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} }) </script> </div> </form> </fieldset> <article class="entryArticle content STeditorial"> <header class="entryHeader icon-theme"> <h1 class="entryTitle">Secret Masters </h1> </header><p class='tagLine'>Entry updated 13 January 2025. Tagged: Theme.</p><div class="browsingBtns"> <span> <input class="button PNI previous" type="button" onclick="window.location.href='/next.php?id=p&entry=secret_masters'" value="Prev" /> </span> <span> <input class="button PNI next" type="button" onclick="window.location.href='/next.php?&entry=secret_masters'" value="Next" /> </span> <span> <input class="button PNI incoming" type="button" onclick="window.location.href='/incoming.php?entry=secret_masters'" value="About This Entry" title="What links to the entry; contributor initials explained; how to cite; other information" /> </span> </div> <p>A familiar aspect of sf <a href="/entry/paranoia">Paranoia</a> is the sense that small, anonymous and unreasonably powerful cabals – sometimes individuals (see <a href="/entry/godgame">Godgame</a>) – secretly control or manipulate the world. Seemingly omnipotent groups of <a href="/entry/villains">Villains</a> are commonplace in both conspiracy theories and sf, the most famous instance being the Bavarian Illuminati whose alleged influence is deliriously recomplicated in Robert <a href="/entry/shea_robert">Shea</a>'s and Robert Anton <a href="/entry/wilson_robert_anton">Wilson</a>'s <b>Illuminatus!</b> trilogy beginning with <i>The Eye in the Pyramid</i> (<b>1975</b>), and also in the game <a href="/entry/illuminati">Illuminati</a>. The conspirators of Jorge Luis <a href="/entry/borges_jorge_luis">Borges</a>'s <i>Tlön, Uqbar, Orbis Tertius</i> (May 1940 <i>Sur</i>; trans James E Irby <b>1983</b> chap) have invented a world, Tlön, so weirdly seductive that its imaginary history seems destined to overwhelm reality. Cathar cultists insert <a href="/entry/subliminal">Subliminal</a> anti-<a href="/entry/sex">Sex</a> propaganda into movies in Theodore <a href="/entry/roszak_theodore">Roszak</a>'s <i>Flicker</i> (<b>1991</b>). Further examples include the <a href="/entry/underground">Underground</a> "deros" of Richard S <a href="/entry/shaver_richard_s">Shaver</a>'s 1945-1947 <b>Shaver Mystery</b> stories; John <a href="/entry/crowley_john">Crowley</a>'s Noisy Bridge Rod and Gun Club, secret masters of the USA in <i>Little, Big</i> (<b>1981</b>); the sinister <a href="/entry/immortality">Immortals</a> of Lawrence <a href="/entry/norfolk_lawrence">Norfolk</a>'s <i>Lempriere's Dictionary</i> (<b>1991</b>; cut <b>1992</b>); and, in several of Tom <a href="/entry/holt_tom">Holt</a>'s comic fantasies, the former British Milk Marketing Board.</p> <p>Often in sf, the world's secret masters prove to be <a href="/entry/aliens">Aliens</a>, as in Wilson <a href="/entry/tucker_wilson">Tucker</a>'s <i>The Time Masters</i> (<b>1953</b>; rev <b>1971</b>), Philip E <a href="/entry/high_philip_e">High</a>'s <i>Twin Planets</i> (<b>1967</b>) and <i>Invader on My Back</i> (<b>1968</b>), Jack <a href="/entry/vance_jack">Vance</a>'s <i>Emphyrio</i> (<b>1969</b>), Douglas <a href="/entry/adams_douglas">Adams</a>'s <i>The Hitch Hiker's Guide to the Galaxy</i> (<b>1979</b>) – whose alien masters are <a href="/entry/mice">Mice</a> – and Peter F <a href="/entry/hamilton_peter_f">Hamilton</a>'s <i>Pandora's Star</i> (<b>2004</b>) and <i>Judas Unchained</i> (<b>2005</b>). A film with this theme is <a href="/entry/they_live">They Live</a> (<i>1988</i>). Long before Douglas <a href="/entry/adams_douglas">Adams</a> and his mice, William F <a href="/entry/temple_william_f">Temple</a> had suggested to semi-comic effect in "The Smile of the Sphinx" (Autumn 1938 <a href="/entry/tales_of_wonder">Tales of Wonder</a>) that <a href="/entry/cats">Cats</a> come from the <a href="/entry/moon">Moon</a> and are the secret masters of humanity, while the more polished humorist Eric Frank <a href="/entry/russell_eric_frank">Russell</a> opted for camels in "Homo Saps" (December 1941 <a href="/entry/asf">Astounding</a>) and <a href="/entry/dogs">Dogs</a> in "Into Your Tent I'll Creep" (September 1957 <a href="/entry/asf">Astounding</a>). Fredric <a href="/entry/brown_fredric">Brown</a>'s "Come and Go Mad" (July 1949 <a href="/entry/weird_tales">Weird Tales</a>) uncomically reveals Earth's hidden rulers to be the ants, and one sequence in <a href="/entry/rick_and_morty">Rick & Morty</a> (<i>2013</i>-current) points the finger at squirrels.