The Mammoth Book of Cover-Ups

Andreae caught the Zeitgeist like few before or after him. Such was the phenomenal impact of the tracts that the historian Frances Yates was minded to label the early 17th century «the Rosicrucian enlightenment». Groups of liberal-minded scholars began setting up Rosicrucian societies. Life imitated art. The first real Rosicrucian order appeared in Holland in the 1620s and was followed by the establishment of an order in London, which managed to recruit Elias Ashmole (founder of the Ashmolean Museum in Oxford) and the architect Christopher Wren. The first American group, the Chapter of Perfection, was set up in Pennsylvania in the 1690s. Needless to say a secret society required arcane rules and rituals; these were codified in the Perfect and True Preparation of the Philosophical Stone, According to the Secret of the Brotherhoods of the Golden and Rosy Cross (1710) and Secret Symbols of the Rosicrucians of the Sixteenth and Seventeenth Centuries (1785–88). In an admirable piece of recycling, the Freemasons of the 18th century borrowed terminology and practices from the Rosicrucians, including, it is alleged, the Rectified Scottish Rite and the Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite (in which the 18th degree is called the Knight of the Rose Croix). According to the Masonic author J. M. Ragon, so interconnected did the Rosicrucians and Freemasons become in the 18th century that they eventually merged.

Today at least 20 Rosicrucian societies exist, most claiming a direct line back to Christian Rosencreutz, even to Pharaoh Thutmose III. Broadly, the contemporary Rosicrucians are either esoteric—Christian or para-Masonic, and never the twain shall meet. The Ancient Mystical Order Rosae Cruces (AMORC), the largest of the extant groups, offers open days which are «gentle and informal occasions where people can drop in and meet members of the local Affiliated Bodies. There will usually be a short presentation, called ‘A Gentle Flame’, followed by refreshments.»

A cheese and wine party including mystical mumbo-jumbo from a guy with a beard and sandals. Is that any way to recruit for a secret society to implement the New World Order?

The Rosicrucians are an ancient esoteric order intent on global take-over: ALERT LEVEL 1

Further Reading

Frances Yates, Rosicrucian Enlightenment, 1971

Roswell

What did happen at Roswell, New Mexico, 60 years ago?

The world’s most enduring UFO mystery began on 3 July 1947 when sheep farmer Mac Brazel was riding out over the isolated Foster ranch near Corona, New Mexico, and found some strange «metallic, foil-like debris» scattered around. A week later Brazel ventured into Corona, where he heard for the first time about the spate of «flying saucer» sightings in the US. Thinking the wreckage on his ranch might be associated, he informed Sheriff Wilcox, who in turn informed the Army Air Force base at Roswell, 75 miles (120km) to the south. Major Jesse Marcel, the base intelligence officer, duly travelled to Brazel’s ranch to inspect the wreckage, and took much of it away. On the same day a civil engineer called Grady L. «Barney» Barnett found a «disc-shaped object» in the Socorro region some 150 miles (240km) west of the Foster spread, inside which were a number of small hairless humanoids. Before Barnett could investigate further, an army jeep rushed up and the occupants ordered him away.

Meanwhile, the base commander at Roswell authorized a press statement announcing the discovery of a flying disc in the locality. The headline in the Roswell Daily Record of 8 July blared: «RAAF [Roswell Army Air Field] Captures Flying Saucer on Ranch in Roswell Region.» In the afternoon of 8 July, the army suddenly changed its story: the wreckage discovered in the Roswell region was from a high-altitude weather balloon, not an alien craft. The Army’s steady insistence on its new line quenched public interest in the Roswell incident for 30 years.