From the website of the Confraternity of the Rosy Cross:

“All manifestation exists by virtue of a process … a continuity of eternal existence that knows no beginning nor end.

This process must be one of transcendence and transformation that never permits gross stagnation or decay. It must ever be refining and improving upon itself and periodically shedding its outer skin of appearance and the density of its material expression. H. Spencer Lewis referred’ to this process early in his writings as the 108 year cycle and later alluded to it in the numerically higher degrees by allegorically referencing the well known analogy of the necessary relationship between Judas and Jesus. His referencing was to explain the necessity of a catalyst to induce necessary change and transformation.

The name ‘Rosicrucian’ seen from an initiatic perspective derives from the Latin words: ‘ros’ and ‘crucis’ and they are the true source of our name. In that they originate from the Latin also dates our history.

The process of our origins is alchemical in nature — alchemical in a spiritual sense and not material. It identifies a process of refinement and transcendence to a more evolved state not unlike the individual process of the obscure night and the golden dawn. Ros is Latin for ‘dew’ and in alchemical terms, ‘dew’ is the purity of essence refined through transcendent processes of working the power of vitriol in its highest state. Ros is the perfected result of grosser existence.

Crucis describes the attributes necessary for the process of transformation to manifest. ‘Crucis’ is a Roman instrument of torture made into a sacred symbol by the early founders of Christianity. Christians say that Jesus was tortured and died upon the cross and he sacrificed his life so that the human soul would be saved.

Our concern here is not with the religious connotations and symbolism for truly every great prophet or Saviour from each religion underwent a similar experience for the same reason.

It is that reason in which we are concerned and that reason is a PROCESS of transformation from a lesser to a higher state.

Sacrifice, represented by the color red, is the nature of crucis.

It is the state of sacrifice, of giving of one’s self for the purpose of greater evolvement which is the process. It is not for ourselves that is the primary reason why we seek truth.

We seek Truth so that ALL may be free to follow the Path of Light. That, brothers and sisters, is the greatest sacrifice and the most difficult attribute that we must learn. That process is the source of our name.

For those who have never sacrificed or learned the process may fear it. But for those who understand, they will never fear…..”

My Comment

It’s not well known that that the western esoteric tradition (of which Rosicrucianism is one branch) had a huge influence on the Indian independence movement, as well as on the Irish.

As a student in London, Gandhi ran into it.  He also came into contact with American writers like Emerson and Thoreau, who had been influenced by eastern religions. Later, during India’s struggle for independence, when he was in prison, Gandhi revisited and absorbed Tantric and other esoteric Hindu texts, and their principles informed his political practice right to the end of his life.

On the Irish end, at the turn of the century, an esoteric group, the Order of the Golden Dawn, which had Rosicrucian and alchemical elements, had an enormous influence on William Butler Yeats, the Irish statesman, poet ,and mystic.  The occult influence can be seen in poems like Mount Meru and  The Second Coming. It can also be seen in Yeats’ system of  “masks” and interlocking “gyres”  (representing cosmic dualities, played out in recurrent cycles). The gyres interpenetrate each other and move closer and farther as different cycles unfold. (Yeats was also deeply interested in astrological cycles).

Why do I bring all this up?

To show that thinking of religious or spiritual belief as something radically apart from or irrelevant to political struggle is simply delusional, at worst, and disingenuous, at best.

Church-state separation is necessary…principally to keep religion from the corruption of state power (as Roger Williams wrote).

But Religion (or mysticism) and politics have never been separate.

Note: I include under religion, atheism  – a noble, ascetic, and very worthy faith.

But, in my view, not all that creative or imaginative…..