secret rites
Clandestine sacred practices
Secret rites are ceremonial practices known only to initiates of a particular group—religious mysteries, fraternal orders, or cults.
The secrecy typically marks a boundary between insiders and outsiders, with revelation reserved for those who have undergone initiation: The secret rites of the Eleusinian Mysteries were never fully recorded.
The phrase often carries connotations of the ancient or esoteric.
- mystery cultReligion with guarded rites
- alchemyMystical metal transformation
- sacred geometrySymbolic patterns with spiritual significance
- initiationFormal admission ceremony
- tabooCultural or social prohibition
hidden knowledge · ancestor worship · liturgy · veil · hermeticism · threshold · sigil · labyrinth · oral tradition · folklore · consecration · invocation · sacrament · cabal · purification · covenant · closed door · shamanism
- occultwitchcraft, sorcery, necromancy, black magic, tarot
- secret societiesFreemasons, Illuminati, Masons, Freemasonry, Rosicrucians
- FreemasonryMason, Masons, Freemasons, Freemasonry, lodge
- mystery cultsmystery cults, mystery cult, mysteries, initiates, initiation
- mysticismmystic, gnosis, divine union, divine spark, mystical
- forbidden actsblasphemy, idolatry, sacrilege, adultery, incest
secret ritespublic worship
Collective religious ceremony
communal gathering · public service · community celebration · public prayer · parade
secret, secrets, secrete, secretive, secretively, secretiveness, secrecy, rite, rites