THE ROSICRUCIAN LANGUAGE TAUGHT BY SPENCER LEWIS

 

In the magazine Cromaat A that was published in January 1918, and which was reserved exclusively for AMORC members, Spencer Lewis, the founder of AMORC, gave the following information about this language:

 

 

 

AN INTERNATIONAL LANGUAGE FOR ROSICRUCIANS WITH COMPLETE GRAMMAR AND DICTIONARY

 

 

We are pleased to have this opportunity to give our members the first text-book of this language. The opportunity has been sought for a long time, and many have inquired regarding this very desirable adjunct to our work.

 

Anticipating a question or two which may be asked by some members, we will say that there are two reasons why this language should be studied and at least partially mastered by all members.

 

First, there is no greater step forward in the establishment and maintenance of an international brotherhood than an agreement in tongue or means of expression. Universal conception of all laws, universal co-operation in their use, unity in purpose, unity in mind and unity in expression are the stepping stones to mystic power and universal brotherhood.

 

The teachings of our Order and the ties of love and unselfish service unite us, and the ability to speak with our brothers and sisters in a language which each may understand (regardless of native tongue) will be the final link in the chain of unity.

 

The Second reason for the language is that it enables us to more privately speak or write upon those matters which are dearest to our hearts. Not that the language itself when spoken openly and freely in public will not be understood in parts by some, but when written in our own secret alphabet (hereafter referred to) or spoken quietly in places, will prevent the uninitiated from comprehending all that may be passing between Brothers and Sisters of this Order.

 

 

 

 

THE ORIGIN OF THIS LANGUAGE

 

The language is an artificial, invented language. Its root words have been taken from every tongue and in many cases modified, while there are a few manufactured words.

 

The need for such a universal language was apparent many years ago and in 1901 a Delegation for the Adoption of an Auxiliary International Language was founded in Europe and it eventually succeeded in receiving the adhesion and support of over three hundred fellowships and brotherhoods of Europe and the approval of 1250 members of Academies and Universities.

 

At that time an artificial language called Esperanto and another called Ro were being considered as international languages for business purposes. But the language committee of the above named delegation, appointed in 1907 found that Esperanto with its accented letters and strange grammatical rules was worse than unsatisfactory, while Ro, with its arbitrary roots and difficult rules was beyond universal use.

 

Therefore a new language was decided upon and the most eminent of Europe’s linguist and scientists worked upon a scheme which culminated in the language now offered to our members.

 

Esperanto is still in use by firms and individuals doing an international business or conducting international correspondence, while Ro has passed into oblivion.

 

The newer language, which we will hereafter call the Rosaecrucian Language, is so simple, so easy to master and yet so rich in expression, that it will become a truly universal language for international communication, — especially with our Lodge and our members.

 

 

 

 

THE PRINCIPLES OF THE LANGUAGE

 

The principles of the language are simple to comprehend, even by those unfamiliar with the laws of language or the rules of grammar.

 

There are a certain number of “ Root" words in the dictionary (which is published in this book) and these words make possible hundreds of other words by simply adding to the root. For the purpose of adding to the root, the grammar gives a number of prefixes and suffixes with definite meanings. By adding a prefix or suffix or both, to any root in the dictionary, a number of different words can be formed from the same root.

 

As for the grammar, it is the most simple and easily memorized of all grammars. There are a few rules or laws which have no exceptions.

 

These show how any root in the dictionary can be made a noun, a verb, an adverb or an adjective, by simply adding a final letter to the root.

 

Thus, after only a ten minutes' study of the grammar one can take a printed page of the langage and pick out every noun (plural or singular) every verb, adverb, adjective and even moods and tenses. Certainly this cannot be said of any other language.

 

In putting sentences together one should translate the idea of the sentence rather than try to translate the actual words or phrases; for the English language contains many idioms which cannot be translated in any language and convey the proper meaning. Always seek such root words in the dictionary as come nearest to the word you desire and then add prefix or suffix or both, to make just the shade of meaning you desire. By memorizing the prepositions given in the grammar and adding a few root words every day, one can soon speak or write many phrases without the use of the dictionary.

