Secret societies may be considered a danger to their community or nation. Secrecy may be partial or complete. Partial secrecy may take the form of a secret initiation ceremony while public acknowledgement is made of general objectives. Many secret societies are hierarchical. Secret societies may be mystical, occult, heretical, revolutionary, perverse, violent, subversive, criminal or primitive. Political secret societies may only be so constituted by the fact of their having held a number of meetings to affect some particular purpose. During a regime or governmental administration, they may be an inner circle of people wielding the power 'behind the throne' or they may be the manipulators of political parties, operating as a cabal.
Famous secret societies include the Pythagorean Brotherhood, the Carbonari, the Illuminati, the Order of Assassins, the Jesuits, the Chinese Tongs, the Black Hand, the Weathermen, and the Black September group among many others.
Secret organizations that do intelligence or police work, may sometimes breed secret societies within themselves. For example, Brownshirt Nazis, partly secret enforcers, had under them the Blackshirt SS, which controlled the Gestapo, the secret police. Large urban police departments may be controlled by an inner circle of officers, or by an official benevolent or fraternal organization. In the UK for example, objection was made to Freemasonry among policemen. In the Vatican, protected by the same secret environment as afforded to the Curia, a criminal conspiracy manipulating the Vatican bank's prestige was recently fostered and investigation was impeded by Vatican secretiveness.
Moreover, the secret societies, which by their nature are ever ready to help the enemies of God and of the Church – be these who they may – are seeking to add fresh fires to this poisonous hatred, from which there comes no peace or happiness of the civil order, but the certain ruin of states. (Papal Encyclical, Caritate Christi Compulsi, 3 May 1932).
For, as soon as the secret societies began to be formed, in whose bosom the seeds of the errors which we have already mentioned were even then being nourished, the Roman Pontiffs Clement Xll and Benedict XIV did not fail to unmask the evil counsels of the sects, and to warn the faithful of the whole globe against the ruin which would be wrought. But, as no adequate precaution was taken to prevent their evil teachings from leading the people more and more astray, and lest they should be allowed to escape in the public statutes of States, Popes Pius Vll and Leo Xll condemned by anathema the secret sects, and again warned society of the danger which threatened them. (Papal Encyclical, Quod Apostolici Muneris, 1878).
Many secret societies have no despotic ulterior aims but offer inspiration, direction and recognition to members. Membership affords an identity by adherence to the group and fulfills important needs in the upward path of personal development and responsibility.