Chapter 148. Hidden Hands? Secret Societies, Elite Forums and Power as Claimed in the Sources

Throughout this study, political legitimacy has been bound up with claims to secret or sacred knowledge: Magi, mystery schools, Templars and lodges. The library’s large conspiracy literature turns that theme into an accusation. It holds that a small number of clubs, orders and bloodlines steer politics behind the façade of elections. This chapter states exactly what each author claims and on what evidence, which may be a document, a quotation, a genealogy or a testimony. It separates two things. One is the underlying fact, such as that a meeting took place or that a person was a member, which an independent reference source can confirm. The other is the inference that the meeting or membership directed policy. Each organisation’s description of itself is given alongside, and the chapter closes with the scholarly accounts of why such beliefs spread.

The documented baseline

The reference shelf establishes the following. The Bilderberg Meeting first met from 29 to 31 May 1954 at the Hotel de Bilderberg in Oosterbeek, Netherlands. It was initiated by the Polish exile Józef Retinger to promote Atlanticism, and Prince Bernhard chaired it until 1975. It brings together 120-150 participants under the Chatham House Rule, and its early conferences received Ford Foundation money. The article itself notes that the forum “has drawn conspiracy theories from both the left and right” [Wikipedia: Bilderberg Meeting]. The Trilateral Commission was founded in July 1973, “principally by … David Rockefeller”, to foster cooperation between Japan, Western Europe and North America. Zbigniew Brzezinski left Columbia University to organise it, and it had roughly 400 members in 2021 [Wikipedia: Trilateral Commission]. The Bohemian Club’s annual Cremation of Care has been performed at the Bohemian Grove since 1881, in front of a 40-foot owl, as “an allegorical banishing of worldly cares” [Wikipedia: Cremation of Care]. Skull and Bones was founded at Yale in 1832. The Romanian reference article records the theory that its number 322 marks the founding year and a “second chapter” of a German society presumed to be the Illuminati [Wikipedia (RO): Skull and Bones].

The Trilateral-Bilderberg narrative

Jim Marrs gives the canonical account: “Brzezinski’s plan for a commission of trilateral nations was first presented during a meeting of the ultrasecret Bilderberg group in April 1972, in the small Belgian town of Knokke-Heist”. He sets this against financiers’ concern “over Nixon’s devaluation of the dollar, surcharges on imports, and budding detente”. He quotes Antony Sutton and Patrick Wood: “If you are trying to calculate the odds of three virtually unknown men (Carter, Mondale, and Brzezinski), out of over 60 (Trilateral) commissioners from the U.S., capturing the three most powerful positions in the land, don’t bother”. He also quotes the journalist Robert Eringer on why the Commission “acquired a reputation for being the Shadow Government of the West” [Marrs, Rule by Secrecy, #63004, Part I, “The Trilateral Commission”]. The evidence here is attendance and appointment. That Carter, Mondale and Brzezinski were Trilateral members and then held office is documented. That the Commission placed them there is the authors’ inference.

Dane Phillips and John Scura repeat the 1972 Knokke-Heist story and add that members first gathered at the Rockefeller estate at Pocantico Hills on 23 July 1972. For the Obama years they list officials by affiliation: “Susan Rice, US ambassador to the United Nations, is a Trilateral Commission member. General James L. Jones, national security advisor, is a member of Bilderberg group, the CFR and the Trilateral Commission. Thomas Donilon … is a CFR and Trilateral Commission member”. Kissinger is listed as belonging to all three. They describe the Grove as “a meeting place for the elite of the world”, which has included “every Republican president since Calvin Coolidge”, and claim its lakeside talks “have consistently predicted policies and events” [Phillips & Scura, Battle Hymn, #62152].

The Spanish journalist Cristina Martín Jiménez, read here in Romanian translation, calls David Rockefeller “părintele atît al Clubului Bilderberg, cât şi al Comisiei Trilaterale” (“the father of both the Bilderberg Club and the Trilateral Commission”). She describes the Grove’s opening rite: “Reuniunile încep cu un ritual numit ‘arderea grijilor’, în timpul căruia se dă foc unei bufniţe albe, înaltă de doi metri” (“the meetings begin with a ritual called ‘the cremation of care’, during which a two-metre-tall white owl is set on fire”). The translator’s note defines the Trilateral Commission as a “pressure body” founded in 1973 that “does not accept members of any government” and that “dictated the terms” of trade with underdeveloped and communist countries [Martín Jiménez, Clubul Bilderberg: Stăpânii lumii, #40545; Romanian edition #40544]. The reference shelf confirms the ritual itself and describes the owl as 40 feet tall, not two metres [Wikipedia: Cremation of Care]. Her claim about Rockefeller’s paternity of Bilderberg is contradicted by the reference account, which credits Retinger and Bernhard.