 

 

 

 

THE SECRET ALPHABET

 

The secret Rosaecrucian alphabet referred to in the preceding paragraphs is NOT the secret R.C. alphabet given to our members in the First Degree Lectures in our Temples; nor is it the alphabet used in the Second Degree Lectures. It is an entirely different alphabet used for secret correspondence, especially in connection with this language, though not solely for that language. This alphabet will not be published in these monographs, but will be given to each member by the Master of each Lodge at such time as the Imperator decrees. But that alphabet is not necessary to the study and mastership of the language and is not necessary to the writing of it.

 

 

 

 

THE SECOND DICTIONARY

 

In the present issue there is one dictionary, containing English words with the proper R. C. Language root. This will serve all practical purposes and a very complete lecture or conversation can be carried on with no other roots than those found in this dictionary.

 

In another issue we will publish another dictionary, the very reverse of the present one, giving the R.C. Language root word first with the equivalent English word after it. This dictionary will serve for translations.

 

 

 

 

SPEAKING THE LANGUAGE

 

Our members are urged to begin speaking the simple phrases to be found at the end of the dictionary. Be sure to read them and memorize some of them.

 

In speaking the language, keep in mind that every letter is pronounced. There are no silent letters. And every letter has always the same sound, as explained in the grammar. The syllables are made by the consonants,— or in other words, the syllables of a word are distinguished easily by noting how the word is composed.

 

The accent should always be placed on the syllable before the last.and never on the last letter or syllable. One will find the language not only easily spoken, but very musical and susceptible of much expression.

 

In future issues some articles in the language will be published for practise reading

 

(p.5-7)

 

 

 

Then in this magazine there are more than forty pages detailing this fictional language, and those who want to read them can download this magazine at this link (see link).

 

 

 

 

 

 

OBSERVATIONS

 

It is sure that Spencer Lewis was a publicist before founding AMORC, as he makes a big deal about this language that he wanted the members of his organization to learn and use.

 

And it seems very hypocritical of him that he criticizes Esperanto, when his “Rosicrucian language” was not at all created by the most eminent linguists and scientists in Europe (as Lewis claimed) but was based on Esperanto.

 

But what Spencer Lewis did not consider is that Americans do not like learning languages, so his “Rosicrucian language” was not successful. And Spencer Lewis realizing that, he quickly forgot this language.

 

 

 

 

 

 

CONCLUSION

 

And this is one more example of the futilities that Spencer Lewis taught his followers.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

THE LUXATONE OF SPENCER LEWIS

 

 

The founder of AMORC, Harvey Spencer Lewis, claimed to be a great inventor, and the most famous device he supposedly invented was a device that converted sounds into colored lights, which he called the master color organ Luxatone.

 

 

 

The man on the left is Ralph Maxwell Lewis, one of Lewis's sons, who later became the second emperor of AMORC.

 

And the microphone shown in the photo was used to input voice or music, and the inverted triangular screen showed colored flashes that synchronized with this sound.

 

 

 

The device was made up of spotlights, vacuum tubes, a power transformer and radio components.

 

There was a main detection circuit that when it detected a sound frequency through the microphone, the circuit measured the frequency and powered the colored bulbs in combination to mix the desired color.

 

The three bulbs represented the three primary colors from which all other colors could be mixed by lighting the bulbs at varying intensity and the mixed color appeared in the center of the triangular screen.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

BROCHURE

 

Spencer Lewis in the 1930s published the following pamphlet detailing the Luxatone, and sent it to newspapers and members of AMORC.

 

 

I transcribe the text:

 

 

THE HISTORY OF LUXATONE, THE MASTER COLOR ORGAN

 

 

COLOR ORGANS...

 

Ever since the philosopher Aristotle suggested the idea of a relationship between color harmony and sound harmony in his work entitled “De Sensu," musicians and artists in many lands and in various periods of the development of art and music have attempted to create an instrument that would demonstrate the psychological synthesis of nature’s colors and nature’s sounds.

