In the bowels of the very elite and puritanical Yale University, 15 students are selected annually from very good families. They form a secret society with unhealthy rituals called "Skull and Bones". Throughout their lives, they support each other and help resist the democratic inclinations of the hated rabble. George W. Bush and John Kerry have been members of this society of about 800 initiates for 36 years.
The Skull & Bones Society has fueled a conspiracy fiction accusing its members of the Watergate scandal, the Cove of Pigs invasion, and even the assassination of John F. Kennedy. Thanks to their connections in business, particularly in the banking sector, these former Yale classmates may well take control of global finance in the near future. Skull & Bones members can also start to undermine the Council on Foreign Relations, Trilateral Commission, CIA, etc.
The secular Internet publication Voltaire is not going to discuss the esoteric nature of the Skull & Bones society, which conducts initiation rituals and organizes various annual ceremonies. Our goal is to analyze the social function and the possible political role that society plays. Skull & Bones in particular showcases the accomplishments of the selection system of elite reproduction, which does not have to contradict the myth of the self-made man with randomness or individual qualities. According to Anthony Sutton, the most active members of society come from the backbone of 20-30 families interested in protecting their inheritance and offspring. Thus, marriage alliances are often formed between Skull & Bones member families,although until recently only male students could become members of the society.
Puritanical and Elite Yale University
The Skull & Bones Society began on the Yale campus, which was no coincidence, according to a brilliant investigation by Atlantic Monthly journalist Alexandra Robbins. [1].
In the early 18th century, Congregationalists founded a group of universities in the United States, which included Harvard, Dartmouth, Williams, Bowdoin, Middlebury, and Amherst. They faced competition from Presbyterians, which forced Harvard President Increase Mather to take action. In 1701, he left office to create a new university, "to maintain the focus on the church and to transmit the Truth to future generations." Together with ten pastors, nine of whom come from Harvard, he creates the Collegiate School of Connecticut. Isaac Newton, Richard Steel and Elihu Yale donated books from their private collections to the newly formed institute. The partnership with Yale, who has grown rich through his activities in the East India Company and the governor of the Madras colony, is bearing fruit. Yale not only supplies the university with books, but also actively funds it. As a token of gratitude, the management renames the university, which has been named after him since 1720.
Congregational connections have affected the puritanical teaching and functioning of Yale University. Students and teachers were required to adhere to certain beliefs when entering the university, and if their sincerity raised serious doubts, they could be fired or expelled. To this Puritanism was added an obsession with elitism: students from the moment they entered Yale were distributed not according to their ability, but according to their parents' position in society. The hierarchy was headed by the children and grandchildren of the governors and vice-governors. Then came the family members of the judges of the Supreme Court. Even below were the children of pastors and former university students. At the bottom of the list were children of farmers, traders and artisans. This classification allowed for the allocation of places in the classroom, in the church and in the dining room. As Alexandra Robbins notes, what is surprising is not this classification by social status upon admission - a common practice for most universities in the 18th century - but the fact that this initial distribution did not undergo any changes throughout the educational process. Thus, Yale University became the perfect example of an institution that reproduces an elite and an internal hierarchy. The student could be transferred to a lower rank for bad behavior, because it was believed that this would tarnish the honor of the family.reproducing the elite and internal hierarchy. The student could be transferred to a lower rank for bad behavior, because it was believed that this would tarnish the honor of the family.reproducing the elite and internal hierarchy. The student could be transferred to a lower rank for bad behavior, because it was believed that this would tarnish the honor of the family.
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It should be added that with such an outstanding organization of the teaching process, senior students were allowed to mock, even mock and humiliate students from their junior years. The university rules provided for a number of measures to ensure respect for such a hierarchy based solely on age. Lyman Bagg, in his essay Four Years at Yale, published anonymously in 1871, analyzed the mechanisms used by the university. He believed that such permissiveness in behavior was caused by the unlimited power of the "customs" of the university in creating a temporary psychosis, which made of the weak people cruel, and of the good - ruthless.
This tendency towards elitism, brutal hierarchy and puritanism contributed to the fact that at the end of the 18th century, students began to create various societies that operated parallel to the work of the university. Initially, these were literary circles such as Linonia and Brothers in Unity. Students were forced to join one or another association, which did not favor the formation of an elite from the point of view of those who wanted a strict reproduction of the new American "aristocracy." In 1780, a branch of the Phi Betta Kappa organization called the Alpha was established at Yale University. At the same time, many other societies flourished,among which were the Beethoven Society and the Hexahedron Club … Over time, literary circles lost their meaning and began to be replaced by more elite and closed secret societies. In the middle of the 19th century, there were three main societies: Skull & Bones, Scroll and Key, and Wolf's Head.
