Camp Gagnon - The Secret Society that Controls the CIA, Decides Presidents & their Tomb Rituals | Skull & Bones

Episode Date: July 9, 2026

Today, we explore the dark rituals and influence of the Skull and Bones society to uncover the secrets of the tomb and the elite figures who emerged from its shadows to shape the world. Welcome to Camp! 🏕️ Shoutout to our sponsors: Morgan & Morgan and Blue Chew Want the even WILDER theories?SIGN UP TO THE PATREON: https://www.patreon.com/cw/CampGagnon 👕🧢 Shop CAMP Merch: https://camp-rd.com/collections/ufo 🎟️ 🎫 Comedy Tour Tickets: https://markgagnonlive.com 🎩👽 Daily Dose Of History: https://www.dailytodayinhistory.com Timestamps: 0:00 Welcome to Camp 1:26 Camp Bulletin + Christos YAPPIN 3:29 Tim Russet’s Mysterious Death 6:23 Origin of Skull and Bones Society 11:55 The Tomb 13:02 Rival Frat Breaks Into Tomb 14:28 The Initiation Process 18:55 Secret Rituals of The Tomb 22:14 REAL Video Footage of Ritual 24:33 Robbery of Geronimo’s Skull 27:52 Women Members Initiated 29:09 Yales Secret Societies 30:51 Intelligence Agency Ties 31:53 Controlling The World 34:50 What Really Happens Inside? 41:29 Drop Your Thoughts! #foryou #history #occult Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

In Toronto, every arrival is a statement, and nothing says it better than this. Cadillac Optic was the number one selling luxury EV in Canada for 2025. Find your rhythm across a seamless 33-inch display and an immersive 19-speaker AKG surround audio system. This city demands agility, and Optic delivers with precision to make every drive extraordinary. Let's take the Cadillac. Find out more at Cadillac canada.ca. Luxury sales claim based on S&P Global Mobility Canadian New Vehicle Total Registrations for calendar year 2025 for the Cadillac definition of luxury. There is a building at Yale that's been sitting on the corner of High and Chapel Street since 1856.

And for most of that time, almost no one on the outside actually knew what was happening inside. But what we do know is weird enough. The men who built it kept a human skull on the table. They set their clocks five minutes fast so that they'd always be living in a slightly different time than the rest of the world. And every spring, they would take a 21-year-old college kid, lay him down on a coffin, and make him confess his entire sex life to 14 strangers. And one of those 14 strangers would go on to run the CIA. Three of them would go on to be presidents.

This one windowless building has produced some of the most important people in all of American history, and all of them were handpicked from a collection of students. This is the story of Skull and Bones, the Yale Secret Society that turned regular college kids into the puppeteers of broader American society. So if you were interested in secret societies, American political dynasties, and how one little house on one little campus would go on to create some of the most powerful figures in global world history, well, this is the episode for you. So sit back, relax, and welcome to camp. What's up, people, and welcome back to camp. My name is Mark Gagnon, and thank you for joining me in my tent where every single week we explore the most interesting, fascinating, controversial stories from around the world from all time forever.

Yes, that is what I do in this tent is I find little nuggets of information, little deep dives, little wormholes on the internet, and I spend hours along with my friends, basically trying to research everything I can about it, and then I upload it to YouTube and you guys can watch it or on Spotify also, wherever you're consuming this is fine with me. And this is my attempt to basically find all the most interesting stories, the most crazy mysteries and all the little conspiracy threads and tie them into just a fun little package. You know, I almost consider the show like the sports center of conspiracy theories. I don't believe all of them, but I'm fascinated by every last one of them. At least why people believe it. What is the information? What's true? What's false?

And how did it even come to be? And oh boy, today we have a tasty one. This one is fascinating. One that has been circling around conspiracy circles for a very long time. And I'm almost shocked, flummox, perhaps, that it hasn't come up sooner on this very program. We are talking about the skull and bone society. Now, before we go any further, I also want to say a couple more camp bulletin announcements. I want to say thank you to you.

Yeah, dude, slash girl, whoever you are. I want to say thanks for tuning into this program. Every time you comment, like, click, or just watch an episode. You are truly helping the show grow. You are the life force that makes this entire campsite possible. Truly, every time you are interacting, you are keeping the lights on here in the tent and keeping the fire burning here at the campsite. And of course, I'm not alone.

I couldn't be, right? How would it be possible to do this show if I wasn't sitting here with my good pal. Christos, Papparapados. Christos. I'm back this way. Oh, he's back. He's got his microphone.

We need to get a studio audience cheer every time we bring you on. Every time I'm like, hey, Christos is here. I mean, we're doing that in post right now. We should do that. Yeah. Give it up for Christos. Hey, everybody.

