The defining characteristic of secret societies is the fact that they keep secrets. This is obvious enough. Less obvious, to those who have not participated in secret societies and paid attention to their symbolism and structure, is the deep role secrecy plays in every aspect of a secret society. The secrets of most secret societies are remarkably trivial – a few signs of recognition and the texts of initiation rituals are usually all a member promises to keep secret – and yet those secret societies that have abandoned secrecy have rarely survived for long. Secrecy, in fact, is the glue that holds secret societies together.
Yet their secrecy has played an equally central part in creating the climate of suspicion that surrounds secret societies today. M. William Cooper’s 1991 conspiracy theory classic Behold A Pale Horse sums up the common attitude succinctly:
You must understand that secrecy is wrong. The very fact that a meeting is secret tells me that something is going on that I would not approve. Do not ever believe that grown men meet on a regular basis just to put on fancy robes, burn candles, and glad-hand each other…THE VERY FACT THAT SOMETHING IS SECRET MEANS THERE IS SOMETHING TO HIDE. (Cooper 1991, p. 95; emphasis in original)
Some secret societies, some of the time, have unquestionably used secrecy as a cover for reprehensible conduct. Still, it is nonsense to claim that all secrets are wrong by definition. The same people who object to the secrecy of secret societies, for example, would likely object to having the details of their finances or their sex lives printed on the front page of the daily newspaper. Equally, there are reasons for secrecy that make obvious sense even to the critics of secret societies. Political secret societies struggling to overthrow dictatorships, for example, keep their plans secret to keep the police at bay; religious secret societies condemned by intolerant religious authorities keep their meetings and beliefs secret to shield members from persecution; the fraternal secret societies common in nineteenth-century Britain and America, which provided benefits to traveling members, relied on secret signs of recognition to keep non-members from claiming benefits they had not earned.
Such concerns played a major role in creating the secret society movement of the modern western world. As secret societies spread and their members explored the psychological impact of secrecy, though, a deeper dimension came to the fore. The experience of having and keeping secrets has potent transformative effects on the self. One who has promised to keep a secret from his family and friends can no longer drift through life in the half-conscious manner usual to most of us; he must watch his words and actions, and in the process awakens to a new awareness of himself and his world. Combine this new awareness with the moral focus of traditional fraternal lodges such as Freemasonry or Odd Fellowship, and significant moral and personal changes can result; combine it with the powerful transformative techniques of occult secret societies such as the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn and the initiate gains potential access to hidden worlds in the self and the universe. This is the hidden purpose of secrecy in the traditional lodge system – a secret that, like most of the inner dimensions of that system, is hidden in plain sight. See fraternal orders; Freemasonry; Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn; Odd Fellowship.
SOURCE:
The Element Encyclopedia of Secret Societies : the ultimate a-z of ancient mysteries, lost civilizations and forgotten wisdom written by John Michael Greer – © John Michael Greer 2006