16 - Secret Societies Today

We have seen much of the symbolism and historical background of the various secret societies. We have seen where their enlightenment concepts originated and what they mean. We have seen what their symbols refer to and we have reinterpreted much that is known.

There are many modern-day conspiracy theories about aliens, the Kennedy family, Princess Diana, and even Elvis. There is even a growing madness that many of the world's leaders are shapeshifting reptiles as espoused by the author David Icke.

However, as you may have gathered, much of the so-called proof for this is the mythology and history of the serpent-worshipping cults of the globe, and now that we know the real reason for this, we have a more down-to-earth approach.

I do not intend, however, to look at these, preferring instead to concentrate on the "why" and "when" of real secret societies. I have not yet touched upon the Far East and China.

Unfortunately, finding the origins of most Chinese secret societies is nearly impossible, as they are so couched in myth and mystery. One thing is sure: Secret societies have changed the course of China - the Boxer Rebellion of 1900 was led by a secret society. These Boxers, or Fist for Protection Society, were initiated in much the same way as any protection society across the world. Placed in darkness, they were made to fast and meditate, opening up their minds to cleansing.

This Boxer Society came from an older group known as the Big Swords, and this was another name used by the Triads.

In the 12th century at the time of the Crusades there were gatherings of men who took oaths to "regard the stars as our brothers and Heaven and Earth as our father and mother." These same men then drank each others' blood mixed with wine.

By the 14th century, the White Lotus Society was formed, and eventually China was scattered with secret societies. However, most of these organizations can be linked together and form the Triad we know of today. This group of societies was believed to have been formed for a popularized royalist myth - to bring back the Ming dynasty.

However, hundreds of years and even the attainment of power have not resolved this supposed goal. But, the reason for this non-attainment is simple - Ming actually means "Light" and is the real element these secret societies wish to see restored.

It is the light of the Shining Ones, spreading back hundreds if not thousands of years, even in the heart of red China, that the secret societies still strive for. We know that this is the case, because once the Lotus Society had installed the Ming dynasty to the throne in the 14th century, it was only by the 17th century that they were deposed again, by the same society.

One thing is clear:

whether East or West, the center rule of the secret society is "light" or "illumination."

Bildebergers

The Bilderberg Group is an informal secretive transatlantic council of key decision makers, developed between 1952 and 1954...

It brought leading European and American personalities together once a year for informal discussions of their differences....The formation of the American wing of Bilderberg was entrusted to (Gen.) Eisenhower's psychological warfare co-ordinator, C.D. Jackson, and the funding for the first meeting, held at the Hotel de Bilderberg in Holland in 1954, was provided by the Central Intelligence Agency.

Thereafter much of its funding came from the Ford Foundation... The subjects over which the annual meetings ranged were wide...but it is clear that the [1957] Treaty of Rome was nurtured by discussions at Bilderberg the previous year.

(Reproduced from an article by Richard J. Aldrich, lecturer in politics at Nottingham University, in Diplomacy and Statecraft for March 1997. Dr. Aldrich is the author of The Hidden Hand: Britain, America and Cold War Secret Intelligence)

This modern-day group of the powerful elite has been accused, on an international basis, of forming the brains behind a new world order.

On the other hand, they claim that the Bilderberg Group is simply a meeting of those in power in order to discuss, in a free and easy way, the concerns of the world leaders.

What does appear to have come out of the meetings are two other groups also called to account by the conspiracy theorists - namely the Trilateral Commission and the Council on Foreign Relations.

One of the key institutions that has fostered unity and cooperation with the Atlantic Community beyond the old concepts has been the Bilderberg Group.
(Bilderberg: The Cold War Internationale
1971, Eugene Pasymowski and Carl Gilbert)

The origins of this group rest with one man, Joseph Retinger, a Catholic who had links to the Jesuit Order. He even recommended the turning of Hungary, Austria, and Poland into a tripartite state under the guidance of the Jesuit Order.

The plan was dropped.

