" Thus the public in our own country and
elsewhere, reading the diatribes of certain well-known authors against
the existing order of society, may vaguely wonder why men living amidst
all the amenities of civilization should desire its destruction, but do
not dream that all this is not the outcome of an individual brain but
propaganda put out by a company which, having largely primed such
writers with ideas, is able, owing to the high position of many of its
leading members and its influence with the literary world, to ensure the
success of any publication that will further its ends.

The organization of _Clarte_ thus approximates more nearly, to the
system of Weishaupt than that of the other societies described in this
chapter. Although in the strictest sense a secret society, it is in no
sense occult and therefore possesses no ritual of its own, but, like the
earlier Illuminati, recognizes the utility of working through
Freemasonry. _Clarte_, in fact, forms an adjunct of the Grand Orient and
owns a lodge under its jurisdiction in Paris. It would be interesting,
however, to know whether the idea of the alliance with the Grand Orient
occurred as an afterthought to the _Clarte_ group or whether the
original inspiration of _Clarte_ emanated from an inner circle of the
Grand Orient. We shall return to the question of this inner circle in a
later chapter.

Such, then, are the principal secret societies at work in Great Britain,
but amongst minor secret or semi-secret movements may be mentioned the
strange sect the Faithists, said to have some affinity with the Druses,
inhabiting a singularly unromantic London suburb, whose "Ancient
Founder" is the author of a series of tracts urging man not to be misled
by false Gods, but to worship "Jehovih the Creator only," and at the
same time advocating nationalization as a cure for all social ills; or
again The Institute for the Harmonious Development of Man at
Fontainebleau, led by Gurdjieff and Uspenski which combines esoteric
meditation with an extremely meagre diet and strenuous manual labour. It
is interesting, by the way, to notice that the art of movement known as
Eurhythmy--not to be confounded with the system of M. Dalcroze which is
known in England only as Eurhythmics--forms an important part of the
curriculum of the last society, as also of Herr Steiner's Order, of the
Stella Matutina, and of the Russian Bolsheviks.[728]

The one question that presents itself to the judic