“[T]he secret society represents an organization of the factor of mystery. Anything which is secret becomes a challenge, the moment we learn that there is something folks do not want us to know; we can never rest until we find out what it is. It is the same way with a personal secret. The individual possessing it is over-shadowed by the sense of his own importance. The mere fact that he knows something not commonly known gives him a membership in an exclusive aristocracy. He begins to show all the symptoms of this secret knowledge and usually, unbound by obligation,[*] rushes forth to share it. By so doing gaining a peculiar distinction for being the person from whom this secret knowledge is derived. ... Human nature being widely diversified in its temperamental peculiarities, we do learn, however, that mystery exercises an influence far beyond its own proportion.”**
[*sms: Note however that almost all secret societies bind members by covenants of death against revealing the hidden plans and purposes of the society, and use the obsessive desire to know greater secrets to entice members into higher levels of insider knowledge and compromise.]
------------------------------/
**Manly P. Hall - Secret Societies Today *Restored Audio* [Lecture given Feb. 22, 1959] (Manly Hall Society | Mar 22, 2021 | Time 1:36:05 min | quote begins at minute 34:40) at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UUMDZyCh1sI
CAUTION: Hall seems (in my view) throughout most of this lecture to present a romantic (deceptive?) view of secret societies (“private assemblies”) as being devoted to the progress and advancement of humanity — to building a better, benevolent way of life, and to resisting arbitrary aristocracy or tyranny, when in reality the science and history of secret societies have almost always been to cover the obsessive, psychopathic pursuit and protection of power, gain, and glory using high-sounding mantras (neither believed or practiced) such as “life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness” or “liberté, égalité, fraternité.” From my perspective, MPH has, in this lecture, 1) inverted the reality of most secret societies, 2) ignored the nature of the Natural Man (except for the above quote), and 3) denied the corrupting “spirit of power.”
Manly Palmer Hall (March 18, 1901 – August 29, 1990) was a Canadian-born author, lecturer, astrologer and mystic. He is best known for his 1928 work The Secret Teachings of All Ages. Over his 70 year career, he gave thousands of lectures, including two at Carnegie Hall, and published over 150 volumes. In 1934, he founded The Philosophical Research Society in Los Angeles, which he dedicated to the "Truth Seekers of All Time", with a research library, lecture hall and publishing house. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Manly_P._Hall