You should (re-?)learn the history of the largest "societies" throughout history, open or secret, who their members and/or leaders were (both significant persons, and in general), and how they influenced the course of history.
Secret societies, open societies, churches, armies and navies, governments, guilds, schools, families, nations, and so on. The secret societies tend to get special attention because they are (understandably) underrepresented in the common narratives of history, but they are no more or less special than any other sort of "society". Knowing that they have existed, and that their significant works were ultimately (naturally) claimed by or attributed to more "open" agents, can help us better understand history overall.
More interesting to me, is that secret societies have mostly been driven into the open during the last century or two, and this hasn't really stopped nefarious actors from acting nefariously.
In all groups of people, however organized or otherwise denominated, there are good actors and bad actors. Wherever power accumulates, power corrupts, and wherever corruption rises, evil follows. Any group of people who pool their resources and power will experience this phenomenon, and must either actively and constantly fight it or they will ultimately succumb to it.
See these "societies", in all forms, as vessels for the accumulation of power, the sowing of corruption, and the reaping of evil. See how different societies have sown corruption more or less than others, and have reaped evil more or less than others. They are not inherently evil, they just become that way if they allow it, and almost always they allow it. See how the forces of good and of evil have leveraged these societies as vessels of power, no more and no less.
See who were the agents of good, and the agents of evil, by their acts. Societies cannot act, collectives cannot act, only individual people can act.
You should (re-?)learn the history of the largest "societies" throughout history, open or secret, who their members and/or leaders were (both significant persons, and in general), and how they influenced the course of history.
Secret societies, open societies, churches, armies and navies, governments, guilds, schools, families, nations, and so on. The secret societies tend to get special attention because they are (understandably) underrepresented in the common narratives of history, but they are no more or less special than any other sort of "society". Knowing that they have existed, and that their significant works were ultimately (naturally) claimed by or attributed to more "open" agents, can help us better understand history overall.
More interesting to me, is that secret societies have mostly been driven into the open during the last century or two, and this hasn't really stopped nefarious actors from acting nefariously.
In all groups of people, however organized or otherwise denominated, there are good actors and bad actors. Wherever power accumulates, power corrupts, and wherever corruption rises, evil follows. Any group of people who pool their resources and power will experience this phenomenon, and must either actively and constantly fight it or they will ultimately succumb to it.
See these "societies", in all forms, as vessels for the accumulation of power, the sowing of corruption, and the reaping of evil. See how different societies have sown corruption more or less than others, and have reaped evil more or less than others. They are not inherently evil, they just become that way if they allow it, and almost always they allow it. See how the forces of good and of evil have leveraged these societies as vessels of power, no more and no less.
See who were the agents of good, and the agents of evil, by their acts. Societies cannot act, collectives cannot act, only individual people can act.