Harvey Spencer Lewis

Harvey Spencer Lewis F.R.C., S:::I:::I:::, 33° 66° 95°, PhD (November 25, 1883 – August 2, 1939), a noted Rosicrucian author, occultist, and mystic, was the founder in the USA and the first Imperator of the Ancient and Mystical Order Rosae Crucis (AMORC), from 1915 until 1939.

Lewis was born in Frenchtown, New Jersey, to Aaron Rittenhouse Lewis and a German-born teacher, Catherine Hoffman. He worked in advertising as an illustrator (the modern term commercial artist best describes his line of work), and he used this experience to promote AMORC, through print ads, booklets and magazine illustrations. Lewis first learned of the Rosicrucians through his interest in paranormal phenomena. His membership of a group investigating and exposing more than 50 fraudulent mediums led to the formation of the New York Institute for Psychical Research, of which he was elected president at the age of 20.

He later related that he was initiated into a Rosicrucian order during a trip to France. Given the mission to both bring Rosicrucian ideas back to America (an immigrant German group had a settlement in Pennsylvania during the 17th century, but it had long been dissolved), and to promote them in a modern way, Lewis established AMORC, becoming its first Imperator. He translated from French and German what became the Order's first canon of lessons in mysticism, and spent the rest of his life working ceaselessly on AMORC's behalf.

Lewis engineered and supervised the creation of Rosicrucian Park, in San Jose, California designing its unique buildings - the Egyptian-style temple, the fifth planetarium in the USA, a science laboratory, lecture auditorium, library, and administrative offices. Today his internationally recognised Rosicrucian Egyptian Museum in Naglee Avenue is a popular tourist attraction.

His second wife was Martha. They were married at least by 1917, according to his WW1 draft card, when they were living in Flushing, New York. In 1926 they sailed on the SS Majestic to Europe and made the first AMORC Grand Tour of Egypt., reported en route in The Mystic Triangle of December 1926.

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