Secret Societies: Inside the World's Most Notorious Organizations (23 page)

The description grows even more righteous. Its spiritually minded members must possess three virtues: a pure life, “virile and strong but unsullied”; a desire “to penetrate the mysteries of nature”; and a willingness “to sacrifice for one's development while helping others along the path.”

Amid all this righteousness and splintering, the belief system of Rosicrucianism appears to be overlooked. In fact it is, for a simple reason: it does not exist.

Rosicrucians are quick to identify their ideal personality characteristics and values, but they refuse to document anything as inflexible as a creed or doctrine, claiming they offer not a formula but a search. As amorc puts it:

We do not propose a belief system, nor a dogmatic decree, but a personal, practical approach to living that each student must learn and master through their own experiences. Our teachings do not attempt to dictate what you should think—we want you to think for yourself. What we provide are simply the tools to enable you to accomplish this.

One unusual aspect of Rosicrucianism is its emphasis on modesty. Other organizations may delight in attracting attention—consider the Shriners—but Rosicrucians prefer anonymity. According to Reuben Swinburne Clymer, who became a Rosicrucian Grand Master at the tender age of 27 and published several books that amount to a Rosicrucian manifesto:

“A true Rose Cross does not indulge in secret hand signs or shakes, celebrations, vain displays of wealth… or meaningless rituals. Rather, a Rose Cross is a person (male or female) who is silent in his work and discreet in his speech (no bragging, ‘I am a Rose Cross’). He also performs good works, is a servant to all, and remembers that ‘goodness, not knowledge, is power.’”

And for those who may confuse Rosicrucian values with those of the Masons, Clymer scolded: “Unlike Masons, Rosicrucians have no special rings, nor do they (like some clandestine orders) wear rose crosses or possess any items which stand out in society. True Rosicrucians do not care to be known as such. They prefer to study and work, rather than be paraded before the curious mass.” Then Clymer adds an effective analogy: “A gold coin passes very quietly through the world, but your counterfeit makes a great noise wherever it may chance to be; so with pseudo-Rosicrucians.”

Without doubt, doing good work for society and concealing it within a cloak of modesty is a commendable quality. It does, however, introduce a serious flaw. If your good works are all done in secrecy, the outside world sees no evidence of your charity. And, given the public's inclination to equate secrecy with evil, the opposite effect may occur: instead of admiration, you create suspicion.

As much as the Rosicrucians may assure everyone that all members represent the highest moral quality, seek the purest spiritual achievements, and act in the most modest manner regarding their good works, they are prone to secrecy in a manner that appears to contradict many of their esteemed qualities.

In a 2005 issue of
Rosicrucian Digest
, a writer named Sven Johansson, identified as Grand Master Grand Lodge of the English Language Jurisdiction for Europe and Africa, identifies the Seven Elements of Mystical Development. (The elements themselves are not all that mystical. According to Johansson, they include Imagination, Concentration, Visualization, Meditation, Contemplation, Psychic Participation, and Cultivating the Experience of God, with “God” defined as “the
greatest and most all-inclusive reality there is.”)

Johansson's lengthy and meandering article, readers are informed, was drawn “from discourses presented by the Grand Masters and the Imperator at the World Peace Conference.” The discourses were originally planned to be published as a book, but “because some of the discourses include information from upper degree monographs,” it was decided not to reveal their contents.

Why the secrecy? Are “upper degree monographs” too difficult for the average individual to comprehend? Or do the various Grand Masters gather to discuss aspects of life, in and out of Rosicrucianism, that they prefer remain concealed?

SEVEN

TRIADS

CULTURAL CRIMINALS

MOST SECRET SOCIETIES DERIVED FROM A NEED EITHER TO
promulgate or defend their religious beliefs. As a means of avoiding the internecine battles that often occur between different faiths, it became necessary to conceal the group's true principles. But this appears to be primarily a Western phenomenon, rooted perhaps in the splintering of a single religious foundation into multiple interpretations, whose adherents consider any dissension an expression of heresy. The most obvious example has been the Christian Reformation, especially the fragmentation of Protestant sects into a multitude of interpretations. As we saw with the Assassins, Islam has suffered its own splintering into hostile factions resulting in deep suspicion and violent confrontations. Nothing breeds concerns about secrecy (and a need for it among persecuted minorities) like suspicion.

For the most part, Eastern societies have avoided the bitterness generated by conflicting sects, perhaps as a result of the pervasiveness of Buddhism and the generally accepted premise that, among most Eastern cultures, religion is considered primarily a personal matter. If no dominant religious organization threatens to infiltrate one's life, religion fails to become a locus of unease about personal security. Chinese triads reflect this distinction between Eastern and Western cultures where secret societies are concerned. Their roots lie almost entirely in ancient nationalist and cultural differences; only in recent years have they deviated into raw criminal activity.

The assessment of triads by Westerners is done through a racist lens. While violence is not unknown among triads, it occurs less often than it does in comparable organizations such as the Mafia or the Japanese Yakuza. It is also restricted almost exclusively to Chinese communities; Westerners who fall victim to triad activities represent collateral damage and not prime targets. In other respects, triads fulfill many classic secret society characteristics; they are as closed and ritualistic as any, and more active than most.

