The Power of Ritual in Prehistory

The Power of Ritual in Prehistory PDF Author: Brian Hayden
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 1108426395
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 411

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Book Description
Secret societies in tribal societies turn out to be key to understanding the origins of social inequalities and state religions.

The Social Organization and the Secret Societies of the Kwakiutl Indians

The Social Organization and the Secret Societies of the Kwakiutl Indians PDF Author: Franz Boas
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 560

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Book Description


Cults, Conspiracies, and Secret Societies

Cults, Conspiracies, and Secret Societies PDF Author: Arthur Goldwag
Publisher: Vintage
ISBN: 0307456668
Category : Reference
Languages : en
Pages : 386

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Book Description
Did you know? • Freemasonry's first American lodge included a young Benjamin Franklin among its members. • The Knights Templar began as impoverished warrior monks then evolved into bankers. • Groom Lake, Dreamland, Homey Airport, Paradise Ranch, The Farm, Watertown Strip, Red Square, “The Box,” are all names for Area 51. An indispensable guide, Cults, Conspiracies, and Secret Societies connects the dots and sets the record straight on a host of greedy gurus and murderous messiahs, crepuscular cabals and suspicious coincidences. Some topics are familiar—the Kennedy assassinations, the Bilderberg Group, the Illuminati, the People's Temple and Heaven's Gate—and some surprising, like Oulipo, a select group of intellectuals who created wild formulas for creating literary masterpieces, and the Chauffeurs, an eighteenth-century society of French home invaders, who set fire to their victims' feet.

Ritual America

Ritual America PDF Author: Craig Heimbichner
Publisher: Feral House
ISBN: 1936239159
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 361

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Book Description
"Adam Parfrey is one of the nation's most provocative publishers."—Seattle Weekly "Secret society historian Craig Heimbichner follows the Middle Path to wisdom. He works the graveyard shift in the secret lodge."—Joan d'Arc, Paranoia magazine Secret societies—now a staple of bestseller novels—are pictured as sinister cults that use hooded albinos to menace truth-seekers. Some conspiracy books claim that fraternal orders are the work of serpentine aliens and interbred humans who wish to supplant earth of its energy, and later, its very existence. On the other side of the aisle, books by high-ranked Freemasons—skeptical in tone but no less partisan in approach—protect their organization's public image by denying the existence of its most contentious ideas. Ritual America reveals the biggest secret of them all: that the influence of fraternal brotherhoods on this country is vast, fundamental, and hidden in plain view. In the early twentieth century, as many as one-third of America belonged to a secret society. And though fezzes and tiny car parades are almost a thing of the past, the Gnostic beliefs of Masonic orders are now so much a part of the American mind that the surrounding pomp and circumstance has become faintly unnecessary. The authors of Ritual America contextualize hundreds of rare and many never-before printed images with entertaining and far-reaching commentary, making an esoteric subject provocative, exciting, and approachable. Adam Parfrey is the author of Cult Rapture: Revelations of the Apocalyptic Mind and It's a Man's World: Men's Adventure Magazines, the Postwar Pulps. He is editor of the influential Apocalypse Culture series Love, Sex, Fear Death: The Inside Story of the Process Church of the Final Judgment. Craig Heimbichner has recently appeared on a National Geographic documentary about the Bohemian Grove, contributed to the Feral House compilation Secret and Suppressed II, and wrote about the famous occult order the O.T.O. in Blood and Altar.

Sociology of Secrecy and of Secret Societies

Sociology of Secrecy and of Secret Societies PDF Author: Georg Simmel
Publisher: Human and Literature Publishing
ISBN: 2381116281
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 94

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Book Description
All relationships of people to each other rest, as a matter of course, upon the precondition that they know something about each other. The merchant knows that his correspondent wants to buy at the lowest price and to sell at the highest price. The teacher knows that he may credit to the pupil a certain quality and quantity of information. Within each social stratum the individual knows approximately what measure of culture he has to presuppose in each other individual. In all relationships of a personally differentiated sort there develop, as we may affirm with obvious reservations, intensity and shading in the degree in which each unit reveals himself to the other through word and deed. How much error and sheer prejudice may lurk in all this knowing is immaterial. Just as our apprehension of external nature, along with its elusions and its inaccuracies, still attains that degree of truth which is essential for the life and progress of our species, so each knows the other with whom he has to do, in a rough and ready way, to the degree necessary in order that the needed kinds of intercourse may proceed. That we shall know with whom we have to do, is the first precondition of having anything to do with another. The customary reciprocal presentation, in the case of any somewhat protracted conversation, or in the case of contact upon the same social plane, although at first sight an empty form, is an excellent symbol of that reciprocal apprehension which is the presumption of every social relationship...