I remember Retinger in the United States picking up the telephone and immediately making an appointment with the President, and in Europe he had complete entrée in every political circle as a kind of right acquired through trust, devotion, and loyalty he inspired.
(Sir Edward Bedington-Behrens.
"The Bildeberg Group," Nexus Magazine, Volume 3 [1])

With a good war record, Retinger was certainly involved in secret and underground works, even parachuting into occupied Germany at the age of 58.

He founded the European Movement, which gave rise to the Council of Europe in 1949, which then set up in Strasbourg where Retinger worked.

Retinger believed in unity, and to that end it did not really matter how the unity was brought about. He certainly liked to involve big business and the influence that they created within the general public. We are, after all, tied to our television screens and led by marketing men.

The political and religious differences in the world, which created the disunity between certain states, he believed, could be brought together through a corporate ideal - if everybody wanted the same thing they would all be the same. A market-led revolution was and strangely still is taking place. Russia (as the USSR) collapsed and now is in the process of commercialization; the same will be and is true of China.

This commercialization is creeping across the world like an invading force. In many respects this could be seen as a kind of communism by the back-door, which has been claimed was instigated by the Masons on the orders of the Catholic Church or Illuminati. Retinger did have left-wing policies, and with his connection to the Jesuits there are obvious links to take into consideration - not least of which with the Catholic Church.

Involving Prince Bernhard of the Netherlands, who was implicated in the Lockheed bribery scandal in 1976, Retinger began his crusade by starting on America, which he believed to be essential to world "peace."

The prince held an important position in Royal Dutch Petroleum, or Shell, and was involved in several international corporations, and so had influence that the Americans and others would respect.

In 1952, Retinger proposed that there should be an open and frank discussion between the disparate organizations and individuals that controlled the world. This should be in secret to allow those taking part to air their views without the worry of it appearing in the newspapers the next day.

This was the birth of the Bilderberg Group, which was named after the hotel in Oosterbeek where the meetings were originally held in May 1954.

In short, Bilderberg is a recognized, flexible, and informal international leadership forum in which different viewpoints can be expressed and mutual understanding enhanced. (Bilderberg Meetings, 1989)

The Trilateral Commission

The Trilateral Commission was formed in 1973 by private citizens of Japan, Europe (European Union countries), and North America (United States and Canada) to foster closer cooperation among these core democratic industrialized areas of the world with shared leadership responsibilities in the wider international system.

Originally established for three years, our work has been renewed for successive triennia (three-year periods), most recently for a triennium to be completed in 2006. (From the Trilateral Commission Website)

The Trilateral Commission is a private organization, at the initiative of David Rockefeller. It consists of over 300 private citizens from the three areas of Europe, Japan, and North America, and is there "to promote closer cooperation between these three areas."

There has been a lot of scrutiny of the Trilateral Commission, and it has been implicated strongly in many conspiracy theories - however, with as many members as it has, there is no surprise that some of them will be connected to other organizations, such as the Knights of Malta (Catholic), Jesuits (Catholic), and Freemasons. Not least of these is Mr. Rockefeller, former president of the Chase Manhattan Bank and corporate king.

The Rockefellers actually have their origins in a traveling salesman John D. Rockefeller, who sold what was to become Nujol, a petroleum-based laxative. John, evading accusations of horse stealing, reemerged as William Rockefeller, only to disappear again and come back as Dr. William Levingston.

Eventually he became director of the United States Steel Corporation and the Rockefeller legacy began. By starting the Rockefeller Foundation, the family later had a firm basis in helping the people of America - and later still the world - with charitable contributions.

The Rockefellers are often linked with the Rothschild's in the conspiracy world. I will leave it up to the readers to do their own research on these two families.

Rosicrucians

There are many Rosicrucian movements in Britain, Europe, and the United States, and around the world, with a great many teachings.

Some are extremely open, and others are more secretive. The secretive Rosicrucians tend to save their hidden teachings for the higher degrees of Freemasonry. Probably the most famous organization is AMORC (the Ancient and Mystical Order of the Rosy Cross), who advertise widely, and to date have more than 300,000 members. They offer correspondence courses and hold meetings around the world.

