It is recognized as the "playground for Odd Fellowship", (comparable to The "Shriners" within Freemasonry) [1] and is known for engaging in public and private hijinks and spectacle, all in the name of good, clean fun.

[6] Like many other primarily social appendant bodies to fraternal organizations, the rituals and initiations of AMOS have a Middle-Eastern theme and the official regalia is a fez.

Over the next decade, the OOH&P gradually merged with several other similar Odd Fellows appendant bodies formed in the late 19th and early 20th centuries: the Imperial Order of Muscovites, the Pilgrim Knights of Oriental Splendor, the Veiled Prophets of Bagdad, and the Ancient Mystic Order of Cabirians.

The name of the combined body was first chosen to be the United Order of Splendor and Perfection and later changed to the present name of Ancient Mystic Order of Samaritans as efforts to bring more units from Odd Fellows appendant bodies into one entity continued.

[2] In this degree, reference is made to the story of Xerxes, a haughty Persian king who was taught the lesson of Humility by one of his subjects.

AMOS puts on a wide variety of social and fraternal events in public and in private including conventional ones such as banquets and parties as well as more unusual ones, such as staging a mock trial for a member[13] or performing as a kazoo band.

[15] Like the Odd Fellows lodges from whom AMOS draws its membership, sanctorums and members are involved with charitable works such as visiting and providing financial assistance to the sick or aged.

AMOS possesses a more complex series of fez and tassel colors than most fez-wearing fraternal organizations with the following different fez and tassel color combinations used:[10][12] The first predecessor from which modern day AMOS derives is the Oriental Order of Humility (OOH) which was purportedly founded by Dr. E. A. Baxter[18] in 1876 in NY and 1879 in Canada.

[22] The ritual was far less developed than that used in later incarnations, apparently consisting of merely "a solitary charge, written on a sheet of foolscap paper, crude in form, yet with a 'striking' idea, which gave it the 'zip' that made it instantly popular with all those who were 'elevated' to its charmed circle.

[28] As with most other similar groups, however, the Muscovites did adopt a fez as their official regalia, albeit a non-standard one with a band of fur along the brim they referred to as a busby.

[29] The IOM additionally spawned an affiliated appendant body for women who were Rebekahs known as the Lady Muscovites in June 1925.

The Pilgrim Knights of Oriental Splendor (PKOS) began in Atlanta, GA with the formation of Pharaoh Palace No.

[34] The regalia for Pilgrim Knights was a purple fez with a yellow tassel, having a metallic sphinx head on a star, covering a downward pointing crescent.

[36] The bodies of the Order were named after the cities they met in, which included San Francisco, Sacramento, and Marysville in addition to Oakland.

[42] The plans to merge the Odd Fellows fez-wearing appendant bodies were completed on August 11, 1924, with the establishment of the United Order of Splendor and Perfection.

[44] The symbol created for the newly merged group was a blazing volcano with a red "X" on the face of a blue field.