Fraternity Rituals: What happens that's so secret?

Anyone want to spill the beans? I was told in one Frat that the ritual is basically given away in the song "Magic Carpet Ride". Thats what a guy told me. That the song describes what happens in the ritual. It talks about candles and a lamp. Every time that song comes on everyone in the Frat jumps up and starts dancing to that song. Anyone know anything about this or any secret rituals?

well... um... I'd better not say.

I wouldnt' be surprised.

hahahaha

You just sit around, shake hands, say you'll support the fraternity. Nothing big....

Half Dems half repubs. There were 'hippy frats' which were also half and half: half green, half dem. And of course there were the elitist, all repug frats, but I didn't join one of those.

As for secret rituals, just robes, candles and blindfolds. Nothing special. The rituals really took second stage to the parties. That's the real reason one joins a frat.

Oh and we had one gay member who came out, expecting to be disassociated. Some people balked, but most of the house was like "He pays his dues...and he never bothered me." God I love how greed can work sometimes.

I think that a couple of the fraternities were still a bit homophobic and didn't have gay members. The sororities included sexual orientation in their diversity clause for the Rush handbook. By the time I graduated, all the sororities had at least one lesbian member. A few of the fraternities did also. Our campus was generally gay friendly. Even the Christian group wrote an editorial bashing a non college related Christian group for coming on campus and distributing anti gay literature. It was not cool to discriminate against gays. If a fraternity had kicked out anyone simply because the member came out as homosexual, they would have probably faced some kind of sanctions.
On our campus, most of the College Democrats belonged to a Greek letter organization. When I came back as an alumn to help with intiaition, our chapter sorority president was also a member of an even more radical leftist group.

We and some other Greek letter organizations are sort of like the Greek mystery religions of old. There is an initiation ceremony where the initiates are given secret knowledge. It is not scary or demeaning, just a ceremony sort of like a wedding or baptism but obviously a little different. I suppose that the secrecy thing is sort of cool. As far as secret knowledge, a lot of it was basic stuff like handshakes and what the letters stand for. Other stuff was the type of stuff that many young women could benefit from knowing, sorts of spiritual type stuff, but not religious in that a Deity is not invoked.
We do have secret initiation songs but not like what you've described.
I have not revealed my sororities secrets to nonmembers. I've told some more than I just described but I don't think that I should approach grey areas on a public message board.

were so impessive that I can't even remember what they were. If I ever even knew, I paid very little attention to that ritual nonsense. Some frat guys will spill the beans in bed. Those were so impressive I don't remember them either (the secrets, not the guys). Something about doors and lanterns, secret handshakes and all that rot. It's all pretty silly. The friendships are the major point to the whole thing.

Almost thirty years later, I still remember the "mystic" stuff.

Bake
Tennessee Eta Chapter, '76
Sigma Alpha Epsilon

We had to memorize lots of stuff and stand in judgment by officers after being blindfolded and led around campus in the dead of night. We were tested on crap like the Greek alphabet, the charter chapter address, charter officers, and other secret, evil info...

It was no big deal. Really. The mumbo jumbo, top secret, die-if-you-tell-a-soul suspense factor culminated in a kegger.

Secret rites create an emotional emphasis to an arraingement. Thus they strengthen the ties. The determines the value of things based on an emotional weighting of the significance of an event. If a group of people just stood around and agreed not to tell anybody about their association there would be little emphasis in the brain to honor that secret. A secret ritual though, complete with ominous portent creates a strong emotional basis with which the brain will hold to the event.

This is not a deliberately conscious choice on the part of such groups. It is more an evolutionary arrival at a succesful formula to keep people in line. The secret ritual has found its place at the center of such group because it works.

not sexual tho...

frats really aren't so bad, well, some aren't