Bohemian Grove

From The Book of THoTH (Leaves of Wisdom)

Bohemian Grove is a 2700 acre (11 km²) campground located in Monte Rio, California, in Sonoma County, 75 miles north of San Francisco, belonging to a private San Francisco-based men's fine arts club known as the Bohemian Club, which was founded in 1872. Every year (since 1899) it is the location of a two-week (covering three weekends) encampment, beginning in the middle of July.

The Bohemian Club's membership includes many artists, particularly musicians, as well as many high-ranking business leaders, government officials (including many US Presidents) and senior media publishers. As a measure of the Club's exclusivity, it is reported the waiting list for membership is about 15 years. Members may invite guests to the Grove, who are subject to a rigorous screening procedure. These guests come from across America and overseas. Californian guests are limited to attendance at the "Spring Jinks", in June, preceeding the main July encampment.

Associate Professor Peter Martin Phillips, Ph.D., who visited the Grove twice in the early 1990's and conversed with dozens of attendees (see External Links below), is of the view that the Grove (and the Club) are a "highly interconnected socially based reflection of American business society", offering attendees a relative advantage in business and high-level political contacts, far beyond what could be gained by normal business contacts, through a historical networking of a socio-economic elite.

The Grove is particularly famous for a Manhattan Project planning meeting that took place there in September of 1942, which subsequently led to the atomic bomb. Peter Phillips confirms this meeting and lists those attending, apart from Ernest Lawrence and military officials, as including the president of Harvard and representatives of Standard Oil and General Electric. He reports that Grove members take particular pride in this event and often relate the story to new attendees.

Contents

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History

Bohemian Grove was established over time, shortly after the founding of the Bohemian Club in 1872. For several years, the members of the Club camped together at various locations, including the present Muir Woods, Samuel P. Taylor State Park, and a separate redwood grove near Duncan Mills, down river from the current location. Regular July encampments similar to those held today began in 1899.

The first parcel of the grove was purchased from Melvin Cyrus Meeker who developed a successful logging operation in the area. Gradually over the next decades, members of the Club purchased land surrounding the original location to the perimeter of the basin in which it resides. This was done to secure the rights to the water, so that its water supply would not be affected by uphill operations.

Not long after the Club's establishment by newspaper reporters, it was commandeered by prominent San Francisco-based businessmen, who provided the financial resources necessary to acquire further acreage and facilities at the Grove. They still retained the "bohemians" however - the artists and musicians - as their primary purpose in establishing the campground was to provide entertainment to their international members and guests (reporters were subsequently excluded from membership). No other elite all-male club has a campground of quite this bohemian nature throughout the world.

The Grove itself consists of redwoods (Sequoia Sempervirens) over 1,500 years old. It is a spectacular nature preserve, untouched by logging, and containing many elevated walkways. The longevity of the redwoods stands as emblematic of an untouched natural setting, far removed from modern day vulgarity. This traditional "purity" underpins the cremation of care ceremony (see below).


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Facilities

The primary activities taking place at the Grove are varied and expensive entertainments, such as an elaborate Grove Play (known as "High Jinks") and musical comedies ("Low Jinks") - where female roles are played by men in drag - produced by the members and associate members of the Club. Thus the majority of common facilities are entertainment venues. There are also sleeping quarters, or "camps" scattered throughout the grove, of which it is reported there were a total of 104 as of 2005. These camps, which are frequently patrilineal, are the principal means through which high-level business and political contacts and friendships are formed. For senior corporate executives, the camps are said to be the pinnacle of socio-political networking in the US.

