Jim Marrs - Rule by Secrecy - The Hidden History that Connects the Trilateral Commission, the Freema

ROSICRUCIANS Some researchers believe that Freemasonry grew out of the earlier mystical traditions of the Rosicrucians, a secret brotherhood with knowledge said to reach hack into antiquity.

Documents available in France today contend that an Order of the Rosy Cross was founded in 1188 by a pre-Masonic Templar named Jean de Gisors, vassal of English King Henry II and the first independent grand master of the Order of Sion.

Some recent writers, however, believed that Rosicrucianism and Freemasonry were separate philosophies which only merged in the late eighteenth century as with the Illuminati influence.

Whatever the truth, the fact remained, as acknowledged by Mackey, that "a Rosicrucian element was very largely diffused in the Hautes Grades or High Degrees [of Freemasonry coming from] the continent of Europe about the middle of the 18th century."

Although the Rosicrucians claim to trace a lineage back to ancient Egypt and beyond, the name only came to the fore between 1614 and 1615 with the publication of two tracts. One, entitled Fama Fraternitatis Rosae Crusis or Report of the Rosicrucian Brotherhood, was supposed to have been written by a Christian Rosencreutz (translated literally as Rosy Cross) and detailed his journeys through the Holy Land and the Mediterranean area gaining esoteric Eastern knowledge. After studying with the illuminated Alumbrados of Spain, Rosencreutz returned to Germany, where he formed the Order of the Rosy Cross.

The name has variously been interpreted as a play on the name Rosencreutz; derived from the Latin ros or dew and crux or cross; a chemical symbol for "light"—hence knowledge; or a reference to the bloodcovered cross of Jesus or the red cross on the shields of the Knights Templar. Count Mirabeau, the Freemason French Revolution leader, claimed the Rosicrucians were, in fact, nothing more than the outlawed Knights Templar continued under another name.

The fictional tracts, known as the "Rosicrucian Manifestos," disclosed the existence of this secret brotherhood and promised a coming age of enlightenment along with the revelation of ancient secrets. They most probably were written by Johann Valentin Andrea, a German Lutheran cleric who traveled extensively through Europe before becoming spiritual