Can we get a boo also? Just throw that at. Whichever one you want to use is fine with me. Okay. Now, ladies and gentlemen, we're talking about the Skull and Bones gang, all right these old uh good old boys over at yale that basically it's a little club maybe you've heard of it and they went on to uh produce some of the most prominent members of american society now the question

here is is it is it just a regular old fraternity you know of just a bunch of rich well-to-do waspby kids that go to school in the northeast that you know go on to run american politics become you know big CEOs of companies and kind of pull the strings i'm sure it happens at harbour it happens at all the Ivy Leagues, right? Or is there something more insidious going on? Is there something a bit morbid about this particular gang? And does it have roots that go deeper? Well, maybe both are true.

Now, before we go any further, I want to reference a video from a man named Tim Russert. Okay? If you've never heard of Skull and Bones, you maybe have seen this clip. This is a very, this is an infamous clip that happened during the George Bush, John Kerry electoral race in 2004.

Now, Tim Russert is a journalist that went on to speak with both of them. And this is what he talked about in the interview. This is a, I'll show it on the screen here. This is what he said. You were both in Skull and Bones, the Secret Society. It's so secret we can't talk about it. What does that mean for America?

The conspiracy theorists are going to go a lot. I'm sure they are. I don't know. I haven't seen the web. Number 3-2-2. You both were members of Skull and Bones, a secret society idea. What does that tell us? Not much because it's a secret.

Is there a secret handshake? Is there a secret code? I wish there were something secret I could manifest. 32, a secret number? There are all kinds of secrets, Tim. But one thing is not a secret. I disagree with this president's direction that he's taking the country. We can do a better job, and I intend to do it. Tim Russert, a moderator of Meet the Press and NBC's Washington Bureau Chief, collapsed and died early this afternoon.

Now, that is a clip that's obviously gone viral, and it has a lot of people wondering the same question. Why were they so cagey when he brought up this fraternity they were in? You know? Like, I was in a fraternity. Shout out Kassai. And if someone was like, Mark, you weren't Kassi, I'd be like, yeah, dude, that shit was awesome. I had a great time.

We had some good throwdowns. Halloween party was awesome. I wouldn't, like, back off. But maybe I'm not a politician, you know? If I was running for president of the United States of America, then maybe I'd be a little bit more buttoned up about it. But for whatever reason, these guys, when he brought it up, it was a little cagey. And then only, what, three, four years later?

He dies of a heart attack. Rob's dead on the floor at 58 years old. Did you guys ever end alive a guy that asked you a bet your fraternity? No. It's interesting. I mean, I didn't. Maybe someone else did, but I had nothing to do with it. All right, I have a good alibi.

I was probably here in the tent. So what's going on? What is this? What is this society? And obviously, seeing George Bush here, that's going to be a little sneak peek. That's one of the presidents that was a part of this sort of illustrious club. Now, what is this club? Where does it all begin?

Well, in the fall of 1832, Yale's debate in literary clubs got into an argument over who deserved that season's Phi Beta Kappa honors. This is like a big honor that they give to different students, and it was a big debate. Now, at the time, people felt that the whole thing had been rigged by campus politics. And two students decided that they were done with all the existing societies. They decided that they were going to build something brand new, something more exclusive, more secretive, and answered to no one. And the first was William Huntington Russell. He was the future valedictorian of the class of 1833. The second was a guy named Alf, Alfonso Taft, a kid so obsessed with getting a good education that, according to the legend, sort of the lore around him, he walked on foot from Vermont to Amherst College, heard that there was a better school in New Haven and just kept on walking until he made it to Yale.

He is also, coincidentally, the father of President William Howard Taft. The fattest president in American history. Fun fact, they had to replace the bathtub at the White House just to fit his fat old lardy body. Didn't he also die in that bathtub? I think so because he asked someone about a secret society at Yale. That's not true. But it would be funny. Now, here is where the conspiracy first begins.

William Russell wasn't just some random Yale student who liked secretive stuff. He came from one of the, like, basically these like New England old money elite families that had been wrapped up in status and global trade for generation. So his older cousin, this guy, Samuel Russell, he founded Russell and co, one of the most powerful American trading houses based in China and was also a major part of these trading operations was a substance called opium. So the money behind the most powerful secret society of American history was kind of drug money from the Russell family's opium trade. And then there's also the Germany thing. So before founding Skoll and Bones, Russell had spent time in Germany. And according to

the Skoll and Bones lore, that's where he became fascinated by these secretive German societies. And that really matters because Germany had been the birthplace of one of the most famous secret of societies in all of history. It's called the Bavarian Illuminati. Now, you probably just know it as the Illuminati. They dropped the local part when they went global, you know? Now, the Illuminati was founded in Bavarian 1776. This is an actual secret order built around sort of like enlightenment ideals, like reason and power and hierarchy and drinking the blood of the innocent, I think. I don't know. I've never, I'm not in it.

