secretist

Noun

secretist (plural secretists)

1. (obsolete) A dealer in secrets or arcana.
   • Boyle condemned "the avarice" of those "secretists" who secured profit through the practice of intellectual privacy .2011, Steven Shapin, A Social History of Truth, page 175
   • Laboratories were to be contrasted with the private shrines of "secretist” philosophers and Hermetics whom Boyle criticized for their refusal to communicate in public.2011, Steven Shapin, Simon Schaffer, Leviathan and the Air-Pump
2. A secretive person; a keeper of secrets.
   • An exhibitionist rather than a secretist, Crowley published much material that was previously hidden from the public.2003, Daniel Harms, John Wisdom Gonce, The Necronomicon Files: The Truth Behind The Legend
   • The monarch frames his defense with a definition of a good prince as categorically without private interests: "for Kings being publike persons, by reason of the office and authority, are as it were set (as it was said of old) upon a publike stage, in the sight of all the people, where all the...2019, Katarzyna Lecky, Pocket Maps and Public Poetry in the English Renaissance, page 116
3. A member of a secret society or a known society with secret ceremonies.
   • No oathbound secretist is free to obey God, or church, or State; he must obey the behest of an irresponsible society, or as it may prove to be, a band of infamous conspirators.1890, The Reformed Presbyterian and Covenanter - Volume 28, page 216
   • The resolution was adopted with little difficulty, and all communion with secretists and all reception of secret society members ceased .1905, Matthias Loy, Story of My Life, page 184