 

Early in the sixteenth century Arcimboldo, Milanese painter, invented a system of color harmony based upon a color scale closely related to the musical scale, and no doubt Sir Isaac Newton was impressed by Kepler’s “The Harmonies of the Universe," for he and many other scientists as well as philosophers believed that there was some mysterious fundamental relationship between colors and sounds, and that there might be a justification for the thought that the “Music of the Spheres” was possible of demonstration. Newton was greatly impressed by the fact that there was very evidently a relationship between the relative spaces occupied by the principal colors of the spectrum, and the rate ratios of the notes of the diatonic scale.

 

All attempts at an arbitrary division of the spectrum into seven principal colors composing an octave led to no satisfying results until science determined in its experimental laboratories that there was a definite relationship between the rates of vibration of a note of music, and the rates of vibration of color.

 

Psychologists even of the earliest days were impressed with the possibility that the effects upon the human consciousness of music were not purely auditory, but that some harmonic key of musical vibration equivalent to a rate that would produce a color affected some faculty or functioning of the human consciousness and effected a mental impression that accompanied the stimulation produced by the sound of the note.

 

Musicians, and especially those who devoted much time to the composition of music, were often led to see that in creating a theme for any passage or movement of a composition they were assisted in the arrangement of the notes by selecting those which seemed to merge into the subtle consciousness of the theme.

 

They attempted to select elements of sound that agreed with the elements of color composing the theme-picture held in their consciousness during the time of composing. It was for this reason that many eminent masters of music spoke of tone pictures, symphonies of color and sound, and similar expressions which were intended to convey the idea that a perfect musical composition devoted to any definite theme aroused in the human consciousness a reflection of the pictorial theme held in the mind of the composer

 

Such ideas, of course, were very vague, and rather mystical, but, nevertheless, intriguing not only to musicians and artists, but to physicists. It was not until the Jesuit, Louis Bertrand Castel, an eminent mathematician, devoted much of his time to the subject, that a workable foundation For the demonstration of the various theories was prepared. His experiments were published in a book called “La Musique en Couleurs,” in 1720, and in another book published in 1763 six years after his death. In these books he described a contrivance he had experimented with, and which he called a Color Clavessin. While Aristotle is probably the true father of the idea of color music, Castel is undoubtedly the pioneer in scientific methods to demonstrate the laws involved.

 

 Not more than ten or twelve color organs have ever been constructed and demonstrated in a practical manner up to the present period of time. The tremendous cost involved, the many months and years of laborious experimentation, and the many branches of artistic and scientific knowledge required, have prevented any commercial concept of color music, and has made the construction of color-organs beyond the capabilities of those who have recognized its fundamental possibilities.

 

Of the earliest experimenters we find a D. D. Jameson published a pamphlet in 1844 dealing with the relationship of music and colors, and later on devised a small organ to merely demonstrate its possibilities.

 

In 1893 William Schooling published a small article dealing with the subject, and suggested the use of vacuum tubes in connection with the keyboard. In the same year Professor Alexander Wallace Riming' ton, Professor of Fine Arts in Queen’s College, London, conceived the idea of a color organ constructed along entirely new lines, and in 1895 demonstrated the organ in St. James Hall, London. In 1911 he published a book “The Art of Mobile Color” but ad' mitted in his text that he had not found or used any of the laws or principles which determined the precise relationship of individual colors to the individual notes of the musical scale.

 

Mary Hallock Greenewalt, an American pianist, was one of the experimenters in the field of color' music in recent years, and in 1919 Thomas Wilfred of Denmark completed an instrument for projecting colors upon the screen independent of sound, and demonstrated this device in America, and in 1925 in Paris, London, and Copenhagen. But this had naught to do with color music.

 

In Australia Alexander Burnett Hector devised a color organ using incandescent lamps combined with vacuum tubes. Mr. M. Luckiesh, an American illuminating engineer also experimented with similar devices. Other experimenters have been M. Carol Berard, and M. Valere Bemeird, both of France. In England Leonard C. Taylor, Claud Bragdon, and Adrian Bernard Klein constructed experimental instruments for the purpose of testing the theories involved.

