Have a question for the so called ritual collectors

I have read posts by people who claim have collections of several college fraternity ritual books. While college fraternity secrets can and often do leak out (I was a fraternity member and have known secrets of my fraternity and others to slip out. For example, a member of another fraternity gave me that fraternity's handshake. Rumors of my fraternity's hazing rituals that were circulating around campus were for the most part accurate.) I still find it highly improbable large numbers of ritual books are floating around. These books are generally closely guarded. Each chapter may have only one copy. Pledge manuals on the other hand are less closely guarded, and each fraternity liberal hands out copies to every pledge. Some may even be on the internet. Are you people sure you happen to have a ritual book, or do you really have pledge manuals which are easy to come by.

As an aspiring ritual collector I am also very interested on how to get my collection started. How easy are rituals to find? Is there any sort of archive on the internet or a regalia trading website?

Originally posted by rotarychris7
As an aspiring ritual collector I am also very interested on how to get my collection started. How easy are rituals to find? Is there any sort of archive on the internet or a regalia trading website?

You can probably find pledge manuals quite easily by visiting a fraternity's web site, or at the least get most of the information that would be in the pledge manual. Ritual books, and their contents, are closely guarded and only initiated members have access to them. While every member has a pledge manual in his possesion that he can (or in some cases may be required) to take anywhere he goes, ritual books are generally not allowed outside the house or even outside the houses chapter room and might be kept in a safe. I guess your best bet to come across a ritual book would be if one disgruntled member decides to take it and publish it out of spite (has this happened yet?), but other than that, I do not think you would be able to order it from some website. I would imagine that many fraternities are also glad to publish parts of their ritual, while ommiting other parts like secret handshakes, mottos, and the like.

ritual collection should not be a difficult problem if you know where to look.. check local used-books stores near colleges, i wouldnt count out occult bookstores for that matter either.. check the net too.. you never know what you will find on ebay or other sites

I would think that anyone that puts effort into collecting ritual manuals would verify the information within them, by, say, contacting the frats involved, using their passwords, or discussing the interpretation of symbols.

Also, I would think that, while there might not be that many manuals floating around, that there are even far fewer fake manuals for any particular frat, no? I mean, these aren't hand written books, they're published by companies.

Originally posted by Nygdan
Also, I would think that, while there might not be that many manuals floating around, that there are even far fewer fake manuals for any particular frat, no? I mean, these aren't hand written books, they're published by companies.

Now this brings up an interesting question.. as you state.. these books are published by companies.. who's to say that they are not available through those companies? and i would bet even if you couldnt get a member of a frat to give up his book, or help you locate a copy of one.. i am willing to bet that such a seemingly innocent inquiry as to the publishing house would be readily answered

There is a copy of just about every doggone book ever published in the Library of Congress.

If you must have them, the secrets are obtainable. But to me, it's like opening your Xmas gifts too early...it spoils the surprise, and if you are a member or are thinking of/about to join one of these organizations, it cheapens the experience.

I don't know about the Library of Congress etc...but I went hunting for several books in the Australian Library to do with the Illuminati and suchlike and was not surprised to find that most works of this nature are not "on the shelves" so you have to fill in an archive request and wait....and wait...
They never show up.

they arent looking for illuminati material.. they are looking for college and university fraternity handbooks, and i would have to belive that they would infact be available at the library of congress.. but he isnt looking for them because he is joining.. as stated in his opening post.. he is a collector

Originally posted by Becon of Light
they arent looking for illuminati material.. they are looking for college and university fraternity handbooks, and i would have to belive that they would infact be available at the library of congress.. but he isnt looking for them because he is joining.. as stated in his opening post.. he is a collector

Actually most college Greek-letter societies ritual books are not in the L.O.C. There's no reason for them to be as the majority of them are privately printed.

My own college fraternity had their books printed by a book printer/binder, but they were under contract NOT to print or distribute them to anyone other than the national headquarters.

The following link has some interesting info on college fraternity rituals and the Library of Congress.

www.phigam.org...=%22library%20of%20congress%20fraternity%20rituals%22

Here's a link to the form letter that the Library of Congress sends (or at least "used" to send) out to inquiries regarding secret fraternity rituals.

sweb.uky.edu...

