By their very name, secret societies inspire curiosity, fascination and distrust. When, for example, news broke that Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia spent his final hours in February 2016 with members of a secret society for elite hunters, people naturally wanted to know more about the group.
It’s not uncommon for public figures to be involved in selective societies, many of which have deep historical roots. Scalia’s fraternity, the International Order of St. Hubertus, was instituted by Austro-Hungarian Count Franz Anton Sporck in 1695 and named after St. Hubert, a hunter who once saw a golden cross between the horns of a stag. Hubert heeded the divine message and thereafter chose a life of piety. Sporck’s order aimed “to honor St. Hubert’s memory and to promote responsible hunting and wildlife conservation,” according to its official website. After the organization denied membership to Nazis, Adolf Hitler dissolved it, but the order re-emerged after World War II, and an American chapter was founded in the late 1960s.