 

 

 

STRANGE LAWS INVOLVED

 

Nearly all of the experiments of these pioneers have failed because of the lack of knowledge regarding the precise relationship between definite colors and definite notes of both the musical and spectrum scale. It has always been admitted by those who wrote theoretically on the subject that if the true relationship between color and sound was established playing of a harmonious chord on the organ would result in a harmonious blending of related colors on a screen, and the playing of a discord or inharmonious chord would result in the projection upon the screen of colors that would clash because of their inharmonious relationship.

 

These two interesting features of the theory were never realized in the fourteen known models of color organs that have been made since Aristotle suggested the idea, except in the case of a miniature color-organ made by Dr. H. Spencer Lewis in 1916 in New York City, and exhibited there for two months before a group of Rosicrucian scientists, musicians, artists, and prominent persons as a preliminary to the complete study of the harmonics of music and color for the purpose of evolving a definite system of color and sound symphony. Mr. A. Wallace Rimington, while Professor of Fine Arts at Queen’s College, London, said:

 

“What' ever may be the divergence of opinion as to how far the analogies between color and sound extend, one thing at least is certain; namely, that the color-music opens up a new world of beauty and interest as yet, to a great extent, unexplored.”

 

Sir Hubert Von Herkomer R. A., an eminent authority, writing on the subject said:

 

“It has been denied by some that color suggests musical sounds, and that musical sounds suggest color, but it is safe to say that a psychological affinity is felt by artists and musicians between sound and color; hence the use of common terms of expression between them. The painter speaks of a note in a painting, and the musician speaks of a tone picture . . . Let me say here that the colorsense is by far the most sensitive and delicate of all the faculties that go to the making of the artist's brain.”

 

The great Physicist, Professor Albert A. Michel son, wrote in 1903 as follows:

 

“Indeed, so strongly do these color phenomena appeal to me that I venture to predict that in the not very distant future there may be a color art analogous to the art of sound— a color music in which the performer seated before a literally chromatic scale can play the colors of the spectrum in any succession or combination, flashing on a screen all possible graduations of color, simultaneously or in any other desired succession, producing at will the most delicate and subtle modulations of light and color, or the most gorgeous and startling contrasts and color chords! It seems to me that we have here at least as great a possibility of rendering all the sensations, moods, and emotions of the human mind as in the older art."

 

 

 

PICTORIAL MUSIC

 

In the foregoing statement by Professor Michelson is summed up briefly the real quest and goal of all who have experimented with the color organ, and in the Luxatone now perfected after many years of research, study, experimental don, and careful construction on the part of Dr. H. Spencer Lewis, we have a living, vibrating, masterful demonstration of this new instrument of art.

 

The musician seated at the Luxatone becomes an artist in color as well as in sound, but he need center his thoughts only upon the laws of musical composition, and harmony. As he plays in any mood and to express any theme that his inner consciousness may visualize, he will find the tones of music interpreting the theme and mood while on the large satin screen before him will be portrayed with all of the masterly strokes of a genius in art the pictural representation of the theme being expressed by the music. Harmony, rhythm, and movement with all of the incidentals of progression and counterpoint are made visibly manifest on the screen as the technique of a painter.

 

If the organist plays a militaristic theme, the pictures painted upon the screen by the notes of music are those which the human consciousness recognizes as typically associated with warfare, strife, and contest. The pictures are as invigorating, inspiring, and arousing as is the music. A simple folksong or one which expresses the atmosphere of a pastoral played upon the organ will produce pictures that suggest quiet and peaceful landscapes. Musical themes interpreting rippling waters, gentle breeds, or storms will produce pictures of a like them upon the screen.

