It cannot be seriously doubted that that there was some form of causative link, direct or indirect, between the Rosicrucians and the early speculative Freemasons.
Freemasonry appeared shortly after the Rosicrucians, who grow out of the Hermetic Philosophers of the Renaissance. Could it be that Freemasonry began as a socially acceptable ‘outer court’ for the ‘inner court’ of the Rosicrucians, safe from accusations of heresy?
– A Brief History of Secret Societies: An Unbiased History of Our Desire for Secret Knowledge (1997), pp. 125-6