Moloch. Image Source: Your Newswire. See the full image here.
How true conspiracy theories are depends on how much you are willing to believe. I consider conspiracy theories to be powerful fictions and mischievous propaganda. This post concerns the granddaddy of them all, the story of the Bohemian Grove, the conspiracy theory that launched a thousand ships on the Internet.
Image Source: WikiLeaks via Your Newswire.
On 16 March 2016, WikiLeaks released Hillary Clinton's hacked e-mails on the Internet. In an August 2009 e-mail lay 'evidence' of Clinton's connection to the Bohemian Grove and the Illuminati. In the leak, Lewis Amselem, US lead representative to the Organization of American States, joked about the Honduran coup (see criticism of Amselem here, and coup-related comments here, here, here, here, here, here, here and here); if everything there worked out as they hoped, Amselem would go out in the backyard and sacrifice a chicken to Moloch.
Perhaps Amselem actually mentioned Moloch to Clinton's staffers. However, several reports maintain that Russian hackers tampered with Clinton's and the Democratic party's e-mails prior to releasing them to WikiLeaks. WikiLeaks has been blatantly anti-Clinton during the American election campaign. Even The Intercept and Edward Snowden criticized Julian Assange for his bias. Thus, this weird, tenuous connection between Hillary Clinton and Moloch could be fictitious. As WikiLeaks continues its suspect info dumps leading up to the US election, there is a lot of talk about the validity of the data they are revealing about a criminal and corrupted American establishment. Yet the question remains: who is Moloch? And why would Amselem, or Russian hackers, mention him?
Image Source: Spiritually Smart.
Moloch was the ancient Canaanite bull god of fire, who demanded child sacrifices. This is significant because human sacrifice marked a theological dividing line between the ages. The refutation of child sacrifice is a huge, post-Bronze-Age moment in the Old Testament; human sacrifice is further considered in the New Testament, some would say with less than stellar results. But Iron Age theology - still observed today - asserts that Judaism and Christianity drew a line between ancient and post-ancient religions on this issue, and concluded that the Abrahamic God does not want human sacrifices, but only after He thought about it a bit.
Image Source: Spiritually Smart.
First Moloch, horrid king besmeared with bloodIn Paradise Lost, Book II, Moloch attends the Parliament in Hell, where he calls for all-out war with Heaven. His argument is that the Fallen Angels are already damned, so they might as well not hold back in their revolution, ironically all the more so because their power comes from God:
Of human sacrifice, and parents tears,
Though for the noise of drums and timbrels loud
Their children’s cries unheard, that past through fire
To his grim idol. Him the Ammonite
Worshipped in Rabba and her watery plain,
In Argob and in Basan, to the stream
Of utmost Arnon. Nor content with such
Audacious neighborhood, the wisest heart
Of Solomon he led by fraud to build
His temple right against the temple of God
He ceased; and next him Moloch, sceptered king,Through Paradise Lost, Moloch became synonymous in modern culture with any all-out effort that forces a heavy burden or payment in order to achieve victory. He demands brutal sacrifices and in spiritual terms, his name still means cruel, degraded, violent religion; god as dictator; worship as slavery. This was why the Moloch-Amselem-Clinton e-mail caused a stir, because conspiracy theorists believed they already had proof of America's leaders worshipping Moloch at Bohemian Grove in California.
Stood up, the strongest and the fiercest spirit
That fought in Heaven, now fiercer by despair.
His trust was with the Eternal to be deemed
Equal in strength, and rather than be less
Cared not to be at all; with that care lost
Went all his fear: of God, or Hell, or worse,
He recked not, and these words thereafter spake:
My sentence is for open war. Of wiles,
More unexpert, I boast not: them let those
Contrive who need, or when they need; not now.
For, while they sit contriving, shall the rest,
Millions that stand in arms, and longing wait
The signal to ascend, sit lingering here,
Heaven's fugitives, and for their dwelling-place
Accept this dark opprobrious den of shame,
The prison of his tyranny who reigns
By our delay? No! let us rather choose,
Armed with Hell-flames and fury, all at once
O'er Heaven's high towers to force resistless way ...
