"Brothers of the Golden and Rosy Cross," a revival of the seventeenth-century Rosicrucians organized in 1710 by a Saxon priest, Samuel Richter, known as Sincerus Renatus. The real origins of the Asiatic Brethren are, however, obscure and little literature on the subject is to be found in this country. Their further title of "the Knights and Brethren of St. John the Evangelist" suggests Johannite inspiration and was clearly an imposture, since they included Jews, Turks, Persians, and Armenians. De Luchet, who as a contemporary was in a position to acquire first-hand information, thus describes the organization of the Order, which, it will be seen, was entirely Judaic. "The superior direction is called the small and constant Sanhedrim of Europe. The names of those employed by which they conceal themselves from their inferiors are Hebrew. The signs of the third principal degree (i.e. the Rose-Croix) are Urim and Thummim.... The Order has the true secrets and the explanations, moral and physical, of the hierogyphics of the very venerable Order of Freemasonry." The initiate had to swear absolute submission and unswerving obedience to the laws of the Order and to follow its laws implicitly to the end of his life, without asking by whom they were given or whence they came.
"Who," asks de Luchet, "gave to the Order these so-called secrets? That is the great and insidious question for the secret societies. But the Initiate who remains, and must remain eternally in the Order, never finds this out, he dare not even ask it, he must promise