrucian Grand Lodge in the
neighboring country?
And if these
two dignitaries were in such a hurry, that it prevented them from returning to
New York later and conversing with the members of AMORC, taking advantage of
the fact that they spoke English so well, in order to dispel all the mistrust
that had been generated towards Mr. Lewis because he did not show any valid
evidence.
There are so
many questions that arise in the face of so many contradictions that we can
only increase our distrust and seriously doubt the authenticity of that letter.
CONCLUSION
This whole
setup is so unlikely that it can only be attributed to an individual who knows
very little French, who likes to forge documents but doesn't mind being careful
about details, and who is completely unscrupulous.
And all this
corresponds to Harvey Spencer Lewis, since he knew very little French, his
knowledge of esotericism was lousy, the number of documents he forged is
impressive, and his lack of ethics is even more
aberrant. And all this I have been showing them in this blog.
And this
letter is just another piece of evidence of his quackery, but then again Mr.
Lewis didn't even go out of his way to make really believable forgeries, and
this letter is so pitiful and botched that it didn't convince the members of
his organization at all, and that is why they asked Lewis to present other more
credible evidence, and that is why he presented the even more ridiculous "Pronouncement
RCRF 987432" which we will detail in the next article.
