Secret society

"Secret Society Buildings at Yale College", by Alice Donlevy[1] ca. 1880. Pictured are: Psi Upsilon (Beta Chapter), 120 High Street. Left center: Skull & Bones (Russell Trust Association), 64 High Street. Right center: Delta Kappa Epsilon (Phi Chapter), east side of York Street, south of Elm Street. Bottom: Scroll and Key (Kingsley Trust Association), 490 College Street.

A secret society is a club or an organization whose activities, events, and inner functioning are concealed from non-members. The society may or may not attempt to conceal its existence. The term usually excludes covert groups, such as intelligence agencies or guerrilla insurgencies, that hide their activities and memberships but maintain a public presence. The exact qualifications for labeling a group a secret society are disputed, but definitions generally rely on the degree to which the organization insists on secrecy, and might involve the retention and transmission of secret knowledge, the denial of membership or knowledge of the group, the creation of personal bonds between members of the organization, and the use of secret rites or rituals which solidify members of the group.

Characteristics

Anthropologically and historically, secret societies are deeply interlinked with the concept of the Männerbund, the all-male "warrior-band" or "warrior-society" of pre-modern cultures (see H. Schurtz, Alterklassen und Männerbünde, Berlin, 1902; A. Van Gennep, The Rites of Passage, Chicago, 1960).

A purported "family tree of secret societies" has been proposed, although it may not be comprehensive.[2]

The Thuggee were a secret cult of assassins who worshipped the Hindu goddess Kali.

Alan Axelrod, author of the International Encyclopedia of Secret Societies and Fraternal Orders, defines a secret society as an organization that:

David V. Barrett, author of Secret Societies: From the Ancient and Arcane to the Modern and Clandestine, uses slightly different terms to define what qualifies a secret society. He defines it as any group that possesses the following characteristics:

Barrett goes on to say that "a further characteristic common to most of them is the practice of rituals which non-members are not permitted to observe, or even to know the existence of." Barrett's definition would rule out many organizations called secret societies; graded teaching is usually not part of the American college fraternities, the Carbonari, or the 19th century Know Nothings.

Politics

Because some secret societies have political aims, they are illegal in several countries. Poland, for example, has included a ban on secret political parties and political organizations in its constitution.[3]

Colleges and universities

See also: Collegiate secret societies in North America

Many student societies established on university campuses in the United States have been considered secret societies. Perhaps one of the most famous secret collegiate societies is Skull and Bones at Yale University.[4] The influence of undergraduate secret societies at colleges such as Harvard College, Dartmouth College, the University of Chicago,[5] the University of Virginia, Georgetown University, New York University,[6] and Wellesley College has been publicly acknowledged, if anonymously and circumspectly, since the 19th century.[7][8]

British Universities, too, have a long history of secret societies or quasi-secret societies, such as The Pitt Club at Cambridge University,[9][10] Bullingdon Club at Oxford University,[10] and the 16' Club at St David's College.[11] One of the best known British secret societies is the Cambridge Apostles, founded as an essay and debating society in 1820.

In France, Vandermonde is the secret society of the Conservatoire National des Arts et Métiers.[12]

Notable examples in Canada include Episkopon at the University of Toronto's Trinity College, and the Society of Thoth at the University of British Columbia.

Secret societies are disallowed in a few colleges. The Virginia Military Institute has rules that no cadet may join a secret society,[13] and secret societies have been banned at Oberlin College from 1847[14] to the present,[15] and at Princeton University since the beginning of the 20th century.

Internet

While their existence had been speculated for years, internet-based secret societies first became known to the public in 2012 when the secret society known as Cicada 3301 began recruiting from the public via internet-based puzzles.[16][17] The goals of the society remain unknown, but it is believed that they are involved in cryptography and cryptocurrency.[18][19] In 2013 the private club Snctm appeared on the internet with a single page to purchase membership, without mention of location, contact information or telephone number. Labeled LA's and NYC's most exclusive sex party, Snctm is held monthly in clandestine locations on both coasts. Press has covered this story extensively, but almost nothing is revealed about its members or their activities. Snctm founder Damon Lawner has been interviewed by Esquire, The Insider and Playboy, while simultaneously remaining elusive. The only secret society abolished and then legalized is that of the philomaths[20]; it is now a legitimate academic association founded on a strict selection of its members.

