Finally, a thread about a REAL Secret Society...

Originally posted by abdul
Alliance of Transylvanian Saxons. You can also be a member if you like...

Just to prove it's no joke:

www.atsaxons.com...

They go by the moniker of "ATS" as well (almost a disturbing coincidence). I don't think they fit the bill of a "Secret Society" but interesting none the less.

Amazed Monkeys, not just for Halloween pranks anymore...

Originally posted by Khonsu
... We prefer the frozen winter tundra and moonlight, over padded rooms and florescent lights. Most (not all) of our techniques are quite secretive, there are some which only the highest ranking members are eligable to receive directly from the Soke himself in Japan.

Thanks for the clarification.

As for the secrecy,... I'm sure the techniques are not just "given" to anyone,... but having practiced in the martial arts for over 22 years, and having been at the master rankings for more than 5 of that, I can assure you that for each "secret" technique, there is a corrolary in another art which is not secret (perhaps practiced slightly different, but with the same application and general principals behind it).

It's the same as Freemasonry or any other "secret" initiation rites,... There are others who have similar ones (i.e.: Greek letter College Fraternity initiations and Freemasonry initiations share common principals). They may differ somewhat materially, but at their essense they are the same... Some words which are not divulged to outsiders, taking some form of oath, the involvement of some props,...

In the martial arts it's more along the lines of demonstrating a mastery of a certain level of techniques, the showing of dedication to the art and the instructor, and the devulging of further technique which marks the next step in the learning progression. In the Korean arts, these things are generally not secret. It's just that the students can't expect to learn them until they have developed proficiency at the foundation levels. Some styles keep certain techniques, like the deadly ones, secret to prevent the art earning a bad reputation due to unscrupulous students gaining that knowledge... I for instance, don't teach deadly techniques to anyone who has not become a black belt, and is also a fairly responsible adult. The techniques aren't "secret" though,... I just don't divulge the information to students I don't feel are ready for it.

I'm surprised this has sparked so much interest, although i suppose saying one is a genuine ninja is quite interesting to some so allow me to answer the questions posed to me to the best of my ability. (without giving anything important away. (google any words you do not know)

First off another member said about the many fake schools of ninjitsu, and this is true, there are many, you should only recieve instruction from one who can trace his "lineage" (who he was trained by, who the person that trained him was trained by, etc) for many generations, and all the instructors of the Bujikan can do this

While a lot of the techniques praticed in ninjitsu are similar and in some cases identical to techniques from other arts. The are many skills which are unique to ninjitsu, such as nightime training outdoors (a passerby in my local park would get a shock if he was there at 2.30am lol) silent movement (really, really difficult!!), escape and concealment techniques, navigation by the stars, swimming, learning how to create herbal remedies, poisons, blinding powders etc, although i have not reached the level yet where i am trusted with this knowledge.

Q. Can you give us the name of the secret society you belong to?

A. It is the Bujinkan (Divine warrior school) and is secret only in the sense that one cannot reveal any of the secrets/techniques of the art to outsiders

Q. Where did this society originate from?

A. From the Iga and Koga Mountain regions of japan

Q. How old is it?

A. Its unbroken traditions can be traced back +500 years

Q. How many members are there (approximately)?

A. Its members are in the 1000's ballpark, but only a few hundred at the current skill level of myself, at the level of masaaki hatsumi (Soke of the school, and the one of the last true living ninja), numbers are in single digits

Q. Is this society international in scope, or confined to one country/region?

A. it is a worldwide organisation with a few members in each country, but it is mostly centered in the US and japan.

Q. Is this society fraternal in nature (open to men only) or can women join as well?

A. The society is open to anyone with the right personality, male or female.

Q. Is there a particular religion or belief one must ascribe to be eligible to join?

A. There is no belief system per se. However elements of shinto and zen buddhism are touched upon throughout training.

Q. Is there an age requirement?

A. No-one under 18 is allowed to join (in my dojo), an upper age limit of sorts does exist as you have to be quite fit and healthy to train, however the Soke is quite old, like 60+

Q. Must you be a certain race/ethnicity to be eligible to join?

A. All races are permited, it is the purity of your character that matters, not the colour of your skin.

Q. Is there a particular hierarchal model in which the society is structured?

A. The hierarchy differs little from that of any other martial art, you have the students, the instructors, and the masters, Although training is from 36 "schools" of ninjitsu. In the times when being a ninja was an actual occupation there would have been the "high man" who directed operations and formulated strategies, the "middle man" whose job was to preserve the anonymity of the high man by passing the orders onto the "low man" who was the actual ninja who carried out the plans.

I hope that answers some of your questions.

[edit on 1-11-2004 by genuineninja]

[edit on 1-11-2004 by genuineninja]

[edit on 1-11-2004 by genuineninja]

[edit on 1-11-2004 by genuineninja]

I think what j_sky999 was suggesting is a vigilante movement of skilled people to police the streets, although in my experience there is a thin line between vigilantism and thuggery with most people crossing the line sooner or later.