But they basically believe that a small group of educated elites could guide society from behind the curtain to bring enlightenment to all the people of the world. Now, the original group was shut down decades before Russell actually got to Yale. So we can't say that Skull and Bones was like handed down from the Illuminati. But there's definitely an overlap, right? You have elite students and money and hierarchy and like hidden influence. And then of course, like these weird ritual things.

So Russell eventually makes it to Yale. And then he teams up with his old buddy, and then they recruited 13 other members. And they named their new order, the Eulogian Club. Literally, the Elogian Club. And this was named after Elogia, a Greek goddess of eloquence. And fun fact, this goddess doesn't actually exist in Greek mythology. They just made up this goddess Eulogia.

Now, they eventually abandoned the original name and started calling it to what we now know it as the Skull and Bones Society. However, what did stay the same was the logo. The logo is very infamous. We should put it on screen here. It is a skull with two crossed leg bones, and underneath is the number 32222. This is the same number that Tim Russer brought up to George Bush when he was interviewing him. Now, the most common theory here is that 322 points to the year 32B.C. This is the year that the great Greek orator Demosthenes died.

Now, Demosthenes was one of the greatest speakers in all of ancient Athens, and obviously, because of our obsession with, you know, ancient Greek history, one of the greatest orators of all time. He used speeches to warn Athens that Macedonia was taking over Greece, and after Alexander the Great died, Demosthenes pushed Athens to fight for its freedom one last time, and of course, Athens lost. That's a lie.

No, it's actually historically accurate. And then, you know, the Macedonians just crushed the rebellion. And Demosthenes was now sentenced to death and hunted down, but rather than be captured, he took poison. and ended his own life. Now, after his death, Athenian democracy was destroyed and handed over to a small circle of wealthy elites. So if 322 really does point to Demosthenes,

it's not just a random date. It marks the death of this great orator, which perhaps is a way to commemorate him, right? To say, like, hey, this is the year he died, this is an important date. Or maybe it marks the death of the voice of democracy in ancient Athens and the rise of the rule of this small, wealthy, aristocratic elite. And then in 1856, this gang basically made the whole thing legally

permanent. They incorporated the society as a trust called the Russell Trust Association that owns the property and the money to this very day. Now, this legally makes the Skull and Bone Society separate from Yale itself. So the college doesn't run Skoll and Bones. A 170-year-old elite trust runs it. Now, that same year, in 1856, they built their headquarters. Officially, it's at 64 High Street, but everyone just calls it the tomb. Pretty good name, I think, kind of ominous. And when it went up, it caused quite the scene because it was a windowless brownstone fortress thing, basically built in like this Egyptian-style block that had no opening to the street at all. And it costs like $30,000 to build, which in today's money is like a million

I mean, you can see a picture of it here. It's a, you get why they called the tomb. It's a weird-looking building and for it to be going up in the middle of New Haven in the 1800s. They're like, hey, this doesn't really fit with our vibe. Like, we're more of kind of like a, you know, kind of like a northeastern, you know, kind of like colonial style architecture. Like the HOA was not stoked that they did this. Now, over the years, they doubled the building in size and then bolted a gothic tower onto the back overlooking a private walled courtyard. And for over 100 years, no one outside those 15 members each year had any idea what was actually going on. there until Friday night in September of 1876. A group of rival Yale students who called themselves

the file in claw decided to break in. And they used an iron bar, a claw and a hatchet to dig through like 20 inches of brick to get into the cellar. And then they popped an iron plate loose and then they crawled inside. And then they published everything that they found. These are like the OG conspiracy guys of the 1800s. This is like the OG conspiracy guys of the 1800s. This is like the OG. dudes. They're like, no, no, I'm going down into the basement. I'm going to figure out what's going on. Now, inside, there was a little room that they called Joe, where they, you know, there was like a light, supposedly that was supposed to be kept burning at all times. And sitting inside was this, like, beat up human skull. Now, next to the skull was an old framed Yale document titled Directions to

Freshman, signed by the Yale rector, this guy, Thomas Clap, and it was dated to 1752. Basically, an antique piece of Yale history hanging in the same room as, as this human skull. And then came the really weird part, if that's not weird enough. They found a tombstone, literally like a headstone that was marked spary, which the report suggests

it may have come from the same grave as the skull, although we don't know for sure. So this whole skull and crossbones thing wasn't just like a pirate logo. According to the people who got inside, the tomb really did have skulls and graveyard objects and a bunch of death imagery built into the space. Do you have a friend that buys gold

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just what's inside the tomb, it's like, okay, who gets invited and why? And ultimately, what are they doing? Well, Skull and Bones wasn't open to everyone, obviously. It wasn't even open to most Yale students. And the way that members were chosen became one of the strangest traditions that happened on the campus. So, every single year, Skoll and Bones takes exactly 15 new members. While you're an active student member, you're called a knight. Once you graduate, you become a patriarch, and that title is for life. But one of the strangest things about the process is the recruiting ritual. It's called tap day.