What fear we then? what doubt we to incense
His utmost ire? which, to the height enraged,
Will either quite consume us, and reduce
To nothing this essential, happier far
Than miserable to have eternal being.
Or, if our substance be indeed divine,
And cannot cease to be, we are at worst
On this side nothing; and by proof we feel
Our power sufficient to disturb his Heaven,
And with perpetual inroads to alarm,
Though inaccessible, his fatal throne:
Which, if not victory, is yet revenge.
He ended frowning, and his look denounced
Desperate revenge, and battle dangerous
To less than gods.
Moloch appears in Fritz Lang's Metropolis (1927). Video Source: Youtube.
Moloch appears frequently in popular culture. He is a demon in the American television series, Sleepy Hollow, played by actor D. J. Mifflin (2013-2016).
The 'proof' about the Bohemian Grove and Moloch comes from a video made in 2000 by Alex Jones. Jones is a notorious New World Order believer, anti-Bilderberger, 9/11 truther, alt-right libertarian, and anti-banking anti-Zionist, who sells vitamin supplements to support his popular Webcasts at Infowars. What set Jones apart, and arguably made him the world's most famous professional conspiracy theorist, was the film, Dark Secrets Inside Bohemian Grove (see it full length here); the main highlight is below. With the help of Mike Hanson and a team led by Jon Ronson from World of Wonder Productions and Channel 4 from the UK, Jones infiltrated a private, forested compound owned by San Francisco's Bohemian Club (established 1872). The all-male club is famous because known members include government, corporate and social and cultural leaders (see supposed known members' lists here, here, here). Perhaps it is just a top-level frat club. The conspiracy theorists believe that the Bohemian Club is the centre of "the big picture," and the Bohemian Grove is the club's rural retreat, where members determine that picture through sordid devotions to a secret faith.
There, in the heavily-guarded redwood valleys of Monte Rio, on the Russian River in Sonoma County, Jones filmed a cult night ritual, a summer miracle play, in which masked men offered and burned a human effigy to a 40-foot-tall owl amid flickering torches. The ceremony, known as the 'cremation of care,' is an annual symbolic solstice or midsummer sacrifice of the evils of the world, apparently to Pallas Athene's owl of wisdom. But in the video, Jones called the owl Moloch.
The main owl-worship ritual clip from Dark Secrets Inside Bohemian Grove (2000). Video Source: Youtube.
Jones's video summary short, Bohemian Grove Exposed (2008). Video Source: Youtube.
There, in the heavily-guarded redwood valleys of Monte Rio, on the Russian River in Sonoma County, Jones filmed a cult night ritual, a summer miracle play, in which masked men offered and burned a human effigy to a 40-foot-tall owl amid flickering torches. The ceremony, known as the 'cremation of care,' is an annual symbolic solstice or midsummer sacrifice of the evils of the world, apparently to Pallas Athene's owl of wisdom. But in the video, Jones called the owl Moloch.
There's a war on for your mind and https://t.co/q3XYgIsba1 is the 21st century cavalry! pic.twitter.com/O90PwBzwA2— Alex Jones (@RealAlexJones) October 4, 2016
Image Source: Alex Jones / InfoWars.
Jon Ronson produced a five-part Channel 4 documentary-docudrama of this event, The Secret Rulers of the World (2001). Mike Hanson wrote a book, Bohemian Grove: Cult of Conspiracy (2004). Jones later released The Order of Death (2005), a further exposé of the Bohemian Club's activities, which included 2004-2005 footage filmed secretly by a former employee and a 2005 members' list. The 2005 source even gave us a look inside the owl, which is full of sound and effects equipment.
The 2000 video spawned hundreds of thousands of other videos, Websites, blogs, and forum threads. For example, there are nearly 14,000 videos on Youtube under the search term, 'Bohemian Grove owl.' With one whistle-blowing video, staged or not, Jones had created an entire subculture, whole online militias arrayed in an anti-Bohemian Club of everymen, of populist plain folks, pitted against the élites of the world. Some dyed-in-the-wool conspiracy theorists believe that Jones is part of that élite, and do not trust him. Regardless, this video was a landmark moment in fear-mongering about the Illuminati, and successfully revived the Russian anti-Semitic world domination hoax described in The Protocols of the Elders of Zion (1903), as well as the medieval anti-Semitic ritual murder blood libel myth.