Thanks for your participation genuineninja, you have been gracious and exceeded all expectations. I hope that you will be willing to answer a few more questions (I for one will not ask about any rituals, means of recognition, etc. as it would be hypocritical).

The one big question I have, is you now assert that this "Society" (the Bujinkan) would not harm anyone, yet it's roots can be traced back to the assassin guilds of feudal Japan?

What caused the membership of Bujinkan to renounce the original "charter" of the organization, and become something else?

When did this happen?

Did it cause splinter organizations that disagreed with the majority, and if so, are they still active?

Where do you see the Bujinkan progressing as an organization?

Will there ever be any outreach (i.e. charity work) to communities or society by the Bujinkan?

Thanks in advance.

Thank you for your follow-up questions however details in my answers will be sketchy at best.

Q. The one big question I have, is you now assert that this "Society" (the Bujinkan) would not harm anyone, yet it's roots can be traced back to the assassin guilds of feudal Japan?

A. It a matter of the times we live in that members of the Bujinkan do not harm people, Like any other martial art practiced in the world today we live by our own code of conduct as well as the laws of whichever country you live in, you simply cant go around kicking the s**t out of people.

The ninja have a code of "once you draw your sword, it must "taste blood" or you are dishonoured" This basically means that you should be able to stop things getting out of hand before the need for violence, which is the last resort.

Its a historical misconception of the ninja as an "assassin for hire" while the ninja did on occasion carry out assassinations, they were primarily engaged in espionage, sabotage, and guerilla warfare. All these actions were carried out (time to get mystical) under the orders of the "high man" who was concerned with maintaining a "cosmic balance" that is to say the balance between good and evil as they saw it, so the ninja was the recourse of the peasant who had no army of samurai like the fuedal lords of the day.

Q. What caused the membership of Bujinkan to renounce the original "charter" of the organization, and become something else?

A. The was no renouncement as such, the story goes that following years of persecution, imprisonment and execution, there were few ninjas left and safely escorted a family member of a prominent japanese lords (while not entirely trusting the ninjas he had no choice but to ask for their help) family through his enemies territory, The Lord was so grateful that he began employing the remaining ninja as bodyguards and troops. This led to the decline of ninjitsu as those ninja in the lords service were reduced to being targets for children to throw snowballs at and were no longer able to exercise their skills, the few ninja that remained scattered throughout japan became mercenaries, assassins, and highway men (the exploits of some were as famous in japan as those of billy the kid in the wild west).

Q. When did this happen?

A. Between the 16th and 18th century

Q. Did it cause splinter organizations that disagreed with the majority, and if so, are they still active?

A. There are only 2 real schools/ groups practicing ninjitsu today, They are the Bujinkan under the direction of Soke Dr. Masaaki Hatsumi, and The Gembukan under the Soke Shoto Tanemura (a Student of Masaaki Hatsumi)

Q. Where do you see the Bujinkan progressing as an organization?

A. I personally would like to see the practice of ninjitsu/ninjutsu/ninpo become more widely spread, At the moment there are only a few places in each country where the true art is practiced.

Q. Will there ever be any outreach (i.e. charity work) to communities or society by the Bujinkan?

A. I think having ninjas in the community is charity enough lol.

BTW. One ritual i will tell you about (which isnt secret, and is %100 genuine) is that it is a common initiation into ninjitsu for your sensei/soke to playfully strike at you with a samurai sword while you try and evade his swings, he is doing this for 2 reasons, the first is to see how much courage you have, the second is to show you who is boss.

[edit on 2-11-2004 by genuineninja]

I practiced martial arts through all of my teenage years without an instructor and actually developed some decent power, enough to break a seasond two by four with a spinning back kick. But like Bruce Lee said in Enter The Dragon," Boards Don't Hit Back". I took some karate lessons from the Chuck Norris system but didn't stick with it. The Ninja school you speak of would have been awsome to have been a part of when I was young.

Going to have to thank you Genuineninja.

A few years back I used to practice Bujinkan Taijutsu here in Sweden. I moved to another town and sadly had to give up my training. I looked for another dojo in my new town for a little while but was unsuccessful. Now I run into this thread. I did a quick search on google for Bujinkan and found a dojo right near where I live. This was very fortunate.

Thank you! *bow*

Great stuff genuineninja, thanks for the info, and thank you to Mirthful as well for starting this thread and posing the questions that led to the "meat and potatoes" of this discussion.

I have a question now; If there are still dojos that are teaching these ancient ninjitsu techniques, wouldn't it be reasonable to assume that there would be similar schools devoted to the Samurai way of life? GN you mentioned that the ninjas were kind of a counter to the Samurai armies of the feudal lords of the day; Was there alot of animosity between the two groups? If so, does that feeling still exist between the respective schools?

