While foraging for some background on Virginia Woolf, I went to a link about the Bloomsbury Group, which led me to this link (there are a couple of ads) on the Cambridge Apostles. There are a list of members, many of whom I have actually heard.

So, what I am hoping for your-all's thoughts on is this: are groups like this made up of people who get invited because they have "that special something" already, or does belonging to this type of group tend to give them, or at least enhance, that special je ne sais quoi?

Of what I know:
On invitation by one or more members and when accepted inaugurated with rituals to be kept secret; then debating, dinners, mutual favors and lifelong brotherhood.
People who already have that special something, but get more special by being special as a group.

It sounds like there's an an interview process that takes place without the candidate knowing they're up for consideration. To me, this indicates that the individual has some quality which the group values, while accepting the invitation imbues the member with an additional value.

Which is the long way of restating what Branshea said in one line.

In regard to Jesus of Nazareth, were there not twelve disciples rather than twelve apostles? Maybe the group haven't wanted a Judas in their midst.

I wonder how many talks to the other eleven have been on biblical subjects.

ah!

Jackie:Breeding, money, and/or talent.
In England being of a 'good' family will surely still be of
extra weight.

Jackie; if you should survive to a hundred and five, it would serve you well to remember this...

We human beings choose the company of those human beings whose
belief systems most closely match those of our own. *

And those who don't are erratics - unhappy people who choose groups of other unhappy people in which to mingle.

Within the Cambridge Apostles mingled many old line communists and new age homosexuals who screened new members after their political affinities to the ingroup's core beliefs.

The Bloomsbury Group - being an outgrowth of the Cambridge Apostles - are likely but different peas from the same pod.

Alienation from the central culture makes people unhappy. Membership in smaller cultures such as these gives the honorees a temporary sense of belonging but sadly, deep inside, they are still unhappy and outwardly they are mad and sometimes embrassingly vocal.

It's in the book! --> [ The True Believer: Thoughts on the Nature of Mass Movements --- Eric Hoffer (1951)]

* The Open and Closed Mind: Investigations into the Nature of Belief Systems and Personality Systems - Milton Rokeach (1960)

If sharing their unhappiness produced a togetherness, they answer (though in a complicated secluded way) to your upper statement.

When you count that in 120 years 60 members of these Twelve Apostals Group came to a certain fame is that impressive? (I've no idea of statistics) Does that say anything about the " je ne sais pas quoi"".

Such clubs are often a more formal type of high school clique. In some cases membership is based on talent or profession or political views, in others others it is just a codified version of the same "who is cool" criteria that meant I never got in. (No bitterness here! ;-)

Not quite, BranShea. Imagine a clique of robbers who within their own group have status and mutual respect. Alas, these robbers can't spend their entire lives in robber's meetings, sooner or later they must go out into the larger world to rob, steal, and pillage. Of course, if they work hard at robbing and are thrifty, they might build themselves a big house in an exclusive neighborhood and find high status among non-robbing folks. But catch 22. They will always know that they are living a lie and consequently they will never never be truly happy. Catch 22.

And now to answer your question about the "je ne sais pas quoi".
The answer is "Ich weiß nicht was".

I really do know what;
I just wanted to fight showy French with no nonsense German.

Looks like I'd better read that book than do hard thinking about this your new parable. And prolong your start of the incomparable
Heine's "Lorelei":

"Ich weiß nicht was " soll es bedeuten,
Daß ich so traurig bin,
Ein Märchen aus uralten Zeiten,
Das kommt mir nicht aus dem Sinn.

And so on and so on for this cliché and much parodied
poem from the German Romantic period.

Heinrich Heine, 1822 (1799-1856)

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