“The success of any conspiracy against such watchful royalty depends … on secrecy and surprise … , and so we have as the unfailing adjunct and nemesis of Asiatic kingship the secret society, investing all life with a paralyzing sense of insecurity, … overthrowing dynasties and empires in a single night. … The case of the brother of Shared … (Ether 14:9), is, then, thoroughly typical, and that by no mere coincidence. For we are … told that the system was inherited ‘from them of old’ and perpetuated by the same methods of secret societies, family compacts, bribes, oaths, assassinations, etc., as in the Old World” (Nibley, Lehi in the Desert, 203).