References

  1. ↑ Alice Donlevy was the author of a book on illustration called "Practical Hints on the Art of Illumination," published by A. D. F. Randolph, New York, 1867
  2. ↑ Stevens (1899), p. vii.
  3. ↑ "The Constitution of the Republic of Poland". 1997-04-02. Article 13: Political parties and other organizations whose programs are based upon totalitarian methods and the modes of activity of nazism, fascism and communism, as well as those whose programs or activities sanction racial or national hatred, the application of violence for the purpose of obtaining power or to influence the State policy, or provide for the secrecy of their own structure or membership, shall be prohibited.
  4. ↑ "Skull And Bones". The Secret Society Manual. The Secret Society Manual. Retrieved 11 May 2012.
  5. ↑ "To The Members of the University of Chicago". The University of Chicago Magazine. 5 (9): 298. July 1913.
  6. ↑ Megan Findling (3 November 2011). "Edgar Allan Poe in Greenwich Village" (Article). Researching Greenwich Village History. greenwichvillagehistory.wordpress.com. Retrieved 11 May 2012.
  7. ↑ "Secret Societies. The Harvard Crimson".
  8. ↑ "Student Government at Wellesley and How It Makes for Loyalty Among the College Girls and Faculty". New York Times. 12 February 1912.
  9. ↑ Bowers, Mary (17 November 2006). "Pitt Club under pressure from Council" (PDF). Varsity. p. 5. Retrieved 20 August 2009.
  10. 1 2 Gray, Kirsty (11 February 2011). "Oxford's Bully-ingdon Club faces more scandal". Varsity. Retrieved 25 June 2011.
  11. ↑ D T W Price, A History of Saint David's University College, Lampeter, University of Wales Press, Cardiff. Volume One, to 1898 (ISBN 0-7083-0606-3)
  12. ↑ Vandermonde : secret society of the Conservatoire National des Arts et Métiers.
  13. ↑ "Regulations for the Virginia Military Institute, Part II, Revised 5 December 2008, 12-16(b)". vmi.edu.
  14. ↑ Fletcher, Robert Samuel (1943). A History of Oberlin College from Its Foundation Through the Civil War. Oberlin College. "Revised codes were issued every few years, but not many important changes were made in them. Provisions with regard to the hours of 'athletic exercises and sport' were added in 1847. In the same revision there appeared for the first time the 'peculiar' Oberlin rule against secret societies. 'No student,' it runs, 'is permitted to join any secret society, or military company.'"
  15. ↑ Student Regulations, Policies, and Procedures, Oberlin College 2011-2012 (PDF). Oberlin College. 2011. p. 34. D. Secret Societies: "No secret society is allowed at Oberlin, and no other societies or self-perpetuating organizations are allowed among students, except by permission of the faculty. This is to be understood to include social and rooming-house clubs."
  16. ↑ Bell, Chris (25 November 2013). "The internet mystery that has the world baffled". Daily Telegraph. Retrieved 23 July 2014.
  17. ↑ Ernst, Douglas (26 November 2013). "Secret society seeks world’s brightest: Recruits navigate ‘darknet’ filled with terrorism, drugs.". The Washington Times. Retrieved 23 July 2014.
  18. ↑ Staff, NPR (5 January 2014). "The Internet's Cicada: A Mystery Without An Answer". All Things Considered, National Public Radio. Retrieved 13 May 2014.
  19. ↑ Scott, Sam (16 December 2013). "Cicada 3301: The most elaborate and mysterious puzzle of the internet age". Metro. Retrieved 16 December 2013.
  20. ↑ Arthur Morius Francis, Secret Societies Vol. 3: The Collegiate Secret Societies of America, 2015, (file pdf).

Further reading

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