n.
An organization, such as a lodge, that requires its members to conceal certain activities, such as its rites of initiation, from outsiders.
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Britannica Concise Encyclopedia:
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Oxford Companion to Irish Literature:
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secret societies became a common feature of Irish rural life in the second half of the 18th cent. Commencing with the Whiteboy movement in Tipperary and adjoining counties in 1761-5, there were major outbreaks of rural protest in every decade up to the 1840s. Such protest was generally the work of small local groups, linked by no more than the adoption of a common name—Whiteboys, Oakboys, Steelboys, Threshers, Carders, Cravats, Rockites, Terry Alts—or at most by the transmission from place to place of an oath of association. Rival Protestant and Catholic secret societies, the Peep o'Day Boys and the Defenders, emerged in south Ulster in the 1780s. After 1795 the Peep o'Day Boys were replaced, and to some extent absorbed, by the Orange Order. Ribbonism, emerging around 1812, was a direct successor to Defenderism. Appealing mainly to wage-earners and petty traders, it kept alive something of the nationalist and Republican sentiments of the 1790s. The great age of the secret societies ended with the Famine. Traditional techniques of protest did not disappear: Parnell, in 1881, could still warn that if he were arrested ‘Captain Moonlight’ would take his place.
Gale Encyclopedia of US History:
Secret Societies |
Secret Societies are voluntary associations possessing arcane knowledge known only to their exclusive initiates. Alexis de Tocqueville got it wrong when he proclaimed that American society brooked no cabals or conspiracies. Benjamin Franklin's Autobiography (unfinished) first presented the concept of a network of secret cells used to influence public opinion.
Secret societies claim glamorous genealogies to enhance their sense of deep purpose. The Improved Order of Red Men (1834, Baltimore) traces itself to the Boston Tea Party. Rosicrucians, the Ancient Mystical Order Rosae Crucis, or AMORC (1915, New York City) claim a pedigree going back to Benjamin Franklin. The Cheyenne tribes of the Great Plains take their societies back to the mystical teachings of an orphaned boy named Sweet Medicine about 1000 B.C. Freemasons claim they go back to Solomon's temple.
Indigenous American tribes maintained secret societies. The men formed societies for warriors, religious societies, and hunting clubs. Women formed agrarian societies, often centered on the buffalo and corn, and crafts guilds. Both sexes joined mystery cults utilizing dreams and hallucinations. Initiates freely traveled from band to band and even between tribes for society meetings.
The importance of British freemasonry to American secret societies cannot be overemphasized. In 1730 Daniel Coxe became the first provincial grand master for New York, New Jersey, and Pennsylvania. Masonry grew to a national membership of two million men by 2000.
The golden age of fraternal and secret societies lasted until the 1960s. Several hundred societies existed during this period. The Independent Order of Odd Fellows, founded in Baltimore by Thomas Wildey in 1819, and the Knights of Pythias, founded in Washington, D.C., by Justus H. Rathbone in 1864, rivaled the Masons. Other "friendly" societies allowed only one nationality. They included the German Sons of Hermann (1852, New York City, by Dr. Philip Merkel), the Irish Ancient Order of Hibernians (1836, New York City), and the Hebrew B'nai B'rith (1843, New York City, by Henry Jones). In 1900 over 40 percent of all white males in America belonged to one or more of the freemasonry-based societies.
Those generally denied membership in these societies found others to join or created their own. Women joined the "Order of the Eastern Star" (1853, by Dr. Robert Morris) and the Order of Rebekah for female Odd Fellows (1851, Washington, D.C., by Schuyler Colfax). Prince Hall and fourteen other blacks in Boston received a freemason lodge charter from the Grand Lodge of England in 1784. E. A. Lightfoot, T. W. Stringer, and others founded the Knights of Phythias of North and South America, Europe, Asia, and Africa for blacks (1869, Philadelphia). The Reverend Michael J. McGivney and others incorporated the Roman Catholic Knights of Columbus (1882, New Haven, Connecticut). American-born Chinese began forming Tong (assembly hall) societies for mutual protection in San Francisco in 1874.
Popular twentieth-century fraternal orders stressed tangible benefits for members and civic benevolence rather than secrecy. Such societies as the Fraternal Order of Eagles (1898, Seattle, by John Cort), the Benevolent and Protective Order of the Elks (1868, New York, by Charles Vivian), and the Loyal Order of the Moose (1888) became immensely popular because they stressed family social events and public benevolence. In 2000 more than nine million people belonged to one or more American secret or fraternal societies worldwide.
