Quote:
Originally Posted by AOII Angel
I know this stuff not because I know their rituals, but because they advertise it in their own histories. Some NPC groups chose colors that they just liked and added significance later, picked letters they thought looked good together, had professors write their rituals, changed their rituals over time, changed their colors (whether or not they have significance I don't know.) I know that every aspect of AOII was chosen after the ritual was written and not written into the ritual for another purpose. I like that. I'm not saying doing it the other way is wrong or bad. I just think it's special that AOII's founders did it this way!
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What you say
may be true of some sororities, although of all the sorority histories I have read (which is quite a few), I don't ever recall any claiming that letter were initially chosen "randomly." Some may say the the meaning has changed, but that's different than "random." Same with color selection just because the colors were someone's favorite. SWTXBelle and you have both referred to a situation where colors were changed for good reason. What does that have to do with any colors being "someone's favorite." Its those phrases -- "letters chosen randomly, colors chosen because they were someone's favorite" -- that do indeed imply superiority.
But I really don't think that you can reliably say that any of this is true of "most" sororities, which is what your statement ("Not many sororities . . . ") certainly implied. Unless you know the rituals and ritual histories, you just don't have enough info to make such a claim, I don't think.
As far as official histories go, tread carefully. Yes, I know that there are histories out there that say something along the lines of "we originally picked the letters ABC because of ____; the deeper meaning conveyed in the ritual was added later." But when it comes to esoteric material, all such claims should perhaps be taken with a grain of salt, since some groups just aren't going to put the real info out there for public consumption.
