Satanism Today - An Encyclopedia of Religion, Folklore and Popular ...

92 Fraternitas Rosae Crucis
proclaimed impossible by the Canon Episcopi.
However, in the late fifteenth century, the Malleus
Maleficarum, the bible of witch-hunters and judges,
asserted that this view was erroneous. During the
Inquisition, many witches confessed to flying. This
folklore has persevered across the centuries.
Magical ointments were said to be used by
witches, sorcerers, and necromancers to enable
them to fly. A primary ingredient of these ointments
was the fat of a young child slain before baptism.
The broom is popularly known as a means of travel
for witches. Witches were reported to be able to fly
brooms up chimneys. While a broom could be
turned to a witch’s purpose by means of flying ointment,
a broomstick placed across the threshold of a
house was supposed to keep witches out.
The notion of demons and witches riding
farming implements through the air to diabolical
gatherings may derive from the practice of pre-
Christian pagans who mounted brooms and
pitchforks and rode them like hobbyhorses in the
fields, dancing and leaping, as part of fertility rites
meant to help the crops grow. Before witches were
recorded as riding on brooms, they were said to
have danced with them, sometimes holding the
brooms up high in the air and sometimes dancing
astride them. In addition to riding brooms and
shovels, sixteenth-century art shows witches
riding pokers, benches, and animals.
Sorcerers also flew on brooms, although they
were more often depicted as riding on pitchforks.
Witches have been shown with the broom brushes
down to sweep their tracks from the sky and with
the brush up, often with a candle in the brush to
light the way.
See also Demons; Satan
For Further Reading:
Gordon, Stuart. The Encyclopedia of Myths and
Legends. London: Headline, 1991.
Guiley, Rosemary Ellen. The Encyclopedia of Witches
and Witchcraft. New York: Facts on File, 1989.
Valiente, Doreen. An ABC of Witchcraft. Custer, WA:
Phoenix, 1973.
Fraternitas Rosae Crucis
The Fraternitas Rosae Crucis, founded in 1858 by
physician P. B. Randolph (1825–1875), is generally
considered the oldest Rosicrucian body. The grand
lodge, that was first established in San Francisco in
1861, was closed and reestablished first in Boston
(1871), then in San Francisco (1874), and finally
in Philadelphia (1895).
Among the teachings of the order is a system of
occult sexuality, that was termed Eulistic, a term
deriving from the Greek Eleusinian mysteries,
believed to be mysteries of sex. A Provisional Grand
Lodge of Eulis was established in Tennessee, but
internal problems among the members led to its
closing down. Randolph’s teachings on occult sexuality
soon became the source for the sex magick
system developed by the Ordo Templi Orientis
(OTO), which however was in contradiction with
Randolph’s thought on the moral level. OTO teachings
have been denounced as black magick by twentieth-century
followers of Randolph.
Among other teachings of the order are the
basic ideas of the “secret schools,” including reincarnation
and karma, as well as the Law of Justice
and noninterference with the rights of others.
Members learn how to contact the hierarchies of
the heavenly realm, as well as the process of transmutation,
and the acquisition of health and
strength through the dismissal of thoughts
concerning weakness and age. They believe in the
fatherhood of God and the ultimate sisterhood/
brotherhood of humanity. While the Aeth
Priesthood represents the inner circle of the
Fraternity, the Church of Illumination constitutes
the outer court group that interacts with the
public. The focus of the church is upon manisism,
which is the recognition of the equality of man
and woman, as well as the name of the new world
leader who teaches the fundamentals of the divine
law. According to the church, the Manistic age
began in the late nineteenth century, following the
previous Egyptian and Christian ages.
After Randolph, the order was led respectively
by Freeman B. Dowd, Edward H. Brown (1907),
and R. Swinburne Clymer (1922), author of
numerous books, who was recently succeeded by
his son, Emerson M. Clymer. Authority of the
order is represented by the Council of Three,
whereas the highest office is held by the Hierarch
of Eulis. The order’s literature is distributed by the
Beverly Hall Corporation in Quakertown,
Pennsylvania.