Dr Marco Pasi:
The Secret Society and Its Enemies

What role does secrecy play in contemporary democracies? How much secrecy can an open society tolerate? Although transparency and accountability are perceived as fundamental values of ideal democratic institutions, we know that things are much more complicated. Secrets are all around us, not as exceptions to the necessity of transparency, but as an unavoidable lubricant of the social engine. We are afraid of secrets, and we love them at the same time. This ambivalent, morbid relationship with secrecy is nowhere more evident than in the current vogue of popular conspiracy theories, which are often associated with esoteric practices and ideas. The popularity of conspiracy theories shows that the liberal model is facing a crisis: agency is attributed to occult forces conspiring against the responsible, respectable, law-abiding citizen, who feels increasingly powerless and dispossessed. And yet, we may wonder whether conspiracies and secrecy have always been at the core of the liberal project, from the Enlightenment to Wikileaks.


Dr Marco Pasi holds the chair for the History of esoteric currents in modern and contemporary Europe at the École Pratique des Hautes Études, Sorbonne. In his work, he focuses on the history of modern esotericism, especially in relation to magic, art, sexuality and politics. Apart from his academic work as a historian, he has also co-curated a number of exhibitions in art institutions such as the Palais de Tokyo, the Courtauld Gallery, and the Monash University Museum of Art. He is the chief editor of the Aries Book Series, published by Brill, and is currently the President of the European Association for the Study of Religions.