The romance or the Rosy Cross has formed for generations, which have almost passed into centuries a prolific fund of suggestion in the fact that its early history obtained for the Brethren a title as mysterious as that which they had assumed on their own part. They were called as we all know the Invisibles. It mattered little to romance that the denomination was applied originally by way of derision, for those who manufactured and those who marketed in that creative world carried a hallowing wand. All the problematical personalities who emerged for periods or moments from the background of history, carrying a knapsack or wallet of strange pretensions, were sealed by imagination with the symbol of the Rosy Cross.

This book is Arthur Edward Waite's study of the elusive Rosicrucians, a secret society of which the first public notice was in early 17th century Germany. Was this an actual organization, or just a fantasy? No actual Rosicrucians ever surfaced, but there was plenty of documentation about them. The problem is that these documents are, for the most part, obviously fictional. In time, a mythology grew up around the Rosicrucians. Today there are groups which claim the name. These date at the most to the late 19th century, although they usually claim pro forma to go back as far as Egypt or Atlantis. The Rosicrucians have also been woven by conspiracy theorists into their web alongside the Freemasons, Illuminati, Templars, and so on, even though there is not a shred of evidence for this.

Waite presents complete translations of all of the texts which defined the Rosicrucians, including the Fama Fraternitatis, the Confessio Fraternitatis, and the Chemical Wedding of Christian Rosencreutz. The longest text, the Chemical Wedding is a fever-dream which is a thinly veiled alchemical allegory. The authorship of these documents is disputed, but it may have been written by Johann Valentin Andreas, a German theologian and writer. Waite also surveys Rosicrucian literature from successive centuries, including extensive quotes from authors who wrote about the Rosicrucians such as Michael Maier, Robert Fludd, Thomas Vaughan and John Heydon. Heydon wrote Voyage to the Land of the Rosicrucians, reminiscent of Thomas More's Utopia, about a voyage to an obscure continent inhabited by Rosicrucians, included here in its entirety. Waite concludes with a look at a 19th century 'Rosicrucian' organization.