Rosicrucian Trilogy: Modern Translations of the Three Founding Documents

by Joscelyn Godwin (Translator), Christopher McIntosh (Translation), Donate Pahnke McIntosh (Translation)

The Rosicrucian Trilogy features modern translations of Fama Fraternitatis (1614), Confessio Fraternitatis (1615), and The Chemical Wedding of Christian Rosenkreuz (1616) with 30 original illustrations by Hans Wildermann. Four hundred years ago, the publication of these 3 anonymous documents launched the Rosicrucian movement. The story of Christian Rosenkreuz and his secretive order, as told in the Fama Fraternitatis , had political repercussions that continue to this day, while The Chemical Wedding is a landmark in European fantasy fiction. This present book offers the 3 founding documents in reliable, readable, modern English. Fully annotated and with modern introductions, these new translations explain the historical context, shed light on the beginnings of the Rosicrucian Order, and bring this fascinating material to a wider readership.

Genres: Occult, Religion, Philosophy, Esoterica, Mysticism, History

192 pages, Paperback

Published September 1, 2016

About the author

Composer, musicologist and translator, known for his work on ancient music, paganism and music in the occult.

Reviews

[Ethan · Rating 4 out of 5]

A wonderful modern translation of the founding documents of the Rosicrucian movement.

[Tempus Fugit · Rating 5 out of 5]

A very useful and complete compilation of the biggest and most important works of the rosicrucian literature. The illustrations are just amazing.

[Ryan · Rating 3 out of 5]

The Rosicrucian manifestos are a collection of several long-form interconnected allegorical essays and stories, suggesting in brief the existence of an esoteric reformation fraternity of sorts. They are interesting for their historical significance, and as a sort of prefiguration of the more familiar secret societies that came later.

In form, these writings recall other intensely allegorical / spiritual-symbolic works. I am reminded of Jodorowsky's The Holy Mountain, or Daumal's Mount Analogue. Themes of personal purity, hardship and danger, revelation, visions, etc.

In content, I can only really compare this to the much later Western esoteric currents that emerged in the spiritualist tradition in the late 19th / early 20th century. The revelation of secret traditions brought back from the crucible of the mysterious East is not only the exact formula used here, but also by the much later Blavatsky, Gurdjieff, etc. In contrast to those authors, the Rosicrucians here framed their secret knowledge as firmly Christian in essence, although still marking a return to a more pure, preserved current.

The probable role of these manifestos in instigating or announcing the social / epistemological upheavals of the enlightenment, renaissance, reformation, etc. is intriguing but I am not at all an expert on the subject.
The essays that precede the text in this edition are very helpful and to me, more interesting than the manifestos themselves for their helpful historical context.

Kind of a fun thing to read as an original source text for much Dan-Brown-style historical speculation, with lots of mystery, hidden secrets, and symbols to decode.

[Catholicus Magus · Rating 5 out of 5]

"Fr. Christian Rosenkreutz OP was an Esoteric Albertist who sought to oppose Babylonian Rome (the evil Nominalists) by teaching his gematric disciples of the Eight (the transcendence of physical boundaries) the secrets of the Book of Nature, Christian Kabbalah, and the Philosopher's Stone (Sophic breast milk as nourishing and redeeming the soul) according to the wandering mendicant model of St. Dominic and St. Jordan of Saxony. The Jesuits (imitating the Rosicrucians with St. Ignatius' Spiritual Exercises) sought to spread the message of this perfidious Dominican in order to undermine God's true translation of the KJV and destroy the Protestant Reformation with an Eckhartian Reformation of the Soul... Catholic Mystics in Control, Jan Hus & Cranmer executed."

[Bohdan Pechenyak · Rating 5 out of 5]

A collection of the three original Rosicrucian texts, thought to be written by Johann Valentín Andreae while a student in the early 1600s. These texts, most notably the “Fama” and “Confession”, sometimes called “the greatest PR campaign in history”, launched a centuries-long controversy and conspiracy theory based on a non-existing fraternity of the Rosy Cross. Assimilated into the freemasonry movement, this Rosicrucian mythology has become a fascinating tradition of esotericism, much like the subsequent Illuminati movement at the end of the 18th c. This new translation by the scholars of esotericism, religion and Rosicrucianism makes these texts more accessible to a wider readership.

[Äsruþr Cyneaþsson · Rating 5 out of 5]

An excleent translation of the three manifestos and with sublime notes.

The treatise themselves comprise a valuable, to the correct person, insight into the socio-religious nature of the purported Brotherhood, whilst the alchemical symbolism of the Chemical Wedding holds value to most with an interest in alchemy, the occult, and/or Masonic approaches to such.

[Andrew Maggs · Rating 3 out of 5]

It is one thing to provide modern translations, it is quite another to 'correct' the original meaning.

[Mitchell Stern · Rating 4 out of 5]

Interesting from a historical standpoint, the content itself is very dry.

[Olivia · Rating 4 out of 5]

Good translation, captures a lot of personality and nuance.