Forbidden History - Inside Secret Societies

Episode Date: August 29, 2024

Secret societies such as the Freemasons, the Bilderberg Group and Bohemian Grove are said to have political influence. In this episode, we investigate these clandestine groups to see if they really are setting the agenda or is it all just fake news? Cast List: Jamie Theakston: Investigative Journalist Andrew Gough: Writer, presenter and editor of The Heretic Magazine  Lynn Picknett: Historian and researcher specialising in exposing historical conspiracies. She is also the co-author of several notable works Tony McMahon: Former BBC news producer, author, print journalist and historian  Robert Lomas: Freemason & Author of “The Hiram Key” Richard Felix: A historian and lecturer specialising in local and paranormal history Andrew Kakabadse: Author of ‘Bilderberg People: Elite Power and Consensus in World Affairs’ Dominic Selwood: Historian, barrister, bestselling author, novelist and frequent contributor to national newspapers including The Independent, The Spectator and The Daily Telegraph Dr. Matt Green: Author & Historian David V. Barrett: Author “A Brief History of Secret Societies: The Hidden Powers of Clandestine Organizations and Elites from the Ancient World to the Present Day” David Robert Grimes: Author “The Irrational Ape” Eric Meyers: Narrator Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Welcome to the Forbidden History Podcast. This program is presented solely for educational and entertainment purposes. It contains mature adult themes. Listener discretion is advised. The Palace of Westminster, better known as the Houses of Parliament, is the place where the people who govern Great Britain meet to create laws, direct foreign policy, and collect taxes. But are the democratically elected governments across the world

really in control? Or are we all governed by a shadowy elite who have a far more sinister agenda? In short, who really does rule the world? There has always been secret societies. I mean, this is not a modern phenomena. They go back probably thousands of years. These can be societies that bring together the rich and powerful or certain sections of the rich and powerful to talk secretly behind the backs of the rest of us. It might be a church within a church, like Opus Day, for example. They are out there, but they're shadowy and very sensitive to any kind of light being shone on their dealings. Members of secret societies, over the centuries and still today, are alleged and believed to work behind the scenes to rule the world.

There are secret societies, but it's more complicated than that. They're the ones we know of. and there are undoubtedly the ones we don't know of. For centuries now, one group seems to have attracted more conspiracy theories than any other. The Freemasons. Past members have included powerful figures such as Benjamin Franklin, George Washington, and even Winston Churchill, and the group's secret arcane rituals have led many to question their true intentions. In its day, your kings were men. kings were members. Anyone who believed in God, it didn't matter what religion you were,

could be a member, but it was sort of the elite of society. Today, Freemasons are, you know, policemen, taxi drivers, anybody who wants to join can join. And when you meet another member from another lodge and you find out they're a Freemason, there's an instant trust. So you can kind of see where there's a history of favoritism. Men will always want money and power, and one way of getting it is to buy. together with other people who have money and power to further their aims and very largely keep it from other people, hence a secret society. You have different levels of secrecy, obviously the Rosicrucians, the Illuminati.

I've never met somebody who called himself a Rosicrucian or an Illuminati, so they're entirely secret. But then some secret societies will have websites, you know, the Freemasons Opus Day, but you'll never get into one of their meetings. So you've got different levels of secrecy and you have to ask yourself, What are they talking about? Secret societies are, not surprisingly, secret. They don't publish their list of members. So for members to identify themselves to other members,

there's a sign, there's a gesture, and Freemasonry was always a special handshake. Today, you know, the Illuminati, is that a secret society? I don't know, but you do see a high propensity of media figures, politicians, and an artist doing the sign of the horn. You know, is that how we communicate today? It's always been something like that. Professor Robert Lomas is a Freemason,

an author of the international bestseller, The Hiram Key, which unveiled their secrets. He's agreed to shed some light for investigative reporter Jamie Thigston, who's trying to gain access to the secretive world of the Freemasons. So, taught me through the initiation ceremony, Robert. How does that... Well, as an initiator,

you brought in in a state of darkness. So you're blindfolded. Right. You'll be dressed in a most peculiar manner, which I'm sure you wouldn't want to be seen in public in. Okay. And you would then be paraded round the lodge like that. And you would be guided by a deacon

who would take you right round the lodge. Right. And we would stop at the corner and we would turn. You would have had various parts of your anatomy displayed to view. Not just your leg, but your naked left breast as well. Really? Yeah, and one of your arms.