The compendium Synarchy puts the Trilateral Commission at “approximately 390 elites in business, banking, and politics”, quotes Barry Goldwater’s 1979 charge that it was “David Rockefeller’s newest international cabal”, and states that “the Club of Rome works closely with Bilderberg Group, Trilateral commission, Council on Foreign Relations and Tavistock”. It derives all of these from a “Committee of 300” established by the “Black Nobility”. Its introduction sets the tone: “As far as I’m concerned, these demons should be executed for their crimes against humanity” [Synarchy, #67074, Introduction; “Trilateral Commission”; “Club of Rome”]. The membership figure is close to the reference count of roughly 400; the derivation from a “Committee of 300” is the compendium’s own and is not tied to documents in the passages cited.

Bloodlines, the Grove and Skull and Bones

Eric DuBay moves from institutions to genealogy. He writes that all US presidents “have carried European royal bloodlines into office”, 34 of them descended from Charlemagne and 19 from Edward III, via “the 13th Illuminati bloodline, the Merovingian line, and/or the Windsor-Bush bloodline”. He cites an unnamed “spokesman for Burkes Peerage” as saying that the candidate “with the most royal genes” has won every election. He names Freemasonry, Bilderberg, the Bohemian Grove, Skull and Bones, the CFR and the Trilateral Commission as the vehicles of this power. He quotes Gary Allen’s None Dare Call It Conspiracy: while everyone has heard of the John Birch Society, usually in derogatory terms, “practically nobody has heard of the Bilderbergers” [DuBay, The Atlantean Conspiracy, #64609, pp. 3-4]. The Burke’s Peerage statement is given without a date or name in the passage.

Antony Sutton anchors Skull and Bones in German philosophy: “When its co-founder, William Russell, was in Germany in 1831-2, there was no way he could have avoided Hegelian theory”. He documents the society’s 1856 incorporation as the Russell Trust [Sutton, America’s Secret Establishment, #5581, Part III]. The incorporation is a public record. The claim that the Order works by a Hegelian method of managed conflict is Sutton’s interpretation.

The Illuminati genealogy

Jeffrey Webb’s reference handbook traces the Illuminati theory to the reaction against the French Revolution. Abbé Augustin Barruel’s Memoirs Illustrating the History of Jacobinism (1797-1799) and John Robison’s Proofs of a Conspiracy blamed the Revolution on the Bavarian Illuminati and the lodges. Their books were read widely in Europe and in the United States, where “Illuminati-themed accusations” surfaced in the late 1790s [Webb, Conspiracy Theories: A Reference Handbook, #62861, pp. 18-22, 156-160].

The modern popular version is The Illuminati: The Secret Society That Hijacked the World (attributed to Jim Marrs; the library record lists no author). It argues that “the Illuminati operated largely on the Hegelian Dialectic, utilized so well by Weishaupt, Marx, and Hitler”, through which “Western capitalists created communism … as a perceived enemy”. It repeats the “Shadow Government of the West” label for the Trilateral Commission. It explicitly rejects an ethnic reading: “past world revolutions cannot be blamed on persons of the Jewish faith” [The Illuminati, #62399]. Henry Makow’s Illuminati takes the opposite line. In Makow’s version Lenin and Trotsky “were Illuminati Jews and financed by Illuminati Jewish bankers”. He writes, however, that “most Jews are unaware of the Illuminati agenda. They are manipulated and compromised like everyone else”, and that “organized Jewry” has been “hijacked” [Makow, Illuminati, #64886, Book One]. This is Makow’s thesis.

Leo Lyon Zagami claims insider knowledge of the OTO, the Priory of Sion and the Masonic hierarchies. He writes that “religion can serve to galvanize a group of willing people”, and that an infiltrating group “can act at all levels and remains invisible even to the hierarchy of the society that welcomes them” [Zagami, Confessions of an Illuminati, #367409]. His evidence is his own testimony as an insider.