Also, one of the members of the Masonic Light e-mail list is a pretty well-known (among Masons) collector of rituals. He says he has several dozen such rituals (in photo-copy form) If those of you interested in such ritual discussion would like to make contact with him, send me a U2U and I can probably get him in touch with you.




[edit on 6-9-2006 by Appak]

Originally posted by Appak

Also, one of the members of the Masonic Light e-mail list is a pretty well-known (among Masons) collector of rituals. He says he has several dozen such rituals (in photo-copy form) If those of you interested in such ritual discussion would like to make contact with him, send me a U2U and I can probably get him in touch with you.


[edit on 6-9-2006 by Appak]

that would be great. u2u sent.



[edit on 6-9-2006 by rotarychris7]

Originally posted by MrNECROS
I don't know about the Library of Congress etc...but I went hunting for several books in the Australian Library to do with the Illuminati and suchlike and was not surprised to find that most works of this nature are not "on the shelves" so you have to fill in an archive request and wait....and wait...
They never show up.

I've been requesting books on electronics and computer programming at the library in my city, with the same result. I doubt that there is some sort of conspiracy involved... rather low-paid employees, apathetic and senile volunteers, virtually non-existant budgets, and little demand for the books I want.

I noticed that there were plenty of copies of the DaVinci Code and Harry Potter in the stacks.

Hobbes,
Six of one, half a dozen of the other.
Whether there is a conspiracy about it or not there are a great many books that are almost impossible to get hold of.
It just strikes me as silly when people in this forum state that you can just wander down to your local library to acquire a copy of Bernard Shaw's "Revolution & Freemasonry" or Adam Weishaupt's "Encyclopedia."

Another thing about ritual books, is that some important portions may be blanked out. For example, my fraternity's ritual book leaves a blank in the text for the frat's secret motto. In the initiation ritual, it instructs the initiator to give the secret handshake to the intiate. So even if somebody came across my fraternity's ritual book, they still would not know the secret motto or handshake, as those secrets were supposedly too important and could not be written down. I would imagine many other fraternities' manuals would be similar.

I know that Sigma Chi's secrets are/ were up on a tripod site online, I am wondering if most of fraternity secrets are like this? It just goes about thier passwords and how they set up there initiations and stuff.

Can anyone shed some light on thsi situation?

I would be interested in linking up with this guy and trading and the answer to questions on here the rituals are out there and they are real I was really surprised to find my own fraternity ritual on the web realy disappointing but anyway that is the power of the intenet so please send me this guys email that has and collects rituals my email is [email protected]

Sorry to bring up an older thread...

Fraternity/Sorority rituals are beautifully written, which is what interested me in them in the first place.

Also, they aren't that hard to find. Depending on how strict the chapter is, I know of several that makes copies of them (so people can use them during initiation), and don't take care of the copies. They get thrown in books or other random places on campus, and surface weeks, years later. It happened on my campus. Someone left a ritual in a library book (the fraternity left my campus some years ago), and it showed up when someone checked out the book. From my understanding, one of the other fraternities on campus got hold of it, and "out of respect", placed it in their ritual safe.

Someone above mentioned that the true secrets aren't published in the ritual books. He's absolutely correct. From the handful of rituals I know, none of them have that stuff written down. It's all passed on word of mouth (which is kinda funny because if you go to a meeting at another chapter, the handshakes/password/etc are different!). And the stuff that is written down, honestly, it's not always that thrilling. Like someone else said, do your research and you can figure out what most of them mean.

At least in my frat, the handshake was the same from chapter to chapter, as that was the means of recognition. If you gave the wrong handshake, people would not believe you were a member of the fraternity. I have seen some vairations in rituals, some chapters being very formal, some being lax. The hazing varied widely from chapter to chapter. Some chapters had mild or no hazing, others had extreme hazing, and others were somewhere in between. Hazing was not officially part of the national ritual, but more something each individual chapter made up.

Yeah, I've seen some minor differences in ritual as well.

As for hazing, I'm surprised it doesn't happen more often on my campus. As weird (and bad) as it sounds, the one fraternity that did haze, its members were more loyal than the fraternities that didn't haze.

While hazing can deter a lot of prospective members that are good people and good members, it does weed out a lot of uncommitted people. Hazing can build comraderie, if done properly and within bounds, and it gives the initiate a sense of "paying" for his membership. If membership were easy it would not be valued, but since membership in a hazing fraternity requires going through "hell" it increases the value of membership to the initiate.