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Periodical: Cromaat

Summary:  From Pat Deveney's database:

Cromaat.
A Monthly Monograph for the Members of A.M.O.R.C.
1918--1919 Monthly
New York, NY. Publisher: Privately published by the A.M.O.R.C. College Library. Editor: H. Spencer Lewis.
Succeeds: American Rosae Crucis Succeeded by: American Rosae Crucis (April, May and June 1920)-->The Triangle-->The Mystic Triangle-->Rosicrucian Digest
1/1, 1918-1919.

Seven issues only were issued--"for members only" and by special subscription--undated and identified only as "A" through "G." 30-54 pp. No price is specified; the issues were to remain the property of each lodge's College Library and to be lent to members on receipt of a coupon from their library card showing current payment of dues. After the failure of his American Rosae Crucis magazine in December 1918, Lewis changed tacks and designed Cromaat as papers on specific occult subjects to be discussed at lodge meetings: International Language for Rosicrucians; Official Manual for Members; A Complete System of Natural Harmonics;, by "Profundis XII); Village of the Devil; Marie Corelli Speaks of Rosaecrucianism; Seal of the United States; Cosmic Geomancy; etc. Later issues included notes on lodge business (including an obituary of May Banks-Stacey), Biographical Sketches of prominent members, novelettes, questions and answers ("How is the selection of a new vehicle or material body made by the soul?), and occasional short pieces by members. The journal also contains Lewis's continuing attempts to defend and buttress his claims that AMORC was duly authorized to exist by the Supreme Council of the World of the Rosicrucians, including his wonderful argument: If there were no Supreme Council then his group was the supreme council; if there was a Supreme Council, why had it remained silent at AMORC's claims? "If there is not such a Supreme Council, and If there never was, then the founder of the Order here in America has invented, devised, formulated, perfected, issued, and matured the whole fabric from beginning to end; and, if this is true, then he and his advisors, or Council, would be the Supreme R+C Council of the World by lawful and logical conclusion and concession. If there is or was a Supreme R+C Council of the World, or any superior executive body of such a nature, and it did not and does not sponsor our Order here in America, and can prove that our Order is fraudulent in its work, pilfering its teachings, wrongly existing as a perfectly organised body, why has such a body remained silent for four years and permitted our claims and statements to go unchallenged, uncontradicted, and free from injunctions through the Courts of the United States or otherwise?" The journal was succeeded in 1920 by three issues of the temporarily revived American Rosae Crucis, and then by The Triangle. On Harvey Spencer Lewis (1883-1939), see the note under American Rosae Crucis. The bibliography of Lewis's early publications, including his journals, has been set out by David T. Rocks, "H. Spencer Lewis: A Bibliographical Survey," Theosophical History 6/6 (April 1997): 219-227.

Issues:Cromaat A
Cromaat B
Cromaat C
Cromaat D
Cromaat E
Cromaat F
Cromaat G

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