I'd guess that with the temperature in some parts of the internet, any gathering that has the word 'secret' in it's
description summons-up thoughts of wax-dripping candles candles illuminating nubile naked females encircled
by old men in cloaks! Maybe we've become too wry in our first assumptions these days due to the caliginous
manner the same conduit of information-sharing hints that we now live a dark world of claw and tooth!
But there are 'secret' societies -secret being that you didn't know about them until you knew about them, that
exist for fairly-wholesome reasons. I recall the day I turned 18 in 1978, a letter dropped through my parents'
letterbox requesting the young working-class thug who was living in their tiny terraced-house to join the ranks
of a group I'd never heard about.
These were the days before the internet and for my household, long before we'd even had a telephone installed.
I sported a skinhead haircut, spoke in the usual guttural adolescent tones, I was unemployed and carried no
qualifications due to my not-so-smart encounters with the laws of the land and never desired to strive for
association with 'adult' gatherings of humanitarian endeavour.
Yet, there was this well-designed letter formally asking me to join The Ancient Order of the Foresters!
How did they know me...? Why would their compass mark me as a possible component?! Needless to say,
my young conspiratorial mind whispered that such a membership might find me prone on a cold stone alter
with only my underpants to spare my bashfulness!
Not quite the 'Illuminati' my father thought they may be and later in life, I was surprised when I could align my
father's beliefs on secret societies with Baltimore-born Cardinal James Gibbons, a man who also believed such
obscure cliques should never prevail.
................................................................
So, there are societies and Orders that exist for -what we can generally accept, decent reasons and to serve in
capacities with reasonably satisfactory motives. But there's another side to this coin, groups of people who's
initial beginnings may have been noble, but now are perceived as unnatural forces with agendas far-removed
from benefiting the human race.
Some have no official title and walk between the raindrops. Some carry a Government-backed or internationally
-endorsed moniker and work in the shadows to steer the masses a particular way. Some are just there for the
money and the flesh. But there are others, others who've been around for a very long time and have dockets
that would chill the very soul of the average person.
It would be interesting to see signs of their workings, trails that show their paths through societal evolvement
and faint spoors that the same average person could be warned by.
description summons-up thoughts of wax-dripping candles candles illuminating nubile naked females encircled
by old men in cloaks! Maybe we've become too wry in our first assumptions these days due to the caliginous
manner the same conduit of information-sharing hints that we now live a dark world of claw and tooth!
But there are 'secret' societies -secret being that you didn't know about them until you knew about them, that
exist for fairly-wholesome reasons. I recall the day I turned 18 in 1978, a letter dropped through my parents'
letterbox requesting the young working-class thug who was living in their tiny terraced-house to join the ranks
of a group I'd never heard about.
These were the days before the internet and for my household, long before we'd even had a telephone installed.
I sported a skinhead haircut, spoke in the usual guttural adolescent tones, I was unemployed and carried no
qualifications due to my not-so-smart encounters with the laws of the land and never desired to strive for
association with 'adult' gatherings of humanitarian endeavour.
Yet, there was this well-designed letter formally asking me to join The Ancient Order of the Foresters!
How did they know me...? Why would their compass mark me as a possible component?! Needless to say,
my young conspiratorial mind whispered that such a membership might find me prone on a cold stone alter
with only my underpants to spare my bashfulness!
Quote:'The Ancient Order of the ForestersSource:
Known today as “Foresters Friendly Society,” the Ancient Order of the Foresters was initially established in 1834,
according to the society’s website, albeit under a slightly different name. The Ancient Order was created before
state health insurance began in England, so the club offered sick benefits to its working class members.
In 1874, the American and Canadian branches left the Ancient Order and set up the Independent Order of the
Foresters. Candidates looking to be admitted to the club had to “pass an examination by a competent physician,
who is himself bound by his connection with the order,” the Boston Weekly Globe wrote in 1879.
The society still provides insurance policies today for its members, who also engage in a variety of community
service activities...'
Not quite the 'Illuminati' my father thought they may be and later in life, I was surprised when I could align my
father's beliefs on secret societies with Baltimore-born Cardinal James Gibbons, a man who also believed such
obscure cliques should never prevail.
................................................................
So, there are societies and Orders that exist for -what we can generally accept, decent reasons and to serve in
capacities with reasonably satisfactory motives. But there's another side to this coin, groups of people who's
initial beginnings may have been noble, but now are perceived as unnatural forces with agendas far-removed
from benefiting the human race.
Some have no official title and walk between the raindrops. Some carry a Government-backed or internationally
-endorsed moniker and work in the shadows to steer the masses a particular way. Some are just there for the
money and the flesh. But there are others, others who've been around for a very long time and have dockets
that would chill the very soul of the average person.
It would be interesting to see signs of their workings, trails that show their paths through societal evolvement
and faint spoors that the same average person could be warned by.
Read The TV Guide, yer' don't need a TV.