Meme-ified photos captured various society shenanigans around Washington Square Park-a raven perched atop the Giuseppe Garibaldi statue a faint trail of raven footprints around the fountain. After Poe’s death, the group adopted the raven (from his popular poem) as its unofficial mascot. One recurring storyline was the society’s relationship with Edgar Allan Poe, a frequent guest lecturer during its early era. I browsed the webpages, many of which contained abridged histories of the society, largely regurgitated from Wikipedia. Each device was attached to a signed note: Most recently, in 2009, there were student newspaper reports of a “beeper” prank which was attributed to the society: a handful of devices were choreographed to go off at the same time in various classrooms on NYU’s campus. NYU archives showed no official record of the society after this date, meaning everything that has turned up since then regarding its members and any ongoing activity is hearsay. Then, in 1942, the society seemed to have disappeared. Coles Sports & Recreation Center) and university curricula ( Gallatin School of Individualized Study). The names of Eucleian alumni would later grace major buildings around campus (Elmer Holmes Bobst Library, Jerome S. Topics under discussion spanned philosophy (“Whether humanity is naturally depraved,” Decision: Affirmative) to legal theory (“Should the capital of large moneyed corporations be limited by statute?” Decision: Negative) to romantic truths (“Resolved that adultery is the only true way to cohabit”). The comments field on the Group page was disabled, but a note in the Description section directed us to fill out a questionnaire (via Google Forms) that asked about our backgrounds, our political views, and our religious ideologies.īefore submitting to interrogation, I first searched online for any information I could uncover about the “Eucleian Society.” A Wikipedia page drew on sources from NYU’s Bobst Library and Digital Archives, as well as academic books that covered the broader topic of “secret societies in America.” The society was founded the same year instruction began at NYU, first operating out of the Main University Building, where it held oratory debates and readings. The page, paired with the campaign-ready photo of an old guy holding an open book, appeared to be a 1930s-era political campaign. The list also contained the avatars of a few other dead guys, like Crosby, and the identity of the Group itself was similarly concealed beneath another guise: “Vote Arthur Watkins for Second Circuit Judge.” There was a link to a Facebook group that contained a long list of male undergraduates, mostly white (like me), a few Latinos and Indians, and one black guy. "The Society is interested in your potential membership and would like to invite you to learn more… Time is of the essence." The message came on behalf of New York University’s Eucleian Society, a literary club formed in 1832 around the same time that secret societies began sprouting up at university campuses across the country. His name was Ernest Howard Crosby and his profile picture showed an old-time portrait of a man in a dapper vest sporting a bushy Civil War beard.
2.It all started with a Facebook message from a dead guy. Nobody truly knows if they were spies or a group of freemasons who were trying to protect their customs in case if Catholic Church stabs them in the back just like it did with the Templars. That is all normal information now, however, it wasn’t at that point, and it was clear that this society had spies. Oculist archives included highly confidential rituals of Freemasonry, up to the most elevated degrees. The documents of this society were later discovered which revealed that this society had an objective of keeping an eye on the freemasons. However, we had no clue about what happened in the background. According to history, there was a group of eye surgeons who were spies in real.Įvidence suggests that all the individuals who were part of this society were people who had clinical information about the eye, the sight, and were healers who performed medical treatments. You will be shocked to find out the secrets of the Great Enlightened Society of Oculists from the 18th century.