SECRET SOCIETIES

Various groups have been designated as 'SECRET SOCIETIES' and their private, unusual, and sometimes illegal activities have received attention in various ways, but in the popular, ordinary mind, such continue to exert an alluring, fascinating attraction and media attentions...... Nearly all groups have been seen as 'clandestine',elitist,exclusive, subversie in some way, or merely fraternal and social, and also ineffective and harmless,until something else enters into them...certain elements unforeseen by the participants..... Lofty motives and high goals are usually cited as reasons for the existence of such and the programs set up do often meet the expectations of the participants or members....but many are too exclusive and so become objects of general suspicion(s)..... Eventually,some groups are viewed as ineffective and useless or inept and out-of-date and so they fall off the social and cultural horizons or scales and end up extinct...though a few die-hard members may survive but usually such organizations fade out because some members arrrive at the conclusion they can do better by forming a different and superior group, usually due to some disargeements and squabbles, and so they splinter, re-group, reform,etc. Attempting to trace all such lines of activity and development can be most tedious and time-consuming and appeal only to those who are have an intense curiosity and burning desire to penetrate into the more secretive and dangerous areas of some of these societies....... You can supply your own list of various 'secret societies' and probably should, but the ones I plan to discuss here are those that I have looked at over the years, mostly by reading about them and not indulging in their agenda(s) or membership(s) or following their leadership and direction(s)...... One will always be at the risk, of course,of arousing the ire and displeasure of those groups still active with a vast membership and so caution is always advised in such discussions or revelations of andy and all their 'secrets',rituals, rites, activities, etc. So far, I have actually said little or nothing of any group or society that people do not already know on some scale or level and so only those with a similar interest in such things will be attentive to this blog......