it is now seriously doubted that any formal organisation identifiable as the "brothers of the rose cross" (rosicrucians) ever actually existed in any extant form. the theological and philosophical claims circulating under this name appear, to these outsiders, to have been more an intellectual fashion that swept europe at the time of the counter reformation. these thinkers suppose that in claiming to be part of a secret cult, scholars of alchemy, the occult, and hermetic mysticism, merely sought that additional prestige by being able to promote their views while claiming exclusive adherence to some revolutionary pan-european secret society. by this logic, some suppose the society itself to never have existed.