Both myths fueled anti-Jewish pogroms in the Russian Pale in the late 19th century, more Russian anti-Semitic violence in the early 20th century, and - as eastern European Jews fled Russian territories for German Europe - the Nazi Holocaust. Today, the history of the Holocaust underpins the liberal consensus in western government, and to deny or rewrite that history allows full-blown attacks and revision of the post-World War II state of affairs.
This was why the mention of Moloch in the WikiLeaks Clinton e-mails, leaked via Russia in 2016, was so curious. Whether the mention of Moloch was authentic or not, did Lewis Amselem's e-mail connect to the Bohemian Club at all? Jones's videos have confused online conspiracy theorists, who now believe that Moloch is the owl at Bohemian Grove. On the forum of UK ex-footballer and conspiracy theorist, David Icke, there is a 15-page discussion, Moloch is not an owl:
"After finding out about this, I did my own research and I have not found one source that would say Moloch was an owl, so what exactly are these twats then worshipping?"According to Conspiracy Archive, Jones's confusion between the two gods arose through a July 1993 article in the Santa Rosa Sun by Mark Walter Evans; and David Icke perpetuated that false analogy in 1999. But if Moloch is not the owl at Bohemian Grove, then in the Clinton e-mail hack, Amselem either used the term in its literary sense as a joke; or he made some other arcane reference; or the Russian hackers inserted the reference to stir up American conspiracy theorists against Clinton in an election year.
Moloch was an ancient Semitic deity of Canaan, which in ancient times comprised modern Israel, Lebanon, Palestine and parts of Jordan and Syria. Again, this reference encourages virulent Millennial anti-Jewish anti-Semitism and anti-Israel sentiment. Meanwhile, the bird god at Bohemian Grove is an über-Masonic Athenian or Minervan deity of rationalism and secularism, to represent the enlightened triumph of cold, hard logic and reason over - ah - benighted fairy tale religions like Christianity. For deeper explanation of the Bohemian Grove's pseudo-Druidic meta-ritual, Conspiracy Archive cites sociologist James Vaughn, “The Culture of the Bohemian Grove: The Dramaturgy of Power,” Michigan Sociological Review, Vol. 20 (Fall 2006): 85-123:
According to Conspiracy Archive and Boodle Boys (publisher of known membership lists of the Order of Skull and Bones), this is the 1946 text of the 'cremation of care' ritual, written by Charles K. Field (1873-1948):"The Cremation of Care is a ritualized sacrifice of an effigy of the body of the Dull Cares of the world. Dull Care is understood to mean the accumulated stresses, boredoms, and sins accumulated by each Bohemian during the past year. This effigy is cremated upon the altar of Bohemia at the foot of the Owl Shrine. The Shrine is a forty foot tall Owl Deity that symbolizes '…all mortal wisdom…' (Annals of the Bohemian Club vol. V: 431) and is the tutelary deity of the Club. Through the process of conducting this research, I came to an understanding that the Cremation of Care is a formal ritual that functions as a group catharsis for those that participate in it."
"The SireThere are many sources and speculations on these leaks and conspiracy theories. Bilderberg meeting attendee lists and commentaries (sometimes fabricated, sometimes not) are constantly leaked online. Before Alex Jones came on the scene, the main whistle-blowing article on the Bohemian Grove was published in Spy magazine (November 1989): 59-76; you can read it here.
Bohemians, by the power of our fellowship,
Dull care is slain.
Hearken!
High up the hill you may hear Care’s funeral music.
[Tolling of the bell and faint, far strains of the funeral dirge (DENKE). Torches are glimpsed in the distance. Music and light approach.]
The Sire
Behold, the effigy of this, our enemy, is carried hither for our ancient rites.
