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THE CASE OFJOHANN VALENTIN ANDREAS. 233
which are to be found in several places of " The Hermetick
Wedding " are not an unmeaning hoax, but contain a de-
cipherable and deciphered sense. The secretary
of an
English Rosicrucian Society says that the Supreme Magus
of the Metropolitan College can read all three of the
enigmas, and that he himself has deciphered
two. Their
secret is not a tradition, but the meaning dawns upon the
student after certain researches. The last point is curious,
and, outside the faculty of clairvoyance, the suggested
method does not seem probable, but I give it to be taken
at its worth, and have no reason to doubt the statement.
From these facts and considerations, the conclusion does
not seem unreasonable, and may certainly be tolerated by
an impartial mind, that in spite of the statement of
Andreas, and partly because of that statement, the
" Chymical Marriage" is not a ludibrium, that it betrays a
serious purpose, and conceals a recondite meaning.
II. With this criticism the whole theory practically
breaks down. We know that the "Fama Fraternitatis "
was published in 1615 as a manifesto of the Bruderscliafft
des loUiclien Ordens des Rosen Creutses. We have good
reason to suppose that the original draft of the " Chymical
Marriage " was tampered with ; we do not know that
1615 such a work was in existence as
previous to the year
the " Chymical Marriage of Christian Rosencreutz." What
we know to have existed was simply the "Nuptise Chymicae."
Now, supposing the "Fama Fraternitatis" to have emanated
from a source independent of Andreas, he would be natu-
rally struck by the resemblance of the mysterious Rosicru-
cian device to his own armorial bearings, and when in the
year 1616 he published his so-called comic romance, this
analogy may, not inconceivably, have led him to re-christen