Why is that? To prove that you are not a slave and are a free man. So the Freemasons have made a big deal about opening up in recent years, but then you have to ask, why bother to be a Freemason, if there isn't a degree of secrecy about it? And they've admitted that there are secret handshakes. They've admitted that there are secret signs between them. I mean, the whole purpose of a society like this

is to bring together people for their mutual aid, mutual protection, mutual interest, and by their very nature, they're going to be secret. It's about self-improvement. It's the oldest philosophical self-improvement society in the world, and it's 600 years old. And that's what essentially being a mason is all about. It's all about, learning about yourself. The first degree teaches you to face up to your fears.

You've come in blindfolded, and you have to trust the lodge to guide you. Right. The second degree teaches you to develop your mind and your intellect and study the hidden mysteries of nature and science. And the third degree teaches you about death. You're going to die. Right.

Live with it. Despite the Freemasons having official buildings and even websites for all to see, there are still strict rituals and cryptic symbols that surround them, which cloak this society in a degree of secrecy. Why do you have to go through all of these different degrees and of course reaching, of course,

the third degree, it all sounds sinister. And I think the problem we have is that so many people have joined Masons, Illuminati, and all these other secret societies is because they do genuinely believe they are going to get something extra out of it. Conspiracy theorists say that there is another level, a secret level, to Freemasonry, which has nothing to do with any form of worship. or reverence for a divine being,

and that basically is about ruling the world. It's an interesting theory for which there is actually no evidence. It might be true, but if we're talking evidence, we can't go much further than that. In the 1980s, an unexplained death and the apparent Masonic symbolism around it fueled the conspiracy theories. In June 1982, Robert,

Cordo Calvi, the former chairman of Italy's largest private bank, was found hanging under Blackfriars Bridge in London. The police initially ruled that the death was a suicide, but the case was later reopened as a murder investigation. Although the killer was never found, what made this mystery even more intriguing was the symbolism surrounding the location and manner in which he was hanged and Calvi's ties to several shadowy organizations. I think he was murdered because he was in charge of the huge Italian bank, which had gone bankrupt,

and he and the bank were involved in money laundering for the mafia. The mafia lost a lot of money. It's interesting that they had to be so public about the killing, because the whole idea of the Freemasons and all these other societies is secrecy. So surely, kill him somewhere, burn the body, get rid of it, he's gone. I think it's all down to the power of the thing. These people believe themselves all powerful, and they're giving a message to other people.

Don't mess with us. P2 came to public knowledge through the death of Roberto Calvi, and it immediately became apparent when investigations began that he was closely linked with P2, with the Vatican Bank, with the mafia, and with a rather unwholesome money trail. Investigations, subsequent many investigations haven't got to the bottom of what happened and why Calvi was murdered.

But the P2 Lodge, on all accounts, was heavily implicated. The problem with looking at what happened to P2, yes, officially it was closed down. But many of its members actually went on to do big things. Sylvia Berlusconi was a member of P2, and it hasn't harmed him. To this day, it's... difficult to prove that P2 had any involvement in Calvi's death. Some say P2 was a shadow government with direct influence over Italian politics, and others say that they were just a group of people intent on furthering their careers, gaining power and wealth. Either way, could similar secret

meetings still be happening today, hidden in plain sight? Everywhere you look, people are on social media, and using smartphones with cameras. So the idea that the elite of the world meet behind closed doors seems hard to imagine. But in fact, they do. Once a year, there is a gathering of a group of the world's most powerful individuals from politics, banking, and multinational companies. It's known as the Bilderberg Group.

The Bilderberg Group was created in 1954 to strengthen the the relationship between Europe and the United States. It's still alive today. And while it's mostly secret in today's world of the media and the internet, it's not so secret. We know that sometimes celebrities go. Hillary Clinton, for instance, is known to have gone. And they meet once a year for a standard meeting.

