Mystical Seven (Wesleyan) - Influences On Other Organizations

Influences On Other Organizations

Since the Mystical Seven introduced the idea of the college fraternity into the South, it had considerable influence on the development of organizations in the Antebellum South. All private college societies were, for a time, called 'Mystic Associations' in Georgia. A competitor society called W.W.W. was designed on principles more similar to the Mystical Seven than to Northern college fraternities. It has also been assumed that a society for adult men, not connected to colleges and universities, called the Order of Heptasophs, was at least organized on principles parallel to the Mystical Seven, if not by alumni of the Mystical Seven themselves. The resemblances of the ceremonies of the two societies "cannot be given at length; but they leave little room for doubt that...the Heptasophs or Seven Wise Men...is an indirect descendent of the Mystical Seven college fraternity."