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How important are secret societies in history?

Printed From: History Community ~ All Empires
Category: General History
Forum Name: General World History
Forum Discription: All aspects of world history, especially topics that span across many regions or periods
URL: http://www.allempires.com/forum/forum_posts.asp?TID=4168
Printed Date: 28-Mar-2024 at 08:15
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Topic: How important are secret societies in history?
Posted By: Decebal
Subject: How important are secret societies in history?
Date Posted: 26-Jun-2005 at 23:58
Serious historians will scoff at the idea that secret societies are more than a footnote in history. And then you got all the mass of non-scholarly literature saying that they pretty much run the world. How important are secret societies really?
For a specific example I've heard that most prominent members of the American and French revolutions were free-masons, and that several American presidents, Britsh and Canadian prime-ministers were also free-masons. Do you think that this is true, and if so, did their belonging to a secret society actually matter?

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What is history but a fable agreed upon?
Napoleon Bonaparte

Even if you are a minority of one, the truth is the truth.- Mohandas Gandhi




Replies:
Posted By: Raider
Date Posted: 27-Jun-2005 at 05:51

 

You should read the book Foucault'a Pendulum by Umberto Eco. It's a great story and a lot of additional information about secret societies, and about how they works.

It is interesting that in the history "secret socities" was charged with the similar blames, not matter who they were.



Posted By: Constantine XI
Date Posted: 27-Jun-2005 at 10:04
If you knew that it wouldn't be a secret .

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Posted By: Guests
Date Posted: 10-Jan-2006 at 17:36
They have been very important. As a matter of fact, they have been crucial. The occult societies are actually the hidden rulers of the world.

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Posted By: Tobodai
Date Posted: 10-Jan-2006 at 17:46
Hell no.  I think the reason is so secret is because then people asume there must be something there.  The reason they are so secretive is that if we found out their secrets we would no longer think they were powerful.  Instead we would see them as they probably are, strippers, beer pong, and meaningless rituals.

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"the people are nothing but a great beast...
I have learned to hold popular opinion of no value."
-Alexander Hamilton


Posted By: Genghis
Date Posted: 10-Jan-2006 at 17:55

Originally posted by Tobodai

Hell no.  I think the reason is so secret is because then people asume there must be something there.  The reason they are so secretive is that if we found out their secrets we would no longer think they were powerful.  Instead we would see them as they probably are, strippers, beer pong, and meaningless rituals.

Yes, most are like-minded people who are basically just joining a fraternity for adults.



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Member of IAEA


Posted By: flyingzone
Date Posted: 10-Jan-2006 at 22:53

Originally posted by Decebal

Serious historians will scoff at the idea that secret societies are more than a footnote in history. And then you got all the mass of non-scholarly literature saying that they pretty much run the world. How important are secret societies really?
For a specific example I've heard that most prominent members of the American and French revolutions were free-masons, and that several American presidents, Britsh and Canadian prime-ministers were also free-masons. Do you think that this is true, and if so, did their belonging to a secret society actually matter?

Are you implying that "secret societies" such as Yales' Skull and Bones (to which both George W. Bush and John Kerry belong) are actually more powerful than they appear to be?



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Posted By: Guests
Date Posted: 11-Jan-2006 at 06:42
Most (if not all) Latin American independence heroes were masons as well. In fact during the first century of its independence Mexico has been ruled more time by masons (Gómez Farías, Santa Anna, Juárez, Maximilian, Díaz) than by non-masons. So I wouldn't say that secret societies are totally non important (though of course they are not as powerful as conpiracy theories say them to be)

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Posted By: pikeshot1600
Date Posted: 11-Jan-2006 at 08:50
Originally posted by flyingzone

Originally posted by Decebal

Serious historians will scoff at the idea that secret societies are more than a footnote in history. And then you got all the mass of non-scholarly literature saying that they pretty much run the world. How important are secret societies really?
For a specific example I've heard that most prominent members of the American and French revolutions were free-masons, and that several American presidents, Britsh and Canadian prime-ministers were also free-masons. Do you think that this is true, and if so, did their belonging to a secret society actually matter?

Are you implying that "secret societies" such as Yales' Skull and Bones (to which both George W. Bush and John Kerry belong) are actually more powerful than they appear to be?

Secret societies at schools like Yale are adolescent affectations and attempt to establish even more exclusivity than exists in a school that is already exclusive.

The contacts and friendships the Yalies make, and the mere fact that they went to school there, are all far more influential, and thus powerful, than being members of Skull and Bones.

 



Posted By: Maju
Date Posted: 11-Jan-2006 at 09:10
The essential thing about a secret society and its reaches is that "those who will speak don't know, and those who know won't speak". Only a hard detctivesque work can bring you t any conclussion and for the most part expect your conclussions to be met with skepticism because people like to think that their destiny is in their hands even when it isn't.


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NO GOD, NO MASTER!


