The First Rosicrucian

I googled "first rosicrucian" and the first like that popped up said "Understanding reincarnation" which leads me to the topic of today's post: Pythagoras.

He is primarily remembered today for his theorem concerning right triangles, but the history (mostly mythology, actually) of Pythagoras goes much deeper than that.

As a seeker of knowledge, he did not seem to distinguish between empirical and mystical ideas, and he was said to have been very keen to learn from cultures older than his native Ionian Greek civilization. Hence he traveled to Egypt and, it is claimed, to India.

An Indic concept of reincarnation first enters recorded western thought through the Pythagoreans, along with the concept of the monad or brahman as the source of all creation. If Pythagoras was not a real, historical individual, it certainly seems that the character must have been based on one or more real people who were exposed in some depth to the Vedic tradition and brought its ideas back to the West - kicking off a cycle of historical and legendary Westerners periodically "rediscovering" the knowledge of the East, from Pythagoras to Christian Rosenkreuz to Mme. Blavatsky to the Beatles.

Speaking In Tongues

Χριστος (Christos) means the Anointed One, and was the basis for the original Christian symbol, the juxtaposed Chi-Rho. By this sign, early Christians could identify themselves both as followers of a particular Anointed One, and as anointed ones themselves.

Anyone who has been through the sacrament of baptism is an anointed one, an initiate of the Christian Mysteries — which is exactly what they were in the early years of what is called the Common Era. (I actually prefer Anno Domini, because at least that doesn't try to evade the question of where, which is to say from what religion, the western dating system comes from.) Christian initiation came to literally embody the journey from birth to death, and an initiation into Christian mysticism became an enlightened journey starting at a spiritual rebirth, one which took place, at minimum, at the age of majority.

The Chi-Rho symbol may have also been widely recognized in the Roman era as a figurative representation of a person on a cross, if Simcha Jacobovici is correct in his theory that Roman crucifixion was actually done using x-shaped crosses instead of t-shaped ones. Today the Chi-Rho can still be seen in liturgical use even in the shadow of the crucifix which has since been transformed into its more recognizable image.

Though Christianity is still occult in many practices, as anyone who has been to a Tridentine Sacrifice of the Mass can attest, it has also positioned itself as the enemy of occultism the further it has moved away from being a secretive fraternity. Christianity, in effect, has long since become a religion, not a brotherhood. Apart from much ballyhooed examples of masonic messages preserved in stone and stained glass, Christianity's metamorphosis has taken it from hidden meaning to a common faith of uncommon language.

Yet at the crucible point of Lutheranism, Rosicrucianism arose to simultaneously call for universal reformation and to cloak its summons in the language and symbolism of elite learned men. What can be made of this seeming contradiction ?

In the 17th century, Latin — not the languages of Germans, or Huguenots, or the English Reformation, or Muslims or Chinese for that matter — was still the language by which "proper learning" was transmitted. Publishing in Latin was a way of proclaiming "this is legit," and it still is in some cases. If you've ever heard the name of tyrannosaurus rex, you probably see what I mean.

Liberatio per artem et scientiam — liberation through art and knowledge. If I were to start a Rosicrucian Order of my own, this might be its motto. For those of us in the West, "science" is the term we use to describe that which can be known ; "art" is the term by which we describe that which could not otherwise be known.

Another word I like, which could be described as a translation of "Rosicrucian" (though perhaps by no one but me) is 芸者 (geisha) — one whose entire life could be described as an ongoing work of art.

If the term Rosicrucian does not describe someone of continual seeking and learning and absorbing things foreign to them, and expressing those thing in multiple esoteric and exoteric ways, then I don't know what it means.

How much esotericism is too much ?

We're all "initiated" into a general cultural knowledge base, and then into progressively more narrow knowledge bases as determined by education level and group affiliations. So we all have some degree of esoteric knowledge, i.e. knowledge that not everyone else possesses.

Some esoteric symbols (for example, the AMORC Rose-Croix-Ankh-Pyramid design on the left) are vague enough to be appreciated for aesthetic reasons, and for individuals to project their own personal meanings onto them. You don't have to be a high-degree initiate of AMORC in order to make something out of that symbol, even if you don't know precisely what the initiated have learned about it.

On the other, consider the Rose-Croix design on the right. It's esoteric symbolism is more detailed, and thus more impenetrable to outsiders. It's less likely to be adopted by someone who just came across it on the internet and liked how it looks. You'd want to know what all the stuff on there actually means.

That might serve as an enticement to join a fraternal organization that promises to reveal its mysteries to you, but it might also make that organization's membership suspect. Putting yourself out there as part of a secretive, select group can make you a target for conspiracy theories and charges of elitism.

Wearing a shirt with E=mc² on it says one thing about you ; wearing a shirt with string theory equations on it says something else.

Both the esoteric cross and the esoteric equation communicate specific information, but only to the elite who have been inducted into the Great Mysteries. Who knows what they're really up to behind closed doors ?

That's the question the uninitiated will always ask themselves, and the answer usually isn't anything good for the initiates. Mystery schools still have to walk a fine line between exciting interest and inciting envy.