So it used to happen out in the open on the Yale lawns back in the day. Hundreds of nervous juniors would basically gather around, knowing that only 15 of them were going to get in. If you were chosen, a current member in like this dark kind of suit would walk up behind you and tap you on the shoulder and ask if you accepted. If you said yes, you would be taken off to a private room and to be basically told or briefed in on the room. rest of the process. But to be honest, who got tapped was like a weird mix of like, you know, the most competent, you know, smartest, dedicated students and then just nepotism. So if your dad or grandfather was a bonesman, your odds went up a lot. But the society also hunted down the most

powerful kids on campus. So like team captains, the editors of the newspaper, the head of like the biggest club, the student body president. Because a secret society full of a bunch of like nobody's whose dads were in it 10, 20 years ago, it doesn't do anything. And so for years, there was actually a rumor that every new member instantly got handed $15,000 in cash and a grandfather clock on their wedding day. Now, there's just a rumor. We can't confirm it, but that's what the story was. Now, an investigative journalist named Alexandra Robbins actually dug into this and wrote in her book, Secrets of the Tomb, that the cash gift thing is totally fake. The clocks were real once, but they stopped doing it because it was too expensive because there was so many.

alumni and they all probably got married like four times. But one of the coolest things about the club is that once you're inside, you get a nickname, and then you keep the nickname for life. And they often pulled these nicknames from mythology or from the Bible or like an inside joke. And the gap between like a goofy nickname and the real world power of the guy holding it is pretty crazy. So here's just a few of them. So Long Devil, that was a name given to the tallest guy in the group. Odin went to a guy named McGeorge Bundy, the man who would actually help engineer the Vietnam War. They called him Odin, literally after the Norse God. Boaz was given to anyone who was a varsity football captain, which kind of funny in the Hebrew

Bible, Boaz is a wealthy landowner in the Book of Ruth. And in Freemasonry, which heavily influenced Skull and Bones rituals, Boaz is the name of the left pillar that stood in front of King Solomon's Temple. Now, Magog is given to a member with the most sexual experience. experiences. Yes, Magog. Like Gog and Magog, I'm assuming, from the end of times in Islamic eschatology. And fun fact, this was George H.W. Bush's nickname when he was a member in 1948. So in the book of Ezekiel and in Revelation, Gog and Magog are figures or lands or nations associated with the end of the world. And they also, like I said, appear in the Quran as yeshuge and Majoujoujouj. Now, temporary was actually created in 19. and it was given to none other than W. George W. Bush, because he couldn't decide on a nickname during his initiation, so they all came together and just called him temporary as a placeholder,

and he never changed it. And he carried that nickname all the way into the Oval Office. It's pretty crazy. There's another one, Ball was a nickname that they gave, which is a literal, like, pagan demon name. And it went to a guy named Henry Luce, the guy who founded Time and Life Magazines. I mean, this is one of those parts where it's like, look, I was in a fraternity.

A lot of people had nicknames in there, but they were always just like, Deuce and, you know, Brock or whatever. Like, there wasn't ever like Ball or Devil or, you know, Magog. Tiny to a big guy. Yeah, it was like kind of fun stuff. It was like jokes. Like these, like, I don't know if anyone in my fraternity even knew what Ball was. Ball is life.

Ball is life. That's actually a good point. And these guys, like, kind of. had ball knowledge. Now, this is the part that everyone wants to know about. It is the rituals. What actually happens inside the tomb? Now, the whole point of skull and bones isn't the skulls or the bones or the nickname. It's the bonding. It's the way that the bond is solidified and the way that they do it is pretty weird. So inside the tomb, the members run on their own time, something that they call bones time, which is five minutes ahead of the outside world. It's meant to signify that once

you walk into the building, you are in a different reality. You know, like what's happening in here, like right now, if we're inside the tomb, it's 755. But everyone else is actually 750. So when they're operating, they're operating five minutes faster. And then the members would gather and they would sing society songs and, you know, hear excuses for rule breaking and start debates. And they would do all sorts of stuff. But the debates weren't pulled from a hat.

