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A NOTE ON SOURCES Before the Second World War it would have been considerably easier than it is now to research a thesis on this subject. At that time there existed many archives in Germany, including those of various masonic lodges, containing documentary material on the Gold- und Rosenkreuz and related subjects. The Nazi era, however, with its anti-masonic policies, saw the closure of the lodges and the confiscation of their archives. Documents relating to Freemasonry were also seized from non-masonic archives such as the Geheimes Hausarchiv , Munich. Much of this material was deposited in a special museum of Freemasonry in Berlin, established by Section VII of the Reichssicherheitshauptamt . During the war many of these documents were destroyed or lost, while others ended up in eastern Europe, and a few were saved. One collection which survived was that amassed by the Gennan masonic historian Dr. Georg Klo~ (1787-1854), which was left to the Grand Lodge of the Netherlands. Although confiscated by the Nazis during the occupation, it was recovered after the war and is now back in its original home in the Hague. This rich collection of books and manuscripts was an invaluable source for the present study. Other collections of relevant manuscripts also survived the war. One of these is housed in the Hessisches Staatsarchiv, Marburg, and contains many documents relating to the Kassel Rosicrucian circle of which Georg Forster was a member. Another important masonic collection, including Gold- und Rosenkreuz material, ended up in the Merseburg branch of the Zentrales Staatsarchiv of the German Democratic Republic. Both of these collections were major sources for the East German scholar Gerhard Steiner in his book Freimaurer und Rosenkreuzer: Georg Forsters Weg durch die Geheimbilnde. Not having examined either of these archives, I have relied, for my account of the Kassel circle, on quotations from Steiner's book, which is a solidly documented work, notwithstanding its Marxist perspective. Another important surviving collection is the Nachla~ of Duke Friedrich August of Braunschweig, now housed in the Herzog August Bibliothek, Wolfenbiittel . This collection, which I have not been able to consult directly, was used by Johannes Schultze for his article "Die Rosenkreuzer und Friedrich Wilhelm II" in Forschungen zur brandenburgischen Geschichte (1964), from which I have quoted in Chapters 3 and 7. At the time of writing the Canadian historian, Dr. Christina Rathgeber, is working on this collection. A number of important collections of manuscript material in this field also survive in the eastern block countries, and here again I have had to rely on 186 A NOTE ON SOURCES secondary sources. One of the richest of these collections is the one formerly belonging to the Festetics family, which was kept at their castle of Degh in Hungary. This important collection of masonic, Rosicrucian, theosophical, alchemical and hermetic documents was used by Abafi for his Geschichte der Freimaurerei in Oesterreich-Ungam and for his article on the origins of the neo-Rosicrucians (see Chapter 3). Eva Huber has also used the Degh material for her article on the social structure of the Viennese lodges (see Chapter 4). An edition of collected material from this archive is currently being prepared by Prof. Eva Balazs of Budapest. As regards Czechoslovakia, Dr. Jiri Kroupa ofBmo has informed me that the library of the prominent Rosicrucian, Prince Karl of Salm-Reifferscheidt, is still kept in the former family castle of Rajec near Brno. I have quoted Dr. Kroupa's researches in discussing the Gold- und Rosenkreuz in Moravia in Chapter 4. Apart from these major collections, there are smaller groups of documents, such as the Gumer Nachla[3 in the Tiroler Landesarchiv, Innsbruck, of which I made direct use in Chapter 10. Individual Rosicrucian manuscripts have also survived here and there in archives and libraries (see manuscripts, in bibliography ). I have endeavoured to make the main burden of this thesis rest on the following : (1) printed primary sources, such as those used in discussing the philosophy of the Gold- und Rosenkreuz; (2) direct study of manuscripts; (3) secondary works drawing on well-substantiated archival sources as well as printed material. As the third category is a large and important one, it would be useful to say something more about some of the works in this group. I have already mentioned some of the scholars whose work I have used (e.g. Abafi, Steiner, Kroupa) and the archives upon which they drew. Another work that has been frequently relied upon in this study is Bernhard...

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