"The great strength of our Order lies in its concealment; let it never appear in any place in its own name, but always covered by another name, and another occupation.....Of all the means I know to lead men, the most effectual is a concealed mystery. The hankering of the mind is irresistible." -Adam Weishaupt

The most powerful secret society of them all, it controls the destiny of the world and seeks to form first a federal Europe, then a single world government. Today it is allegedly the personal coven of the Rothschilds - the richest family on the planet.

Its founder, Dr. Adam Weishaupt, was born on February 6, 1748, the son of a Jewish rabbi. After his father died he converted to Catholicism and was trained by the Jesuits. Weishaupt founded the Illuminati in order to fight the oppression of religion, destroy the Church, and create a one-world government. He wanted to replace Christianity with a "religion" of reason to end war, ignorance and the struggle for power. But first he recognized his need to gain huge power in order to put his plan into action. Unfortunately for the world, he has succeeded.

The Illuminati was to be a secret coalition of liberalism and the furthering of knowledge. Weishaupt studied anti-Christian doctrines, astrology, medicine and the occult. He was also influenced by the secret cult of the Pythagoreans who believed that men and women should pool their belonging (later to become the basic philosophy of Communism). He also studied the Freemasons (and was later to form an alliance with them). On May 1, 1776, under the direction of the newly formed House of Rothschild, he formed the secret Order of the Illuminati (enlightened ones), the name said to be derived from Luciferian teachings (Lucifer means bearer of light). He started with just five members. The organization copied the hierarchical structure of the Jesuits and the Freemasons and ever since, the Illuminati has used a variety of tactics to motivate, blackmail and manipulate people in the name of enlightenment, freedom and emancipation in order to maintain power.

All members are given a classical name. The early members were called Spartacus, Cato, Lucian, Pythagoras, Marius, Diomedes, Ajar, Mohamed and Sylla, and their headquarters were in Munich. In 1777 they joined and soon took control of the Masonic lodge there. Within 4 years there were 60 members known as the "insinuators" whose mission was to affiliate others with the order, while keeping the true aims of the society secret. This involved enticing honest visionaries, rich people, society women, scientists, free thinkers, liberals or any "enlightened" group that they could convince to further their interests. By 1786 there were lodges all over Europe, Africa and America.

It was found that the best way to eliminate religion was to split mankind into opposing ideologies and get them to fight amongst themselves, thus weakening national governments and organized religion. In 1781 Jews were allowed to join, and the Illuminati moved their headquarters to Frankfurt, where leading Jewish financiers were courted, including the Oppenheimers and the Rothschilds; since then the latter have become synonymous with the Illuminati and have used it to become the richest family in the world.

The Rothschild empire was started in the 1750s by Mayer Amschel Rothschild, who dealt in rare coins and then moved into banking. He soon became court agent for Prince William IX of Hesse-Kassel, a nephew of the King of Denmark and the broker for big Frankfurt bankers. Prince William inherited his father's wealth in 1785 to become the richest individual in the world. The Rothschilds then made a killing during the Battle of Waterloo when early signs indicated that Napoleon would win. They sold all their stock on the English stock market with insider knowledge that Napoleon was about to be beaten. When stock plummeted, they bought them cheap before news came through the Wellington had won. now they effectively controlled the British economy and set up the Bank of England under Nathan Rothschild's control They took control of the French economy in 1818 by buying vast quantities of French government bonds and then flooding the market. They also controlled the German money supply. They then financed both sides of every war since the American Revolution in the quest or one-world government (for example, during the Napoleonic wars, one branch of the family had financed Napoleon, the other Great Britain) and today are pulling the strings behind the inevitable push towards a federal Europe.

There are numerous universities and school throughout the world that promote this agenda. Gordonstoun, attended by Prince Philip and the Prince of Wales, is an Illuminati school. Even the British Royal family are unwittingly serving the agenda of an Illuminati world order that doesn't include them.

So, are they a bunch of evil puppet masters seeking world domination? Are they the power brokers behind the JFK assassination, the Federal Reserve, and the New World Order or are they just a misunderstood bunch of Forbes rich-listers? Only time will tell.

Formed in 1872 by five San Francisco journalists as a male-only drinking club, today it is one of the more prestigious (and depraved) societies in the United States. Its waiting list is in the hundreds, and its membership includes top republicans and democrats (including presidents) many directors, global financiers, and the chief executive officers of many Fortune 1000 companies.

