The Rose . . .

The Rose first made its appearance in Asia. As a rule, in its natural wild state it is a small flower of seven petals. It is found in temperate countries in Asia and Europe.

Its fresh colour, its delicate scent and the harmonious beauty of its aspect have made it stand out among all other plants and when Man began to cultivate flowers, he started by cultivating the Rose.

Superstitions around this flower are numerous among the peoples of the Orient. One of them has survived up to our own times. According to it, the Rose is the favourite flower of the goddess of fertility, and for these peoples it holds first place among all other flowers.

Ten centuries before Christ, at the time when philosophical and theosophical systems were revealed through Man’s power of Imagination as the perfection of metaphysical Science, at the time when symbols and emblems were preponderant in this category of studies, in those primitive times, the Rose held a significant place in the symbolism of philosophic systems. In India and Egypt, the Lotus held the predominant place in metaphysical and theosophical symbolism, likewise among the peoples of the Orient who lived in the eastern coast of the Mediterranean - among whom were the Essenes - the Rose was the flower most related to their various theosophical systems.

The Rose predominated both in the cult and the sanctity which these primitive peoples attributed to every created being with psychical (animism) or vegetal life, for the thinkers of the time saw the mysterious stamp of all the universal systems on it.

The linear depiction of objects, which was eventually adopted, allowed the first theosophists to create from the very start both a true and a judicious doctrine as regards the geometric formation and depiction of the Rose. Let us imagine seven circles penetrating one another in circular form. An eighth circle at the centre holds the place of the nucleus. These were the first astrological theories which were established in the schools of the Orient and which lasted until the sixteenth century after Jesus Christ.

The first adepts of the doctrine of the Rose are found in Chaldea, but the first University to adopt their system and doctrine was the School of the Essenes. In the symbolic study the Essenes created a doctrine which was not about astrology but concerned theosophy and cosmogony. We shall describe this doctrine in brief so that the evolution of the tradition of the future Rosicrucians may be better understood.