Theos-Talk Archives (April 2005 Message tt01546)

Harvey Spencer Lewis

Birth: November 25, 1883 in Frenchtown, New Jersey, United States 
Death: August 2, 1939 in San Jose, California 
Occupation: Founder, Ancient and Mystical Order of the Rosae Crucis 
(AMORC) 

BIOGRAPHICAL ESSAY
Harvey Spencer Lewis was the founder of the Ancient and Mystical 
Order of the Rosae Crucis (A.M.O.R.C.), the largest Rosicrucian 
organization in the world. Lewis grew up in New York City as a 
Methodist, and at one point was an artist and columnist for the New 
York Herald. In 1904, at the age of 21, he established the New York 
Institute for Psychical Research, which was primarily Rosicrucian in 
orientation. In 1908 a British Rosicrucian, Mrs. May Banks-Stacey, 
who was Legate of the Order in India, put Lewis in touch with 
Rosicrucians internationally, and in 1909 he went to Toulouse, 
France, to be initiated by members of the International Rosicrucian 
Council. When he returned, he had authority to begin a new order in 
America.

The new Rosicrucian order met for a number of years before it 
formally announced itself with the publication of The Great 
Manifesto of the Order (1915), and the beginning of a periodical, 
The American Rosae Crucis. By 1917 the group was successful enough 
to hold a national convention in Pittsburgh, which fatefully 
approved the idea of a correspondence course. Written by Lewis, this 
became the means for the group to expand worldwide into places no 
similar group had reached. Unfortunately, this willingness to be so 
public also meant facing some persecution. On June 17, 1918, police 
in New York arrested Lewis and charged him with selling fraudulent 
bonds and collecting money under false pretenses. Although the 
charges were subsequently dropped, Lewis felt compelled to move the 
group to San Francisco later that same year.

Lewis spent about seven years in San Francisco, during which he 
established relations with various occult groups in Europe, and met 
Aleister Edward Crowley, head of the Ordo Templi Orientis (O.T.O.). 
In 1921 Lewis received a charter from the O.T.O. in Germany, which 
had split from Crowley. In 1925 Lewis moved the headquarters to 
Tampa, Florida, where the order built and managed radio station WJBB 
over a period of two years. In 1927 Lewis moved to a piece of land 
in San Jose, California, where major components of the order's 
headquarters were built during the next dozen years. Lewis also 
served as bishop of an affiliated church called the Pristine Church 
of the Rose Cross, an effort that ended after a few years as the 
order began to emphasize its nature as a nonreligious fraternal 
group.

Lewis was an extremely prolific writer, especially after the move to 
San Jose, and it is through his books that he has become known to a 
public beyond the Rosicrucian order. His best-known works include 
Rosicrucian Questions and Answers (1929) and Mansions of the Soul 
(1930). Another famous book, Lemuria, The Lost Continent of the 
Pacific (1931), was written by Lewis under the pseudonym W. S. 
Cerve. In The Mystical Life of Jesus (1929), Lewis very generously 
borrowed from The Aquarian Gospel of Jesus the Christ by Levi 
Dowling. Lewis' teachings generally center on mastering the ability 
to create material reality through one's mental imaging, using 
techniques understood to have been passed down from as long ago as 
Amenhotep IV in ancient Egypt. Lewis died in 1939, at the age of 56, 
and his son, Ralph M. Lewis, took over the leadership of the order.

FURTHER READINGS
Clymer, R. Swinburne. The Rosicrucian Fraternity in America. 
Quakertown, PA: The Rosicrucian Foundation, 1935. 2 vols. 

Lewis, Harvey Spencer. Mansions of the Soul. San Jose, CA: 
Rosicrucian Press, 1930. 334 pp. 

------. Rosicrucian Principles for the Home and Business. San Jose, 
CA: Supreme Grand Lodge of AMORC, 1929. 241 pp. 

------. Rosicrucian Questions and Answers with Complete History. San 
Jose, CA: Supreme Lodge of AMORC, 1929. 9th edition, 1969. 343 pp. 

------. Self Mastery and Fate with the Cycles of Life. San Jose, CA: 
Rosicrucian Press, 1929. 255 pp. 

McIntosh, Christopher. The Rosy Cross Unveiled. Wellingborough, 
Northhamptonshire, United Kingdom: Aquarian Press, 1980. 160 pp. 

Melton, J. Gordon. Biographical Dictionary of American Cult and Sect 
Leaders. Garland Reference Library of Social Science, vol. 212. New 
York: Garland Publishing, 1986. 

The Rosicrucian Manual. San Jose, CA: Rosicrucian Press, 1952. 200 
pp. 

Melton. J. Gordon. Encyclopedia of Occultism & Parapsychology. 2 
vols., 4th ed. Detroit: Gale Research, 1996. 

From:
"Harvey Spencer Lewis." Religious Leaders of America, 2nd ed. Gale 
Group, 1999.