[Music ceases, drumbeat accompanies the descent of cortege. The cortege passes through the dinning circle and down the main isle as the Band and the effigy of Care proceed down the road to the floor of the Grove. When the torch bearers are leaving the dining circle, followed by the Old Guard.]
The Sire announces
Bohemians, follow to Bohemia’s Shrine!
[The band resumes the funeral dirge ( Denke ). The band turns into the traffic road, where it continues to play; the spectators pass to their seats opposite the shrine, through the two columns of the Torch Bearers who flank the path to Edwards Road. The shrine is bathed in the soft, flickering light from the lamp of fellowship. The radiance of the rising full moon touches the crown of Hamadryad’s tree. 0ffstage chorus of woodland voices. The Hamadryad emerges from the bark. Music by Jan Philip Schirhan and W.J. McCoy]
The HAMADRYAD singing
Beauty, and strength and peace,
They are yours; they shall never cease
While the trees are, and the hills.
The stars come in with the night,
And the wind, like a presence, fills
The temple-aisles of the wood;
It is yours, it is good,
It is made for your delight.
Beauty, and strength and peace,
They are here that you find release
From the mournful memories
Oh, cast your grief to the fire.
And be strong with the holy trees
And the spirit of the Grove.
In your dreams you shall rove
To the land of Hearts Desire. ( Sterling )
[The Hamadryad retires into the tree. The illumination fades. The shrine is now in full moonlight. Enter, accompanied by the music of Charles Hart, the High Priest, Assisting Priests, and choristers.]
The High Priest
The owl is in his leafy temple; let all within the Grove be reverent before him.
Lift up your heads, O ye Trees, and be ye lift up, ye ever-living spires.
For behold, here is Bohemia’s Shrine and holy are the pillars of this house.
Weaving spiders, come not here!
[The High Priest descends to the water’s edge.]
Hail Bohemians!
With ripple of waters and the song of birds.
Such music as inspires the sinking soul.
Do we invite you to Midsummer’s joy!
The sky above is blue and sown with stars;
The forest floor is heaped
with fragrant drift;
Evenings cool kiss is yours,
The campfire’s glow,
The birth of joyous rosy- fingered dawns!
Shake of all your sorrows with
the City’s dust
And scatter to the winds the cares of life!
Second Priest
Let memory bring back the well-loved names
Of gallant friends who knew and loved this Grove.
Dear boon companions of long ago!
Third Priest
Aye! They shall join us in this ritual
And not a place be empty in our midst!
The High Priest
O Beauty’s vassals
Who keep, in this gray autumn of the world,
Her springtime in your hearts,
I charge ye all:
For lasting happiness we lift our eyes
To one alone, and she surrounds you now,
Great Nature, refuge for the weary heart
And only balm for breasts that have been bruised,
Her counsels are most wise.
But ye must come
As children, little children that believe,
Nor ever doubt her beauty or her faith,
Nor dream her tenderness can change or die! ( STERLING )
[Soft music by Edward Harris as the High Priest ascends to be invested.]
Second Priest
Gather , Ye forest fold, and cast your spells
Over these mortals.
Third Priest
Touch their world-blind eyes with fairy unguents.
Second Priest
Open their eyes of fancy
And seal the gates of sorrow.
Third Priest
Dull Care and all his works are but a dream;
As vanished Babylon and goodly Tyre
So they shall vanish.
Second Priest
But the wilding rose
Blows on the broken battlements of Tyre
And mosses rend the stones of Babylon.
Third Priest
For Beauty is eternal and we bow
to Beauty everlasting! ( Irwin )
The High Priest
Our funeral pyre awaits the corpse of Care.
[The Barcarolle by Charles Hart. The introductory horn solo comes from the direction of the ferry slip. The ferry of Care, poled by a lone boatman, appears and passes up the lake to the foot of the shrine. Acolytes await the barge.]
The High Priest
Oh thou, thus ferried ‘cross the shadowy tide
In all the ancient majesty of death
Dull Care, arch-enemy of Beauty; not for thee
The tender tribute and the restful grave,
But fire shall have its will of thee
And all the winds make merry with thy dust! ( Sterling )
Bring fire!
