The texts in this volume deal with the philosophical and social background and function of secrecy from different positions and perspectives, drawing on authors such as Plotinus, Hobbes, Nietzsche, Husserl, Deleuze, and Foucault. Working from the premise that the secret as such is at the very heart of the Occidental understanding of the state, the texts in this book look also at the phenomenon of forbidden knowledge as necessary for the very survival of the state. Such knowledge depends more or less on the uneven division of information in society, meaning that it is a threat to democratic development.