One of the main initiatory rituals of the HOGD [the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn]’s Second Order took place in a seven-sided vault based on that in which Christian Rosekreuz’s uncorrupted body is supposed to have been found; the resurrection symbolism is also closely linked to that of the ‘raising’ of a Master Mason, whose initiation also involves the representation of a grave. The initiatory rituals were not simply theatre, as many describe those of Freemasonry; ‘properly performed, [they] could act as a powerful stimulus to the active imagination and spiritual aspiration of the candidate’ [Gareth Knight, A History of White Magic, A.R. Mowbray 1978, p. 157].
– A Brief History of Secret Societies: An Unbiased History of Our Desire for Secret Knowledge (1997), p. 215