Rosicrucianism

I grew up near their headquarters in San Jose and had several opportunities to poke around inside and even attend a few meetings. As with most religions, one must merely feign interest to open doors, procure canonical documents, etc.

AMORC's (Ancient Mystical Order Rosae Crucis) main claim to fame seems to be that everyone important throughout history was a member, yet none of them ever told anyone. It appears that the biggest secret of the Rosicrucians is membership itself!

The organization publishes volumes and pamphlets extolling the achievements of their secret members, which are somehow ascribed to a secret and universal code of knowledge which those folks were given by their membership. In other words, the achievements of Francis Bacon and Issac Newton, and so forth, are implied to result from their Rosicrucian knowledge -- even though no such knowledge is ever presented.

In this way, Rosicrucianism resembles both Scientology ("secret info" which turns out to be nonsense) and the Freemasons (an elite social club of people who were somehow imbued with their abilities by membership, rather than money or privilege).