Rosicrucianism is a spiritual and cultural movement that arose in Europe in the early 17th century after the publication of several texts announcing to the world a thitherto unknown esoteric order. Rosicrucianism is symbolized by the Rosy Cross or Rose Cross.

Between 1610 and 1615, two anonymous manifestos appeared in Germany and soon after were published throughout Europe. The Fama Fraternitatis Rosae Crucis (The Fame of the Brotherhood of the Rosy Cross) was published at Cassel in 1614, though it had been circulated in manuscript among German occultists since about 1610. Johannes Valentinus Andreae has been considered the possible author of the work. A literal reading narrates the travels and education of "Father Brother C.R.C." and his founding of a secret brotherhood of similarly prepared men. Names, numbers, and other details have Cabalistic allusions in which the cognoscenti of that era were well versed. The Confessio Fraternitatis (The Confession of the Brotherhood of RC), published in Frankfurt in 1615, responded to confusions and criticisms and elaborated the matter further.

Many were attracted to the promise of a "universal reformation of mankind" through a science "built on esoteric truths of the ancient past", which, "concealed from the average man, provide insight into nature, the physical universe, and the spiritual realm", which they say had been kept secret for decades until the intellectual climate might receive it. The manifestos elaborate these matters extensively but cryptically in terms of Qabalah, Hermeticism, alchemy, and Christian mysticism, subjects whose methods, symbolism, and allusions were ardently studied by many intellectuals of the period.

In 1617 a third anonymous volume was published, the Chymical Wedding of Christian Rosenkreutz. In his posthumously published autobiography, Johann Valentine Andreae acknowledged its origin in a romantic fantasy that he wrote before he was 16 years old (1602), among other likewise forgotten juvenilia, and which he elaborated in response to the Fame and Confession, and said of it that "the Chymical Wedding, with its fertile brood of monsters, a ludibrium which surprisingly some esteem and explicate with subtle investigations, is plainly futile and betrays the vanity of the curious" (Nuptiae Chymicae, cum monstrorum foecundo foetu, ludibriu, quod mireris a nonullis aestimatum et subtili indagine explicatum, plane futile et quod inanitatem curiosorum prodat). He also called Rosicrucianism a "ludibrium" (a lampoon or parody) during his lifetime, in writings advocating social and religious reform through a sectarian Christian organization of his design. Some scholars of esotericism suggest that Andreae said this to shield his clerical career from the wrath of the religious and political institutions of the day. "[I]t is clear from his "Turris Babel," "Mythologia Christiana," and other works, that he considered the Rosicrucian manifestoes a repreehensible hoax." This augmented controversies whether they were a hoax, whether the "Order of the Rosy Cross" existed as described in the manifestos, or whether the whole thing was a metaphor disguising a movement that really existed, but in a different form.

The promise of a spiritual transformation at a time of great turmoil, the manifestos influenced many figures to seek esoteric knowledge. Seventeenth-century occult philosophers such as Michael Maier, Robert Fludd, and Thomas Vaughan interested themselves in the Rosicrucian worldview. In his work "Silentium Post Clamores" (1617), Meier described Rosicrucianism as having arisen from a "Primordial Tradition", saying "Our origins are Egyptian, Brahminic, derived from the mysteries of Eleusis and Samothrace, the Magi of Persia, the Pythagoreans, and the Arabs."

In later centuries, many esoteric societies have claimed to derive from the original Rosicrucians. The most influential of these societies has been the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn, which derived from Societas Rosicruciana in Anglia and counted many prominent figures among its members. The largest is the Rosicrucian Order, AMORC, a multinational organization based in San Jose, California. Paul Foster Case, founder of the Builders of the Adytum as a successor to the Golden Dawn, published The true and invisible Rosicrucian Order, elaborating the Qabalistic basis and interpretation of the Fame and Confession.