Members past and present include every republican president since Herbert Hoover (including Nixon, Reagan and Bush), William F. Buckley, Jr., Frank Borman, Justin Dart, William Randolph Hearst Jr., Caspar Weinberger, Charles Percy, George Shultz, Edward Teller, Merv Griffin, Colin Powell, Henry Kissinger and Newt Gingrich.

Every fall the Bohemian Club's Annual Summer Encampment (which Herbert Hoover described as "the greatest men's party on earth") is held at the 2,700-acre Bohemian Grove in Monte Rio, California about 70 miles north of San Francisco. They meet to uphold what they call the spirit of Bohemia: an opportunity for the most powerful men in the United States and a handful of other countries to gather around the campfire and network in the best tradition of (largely) white male elitism. It is the smoke-filled room transported outdoors into the woods.

Many key political decisions are made not in Congress, but here, off-record, in private. Its Shakespearean motto, "weaving spiders come not here," would appear to discourage member from intrigue and back-room deals, but the reality is quite the opposite. For example, it was at the Grove in 1967 that Ronald Reagan agreed with Richard Nixon to stay out of the forthcoming presidential nominations.

One of the features of the retreat is the daily lakeside talks where important speakers address geopolitical issues away from public scrutiny and the democratic process. Peter Phillips, Associate Professor of Sociology at Sonoma State University, indicates these have included topics such as the "dangers of multi-culturalism, Afro-centrism, and the loss of family boundaries." and expresses sentiments such as the importance of elites to define themselves and set values or "standards of authority" to control the "unqualified" masses.

Within the Grove's grounds are more than 100 separate camps with names such as Whiskey Flat, Toyland, Owl's Nest, Hill Billies, and Cave Man's, each with its own kitchen, bar, and sleeping quarters (tents and redwood cabins). One of the main camp events is the Grove play, written exclusively for the club, or drawn from Shakespeare or Greek mythology, with all the female roles played by men in drag.

Over the years, various rumors have spread about the well-guarded frivolities at the grove; such rumors inspired investigative journalist Alex Jones to infiltrate the Grove (in the summer of 2000) with hidden cameras, to document some of the well-kept secrets inside. The result of Mr. Jones' infiltration is a documentary film entitled Dark Secrets Inside Bohemian Grove; which provides the unassailable proof that our world leaders participate in occult rituals, as the video records the entire cremation of care ceremony.

The object of veneration in the cremation of care ritual is the statue of a giant owl. Nocturnal birds are symbols of sorcery and metaphysics because black magick cannot function in the light of truth (day) and is powerful only when surrounded by ignorance (night). The owl is considered wise because the creature is able to see through the darkness of ignorance and materiality; hence its association with the goddess Athena. The cremation of care provides a burnt offering to the owl in the form of a human child effigy. You can read the ritual incantation here. While there's much speculation about the exact nature and origin of the cremation of care ritual, the scriptures attribute these (mock) human sacrifices to the reverence of the demon Molech.

And the LORD spake unto Moses, saying, again, thou shalt say to the children of Israel, Whosoever he be of the children of Israel, or of the strangers that sojourn in Israel, that giveth any of his seed unto Molech; he shall surely be put to death: the people of the land shall stone him with stones. And I will set my face against that man, and will cut him off from among his people; because he hath given of his seed unto Molech, to defile my sanctuary, and to profane my holy name. -Leviticus 20

And Solomon did evil in the sight of the LORD, and went not fully after the LORD, as did David his father. Then did Solomon build an high place for Chemosh, the abomination of Moab, in the hill that is before Jerusalem, and for Molech, the abomination of the children of Ammon. And likewise did he for all his strange wives, which burnt incense and sacrificed unto their gods. And the LORD was angry with Solomon, because his heart was turned from the LORD God of Israel, which had appeared unto him twice, And had commanded him concerning this thing, that he should not go after other gods: but he kept not that which the LORD commanded. -1 Kings 11

1914 Bohemian Grove play reiterates "hate" obsession and reveals links to German Brotherhood of Death Society.

We recently acquired a copy of a 1914 Grove play entitled "Nec-natama" or "Comradeship". On the surface this play reveals nothing new about the activities of the Bohemian Club, yet it does provide evidence of some of the themes we have come to be familiar with at the Grove.

