"Aux magiciens et aux charlatans qu'on appelle Frères de la Rose-Croix, lesquels se vantent d'entendre Trismégiste et tous les cabalistes de l'Antiquité".
"Je tiefer man in die Rosenkreuzer-Forschung einsteigt, desto weniger weiss man und um so mehr wird man mit sich selbst konfrontiert, mit seinen Vorurteilen, Meinungen und Weltbildern, die es nach und nach zu revidieren und zu verändern gilt.
Die Erforschung der Rosenkreuzer-Schriften gleicht einer Reise in unser eigenes Innere". – Wolfram Frietsch
"True wisdom is less presuming than folly. The wise man doubts often, and changes his mind; the fool is obstinate, and doubts not; he knows all things but his own ignorance" - Akhenaton
A strange myth, but nevertheless a story remarkably congruent to the accounts of C.R.C., is to be found in the chronicles of German nobleman named Hans Aldekmaier who, living in the late thirteenth century and after having a vision or mystical experience, decided to join a pilgrimage to the Holy Land. Once arrived there, he felt dangerously ill and in lieu of providing him with medicine his physician prescribed him to embark upon a journey to the great pyramid of Cheops!
He discovered a hidden door through which he entered the biggest structure on earth.
Inside, in a tomb, he spotted 100 coffins and everlasting lamps, lined-up in four rows of five-and-twenty. Approaching the 22nd coffin he discerned an old man who was there praying. (Little imagination is needed here to note a reference to the 22nd / 0 (fool = Aldekmaier) and 21st card (world = old man) of the Tarot. This old sage lived in a cell inside the pyramid. He explained that his whole live had been dedicated to the study of nature and arts and that his life was now drawing to a close (he was already 210) and that he had been anxiously waiting for the arrival Aldekmaier.
The sage told Aldekmaier where upon his demise he would be able to find the key to a cabinet where he would find a little container with a red elixir. Only three drops of the elixir were needed and to be put upon a glowing charcoal fire, the rising vapours of which he should inhale. This were to extend his lifespan by at least one hundred years. Some of the information, was given viva voce, from mouth to ear, by the magus, since it would be simply to dangerous to put this into writing. Knowledge of the Philosophers Stone and the secret of inexhaustible wealth would seriously hold back the progress of the human family, if fallen into the wrong hands naturally.
The old man handed Aldekmaier a mysterious book consisting of sixty papyrus pages. In case Aldekmaier was able solve the third problem on the eleventh page of that book, he would live even longer than the sage, an expectation which Aldekmaier didn't meet, living "only" till the age two hundred years. In order to prevent any possible misinterpretation of this text by translating it, I will reproduce it here in (old) Dutch just as I found it (the same goes for the below mentioned epitaph of our friend Hans Aldekmaier b.t.w.):
"In den schoot des levens - den dood;
uit den schoot des doods - het leven.
Neem hiertoe het getal zeven, met behulp van hetzelfde getal door zeven vermenigvuldigd"
Aldekmaier pierced this mystery and to his solution of the riddle, the world according to legend owes the founding of the Rose Cross brothers!? His epitaph speaks volumes:
Hier rust in Godes Hand,
Hans Aldekmaier uit 't Saksenland
Een zeer geleerd en dapper heer,
Ach, waren er toch zulken meer!
Hem was, trots aller boozen nijd,
Beschoren hoe men langen tijd
Het mensch'lijk leven kon verlengen.
Hijzelve stierf, door zijn belagers.
Vervolgd, doch liet hij met zijn gunst,
Aan zijne vrienden ook zijn kunst.
Die vrienden waren uit Zwitserland.
En heetten Broederen van Rozenkruis.
Zij hebben ook voor het geloof gestreden
En daarvoor den martelaarsdood geleden.
Een zalige wederopstanding mag
God hen verschaffen op den jongsten dag.
Thus wrote Trespassa A.D. 1484