The Yale faculty also decided to follow this movement. Six years after the founding of Skull & Bones, six members of the teaching elite formed the "Club", later called the "Old Man's Club", among which one could find teachers Joshua Willard Gibbs. Willard Gibbs and Theodore Dwight Woolsey. The society was soon joined by William Howard Taft, future Chief Justice of Connecticut Simeon E. Baldwin, professor Thomas Bergin, neurosurgeon Harvey Cushing and founder Skull & Bones by William H. Russell. Only Thomas Bergin and Harvey Kushing did not subsequently become members of Skull & Bones
Opium war
Yale University was the ideal place for such an elite and influential society as Skull & Bones to flourish. But the success of this secret organization is also due to its creator, William H. Russell, who belongs to the large Russell family. One of its members, Priest Noadah Russel, a prominent Congregationalist, was involved in the founding of Yale University. The Russell clan was also involved in the great opium war that Britain waged against China in the first half of the 19th century. At the end of the 18th century, the opium cultivated by England in Bengal was transferred to the monopoly of the East India Company, directly owned by the royal family. Elihu Yale has been involved with the company in the past. The aim of the Opium War that began in 1815,there was a forceful introduction of this drug into the huge Chinese market. The amount of opium imported annually, compared with 1792, when 320 tons were imported, increased to 480 tons in 1817 and up to 3200 tons in 1837. Then China demanded that Queen Victoria stop importing this drug. She stated that she could not refuse such a profitable way of making a profit for the UK. Tensions between Beijing and London grew: in February 1839, a Chinese drug courier was executed in front of the Cantonese office of British merchants. In June 1839, the Queen of Great Britain agreed to the destruction of large quantities of opium. Many Englishmen then left Canton and Macau and went to more distant places to re-engage in opium shipments, with the official support of the British Navy. In such conditions, the conflict was inevitable: on September 4, the first battle at sea took place, which ended with the destruction of most of the Chinese ships. These clashes revealed "the weakness of the Chinese military junks and the unshakable tenacity of the English Protestants in establishing the principles of liberalism based on drug trafficking" [2].
Samuel Russell, brother of William Russell, was a protagonist in the Opium War. An American by nationality, he founded Russell & Company in 1813, which became in the 1820s. a competitor to the British East India Company, which transported opium to China. One of the prominent members of Russell & Company was Franklin Delano Roosevelt's grandfather, Warren Delano.
From Eulogie Club to Skull and Bones
It is difficult to say for what purpose William Russell created Skull & Bones in 1832. It was initially thought that this was Russell's response to the expulsion of one of the Phi Beta Kappa members, Eleazar Kingsbury Forster. Wanting to revitalize Yale as well, William Russell denounced Phi Beta Kappa, took Forster under his wing, and founded, along with thirteen other students, including Alfonso Taft [3], an even more secret and powerful society, originally called Club Eulogie. named after the Greek goddess of eloquence. Impressed by his trip to Germany, Russell brings the German spirit to the rituals of society. In 1833, the skull and bones became the symbol of the society. At the same time, the number 322 became the "key" for the organization. It was in 332 BC that the Greek orator Demosthenes died. According to the "Skull & Bones legend" in 332 the goddess Eulogia went to heaven, and in 1832 she descended to earth to join the secret society. In 1856, Skull & Bones formally joined the Russell Trust, owned by William Russell, thanks to the president and founder of Johns Hopkins University, Daniel Coit Gilman (since 1852). On March 13 of the same year, the society moved from its headquarters to a building located on the territory of Yale University and called "The Grave". It quickly filled with military and other peculiar relics: according to the testimony of members of the society, collected by Alexandra Robbins, here you could find a bunch of flags, black cloth, weapons collected on the battlefields. Yet, in order not to forgetAs for the student association, in one of the rooms, baseballs from a competition in which Yale took part were collected. The skull symbol was placed in almost all empty spaces, and the walls were decorated with bones and skeletons of animals and even people. Most of the paintings on display depict Death meeting various famous characters. According to the director of the art museum. Connecticut Marina Moscovici, who restored about fifteen paintings in 1999, had an atmosphere reminiscent of the life of the Adams family.meeting various famous characters. According to the director of the art museum. Connecticut Marina Moscovici, who restored about fifteen paintings in 1999, had an atmosphere reminiscent of the life of the Adams family.meeting various famous characters. According to the director of the art museum. Connecticut Marina Moscovici, who restored about fifteen paintings in 1999, had an atmosphere reminiscent of the life of the Adams family.
In the early 1980s, a controversy arose over the skull of Géronimo. The Skull & Bones insisted it was in their possession and even showed it to Arizona Apache chieftain Ned Anderson. When asked to return the relic, the members of the society gave away a skull that was different from the one shown earlier. Analysis showed that it was the skull of a ten-year-old child, not an Indian leader. Therefore, one can still argue about its authenticity.
Skull and Bones headquarters.
Today more is known about the activities of the organization. Skull & Bones recruits fifteen students annually, so the approximate number of active members of the society is about 800 people. Fifteen new recruits, recruited by older colleagues, meet twice a week throughout the year to discuss personal life, study or career plans. They also discuss political and social issues. Once a year, the society organizes a trip to Deer Iland, a large island in the middle of the Saint-Laurent River near New York, where a luxurious English-style residence was built. This is Deer Iland, not Deer Island, as requested by Skull & Bones member and generous sponsor of the residence, George D. Miller [4].