The earliest real documentation for the Rosicrucian ideal is from 1597, and most of these early documents can now be traced to a Lutheran priest, Johann Valentin Andreae (1586–1654), who actually created the symbolic myth of Christan Rosenkreuz in an attempt to stimulate interest in the concepts, which, therefore, must have been already in existence.

During the late Middle Ages, a wide network of operative guilds, companies, and orders operated and spread their beliefs far and wide. These were the Masons, and the Rosicrucian movement is implicitly linked with them due to this early spread. These early Rosicrucians were said to be bound by strict oaths of secrecy and worked toward knowledge and enlightenment.

It could be that the dispersal of the Knights Templar and their Gnostic secrets found its way across Europe. The rose was often used as a symbol of hidden or secret knowledge.

Much like other groups of the time, the Rosicrucians were linked to the Sufi mystics, whose influence was prolific throughout the world. The Sufi methods required the deepest concentration on "the master" and absolute compliance with the "way" - a method of control that easily filled the void left by the strict and rigid ways of Catholicism.

Contemporary Rosicrucians are still a worldwide order, but their influence in today's society is minimal. However, Rosicrucians have a book that details the influence of the person or soul they call the Ego, who will keep returning to make alternations to mankind's path forward. The Rosicrucians call the influence of this Ego the Central Conclave of the Elder Brothers, but I call it the Shining Ones.

The same process of illumination is held within the secrets of Rosicrucianism as that of the ancient Shining Ones, and each group's beliefs in the secrets of the rose and the cross signify this connection.

The Order of the Golden Dawn

Although the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn (OGD) is no longer properly in existence, its influence was and is felt in other Orders.

The amazing element here is that the whole basis of the OGD was false. The Order collected thoughts and teachings from many other organizations, collated them together, and presented them as their own.

In the late 19th century Dr. William Wynn Westcott, Samuel Liddell "Macgregor" Mathers, and Dr. William Robert Woodman got together, and using Westcott's original concept, created the OGD. Anybody who has any understandings of the OGD and the Freemasons will spot almost instantly that the OGD was itself mostly based around the core doctrines of the Freemasons.

There are also many elements of the Kabballah, astronomy, alchemy, and astrology. Westcott and the others actually invented the Order from scratch, and even created a fictional character in the same fashion as the Rosicrucians. This fictional character was Fraulein Sprengel, the chief adept who granted the charter for the OGD, thus creating a provenance that was simply false.

Within a year the OGD was up and running with degrees and an emphasis on magical theory and ritual - taking it a little beyond the Rosicrucians and Freemasons in that respect.

The OGD became incredibly influential and included, within its ranks, the poet W.B. Yeats, the esoteric and magical writer and historian A.E. Waite, and the anti-Christ character himself Aleister Crowley, who would later on take the OGD in Britain and turn it into the OTO (Ordo Templi Orientis). The links that Crowley would develop were phenomenal, and included the spy writer Ian Fleming.

Interesting then, the links between Crowley, the German OGD, Rosicrucians, and that Fleming should, later on, use the occult services of Crowley in the Second World War. These same links between Crowley, the Germans, and even the Irish Nationalists, brought him the attention of the United States secret services.

We can even see that Crowley was inspired by the ancient worship of the serpent as he speaks of rising the kundalini and:

Take a substance symbolic of the whole course of nature, make it God, and consume it. The magician becomes filled with God, fed upon God, intoxicated with God. Little by little his body will become purified by the internal lustration of God; day by day his mortal frame, shedding its earthly elements [like the snake], will become in very truth the Temple of the Holy Ghost.
(Magick, Aleister Crowley, 1929)

Of course this language is Gnostic and derived from the earliest Ophite Gnostics and their belief in the self as the temple of God and the rising of the serpent energy within - the kundalini.

