AMORC Accessories

AMORC's Altar Accesories for the 1930's Mystic

by "Friend of the Salon"
Niger Falcone

Here are some items from my collection of early Rosicrucian artifacts. Why do I collect these items? When I first joined the Rosicrucian Order, I started my studies with the New Series Monographs. Then, I got my hands on Monographs from the 1970s, which, in turn, touched a quest for earlier material. Eventually, I acquired a file of the first monographs sent to Home Sanctum members and am now in the process of completing a file of the early Temple Lectures. I found, as a number of other Rosicrucian Antiquarians, that the earliest material struck a responsive chord in me. The later monographs are sufficient to put one on the path of Mystical studies but Dr. H. Spencer Lewis put so much of his Soul and Spirit into the earliest that, even now after all of these years, to sit down and study them gives one the feeling the Dr. Lewis is in the room talking to you.

This led to a desire to get those items that Dr. Lewis wanted his early students to have and use in their Sanctums. I use the following items in my own Sanctum.

The first items are an early Sanctum set consisting of wood turned candlesticks, a wooden Ankh, and a brass incense burner. I have included a photograph of an advertisement that dates from the October 1936 Rosicrucian Digest.

In later years, a porcelain Hermetic Rosy Cross replaced the wooden Egyptian Ankh Cross and the simple wooden candlesticks became more ornate and were changed to porcelain as well.

Interestingly, this incense burner came complete with a metal container for the incense and a little asbestos pad that kept the table from scorching!

In the background of the photograph is a Black Mirror, which belonged to a long-deceased Frater who traced his Rosicrucian Roots to the Rosicrucian Movement in Germany in the 1840s. Among his effects were Rosicrucian documents from AMORC dating to 1917 and original monographs from the Brotherhood of Light from 1919--all happily resting in my collection! Not surprisingly, the BOL documents contained material regarding the construction of Black Mirrors and, comparing that with this mirror, I am sure that the good Frater made this particular one. Dr. Lewis experimented with Black Mirrors as our Curator has indicated in another article on the site so I must conclude that the previous owner was practicing being a “walking question mark!”

The Censor

At first, I thought that the Censor was for burning incense but after adding this one to my collection, I determined it was to cast a gentle light on the member in his/her Sanctum. As you can see from the advertisement from the 1963 Student Supplies Catalog, the Censor originally had a long glass cylinder hanging out from the bottom that held a candle but, apparently, these were the first things broken. This censor came with votive candleholder, which I am sure that the Sorer who had this before me found easier to light and a lot less fragile.

The Rosy-Glow Cross

The Rosicrucian light bulb was similar to ones sold at the time through religious supply houses. Actually, religious supply houses currently sell these. I am sure that Dr. Lewis, being the businessman that he was, just applied an existing product for his own uses. What is interesting to me is that this particular example still has the original packing straw (yes, straw!) and the original mailing box with the Rosicrucian Brotherhood label.

The early advertisement for the bulb evokes primitive man receiving Light. As I send more pictures of some of my newer artifacts, I will show you one with the bulb lit.