2012 Reprint of 1930 Edition. Exact facsimile of the original edition, not reproduced with Optical Recognition Software. 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. 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. 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. 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. This is the authors and the orders view on the subject of the soul and reincarnation