The plot centers around the theme of the pure but foolish White man coming to the Grove and being overcome by an "evil spirit" that conquers love and lures the man to give away his conscience and cares in favor of the dance of a "hating lustful woman". This is highly reminiscent of theme of the Cremation of care ceremony that the elite visitors to the Grove engage in each year.

The man is instantly proclaimed a god by the "hate-Indians" who inhabit the Grove, yet all within are "doomed to hate and strife" by "The Great One".

Those who have renounced goodness and love worship "The Great Hate Chief" who rules with iron fist and without conscience. The Great Hate Chief becomes embroiled in a struggle with forces of goodness and conscience that reside beyond the Grove.

In addition to the general theme of hate, there are numerous references to evil spirits, the darkness of the Grove, torture and sacrifice. There are "Hate braves", "War dancers" "water spirits" and a "master of lighting and illumination". All in all it reads like a Harry Potter book with darker meaning and without the derogatory language.

One final interesting feature of the play is the Swastika on the reverse cover. We must remember that this play dates from 1914, before the rise of Hitler, yet still, there is no doubt that this is an elite symbol, the very reason it went on to become the Nazi emblem.

Swastika is a compound of su -- a particle meaning 'auspicious,' 'blessed,' 'virtuous,' 'beautiful,' and 'rightly'; and astika derived from the verb-root as -- to be; hence 'that which is blessed and excellent.' The Swastika is a very archaic and sacred symbol which can be found in the religious relics of every ancient nation, for it depicts the whole story of the cosmos and man, their contrasting dual aspects, the four directions of space, the revolution of worlds, cyclic progression, and the union of spirit and matter at the heart of things. In H. P. Blavatsky's words:

"Within its mystical precincts lies the master-key which opens the door of every science, physical as well as spiritual. It symbolizes our human existence, for the circle of life circumscribes the four points of the cross, which represent in succession birth, life, death, and immortality." -Helena Blavatsky, The Secret Doctrine Volume II

As such it's also the sign of the circular movement, the sign of rebirth. It also signifies those who knew about reincarnation (Samsara), who spread all over the world and where they stayed they exerted their influence.

The swastika is one of the oldest known symbols that has been used for over 3,000 years. (That even predates the ancient Egyptian symbol, the Ankh!) Artifacts such as pottery and coins from ancient Troy show that the swastika was a commonly used symbol as far back as 1000 BCE.

In Masonic teachings, "the most ancient Order of the Brotherhood of the Mystic Cross" is said to have been founded by Fohi, 1,027 B.C., and introduced into China fifty-two years later, consisting of the three degrees in Occultism, it is as sacred as the Pythagorean Tetraktys, of which it is indeed the double symbol.

Taken in the context of 1914, the Swastika must also refer to a German body of some sort. German nationalists in the mid-nineteenth century began to use the swastika in order to counter the feeling of vulnerability and the stigma of youth, because it had ancient Aryan/Indian origins, to represent a long Germanic/Aryan history.

By the end of the nineteenth century, the swastika could be found on nationalist German volkisch periodicals and was the official emblem of the German Gymnasts' League.

In the beginning of the twentieth century, the swastika was a common symbol of German nationalism and could be found in a multitude of places such as the emblem for the Wandervogel, a German youth movement; on Joerg Lanz von Liebenfels' antisemitic periodical Ostara; on various Freikorps units; and as an emblem of the Thule Society.

The Thule society was The German Brotherhood of Death Society. Adolf Hitler joined this society in 1919, becoming an adept under the leadership of Dietrich Eckhart. The US branch of this Brotherhood of Death is Skull and Bones, and we all know who their members are and where they head every Summer.

It all leads back to Bohemian Grove. Here are further extracts from the play.

The brainchild of Cecil Rhodes, one of the godfathers of Neo-Platonic eugenics and population control aficionados, the Round Table appears on the surface to be an organization of elderly men who plan charity events, jumble sales, and old boys' reunions. A closer look at the history and the motivation of its founder reveals that it has a much more sinister mission.

