The Rose Cross (also called Rose Croix and Rosy Cross) is a symbol largely associated with the legendary Christian Rosenkreuz; Christian Kabbalist, alchemist, and founder of the Rosicrucian Order. The Rose Cross is a cross with a rose at its centre, often red, golden or white and symbolizes the teachings of a Western esoteric tradition with Christian tenets.
Symbolism
The Rosicrucian Manifestos were written during the Protestant Reformation in Germany, and have an underlying theme of reform. In 1520, Martin Luther had a seal made with a five-petaled white rose encapsulating a heart, with a simple cross in the centre. Johannes Valentinus Andreae, a likely candidate for the authorship of the third Rosicrucian manifesto, the Chymical Wedding of Christian Rosenkreutz, came from a family whose crest featured an X-shaped cross with roses in the four corners.
Many allegorical and esoteric explanations for the Rose Cross have arisen over the centuries. Some groups, such as the Ancient and Mystical Order Rosae Crucis, purport that the rosy cross predates Christianity, where "the cross represents the human body and the rose represents the individual's unfolding consciousness.
It has also been suggested that the rose represents silence while the cross signifies "salvation, to which the Society of the Rose-Cross devoted itself by teaching mankind the love of God and the beauty of brotherhood, with all that they implied." Others saw the Rosy Cross as a symbol of the human process of reproduction elevated to the spiritual: "The fundamental symbols of the Rosicrucians were the rose and the cross; the rose female and the cross male, both universal phallic [...] As generation is the key to material existence, it is natural that the Rosicrucians should adopt as its characteristic symbols those exemplifying the reproductive processes. As regeneration is the key to spiritual existence, they therefore founded their symbolism upon the rose and the cross, which typify the redemption of man through the union of his lower temporal nature with his higher eternal nature."
It is further a symbol of the Philosopher's stone, the ultimate product of the alchemist.
Rosicrucianism
The Rosicrucian manifestos tell an allegorical story of the Rosicrucian Brotherhood, founded in the early 14th century, or between the 13th and 14th centuries, as an Invisible College of mystic sages, by a sage having the symbolic name of Christian Rosenkreuz in order "to prepare a new phase of the Christian religion to be used during the coming age now at hand, for as the world and man evolve so also must religion change".
Paracelsus, who was called the "Luther of Medicine",<ref>Debus, Allen G. (1993). Paracelsus and the Medical Revolution of the Renaissance – A 500th Anniversary Celebration. National Library of Medicine. p. 3.</ref> describes these mystics sages as "persons who have been exalted (verzueckt) to God, and who have remained in that state of exaltation, and have not died (...) nobody knew what became of them, and yet they remained on the earth". Some modern Rosicrucian groups suggest that the Rosicrucian Order has been active since the beginning of the Renaissance period, not only as an hermetic Order, but also through forerunners – geniuses of the western world, sometimes also known to be Freemasons – in the literary,Hall, Manly Palmer (1928). The Secret Teachings of All Ages: Bacon, Shakespeare, and the Rosicrucians, pp. 165–168. cultural, ethical, political, religious and scientific fields.
In the late 18th century, Karl von Eckartshausen, a German Christian mystic, described the true Adepts of the Rose Cross in the following terms: "These sages, whose number is small, are children of light, and are opposed to darkness. They dislike mystification and secrecy; they are open and frank, have nothing to do with secret societies and with external ceremonies. They possess a spiritual temple, in which God is presiding". Later, in the early 20th century, Max Heindel, a Rosicrucian Initiate, believed that the roots of the Brothers of the Rose Cross, immersed in the western mystery tradition, are almost impossible to be traced as "theirs is a work which aims to encourage the evolution of humanity, they have labored far back into antiquity—under one guise or another".
Initiatory Groups
The Orden des Gold- und Rosenkreutz, also known as the Fraternity of the Golden and Rosy Cross, was founded in the 1750s and is believed to be the first Rosicrucian order which existed outside of allegory. Their ten-grade system went on to influence Masonic and Hermetic initiatory groups.