[Fanfare of music by Leigh Harline. Enter the torch bearers. The Acolytes now seize and lift the beir from the barge, hold it high above their heads and bear it in triumph up to the pyre, accompanied by the choristers. The music is interrupted by the peals of thunder and rush of wind. The ensemble stands transfixed with surprise and awe. All lights down, except torches and the lamp. Care laughs upon the hill. The dead tree is illuminated.]
THE VOICE OF CARE
Fools! Fools! Fools!
When will ye learn that me ye cannot slay?
Year after year ye burn me in this Grove, lifting your silly shouts of triumph to the stars.
But when again ye turn your feet toward the market-place, am I not waiting for you, as of old?
Fools! Fools! Fools!
To dream ye conquer Care!
[The High Priest has come down to the lake’s edge and stands gazing up at the ghostly tree from which the voice of Care has come.]
The High Priest
Nay, thou mocking spirit, it is not all a dream.
We know thou waitest for us when this our sylvan holiday shall end.
And we shall meet and fight thee as of old,
and some of us prevail against thee,
and some thou shalt destroy.
But this, too, we know: year after year, within this happy Grove,
our fellowship has banned thee for a space, and thy malevolence
that would pursue us here has lost its power beneath these friendly trees.
So shall we burn thee once again this night and in the flames
that eat thine effigy we’ll read the sign:
Midsummer set us free!
THE VOICE OF CARE
So shall ye burn me once again! Ho, Ho,
Not with these flames which hither ye have brought.
From regions where I reign!
Ye priests and fools!
I spit upon your fire!
[Explosions at the Pyre. The torches are instantly extinguished. No light save from the lamp. Care’s laughter fills the darkness. The High Priest kneels and lifts his arm to the shrine.]
The High Priest
O thou, great symbol of all mortal wisdom, Owl of Bohemia, we do beseech thee, Grant us thy counsel!
[The music of Fire Finale begins, offstage. An aura of light begins to glow about the Owl’s head, gradually silhouetting the colossus.]
THE VOICE OF THE OWL
No fire, if it be kindled from the world
Where Care is nourished on the hates of men
Shall drive him from this Grove.
One flame alone
Must light this pyre, the pure eternal flame
That burns within the Lamp
of Fellowship
Upon the altar of Bohemia. (GARTHWAITE)
[High Priest rises and ascends to Lamp of Fellowship]
The High Priest
Great Owl of Bohemia, we thank thee for thy adjuration.
[lights torch and turns toward Pyre.]
Well should we know our living flame
Of Fellowship can sear
The grasping claws of Care,
Throttle his impious screams
And send his cowering carcass
From this Grove.
Begone, detested Care, begone!
Once more we banish thee!
Let the all potent spirit of this lamp
By its cleansing and ambient fire
Encircle the mystic scene
Hail Fellowship; begone Dull Care!
Once again Midsummer sets us free!"
The earliest whistle-blower on the actual, historic, 18th century Illuminati was a professor of philosophy at the University of Edinburgh, John Robison (1739-1805). Robison, a Scottish Freemason who taught physics and mathematics, claimed that Freemasonry had been infiltrated by a secret society of German political mystics named the Illuminati. His book on the subject was Proofs of a Conspiracy against all the Religions and Governments of Europe, carried on in the Secret Meetings of Free-Masons, Illuminati and Reading Societies, etc., collected from good authorities (1797; it ran into several editions; you can read the fourth edition from 1798 here; a 2003 edition is selling briskly on Amazon).
One of the main sources on the historic Bavarian Illuminati is a 1914 book, Les illuminés de Bavière et la Franc-Maçonnerie allemande by René Le Forestier (1868-1951; you can read it in a linked download here; there is a 1916 American Historical Review book review of Le Forestier's book here). A recent book reproduces the texts and orders of 18th century Bavarian Illuminati rituals: The Secret School of Wisdom: The Authentic Ritual and Doctrines of the Illuminati (2015), translated by Jeva Singh-Anand and edited by Josef Wäges and Reinhard Markner.
