The Collaborative International Dictionary
Rosicrucian \Ros`i*cru"cian\, n. [The name is probably due to a German theologian, Johann Valentin Andre["a], who in anonymous pamphlets called himself a knight of the Rose Cross (G. Rosenkreuz), using a seal with a St. Andrew's cross and four roses.)] One who, in the 17th century and the early part of the 18th, claimed to belong to a secret society of philosophers deeply versed in the secrets of nature, -- the alleged society having existed, it was stated, several hundred years.
Note: The Rosicrucians also called brothers of the Rosy Cross, Rosy-cross Knights, Rosy-cross philosophers, etc. Among other pretensions, they claimed to be able to transmute metals, to prolong life, to know what is passing in distant places, and to discover the most hidden things by the application of the Cabala and science of numbers.
Rosicrucian \Ros`i*cru"cian\, a. Of or pertaining to the Rosicrucians, or their arts.
Douglas Harper's Etymology Dictionary
1620s, from Modern Latin rosa crucis (DuCange) or crux, Latinization of German Rosenkreuz, French rosecroix, from the secret society's reputed founder Christian Rosenkreuz, said to date from 1484, but not mentioned before 1614. As an adjective from 1660s.
Usage examples of "rosicrucian".
Freemasons, Rosicrucians, Rotarians, theosophical, anthroposophical, astrological interests, associations, friends?
They longed for the time when he would discover himself, for they imagined he was at the very least a Rosicrucian, or perhaps the hermit of Courpegna, who had taught me the cabalistic science and made me a present of the immortal Paralis.
When I returned to my house I found the Genoese Passano, a bad poet and worse painter, to whom I had intended to give the part of a Rosicrucian, because there was something in his appearance which inspired, if not respect, at least awe and a certain feeling of fear.
Thereupon she took me to her closet, and shewed me the seven packets meant for the Rosicrucian in the form of offerings to the seven planets.
This absurd oath was none other than that of the princes of the Rosy Cross, who never pronounce it without being certain that each party is a Rosicrucian, so Madame d'Urfe was quite right in her caution, and as for me I had to pretend to be afraid myself.
I had pulled the window-curtain and closed my eyes, but as the coach creaked about me I found myself thinking of the dozens of alchemical works at Pontifex Hall, along with its well-stocked laboratory, and I wondered if Alethea's father, a devout Protestant, had been a Rosicrucian too.
Each of his books deals with typical Rosicrucian subjects, ostensibly to contest them, actually to espouse them, offering his own Counter Reformation version.
Some defended the Rosicrucians, others wanted to meet them, still others accused them of devil worship, alchemy, and heresy, claiming that Ashtoreth had intervened to make them rich, powerful, capable of flying from place to place.
The Rosicrucians among the founding fathers used the pyramid as a symbol of their kind of sex magic.
In 1627 Francis Bacon's New Atlantis was published, and readers thought he was talking about the land of the Rosicrucians, even though he never mentioned them.
Belbo was obsessed by the Plan, and into the Plan we had put all sorts of other ingredients: Rosicrucians, Synarchy, Homunculi, the Pendulum, the Tower, the Druids, the Ennoia.
One fine morning in 1623, Rosicrucian manifestoes appeared on the walls of Paris, informing the good citizens that the deputies of the confraternity’s chief college had moved to their city and were ready to accept applications.
By the time he got back to Paris, the manifestoes had appeared, and he learned mat everybody considered him a Rosicrucian.
In the space of a year, the Rosicrucian manifestoes come out: the appeal that the English Templars, with the help of their German friends, are making to all Europe, to reunite the lines of the interrupted Plan.
From the appearance of the manifestoes until about 1621, the Rosicrucians receive too many replies.