Secret Societies and Word Meanings

by Jordan Maxwell




A Jordan Maxwell lecture "Secret Societies, Word Meanings and Their Influence on World Events." Jordan looks at words & terms in religion, politics and law, and how easily we can be misled if we do not "define our terms."

As civilization slowly developed in both Greece and Rome the callings, or forms of work, which required skilled hands and trained minds were more and more placed in the care of organized crafts which the Greeks called hetarai, and the Romans called collegia. Later on they were called gilds. The purpose of such gilds was to serve the people by producing things necessary to everybody. The Dark Ages were so called because during a long and ghastly period of nearly four centuries barbarians invaded Rome and Greece from all directions (except from the south),and in so doing destroyed almost every vestige of the knowledge and skill which had been employed in the old organized crafts. After Charlemagne, who lived in the ninth century, Europe began very slowly to recover the old arts, and when this occurred the skilled workmen once again became organized, and their organizations had a gild-form. But these new gilds were called "mysteries," and it is easy to see why; the skilled craftsmen in them made things needed for use, and since the few literate men in Europe in the period used the Latin language in speaking and writing, these men adopted the Latin word ministerium. In Old French it became mestier, in Modern French, metier, and when introduced into English, during the period of Middle English it became, first, mistere, and later, mistery.

VERY FAR BACK IN TIME our remote forefathers used in one form or another the short word mu. It meant "keep your lips closed," "say nothing about it"; and either in the beginning of its use, or not long afterwards, it also meant "keep your eyes closed," "don't be inquisitive about the affairs of others," etc. We ourselves in our own language continue to employ that same ancient word in our "mum," "mumble," "mutter," "mummer" (it is not the root of "mummy," which derived from a Persian word mum, meaning wax, and was applied to bodies preserved in wax and oil).

From this same root the ancient Greeks formed their word- phrase ta musteria, which denoted secret rites, secret teachings, secret initiations; when confronted by such rites an outsider (a "profane") was expected to keep his eyes shut, and an insider, an initiate, was expected to keep his lips closed. From that phrase (it was plural in form) the same Greeks formed their word musterion. From that use in turn, as was true of so many other Greek terms, the word passed over into the Latin language, where it was mysterium, and it there continued to have the general meaning of something not pried into, or spied upon, or talked about. From the Latin, Old French derived its mistere, and modern French has its mystere. From such sources it passed into Middle English as mistere, or mystereye, and from that it came into modern English as "mystery." The .word's own long, unbroken history defines it: a mystery is something private, something secret kept by certain persons for good reasons of their own which an outsider must not be inquisitive about and which insiders must not talk about - they must keep the lips closed.

In the meantime, and also long ago, another word began its history, starting with the ancient Latin word ministerium, formed from minister, which denoted a servant.

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