The Real History of the Rosicrucians

About this book

Christian Rosenkreuz is said to have travelled, studied hidden wisdom and founded an invisible brotherhood. A. E. Waite examines the story by following the writings and manifestos that made it famous.

The Real History of the Rosicrucians investigates a movement whose legends often look older and more orderly than its surviving documents allow. Waite reads the early German texts and the controversies they produced, with his own sympathy for mysticism always near the surface. The early manifestos emerge as distinct historical objects, even as their supposed founder remains half concealed by the legend.