French metaphysician and mystic. Raymond Bernard was one of the modern leaders of the Ancient and Mystical Order Rosae Crucis (AMORC), or the Rosicrucian Order. Bernard was the author of a series of four books based on Rosicrucian philosophy: Strange Encounters, The Secret Houses of the Rose and Croix, A Secret Meeting in Rome, and The Invisible Empire. The first two volumes and the fourth were translated into English in 1981. Bernard had been a member of AMORC’s inner circle in France but resigned and created a new organization called the Cercle International de Recherche Culturelles et Spirituelles (CIRCES). While AMORC was aimed at increasing the spiritual knowledge and abilities of individuals, CIRCES was intended to provide a means for spiritual researchers to work as a group. The original group of CIRCES researchers were members of AMORC a number of them were members who had risen in the AMORC hierarchy. Circes later broke with AMORC over questions of precedence. The two organizations now work separately on their different goals.