Secret Societies

Collier's New Encyclopedia (1921)

organizations that in some form or other have existed in all ages of the world's history. In the ancient world many of the more influential religions had their mysteries, the ceremonies connected with which were generally performed in secret and only in the presence of those who had been duly initiated. These inner and more secret groups of priests and initiated worshipers existed in association with the worship of Mithras in Persia, of Orpheus and Dionysus in Greece, at Eleusis and elsewhere, or Osiris and Serapis in Egypt, and of the Great Mother (Cybele) in Phrygia. The followers of Pythagoras Pythagora formed what was in many respects a secret religious society, though philosophy and political doctrine took a foremost place in their teachings. Among the Jews there proceeded from out of the Pharisees the puritanical Essenes (Chasidim), forerunners of the Jewish Cabalists, who professed a secret system of theology and philosophy associated with mystic practices, and of Christian Gnostics, and formed exclusive sects based on initiation and esoteric teaching. The lineal successors of these last were the various mediæval sects of Cathari, most of whom invested their teaching and their worship with many features of mystery. In the Roman Catholic Church the office of the Inquisition deserves to be called a secret soci society, and so does the order of the Jesuits; thou though in both cases the secrecy was due to political rather than to strictly religious causes. The Knights Templar toward the close of their history as a distinct order seem in several cases to have lapsed into the practice of secret rites and belief in certain secret doctrines. The Freemasons and the Odd Fellows are perhaps the best known of the secret societies in the United States that have cultivated social aims. The Rosicrucians had their origin in the 17th century, and directed their attention to the discovery of such things as the philosopher's stone and the elixir of life, to the exorcism of spirits, and such like pursuits. Speculative Freemasonry does not go further back than the 18th century; its objects are philanthropic and moral. There are associations similar in character to it in Tahiti and others of the Pacific islands, and among the Foulah and the Negroes of Sierra Leone and the adjacent parts of Africa. The celebrated "Vehmgerichte" or secret courts of Westphalia arose in a time of great public confusion, and made it their business to maintain that order and respect for the law which it should have been the concern of the emperor and his associates to have secured and preserved. There existed in Sicily from the 12th to the 18th century an organization (the Beati Paoli) very similar to the "Vehmgerichte." On the other hand, there have been numerous associations of a secret kind formed for criminal purposes, and for mutual assistance against and in defiance of the laws of the land; the Assassins in Persia and Syria, the Thugs in India, the Camorra, the Mafia, and the Decisi (1815) in Italy, the Chauffeurs in France (who arose during the religious wars and were not suppressed till the Revolution), and the Garduna in Spain (formed after the wars against the Moors; suppressed in 1822) may be instanced. The Illuminati, the authors of a movement that grew up in Germany in the end of the 18th century, united political and religious ends, and may be said, summarily, to have aimed at realizing the ideals of the French Revolution. The following century was wonderfully prolific in political secret societies. Italy was literally honeycombed with them during the years she was struggling for her independence; the best known was that of the Carbonari. At the same time there were similar societies in other countries of Europe, as the Burschenschaft and Landsmannschaft societies in Germany, the Associated Patriots in France, the Communeros in Spain, the Hetairia in Greece, the Society of United Slavonians and the Decabrists in Russia, the Polish Templars, and the associations known as Young Germany, Young Italy, Young Poland, Young Switzerland. Nearly all the political revolutions that took place in France during the course of the 19th century were greatly fomented by secret societies, especially the revolution of 1848. The most momentous movements of a socio-political tendency that have sprung up on the Continent, and spread to some extent to England, are those of the Nihilists, the Anarchists, and various sects of extreme Socialists. The murder of the Archduke Ferdinand which precipitated the World War was claimed by the Austrian Government to have been plotted by a Serbian secret society. There are perhaps no people in the world who favor secret societies more than the Chinese and the inhabitants of the United States. The most powerful organization of this nature in China is the Tien-ti Hwuy (Union of Heaven and Earth), which presents many features analogous to Freemasonry. Its principal object was the overthrow of the Manchu dynasty and the restoration of the last Chinese dynasty of the Myng. But about the real purposes of this, as of most other secret societies that exist among the Chinese, our information is exceedingly scanty. The Society of the Elder Brethren, which is, generally speaking, a combination of the most lawless elements of the population in the central provinces (Honan to Hunan), proclaims a fanatical hatred to all foreigners, including the Manchus. Secret societies of all kinds, and for nearly all conceivable purposes, are found in the United States.