And it wasn't talking about like sports or whatever. they were pulled from a skull. Yes, they literally called it to Yorik, like the skull from Hamlet, and it was divided into compartments with topics and speaking orders inside. But the real bonding came from two specific rituals, and these rituals are called the CB and the LH. Now, the LH was the life history. At some point, every member had to tell the group their entire life story,

not like the resume version of all the great stuff, like the real version, like what's wrong with their life history? family, like what did their dad do to him, all their fears, their failures, the great stuff they did, their ambitions, the things they regret, the stuff that you would often keep hidden. The CB stood for connubial bliss. And historically, that meant that every member had to talk through his sexual and romantic history in front of all the other 14 members. And this is why George H. Bush actually got that nickname. And how we mentioned before, this former Bonesman described it as a way of getting everyone committed. Because one,

Once everyone had exposed something private, the normal walls between you came down. And that's the important part. The point wasn't just embarrassment. It was trust. It was connecting with each other. It was showing vulnerability. And maybe it was also a little bit about leverage. Because after a night like that, everyone in the room knew something about everyone else

that the outside world would never hear. And you had to tell them everything. If you, you know, did little gay stuff on the side, you told them that. And they would know. And then everyone would be in on the secret and everyone on the outside would be outside of it. Now, according to Alexander Robbins, this may be the real secret of skull and bones. Not that they secretly control the world or something. They might, but that's not what her book showed.

But that for one year, 15 young people are locked in a private world where they confess and debate and ritualize and bond so intensely that betraying the society would feel like betraying their closest friends, people that know more about them than their own families do. I mean, once you've told 14 people every single secret that you have and every little detail in your life that could absolutely ruin your reputation, you can never betray them because now they have blackmail on you. And you have blackmail on them. This entire brotherhood in a lot of ways is built on a mutual destruction. And for a century and a half, the rest of the initiation stayed a total mystery until the night of April 14th, 2001. There's a journalist named Ron Rosenbaum. And he and a small team set up outside the tomb to see what they could capture. And what they recorded looked like a cross between like a haunted house and an occult ceremony

and maybe like the dumbest fraternity hazing ritual ever invented. According to Rosenbaum, the initiates were running down hallways as members screamed at them from the dark saying, run, neophyte, run, find the femur. And at one point a figure dressed like the devil led them into a white tent. And when they came out, the initiates appeared to be carrying thigh bones, although Rosenbaum couldn't tell whether they were like real or fake bones. And the neophyte, basically like the new initiate, was then brought toward a skull on the ground where a person in animal skins act.

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because match days are about the shared moments how did Jameson to your match day lineup Jameson it's what you bring please enjoy our products responsibly like a savage barbarian stood over a body covered in fake blood holding what looked like a butcher knife now the recruit knelt down

kissed the skull and rape beside him a barbarian pretended to lit the person's throat. Now, it sounds like a satanic ritual, but here's the thing. The blood, according to Robbins, was Kool-Aid or some other type of, like, food product. And the whole thing kept collapsing into, like, college humor, goofing around. One member was apparently doing an impression of George W. Bush,

yelling at the recruits in like a classic W. Texas accent. And underneath all the theater, there's an actual structure to it. The whole ritual is staged as like a death and, a rebirth. The initiate symbolically dies in his old life. That's what the skulls and the coffin imagery and the fake throat slashing and all that stuff. Then he's handed a robe, given his new secret name, and then reborn as a knight. Now at the very end, the initiate is shoved to his knees in front of Don Quixote. As the members go quiet and Don Quixote lifts a sword and taps him on the left shoulder and dubs him a knight of Elogia. Now, yes, this ritual has

skulls and bones and devils and death imagery and fake throat slashing and all that stuff. But it also has like Kool-Aid and a bad impression of George W. And like a bunch of Yale kid just like dressing up. And that's what makes it strange, right? And maybe, you know, not as insidious as you might think. It's not just pure horror. It's also like just guys being silly. But that's not just what they're known for.

So skull and bones has a tradition called crooking, which is honestly just a fancy word for like stealing stuff. Members compete to steal trophies and signs and artifacts from like a bunch of different clubs and historical sites. And then they bring all the stuff back to display inside the tomb. And oftentimes it's just like college pranks. It's like, hey, we're going to steal a picture out of like this fraternity or go into like this professor's office and like take something. It's, you know, silly stuff. But sometimes it's according to some legends, allegedly grave robbing. Over the years, the society has been accused of possessing the stolen skulls of former presidents.

Yes, Martin Van Buren and the Mexican Revolutionary Pancho Villa. Now, in January 2010, the auction house Christie's had to cancel a planned sale of a human school because of its documented links to the Skoll and Bone Society. But the most famous crook of all is the one that's connected to Geronimo, the legendary Apache military leader and medicine man. Now, if you don't know, Geronimo died as a prisoner of war in 2009 and was buried at Fort Sill. This is an army base over in Oklahoma. Now, during World War I, in 1918, a group of Yale men were stationed at the same base.

One of them was a guy named Prescott Bush. Now, this all might start to sound very familiar. He's the father of George H.W. and the grandfather of George W. Bush. Now, according to society legend, Prescott and a few other bonesmen snuck into the Apache Cemetery. They dug up the grave and stole Geronimo's skull two of his bones and pieces of his riding gear. And then they shipped them back to the tomb. Now, of course, for decades, the Bush families called this a total myth and completely BS. But in 2006, a researcher found something in the Yale archives.

