secret societies

• sociopolitical and religio-mystical types

70:7.1Blood kin­ship de­ter­mined the first so­cial groups; as­so­ci­a­tion en­larged the kin­ship clan. In­ter­mar­riage was the next step in group en­large­ment, and the re­sul­tant com­plex tribe was the first true po­lit­i­cal body. The next ad­vance in so­cial de­vel­op­ment was the evo­lu­tion of re­li­gious cults and the po­lit­i­cal clubs. These first ap­peared as se­cret so­ci­eties and orig­i­nally were wholly re­li­gious; sub­se­quently they be­came reg­u­la­tive. At first they were men’s clubs; later women’s groups ap­peared. Pres­ently they be­came di­vided into two classes: so­ciopo­lit­i­cal and re­li­gio-mys­ti­cal.

• power of mystery conferred on members

70:7.2There were many rea­sons for the se­crecy of these so­ci­eties, such as:

70:7.31. Fear of in­cur­ring the dis­plea­sure of the rulers be­cause of the vi­o­la­tion of some taboo.

70:7.42. In or­der to prac­tice mi­nor­ity re­li­gious rites.

70:7.53. For the pur­pose of pre­serv­ing valu­able “spirit” or trade se­crets.

70:7.64. For the en­joy­ment of some spe­cial charm or magic.

• puberty initiation tests

70:7.7The very se­crecy of these so­ci­eties con­ferred on all mem­bers the power of mys­tery over the rest of the tribe. Se­crecy also ap­peals to van­ity; the ini­ti­ates were the so­cial aris­toc­racy of their day. Af­ter ini­ti­a­tion the boys hunted with the men; whereas be­fore they had gath­ered veg­eta­bles with the women. And it was the su­preme hu­mil­i­a­tion, a tribal dis­grace, to fail to pass the pu­berty tests and thus be com­pelled to re­main out­side the men’s abode with the women and chil­dren, to be con­sid­ered ef­fem­i­nate. Be­sides, non­ini­ti­ates were not al­lowed to marry.

70:7.8Prim­i­tive peo­ple very early taught their ado­les­cent youths sex con­trol. It be­came the cus­tom to take boys away from par­ents from pu­berty to mar­riage, their ed­u­ca­tion and train­ing be­ing in­trusted to the men’s se­cret so­ci­eties. And one of the chief func­tions of these clubs was to keep con­trol of ado­les­cent young men, thus pre­vent­ing il­le­git­i­mate chil­dren.

70:7.9Com­mer­cial­ized pros­ti­tu­tion be­gan when these men’s clubs paid money for the use of women from other tribes. But the ear­lier groups were re­mark­ably free from sex lax­ity.

70:7.10The pu­berty ini­ti­a­tion cer­e­mony usu­ally ex­tended over a pe­riod of five years. Much self-tor­ture and painful cut­ting en­tered into these cer­e­monies. Cir­cum­ci­sion was first prac­ticed as a rite of ini­ti­a­tion into one of these se­cret fra­ter­ni­ties. The tribal marks were cut on the body as a part of the pu­berty ini­ti­a­tion; the tat­too orig­i­nated as such a badge of mem­ber­ship. Such tor­ture, to­gether with much pri­va­tion, was de­signed to harden these youths, to im­press them with the re­al­ity of life and its in­ev­i­ta­ble hard­ships. This pur­pose is bet­ter ac­com­plished by the later ap­pear­ing ath­letic games and phys­i­cal con­tests.

70:7.11But the se­cret so­ci­eties did aim at the im­prove­ment of ado­les­cent morals; one of the chief pur­poses of the pu­berty cer­e­monies was to im­press upon the boy that he must leave other men’s wives alone.

70:7.12Fol­low­ing these years of rig­or­ous dis­ci­pline and train­ing and just be­fore mar­riage, the young men were usu­ally re­leased for a short pe­riod of leisure and free­dom, af­ter which they re­turned to marry and to sub­mit to life­long sub­jec­tion to the tribal taboos. And this an­cient cus­tom has con­tin­ued down to mod­ern times as the fool­ish no­tion of “sow­ing wild oats.”