Catholic orders as targets

Anti-Catholic polemic forms its own branch of the literature. Edward Hendrie writes that “Jesuits take a solemn oath to destroy Protestant Christians and destroy any government that offers protection to Protestant Christians”. He also claims that Roman Catholicism “is Jewish to its core” [Hendrie, Solving the Mystery of Babylon the Great, #67001, ch. 28]. The Secret Terrorist reprints the “Jesuit Oath” and, citing McCarty, claims that the Congress of Vienna (1815) formed the Holy Alliance “whose primary goal was the destruction of all popular governments”, with the Jesuits restored “in all their power” [The Secret Terrorist, #79644, ch. 1]. The reference shelf traces the oath text to Robert Ware’s Foxes and Firebrands (1689) and notes that Ware was “later exposed as a forger” [Wikipedia: Jesuit conspiracy theories].

Issitt and Main give the neutral description of Opus Dei. In 1982 it became the Church’s first “personal prelature”, “a diocese without physical boundaries”, and most of its members are “supernumeraries” living ordinary lives. In the 21st century it relaxed its secrecy, and its defenders “refute speculations that Opus Dei is a cult” [Issitt & Main, Hidden Religion, #66220].

The counterweight

Ian Gittins separates “the real history of Freemasonry” from “the notional history … great conspiracy theories”. He traces the institution from medieval stonemasons’ guilds through the first Grand Lodges of the eighteenth century, notes that membership has been “consistently dropping since the Sixties”, and reports the Masonic pledge “never to use their membership of the movement for personal gain”. He grants that real scandals involving cronyism exist, and of one celebrated plot theory he writes: “As conspiracy theories go, this was a spectacular non-starter” [Gittins, Secrets of the Lost Symbol, #62988, chs. 1-2]. Webb identifies a move he finds common to the genre: “Conspiracy theorists throw a wrench in this process by arguing that absence of evidence can be proof of a conspiracy” [Webb, #62861]. William Bernstein explains the appetite for such stories. In his account man is “the ape that imitates, tells stories, seeks status, morally condemns others, and yearns for the good old days, all of which guarantee a human future studded with religious and financial mass manias” [Bernstein, The Delusions of Crowds, #73904, ch. 15].

Keshe’s version of hidden power

Mehran Keshe adds his own attributed position. In KSW 307 (19 December 2019) he says: “The Rothschild’s group has financed wars through Vatican” [Keshe, KSW 307, #378019]. In KSW 632 (5 March 2026) he claims that “the seven Jews (7 Rabbis of Jerusalem run Judaism)” are “financing many people” to bring about war, and the session summary links Netanyahu and the Kushner-Trump marriage to brainwashing a “Messiah” [Keshe, KSW 632, #378344]. In KSW 205 (4 January 2018) he predicted that “many world leaders will rise against the KF because they see their position in danger” [Keshe, KSW 205, #377848]. He presents these as statements from his own knowledge, and unlike the authors above he places himself at the centre of the struggle he describes. Heisman’s work, by contrast, treats power as impersonal: monotheism and technology, not a cabal, drive history towards a “God” that “is technology” [Heisman, Suicide Note, #38252, Part I].

Key points

• The founding facts are documented: Bilderberg (1954, Oosterbeek, Retinger and Bernhard), the Trilateral Commission (July 1973, Rockefeller and Brzezinski), the Cremation of Care (since 1881) and Skull and Bones (1832).
• Marrs, Phillips and Scura, and Martín Jiménez build their arguments mainly on memberships and appointments. These are real; the claim that they steered policy is inference.
• Synarchy derives the elite forums from a “Committee of 300” and calls for executing its “demons” [#67074]; DuBay argues from presidential genealogies and a Burke’s Peerage statement [#64609].
• Webb traces the Illuminati myth to Barruel and Robison after 1789. The popular Illuminati book rejects an ethnic reading, while Makow blames “Illuminati Jewish bankers” but exempts ordinary Jews.
• The Jesuit oath reprinted by Hendrie and The Secret Terrorist comes from a 1689 work by a known forger.
• Gittins, Webb and Bernstein supply the counterweight: Masonic history, Webb’s point that conspiracy theorists treat “absence of evidence” as proof, and Bernstein’s psychology of mass manias [#62988, #62861, #73904].
• Keshe adds his own version (Rothschild-Vatican war finance, “seven rabbis”) and casts himself as the target of threatened elites [#378019, #378344, #377848].