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394
HISTORY OF THE ROSICRUCIANS.
Other stories equally credible are told by the same writer
to illustrate the tragical consequences of a voluntary con-
nection with the infamous Invisibles. A soldier was com-
manded by them, on his initiation, to enrol himself among
a band of assassins, when he was speedily assassinated. A
magistrate of Picardy, in answer to his unexpressed wish,
was miraculously visited by one of the mystic six in his
own closet, was initiated into the Order, and in two days
committed suicide. An Anglo-Frenchman who had entered
upon the same unhappy course, wishing to revisit England,
was instantaneously translated to Boulogne : and requesting
the demon who had brought him to bear him across the
Straits to London, he was seized with fury and cast into
the sea between Calais and Dover with a frightful noise.
This occurred in the presence of two hundred Dutch ships
on a voyage from Amsterdam to India.
According to this singular and scurrilous pamphlet, the
Eosicrucians or Invisibles, who are identical in the mind of
the writer, but whom he distinguishes from the Spanish
illuminati, numbered in all thirty-six, and they were divided
into six bands. Their general assembly was held at Lyons
on June 23, 1623, at 10 P.M., which was two hours before
the Grand Sabbath of the Witches. There, by the power
of an anthropophagous necromancer, Astaroth, one of the
princes of the infernal hordes, appeared in light and splen-
dour, and was represented by the magician as a messenger
of the Most High. All prostrated themselves before the
demon, who asked what they desired, and was informed by
their spokesman that they were a little flock which he had
assembled, in the name of the master of Astaroth, to serve
him henceforth on such conditions as were laid down in the
paper which he now offered to the emissary of the king.
It