"The Chymical Wedding of Christian Rosenkreutz" is a very odd little book published in 1616 in what is today Germany. Its anonymous authorship is attributed to Johann Valentin Andreae.
The narrator, Christian Rosencreutz, told the tale of his bizarre and otherworldly foray into a secret society. It featured angels, automata, and ancient, arcane wisdom. Some readers viewed it as a religious allegory, some as an alchemical one. Some—in light of two manifestos published in the years preceding it—thought this book a revelation of a true secret society: the Rosicrucian order, a group of hermetic, Christian alchemists that were poised to change the world.
"The Chymical Wedding of Christian Rosenkreutz" is an allegoric romance (story) divided into Seven Days, or Seven Journeys, like Genesis, and recounts how Christian Rosenkreuz was invited to go to a wonderful castle full of miracles, in order to assist the Chymical Wedding of the king and the queen, that is, the husband and the bride.
The narrator, Christian Rosencreutz, told the tale of his bizarre and otherworldly foray into a secret society. It featured angels, automata, and ancient, arcane wisdom. Some readers viewed it as a religious allegory, some as an alchemical one. Some—in light of two manifestos published in the years preceding it—thought this book a revelation of a true secret society: the Rosicrucian order, a group of hermetic, Christian alchemists that were poised to change the world.
"The Chymical Wedding of Christian Rosenkreutz" is an allegoric romance (story) divided into Seven Days, or Seven Journeys, like Genesis, and recounts how Christian Rosenkreuz was invited to go to a wonderful castle full of miracles, in order to assist the Chymical Wedding of the king and the queen, that is, the husband and the bride.