ABSTRACT
A few years ago in a lecture given in the United States I made the following remark: 1
I should like to try to persuade sensible people and sensible historians to use the word ‘Rosicrucian’. This word has bad associations owing to the uncritical assertions of occultists concerning the existence of a sect or secret society calling themselves Rosicrucians the history and membership of which they claim to establish…The word could, I suggest, be used of a certain style of thinking which is historically recognizable without raising the question of whether a Rosicrucian style of thinker belonged to a secret society.