 

The pictures are painted in fixed, and mobile colors, and with symbolical designs and elements of form and color in rhythmic motion. The color painting is done automatically by the notes of the music, and if any selection is played a second time in an identical manner, the pictures produced by the music will be identical. The pictures upon the screen often change at a rate of from five to seven a minute while many of them remain fixed for several minutes gradually evolving or dissolving into others.

 

 

 

NOT A COMMERCIAL PROPOSITION

 

The Luxatone is not a commercial proposition since it is not for sale, and duplicates of it cannot be made commercially profitable. The purpose in creating it and in devoting such a large amount of time and money to its perfection has been solely to demonstrate the psychological facts pertaining to the relationship of color and music as taught by the Rosicrucians in the middle ages, and at the present time in connection with their doctrines of transmutation in which they have always claimed that the rates of vibration of all atomically constructed matter are related by harmonic cycles and periods, and that by changing the rates of vibration of one element or one manifestation, the element or manifestation may be changed in nature.

 

The recent demonstrations on the part of science in the fields of metallurgy have proved that gross elements can be transmuted into gold in accordance with the theory taught by the Rosicrucians. But this process is of no commercial value because of the extreme cost involved in producing even a small grain of gold. The Luxatone is now the most recent and elaborate device for the demonstration of the transmutation of sound into color. It is said by those who have witnessed the preliminary demonstrations of the color organ that those who are deaf easily recognize the theme of a musical composition by the pictures produced upon the screen. M any eminent psychologists insist that the sound waves do create in a subjective form of our consciousness invisible pictures which we sense through a little known faculty that may be brought into development, or awakened in some way, by a proper adaptation of sound pictures produced through color.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

OBSERVATIONS

 

In his pamphlet it is clear that Spencer Lewis worked as a publicist before founding AMORC, because he exaggeratedly exalts a simple device that has nothing extraordinary and is only a color sound tuner.

 

And since Spencer Lewis was a big trickster, I wouldn't be surprised if he hired someone to build this thing, and then Lewis took credit for it.

 

 

 

 

 

 

CURIOSITY

 

It seems that the filmmakers of the 1955 science fiction film “This Island Earth” were inspired by the Luxatone to shape their Interoscitor , which in the film was a communications device built by extraterrestrials:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

AMORC'S FIRST ADVERTISEMENT

  

This is the first newspaper advertisement to promote AMORC that Harvey Spencer Lewis had just founded on February 1915 in New York. This article was published in The Globe newspaper on February 24, 1915, and the text reads as follows:

 

 

 

OLDEST FRATERNAL SOCIETY IN WORLD TO HAVE BRANCH HERE

 

Ancient and Mystical Order of Rosaea Crucis to Have American Lodge – Men and Women on Equal Footing – Cross Used Said to Antedate Christ by 1,700 Years – Many Distinguished Members.

 

Would you like greater peace of mind, greater control of emotion, ability to rise above the material conditions of life, capacity for greater physical and mental recreation, a better understanding of life, a deeper insight into its possibilities - in other words, to draw from life the best there is in it?

 

You would, of course, and so would your neighbor. Well, then, become members of the Ancient and Mystical Order of Rosaea Crucis, which is now organizing an American lodge.

 

The Rosaea Crucis is not to be confused with the Red Cross Society. There is nothing charitable or religious about it, despite the feet that the cross is its emblem. It is the "oldest fraternal and secret organization in the world," a prospectus states, and -uffragists please note– the first organization known in history where women were accepted on equal footing and were eligible to the highest office.

 

It has had, and still has, some distinguished members, among whom might be mentioned, according to the claims of the Rosicrucians, Napoleon, Henry II, of England, King Louis the Pious, Lord Bulwer Lytton, and Lord Bacon, Dr. Alexis Carrel of the Rockefeller Institute, who is now at Lyons directing surgical treatment for wounded French soldiers, and Marie Corelli, the novelist, are members of European lodges, it is claimed. An ex-president of the United States is also said to be a Rosicrucian.