</p> <p>Secret Masters may of course be benevolent and in this role are often termed Secret Guardians. The purported secret history of the world revealed in Madame Blavatsky's influential expositions of <a href="/entry/theosophy">Theosophy</a> was supposedly communicated to her by Hidden Masters or Secret Brothers based in Tibet. Examples in sf are the community of adepts with <a href="/entry/psi_powers">Psi Powers</a> lurking within Mount Shasta in Robert A <a href="/entry/heinlein_robert_a">Heinlein</a>'s "Lost Legacy" (November 1941 <a href="/entry/super_science_stories">Super Science Stories</a> as "Lost Legion" by Lyle Monroe; vt in <i>Assignment in Eternity</i>, coll <b>1953</b>); the defenders of Logres (the heart of Britain) against caricatured scientism in C S <a href="/entry/lewis_c_s">Lewis</a>'s <i>That Hideous Strength</i> (<b>1945</b>); the concealed Second Foundation in Isaac <a href="/entry/asimov_isaac">Asimov</a>'s <b>Foundation</b> sequence, who in <i>Second Foundation</i> (January 1948 and November 1949-January 1950 <a href="/entry/asf">Astounding</a>; fixup <b>1953</b>; vt <i>2nd Foundation: Galactic Empire</i> <b>1958</b>) are partially exposed and hunted as a <a href="/entry/pariah_elite">Pariah Elite</a> but by subterfuge and sacrifice regain secret-master status; the watchful revenants of Eric Frank <a href="/entry/russell_eric_frank">Russell</a>'s <i>Sentinels from Space</i> (November 1951 <a href="/entry/startling_stories">Startling</a> as "The Star Watchers"; exp <b>1953</b>; vt <i>Sentinels of Space</i> <b>1954</b> dos); the Magids of Diana Wynne <a href="/entry/jones_diana_wynne">Jones</a>'s <a href="/entry/science_fantasy">Science Fantasy</a> <i>Deep Secret</i> (<b>1997</b>); and the History Monks in Terry <a href="/entry/pratchett_terry">Pratchett</a>'s <i>Thief of Time</i> (<b>2001</b>) and <i>Night Watch</i> (<b>2002</b>) – the last being a kind of <a href="/entry/time_police">Time Police</a> (which see for further examples in that area). Theoretically benevolent Secret Masters may still be aloof and reluctant to intervene, like the eponyms of Avram <a href="/entry/davidson_avram">Davidson</a>'s <i>Masters of the Maze</i> (<b>1965</b>). More unusually, in C M <a href="/entry/kornbluth_c_m">Kornbluth</a>'s sardonic "The Marching Morons" (April 1951 <a href="/entry/galaxy">Galaxy</a>), the intellectual few who laboriously tend a vast moronic population are corrupted by twentieth-century influence and adopt the Final Solution to end their labours.</p> <p>Several works of sf feature multiple Secret Masters with their own defined territories. The best-known example is E E <a href="/entry/smith_e_e">Smith</a>'s <b>Lensman</b> sequence, in whose immense <a href="/entry/time_abyss">Time Abyss</a> of back-story the good Arisians – eventually part-revealed to a select group, the Lensmen – have long opposed the evil Eddorians, who operate through multiple layers of minions and conceal their existence even from Kim Kinnison and the Lensmen until the final episode of the main storyline, when Kinnison's children discover the secret. Also eternally opposed are the Spiders and Snakes of Fritz <a href="/entry/leiber_fritz">Leiber</a>'s <b>Change War</b> series (see <a href="/entry/changewar">Changewar</a>), with the significant difference that neither side is here unambiguously good or bad. R A <a href="/entry/lafferty_r_a">Lafferty</a> posits several distinct controlling groups in <i>Fourth Mansions</i> (<b>1969</b>) and again in "About a Secret Crocodile" (August 1970 <a href="/entry/galaxy">Galaxy</a>), while in Diana Wynne <a href="/entry/jones_diana_wynne">Jones</a>'s <i>Archer's Goon</i> (<b>1984</b>) the various aspects of a UK town's operation – the <a href="/entry/arts">Arts</a>, banking (see <a href="/entry/money">Money</a>), <a href="/entry/crime_and_punishment">Crime and Punishment</a>, sewers and other utilities, <a href="/entry/transportation">Transportation</a>, and so on – are each secretly "farmed" by a different member of one peculiar family. For aeons the Anchorites and Horologists, who appear again and again throughout David <a href="/entry/mitchell_david">Mitchell</a>'s career-encompassing "Über-book", have vied for control of the world. The <a href="/entry/parallel_worlds">Parallel-Worlds</a>-hopping action of Iain <a href="/entry/banks_iain_m">Banks</a>'s <i>Transition</i> (<b>2009</b>) is driven by rival factions within the "Concern" that seeks to control the <a href="/entry/multiverse">Multiverse</a>.