According to Joel van der Reijden (see External Links below for a full list of camps and substantive details on the past affiliations of the camps' members), the pre-eminent camps are:

  • Mandalay (Big Business/Defense Contractors/Politics/US Presidents);
  • Hill Billies (Big Business/Banking/Politics/Universities/Media);
  • Cave Man (Think Tanks/Oil Companies/Banking/Defense Contractors/Universities/Media);
  • Stowaway (Rockefeller Family Interests/Oil Companies/Banking/Think Tanks);
  • Owls Nest (US Presidents/Military/Defense Contractors);
  • Hideaway (Foundations/Military/Defense Contractors);
  • Isle of Aves (Military/Defense Contractors);
  • Lost Angels (Banking/Defense Contractors/Media);
  • Silverado squatters (Big Business/Defense Contractors);
  • Sempervirens (Californian-based Corporations);
  • Hillside (Military - Joint Chiefs of Staff)
  • Grove Stage - it is an amphitheatre with seating for 2,000 used primarily for the Grove Play production, on the last Friday of the midsummer encampment. The stage extends up the hill side, and is also home to the second largest outdoor pipe organ in the world.
  • Field Circle - a bowl-shaped amphitheatre used for the mid-weekend, "Low Jinks" musical comedy, as well as for variety shows.
  • Campfire Circle - has a campfire pit in the middle of the circle, surrounded by carved redwood log benches. Used for smaller shows in a more intimate setting.
  • Museum Stage - A semi-outdoor venue with a covered stage. Lectures and small ensembles shows.
  • Dining Circle - seating approximately 1500 diners simultaneously.
  • The Owl Shrine and the Lake - an artificial lake in the middle of the grove, used for the noon-time concerts and also the venue of the Cremation of Care, that takes place on the first Saturday of the encampment. It is also the location of the significant daily (12.30pm) "Lakeside Talks." G. William Domhoff (see below) states these informal talks (many on public policy issues) have been given over the years by entertainers, professors, astronauts, business leaders, cabinet officers, CIA directors, future presidents and former presidents; these have been the subject of ongoing controversy, as the transcripts of these talks have never been released to the public.
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Symbolism and rituals

Since the founding of the club, the Bohemian Grove's symbol has been the owl, long held as a representative of wisdom. A forty-foot concrete owl stands at the head of the lake in the Grove and, since 1929, has served as the site of the yearly "Cremation of Care" ceremony (see below). The club's motto, Weaving Spiders Come Not Here, is taken from the second scene of Act 2 from A Midsummer Night's Dream; it signifies that the Club and the Grove are not for conducting business, but exchanging friendship and free sharing of common passion, summarized in the term, "the Bohemian Spirit."

The Club's patron saint is John of Nepomuk, who legend says suffered death at the hands of a Bohemian monarch rather than disclose the confessional secrets of the queen. "A large wood carving of St. John in cleric robes with his index finger over his lips stands at the shore of the lake in the Grove" (see Peter Martin Phillips below), symbolising the intense secrecy kept by the Grove's attendees throughout its long history.

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Cremation of Care

The Cremation of Care was devised in 1893 by a member named Joseph D. Redding, a lawyer from New York. The New York Times described the show in a June 25, 1899 article:

"Great attention was paid to all the details, and the Druid priests who figured prominently in the show bore all the insignia of their order on their vestments. Over 500 persons figured in the spectacle, and electric and calcium lights were used to illuminate the tableaus. There was a symphony orchestra and a grand chorus. A Druids' altar and sacrificial stone lent an air of realism to the scenes. Mr. Redding served as High Priest of Bohemia. Then came a procession of eight Druid priests bearing six chained captives-- a Gaul, a Celt, a Roman, a barbarian, and two men from the Far North. Each captive was in costume and each in turn pleaded his cause before the assembly, but was condemned to death. Only the Gaul, who represented Bohemia, was able to make a defense that lifted the sentence from the heads of the captives. A loving cup was then drunk by Druids, captives, and Bohemians. Mephisto and a number of devils rushed in and attempted to rescue [an effigy representing a personification of] "Care" from the catafalque [sacrificial pyre]. The devil made an impassioned address, saying that goodfellowship was a mockery and that "Care" could not be banished. Then the Druid leader drove them into the woods with a lighted torch, which he at once applied to the funeral pyre. After this came the "low jinks," a species of amateur minstrel show. Then the Bohemians retired to their tents and to such sleep as the wags and practical jokers of the club permitted them to take."

Today, the ritual consists of hooded members accepting the effigy representing "dull care" from a ferryman traveling across a creek. Music and fireworks accompany the ritual, for dramatic effect. The mock human sacrifice is placed on an altar and set on fire. The ritual represents the act of embracing the revelry of Bohemian Grove while setting aside the "dull cares" of the outside world.