Cecil Rhodes was born in 1853, the son of a vicar. In 1879 he went to South Africa to become a diamond prospector, and founded de Beers Consolidated Mines, Ltd. By 1891 de Beers controlled 90% of the world's diamond production, and Rhodes developed a vision of rich white supremacy, the legacy of which still keeps the nations of Africa in a constant state of intertribal war and poverty. But he didn't do it alone. His mentor, whom he met while an undergraduate at Oxford, was fine arts professor John Ruskin, the man credited with calling for education of the working man. In fact, this was merely part of his plan to create an expanded middle class, which would labor of behalf of the aristocracy. They could then control them behind the scenes in a form of legal slavery through banking and supplying credit. he was also a misanthrope, a pederast, and a passionate believer in a tightly- and centrally-controlled autocracy by an elite and enlightened ruling class aptly characterized in his own words: "My continual aim had been to show the eternal superiority of some men to others, sometimes even of one man to all others." This is the tradition established by Plato in his Republic, which calls for a ruling class of philosopher kings "with a powerful army to keep it in power and a society completely subordinate to the monolithic authority of the rulers."

Rhodes clearly set out his plans for world domination as early as 1877. Disillusioned with the inward-looking nature of English Freemasonry (he was by then already a Master Mason), he wrote his Confessions of Faith, stating,

"I contend that we [the English] are the finest race in the world and that the more of the world we inhabit the better it is for the human race. Just fancy those parts that are at present inhabited by the most despicable specimens of human beings what an alteration there would be if they were brought under Anglo-Saxon influence....At the present day I become a member of the Masonic order I see the wealth and power they possess....and I wonder that a large body of men can devote themselves to what at times appear the most ridiculous and absurd rites without an object and without an end....Why should we not form a secret society with but one object, the furtherance of the British Empire and the bringing of the whole uncivilized world under British rule for the recovery of the United States for the making the Anglo-Saxon race but one Empire."

Empowered by his ever-growing wealth and his monopoly over the South African diamond fields, inspired by Malthusian eugenics and John Ruskin, financially back by the Rothschild family, and fuelled by his racism, Rhodes continued to refine his ideas in the seven wills, which he wrote during his lifetime. After Rhodes' death, Freemason Nathan Rothschild became the trustee of his entire estate and immediately appointed Freemason Alfred Milner to recruit a group of young Freemasons from Oxford University and Toynbee Hall to become founding members of the Round Table. (Milner's view on the new world order is best summed up by his own words: "My patriotism knows no geographical but only racial limits. I am a British Race patriot.")

The name Round Table comes from the court of legendary British King Arthur (whose quest for the Holy Grail is intricately linked with Freemasonry and the Illuminati). Inevitably, the new society was Masonic in structure. It consisted of a pyramid hierarchy, with inner and outer circles of influence and knowledge, called the Circle of Initiates and the Association of Helpers, and a complex smoke screen of corporate trusts, institutions, and educational foundations that would challenge even the most scrupulous auditor.

The Rhodes' Scholarship is one such supposedly philanthropic scheme that hides a deeper and darker agenda. Rhodes stipulated in his will the formation of a foundation to provide funding for exceptional American scholars to study at Oxford University. The ratio of these Rhodes Scholars who go back to their countries to enter positions of political, economic, and media power is enormous compared with the general student population. They act as Illuminati agents. The most famous Rhodes Scholar in the world today is Bill Clinton, the two-time president of the United States.

Bill Clinton is no stranger to the idea that an elite more powerful than government has a stranglehold on the world economy. He is a member of the Bilderberg Group, and his mentor at Harvard was none other than Professor Carroll Quigley, author of Tragedy and Hope: A History of the World in Our Time, one of the most important macro-historical analyses of the collectivist one-world society, tracing the incomprehensible power exercised by the Rothschilds, the Bank of England, J.P. Morgan, and the Rockefellers. By 1900, according to Dr. Quigley, "the influence of these business leaders was so great that the Morgan and Rockefeller groups acting together, or even Morgan acting along, could have wrecked the economic system of the country." The book reveals who runs the establishment, how it controls the universities, how it influences the election of United States presidents, and the influence of Cecil Rhodes: "These purposes centered on his desire to federate the English-speaking peoples and to bring all the habitable portions of the world under their control. For this purpose Rhodes left part of his great fortune to found the Rhodes Scholarships at Oxford..."

At the end of World War I it became clear that the Round Table could best be extended by the creation of an umbrella organization called the Royal Institute of International Affairs, the British branch of the Council on Foreign Relations.

Yale is the top university in the United States. The annual tuition fees are $28,400, which excludes all of the most privileged or most intellectually gifted (with scholarships) from attending. The fact, therefore, that Yale alumni fill positions of power is inevitable and well known, but there is a secret Yale club which can propel the elite within that elite to the most powerful positions in the world, including key positions within the CIA and the top job - president of the United States. Many believe it is the American branch of the Illuminati. The name of the club is the Skull and Bones.

