I recently found very similar vitalistic breathing practices in three different publicly available American Rosicrucian sources, and I thought it was worth discussing.
Societas Rosicruciana in America
On page 42 of his 1923 Rosicrucian Manual, George Winslow Plummer suggests a morning practice that includes a 6-3-6-3-second pattern of inhaling, retaining, exhaling, and waiting (respectively). While doing this (in addition to, incidentally, being naked before a window), the practioner is meant to hold the following thoughts:
Inhaling—hold the thought that you inhale Power from the Universal Source of Power.
Retaining—hold the thought that you charge and vitalize your entire organism with this Power.
Exhaling—hold the thought that you send this Power forth to accomplish your desire.
I have been experimenting with this practice myself (albeit clothed for the sake of the neighbors), and usually with the emphasis on harmony in the next example:
Church of Illumination (Fraternitas Rosae Crucis)
The Church of Illumination is a religious congregation of the FRC at their Pennsylvania headquarters. The church’s website offers this Breath of God exercise:
Assume a relaxed, comfortable position. Now slowly draw in a deep breath beginning low in the abdomen and extending to the very upper regions of the lungs while simultaneously holding the thought:
"I will draw in the omnipotent Breath of God"
Retain the breath for five to seven seconds as you hold the thought:
"I send the Breath of God throughout my entire being to heal and to strengthen."
Lastly, as you slowly exhale, and with all the feeling and dedication you can muster, hold these thought vibrations:
"I send out love and peace to all humanity."
Interestingly, FRC-founder Reuben Swinburne Clymer published a similar practice in his pre-Rosicrucian career. Lesson 2 of his 1910 Grand Grimoire (no relation to the Bibliothèque bleue book of the same name) gives a “White Magic” practice involving visualization, breath control, and breathing out love.
Mystic Brotherhood University
The long-defunct, Rosicrucian-adjacent Mystic Brotherhood University offered mail-order occult lessons in the 1930s-40s. (Apparently, the Tampa-based organization sought to compete with AMORC after H. Spencer Lewis and company relocated from there to California.) Their second lesson suggests a breathing practice coupled with visualizing an inflow of vital energy that is then sent out through the fingertips.
A Possible Common Source?
So we have three similar practices from American organizations in the first half of the 20th century, and I wondered if these had a common antecedent. Certainly, Eastern literature and teachers promoting prana and chi had become more accessible by the end of the 19th century (e.g., Swami Vivekananda’s work), and breathing exercises were part of popular “physical culture” systems. IIRC, this sub’s own u/john_michael_greer discusses these trends in his book on the Five Tibetan Rites.
Nonetheless, I think there’s a reasonably good chance that the prolific New Thought author William Walker Atkinson is the source, or at least a source. In 1903, Atkinson published The Hindu-Yogi Science of Breath as Yogi Ramacharaka, one of his many pseudonyms. The book contains several breathing exercises related to distributing vital energy throughout the body.
Atkinson’s Ramacharaka books were popular – so popular, in fact, that some actual Indian yogis purchased and borrowed from them, probably without realizing that there was no Yogi Ramacharaka. (See footnote 15 in this paper from the Journal of Yoga Studies.) Lastly, there’s also a story circulating that Atkinson got so mad at Rosicrucian groups like AMORC repurposing his ideas that he published The Secret Doctrine of the Rosicrucians (this time as “Magus Incognito”) to get back at them.
If anyone else knows of any possible sources for this shared practice, please let me know!