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Documentary

On July 15, 2000, Alex Jones and Mike Hanson infiltrated the Grove with two hidden video cameras and filmed the Cremation of Care ritual. In his documentary about the infiltration, Dark Secrets: Inside Bohemian Grove, Jones contends that a large group of members engage in an "ancient Canaanite, Luciferian, Babylon mystery religion ceremony" involving a 45-foot statue of an owl. In 2004, a man calling himself "Kyle," who claimed to be a former employee of the Bohemian Club, was able to clandestinely film much more than Jones and Hanson did during their 2000 infiltration. For instance, "Kyle" was able to film the interior of the owl statue and the metal framed effigy of Care. The new footage was presented in Jones' 2005 documentary Order of Death and his network of websites.

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Controversies

The private nature of the Club and its membership has attracted some attention and suspicion. Over the years, individuals have infiltrated the Grove then later published video and accounts of the activities at Bohemian Grove. German Chancellor Helmut Schmidt wrote about the Grove in his autobiography Men and Powers. He stated that Germany had similar institutions, some of which included such rituals, but that his favorite was the Bohemian Grove.

There have been controversies pertaining to allegations of homosexual conduct. Commenting on the number of homosexuals in the San Francisco area and to a lesser extent, the number of San Francisco natives that are members of the Bohemian Club, former United States President Richard Nixon remarked, "But it's not just the ratty part of town. The upper class in San Francisco is that way. The Bohemian Grove, which I attend from time to time . . . It is the most faggy goddamn thing that you would ever imagine with that San Francisco crowd." According to the New York Post on June 22, 2004, in a page six article now removed from their website entitled, "GAY PORN STAR SERVES MOGULS," gay porn star Chad Savage worked as a reportedly anonymous valet at the Bohemian Grove.[1]

Harry Shearer of This is Spinal Tap fame has made a movie with the same parody concept about Bohemian Grove, called Teddy Bears' Picnic.

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Purported ceremonies and customs

During the Cremation of Care ceremony, a mock human sacrifice representing "dull care" is cremated to symbolize the liberation of the participants. It can be argued that its symbolism is analogous to that of the Burning Man which has often been compared to the Midsummer Encampment at the Grove.

In the Franklin Coverup Scandal of 1989, investigators of that case discovered that Paul A. Bonacci wrote in his diary that he had been flown into the Grove by republican leader Lawrence King and was forced into sexual acts with other boys including snuff films and BDSM.[2] Paul Bonacci later testified to these charges in court with U.S. Senior District Judge Warren K. Urbom presiding. Bonacci won the court case and was awarded $1 million by Judge Urbom.[3]

Spy Magazine in the 1989 Issue reported about the grove and its busing in of homosexual prostitutes from surrounding towns and the problem with members contracting AIDS.

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Quotes

"The Bohemian Grove, that I attend from time to time — the (inaudible) and the others come there — but it is the most faggy goddamn thing that you would ever imagine. The San Francisco crowd, it's just terrible. I can't even shake hands with anybody from San Francisco." - President Richard M. Nixon, Bohemian Club member starting in 1953 (Domhoff, p 15);

  • "If I were to choose the speech that gave me the most pleasure and satisfaction in my political career, it would be my Lakeside Speech at the Bohemian Grove in July 1967. Because this speech traditionally was off the record it received no publicity at the time. But in many important ways it marked the first milestone on my road to the presidency." - President Richard Nixon again, in a more mellow mood, in his Memoirs(1978), cited by Domhoff below. (The rule that sitting presidents are not allowed to attend the Grove was sparked by a media clamour to cover a Lakeside Talk that Nixon wanted to give in 1971, but was forced by the directors of the Grove to withdraw.)

"Who would ever have imagined that the president of the United States, together with a large chunk of America's elite, attends a yearly gathering where an ancient Babylonian (mock) human sacrifice is carried out in front of a huge stone owl?" - Joel van der Reijden (2005 Website: see External Links below);

"The mood is reminiscent of high school. There's no end to the pee-pee and penis jokes, suggesting that these men, advanced in so many other ways, were emotionally arrested sometime during adolescence" - Philip Weiss, Spy Magazine journalist, who infiltrated the Grove in 1989.

