Magic by return of post: How mail order delivered the occult

One of the most well-known mail-order occult societies of the time, and one which is still in existence today, was the Ancient Mystical Order Rosae Crucis (AMORC), founded in 1915 by advertising agent Harvey Spencer Lewis. Like Sydney Flower, Lewis initially began publishing mail-order courses on popular late-nineteenth-century practices of hypnotism and mesmerism, in works such as Four Special Lessons in Personal Influence, Hypnotic Suggestion, and Treatment by Suggestion. What happened next became the cornerstone of AMORC’s foundation story. Lewis claimed that during a visit to Toulouse in 1909 he was initiated into an unbroken Rosicrucian lineage and subsequently instructed to take the tradition to America, where it could be publicly revealed to the properly prepared. While many new religious movements that emerged from the Second Great Awakening had viewed American society as corrupt, fallen, or doomed — and summarily responded by retreating or separating — Lewis’ AMORC moved in the other direction, presenting itself as the continuing current of the secret Rosicrucian order of restorative mendicants whose job was to remain part of the world and to support its healthy growth. As its own literature explained, “the Order is primarily a humanitarian movement, making for greater health, happiness, and peace in the earthly lives of all mankind.” Members, it clarified, were “unselfish servants of God to mankind, efficiently educated, trained, and experienced, attuned with the mighty forces of the Cosmic or Divine Mind, and masters of matter, space, and time.” In spite of his mythologising tendencies and a sometimes grandiose cunning, Lewis promulgated a humanistic mysticism grounded in discipline and ethical responsibility, promising not transcendence beyond the world but mastery and harmony within it.