• for women

70:7.13Many later tribes sanc­tioned the for­ma­tion of women’s se­cret clubs, the pur­pose of which was to pre­pare ado­les­cent girls for wife­hood and moth­er­hood. Af­ter ini­ti­a­tion girls were el­i­gi­ble for mar­riage and were per­mit­ted to at­tend the “bride show,” the com­ing-out party of those days. Women’s or­ders pledged against mar­riage early came into ex­is­tence.

70:7.14Pres­ently non­se­cret clubs made their ap­pear­ance when groups of un­mar­ried men and groups of un­at­tached women formed their sep­a­rate or­ga­ni­za­tions. These as­so­ci­a­tions were re­ally the first schools. And while men’s and women’s clubs were of­ten given to per­se­cut­ing each other, some ad­vanced tribes, af­ter con­tact with the Dala­ma­tia teach­ers, ex­per­i­mented with co­ed­u­ca­tion, hav­ing board­ing schools for both sexes.

• built social castes

70:7.15Se­cret so­ci­eties con­tributed to the build­ing up of so­cial castes chiefly by the mys­te­ri­ous char­ac­ter of their ini­ti­a­tions. The mem­bers of these so­ci­eties first wore masks to frighten the cu­ri­ous away from their mourn­ing rites—an­ces­tor wor­ship. Later this rit­ual de­vel­oped into a pseudo seance at which ghosts were re­puted to have ap­peared. The an­cient so­ci­eties of the “new birth” used signs and em­ployed a spe­cial se­cret lan­guage; they also for­swore cer­tain foods and drinks. They acted as night po­lice and oth­er­wise func­tioned in a wide range of so­cial ac­tiv­i­ties.

• kept unscrupulous kings on anxious seat; practiced lynch law

70:7.16All se­cret as­so­ci­a­tions im­posed an oath, en­joined con­fi­dence, and taught the keep­ing of se­crets. These or­ders awed and con­trolled the mobs; they also acted as vig­i­lance so­ci­eties, thus prac­tic­ing lynch law. They were the first spies when the tribes were at war and the first se­cret po­lice dur­ing times of peace. Best of all they kept un­scrupu­lous kings on the anx­ious seat. To off­set them, the kings fos­tered their own se­cret po­lice.

70:7.17These so­ci­eties gave rise to the first po­lit­i­cal par­ties. The first party gov­ern­ment was “the strong” vs. “the weak.” In an­cient times a change of ad­min­is­tra­tion only fol­lowed civil war, abun­dant proof that the weak had be­come strong.

• employed by kings to collect taxes

70:7.18These clubs were em­ployed by mer­chants to col­lect debts and by rulers to col­lect taxes. Tax­a­tion has been a long strug­gle, one of the ear­li­est forms be­ing the tithe, one tenth of the hunt or spoils. Taxes were orig­i­nally levied to keep up the king’s house, but it was found that they were eas­ier to col­lect when dis­guised as an of­fer­ing for the sup­port of the tem­ple ser­vice.

70:7.19By and by these se­cret as­so­ci­a­tions grew into the first char­i­ta­ble or­ga­ni­za­tions and later evolved into the ear­lier re­li­gious so­ci­eties—the fore­run­ners of churches. Fi­nally some of these so­ci­eties be­came in­ter­tribal, the first in­ter­na­tional fra­ter­ni­ties.

• based on rite of blood-drinking

89:9.3The an­cient so­cial broth­er­hoods were based on the rite of blood drink­ing; the early Jew­ish fra­ter­nity was a sac­ri­fi­cial blood af­fair. Paul started out to build a new Chris­tian cult on “the blood of the ev­er­last­ing covenant.” And while he may have un­nec­es­sar­ily en­cum­bered Chris­tian­ity with teach­ings about blood and sac­ri­fice, he did once and for all make an end of the doc­trines of re­demp­tion through hu­man or an­i­mal sac­ri­fices. His the­o­logic com­pro­mises in­di­cate that even rev­e­la­tion must sub­mit to the grad­u­ated con­trol of evo­lu­tion. Ac­cord­ing to Paul, Christ be­came the last and all-suf­fi­cient hu­man sac­ri­fice; the di­vine Judge is now fully and for­ever sat­is­fied.