The rites and rituals of these organizations were often bizarre and intimidating. "As a result, the Ku Klux Klan and other racist groups adopted a close form of Masonic ritualism," Parfrey says. Freemasonry and other fraternal groups, which said they welcomed all comers who believed in God, were primarily Protestant in perspective. Its members dressed in Native American garb and had rituals inspired by that culture-and yet refused to allow Native Americans into their society. Among the more troubling societies was a fairly large and important group, The Improved Order of the Red Men, which dates back to the early 1800s. The question of who gets admitted to these groups recurs as a theme through history. As Parfrey puts it, taking in the breadth of them provides "a snapshot of America." But secret societies had many purposes and took many shapes: labor unions, business groups, rural/agrarian organizations, religious and occult organizations, sobriety groups, drinking groups, immigrants, anti-immigrant organizations. Of those "More than Six Hundred Secret Societies," Freemasonry is the grandaddy, "like AA is the archetype of all the 12-step sobriety movements," Parfrey says.
And the subtitle says it all: A Compilation of Existing Authentic Information and the Results of Original Investigation as to the Origins, Derivation, Founders, Development, Aims, Emblems, Character, and Personnel of More than Six Hundred Secret Societies in the United States, Supplemented by Family Trees of Groups and Societies, Names of Many Representative Members. Stevens's The Cyclopaedia of Fraternities (1899).
Parfrey says his primary source was Albert C. "Hundreds of years ago, the Catholic church battled groups of Freemasons over power and money, and the need for secrecy back then was logical." But today it's a bit more mystifying. There were an amazing number of groups "particularly at a time when there was no seeming reason for integrating secret rituals into their organizations," he says. Researching the book was eye-opening (and, fittingly, the cover illustration is the so-called "eye of providence"). Rotary and Kiwanis, less so, but these organizations, like the Masons, require oaths of allegiance. "Some service-oriented organizations, like Lions or Elks, have a great deal of secret ritual within its structure. "That's our perspective we know that others may feel differently," he says. Parfrey defines a "secret society" as a social group that demands an oath of allegiance to join. "These words are thought to refer to what primitives do in foreign lands." Ritual America shows that hundreds of ritualistic oaths and procedures are practiced behind the doors of lodges and clubs, even today.
#The secret society club series
"Despite the success of Joseph Campbell's PBS series a couple decades ago, what good American thinks he's practicing 'rites' or 'rituals?'" Parfrey asks. Given the vast number of cults and sub-cults, Parfrey knew his research would be surprising to many. But none of the books in the latest wave of pro-Masonic and conspiratorial literature, says Parfrey, "had an image-heavy and sociological approach as does Ritual America."
#The secret society club code
In recent years, Dan Brown's Da Vinci Code bestsellers revived popular interest in secret societies. The essay stirred up controversy, even leading Marilyn Manson to title one of his songs "King Kill 33."
One of the leading subjects of his research, conspiracy theorist James Shelby Downard, proposed a scenario about the JFK assassination that contained a fascinating speculation about the importance of Freemasonic "twilight language" (double and triple meanings, numerology, and onomatology). In 1987 Parfrey published his first essay on this theme, "King-Kill 33," in the first edition of his book, Apocalypse Culture.
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