ABSTRACT
At some time around 1617, that is, a few years before the outbreak of the war, Johann Valentin Andreae seemed to change his attitude to ‘Christian Rosencreutz’ and his ‘Brothers’. The myth which he had at first ardently welcomed as the vehicle for aspirations towards general reformation and the advancement of learning, now seems to be disparaged by him as a vain ‘ludibrium’. In its place, he now urged the formation of ‘Christian Unions’, or ‘Christian Societies’. These societies or unions were to be inspired by aims very similar to those expressed in the Rosicrucian manifestos. They were to give expression to a renewal in religion, or a new reformation, to encourage by precept and example the spread of Christian charity and brotherly love, and to engage earnestly in intellectual and scientific activities for the good of mankind. These groupings, though they followed the general lines laid down in the Rosicrucian manifestos, differed from them in two important respects. They did not wrap their aims in the Rosicrucian myth but expressed them in more straightforward terms. And, second, they came out of the mists of invisibility and possible non-existence into reality. One of these groups, the ‘Societas
before the war, but soon foundered in the disastrous years after 1620. It did not, however, entirely disappear, and it directly influenced the formation of another society which was to have a very important future.