"So, I was there witnessing something right out of the medieval painter Hieronymus Bosch’s Visions of Hell: burning metal crosses, priests in red and black robes with the high priest in a silver robe with a red cape, a burning body screaming in pain, a giant stone great-horned owl, world leaders, bankers, media and the head of academia engaged in these activities. It was total insanity" - Alex Jones, describing the Cremation of Care ceremony he witnessed at the Grove in 2000 (see External Links below).

"The world is divided in to three classes of people: a very small group that makes things happen, a somewhat larger group that watches things happen, and the great multitude which never knows what happened." - Bohemian Club member Nicholas Murray Butler (President of Columbia University, 1901-1945), as quoted by Professor Carroll Quigley, on Joel van der Reijden's 2005 Website (see External Links below). This is an apt description of the secrecy behind the Grove encampments.

1908 mock hanging

1909 group photo from the 1909 Grove Play with a male child tied down

1915 cremation of care

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Further reading

  • For a definitive look at the history of the Grove and the composition of Bohemian Club members and their social, business and political affiliations, updating Domhoff's book (below), see: A Relative Advantage: Sociology of the San Francisco Bohemian Club by Peter Martin Phillips B.A. (University of Santa Clara) 1970 M.A. (California State University, Sacramento) 1974 M.A. (University of California, Davis) 1992. [See External Links below: Sociology of the Bohemian Grove, Doctoral Dissertation, Sonoma State University]
  • Domhoff, G. William, The Bohemian Grove and Other Retreats: A study in ruling class cohesiveness, Harper and Row, 1974, ISBN 06-131880-9
  • Field, Charles K. , The Cremation of Care, 1946, 1953
  • Fletcher, Robert H., The Annals of the Bohemian Club, Hicks-Judd, 1900
  • Hanson, Mike, Bohemian Grove: Cult Of Conspiracy, iUniverse Inc, 2004
  • Ickes, Harold L. , The Secret Diary of Harold L. Ickes, Vol 1. The First Thousand Days, 1933-36. Simon and Schuster, 1953. Ickes was Secretary of the Interior during the New Deal.
  • McCartney, Laton, Friends in High Places: The Bechtel Story: The Most Secret Corporation and how It Engineered the World, Ballantine Books, Updated edition,1989. For the remarkable network of links between the Californian-based and privately-owned Bechtel Group and members of Reagan's Cabinet, along with their Camp membership in the Grove.
  • Nader, Ralph, The Big Boys, Pantheon, 1987. Contains a chapter on high-level businessmen and the tightly-held secrecy of their Club membership.
  • Nixon, Richard, RN : The Memoirs of Richard Nixon, Grosset & Dunlap, 1978.
  • Quigley, Carroll, Tragedy And Hope: A History of the World in Our Time, G. S. G. & Associates, Incorporated, 1975. The seminal book by the history professor of Georgetown University that serves as the basis for many current conspiracy theories and studies of socio-economic elites.
  • Santilli, Armand, The Boys at Bohemian Grove, Xlibris Corporation, 2004
  • Schmidt, Helmut, Men and Powers : A Political Retrospective, Random House, 1990
  • Van der Zee, John, Power at Ease: Inside the Greatest Men's Party on Earth, Harcourt Brace Javonovich, 1974. The author waited tables at the Grove in the summer of 1972.
  • Thomas J. Watson Jr, & Peter Petre, Father, Son & Co. : My Life at IBM and Beyond, Bantam, 2000. A rare glimpse by a top IBM CEO of an insider's business perspective on the Grove.
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See also

  • Rancheros visitadores

Other international gatherings of high-level business/political/media officials:

  • World Economic Forum (Annual meetings, mostly held in Davos, Switzerland)
  • Bilderberg Group (Annual meetings, rotated through the US, Canada, Europe and Asia)
  • Trilateral Commission (Annual meetings, rotated through the US, Europe and Asia)
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External links

--MAD 25 June 06

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