George W. Bush, a "C" grade student from one of the most highly placed families in the world, attended Yale in the 1960's and, like his father and grandfather, joined the Skull and Bones. For a man with such undeniably modest abilities, he has truly reached a pinnacle of power that only money and influence can buy. The fact that his presidential opponent in 2004, John Kerrey, also attended Yale is not surprising. That he should also have been a member of the Skull and Bones is too close for comfort.

Yale's famous benefactor, Elihu Yale, was born near Boston, Massachusetts on April 5, 1649. Educated in London, he made his fortune in the British East India Company and later became governor of Fort St. George in India, an important trading post and center of diplomacy. After several bequests, Yale College was named after him in 1718. Nearly 60 years later later, a 21-year-old Yale graduate member of the "Culper Ring," America's finest intelligence operation was hanged in New York and became a martyr of the American Revolution. There is a statue of him on Yale's Old Campus. Ever since, Yale has had a unique relationship with United States intelligence and now the CIA (a statue of Yale stands outside the CIA's headquarters in Langley, Virginia). Apparently there were so many Yale graduates in the Office of Strategic Services (OSS, the forerunner of the CIA), that Yale's drinking tune, the "Whiffenpoof Song," didn't just echo around the neo-gothic quadrangles of the university, but soon became the unofficial anthem of the OSS.

The Skull and Bones story begins in 1832, when William H. Russell (whose family had made its fortune smuggling Turkish opium to China) and 14 other Yale undergraduates became its founding members. Russell had studied in Germany the year before. According to details stolen from the Skull and Bones in 1876 by a group calling itself The Order of File and Claw, "Bones is a chapter of a corps in a German university....General Russell, its founder, was in Germany before his senior year and formed a warm friendship with a leading member of a German society. He brought back with him to college, authority to found a chapter here." Many researchers believe the German society mentioned to be the Illuminati, which shares the skull and bones as its official emblem; Ron Rosenbaum claims the two groups have many ritualistic elements in common.

Every year since then, 15 juniors are "tapped" by the seniors to be initiated. The family on the Skull and Bones roster read like an elite country club list: Taft, Jay, Bundy, Rockefeller, Goodyear, Sloane, Stimson, Phelps, Perkins, Pillsbury, Kellogg, Vanderbilt, Bush, Lovett. From 1866 they have met to perform their arcane initiation rites in the "tomb," a vine-covered, windowless hall on campus. It is also thought that each initiate is given a substantial sum of of money as springboard to post-collegiate success (although this more an indication of the wealth of the Russell Trust which funds the Order, since none of the wealthy Bonesmen could claim to be short of money).

Fifty years after the orders founding, in October of 1873, Volume 1, Number 1, the first and only issue of The Iconoclast spoke out in criticism of Skull and Bones:

"Out of every class Skull and Bones takes its men. They have gone out into the world and have become in many instances, leaders in society. They have obtained control of Yale. Its business is performed by them. Money paid to the college must pass into their hands, and be subject to their will. No doubt they are worthy men in themselves, but the many whom they looked down upon while in college, can not so far forget as to give money freely into their hands. Men in Wall Street complain that the college comes straight to them for help, instead of asking each graduate for his share...Year by year the deadly evil is growing. The society was never as obnoxious to the college as it is today, and it is just this ill-feeling that shuts the pockets of non-members. Never before has it shown such arrogance and self-fancied superiority. It grasps the College Press and endeavors to rule it all. It does not deign to show its credentials, but clutches at power with the silence of conscious guilt....To tell the good which Yale College has done would be well neigh impossible. To tell the good she might do would be yet more difficult. The question, then, is reduced to this - on the one hand the lies a source of incalculable good - on the other, a society guilty of serious and far-reaching crimes. It is Yale College against Skull and Bones!! We ask all men, as a question of right, which should be allowed to live?"

Russell's family wasn't unique in becoming wealthy from the opium trade. In fact, drugs, oil, warfare and weapons have built and consolidated the power based of all American and European dynasties. All warfare since then has been a direct application of Hegel's dialectic principals - thesis pitted against antithesis to safeguard and increase this wealth and power and ultimately to bring about a New World Order.

Some would argue further that globalization, materialism, and the permissive society is another way that the Bonesmen are successfully ushering in a New World Order by breaking down the family unit - the single biggest obstacle to totalitarian mind-control - while being seen publicly to be struggling to protect it. The most visible and vocal protectors of morality are the very people who are working behind the scenes to destroy it.

