Theos-Talk Archives (November 2006 Message tt01115)

> Many years ago a "high ranking" but somewhat disillusioned AMORC 
member
> kindly gave me his entire set of monographs from the beginning to 
the 12th
> degree in return for some minimal archival research he needed. I 
later
> acquired the "top secret" documents giving the "real story" of 
Lewis'
> initiation ? documents which required reading, signing and 
returning. My
> copies have a list of signatures in them but, obviously, the last 
named
> did not return them. I was, frankly, surprised at the honesty: 
there was
> no original real physical initiation but some species of "psychic"
> experience which, the documents acknowledge, was represented as a
> physical, historical event for the benefit (?) of enquirers and 
members of
> lower status.> 

> A good biography of Lewis could be enlightening and amusing.
> 


I suppose AMORC's view was that if you'd managed to stay in up to 
the twelfth degree, you'd be too deeply embedded to want to leave 
easily - and they could trust you with the truth.  

I'm thinking of a biography of Lewis, but so many of the sources are 
apocryphal or would want to remain uncredited that it might become 
problematic, and you certainly couldn't expect any help from AMORC.  

When did Marie Russak join AMORC ?  

AMORC has had a history of merging small groups and teachings, 
sometimes in the process attracting to itself more 'authentic' 
Rosicrucian sources than HS Lewis started out with. Something they 
were unlikely to admit at the time ! - although a revised history 
that took these things into account would be valuable and in an odd 
way, would probably assist the group's standing. 

However, I do not believe any of the teachings acquired through this 
process influenced the content of the monographs in AMORC's Home 
Sanctum mail order course - which is how it instructs the vast 
majority of its members.  

Temple lectures given at AMORC lodges are a different matter; these 
were prepared by individual members and could therefore include 
input from more experienced occultists who had been brought into the 
fold.  

I bought a set of these from a Melbourne bookshop some years back 
that were much more advanced than the material in the monographs.  

By the way, at one point Lewis' students were pressuring him for 
some teachings from a so called 'Rosicrucian Ashrama' as Lewis had 
maintained as part of his mythos that there were Rosicrucian temples 
in India, an unlikely contention I would have thought - unless OTRC 
had lodges there ? 

AMORC ended up with an Indian delegate from the connection of a 
British member in the AMORC Shanghai lodge in the 1920s, and this 
material was used in AMORC's monographs. 

However, the 'Ashrama' material was something different.  At one 
time I assumed it was something to do with the Hampshire group's 
Ashram, but Gary Stewart, former Imperator of AMORC, comments it 
relates to the Indian Academy of Sciences in Los Angeles. I believe 
they might have given Lewis some material too.  

Not sure if that Indian Academy was related to the Crotona 
Fellowship of Albert P Warrington in some way, but if it was, it 
might explain the 'Rosicrucian Ashrama' name.

Ben