As with almost all of Simmel's works, his essay on secrecy and secret societies is like an inexhaustible mine — each expedition produces a cart full of precious findings and new ideas for research.¹ Scholars interpreting this essay have focused mainly on aspects of interaction involving silence and concealment in interpersonal communication.² Reading that essay over and over again, however, induced me to explore other fields where the concept of secrecy could be applied, a concept that has attracted scant attention from social scientists.³