It was a letter written in 1918 by one bonesman to another and buried in the middle of a routine society business. It casually bragged about robbing Geronimo's grave and bringing the skulls. goal back to New Haven. So what does that mean? At minimum, the members of that era, they believed that they had done it. Or maybe they were trying to perpetuate the rumor or trying to convince someone else that they had done it. But the rumor is not completely baseless. It was like something that they talked about even in that time. Now, with that letter, Geronimo's descendants actually took legal action. And on February 17, 2009, on the 100th anniversary of Geronimo's death, his great grandson, Harlan Geronimo, filed a federal lawsuit against Skoll and Bones and Yale and the U.S. government demanding that they get the remains back.

He said, I believe strongly from my heart that his spirit was never released. It's pretty wild. The lawsuit was leaning heavily on a 1990s law called Nagpra, which forces institutions to return like stolen Native American remains and artifacts and stuff like that. However, the Justice Department lawyers argued that Nagra only applies to remains that were officially excavated by an agency. So since Geronimo's grave was never formally excavated, they argued that the law didn't apply, and the case was thrown out in 2010 on that very technicality, which means that to this day, no one has actually been allowed to open up that case and check for real. So for 159 years, Skoll and Bones was strictly men only. But Yale itself started admitting women in 1969, and by the late 80s, the campus had completely changed around these societies. So in the spring of 1991, the student knights of the Skull and Bone Society, the ones who had to pick the next class, they made a crazy historic call. They voted to tap women for the first time and initiate them.

And all the old patriarchs, they lost their mind. a faction of powerful conservative patriarchs led by the famous author and media figure William F. Buckley Jr. moved to stop it. And because the patriarchs legally control the building through the Russell Trust, they did something crazy. They went in and changed the locks on the tomb.

Yeah, literally like their headquarters. They locked the students out of their own building and shut the entire society down for a year. Buckley even filed a lawsuit to permanently stop any women from joining, which led to a poll being sent to every living member of skull and bones to settle it, and the results were a surprise because a clear majority of old patriarchs actually supported letting women in. But the lawsuit ultimately failed in 1992. Women were officially admitted leading to the single biggest change in the society's history

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It's the roster. You see, Skull and Bones sits at the top of Yale's Secret Society world. And what I mean by that is that Yale has multiple different secret societies. Now, Skull and Bones is a part of what they call the Big Three, alongside the other societies like Skoll and Key and Wolf's Head. And the alumni list from the society is wild. It's produced three presidents of the United States. So William Howard Taft, George H.W. Bush, and George W. Bush.

And Taft actually pulled off something that in U.S. history no one has ever done. He served as both president and chief justice of the Supreme Court. Now, his father, as we mentioned, was obviously Alfonso Taft, the co-founder of the society, who also became U.S. Secretary of War and Attorney General. So the founding family produced a cabinet secretary. and the man who literally ran two branches of the government. And then the Bushes obviously took it way further. So Prescott Bush became a senator. George H.W. Bush became U.N. ambassador, CIA director, vice president, and then the 41st president, while his son, George W. became the 43 president.

And then in the 2004 election, George W. Bush ran against Democrat John Kerry, and both men were skull and bones members. This is the infamous interview that I played at the very beginning from Tim Russet. So no matter who won that election, a Skoll and Bones alumni, a patriarch, was going to be sitting in the White House. And exactly that moment, when the reporter asked him, he said, oh, there's not much I can say because it's a secret. But the deepest footprint isn't the presidency. It's the spies. So during World War II, Secretary of War Henry Stimson, a devoted Skoll and Bones member, placed his Society Brothers on top of the war effort. So a network helped build the wartime spy agency and the OSS and the Cold War successor, the CIA.

Now, the CIA was not purely a skull and bones operation. Like a bunch of legendary spies were never part of the society. But the agency's famous counterintelligence chief, James Angleton, went to Yale but was never officially in Skull and Bones. The mastermind of the Bay of Pigs, Richard Bissell, reportedly turned down an invitation to Skull and Bones because he thought that it was, too weird and actually joined a different club instead. And the CIA's founding director, Alan Dulles, went to Princeton. So the society wasn't running the CIA, but it was more like, it was more like a screening machine, a place that took ambitious young men and trained them from the age of 21 to keep devastating secrets and put loyalty above everything. And that is exactly what

any intelligence agency is looking for. And that brings us all the way back to that Germany trip. Now, the most serious critic of the society was a researcher named Anteastern. Anthony Suttony, who in 1986 published a membership list and a theory that broke like 150 years of secrecy. So Sutton argued that the society runs on the Hegelian dialectic, the idea that if you secretly control both sides of a conflict, you can control the outcome no matter who wins. And obviously, Hegel's dialectic has a lot of, you know, different sort of theories. You have, you know, a thesis and an antithesis and a synthesis. and by being able to push the thesis and the antithesis, you can keep on moving the synthesis along

and kind of controlling discourse and making it look like this open consent when really it's a bit more manufactured. So his claim was that the patriarchs funded opposing sides of wars and funded different ideologies on purpose so that elite families always ended up being the ones that held the power. And it's the same theory that fuels the oldest rumor of all.

