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Many claims are made by various esoteric organisations as to the ancient sources of the wisdom they teach. Some are biblical and some are older, dating back to ancient Egypt, Mesopotamia and India. What is certain is that a body or corpus of esoteric knowledge existed on the earth in a very refined form at that time. Historians and mystics agree that this foundation of what became Hermetic Wisdom, was vibrantly alive 3,500 years ago. One of the chief architects of this knowledge was the Egyptian Pharaoh, Akhenaten (Amenhotep IV). Although his reign was short lived, and his new “religion” outwardly erased by his enemies after his mysterious death, he promoted the first monotheistic view of creation, uniting everything behind his single image of the Aten, the Sun as the physical image of loving, creative force.
Today, such events seem distant and not relevant to our world, but consider for a moment the awesome prospect that faced Akhenaten when he and his lovely wife Nefertiti set out to challenge the corrupt priesthood, destroying its idolatry and moving the capital of Egypt to Tel-el-Amarna in the process.
Regardless of the sway of temporal power, the Egyptian Mystery Schools sustained their high knowledge, and undoubtedly shared it with Greek and Hebrew scholars. A study of the Hebrew Kabbalah reveals much parallel knowledge to that contained in the Rosicrucian and other Western esoteric teachings.
At the time of Jesus the Christ, the Essenes were the custodians of this knowledge which was emerging into the world in its renewed Gnostic form. The universities at Alexandria became a world centre for such wisdom until the city was burned in religious riots and the ancient knowledge held in the vast libraries was lost.
Forced to go underground, the societies that protected the ancient wisdom now had to devise secret and coded methods to transmit it from generation to generation. During the middle ages the Knights Templar were strongly associated with such knowledge, until their political power grew too great and the church took action to destroy the brotherhood.
In parallel with this period the early science of Alchemy carried the ancient wisdom as its inner core, using it to gain insight into the physical laws of nature as well as the psychological processes at work in the human mind.
Such knowledge lived on and flowered again in the Renaissance, with great leaders like Botticelli and Leonardo da Vinci carrying the flame of esoteric wisdom, protected from the church’s wrath by the power of the Medici family in Florence. Later, after the expansion of esoteric work in Elizabethan England, the knowledge was spread throughout the continent by men like Francis Bacon and Robert Fludd - individuals who built a mystical synthesis of what had been learned; and gave us the foundations of our teaching methods today.
At the and of the 17th century came a flowering of scientific knowledge, but a great many of its leaders, men such as Isaac Newton and Rene Descartes were mystical philosophers first and foremost, a fact shamefully erased by their early biographers but now acknowledged. Much of today’s world has been built upon principles established by the Rosicrucian and Masonic leaders of these movements, which, at that time, shared much by way of knowledge and method.
Today’s Rosicrucian Order, AMORC (The Ancient and Mystical Order Rosae Crucis), was formed in the early years of the 20th century by Dr H. Spencer Lewis, who was empowered to restart the Order by esoteric authorities in France who were the custodians of the authentic Rosicrucian heritage. AMORC is a worldwide organisation which protects and spreads the ancient teachings in a rapidly changing world.
After nearly a century operating from its headquarters in California, the Rosicrucian Order continues its work of spreading inner knowledge, tolerance and mystical insights in line with the findings of modern science. Branches of the Order exist in most parts of the world. For an international directory, go to www.amorc.org.
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