So while we don't have a list of its members, you know, we are aware of the kinds of people, the politicians, the celebrities. the bankers, CEOs of Fortune 100 companies, those are the kinds of people who belong to the Bilderberg group. Now what they talk about, what's their influence, that remains a mystery. There are a great many societies and of course the most successful secret society will be the one that nobody's ever heard about because it's secret. The less secret, successful secret societies, one does hear about,

and there's some that are out, downright flammer. I'm buoyant. You know, they're like dressing up and their rituals and the whole thing. And, you know, there's the usual idea of the masons is boys dressing up and having a few drinks and, you know, a bit of ritual and, you know, funny handshakes and basically networking for business. Because of the secrecy surrounding the annual Bilderberg meetings, it's pretty much impossible to find out what is said in them. This fact, plus the nature of the people involved, has led to the great.

group attracting huge speculation. One person who is an expert on the group is Professor Andrew Kakabadzee, co-author of the book Bilderberg People. He agreed to meet with investigator Jamie Thiexton in London. What's the point of the Bilderberg group? What is it that they're trying to achieve? What it is is a meeting. It's three days a year and it brings together the elites from finance, from business, from media, education, health, security services. And they discuss issues. And their issues are to discuss and enlighten each other and to form relationships. And one of the original intentions is to form relationships so that we don't need to have international conflict. If you read through a list of the delegates at the 2016

Bilderberg meeting, they're not household names. Many of them are CEOs and chief executives of very large companies, not necessarily in the limelight as individuals, but these are people with an immense amount of reach and influence. And at their meetings, which takes place in a different location each year, they discuss under Chatham House rules, in other words, there can be no discussion outside of the group, the topics that interest them. They can talk openly about anything, so it could be terrorism, it could be financial crisis, it could be trade unions or whatever.

talk about it there and they know that what they say doesn't get out of the room. And since the mid-1950s when this organisation was set up, nothing has leaked out. Why the secrecy surrounding the Bilderberg group? It's not secrecy, it's privacy. You need people to build trust with each other. You need people to feel free to talk to each other. And people do sign an agreement that they won't talk to the press afterwards. But that is to maintain trust.

The security part is because you have to be able to talk to the press afterwards. party is because you have elites there. So it's privacy and security which makes it feel like secrecy, but it's not. It's just like any top team, any board of any company going away for a two-day strategy meeting and they want to discuss behind closed doors. Of all these secret, shadowy organisations, the Bilderberg group is perhaps one that worries the public the most. In a world of transparency, allegedly of the freedom of information act and the sort of the internet and everything being democratized in theory, it seems like a bit of an anomaly and the press are kept out. They really don't want people peering in. And I think that's why it generates

so much mystery because if they're there to do good, why not tell the world about it? It is a secret forum. I mean, they will admit that they hold their meetings in secret. But it's almost become a place where future world leaders are vetted, you know, before they become world leader. So Tony Blair was invited there. Bill Clinton was invited there. And it's interesting that one of its most leading members, Dennis Healy, who is a major politician in the 1970s, when asked, you know, is the Bilderberg group aiming to create a one-world government? He said, that's not a wholly unfair supposition, and that's from a member of the Bilderberg group. How influential are they?

For me, the number one group in the world. Really? Yeah, absolutely. But do you think that things that were discussed in the Bilderberg group would influence, say, American foreign policy? I would have said completely. Really? Completely. As a basis. So if you get a number of people together,

we've had Clinton who's been there, we've had Bush who've been there, so if had Democrat and Republican who's been there, please tell me the difference between the foreign policy that Clinton pushed, Bush pushed, Obama pushed, and now Trump is pushing. It's exactly the same. Now, is that by accident?

I don't think so. It's a way of thinking that you believe as president is the right way to think. This is the American freedoms. These are the American values. This is what we're trying to do to police the world. And you've accepted it. It's like a philosophy. So if the Bilderbergers are anything, they're more like a church.

It's a way of thinking, a set of values, an approach. But they stop there. They don't put any of that into practice. because at the end of the day, it's just a three-day meeting. But the Bilderberg Group isn't the only annual get-together of the world's elite. Each year in mid-July, there's another gathering, a two-week encampment deep within the redwood forests of California. It's known as Bohemian Grove.