The Theosophical Society, with nine degrees, was founded in 1875 by Helena Petrovna Blavatsky daughter of Colonel Peter Hahn and granddaughter of General Alexis Hahn von Rottenstern Hahn, of Mecklenburg, Germany, settled in Russia. When very young, she married Niciphore Blavatsky, Councillor of State, from whom she separated after three months.

As regards the founder of this order, Rene Guenon, who has made a close study of Theosophy, thus briefly sketches her career:

"Blavatsky's extraordinary life of adventure started in 1848. During her travels in Asia Minor with her friend Countess Kiseleff, she met a Copt (some say a Chaldean) called Paulos Metamon, who claimed to be a magician, and who seems to have been a fairly accomplished conjurer. She continued her travels with this personage with whom she went to Greece and Egypt till her funds gave out, when she returned to Europe."

Having quarrelled with her family, she was unable to go to Russia so she went to London where she frequented spiritistic and revolutionary circles. She was initiated into the Carbonari by Mazzini in 1856 and was also an initiate of the Order of the Druses, according to John Yarker. About this period, (1856) her Mahatma Morya is supposed first to have manifested. The Mahatmas Morya and Koot Hoomi are said to be members of the highest degree of "The Great White Lodge", that is to say of the occult Hierarchy which, according to the theosophists, secretly governs the world. Guenon thus continues:

"Towards 1858, Madame Blavatsky decided to return to Russia; she became reconciled with her father, staying with him till 1863 when she went to the Caucasus and met her husband. A little later she was in Italy whither she seemed to have been summoned by a Carbonarist order; in 1866, she was with Garibaldi, whom she accompanied during his expeditions, she fought at Viterbo, then at Mentana, where she was seriously wounded and left on the field as dead; she recovered however and went to Paris for her convalescence. There she remained some time under the influence of a certain Victor Michal, a spiritist-magnetizer. This Michal, a journalist, was a Freemason as was also his friend Rivail (alias Allan Kardec) once founder, later director of the Folies-Marigny and the pioneer of French spiritism. It was Michal who developed the mediumistic faculties of Madame Blavatsky... Madame Blavatsky was, at that time, herself a believer in spiritism and claimed to belong to the school of Allan Kardec, from whom she preserved certain ideas, notably those concerning reincarnation."

In 1867, she succeeded after three previous attempts in entering Tibet. "Inquire Within", who acknowledges Guenon as her source of information and who has also closely followed the activities of Madame Blavatsky during this period of her life, refers to her visit to America in the following terms:

"In 1875 Madame Blavatsky was sent from Paris to America where she met Henry Steel Olcott and where on October 20, 1875, a society, said to be for 'spiritualist investigations ', was founded in New York. Olcott was President, Felt and Dr. Seth Pancoast vice-presidents, and Madame Blavatsky Secretary. Among other members were William Q. Judge, Charles Sothern, one of the high dignitaries of American Masonry, also for a short time General Albert Pike, Grand Master of the Scottish Rite for the Southern Jurisdiction U. S. A., who was said to be the author of the thirty-three degrees received from the Arabian member of the 'Great School.'"

Guenon, detailing this American visit of Madame Blavatsky, further explains how "George H. Felt, self-styled Professor of Mathematics and Egyptologist, had been introduced to Madame Blavatsky by a journalist called Stevens. Felt was a member of a secret society generally called by the initials ' H. B. of L. ' (Hermetic Brotherhood of Luxor). This society, which played a prominent part in the first stages of spiritistic phenomena in America, is definitely opposed to spiritistic theories, for it teaches that these phenomena are due, not to the spirits of the dead, but to certain forces directed by living men."

Madame Blavatsky and Olcott had both joined this society from which they were expelled before they left America. A letter from John Yarker quoted in Freemasonry Universal (Vol V, part 2 Autumn Equinox, 1929) is here relevant. It states that Madame Blavatsky's masonic certificate in the Ancient and Primitive Rite of Masonry was issued in the year 1877. Yarker writes:

"Both the Rites of Memphis and Mizraim, as well as the Grand Orient of France, possessed a Branch of Adoptive Masonry, popular in France in the 18th century and of which, in later years, the Duchess of Bourbon held the Rank of Grand Mistress. We accordingly sent H. P. B., on the 24/11/77, a Certificate of the highest rank, that of a Crowned Princess 12, said to have been instituted at Saxe in the last quarter of the 18th century."