We can see this in the following:

The blood is the life. This simple statement is explained by the Hindus by saying that the blood is the principle vehicle of the vital Prana. It was the theory of the ancient Magicians, that any living being is a storehouse of energy varying in quantity according to the size and health of the animal, and in quality according to its mental and moral character.

Gnostic concepts of balance in relation to the Grail are also related, in exactly the same way that I revealed in the Serpent Grail:

The priestess enters with a positive child on the right and a negative child on the left and having placed the paten before the Graal on the altar - that is the material basis for the operation and the astral light or vital force with which it is to be united - she, followed by the children moves in a serpentine manner involving three and a half circles of the Temple….It represents the rousing of the kundalini serpent with its three and a half coils at the base of the spinal column.
(The Trail of the Serpent)

Opus Dei

Although not necessarily a secret society, the Opus Dei certainly act as if they are, so I decided I ought to include them.

In the last chapter we saw how the Opus Dei were implicated in the Franco regime in Spain and how the Opus Dei Awareness Network were working tirelessly to uncover the truth. I did find in my own researchers that Opus Dei were in fact more than incidental in the Franco regime and in fact helped with the financial organizing of the regime's political desires.

It was Opus Dei members who were in charge of the ministries of finance to such an extent that some Spanish writers called them the Spanish Mafia.

The question I have that I brought up earlier in the book, is why does it appear that secret societies, such as the Freemasons, seem to be against the Catholic Church, and vice versa, when they are so closely connected?

In my mind, the answer is that by appearing to be against the Masons, the Catholic Church ensures that its adherents remain loyal.

The truth to this conundrum can also be found in the fact that there are two distinct streams of Freemasonry - the rational and the illumination.

One could easily conclude the existence in Freemasonry of two currents which appear contradictory, and which are merely complimentary - the rationalists and the Illumines.

What unites and binds them together is the ritual. The rationalist politicians have inspirers: these are the occultists of the lodges. Freemasonry is the place from whence the diverse sects draw their elements; it is for them a preparatory school, a filter, a discipline.
(La Trahison Spirituelle de la Freemason, J. Marques-Rivere)

What better society is there to hold influence? A society with links directly backwards into Ophite worship and forwards into a great many secret societies - all emerging from ancient serpent worship.

So, I thought, what about the Opus Dei? What further evidence could I find on my own?

I had already found that the Opus Dei were a relatively new Catholic Order with close links directly to the pope. They are not huge, but have a lot of influence. They have centers strategically positioned in or outside colleges and universities across America, where they gather information, money, and recruits - for their "good works."

They have built themselves multi-million-dollar buildings, and do not deny accusations that they target the rich. The Opus Dei lost more than $50 million when the bank of Roberto Calvi collapsed, even though the money seemed to have been siphoned back into the Catholic Church. Calvi turned out to have been a member of P2 (Freemasons), and was banker for many Catholic orders. The Opus Dei are incredibly secretive - even admitting the fact.

In their own magazine, entitled Cronica, they tell their members to keep their slates clean:

Dirty clothes are washed at home. The first manifestation of your dedication is not being so cowardly as to go outside the Work to wash dirty clothes. That is if you want to be saints. If not, you are not needed here.

A Jesuit priest told ABC News:

I think they really fly under everybody's radar screen and that they're a lot more powerful than a lot of people think.
(Rev. James Martin speaking to ABC News 2001)

During the late 1950s and the 1960s, Opus Dei members came to control the economic ministries of Spain as well as other important cabinet posts.

This was in keeping with the organization's aim of influencing the development of society indirectly. Opus Dei recruited its members from among the brightest students, which encouraged a sense of elitism and belonging. Because of this tightness of community and the secrecy that surrounded the organization, some critics have termed it the "Holy Mafia."

But Father Gonzalo Munoz, a Melbourne Catholic priest, believes Melbournians should be wary of the group.

"The more we expose them the better... My concern is really that they are trying to influence the church with values that are contrary to the Gospels. It's about elitism, it's about wealth and prestige," Father Munoz said.

"My concern is that they are going to infiltrate universities."
(Church Storm, Sunday, April 2001)

Ok, I thought, all is not completely well in the Catholic world. What about that other Order, the Knights of Malta?

