The Chymical Wedding of Christian Rosenkreutz

The Chymical Wedding of Christian Rosenkreutz: A Commentary on a Christian Path of Initiation

The Chymical Wedding of Christian Rosenkreutz is one of the most important writings of esoteric Christianity, first published anonymously in German in 1616. It is an allegorical story divided into seven journeys about how Christian Rosenkreutz was invited to a castle to assist the “’chymical wedding” of the king and queen. “Chymical” is an old form of the word chemical,referring to alchemy, whose aim is the uniting of opposites—hence, the sacred wedding.

It is a book concerned with the inner transformation of the soul. Bastiaan Baan’s interpretation and commentary makes this work accessible to readers of today, and shows the special language Andreae used to express the meditative content of his text. He delves deep to uncover the original significance, combining images and concepts from alchemy with insights from Rudolf Steiner’s teachings. He concludes that the content is as valuable today as it was hundreds of years ago.

The book contains the complete text of Johann Valentin Andreae’s “Chymical Wedding.”

About the Author

Johannes Valentinus Andreae (1586 – 1654), was a German theologian, who claimed to be the author of an ancient text known as the Chymische Hochzeit Christiani Rosencreutz anno 1459 (Strasbourg, 1616, Chymical Wedding of Christian Rosenkreutz). This became one of the three founding works of Rosicrucianism, which was both a legend and a fashionable cultural phenomenon across Europe in this period. During the 1960s, a set of documents of dubious authenticity, the Dossiers Secrets, was discovered in the Bibliothèque Nationale de France. One of the documents included a list of alleged Grand Masters of the Priory of Sion, with Andreae listed as the seventeenth.

Bastiaan Baan worked as a teacher in the Netherlands before being ordained in 1981. He was a Christian Community priest in the Netherlands and before becoming director of the priests’ seminary in Spring Valley, NY. He lectures widely, and has written many books. Lord of the Elements is his first book to be published in English.

Philip Mees was born in Holland and has lived in the United States since 1969. He is a retired bank officer and was for many years a trustee of the Rudolf Steiner Foundation (RSF Social Finance, San Francisco CA). He is a long-time student of Rudolf Steiner’s work and one of his particular interests is the evolution of human consciousness through the ages as expressed in art, as well as in human actions in everyday life today. His principal retirement occupation is translating Dutch anthroposophical books, in which his ably assisted by his wife Linda Connell. Linda and he live in Glendale CA.