Acéphale

Masson's figure, however, is headless, his groin covered by a skull, and holds in his right hand a burning heart, while in his left he wields a dagger.

Bataille referred several times to Marcel Mauss who had studied secret societies in Africa, describing them as a "total social phenomenon".

Members of the Acéphale society were required to adopt several rituals, such as refusing to shake hands with antisemites and celebrating the decapitation of Louis XVI, an event which prefigured the "chiefless crowd" targeted by "acéphalité".

Members of the society were also invited to meditation, on texts of Nietzsche, Freud, Sade and Mauss read during the assemblies.

The license was likely an invention of Marcel Duchamp, typographer for the Encyclopaedia Da Costa, and was a gesture that had no obvious relationship to the art object as it is commonly known.

By the end of the century the encyclopedia fell into obscurity, partly because those who created it actively discouraged interested parties from procuring copies.