And what makes these meetings even more intriguing are the utterly bizarre rituals that go on there. Bohemian Grove is a fascinating all-men private club that could very well be the biggest secret society on the globe today. They meet once a year in California in a really big outdoor sort of nature park that has the most pagan sculptures imaginable, you know, owls, statues of all sorts of weird people and regalia. And, you know, figureheads go there, politicians go there.

If those rituals and those kind of events are actually happening, then, you know, that's pretty dark indeed. Bohemian Grove has a guest list that includes ex-U.S. presidents, prominent business leaders, senior media executives, and other members of the elite. And they're all male. Secret societies are nothing new. You have them in ancient Mesopotamia. You have them in medieval England. You had them in Nazi Germany and we continue to have them today. And I think in one sense it's about empowerment. It's about the sense of breaking away from the mainstream and feeling a sense of belonging.

But also it's about advancing particular agendas. About self-importance as well, but also about pursuing what could potentially be sinister agendas, but which may be completely benevolent. I mean, we just don't know because they are so secretive. Secrecy is quite a damaging idea, and the fact that nobody knows what is discussed at these meetings means that people will endlessly speculate about the contents, and it doesn't take long for people to assume that they must be up to no good. One theory academics have put forward is that some of these groups originate from university fraternities. One of the most infamous of these secret societies is the skull and bones at Yale.

Ceremonies take place in the tomb. an almost windowless brownstone hall, and there have been stories that screams could be heard coming from it during the initiation ceremonies, that men lie naked in coffins, and that its members worship skulls, and once again it has a prestigious membership list, including three former US presidents. David Barrett has written a book on such societies and agreed to discuss them with Jamie. So what are the benefits of being part of one of these secretive organizations? I think a lot of it is just simply I'm in a club that nobody else is in. Right. 15 people a year, 15 students a year after the whole of Yale belongs to Skull and

Burns. So in the entirety of its existence since 1830s, they've only been a few thousand members. Right. You know, 15 a year doesn't amount up to that many. There are only a few hundred members alive at any time. But they do tend to be quite influential people. Very little is known about them, to be quite honest with you, because they are so secret, but they have ceremonies inside the tomb,

a red velvet room with skulls and bones in it. The initiates every year go through the most ridiculous ceremony. ridiculous ceremonies of mock murder, they have to lie naked in a coffin. But the whole thing I believe is quite sinister, and I do genuinely believe that the skull and bone society is a society like the Illuminati and various other people that are really looking for world domination. Is there anything sinister then about these secret groups? in society?

In a way you could maybe say so in that President Bush Sr. surrounded himself with bonesmen. With the current members are known as knights. Past members are called patriarchs. And Bush surrounded himself in his administration with patriarchs of skull and bones. So it was jobs for the boys? It was jobs for the boys. It was his mates.

people who he could trust because they've been in the same club as him. These societies are elitist. There is a lot of whining and dining and quaffing, champagne and all that kind of stuff and networking. But essentially the secrecy comes from their perception at least that they are important and the sort of things that are being discussed could have consequences and some key players from the global arena like politics. politicians and merchants and finances are altogether in a way that could very easily be portrayed as some sort of unholy alliance, some sort of diabolical parliament. So they try to avoid that because that's not good publicity. But at the same time, yes, they are elitist and they probably don't want that to be out in the open either.

So is the ultimate conclusion that the true force shaping our world is actually money? or do the claims of the conspiracy theorists stand up? In recent years, there have been scientific studies to test whether conspiracy theories could be accurate by looking at whether the deception could really be kept under wraps by the people involved. Something physicist David Grimes knows plenty about. Often people get frustrated by conspiracy theorists

because they're frustrated with their refusal to look at the kind of established evidence. Is it not a way in which you can disprove a conspiracy theory? In science, there's no way to prove a negative. I can never tell you anything, with that certainty, is a no. I can tell you it's very, very, very, very, very, very unlikely. One of the reasons I did my little bit of research on the plausibility of different conspiracy theories holding for a long time is that I kind of wanted to play devil's advocate.

