| Summary: |
- Summary by:
- Pat Deveney
- Title:
- Initiates and the People / The Initiates.
- Subtitle:
- A Magazine Issued by Authority of The Rosicrucian Fraternity and Devoted to Mysticism, Occultism and the Well-Being of Man.
- Motto:
- Other Titles:
- Published:
- 1912-1941
- Frequency:
- Bimonthly
- Location:
- Quakertown, PA.
- Language:
- English.
- Editor(s):
- Reuben Swinburne Clymer.
- Publisher(s):
- Philosophical Publishing Co.
- Corporate Author:
- Succession:
- Succeeds: The Initiates (1912)
- Description:
1/1, October 1912-1/12, September 1913; May-June 1928-May-June 1941. 32-40 pp. (varies). The numbering of journal as it was revived in 1928 begins again with volume 1. There was a hiatus between volume 5, no. 4, August 1932, and the final issue, published in 1941 and called Part II, which reprinted two of Clymer's pamphlet attacks on H. Spencer Lewis and the A.M.OR.C. No advertisements except for pages devoted to "Balancets" ("concentrated elements of all known non-poisonous curative fruits, vegetables and herb-vegetables" in capsule form), sold by Food Balance Corp. of Chicago, an enterprise in which Clymer must have had an interest. This journal reflects Clymer's mature, hierarchically organized system of churches, orders, and schools, and contains both his attempts to create a consistent history of the groups that cumulated in his Rosicrucians, and his attacks on competitors such as A.M.O.R.C. Basically, Clymer combed the works of P.B. Randolph and F.B. Dowd, took every name mentioned (E.A. Hitchcock, Abraham Lincoln, the Count d'Ourche, Hargrave Jennings, et al.), assigned them to one or another of the Secret Councils that supposedly oversaw the occult world, and provided some attempt (hardly successful) at rationalizing their relationships. The contrast between The Initiates of 1908-1910 and this revived journal is striking: Clymer's overt ceremonial magic and sexual preoccupations are less evident, and the myriad minor occult groups such as the Sons of Osiris, have largely vanished. The entire run of the journal (1928-1941) was later reprinted in five volumes and sold by the Philosophical Publishing Company.
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