Some sites suggest that the religious messages beneath these Millennial conspiracy theories involve a complex interplay between paganism, Catholicism, Protestantism, and Judaism - all of which carry social and class messages and bear political weight; other nuances are more peculiar:
- The 'Bohemian' in Bohemian Club and Bohemian Grove implies either early leftist counter-cultural Bohemianism, or Czech Hussite anti-Jesuit proto-Protestantism.
- The Bohemian Grove sits on the Russian River, named by Ivan Kuskov. The area was once Russian-held territory, explored and prospected in 1817 by the Russian-American Company. The joint-stock company ceased its commercial activities in California in 1881; the company's main settlement in California was nearby Fort Ross.
- In the 1890s, a similar whistle-blower in Paris, anti-clerical writer Léo Taxil (1854-1907), launched what became known as the 'Taxil Hoax'; through faked exposés, Taxil simultaneously attacked Freemasonry, Roman Catholicism, and the famous contention between the two creeds; this means his "prank" attack was broadly anti-faith, since he was an admitted anti-Catholic, and Masonry is sometimes viewed as an enlightened mystery fusion of Judaism and Protestantism.
- In 1928, H. G. Wells published The Open Conspiracy: Blueprints for a World Revolution, often cited by today's conspiracy theorists as a road map to the present world situation and fabled New World Order they so fear; you can read it online here; conspiracy theorists believe Wells was a Freemason, but Masons deny this, and Wells parodied Freemasonry in The Story of the Inexperienced Ghost.
- Some conspiracy theorists in the United States criticize the Bohemian Club from the perspective of the country's extreme Protestantism, while other theorists reflect extreme forms of Roman Catholicism and anti-Semitism; that is, their theories are flavoured by their religious biases.
- For a whopper of a whistle-blower, see a 1998 seven-hour interview conducted by Pastor Rick Strawcutter in Adrian, Michigan, with Kay Griggs. The ex-wife of Marine Colonel George Griggs (retired; reportedly an ex-head of special operations), Katherine Griggs had definite biases and an axe to grind in this interview as she spilled everything. Starting with her contention that officers should not be having sex with gogo dancers in the mess hall, she detailed the corruption of the officer class in the American military, and became every conspiracy theorist's dream. Beware, her interview contains offensive homophobia, anti-Semitism and anti-Zionist attitudes. A Google search reveals a lot of researchers seeking to verify her comments. The strangest thing she implies is 'the Nazis won after all.' More precisely, her remarks indicate that parts of Weimar and Nazi Germany enjoyed historical continuity in post-war America. An old-fashioned, well-connected American WASP from the South, she claimed that Bohemian Grove sex rituals were influenced by some 200,000 ex-Nazi officers and Nazi élite supporters who were secretly admitted to the United States after World War II. They along with - paradoxically - German, Austrian and other European Jews, took shelter inside the top level of the American establishment, military, and at Ivy League universities, especially Princeton. She implies that Nazi refugees became part of the highest echelons of the American power structure, infecting it with their theories, politics, existentialist ends-justify-the-means tactics, their cultish mysticism and their initiation practices, which determined what kind of people got promoted in post-war America, and how. She speaks less about secret societies and more about tight cliques in an old boys' network. She talks wildly about Trotsky's murder, the Vietnam War, US generals, NATO, SHAPE (Supreme Headquarters Allied Powers Europe), the mob, the Saudis, raped children, the murder of CIA director William Colby in 1996, arms deals, drug money laundering, assassin squads, the Bushes, the Clintons, the War in Bosnia, and everything in between; her comments on the Bohemian Grove start here. Of course, her remarks resonate with American grassroots populists, who see themselves defending their country in an internal war against a corrupted, exploitative establishment.
- Some say self-proclaimed Protestant Alex Jones is a pro-Jesuit spokesman for the Vatican, others that he is a "Zionist shill."
- Is the owl at Bohemian Grove, Moloch or not? Because Alex Jones calls the owl Moloch, the debate among the uninitiated goes on and on and on; Conspiracy Archive decisively states that the Bohemian owl and Moloch are not the same. If so, Amselem's comments would seem to have nothing to do with Bohemian Grove.
