In the 60 years since Camilla Wedgwood's article appeared in the first volume of Oceania, anthropological studies of secrecy have undergone a marked change of perspective. Simple distinctions between secret process and content, between 'society5 and 'secret society*, as marked by inside/outside, sacred/profane, and like contrasts, are no longer tenable. Early studies recognized that secret formation could not be understood apart from the wider social order (Webster 1932). SimmeFs (1950) work, which I criticise in this essay, was instrumental in shifting but not fully analyzing the structural/historical assumption that a 'society* contains but one social order. Secrecy is an intentional process of differentiating included persons and entities from those excluded, while simultaneously building solidarity among secret-sharers. We should not speak of 'secret societies' but rather secret 'formations' and 'collectives', to underline the problematical relationship between secret collectives and other social formations. Secret collectives assemble hierarchies, between outsiders and insiders, and between members of the collective itself. Power and resources are at issue. However, secret societies are pre-eminently systems of cultural production, in which the ontological dimension is particularly significant. Secrecy as a semiotic system creates an intentional world, a cultural reality, set apart from other secular social formations. In this essay I shall discuss conceptual issues in the anthropological study of secrecy from three perspectives: the relationship between social hierarchy and secret collectives; the relationship between ontology and secrecy; and the relationship between secret collectives and the ontological development of the self/person.