What’s the Secret?
By Peter Feuerherd
When Edward J. Maggio teaches his course on secret societies at the New York Institute of Technology (NYIT) in Old Westbury, N.Y., he reminds his students about what Ben Franklin once said: a secret can be kept among three people if two of them are dead. It’s hard to keep a secret, in other words, especially in a modern world where tell-all memoirs are a staple in the chain bookstores and when the Internet can spread rumor around the world with a click of a button.
Still, secret societies are seen as tiny, conspiratorial groups that exerted their power in world history and are seen by some as continuing to influence events. Interest in such groups has been raised by the success of Dan Brown’s novel, The Da Vinci Code, but has always been an ongoing interest of students and scholars.
The Illuminati is one such group. Founded in Bavaria by Adam Weishaupt in 1776 – a date connected by some conspiracy buffs to American independence – the Illuminati promoted a single world order ruled by an elite. Weishaupt, a former Jesuit, was also a FreeMason, another organization that has been listed among powerful secret societies.
How much real secrecy exists about such groups is debatable, says Maggio, an attorney and assistant professor of criminal justice at NYIT. “A real secret society people wouldn’t know about,” he says.
Maggio got interested in the topic while doing graduate studies at Oxford University in England.
“There was a huge rumor that members of my graduating class were members of the Illuminati. While I never believed any of the rumors, I did take time to read up on secret organizations in the university libraries to understand why people were concerned about certain groups,” he says.
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