Westerners also mistakenly interchange the labels “triad” and “tong” or “Asian gangs” generally. Tongs (the word “tong” means “meeting hall”) were created in the nineteenth century as social organizations for Chinese immigrants brought to the U.S. and Canada as laborers. The life of these laborers, and their treatment at the hands of Westerners through the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, is more than a smudge on history. It is a disgrace. In Canada, 17,000 Chinese men were brought to Canada as laborers, building the roughest stretches of the transcontinental railroad. All were paid barely half the wages earned by white laborers, and more than 700 coolies (from
kuli
, meaning
bitter strength
) died in the process. In the U.S., Chinese played the role of cheap labor following the ban on slavery, and many of the old wooden slave ships altered their course between bringing Africans across the Atlantic to bringing Chinese across the Pacific.

Once in North America, they were pressed into service performing work that European-descended men avoided. Much of this was categorized as “women's work,” including cooking and laundering, and for generations North American Chinese identified with these two activities almost exclusively. For practical and perhaps racist reasons—most whites feared the idea of the Chinese population expanding and settling among them—only male Chinese were permitted entry into North America, and intermarriage with the white race was as prohibited and dangerous as similar activities were for Afro-American males. In desperation, the Chinese turned to tongs.

Widespread throughout southern China, where families in many villages shared a common ancestry, tongs proved a vital source of assistance and comfort to unmarried male immigrants who felt isolated, both socially and culturally. Providing services and advice that was unavailable or unreliable from other sources, the tongs acted as a source of financial assistance, legal counsel and social services while protecting the Chinese men from exploitation.

The exploiters were originally white bosses, but as the number of Chinese immigrants grew over the years, tongs helped protect individual Chinese citizens from sources familiar in their homeland. These included members of powerful and prestigious families like the Lees, Tams and the Toishanese, Chinese from the area near Canton (now Guangzhou) who owed allegiance to each other through blood or tradition. In place of blood and tradition as a bond, tong members pledged an oath of secrecy and loyalty, adding mystical rituals, private code words, and secret signs as a means of recognizing and communicating with each other.

For a time in the nineteenth century, the tongs proved effective in lending comfort and security to a seriously exploited race. By 1900, however, criminal elements from within Chinese society had taken charge of the larger, more effective tongs, using them as a means of controlling gambling, prostitution, drugs, tax collection and other illegal activities. The tongs grew larger, more powerful and more ruthless in protecting and expanding their territories, launching “tong wars” involving dozens of members clashing in the streets of Chinatowns in New York and San Francisco. Armed with swords and axes, the tong gangs would hack and slash at each other until the streets ran with blood and unfortunate victims lay writhing on the pavement.

In reality, these confrontations were less frequent and violent than portrayed by the sensationalist newspapers of the time. Late Victorian and Edwardian readers shuddered in delight at the racist descriptions of Chinese engaged in riots
that were likely no more bloodthirsty than mob battles in mining communities and docklands throughout the U.S. Perhaps the most enduring legacy of the tong battles was the description of a tong member waving a meat cleaver over his head, his weapon and determination leading to the designation of “hatchet man,” more common today in corporate boardrooms than they ever were in Chinatown streets.

Tongs continue to operate in North America, their power and influence severely diluted by the arrival of later immigrants and later generations, to whom the original premise and function of the groups is neither heeded nor needed. Triads, however, are another matter.

China has a long tradition of secret societies linked to the culture's veneration of emperors who, like popes of the Catholic Church, once were assumed infallible. Tradition dictated that Chinese emperors possess special qualities including absolute virtue, honesty and benevolence. In many respects, early Chinese emperors were regarded by their subjects in the same manner that Christians regard Christ, as the Son of Heaven on earth.

Unlike the Christian attitude towards Christ, however, the Chinese acknowledged that the Son of Heaven remained a mortal, and if he were to lose the attributes that qualified him as Emperor, he would “forfeit the mandate of Heaven,” and the people had a duty to rise up and depose him.

This occurred in ad 9 when Emperor Han Ai was deposed by Wang Mang after Han attempted to name his male lover as his successor. When Wang succeeded in occupying the imperial throne, a group of citizens banded together to restore the Han dynasty. Identifying themselves in battle by applying red makeup to their eyes and calling themselves the Red Eyebrows, they assassinated Wang and installed a new member of the Han family on the throne. Then, in a development that has proved all too familiar, instead of disbanding, the Red Eyebrows turned their battle skills against ordinary citizens, becoming bandits who roamed and terrorized the country.

Flag of the Ch'ing dynasty. Attempts to overthrow its leaders inspired early triad groups.

Five hundred years later, a new group appeared. Calling themselves the White Lotus Society, persecuted and pious Buddhists overthrew the Mongol Yuan dynasty and installed one of their own, a monk named Chu Yuan-Chang, on the imperial throne. Assuming the name Hung Wu, he became the first Ming emperor of China, “Ming” derived from two revered Buddhist figures, Big and Little Ming Wang, who had been sent from heaven to restore peace to the world. Many historians consider the White Lotus Society the first of the true triads, although the actual term was not applied to these groups for another thousand years.