Also, can you give the names of some other styles that closely follow the Bujinkan teachings? It sounds very interesting, but I am almost certain there will be no Bujinkan dojos local to me. Hell I couldn't even find anywhere to train in the Issin Ryu style, surely that would be more widespread than what you're talking about.

Any of you martial artists out there heard of Issin Ryu? If so, what's your take on it?

Thanks in advance for your responses.


[edit on 11/2/04 by The Axeman]

The samurai and the ninja were basically at war with each other. There is one instance of several lords combining their forces and destroying a ninja village, killing men, women and children, the samurai hated the ninja because they were powerful adversaries and also did not fight by the traditional japanese idea of honourable combat. (to creep up behind someone and cut their throat was not deemed honourable in feudal japan)

There are schools such as ju-jutsu/ju-jitsu that teach the martial art of the samurai, i myself studied that system for a year, However outside of japan i doubt you would find anyone who will teach you the traditions of being a samurai warrior.

The old animosity ie "you vs. me, NOW!" is gone simply because the world has changed so much since those times, (although we are still taught the original way to disarm a samurai) but like students of any martial art we aways like to test our skills against those of other styles in a friendly bout

Apart from the bujinkan and the gembukan, the closest martial arts school to ninjutsu would be taijitsu, although only 3 of the 9 schools of taijitsu teaching are actual ninjutsu, the rest is pretty similar to what you would be taught in any other martial art. An american called steven hayes was the first westerner to be taught ninja techniques by Masaaki Hatsumi, and he has set up a school in america, its name is unknown to me but i know its teachings are different from what i have been taught.

As for issin ryu karate, i can tell you that karate (apart from true okinawan karate) is not a very effective art, for the reason that karate was created by peasants who were fighting samurai dressed in full battle armour which made them move slower and so karate practicioners had time to concentrate the strength into single punches and kicks to break that armour, however today you are not likely to come across someone in full armour so you will not have time to do these powerful techiques, i would recommend some form of kung fu, maybe wing chun, unless you live in a cave in the mountains, you will have no trouble finding a teacher for kung fu.

[edit on 3-11-2004 by genuineninja]

[edit on 3-11-2004 by genuineninja]

Okay here's the thread I'm looking for.....


Just wanted to have it on myATS list; may post some questions later.

I once posted a thread about the fact that I was involved in a genuine secret society in the late 1980's and early 1990's. It was founded on May day in 1976, on the 200th anniversary of the founding of the Illuminati. I think I posted in the RATS. It never got any replies, so I just gave up talking about it.

< update >

I did post it, months ago. It's called "birth of a secret society." I posted on RATS, and never got any comments, so I dropped it, and lived up to one of my titles.




[edit on 19-1-2005 by dr_strangecraft]

Hmmmm, im interested in your new secret society, id love to listen!
best wishes,
Dani

*Bumps "All-Seeing Eye's" spam out of the way*

very interesting info on the ninja.

I like that the ninja teach more than just martial arts but also the art of sneaking around. sounds like a recon course mixed with some martial arts, which sounds good to me.

But I have to disagree with secret methods of killing. in the art of killing person to person there is nothing new under the sun. it's all been done before and by just about everybody else too. there is no monopoly on secret techniques. There are no real secret techniques. there are more like basic anaomical concepts. understand them and you can kill a person in every concievable way to kill them. there are many ways to skin a cat but the concept will always be the same. Formless, to form, back to formlessness again is the way people learn to understand the application of martial combatative. learn the basic idea. practice it. now that you understand it, you can adapt and change it to be fluid and dynamic to the angle of attack or situation. but it's still no secret. more like nifty tricks, but they've all been pulled before. take secret moves from one art. cross train with another only to find out that those same moves are combat 101 to the other system, are no secret, and are even considered no brainers to the practicioners.

the best martial artists have no style, no secret moves. they understand concepts that they can apply fluidly. the concepts are almost always very simple and no brainers. never secret. perhaps the secret to fighting is to remember just how simple it really is. Understand an anatomical concept now adapt it to fit your needs at the time. Nobody on earth needs to know more than five moves to finish off any type attacker period. theres no secrets.

Examples: Xingyi-inveneted by a military general-, 5 moves. Bagua-used during it's hayday mostely by professional bodyguards, 8 moves (arguably only one). kajukenpo-created by hawiians to fight off drunk US sailors basically a few general moves. almost any military martial art taught currently, basically a few very simple and effective moves. Hong Chuan of the song dynasty's military, a few simple moves. Chin Na (chinese grappling and joint manipulation-influenced juijitsu, hopkido, akido, eagle claw, some crane techniques) basic concepts that can be applied fluidly and dynamically in just about any situation once understood. Kali,Silat,Escrima-extremely effective and very simple with only a few moves. Wing Tsun- a few moves and very simple. All these above styles are very leathal and are very simple. there are no real secret effective techniques anywhere. sorry. Fighting is universal and the same everywhere by those who know how to do it.