In November, 1878, according to 'Inquire Within', Madame Blavatsky and Olcott left for India, and in 1882 founded the Theosophical centre in Adyar, near Madras; there she initiated her 'esoteric section', and contacted the so-called 'Mahatmas', and her phantastic phenomena, precipitated letters, astral bells, materialisations, etc., were in time suspected and exposed. The matter was taken up by the 'Society for Psychical Research', which in December, 1885, reported her as 'one of the most accomplished, most ingenious, and most interesting impostors.'

"Mrs. Besant was presented to Madame Blavatsky in 1889 by the socialist Herbert Burrows, also member of the Stella Matutina, and she immediately succumbed to Madame Blavatsky's irresistible magnetism and formidable power of suggestion. Madame Blavatsky died in London May 8, 1891. Mrs. Besant was elected President in 1907. From 1910 to its consummation one of her chief works, assisted by Leadbeater, was to train Krishnamurti as Messiah, or as he preferred to be called, ' World Teacher '. On February 19, 1922, an alliance between Mrs. Besant's Co-masonry and the Grand Orient of France was celebrated at the Grand Temple of the Droit Humain in Paris."

The Society has over seven hundred affiliated sects at present. "Its objects are, The World Religion, The World University, and the World Government (by the Restoration of the Mysteries, i. e. by the recognition of their place as the World Government as they were recognized in ancient days, the place they have ever continued to occupy...)."

The political status of this organization as a centralizing point for numerous secret and theocratic orders is evidenced by a letter dated July 1, 1926, from 171 Palace Chambers, Westminster, London, according to which the Editors and Correspondents of the English Information Service, to which was given the name of " The Theosophical News Bureau ", were officially authorized to issue statements on behalf of:

• The Theosophical Society
• The Theosophical Educational Trust
• The Theosophical World University
• The Order of the Star in the East (closed)
• The Liberal Catholic Church
• The Order of Universal Co-Freemasonry

In 1887, when Madame Blavatsky settled in London, she had started a Theosophical magazine called Lucifer the light-bringer and published her Secret Doctrine. She is the authoress of another well known work Isis unveiled. In the year 1889, Mr. MacGregor Mathers, 8th degree Rosicruciana in Anglia, wrote a letter to the editor of Lucifer in which he stated that the Theosophical and Rosicrucian Societies entertained very friendly relations and this idea of "friendly foreign relations" is further confirmed by Rene Guenon who writes:

"There are persons who believe that the 'Esoteric Section' exists no longer in the Theosophical Society, but that is not so ; the truth is that, to defeat curiosity, it has been made into a nominally separate organization but one nevertheless, under the same direction".

The religious principles of The Theosophical Society are gnostic and anti-Christian and are the same as those of "The Hermetic Society ". Numerous were the dissensions and many were the "Each one of these adaptations being applicable to the physical or spiritual world, one understands how real 'Illuminés' can draw towards the light of truth, towards this 'light which illuminates all men coming into this world ', towards the divine living voice, the profanes called to initiation. But for that it was necessary that the fundamental and hermetic key of the degrees and their adaptation should be conserved by an occult university. Such was the role that the Rose-Croix and the judeo-christians had reserved to themselves offshoots of this association among which the best known are The Anthroposophical Society and The Theosophical Society of America.

The Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn was founded in 1888 in Great Britain by three Freemasons: William Wynn Westcott, William Robert Woodman and Samuel Liddell MacGregor Mathers. Although small (it attracted just more than 300 initiates), it included such luminaries as Aleister Crowley, Aubrey Beardsley and William Butler Yeats and shone briefly as the most significant order to emerge from the 19th century occult revival, possessing one of the greatest over collections of Western magical knowledge, before bitter leadership rivalry led to its closure in 1914.

Initially it drew upon five Masonic rituals recorded in coded fragments in manuscripts that had come into the possession of London Coroner William Wynn Westcott, along with a letter instructing anyone requiring further information to contact Sapiens Dominabitur Astris ("the wise one will be ruled by the stars") through Fraulein Anna Sprengel, the Imperatrix of the L.L.L. (Licht, Liebe, und Leben - or Light, Love and Life) branch of German Rosicrucianism. It was on the basis of this dubious pedigree - most likely drawn from Westcott's fertile imagination, although he claimed to have received it from a fellow Mason who had found it in a London book ship - that Die Goldene Dammerung (the Golden Dawn) drew its authority and gained "permission" to convene the Isis-Urania Temple at 17 Fitzroy Street, London.