I do understand people's suspicions and needs. I wanted to understand, okay, look, let's pretend there is a conspiracy. let's see how long it would be likely to last, let's see how hard it would be to keep it a secret. And when you put the numbers in, it is really difficult to keep secrets for a long time. It's gotten even harder to keep a secret in the information age, and yet we still kind of have a romantic belief

of people can keep secrets like that, and they really can't. It's always easy to be tempted to look for conspiracies because we know secret societies exist. Do they rule the world? I'm tempted to say in some ways they must do, because most people are so bloody apathetic that anybody who has the nows to get together and say, look, we want to change it this way and that way and, you know, be it for their own good or other people's good, like the Masons originally, you know, and say we're doing it because we perceive this is the way society should go,

and we're going to make it go that way. In reality, how powerful are these secretive groups? What do they discuss and why the cloud of secrecy? Are the most famous secret societies that exist up to no good? Do they influence our lives? Or are we inherently suspicious of elite groups in this digital age? One of the most enduring conspiracy theories is that we are in some way governed by some shadowy cabal that governs the way we live our lives.

Why are we fascinated by those kind of stories? Because I think when really powerful people get together in a group, that is fascinating. I'm fascinated by it. I don't necessarily believe that they're up to sinister machinations or nefarious plotting, but the fact that they are doing that and that we don't know about it means that we're going to fill in that gap. I do think it's fascinating in isolation,

and I see why people who have this kind of new world order kind of view of the world would think, ah, that's where the power center is. It's us putting narrative on things. There's been a huge revival of interest and belief in secret societies, in brotherhoods and conspiracies, running the world. I mean, it's incredible. You get people who believe there's a deep state that is running the political reality.

You get people who believe the Illuminati and the Knights Templar are running our society and really pulling the strings. So a massive revival in belief, but also, you know, there are still secret societies. They do exist. It's really being able to discern between what is fiction and what is fact. One of the most recent secret societies to have come under the spotlight is Opus Dei, popularized by Dan Brown's The Da Vinci Code. Conspiracy theorists claim that they're an elitist secretive cult-like group who maintain an extremely high level of control over its members. Opus Day was founded in Spain as a fairly hardline, conservative, Catholic organization. And one of the most notable things about it is that membership is by invitation only.

So naturally there are questions about what is Opus Day, what is its mission, and what does it do? No one is quite sure the reality of what they do. There's about 100,000 members today. And on one hand, we're led to believe they're hired assassins for the Vatican. And on the other hand, we're told they're pious monk-like, you know, self-flagellation, doing penitence. But no one's really sure. All we know for certain is that they appear to be quite dark. For some people, they're just a charitable Vatican organization.

but for others there's a much more sort of sinister band of religious zealots whose end is unclear. But again because they're cloaked in secrecy, that is a kind of, you know, fertile breeding ground for all sorts of conspiracies and rumours to swirl and embrace them. I think because they are a very stern, strict and also brainwashing organisation, and people who've left Opus Day have talked about the way in which they've been worked over psychologically. They've also opened themselves up to all manner of accusations about being a hit squad, about being the enforcers, bumping people off, whatever. I think some of this we have to say is fanciful.

But Opus Day does itself no favors by the way that it operates and by the fact that people who leave the organization, you know, come back to us with such grim testimonies. Just how influential Opus Day and other people. other groups are, remains questionable. It's difficult to keep conspiracies quiet, and so perhaps we should be less concerned with some shadowy group that lurks behind the scenes and focus rather on those currently in power

in a world where money has ultimate influence. During the 2016 U.S. presidential election campaign, the news stories that people most engaged with on social media were not written by incredible media outlets. Some of the stories in circulation were fictional. For many people, the decision about the next president may have been based on information that wasn't true.

So where did these stories come from? Political campaigning has changed dramatically over the last 20 years. A case of going out and kissing a few babies and a photo shoot right about hundreds of years to just buying a few extra beers to the guys in the local. To this day, of course, with social media being what it is, you can now reach millions of people with just a tweet. Who knows how many other sort of shadowy beings that might be kind of pulling the strings

and how many deals have been done, you know, I'll give you this in exchange for that and how when it seems as though the course of politics is decided via elections and politicians being frank about their intentions, in fact there are these unseen debts of obligation that need to be serviced, otherwise these individuals might be ruined. In 2017, the term for such false news stories was added to the dictionary, fake news.