I mean, the one that Russell is studying in Germany that, you know, skull and bones is an American branch of the Bavarian Illuminati and that it was actually running the entire world from the basement. Now, of course, there's no single document that says, like, oh, the Bavarian Illuminati has an American branch and it's skull and bones. But you don't really need one document to prove it because the function of this club and kind of the, you know, the fruit that it's produced is weird enough. I mean, one club on one campus produces multiple presidents and Supreme Court justices and architects of wars going all the way back to, you know, the early 1900s? Like that resume in and of itself is pretty significant. So where does that leave us?

Well, let's zoom all the way out and kind of go over everything we talked about, okay? You have an opium fortune that funds a society that then builds a windowless tomb-like building, and you have stolen skulls that might belong to infamous people in American history like Geronimo and a coffin where presidents are confessing their sins and their sexual history and a number that secretly marks the death of democracy or at the very least a great Greek orator. And it's easy to look at all of that and assume that the real secret is occult and something supernatural and the Illuminati.

But I think the actual secret here is more boring and in some ways, like, just as disturbing. That by forcing a bunch of 21-year-olds to hand over every secret that could destroy them, The society creates this trust that outlasts the careers and political parties and anything. And those 15 kids grow up to run state departments and intelligence agencies and courts and, I mean, even the White House. And they're still bound to each other by these confessions that they make in the dark behind locked windowless rooms on a college campus. And that, my friends, is an abridged history of the Skull and Bones Society.

Now, my take on skull and bones, just like with anything, is it just seems like it's like any fraternity, any club. I mean, we talked about this with like the Bohemian Grove. We talk about this with, you know, any type of like a very exclusive club or you have to get initiated in. I don't actually think, I don't know, I guess there's two ways to think about this. I don't actually think that like the rituals with these types of things matter in like the interpersonal, you know, like there's definitely people out there that are like doing rituals thinking that like magic is going to like propel their career they're like sacrificing chickens or goats and they're doing like voodoo and like witchcraft and stuff right and that's one thing what these guys are doing is kind of like this sort

of mock kind of ritualistic thing that's sort of like funny and they're sort of goofing around but the ritual isn't important it's the fact that you have a group of people that all come from really really well-connected families that are all in a club together all growing super close and to a degree that like you couldn't unless you were in like the most extreme circumstances. And now imagine you're in a fraternity with 15 other people and one of the guys in the fraternity, his dad is the president of the United States of America. You know what I mean? Like that kind of access is way more valuable than like, I mean, in my opinion, more valuable than like making some type of like oath to Satan that gives you unlimited power. You know what I mean?

Like I'm sure a lot of people have made oaths to Satan and it didn't work out, but I'm willing to bet if you were one of these 15 guys and you're friends with a son of a president and a future president of the United States, your life is going to be pretty good. You're going to be able to call in a couple favors. You're going to be able to get stuff kind of lined up for you. So in my mind, I'm never like, I don't think that the rituals and the occult stuff is actually the thing that is the most important. It's the fact that there's a big club of a bunch of dudes, and by a big club, actually a small club, a small club of a bunch of dudes that are extremely well connected that are extremely wealthy, all in the same place, all hanging out for a year or two.

two years that then go on to the highest echelons of society and none of us can be in it. You know what I mean? That is actually what it is. Like as George Carlin says, there's a, it's a big club and you ain't in it. You know what I mean? And this is the club. Like when people talk about the Illuminati and it's just a club of dudes and you're not allowed to be in unless they want you in and that's where it all happens. And especially back in the day, secret societies, I think were super helpful because that was the way that you could get people literally in person. And I think secret society has probably have a little bit less cachet now because there's stuff online and you can kind of like connect to people in other ways. I don't know. I think the in person tangibility of it is not the exact same.

And as far as like the rituals and like the secret stuff, maybe that's helpful because like you kind of bear yourself. But I don't know what they could possibly say that would be like really good blackmail, right? Like you go in there in 1945 and you're like, I had a threesome. And then they're like, all right. And you're going to say like, oh, George H.W. Bush had a threesome. Like that's going to affect his like prospects of becoming president. Like maybe. I think more family stuff.

But like what could you really say that would be like, like, oh, my dad killed a guy? Like, what could you say that would be like that would be that bad? My dad killed his political opponent in. Maybe. But like, maybe, I guess. But even with that, I'm like, eh, to me it's like, it's just you bear your soul and then you become very vulnerable with these guys. And then you tell yourself like, oh, I love them. And these are my homies for life.