 

 

 

Antedates Christ

 

Rosaea Crucis means rosy cross. The cross used by the Rosicrucians as a symbol antedates Christ by 1,700 years, they claim. Where the arms of the cross meet in the Rosicrucian symbol appears a half unfolded red rose. The symbol signifies that through the cross the members of die order unfold as does die rose.

 

The family of Thotmis IV, founded the order and built the temple of Kamak and other temples, and were instrumental in having stored in the pyramids and other safe places the emblems and signs of material sciences and accomplishments. Realizing that some day knowledge might be wiped out, the family of Thotmis decided to store in the pyramids philosophies and secrets which could not be transcribed or otherwise indicated to perpetuate them for "time eternal." Astrology, the Rosicrucians claim, was thus handed down through the ages, finally becoming the science of astronomy.

 

The order is fraternal, like the Masons, which the Rosicrucians claim, sprang from the order of Rosaea Crucis, the seventeenth degree of Masonry, it is claimed being an admission of its debt tothe Rosicrucians. Outgrowths of the Rosaea Crucis, it is stated, are the Knights of die Rosy Cross in England and the Societe Rosicruciana in France.

 

Rosicrucians in the United States have been dying for half a century to obtain the right to establish a lodge here, according to H. Spencer Lewis, American foundation president, of 130 Post Avenue, who is also president of the New York Institute of Psychical Research.

 

 

 

Jewels and Symbols

 

"After fifty years of pleading, negotiating, and preparation, the supreme authorities have granted the right to establish such a lodge," he said. "The supreme consuls in Egypt and India designated Mrs. May Banks-Stacey, widow of Colonel Stacey, U.S.A., to bring the jewels and symbols to this country. She also has the rosary used by the family of Thotmis about 1,500 B.C. The chain is made of skin, set with rubies, turquoises, amethysts, and other stones bearing weird hieroglyphics."

 

Mr. Lewis explained that Mrs. Banks-Stacey was a lineal descendant on her mother's side of Maty Stuart, and on her father's side of Cromwell. The qualifications for membership, as he explained them are:

 

Age, over twenty-one years, belief in a Supreme Deity, good moral character and habits, and belief in the philosophy of the Rosicracians. No one can become a member until he is invited, but one may apply for this privilege. The minute one becomes a member he or she realizes what a wonderful thing the Rosaea Crucis is, Mr. Lewis explained.

 

"When the initiates on entrance to the order pass through the threshold," he said, "they have a most wonderful revelation of what can be done in the science of spiritual and material things. They get their first convincing evidence of the Rosicrucian control of great natural phenomena.

 

"They must take an oath to hold sacred above all other things the innermost secrets and teachings of the order. They pledge themselves to accomplish at least one thing for the betterment of mankind before they die. It is a matter of mortal life and immortal life for them to reveal secrets. To break the pledge of the order invites all the disaster of life and condemns the soul and innermost man to all punishment hereafter."

 

 

 

No Oaths in Court

 

The Rosicrucians never take an oath in court. They make the sign of the cross. They don't believe in heaven or hell, as "Billy" Sunday expounds it. They believe with certain modifications in the theory of reincarnation. They have a marriage ceremony which is performed previous to the civil ceremony, a christening and funeral service of their own, said to be very impressive and beautiful.

 

The lodges hold monthly meetings at which the officers wear robes. The dues are nominal, the "great expenses of the order being furnished in an unknown and unusual manner." The question of finances never gives the lodges any concern, Mr. Lewis said. There are not sick benefits or insurance, but the members see to it that no one of their fellows is ever in want.

 

"Any one who doubts that Rosicrucians is not well founded," said Mr. Lewis in conclusion, "should go up to the Astor Library, there are thirty books on the subject there and a catalogue of some 360 books published in nine languages. There are also more than 300 manuscripts in the public libraries. There are between 5,000,000 and 6,000,000 members of the order."

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

OBSERVATIONS

 

This article repeats the lies that Spencer Lewis made up about the Rosicrucians, and Mrs. Banks-Stacey is also mentioned, who was supposedly a great Rosicrucian initiate and the co-founder of AMORC, but that is false as I demonstrate in this other article (see link).