Christoph Gottlieb von Murr on the True Origin of the Rosicrucians and the Order of Freemasons: Together with an Appendix on the History of the Knights Templar

on the history of the Rosicrucians (Leipzig, 1786, 8vo, four volumes). The learned man (whose student I had the luck to be in Altdorf in 1751) only failed in two respects: 1) he believed that secret orders existed as early as the times of Lullius and Paracelsus; 2) he went down such wrong paths as to believe in gold-making and to recommend the Hirschian air-salt water, *) which is merely Glauber’s salt a compound used in medicine and chemistry disguised with urine magma. **) Must one not smile when reading the good doctor’s biography, Vol. 1, pp. 324—327?

*) Of true hermetic medicine. To Mr. Leopold Baron Hirsch in Dresden. Against false Masons and Rosicrucians, and in defense of the air-salt water. Leipzig, 1786, 8vo. 3 volumes.

**) See Berlinische Monatsschrift Berlin Monthly Magazine, January 1787, p. 42 and following.