Posted By: Decebal
Date Posted: 11-Jan-2006 at 09:25
Originally posted by flyingzone

Originally posted by Decebal

Serious historians will scoff at the idea that secret societies are more than a footnote in history. And then you got all the mass of non-scholarly literature saying that they pretty much run the world. How important are secret societies really?
For a specific example I've heard that most prominent members of the American and French revolutions were free-masons, and that several American presidents, Britsh and Canadian prime-ministers were also free-masons. Do you think that this is true, and if so, did their belonging to a secret society actually matter?

Are you implying that "secret societies" such as Yales' Skull and Bones (to which both George W. Bush and John Kerry belong) are actually more powerful than they appear to be?

No, I'm actually saying that (at least according to "official" Freemason websites), presidents such as Roosevelt and Canadian prime-ministers such as Pearson and Louis St.Laurent were free-masons. Don't quote me on the names: it's been a very long time since I looked at those sites, but there certainly were some very impressive names in the list of free-masons. I do know that most of the US founding fathers, like Benjamin Franklin, were free-masons. The US currency for example is filled with free-mason symbols such as the pyramid and the eye.

Now, it is very plausible that these organizations simply provide a contacts network which makes it easier for politicians and businessmen to climb the social ladder. However, their internal organization is largely unknown to the public and their motives unclear. There are many who speculate that groups such as the free-masons have an agenda. Most of them are crackpots, but could any of us really be able to tell someone who's telling the truth, from the crackpots? While I'm skeptical, I don't entirely rule out the possibility that there's more to these groups than meets the eye.



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What is history but a fable agreed upon?
Napoleon Bonaparte

Even if you are a minority of one, the truth is the truth.- Mohandas Gandhi



Posted By: AlbinoAlien
Date Posted: 12-Jan-2006 at 11:25
Theres definatly a huge something going on behind the velvet curtains of the world. ......err i just mad4e that saying up....anyway, there was a huge article posted on the forum about the masons, and how albert pike was  high ranking leader. three was also information about the world wars and the plans of masons to build a fuedo-aristocratic society. if you go to search and type in albert pike maybe it would show up?

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people are the emotions of other people


(im not albino..or pale!)

.....or an alien..


Posted By: Kalevipoeg
Date Posted: 12-Jan-2006 at 12:22
Even if all these famous and influential people are the members of these secret societies it hardly means that these organizations have any power if the one in a public office of somekind listens to his "boss" sitting in a dungeon, built inside the Paris sewer system with hundreds of followers in  mystic robes.

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There is nothing in the world more helpless and irresponsible than a man in the depths of an ether binge...


Posted By: gcle2003
Date Posted: 12-Jan-2006 at 15:35

People can't stand the idea that things are out of control and happen randomly and by chance.

It's preferable to believe that they are being created by powerful human beings or associations, even malevolent ones, than to believe they are simply out of control.

A famous example was the invention in the late '60s by George Brown, then the British Chancellor of the Exchequer, of the 'gnomes of Zurich' who were, allegedly, responsible for the currency fluctuations that were plaguing the British economy.

Better a human enemy you can label than an indifferent universe.

Better the devil than no god at all.

 

 

 



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Posted By: Mila
Date Posted: 12-Jan-2006 at 15:35
Shhh... I'm not telling.

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[IMG]http://img272.imageshack.us/img272/9259/1xw2.jpg">


Posted By: Heraclius
Date Posted: 12-Jan-2006 at 15:50

 I do tire of the constant conspiracy theories involving the most unsecretive secret societies in the world, if they are so darn secretive how come every single person seems to know enough about them to claim they rule the world and how they do it? not to mention who the members are and the plots and diabolic schemes for world supremacy each have apparently planned and carried out 

 The Illuminati, Free-masonry and Skull and Bones, people seem to be suddenly experts on these apparently shadowly organisations, the power behind the leaders of the world. Theres an abudance of websites on the net which have a ton of articles from self-proclaimed *experts*, which gets you a ton of people on forums who claim to have had their eyes opened by some paranoid wacko who thinks his phone is bugged and *they* are watching . They never seem to have proof, only rumour and supposed symbolism.

 These organisations have been tied in with every major event in recent history from orchestrating WW2 to assassinating JFK, from 9/11 to SARS, its absurdity of the most extreme kind. 



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A tomb now suffices him for whom the world was not enough.


Posted By: Komnenos
Date Posted: 12-Jan-2006 at 17:22
Secret societies?

Balding middle-aged bank-managers in fancy dresses muttering some mumbo-jumbo,slapping each other's back-sides and getting pissed, ruling the world? I don't think so.

Some corporate high-flyers in sharp suits conspiring in secret with some under-paid governmental lackey to take over some Middle-Eastern country and lay their greedy hands on its oil. Not impossible.

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[IMG]http://i71.photobucket.com/albums/i137/komnenos/crosses1.jpg">


Posted By: red clay
Date Posted: 22-Jan-2006 at 16:32

 

 Just because your paranoid does'nt mean their not out to get you.



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"Arguing with someone who hates you or your ideas, is like playing chess with a pigeon. No matter what move you make, your opponent will walk all over the board and scramble the pieces".
Unknown.



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