</p> <p>Individual Secret Masters of particular note are the anarchist leader Sunday in G K <a href="/entry/chesterton_g_k">Chesterton</a>'s <i>The Man Who Was Thursday: A Nightmare</i> (<b>1908</b>) and the Weapon Shops' founder Robert Hedrock in A E <a href="/entry/van_vogt_a_e">van Vogt</a>'s <b>Weapon Shops</b> diptych. These share the unusual feature of wielding Secret Mastery over two opposed factions: Sunday is also the anonymous "man in the dark room" who recruits anti-anarchist police, while the <a href="/entry/immortality">Immortal</a> Hedrock established and periodically marries into the Imperial dynastic line whose excesses his Weapon Shops were created to curb. Another such Janus-like character plays a major role in <b>Illuminatus!</b>, while the final episode of <i>The</i> <a href="/entry/prisoner_the">Prisoner</a> (<i>1967-1968</i>) suggests that Number Six, the Prisoner, is identical with his mysterious gaoler Number One. In Philip José <a href="/entry/farmer_philip_jose">Farmer</a>'s <b>World of Tiers</b> sequence, it is assumed that Earth is a natural world in contrast to the bizarre, artificial <a href="/entry/pocket_universe">Pocket Universes</a> created and ruled by warring Lords: but the punchline of the third volume, <i>A Private Cosmos</i> (<b>1968</b>; rev <b>1981</b>), is "Red Orc is the secret Lord of Earth!" Further individuals who more or less run the world include the title characters of Roger <a href="/entry/zelazny_roger">Zelazny</a>'s <i>This Immortal</i> (October-November 1965 <a href="/entry/fsf">F&SF</a> as "... And Call Me Conrad"; exp <b>1966</b>); Jack <a href="/entry/vance_jack">Vance</a>'s <i>The Anome</i> (February-March 1971 <a href="/entry/fsf">F&SF</a> as "The Faceless Man"; <b>1973</b>; vt <i>The Faceless Man</i> <b>1978</b>); and Algis <a href="/entry/budrys_algis">Budrys</a>'s <i>Michaelmas</i> (August-September 1976 <a href="/entry/fsf">F&SF</a>; exp <b>1977</b>), the latter assisted by an <a href="/entry/ai">AI</a> of his own creation. William <a href="/entry/tenn_william">Tenn</a>'s "The Servant Problem" (April 1955 <a href="/entry/galaxy">Galaxy</a>) sardonically spoofs the concept of Secret Master as power behind the throne, by introducing a literally endless succession of powers behind powers; Jorge Luis <a href="/entry/borges_jorge_luis">Borges</a>'s "La secta del Fénix" ["The Sect of the Phoenix"] (September 1952 <i>Sur</i>) jests with the notion in another way as it emerges that the secretive titular cult includes the entire human race. [DRL]</p> <p><b>see also:</b> <i>The</i> <a href="/entry/adjustment_bureau_the">Adjustment Bureau</a>; Clive <a href="/entry/cussler_clive">Cussler</a>; <a href="/entry/forerunners">Forerunners</a>; David <a href="/entry/meltzer_david">Meltzer</a>; <a href="/entry/parasitism_and_symbiosis">Parasitism and Symbiosis</a>; Vladimir <a href="/entry/sorokin_vladimir">Sorokin</a>.</p> <p><b>further reading</b></p> <ul class="x"> <li>Theodore Ziolkowski. <em><a href="/sfeshop.php?field-keywords=The+Alchemist+in+Literature+From+Dante+to+the&field-author=Theodore+Ziolkowski" class="link-amazon" target="_blank">The Alchemist in Literature: From Dante to the Present</a></em> (Oxford, Oxfordshire: Oxford University Press, <b>2015</b>) [nonfiction: hb/from Thomas Wyck]</li> </ul> <p><b>previous versions of this entry</b></p> <ul><li><a href='https://web.archive.org/web/*/http://www.sf-encyclopedia.com/entry/secret_masters' target='_blank'>Internet Archive</a></li></ul><br /><br /></article></div> <div class="sideBarsWrapper"> <div class="sideBarsColsWrapper clearfix"> <div class="column sideBar12 clearfix"> <div class="columnForm"><aside id="blogFeed" class="widget"> <div class="content STeditorial clearfix"> <h2>Recently visited entries<span style="background:url(/images/thingSFE2.png) !important"></span></h2><ul style='width: 50%; 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