And then 10 years go by and you get a call and you're the secretary of state and this guy goes, hey, dude, I'm actually working at a lower thing and I'm a diplomat over in France and maybe you could help me get a position within the new president's cabinet. And then all of a sudden he just slots you in. And so it's just like cronyism and you're just bringing your boys into high society and like the most important parts of American politics and just kind of like looping them in. It also sounds like it started with one really corny rich guy who thought this worked and then all the subsequent people who have very entitled lives are prone to believing it and continued it. Yeah, to an extent. I mean, like, and it does work. Like, being in a position where you're sharing

all of your darkest secrets does draw you closer to people, and it does make you feel like you're indebted in some way. And there's a catharsis. I mean, there's a reason why religions have different type of confessions type, you know, rituals, because it's like, yeah, telling, you're getting things off your chest is really helpful. And I'm sure these guys would hear it and they'd be like, oh, man, you're good. You're still my buddy. And that feels really good. You just, showed your full self to someone and they accepted you, now all of a sudden, you walk out of there and you're like, these are my boys, these are my brothers, and we're a part of a club, and I'll never forget that. And it's that kind of stuff that I think transcends and actually

makes the biggest difference. With that said, I would have definitely accepted. If they tap me on the shoulder, 100%. Would you have accepted if they tapped you? You're at Yale? Of course. Right? Like, who wouldn't? Like, I guess one of these guys was like, yeah, that shit is mad weird. I'm going to join a difference secret society. But who knows? If they're telling you, you're going to hold some kind of really high title in five years. I mean, I don't think it's a guarantee. I don't think you join and they're like, hey, great news. You're going to be guaranteed to be Secretary of State.

I think it's more like, hey, one of us is going to really do great, and they're going to bring the rest of us along. You know what I mean? Like, there's 15 guys. One of us is going to hit. And maybe he's going to be the CEO of some massive company. And then he's going to, you know, pull the rest of us and we're all going to be good. At the very least, you know a guy that's really high in power.

Exactly. And he's going to give you some stock stuff, and he's going to give you some early access to a company, yada, yada, yada. But the truth is every fraternity kind of operates the same way. It's like a group of guys that are super close that do all sorts of like crazy, wacky stuff. And then at the end of the day,

like you go to all each other's weddings and you love each other. And it's awesome. But the difference is when you're at Yale and it's the most prestigious and secret of one, the one that all the presidents went to, then you're just basically consolidating the plot of like, oh, these are the most powerful kids on a very elite campus in a very elite part of the country

in the most elite country in the world. So it's like, yeah, the odds of these guys, one of these guys pop and becoming, you know, very successful and powerful. It's pretty high. But that's just my take. I don't know. Maybe I'm down playing the ritual stuff.

If I talk to my mom about it, she'd be like, no, even if they don't believe the rituals, the rituals themselves carry power. They carry power and they're, you know, flirting with like these Freemasonic occult traditions that have an untold power, even if they're not aware of it. and also demons.

This is what my mom's theory would be. I'm less inclined to that, but who knows? I'm averse to certainty. I'm not going to be like, no, there's no way, but I kind of doubt it. I don't know. What do you guys think? Do you think that these rituals actually carry some type of power that then they're able to carry on, or is it just a club of really powerful guys that are able to, you know,

pull each other up whenever they arise to a position of power? I would love to know what you think. Drop a comment, YouTube, Spotify. I read all of them. and if I don't read them, or if I don't respond to it, at least, someone else will, and it'll be informative to someone else. So I would love to know your experiences. Were you ever in a secret side? We're either tapped at being one. We're in a fraternity. Does it sound anything like this? Did you go to Yale? Did you know someone that was a bonesman? I would love to know. Also, bonesman is a hilarious name. I don't even think we really gave that much attention in here. Being a bonesman. You're a vivid bonesman. I wouldn't say that. No, 100%. No. 100%. Yeah. No, no. I see the way women look at you. Come on.

Anyway, guys, this has been another episode of camp. I really appreciate you guys, too, and I have great news. If you like religious deep dives, great news, we got religion camp. That's where I go through everything that everyone believes on this planet. And if you like the historical stuff, kind of like we did today, well, great news, we have history camp. And that's where I talk about everything that's ever happened in history. And if you just like to rock with the deep dives on mysteries, conspiracies, and all sorts of crazy stuff that's been going on on this planet, well, you're in the right space. This is Camp Gagnon.

We do two episodes a week, one deep dive. We do an interview. And I think you guys don't really like the rest of the episodes and other channel. So make sure you check those out. And I will see you guys next time. God bless and peace be with you. Hey guys, if you love conspiracies and hypothetical history, well, I want to invite you to check out Signal 33.

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