Reading a 1946 Rosicrucian Order monograph someone passed to me, which low-quality paper is fragmenting such that I won’t be passing it on, so may as well record the take-always here

• Secret knowledge passed on that is basically an esoteric way of saying “the kidneys filter the blood, and staying well-hydrated helps”
• A bit that starts similarly about the solar plexus – it’s involved with the sympathetic nervous system! – and then goes on to frame it as something like a chakra where aura light gathers and can be used for magnetic powers
• An “experiment” to prove this with oil and a toothpick I’m not particularly sure proves anything
• The postwar housing crisis! A convention in San Jose was canceled because the hotels were full of returned veterans without homes.
• An appeal for Rose-Croix University (Fine and Mystic Arts! Physical Sciences! Rosicrucian Healing! Alchemy! Previous College Education NOT Neccesary!)

I mean, it’s clear what’s going on here – in an America where most people didn’t graduate high school, the Rosicrucian Order is posing as a venue for self-improvement and education to make you an elite, using a combination of woo and enthusiasm with just enough actual grounding that an internet modern can tell is patchy but might be indistinguishable from real learning to its contemporary audience

this is my voyager message

Christian Identity and Creativity are funny because they basically have the same backstory as Odinism or Wicca - someone committed to a project of palingenetic nationalism thought it needed a religious component, and decided to “revive” the “ancient, historic faith” of the nation, which they did by combining one part contemporary folk tales and practices projected backwards, one part avant-garde neo-mysticism, and two parts of the founders’ personal charisma and off-the-top-of-the-head mythology.

Now the ancient, historic faith of white Americans was, obviously, Christianity, and the hilarious part is that the fact that this was still a living and well-documented religion in no way prevented the whole process from proceeding along the exact same lines.