the Rosicrucians, using architectural language, and there is proof that his Society was divided into degrees, and from the fact that the Masons' Company of London had a copy of the Masonic Charges 'presented by Mr. fflood' we may suppose that he was a Freemason before 1620."
A still more important link is Elias Ashmole, the antiquary, astrologer, and alchemist, founder of the Ashmolean Museum at Oxford, who was born in 1617. An avowed Rosicrucian, and as we have seen, also a Freemason, Ashmole displayed great energy in reconstituting the Craft; he is said to have perfected its organization, to have added to it further mystic symbols, and according to Ragon, it was he who drew up the ritual of the existing three Craft degrees--Entered Apprentice, Fellow-Craft, and Master Mason--which was adopted by Grand Lodge in 1717. Whence did these fresh inspirations come but from the Rosicrucians? For, as Ragon also informs us, in the year that Ashmole was received into Freemasonry the Rosicrucians held their meeting in the same room at Mason Hall!
How, then, can it be said that there was "no traceable connexion between Freemasonry and Rosicrucianism?" and why should it be the part of a "malignant reviler" to connect them? It is not suggested that Rosicrucians, such as Fludd or Ashmole, imported any magical elements into Freemasonry, but simply the system and symbols of the Rose-Croix with a certain degree of esoteric learning. That Rosicrucianism forms an important link in the chain of the secret tradition is therefore undeniable.
The Seventeenth-Century Rabbis
There is, however,