Story of a Secret Society.

This article aims to retrace the history of the Ace´phale secret society and its role in the development of the work of Bataille, notably the unfinished project of the Atheological Summa (Somme athe´ologique). Based on sociological notions of the ‘secret society’ and ‘the society of men’, it updates the dual aspects of Ace´phale: a diurnal or ‘political’ aspect constituted by the publication of the journal Ace´phale, and afterwards by the public activity of the College of Sociology; and a nocturnal or religious side, as evidenced by the activity of the secret society itself, an activity aiming to strengthen the communitarian link amongst the followers, and to open them up to what Caillois would call ‘a broader conspiracy’.