Lewis, H(arvey) Spencer (1883-1939)

Founder of the Ancient and Mystic Order Rosae Crucis (AMORC), a modern revival Rosicrucian order headquartered at San Jose, California. Lewis was born in Frenchtown, New Jersey, November 25, 1883, of Welsh ancestry. He was educated in New York state and raised as a Methodist. He became a journalist and sat on a committee investigating Spiritualism in New York. He was closely associated with Elbert Hubbard and Ella Wheeler Wilcox. In 1903 he was president of the Publishers' Syndicate in New York and edited several scientific and research magazines.

In 1904 Lewis founded and served as president of the New York Institute for Psychical Research. The institute specialized in occult studies with emphasis on Rosicrucian teachings. A meeting with a British Rosicrucian resulted in Lewis traveling to Europe, and in 1909 he was initiated into the Rosicrucian order in France and given authority to organize in the United States. The AMORC was organized in several stages over the next years, and by 1917 held its first national convention in Pittsburgh, at which Lewis established his plan to develop correspondence courses.

In 1918 Lewis moved his headquarters to San Francisco, and in 1921 the order received an additional charter from the Ordo Templi Orientis (OTO ) in Germany. In 1925 the AMORC relocated to Florida, but soon afterward the organization moved to its present location in San Jose, California. Lewis applied his special talents in advertising to form a worldwide fraternal organization. AMORC taught philosophical and mystical practices in order to develop the latent faculties of man, and it sold literature by mail order. Lewis himself authored the basic set of correspondence lessons and a number of the books published by AMORC.

The large headquarters includes an Egyptological museum, a temple, an auditorium and modern computerized offices. Lewis, whose immediate family controlled the board of the organization, held the title imperator, or chief executive. After Lewis died August 2, 1939, his son Ralph Maxwell Lewis succeeded him as imperator.

Sources:

Lewis, H. Spencer. Mansions of the Soul. San Jose, Calif.: Rosicrucian Press, 1930.

——. Rosicrucian Principles for the Home and Business. San Jose, Calif.: Supreme Grand Lodge of AMORC, 1929.

——. Rosicrucian Questions and Answers with Complete History. San Jose, Calif.: Supreme Grand Lodge of AMORC, 1929.

——. Self Mastery and Fate with the Cycles of Life. San Jose, Calif.: Supreme Grand Lodge of AMORC, 1929.

The Rosicrucian Manual. San Jose, Calif.: Rosicrucian Press, 1952.