Is there a rivalry between different secret societies?

Novels and films love the idea of orders locked in centuries-old war — assassins in cathedrals, coded messages, hereditary vendettas. It is excellent drama and almost entirely invented.

Real private organisations spend their energy on membership numbers, venue costs and keeping volunteers engaged.

There were genuine conflicts. The Catholic Church condemned Freemasonry from 1738 and the prohibition shaped European and Australian social life for two centuries, including sectarian divides in Australian politics and employment.

Weishaupt's recruitment inside Masonic lodges caused real resentment among Masons in the 1780s, and the Bavarian state's suppression affected both. These were institutional disputes, not secret warfare.

Australia inherited a Protestant-Catholic divide in which Masonic and Catholic fraternal networks shadowed each other in police forces, unions, local councils and business. That rivalry was real, documented and consequential well into the twentieth century.

It has largely faded with religious observance itself, though local folklore about it persists.

Modern fraternal orders generally cooperate on charity work and recruit from overlapping populations. Many people hold multiple memberships without conflict.

The order takes no position on other organisations. Its rules require respect toward people of other beliefs and affiliations, which forecloses institutional rivalry by design.

Conflict is a better story than administration. And if you already believe secret organisations run the world, you need a mechanism for why the world is contested rather than uniform — rival cabals supply it.

The simpler explanation is that no one is running it.