Several of these organizations started up as places to 1) have fun, and 2) provide a social safety net to each other.
As for #1, who here didn’t have a “Super-Secret Treehouse Friends Club” as a kid? There’s a mystique there that many (most?) people don’t fully grow out of.
For #2, the secrets could serve as an easy way to determine membership when someone comes asking for help. Some guy shows up at your lodge saying that he lost his job and could he have some money. You think he’s a non-member hitting up all the organizations in town for money, so you test him on some of the secrets. Can he do the secret handshake? Does he know the name of the mystical 15th century guru who established X ritual? Does he have a Violet Badge of the Everlasting Army Commission of the Legions of Truth? And does he know where on his coat he is supposed to wear it?
And, of course, many, if not all, of the “secrets” have been leaked over time. In some cases, secrets were leaked over a hundred years ago.
There are also several “mystery religions” that are similar to these groups but that are organized as a full religion, as opposed to merely a social club. Well-known examples of these are Scientology (which was previously mentioned) and the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints (“Mormons”). These faiths give out plenty of public information about themselves. They also have some inner teachings that are only supposed to be given to people who have already somehow demonstrated themselves worthy. Of course, human nature being what it is, there have already been massive leaks. There is an expectation, however, that people who actually believe in the faith will honor the prohibitions on accessing certain knowledge until the leadership has deemed them worthy.
Interestingly, the Knights of Columbus supposed “secrets” have been widely publicized, but they’re phony. In particular, there was a bogus “Fourth Degree oath,” attributed to the Knights of Columbus circulated as far back as the 1920s by the KKK, and in similar fashion to the “Protocols of the Elders of Zion,” the faux oath has been repeated and reprinted so often that it’s hard to even see why it would be a secret. It was read into the Congressional Record, in fact, and subsequent circulations of it sought to buttress their verisimilitude by noting “…from the Congressional Record.”
So far as I am aware, the actual K of C secrets have not been published, although I could well have simply missed them somewhere. The only links I’ve seen have been to dramatic, but false, claims about the K of C ritual. I may not have a perfect memory, but I assure you that I remember enough about my Fourth Degree ceremony to be certain that I never promised to wage “relentless war” against Protestants and Masons, up to and including “ripping up the stomachs and wombs of their women” and crushing their infants’ heads against the walls. (As seen in the Congressional Record. )
I suppose it’s like a fraternity. Since ancient times they are places where men have endeavored to shatter the stone of ignorance and to bring forth the light of truth.
