‘Rosicrucians at large’: Radical versus qualified invention in the cultic milieu

Abstract

This paper explores the differential legitimating strategies pursued by three ‘invented religions’ with roots in the 1930s ‘cultic milieu’. Each of these new formations sought to legitimate itself to contemporary ‘seekers’ through appeals to the authority of a ‘hidden transmission’. The formative appeal was made by the Rosicrucian Order, Crotona Fellowship (ROCF) and was in turn adapted in the historiography of two of the most influential new religious formations of the second half of the twentieth century, Wicca and Findhorn, which shaped the later Pagan and New Age movements. However, while Wicca and Findhorn duly flourished, the ROCF disappeared. Based on primary source analysis of ROCF documents, and analysis of emic historiographies of Wicca and Findhorn, this paper argues that these differential outcomes amongst ‘Rosicrucians at large’ reflect the adaptive fitness of qualified over radical ‘invention of tradition’ in the cultic milieu.

Keywords::

• Rosicrucians
• Wicca
• Findhorn
• invention of tradition
• cultic milieu
• seekership

Notes

^1. In revising this paper, I have greatly benefited from three peer review criticisms. My thanks are also due to Kevin Tingay and Dr R.A. Gilbert for earlier discussions about the ROCF, and to the latter for generous support for my visit to Southampton Library special collections in preparing an early version given at the ‘The Rosicrucian Tradition, Past, Present and Future’ conference, Bournemouth University, 8–9 May, 2010.

^2. Cf. Hammer (2001, 506): ‘In order to make more than an ephemeral impression on the cultic milieu, one of the necessary (but not sufficient) requirements is an ability to construct one's innovations on structural properties already familiar within that milieu’. See his discussion of ‘esoteric’ groups' historiographical strategies in ‘Constructing a Tradition’ (Hammer 2001, 155–181).

^3. Further on P.B. Randolph (1825–1875), see Deveney (1997), especially chapter 6, ‘The Rosicrucian’; also Godwin (1994), chapter 13, ‘Rosicrucian Pretenders’, on Randolph and Hargrave Jennings, author of The Rosicrucians, Their Rites and Mysteries (1870). Godwin captures the logic of seekership amongst these modern ‘Rosicrucians’: ‘Both these men called themselves “Rosicrucians” and claimed to be authorities on the vexed subject of the brotherhood … yet each one worked largely alone, making his own synthesis of the esoteric teachings that had come his way’ (Godwin 1994, 247).

^4. Main primary sources are as follows. British Library, London: ROCF, miscellaneous leaflets and pamphlets, Liverpool and Christchurch, 1923–1939; Southampton University Library Special Collections, Hartley Library, Rosicrucian Collection: pamphlets and leaflets by G.A. Sullivan under various pen-names with anonymous pamphlets on the ROCF published by the Bohemian Press (total 33 items: 13 plays, 13 lectures and teachings and 7 poems and stories), plus 140 items from the library of G.A. Sullivan on subjects such as Theosophy, Mesmerism and esotericism, gifted in 1977 by Mr and Mrs C.H. Barnes of Bournemouth; Christchurch Times, Bournemouth Reference Library, selected journalism and photojournalism about ROCF 1936–1942 (for excellent exploitation, on which I have relied throughout, see Heselton 2000, chapters 4–8); National Library of Scotland, Findhorn Foundation papers, Acc. 9934 item 8, correspondence between Peter Caddy and Walter Bullock (Sullivan's successor as ROCF Supreme Magus), 1965–1971; Bracelin (1960, chapter 13, ‘Into the Witch Cult’, 159–167); Caddy (1996, esp. 30–35 and quotations at the head of Chapters 1–30, described as ‘extracted from papers given to Peter Caddy as part of his spiritual training in the Rosicrucian Order Crotona Fellowship’ [1996, 18]). Secondary sources: Hutton (1999, 205, 211–213), Heselton (2000, chapters 4–8), Sutcliffe (200, 41–45), Sutcliffe (2005) and Heselton (2012; especially chapters 13–17).

^5. Bowie, ‘Text Book No. 3 Diagnosis’, Southampton University Library; other Liverpool College pamphlets, including ‘Psychotherapy No. 1’ and ‘The studies symbolised for the exclusive use of college students’, are ascribed to G. A. Sullivan, n.d.

^6.The Rosicrucian Order Crotona Fellowship Outer Court Lectures and First to Third Point lectures, First to Third Degree; British Library.

^7. Academia Rosae Crucis List of Books and Lectures for Study: Bohemian Press, 7 Parkfield Road, Liverpool [n.d. early 1930s?]. Thanks to Kevin Tingay for providing a copy of this and the document in note 9.

^8. Rosicrucian Fraternity Rules 1926 (10 pp.): 2–3, ‘Declaration’, Geo. A. Sullivan, Patriarch, R.O.C.F; italics in original; British Library.

^9. Rosicrucian Order Crotona Fellowship Outer Court Manual No. 2: The Rosicrucian Fraternity: Bohemian Press, Meadow Way, Somerford, Christchurch [n.d. c.1937].

^10. Rosicrucian Fraternity Rules 1926, 1.

^11. Jeremy Slocombe, editor of In Perfect Timing (Caddy 1996, 378), circulated his paper at the Findhorn conference ‘The Western Mysteries: Which Way Today?’, April 15–22, 1995, at which I conducted fieldwork.

^12. This and the following quotations from First point Lecture No. 13, ‘The Chapter’, by Aureolis S.M.; British Library.

^13. Heselton (2000, 244–248) notes the seminal contribution of The Christchurch Times' Managing Editor, journalist Walter Forder, to developing the ROCF's local profile through ‘frequent articles and news items’ (ibid., 246) from 1937 until his death in 1940. Heselton describes Forder as ‘interested in the unusual, particularly in the spiritual or religious line’, shown by the titles of two talks he gave in 1938 and 1939: ‘I Met the Last Wizard’, about James Murrell, an Essex ‘cunning man’; and ‘Strange Religions – I've Explored them All’, a title that encodes the logic of seekership. Heselton (2000, 246–247) concludes that ‘Forder took a more than professional interest in the Rosicrucians. He gave support to them … whenever he could, publicising their philosophy and aspirations’. Forder's coverage was clearly a factor in their local success and his death in August 1940 likely contributory to their decline.

^14. Barnes in 1977 would deposit the ROCF material at Southampton University library: see footnote 4.

^15. Findhorn Foundation papers. See footnote 4.

^16. This was probably composed collectively by the Sufi teacher Idries Shah, Gardner, and Bracelin: see Heselton (2012, 607–627).

^17. At this stage in his life, Gardner was already a practising naturist, had investigated Spiritualism and would soon add the Ancient British Church, the Ancient Druid Order and the O.T.O. to his CV: see Pearson (2007, chapters 3 and 5) and Heselton (2012) on the full spectrum of Gardner's seekership.

^18. Heselton's (2000, 85) claim that after November 1938 ‘no further plays were publicised as taking place in the [Garden] theatre’ throws doubt on one of the dates – 1939 (or if so, the venue) – proposed by the Farrars for their photograph. A final puzzle is that primary sources indicate a period of around 13–16 months between August 1938 and December 1939 when the paths of Gerald Gardner and Peter Caddy had good opportunity to cross within the ROCF. To date, there is no record of their meeting, further deepening the effect of ‘mystery’ (McIntosh 1987, 145).