ASIA, INITIATED KNIGHTS AND BROTHERS OF

This Order was introduced in Berlin, or, as some say, in Vienna, in the year 1780, by a schism of several members of the German Rose Croix. They adopted a mixture of Christian, Jewish, and Mohammedan ceremonies, to indicate, as Ragon supposes, their entire religious tolerance. Their object was the study of the natural sciences and the search for the universal panacea to prolong life. Thory charges them with this ; but may it not have been, as with the Alchemists, merely a symbol of immortality?

They forbade all inquiries into the art of transmutation of metals. The Grand Synédrion, properly the Grand Sanhedrim, which consisted of seventy-two members and was the head of the Order, had its seat at Vienna.

The Order was founded on the three symbolic degrees, and attached to them nine others, as follows : 4 Seekers; 5. Sufferers; 6. Initiated Knights and Brothers of Asia in Europe; 7. Masters and Sages; 8. Royal Priests, or True Brothers of Rose Croix; 9. Melchizedek.

The Order no longer exists. Many details of it will be found in Luchet's Essai sur les Illumines.