"There's nothing secret about the order, but a lot of people think there is." The fact that five of the six US ambassadors to the Vatican have been members of the Knights of Malta is "sheer coincidence," he said.
("Knights of Malta Fight New War," John Travis,
Catholic News Service,
in an interview with Fra. Andrew W.N. Bertie)

This Order can truly be traced right back to the Crusades in one long and perfect historical line, without wondering whether it reformed or not.

There are some modern Orders that have similar names, but they are mimicking the true Order, which is now in Rome, after having been kicked out of Rhodes and Malta by several invading armies. As the Knights of St. John they were highly influential, much like the Templars, and were linked as the Hospitallers on Malta.

When the Templars were disbanded, a lot of them simply merged with the Knights of St. John, and took with them their mystical ways and knowledge. Now, they have connections across the world and are a sovereign order, which means they have ambassadors and hold political sway as well as the all-important diplomatic immunity. It maintains diplomatic relations with Europe, North America, South America, and Asia with the authority of the Holy See.

The Knights of St. John has specialized agencies in the United Nations and other international organizations. In the United Kingdom the Order of St. John of Jerusalem is the branch of the Knights of Malta, and out of it came the Order of the Garter - to which the main players in old politics in the United Kingdom must be affiliated.

They are directly responsible to the pope and have been linked by hundreds of conspiracy theorists to many scandals.

For instance, in the 1980s, Colonel Oliver North authorized an exchange of guns for drugs to finance the Contras in Nicaragua. In order to sort this out, Colonel North needed connections in the underworld and got involved with the Mafia, the CIA, and many other shady organizations and characters. One of these was Al Carone, who was a colonel in the United States Army - he was also a member of the Sovereign Military Order of the Knights of Malta.

So far I had found nothing new about the world. All of this information was widely available at the click of a mouse. But what is new is that all of these are branches of just one tree.

They have all been spawned from the same mother and father, and they can all be traced down the evolutionary timeline and back to ancient Sumeria and the "Shining Ones."

Take the Freemasons, for example. They are supposedly a God-fearing Protestant organization doing good for the community. They can be proven to have come from the Catholic Templars. The Templars showed allegiance to the Catholic Church and the pope. The Catholic Church sprang from a Roman Imperialistic intrusion into the world of religion.

These religions (we shall give them all a cover title of Christianity even if it is not strictly correct), were all basically following the same beliefs (as I have set out in this book), and all emerged from the creation of the Sons of Light - the Essene. The Christian play, that of Jesus, was a set-up by the Essene, the Shining Ones, who stretch back into Egypt, and from Egypt the ideas were mixed from Sumeria.

I know this is a vast over-simplification of the whole thing, but I wanted to keep this chapter small in answer to some of my critics, who have said that I should reveal the Shining Ones today.

There can be no revealing of them today, as their beliefs have dissipated into the mother Church of Catholicism.

If any organization on the globe is still the Shining Ones, then I do not need to look at secret societies, bankers, or business men; I do not need to turn to Illuminati and Men in Black; I do not need to have a go at a few innocent Freemasons who have no idea what it is they are really worshipping. The true Shining Ones are out in the open and are still proselytizing like never before; they are still forming new branches; still grafting onto the vine.

They paradoxically hide behind others and yet fear no man. They are the most powerful nongovernmental organization on the globe and have been for centuries. They have wealth that even the United States would envy and, yet, declare poverty.

They have a presence in every single country in the world, like no other.

17th century pharmacy sign Paris, the real grail

They have their hands in just about every cloak-and-dagger society we could mention and instigated most of them.

They feverishly cling to secrecy and declare openness. They control the minds of billions of people and influence the rest. They make policy that governments have to adhere to.

They are the Catholic Church.

Pope John Paul II rang in the New Year on Thursday with a renewed call for peace in the Middle East and Africa and the creation of a New World Order based on respect for the dignity of man and equality among nations.
(CCN News, January 2004)