On a warm April Friday, gaggles of children gather between stark white columns painted with bright blue markings reminiscent of petals, listening in as a tour guide distills the core tenets of ancient Egyptian philosophy. Stepping through the gilded doors reveals scores of children who generate a buzz as they explore a replica of a plundered tomb and gaze into the unblinking eyes of a mummified Apis bull.
Behind the group tours that crowd around the glass-encased curiosities, a video softly plays on loop in the back of the museum. With piano music playing in the background, it displays the text of 22 precepts, superimposed over stock footage of diverse people and stunning vistas. Some precepts are unassuming — practice tolerance, be generous towards those in need, regard humanity as a family. Others, however, catch the eye — create a sanctum in your home; before you eat, purify your food using vibrations from your hands; when taking an oath, think of the Rose Cross.
The Rosicrucian Egyptian Museum has long been a staple of San Jose living, boasting 100,000 visitors each year — 26,000 of whom are schoolchildren. They come to glimpse pieces of ancient history; with more than 4,000 artifacts, the museum houses the largest collection of ancient Egyptian artifacts in western North America. But few visitors know much, if anything, about the story behind its name or the century-old group known as the Ancient Mystical Order of Rosae Crucis, or AMORC, which created it.
The Rosicrucians are an offshoot of a Renaissance mystical tradition which traces its spiritual heritage to ancient Egyptian pharaohs and philosophers from Greece, India and what they call “the Arab world.” Their blend of research and mysticism infuses the museum and the grounds that surround it with a certain spiritual mystique that may go unnoticed by visitors.
“Everything that we manifest at Rosicrucian Park is with the mystical perspective in mind,” says Julie Scott, director of the museum and a Grand Master in the order.
The Rosicrucians believe that they have esoteric wisdom passed down for millennia and that members gain access to much of this wisdom through tiered lessons and initiation. AMORC traces its roots to ancient Egyptian mystery schools that learned hidden wisdom and engaged in mystical studies. In AMORC’s telling, this ancient wisdom found a throughline through Greek philosophers like Pythagoras to medieval philosophers and alchemists, until being chased into hiding for centuries.
In the early 1600s, though, a series of texts attributed to a German theologian introduced the Rosicrucian order, and the ideas of alchemy, mysticism and the connection to ancient wisdom influenced a panoply of thinkers and esoteric movements throughout Europe and, eventually, the world.
AMORC, the San Jose organization that runs the Rosicrucian Egyptian Museum, became arguably the most successful offshoot of Rosicrucianism.
The organization was founded in 1915 in New York by H. Spencer Lewis, and in 1927 he moved its headquarters to San Jose. He wrote extensively on esoteric issues and created a model of mail-order lessons for the tiered levels of study and initiation of the order, which helped spread its membership to tens of thousands across the globe.
While the ancient Egyptian origins of Rosicrucianism are considered mythical by scholars, according to Massimo Introvigne, managing director of the Center for the Studies on New Religions, the impact has been real. “(The myth) is not simply a ‘false’ story, it is more a symbolic one,” says Introvigne. “Driven by their passion for Egypt, some Rosicrucians made worthy contributions in money and other resources to the knowledge of ancient Egypt.”
Lewis and the Rosicrucians backed excavations in Egypt, and — inspired by an artifact he kept on his desk in the ’20s — he decided to create a museum that “shared the spiritual beliefs of the ancient Egyptians,” said Scott. He began building a collection that became the Egyptian Oriental Museum. His son grew the museum, until the current building — modeled after the temple of Amon at Karnak — was built, and the Rosicrucian Egyptian Museum opened in 1966.
In the 60 years since, the museum has become a field trip staple for San Jose schoolchildren and a frequent collaborator with researchers and other museums throughout the Bay Area.
While such an outward-facing endeavor might seem strange for a semi-secret society, it aligns with a theme of unusual openness for the order. AMORC members’ focus on improvement of their community went beyond the journey to self-improvement that some of their esoteric contemporaries had, according to Kevin McLaren, who wrote a thesis on esoteric movements and Egyptology.
AMORC’s teachings exhort its members to help those most in need and care for the environment. The organization has made its museum carbon neutral and has a public garden full of native and drought resistant plants, and its upcoming alchemy museum — slated to open on the 2026 spring equinox — is meant to meet the highest international standards for sustainable buildings.
Their mystical beliefs also influence how they view Egyptology. While mainstream academic thinking holds that the Pyramids of Giza were tombs, Rosicrucian tradition believes that the pyramids “were actually places of study and mystical initiation.” Their website’s entry on the matter leaves the door open for interpretation: mentioning the mainstream understanding of the pyramids, but ending the entry saying “more information is being discovered and understood about their mystical purpose.”
“It’s presenting a perspective that doesn’t have the limits of academia,” says Scott.
Several experts in Egyptology, museums and Rosicrucianism admitted this approach might lead to some discrepancies with mainstream views or curation decisions that are unorthodox. They also argue that those may not be that important.
“Will I admit that I take some of their claims with a grain of salt? Yes, I 100 percent do,” said McLaren. “Do I think they include a lot of academic information at the same time? I think for the most part, they do a pretty good job. It’s both.”
Renee Dreyfus has been a curator of ancient art at the Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco for nearly 50 years. While she doesn’t agree with all of the curation decisions that the Rosicrucian Museum makes, she has special praise for the museum’s outreach to children — especially since it was her own glimpse at the Egyptian collection at the Brooklyn Museum at age 3 that kicked off a lifelong passion.
“These kids are excited to be there. They’re open to listening and learning and looking – I mean, that’s wonderful,” said Dreyfus.
Back inside the museum, a girl — just a bit older than Dreyfus when she first encountered the relics of ancient Egypt — cranes to gaze at the sunken, leathery features of a mummy. She gasps, eyes wide with wonder as she says to her parents, “Look – it’s real.”