The Real History of the Rosicrucians

Founded on Their Own Manifestoes, and on Facts and Documents Collected from the Writings of Initiated Brethren.
London: George Redway.. 1887.

A great cloud of unknowing

First edition. 8vo. 191x125mm. pp. viii, 446. Publisher's blue cloth, upper cover decorated with a red border and with gilt insignia. Spine lettered in gilt and decorated in red. Some soiling and an old label mark to spine and creasing to lower cover. Corners a little rubbed and head and foot of spine. Some light foxing but otherwise a very good copy. 
Arthur Waite was a member of the Societa Rosicruciana in Anglia. He took his Rosicrucianism very seriously as this long, details book attests. Waite examines three central texts: the Fama Fraternitatis, the Confessio Fraternitatis and the Chymical Wedding of Christian Rosencreutz. As well as reproducing these works, Waite provides a detailed history and analysis of them as well of Rosicrucianism more generally. He also surveys the literature of those who wrote about Rosicrucianism including Thomas Vaughan and John Heydon whose utopian Voyage to the Land of the Rosicrucians is included here. The problem with Rosicrucianism is that although there were plenty of documents purporting to be Rosicrucian texts, no actual Rosicrucians ever came to light. The whole subject is shrouded in a great cloud of unknowing which Waite does an excellent job in trying to clear away. In particular, he addresses some of the conspiracies and sensationalism peddled by Hargrave Jennings's 1870 The Rosicrucians, their Rites and Mysteries. Waite's approach is serious, rational and respectful and successfully disentangles the myth from something approaching the reality.

Ref. 5322