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THE CASE OFJOHANN VALENTIN ANDREAS. 219
is venerable by its antiquity, interesting from its romantic
associations, and replete with visionary splendours ;
but for
all this, the fiction of the " Fama "is " monstrous, and be-
trays itself in every
circumstance." 1
Suspicion is immediately raised by the suppression of all
names, and the concealment of the headquarters and all
" "
local habitations of the supposed Society. C. E. C., the
hero of the history, journeys to a fabulous Oriental city,
called Damcar, which is not Damascus, though the German
originals continually confuse it therewith. A great part of
this journey is performed alone by a boy of sixteen, who is
described as possessing such " skill in physic " that he " ob-
tained much favour of the Turks," and who, after five years'
travelling, returns at the age of twenty-one years to Europe,
fired with an inextinguishable ambition to correct the errors
of all the arts and to reform the whole philosophia moralis.
In Germany he erects a mysterious House of the Holy Spirit,
situated apparently in space of three dimensions, besieged
by the " unspeakable concourse of the sick." and yet, for the
space of nearly two hundred years, completely
unknown and
unseen by the " wicked world." When the Society was in-
corporated, and its members despatched
on their wander-
ings, two brethren always remained with the founder, and
eight of them were present at his death, yet
the secret of
his burial-place was completely unknown to the third gene-
ration, till its discovery by a newly-initiated
member when
he was repairing his house, which, nevertheless, does not
appear to be the House of the Holy Spirit.
The sepulchre
has been closed for one hundred and twenty years, and it
is found to contain the Vocabularium, Itinerarium, and Life
of Paracelsus. Taking 1614 as the year when the " Fama "
1 De "
Qiiincey, Rosicrucians and Freemasons," c. iii.