Bibliography
Mails, Thomas E. Dog Soldiers, Bear Men, and Buffalo Women: A Study of the Societies and Cults of the Plains Indians. Englewood Cliffs, N.J.: Prentice-Hall, 1973.
Stevens, Albert C. The Cyclopedia of Fraternities. 2d ed. Detroit, Mich.: Gale Research, 1966.
Whalen, William J. Handbook of Secret Organizations. Milwaukee, Wisc.: Bruce Publishing, 1966.
Columbia Encyclopedia:
secret society |
Bibliography
See J. H. Lepper, Famous Secret Societies (1932); A. Daraul, A History of Secret Societies (1962); J. M. Roberts, The Mythology of the Secret Societies (1972).
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Wikipedia on Answers.com:
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A secret society is a club or organization whose activities 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, which hide their activities and memberships but maintain a public presence. The exact qualifications for labeling a group as 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, denial of membership in 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.
Anthropologically and historically, secret societies are deeply interlinked with the concept of the Mannerbund, the all-male "warrior-band" or "warrior-society" of pre-modern cultures (see H. Schurtz, Alterklassen und Mannerbunde, Berlin, 1902; A. Van Gennep, The Rites of Passage, Chicago, 1960).
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Several definitions for the term have been put forward. The term "secret society" is used to describe fraternal organizations that may have secret ceremonies and means of identification and communication, ranging from collegiate fraternities to organizations described in conspiracy theories as immensely powerful, with self-serving financial or political agendas.[citation needed]
A purported "family tree of secret societies" has been proposed, although it may not be comprehensive.[2]
Application of the term is often hotly disputed, as it can be seen as pejorative.[citation needed]
Therefore, the criteria that can be adopted as a definition for the term are important for which organizations any one definition would include or exclude.[citation needed]
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 does and does not qualify as 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 are not part of the American college fraternities, the Carbonari, or the Know Nothings.[citation needed]
Many organizations require members to take an oath at membership, not just secret societies. Such oaths often include promises to keep certain things about the organization secret.
Since some secret societies have political aims, they are illegal in several countries. Poland, for example, has included a ban of secret political parties and political organizations in its constitution.[3]
President John F Kennedy, in the Address to the ANPA 1961, included the subject of Secret Societies and their implications in the Address, where he said the following:
The very word "secrecy" is repugnant in a free and open society; and we are as a people inherently and historically opposed to secret societies, to secret oaths and to secret proceedings. We decided long ago that the dangers of excessive and unwarranted concealment of pertinent facts far outweighed the dangers which are cited to justify it. Even today, there is little value in opposing the threat of a closed society by imitating its arbitrary restrictions. Even today, there is little value in ensuring the survival of our nation if our traditions do not survive with it. And there is very grave danger that an announced need for increased security will be seized upon by those anxious to expand its meaning to the very limits of official censorship and concealment. That I do not intend to permit to the extent that it is in my control. And no official of my Administration, whether his rank is high or low, civilian or military, should interpret my words here tonight as an excuse to censor the news, to stifle dissent, to cover up our mistakes or to withhold from the press and the public the facts they deserve to know.[4]
Many student societies established on university campuses in the United States have been considered secret societies. Perhaps one of the most famous secret college societies is the Skull and Bones at Yale. The University of Georgia has a similar, highly secretive society called Gridiron Secret Society. Its purpose and membership are a closely guarded secret and there is speculation that Skull and Bones and Gridiron Secret Society are somehow linked together. University of Virginia also has a long history of secret societies playing an active role in University life. The influence of undergraduate secret societies at colleges such as Rutgers University[not in citation given], Washington & Lee University, Harvard College, New York University[5] [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] the 16' Club at St David's College[11] and the Speculative Society at the University of Edinburgh.[citation needed]
In Canada, there are currently two secret societies at institutions of higher learning currently known. At the University of Trinity College, a college of the University of Toronto, there is the controversial Episkopon which was founded in 1858. Mcgill University in Montreal is home to the notorious Renard Noir Society, a secret society known for its libertine endeavours, heavy consumption of absinthe, and vandalism.
Secret societies are disallowed in a few colleges. Virginia Military Institute has rules that no cadet may join a secret society,[12] and secret societies have been banned at Princeton University since the beginning of the 20th century.
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