Bohemian Grove

The Bohemian Grove is somewhere in the north of the state of California. Every mid-summer, a group of important people in the life of the USA gather there for a strange ritual. In front of a forty-foot tall stone owl, a bundle of rags designated as 'the corpse of Care' is burned by a lake. The participants in this ritual carry burning torches and wear hooded robes.

So far as that description goes, it's accurate.

The Texan talk-show host Alex Jones maintains that the owl personates Moloch (or Molech), and that the bundle of rags sometimes contains a living or recently-deceased human infant. There is no evidence for this. Jones maintains that 'there is no place for this kind of thing in a Christian country', and believes the participants at the Grove represent the New World Order.

More rational observers maintain that while events at the Grove are distinctly weird, there's no reason why, in a free country, people shouldn't be allowed to burn rags on their own property. Whether and to what extent such secret societies as the gatherers at the Grove or the Skull and Bones actually influence world affairs is unclear. They do not, and cannot, however, control them.

Alex Jones successfully infiltrated Bohemian Grove and filmed the 'owl burning' ritual. His exploits were discussed in the Channel 4 documentary, 'The Secret Rulers of the World', and his footage is available on the Internet.

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Newsflash: Reuters reports that on April 17, 2002, Richard McCaslin, 37, was convicted at Sonoma County Court of arson, for breaking into the Bohemian Club's compound and setting light to a cafeteria on the premises. Reports suggest that the act was inspired by listening to 'a Texas-based radio talk show host' discussing the Grove. Although Reuters does not name this host, those familiar with the story so far will be able to make an educated guess. Reuters names Ronald Reagan, Gerald Ford and Richard Nixon as sometime members of the club, which seems to have a reasonable overlap (although Reuters, naturally, does not point this out) with the Bilderberg Group. Thanks must go to mkb for drawing my attention to this story.

Alex Jones's infiltration of Bohemian Grove is covered in English journalist Jon Ronson's Channel 4 series, The Secret Rulers of the World, and also in his book Them. The television version is interesting, as it includes the footage captured fairly ineptly by Jones using a camera concealed in a sports bag, and an interview with a former Bohemian Grove attendee, none other than Harry Shearer (better known as Derek Smalls, Charles Montgomery Burns, Principal Skinner etc. etc.). It also gives one the chance to experience Jones's persona first-hand, and ponder whether he is a genuinely committed "enemy of the New World Order", or an opportunistic media player, feeding off the genuine paranoia of his listeners.

However, the true absurdity of the whole episode is revealed by a reading of the relevant chapter in Ronson's book. What is not mentioned in the TV show is that Jones and his cameraman were not the only people to infiltrate the "Cremation of Care" ceremony. Ronson himself was able to stroll past the front gate and take his place amongst the other movers and shakers taking part. Jones had been advised that this was the best way to get in, but was unable to believe that security would be so lax. Believing that he was infiltrating a pagan ritual which would expose the seamy underbelly of the New World Order, he assumed that capture would have serious consequences. He and his cameraman dived into the bushes and made their way through the forest while Ronson casually walked through the front door.

In the event, Ronson appears to have had a better view of the ceremony, and certainly a better opportunity to mingle with the attendees. He apparently had no video equipment with him, however, so his experience of the event was left out of the TV version. What becomes clear from his narrative of the event, however, is that what he was witnessing was a group of powerful men on holiday, misbehaving in a rather adolescent fashion.