It's not actually a modern phenomenon, but the age of the internet and social media has meant such stories reach a far wider audience, and ascertaining what is real or fake is becoming increasingly more dangerous. increasingly more difficult. Will Moy is the director of Full Fact, an organization that checks the facts presented by governments and newspapers. With so-called fake news on the rise, he has his work cut out. What does fake news mean to you?

Fake news is more than anything else. It's a label that politicians who want to avoid questions throw at the media. It's actually a really dangerous thing. You hear presidents and prime ministers and ministers on the TV, on the radio, saying, oh, that's fake news because they don't want to answer a question. That's a really dangerous thing. But actually, there's a whole set of questions which include, you know, why are their governments trying to push inaccurate information online?

And we know that's something, for example, the Russian government has been trying to do in a concerted way. Fake news is basically being created by people who are probably probably jealous of somebody else or want to control in a way, and there's nothing better than creating something true or false, because once it's been in a newspaper or it's been on the internet, then, guys, it's in print and it's fact, it's real. And I'm afraid no matter what people say, once they've read it, they believe it. And you can bring down people, you can bring down organisations, you can bring down governments,

literally by creating fake news and with the internet as it is fake news is on the rise big time the power of the shadow men has completely changed I mean it's no more these guys with umbrellas bowler hats and and the bank it's changed the most powerful people now in the world are the people that that control Amazon and Google and Facebook and they are They are the new movers and shakers of the world. We're only ever a few clicks away from coming across groups of people who believe that the government is somehow controlled by some dark and secretive organisation, some kind of cabal. Is there any evidence to suggest that this is the case?

Well, I and my colleagues at Four Factor spent the last seven years on the outside of government staring in in my new detail. And frankly, the idea of it is controlled at all is looking a bit. thin at the moment. We've had three years with two general elections, a referendum, but I'm pretty sure didn't go the way the powers would be expected. The idea that there's a lot of control is beginning to look far-fetched. So no, I don't think there's magical control happening somewhere. Sometimes it doesn't seem like there's that much control happening anywhere. But what we have seen, I think, in the last sort of seven years while we've been operating, is they're that much more exposed to outside scrutiny than perhaps we thought they were when we started.

It's difficult to know what to believe, and while there is evidence of secret societies having closed-door meetings, we don't really know what's discussed, and what effect, if any, it has on society. What we do know is that there are enough claims of rituals, assassinations, and global domination to have fueled conspiracy theories for centuries. There have been secret societies since the dawn of time, and these exist, across the world. In Asia, there are the Yakuza and the Triads. In Italy, we have the Comorra and the Mafia,

and Opus Day. There are any number of secret societies. It's unarguable. The Illuminati were real. What's interesting is what people assume that they're up to. Some of them, I'm sure, absolutely benign. But when one looks at events like the murder of Roberto Calvi,

some of them are not benign. You know, the idea that you have these societies, that have secrets, that they are willing to pass on to initiates under great, you know, secret circumstances. Yeah, that presupposes that the secrets are worth having. And actually, I just have come to the conclusion that just because something is secret, it's not necessarily right or worth having. It's really tough to say if there is demonstrable impact of secret. societies today. You know what? I suspect there is, but I don't think it's any

society that we're aware of. It's not the skull and bones, it's not Bilderberg, it's not the Freemasons, it's going to be some nameless group of puppet masters who will never know about but who are probably influencing everything from the world economy to the weather. We started with a question. Are our democratically elected governments really in control? The conspiracy theories may be just that, theories. Whenever something goes on behind closed doors, there's going to be speculation. By their nature, they can't be proved. You either believe them or you don't. Rather than being concerned with the idea of a shadowy elite manipulating our governments, maybe we should

be thinking about the nature of governments right in front of us. We live in a world where money can still buy power and where what we read to inform our opinions may not be true. Maybe that's the real conspiracy.