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Liber XXV · Secret Societies

Liber XXV · Secret Societies · Chapter IV: Rosicrucianism

Societas Rosicruciana in Anglia: Masonic Rosicrucians of 1866

The Societas Rosicruciana in Anglia explained: Robert Wentworth Little's Masonic Rosicrucian society of 1866, its nine grades and its role in the Golden Dawn.

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The Societas Rosicruciana in Anglia (SRIA) is an English Rosicrucian society, open only to Christian Master Masons, founded in London in the mid-1860s by Robert Wentworth Little and fellow Freemasons to study the Rosicrucian, Hermetic and Kabbalistic traditions. Its founding is usually dated to 1866, with formal meetings recorded from 1867. Modest in size, it matters to esoteric history because its grade system and its members, notably William Wynn Westcott, shaped the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn.

Founding by Robert Wentworth Little§

By the 1860s English Freemasonry had become a large, respectable institution, and alongside the three Craft degrees a variety of "additional" degrees and orders attracted Masons with antiquarian or mystical interests. Rosicrucianism, the legend of the invisible brotherhood announced in the manifestos of 1614–1616, had long been part of this world: the Rose Croix degree existed in the higher-degree rites, and German Gold- und Rosenkreuz circles of the eighteenth century had combined Masonry with alchemy.

Robert Wentworth Little (1840–1878) was a clerk and later cashier at Freemasons' Hall in London and secretary of the Royal Masonic Institution for Girls. According to the society's own traditions, he found old Rosicrucian ritual papers among material stored at the Hall and, with the help of fellow Masons, built a society around them. The occult writer Kenneth R. H. Mackenzie, who claimed to have received Rosicrucian instruction in Germany, is often credited with influencing the project, though the extent of his role and the truth of his claims are uncertain. The society is usually said to have been founded in 1866, and its regular meetings in London date from 1867. Accounts differ in detail, and a range of 1865–1867 appears in the literature.

Little became the first Supreme Magus. The society published a journal, The Rosicrucian, from 1868, and named the novelist Edward Bulwer-Lytton, author of the Rosicrucian romance Zanoni (1842), as an honorary Grand Patron, an honour he does not seem to have sought or taken up in any active way.

The Nine Grades of the SRIA§

The SRIA organised its members into nine grades in three orders, with names taken, through printed sources, from the Gold- und Rosenkreuz system of the 1770s:

  • First Order: I° Zelator, II° Theoricus, III° Practicus, IV° Philosophus.
  • Second Order: V° Adeptus Minor, VI° Adeptus Major, VII° Adeptus Exemptus.
  • Third Order: VIII° Magister, IX° Magus.

Members, known as fratres, met in "colleges" headed by a Celebrant, the first being the Metropolitan College in London; provincial colleges followed. The rituals were short and Christian in tone, emphasising the symbolism of the rose and the cross, the four elements and the search for wisdom. Promotion through the grades depended on attendance, service and, in principle, study. Members read papers on subjects such as alchemy, the Kabbalah, astrology, ancient mysteries and the history of the Rosicrucian legend, and the society functioned above all as a learned club for esotericism within Freemasonry.

The SRIA did not teach practical magic. Its importance lay in giving Victorian Masons with occult interests a structure, a library of shared reference points and a set of grade names that sounded ancient and authoritative.

Woodman, Westcott and the Victorian Occult Milieu§

After Little's death in 1878 the physician William Robert Woodman became Supreme Magus, and after Woodman's death in 1891 the London coroner William Wynn Westcott succeeded him, holding the office until 1925. Westcott was a dedicated student of Kabbalah and Hermetic texts; he translated the Sefer Yetzirah and edited a series of esoteric reprints. Under such leaders the society became a meeting point for men who also belonged to the Theosophical Society, studied the works of Éliphas Lévi, or collected old magical manuscripts. The occult writer Frederick Hockley and, later, the scholar Arthur Edward Waite were among those associated with it.

The SRIA's world overlapped with the broader nineteenth-century occult revival. Hargrave Jennings's The Rosicrucians: Their Rites and Mysteries (1870) and Mackenzie's Royal Masonic Cyclopaedia (1877) reflect the antiquarian and speculative interests of its members, a mixture of genuine scholarship, romantic speculation and invention that historians of Victorian occultism, such as Ellic Howe and Alex Owen, have analysed in detail.

The SRIA and the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn§

The society's most consequential legacy was indirect. In 1888 Westcott, Woodman and Samuel Liddell MacGregor Mathers, all SRIA members, founded the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn. Its authority was said to derive from a cipher manuscript of ritual outlines and from a German adept, "Fräulein Sprengel", whose existence historians doubt.

The Golden Dawn borrowed heavily from the SRIA. Its Outer Order grades were Zelator, Theoricus, Practicus and Philosophus; its Second Order was entered at the grade of Adeptus Minor; and its Third Order of "Secret Chiefs" corresponded to the SRIA's highest grades. The Golden Dawn attached Kabbalistic correspondences to each grade, linking them to the sefirot of the Tree of Life, a scheme that has passed into the Golden Dawn's many successors.

The differences were as important as the borrowings. The Golden Dawn admitted women from the start and did not require Masonic membership, and its Second Order taught practical ritual magic, scrying and astral work, which the SRIA never did. Westcott eventually withdrew from the Golden Dawn in 1897, reportedly because his public role as coroner made association with a magical order awkward, and he remained head of the SRIA.

Sister Societies and the SRIA Today§

Rosicrucian Masonic societies on the English model spread abroad. A Societas Rosicruciana in Scotia was established in the 1870s, and the Societas Rosicruciana in Civitatibus Foederatis (SRICF) was organised in the United States around 1880. Other national societies have been founded in Canada, Australia, Europe and elsewhere, maintaining fraternal relations with the English society.

The SRIA still exists. It remains an invitation-only body for Christian Master Masons, meets in colleges across England, Wales and overseas, and continues to encourage members to research and present papers on Western esotericism and the history of Rosicrucianism. It makes no claim to occult powers and describes its purpose as study and contemplation. For historians, it remains a key link between the Masonic higher degrees of the eighteenth century and the magical orders of the twentieth, and an example of how a small institution can transmit vocabulary and structure far beyond its own membership.

Frequently asked questions§

Who founded the Societas Rosicruciana in Anglia?§

It was founded by Robert Wentworth Little, a clerk at Freemasons' Hall in London, with other Freemasons, around 1866. Kenneth R. H. Mackenzie is often said to have influenced it, but his role is uncertain. Little served as the first Supreme Magus until his death in 1878.

Can anyone join the SRIA?§

No. Membership is by invitation and is limited to Master Masons in good standing who profess the Trinitarian Christian faith. It is not open to women; related bodies elsewhere have their own rules.

All three founders of the Golden Dawn in 1888 were SRIA members, and the Golden Dawn adapted the SRIA's grade names. The two were separate organisations, however: the Golden Dawn admitted women and taught practical magic, while the SRIA remained a Masonic study society.

Does the SRIA claim descent from the original Rosicrucians?§

The society presents itself as studying the Rosicrucian tradition rather than as a continuation of the brotherhood of the 1614 manifestos. Historians find no evidence of any continuous Rosicrucian organisation behind it.

Sources and further reading§