This special issue of Ritual, Secrecy and Civil Society, among other things, questions and explores the ways in which the secret initiatory societies interface with political and social history. It would be a great mistake to think that organizations such as Freemasonry are confined to metaphorics and mythologies. Through the years, as the articles in these pages make clear, rule by ritual is more the norm than the exception. Rather than by gunpowder, many moments in history have been determined by the cadences of rite and ritual. Flags carry armies into battle. As Pierre Mollier well remarks...