- The Bohemian Club's and/or conspiracy theorists' emphases on sacrifice may relate to the history of European pogroms; or it may reflect American anxieties about the Ku Klux Klan and American slavery.
- Jones blurs all mythology, alternately calls the Bohemian Club Babylonian, Luciferian or Druidic, Egyptian, Mayan, Aztec, and Indian. He wondered about white magic combatting black magic, when Wiccan protestors cast healing and protection spells against Bohemian Club cultists; at Bohemian Grove's gates, a warlock appealed to nature spirits in the surrounding forest and the Russian River against Bohemian Club members, as the latter entered the Grove in luxury autos for their annual owl ceremony.
- Professor William Domhoff of the University of California at Santa Cruz ranks the Bohemian Grove 11th in the country in terms of importance regarding American social dominance and policy cohesion.
- National Geographic, in which Rupert Murdoch bought controlling interest in September 2015, recently underwent editorial and fact-checker firings. Under these staffing conditions, the magazine produced a July/August 2016 article about Adam Weishaupt (1748-1830), 18th century founder the Illuminati. Critics claim that the article misinformed the public about the original ceremonies of the historically verified German secret society; these critics, Terry Melanson - author of the book Perfectibilists (2009) and the Website, Conspiracy Archive - and Christopher Hodapp - author of Freemasons for Dummies (2013) - argue that the National Geographic writer, Isabel Hernandez, relied on incorrect anti-Semitic claims about the 18th century Illuminati. Both men are the more sober type of conspiracy theorist (Hodapp had a Jesuit education) and conclude that under Murdoch's stewardship, NatGeo is peddling Illuminati disinformation.
- Elizabeth Carter (1717-1806), member of the 18th century aristocratic proto-feminist group, the Blue Stockings Society, wrote a poem, Ode to Wisdom, celebrating the owl of Minerva. The picture the poem presents strongly resembles the idealized owl of wisdom, evident in symbols of the Bohemian Club. Academic analyses of the Blue Stockings focus on civic and social progress and spend less time exploring the contradictory religious motivations of individuals in the group, given their religious conservatism, anti-secularism despite ties to the Scottish Enlightenment, and tolerance of Catholics. Carter - daughter of a clergyman - depicted a night bird of deified higher wisdom, which hunts down the distracting cares of the day. Conspiracy Archive claims that Carter's poem, in the slightly altered form below (the original by Carter is here) was recited by initiates in the Bavarian Order of the Illuminati. Oddly, Samuel Richardson (1689-1761) included Carter's poem in the slightly different form in his novel, Clarissa (1748). Some scholars do not even realize that Richardson did not write the poem! There was a connection between the two writers, and Carter wrote an epitaph to Richardson when he died. Here is the Clarissa / Bavarian Illuminati initiation version of the poem:
ODE to WISDOM, By a Lady.
I.
The solitary Bird of Night
Thro' the thick Shades now wings his Flight,
And quits his Time-shook Tow'r;
Where, shelter'd from the Blaze of Day,
In Philosophic Gloom he lay,
Beneath his Ivy Bow'r.
II.
With Joy I hear the solemn Sound,
Which midnight Echoes waft around,
And sighing Gales repeat.
Fav'rite of Pallas! I attend,
And, faithful to thy Summons, bend
At Wisdom's awful Seat.
III.
She loves the cool, the silent Eve,
Where no false Shews of Life deceive,
Beneath the Lunar Ray.
Here Folly drops each vain Disguise,
Nor sport her gaily-colour'd Dyes,
As in the Beam of Day.
IV.
O Pallas! Queen of ev'ry Art,
That glads the Sense, and mends the Heart,
Blest Source of purer Joys!
In ev'ry Form of Beauty bright,
That captivates the mental Sight
With Pleasure and Surprize;
V.
To thy unspotted Shrine I bow:
Attend thy modest Suppliant's Vow,
That breathes no wild Desires;
But taught by thy unerring Rules,
To shun the fruitless Wish of Fools,
To nobler Views aspires.
