The best-known Rosicrucian Orders today are based in the USA; indeed, reading their literature, one could almost be forgiven for thinking that Rosicrucianism is an invention peculiar to the United States; it is so tied in (at least from their claims) with US history – which is so dear to Americans – and with the Great Ideals of the Constitution and Independence and Freedom and the American Dream. Half the great heroes of American history seem to have been either Rosicrucians or Freemasons, which might or might not have come to much the same thing at the time. Middle-class, educated, movers and shakers of society: for Americans more than anyone else, it seems, there is an urge to belong to societies. Furthermore, it has to be known that they belong, and that they are high in the hierarchy (social status); but not what they believe and do (secrecy).
– A Brief History of Secret Societies: An Unbiased History of Our Desire for Secret Knowledge (1997), pp. 194-5