Was there actually a body called the Rosicrucians? It seems very unlikely. The life-story of their founder and leader, Christian Rosy Cross, was very obviously allegorical. It has even been suggested that the Fama could have been nothing more that a ludibrium, a standard academic jest that then got completely out of hand. And yet there were people all over Europe who were – individually and without the name – already Rosicrucians: the Hermetic Philosophers.
– A Brief History of Secret Societies: An Unbiased History of Our Desire for Secret Knowledge (1997), p. 93