story of the chemistry of marriage between the
sexes. Indeed, the whole story of the secret doctrines of the
Rosicrucians, is the story of the sexes, and the "secret of secrets,"
which was so zealously guarded by the Hermetics and the Rosicrucians
and other secret societies, is the secret of the spiritual union of
the male and the female principles throughout nature and culminating
in man and woman, conferring upon them immortal life through the
perfect balance of sex.

It has been said that women were not admitted to the Brotherhood of
the Rosicrucians, but this is not true, as there is plenty of evidence
to prove.

Owing to the enmity of the established Church toward any exaltation of
the sex-relation, and particularly toward the veneration of woman, it
became necessary for those who sought to keep alive the fires of
Esoteric Wisdom to surround themselves with the most rigid secrecy; in
consequence of this, the story of the sexes, constituting the very
heart and center of Hermetic philosophy, has been told in allegory,
unintelligible unless one has the inner sight or has been initiated
into the secret code.

In the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, the Church had so far
succeeded in undermining the work of the Hermetics, that women were
excluded from the Brotherhood, and the apparent sole purpose of the
secret order was the search for metallic transmutation. Side by side
with this convincing evidence that the esoteric meaning of the symbols
has been perverted, we find their allegorical phraseology intermixed
with frequent allusions to passages from the Scripture and to the
Virgin Mary, proving conclusively that the Church, then in the zenith
of its power, had confiscated the archives of the secret order, and,
either through fear of the influence of their work, or possibly
through lack of any adequate comprehension of their wisdom, had
employed their symbolism to the further glory of the temporal power of
the Church.

This subject will again be dealt with in a chapter devoted to "The
Hidden Wisdom," and so we will leave it for the present.

One other great spiritual truth relating to marriage is found in the
intimate and constantly recurring association of the turtle-dove with
the ceremony of marriage.

The dove is, par excellence, an example of conjugal love. The
turtle-dove, more than any other of the dove family, is noted for the
fervor of its sexual desires; fidelity to its mate; and for the
devotion a