A Reading Guide for Enquirers

The page on the Library gives, in a few lines, the books the Order recommends to enquirers. The letters that reach the Chancery suggest that those few lines are not enough. Enquirers who take up the old books are seldom defeated by the ideas in them. They are defeated by the books themselves: by archaic prose, by deliberate veils, by translations of uneven quality, and above all by beginning in the wrong place. This guide is more particular. It says what to read, in what order, and how, and it ends with a suggested first year of reading for those who want one.

How to read the old books

Read little, and read slowly. A page read with full attention is worth a chapter skimmed, and the old writers wrote for readers who had time. Read the history before the sources, so that you know who is speaking and to whom; the Studies in the Tradition were written partly for this purpose. Read aloud the documents that were written to be heard, which include the Rosicrucian manifestos and all of the romances. Read with a pencil and a notebook, and write down what you do not understand as well as what you do; you will be surprised how much of the first list moves to the second within a year.

Do not read for secrets. The old writers concealed less than is supposed and revealed more than is noticed, and the reader who is looking for a hidden key generally misses the plain instruction lying on the surface. Read everything that matters twice; the second reading is the first real one. And when you are tired, stop. The Tradition is not going anywhere.

Begin with the Order's own documents

Whatever else you read, read first the four public documents of the Order: the Charter of Harrowmere, the Twelve Articles, the Epistle to the Pages and the Discourse on the Cup. Together they take less than an hour. They are the best introduction to the mind of the Order, and they will tell you more quickly than any other reading whether the Order is for you. Then read the six Studies in the Tradition, which will give you a map before you enter the country.

The Hermetic writings

Read the philosophical treatises of the Corpus Hermeticum in a sober modern translation with notes. Begin with the first treatise, the Poimandres, which contains the vision of the creation and the map of the soul's ascent through the spheres; then read the thirteenth, the discourse on rebirth between Hermes and his son Tat. Only then read the rest of the Corpus, and after it the Asclepius. Read the Emerald Tablet once a day for a week before you read any commentary upon it.

Leave the Renaissance magi, Agrippa and the rest, until later. Their books are a history of what learned men did with the Hermetic writings, which is interesting, but they are not the writings, and they are very long.

The Rosicrucian manifestos

Read the Fame of the Fraternity first, aloud, at one sitting; it is short. Then read the Confession. Read the Chemical Wedding last, as a story, over seven evenings, one day of the story each evening. The first English versions, of 1652 and 1690, are beautiful and still serviceable, and many readers prefer them; modern versions are easier and none the worse for it. Do not read any of the three in an edition that promises to reveal what they really mean.

The Martinist stream

Do not begin with Of Errors and Truth. It was Saint-Martin's first book, it is deliberately veiled, and it has turned back more enquirers than any other work in this guide. Begin instead with The Man of Desire, a few of its short meditations at a time; it was written to be read that way. Then read his letters to Niklaus Anton Kirchberger, Baron de Liebistorf, published in English as the Theosophic Correspondence, in which he speaks more plainly than anywhere else. Then read The Ministry of the Spirit-Man. Return to Of Errors and Truth after that, and you will find it less forbidding.

Read Martinez de Pasqually's Treatise on the Reintegration of Beings only when you have read Saint-Martin, and do not expect it to be easy. Read Jacob Boehme last of all, slowly, and perhaps not in your first years; he is a lifetime's reading, and Saint-Martin himself spent the last fifteen years of his life coming to terms with him. Arthur Edward Waite's life of Saint-Martin, first published in 1901, remains a serviceable introduction in English, though it shows its age.

The literature of chivalry

Read the romances of the Grail as stories, not as puzzles. Begin with Chrétien de Troyes's Perceval and notice where it stops. Then read Wolfram von Eschenbach's Parzival, all of it, in a good modern translation, and take a month over it; it is the romance the Order loves best. Read the Quest of the Holy Grail, and the books of the Holy Grail in Malory. Read Ramon Llull's Book of the Order of Chivalry, which is short and plain and will tell you why the Order keeps a Vigil of Arms. If you can find it, read Ivan Lopukhin's Spiritual Knight. The sixth study describes all of these.

Histories

The Library page recommends "some one good history of the Western Mystery Tradition," and enquirers ask which. The Order does not prescribe one. It suggests that you prefer a history written by a scholar who shows his or her evidence, and who tells you plainly what is not known. Frances Yates's The Rosicrucian Enlightenment, of 1972, is learned and readable, though not every historian now accepts its conclusions, and it is an example of the kind of book the Order means.

What not to read

Be wary of any book that promises power over others, wealth, health or certainty. Be wary of any book that traces an unbroken line of initiates from ancient Egypt, from a lost continent or from the Templars to the present day; the Tradition does not need to be older than it is, and those who say it does are usually selling something. Be wary of any book offering the rituals of an order for sale, and know that any document offered as a ritual or instructional paper of this Order is not authentic. And be wary, finally, of reading too much. The Epistle to the Pages says that the Page who can recite the seven principles and cannot be civil to a shop assistant has learned nothing. The same is true of readers.

A first year of reading

For enquirers who would like a plan, the Warden of Studies suggests the following. It assumes perhaps twenty minutes of reading a day, which is the length of the Order's daily practice and not by coincidence.

Months	Reading	A Suggestion
One and Two	The four documents of the Order; the Studies in the Tradition	Read the Twelve Articles once a week throughout.
Three and Four	The Fame, the Confession and the Chemical Wedding	Read the Fame aloud, and the Wedding over seven evenings.
Five and Six	The Poimandres, the discourse on rebirth, the Emerald Tablet	Read the Tablet daily for a week before anything else.
Seven and Eight	Chrétien's Perceval and Wolfram's Parzival	Notice every question asked and not asked.
Nine and Ten	The Man of Desire; the letters to Kirchberger	A few meditations at a time, and no more.
Eleven and Twelve	The Epistle to the Pages and the Discourse on the Cup, again	The year ends where it began. See what has changed.