Founding Fathers, Secret Societies

Founding Fathers, Secret Societies PDF Author: Robert Hieronimus
Publisher: Simon and Schuster
ISBN: 1594778655
Category : Body, Mind & Spirit
Languages : en
Pages : 251

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Book Description
An exploration of the influence of secret societies on the formative documents and symbols of the United States • Reveals the Founding Fathers’ spiritual vision for America as encoded in the Great Seal • Traces the influence of the Iroquois League of Nations upon the Constitution • Exposes the deep connections the Founding Fathers had with the Freemasons and other secret societies All children growing up in America learn who the Founding Fathers were. Most, however, never learn of the founders’ connections to the Freemasons, the Rosicrucians, and other esoteric orders. In Founding Fathers, Secret Societies Robert Hieronimus investigates these important connections and how their influence can be traced throughout our most significant national documents and symbols, especially the Great Seal. He reveals in detail how the reverse of the Great Seal--which appears on the back of the one-dollar bill--is a blueprint that conveys the secret destiny of America. By understanding the kabbalistic meaning of the Great Seal’s reverse, he shows how our current era presents unique opportunities for the fulfillment of our Founding Fathers’ spiritual vision.

Members Only

Members Only PDF Author: Julie Tibbott
Publisher: Zest Books ™
ISBN: 154158192X
Category : Young Adult Nonfiction
Languages : en
Pages : 312

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Book Description
Throughout human history, people have banded together to pass on traditions, climb the social ladder, and often just have a good time. And sometimes, keeping other people out is part of the fun. (Every hot club needs a velvet rope, after all.) But some of these groups have proved so exclusive and secretive that we on the outside can't resist some speculation. Wouldn't you like to know what they're really up to? No need for secret handshakes or passwords—Members Only is your all-access guide to the secret societies, clandestine cults, and exclusive associations that you've always wondered about.

Secret Societies

Secret Societies PDF Author: Milton William Cooper
Publisher: BookRix
ISBN: 3730949691
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 64

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Book Description
"History is replete with whispers of secret societies. Accounts of elders or priests who guarded the forbidden knowledge of ancient peoples. Prominent men, meeting in secret, who directed the course of civilization are recorded in the writings of all people. The oldest is the Brotherhood of the Snake, also called the Brotherhood of the Dragon, and it still exists under many different names. It is clear that religion has always played a significant role in the course of these organizations. Communication with a higher source, often divine, is a familiar claim in all but a few. The secrets of these groups are thought to be so profound that only a chosen, well-educated few are able to understand and use them. These men use their special knowledge for the benefit of all mankind. At least that is what they claim. How are we to know, since their knowledge and actions have been secret? Fortunately, some of it has become public knowledge. I found it intriguing that in most, if not all, primitive tribal societies all of the adults are members. They are usually separated into male and female groups. The male usually dominates the culture. Surprisingly, this exactly resembles many civilized secret societies. This can only mean that the society is working not against established authority, but for it. In fact, could be said to actually be the established authority. This would tend to remove the validity of any argument that all secret associations are dedicated to the "destruction of properly constituted authority." This can only apply, of course, where the secret society makes up the majority or entirety of any people which it affects. Only a very few fall into this category. Secret societies in fact mirror many facets of ordinary life. There is always an exclusivity of membership, with the resultant importance attached to being or becoming a member. This is found in all human endeavors, even those which are not secret, such as football teams or country clubs. This exclusivity of membership is actually one of the secret societies' most powerful weapons. There is the use of signs, passwords and other tools. These have always performed valuable functions in man's organizations everywhere. The stated reason, almost always different from the real reason, for the societies' existence is important...".

The Nine Unknown

The Nine Unknown PDF Author: Talbot Mundy
Publisher: Good Press
ISBN:
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 268

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Book Description
An Emperor Asoka started a project around 260 BC to collate and guard advanced knowledge gathered from around the world over the years. The project ended with making the nine books of secret knowledge and from then on, the nine different men are assigned to guard the nine books. Father Cyprian, a Christian priest, believes that their contents total tip the almost absolute of evil, and wants to burn them, so he invites Jimgrim and his faithful compatriots Ramsden and Ross to help him bring down the secret society that holds the nine books.

Sociology: Inquiries into the Construction of Social Forms

Sociology: Inquiries into the Construction of Social Forms PDF Author: Georg Simmel
Publisher: BRILL
ISBN: 9047426681
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 714

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Book Description
Georg Simmel's highly original take on the newly revived field of sociology succeeded in making the field far more sophisticated than it had been beforehand. He took insights from dialectical thought and Kantian epistemology to develop a "form sociology" method that remains implicit in the field a century later. Forms include such patterns of interaction as inequality, secrecy, membership in multiple groups, organization size, and coalition formation. While today texts and professional societies are organized around "contents" rather than "forms," a fresh reading of Simmel's chapters on forms suggests original avenues of inquiry into each of the contents--family, business, religion, politics, labor relations, leisure.