Samuel Liddell MacGregor Mathers emerged as the most charismatic and eccentric character of the threesome (he had inserted the "MacGregor" into his name because of his deep romantic connection to the Scottish clans). He quickly became the driving force behind the order's structure through his tireless research to expand the ritual fragments into a cohesive metaphysical system. A devoted scholar of old magical texts, he succeeded in combining a complex body of teaching into a workable whole, drawing on the magic of French occultist Alphonse Louis Constant (Magus Eliphas Levi); Kabbalistic cosmology; the Tarot; the impenetrable alchemical and necromantic rites of the medieval grimoires and Eastern mysticism; and Babylonian, Greek, Egyptian, Hindu and Buddhist mythology.

The inevitable hierarchical structure of the Golden Dawn consisted of 10 degrees of magical attainment, starting with the Neophyte and progressing to the Ipsissimus. They were based on the 10 degrees of the Sephiroth or spheres - interrelated divine emanations from the Kabbala. Members sought "to prosecute the Great Work: which is to obtain control of the nature and power of [one's] own being," and progressed up the degrees by studying and performing Masonic rituals in specially designed temples name after the Egyptian deities. The degrees were divided into three orders: the Outer (Golden Dawn), Second (Red Rose and Golden Cross), and Third (Silver Star). The founders were Chiefs of the Second Order, while the Third Order was occupied solely by entities inhabiting the astral plane who directed their activities.

The organization was characterized by rampant in-fighting among its prominent members. Woodman died in 1891 and wasn't replaced, leaving the two enormous egos of Mathers and Westcott to battle it out. Mathers moved to Paris to set up his own lodge, and the whole enterprise only survived at all because of the patronage of one of its wealthy members, Annie Horniman, though she withdrew funding in 1896 after being expelled from the Order for disputing Mathers' claim that the Secret Chiefs on the astral plane had invited him into the Third Order. He also claimed that his wife Mina received counsel from the Third Order via clairaudience and supernormal hearing. The following year Westcott resigned over allegations that he had faked the founding manuscripts. Mathers then devoted himself to translating the Hebrew grimoire The Book of the Sacred Magic of Abra-Melin the Mage, which he published in 1898, claiming it was inhabited by a metaphysical entity.

That year, recent Cambridge University graduate Aleister Crowley, who was already an expert in occult science, having rejected the determination of his strict Plymouth Brethren upbringing, joined the society and sided with the Mathers camp. However, he alienated most of the other member with his outrageous and criminal behavior, sexual indiscretions and almost superhuman will to power. He took the motto Perdurabo ("I will endure to the end") and was therefore known as Frater Perdurabo.

Within six months Mathers had fast-tracked his new ally to the level of Adeptus Minor of the Second Order, but the London Lodge, then under the leadership of Florence Farr, refused to recognize his advancement. eventually even Crowley and Mathers feel out with each other and were expelled from the order after trying to harm each other in a magic showdown allegedly involving astral vampires and armies of demons led by Beelzebub. W.B. Yeats took control of the Second Order, and Crowley sought revenge by publishing the Golden Dawn's secrets in 10 editions of his magazine, The Equinox.

In the early years of the 20th century, the Golden Dawn broke apart into several splinter groups which lingered on into the 1930s, including Alpha et Omega (Mathers), Stella Matutina ("Morning Star" - Yeats), Astrum Argenteum (Crowley), Holy Order of the Golden Dawn, and Fraternity of the Inner Light. In 1937 a Stella Matutina member, Israel Regardie, published a massive 4-volume account of the rituals, which generated another flowering of sub sects and magical misanthropes, so that incarnations of the Golden Dawn still exist today.

The Golden Dawn Research Center (www.golden-dawn.org) "is a resource for serious students who desire a deeper understanding of the Classical Golden Dawn's teachings and practices." It rightly describes the order as "the most influential force in the modern rebirth of the Western Esoteric Tradition" and on its FAQ page addresses the issue of secrecy:

"Secrecy is necessary in that individual rights and privacy must at all times be maintained, especially since members may work in sensitive environments where public knowledge of their membership could cause problems. There is, however, another important reason for secrecy. It revolves around a hermetic principle in which the alchemical process requires a closed container, to be 'Hermetically Sealed.