VI.
Not Fortune's Gem, Ambition's Plume,
Nor Cytherea's fading Bloom,
Be Objects of my Pray'r:
Let Av'rice, Vanity, and Pride,
Those envy'd glitt'ring Toys divide,
The dull Rewards of Care.
VII.
To me thy better Gifts impart,
Each moral Beauty of the Heart,
By studious Thought refin'd;
For Wealth, the Smiles of glad Content,
For Pow'r, its amplest, best Extent,
An Empire o'er my Mind.
VIII.
When Fortune drops her gay Parade,
When Pleasure's transient Roses fade,
And wither in the Tomb,
Unchang'd is thy immortal Prize;
Thy ever-verdant Laurels rise
In undecaying Bloom.
IX.
By Thee protected, I defy
The Coxcomb's Sneer, the stupid Lye
Of Ignorance and Spite:
Alike contemn the leaden Fool,
And all the pointed Ridicule
Of undiscerning Wit.
X.
From Envy, Hurry, Noise, and Strife,
The dull Impertinence of Life,
In thy Retreat I rest:
Pursue thee to the peaceful Groves,
Where Plato's sacred Spirit roves,
In all thy Beauties drest.
XI.
He bad Ilyssus' tuneful Stream
Convey thy Philosophic Theme
Of Perfect, Fair, and Good:
Attentive Athens caught the Sound,
And all her list'ning Sons around
In awful Silence stood:
XII.
Reclaim'd her wild, licentious Youth,
Confess'd the potent Voice of Truth,
And felt its just Controul.
The Passions ceas'd their loud Alarms,
And Virtue's soft persuasive Charms
O'er all their Senses stole.
XIII.
Thy Breath inspires the Poet's Song,
The Patriot's free, unbiass'd Tongue,
The Hero's gen'rous Strife;
Thine are Retirement's silent Joys,
And all the sweet engaging Ties
Of still, domestic Life.
XIV
No more to fabled Names confin'd,
To the Supreme all-perfect Mind,
My Thoughts direct their Flight.
Wisdom's thy Gift & all her force
From thee deriv'd Eternal Source
Of Intellectual Light.
XV
O send her sure, her steady Ray,
To regulate my doubtful Way,
Thro' Life's perplexing Road:
The Mists of Error to controul,
And thro' its Gloom direct my Soul
To Happiness and Good.
XVI
Beneath Her clear discerning Eye
The visionary Shadows fly
Of Folly's painted Show.
She sees thro' ev'ry fair Disguise,
That All but Virtue's solid Joys,
Are Vanity and Woe.
Beyond its occult connotations, Minerva's owl was an 18th century symbol of rationalism, common in the Neoclassical origins of the United States and its virtuous constitution. In other words, to attack the exaltation of rationality in the USA attacks the very heart of that country and everything for which it stands. Even America's critics, particularly in Europe, must concede that America was the place - more than France - where the Enlightenment and the revolution of reason succeeded.
To turn its people against that principle turns them against their own land. The fact that reason's exaltation was reconciled with fundamentalist Christianity through quasi-secular mysticism is one of America's most stressful internal contradictions. It was resolved through republican ideology, Masonic symbolism, and civil war. No wonder anyone - say, the Russians - interested in disrupting America's position in the world would see this muddled formula as her weak spot. That said, no one could have predicted where that successful revolution of reason would go. The average American certainly did not expect 18th century rationalism to give rise to an élitist owl cult.
lost in an oddly discontinuous landscape, dream self teaches a restaurant manager to manage his owls and instructs him in witchcraft. #dream— hugo reinert (@metaleptic) September 4, 2016
This conspiracy theorist's video conflates Moloch with the owl at Bohemian Grove (2012). Conspiracy theorists argue about whether the hand signal flashed in the video is the corna hand sign, the Luciferian El Diablo or Mano Cornuto gesture, the Wiccan Horned God sign, or something to do with Minerva's Horned Owl, or the Illuminati. Video Source: Youtube.
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