The detractors of the organization say very different things about the process of the initiation ritual. However, it is the mystery surrounding him that is the main reason for these speculations. And even if the ceremonies held at The Tomb ever had a pagan or even satanic meaning, it must be remembered that the bullying of newcomers practiced in the past at Yale University was extremely brutal. However, it is unlikely that today, in order to join the organization, selected students are required, for example, to indulge in sexual play in front of other initiates.
Net
The most surprising thing, most likely, is not what is happening within the organization, but the cohesion between the members of Skull & Bones, which are preparing tomorrow's elite. Thus, all US presidents who were graduates of Yale University were also members of Skull & Bones. We are talking about William Howard Taft, George W. Bush. and George Bush Jr. It is, of course, not worth listing members of the public who have taken important positions in politics, diplomacy, media, and even intelligence. The organization has strong connections in diplomatic circles and, in particular, in the Council on Foreign Relations. For example, Secretary of Defense under Franklin Delano Roosevelt Henry Stimson,US Ambassador to the Soviet Union Averell Harriman and Rockefeller Family Administrator J. Richardson Dilworth were members of Skull & Bones [5].
Skull & Bones members also carry some weight in the media. For example, Henry Luce and Briton Haden, who have been members since 1920, came up with the idea for the Time newspaper during a meeting at the Grave Residence. Everell Harriman, for his part, founded the Today newspaper, which merged with another publication in 1937 to become Newsweek magazine. The CIA connections are particularly impressive: the ultra-conservative, FDA, and prominent propagandist William F. Buckley was a member of the association, as was his brother James Buckley, undersecretary of state for security, science and technology under the Ronald Reagan administration. In this post, he was engaged in the provision of military assistance to the right-wing regimes. Hugh Cunningham (with the community since 1934) served in American services from 1947 to 1973. It was William Bundy (in the community since 1939) and the head of the CIA in Santiago in 1970, Dino Pionzio (in the community since 1950), who tried to destabilize the Salvador Allende regime. The fact that society serves as a vehicle for the reproduction of the country's economic and political elite has ensured an unusually favorable attitude from the authorities. Thus, in 1943, a special piece of legislation approved by the State of Connecticut freed the employees of the Russell Trust Association, which also controlled the funds of the secret society, from having to fill out an activity report like any other organization. In the second half of the twentieth century, her property was managed by John Madden Jr. (John B. Madden Jr), an employee of Brown Brothers Harriman, formed after the merger in 1933 of Brown Bros & Company and WA Harriman & Company. Madden was then under the leadership of Prescott Bush, father of the future President of the United States and grandfather of the current President of the United States. All of them are members of Skull & Bones.
The Rockefellers were another source of income. Percy Rockefeller was a member of the Society and transferred ownership to the organization to Standard Oil. Other notable clans related to Skull & Bones include the Morgan clan. JP Morgan has never personally been a member of the society, but Morgan's Guaranty Trust executive Harold Stanley has been a member since 1908. W. Averell Harriman (since 1913) was also a member of the board of directors of the company, as did HP Whitney and his father, WC Whitney. Likewise, the public had access to the Ford family's capital, apparently without their knowledge. Skull &Bones McGeorge Bundy was President of the Ford Foundation from 1966 to 1979. Prior to that, he was National Security Advisor to Presidents John F. Kennedy and Lyndon Johnson.
2004 Presidential Election: Skull and Bones Face to Face
Skull & Bones does not adhere to any ideology. However, admiration for those who financed the opium war, and the use as a ritual of the skull, presumably belonging to the last leader of a recently exterminated tribe, is not so harmless.
Contrary to what the conspiracy literature describes, we are not talking about neo-Nazis, ultra-conservatives and even "hawks". Nevertheless, being representatives of the elite (which already implies belonging to a certain class of society with the necessary socio-cultural background in order to succeed in various power structures), members of Skull & Bones have the same worldview and the same social connections. They are all capitalists and supporters of pseudo-liberalism, committed to the values of Freedom allegedly introduced by the United States. Despite the fact that the supporters of "political correctness" have achieved the gradual inclusion in society of representatives of ethnic and sexual minorities, and since 1991, women, which, among other things, shocked former President George W. Bush, the elite gathered in Skull & Bones,continues to spread the supposedly perfect and only correct way of thinking that the American ruling class adheres to.
The fact that both US presidential candidates, George W. Bush. and John Kerry are members of the same society - Skull & Bones - cannot serve as evidence of pre-fabricated elections. However, it is quite natural to doubt the system for selecting candidates for the US presidency. And even if both candidates are capable of tough opposition to each other, there is no doubt that they belong to a close and homogeneous social circle and that they, despite some disagreements, ultimately defend similar interests. In this regard, to paraphrase one French politician, the 2004 presidential election can be described as: "Skull and Bones or Bones and Skull." This is why this organization is getting so much attention: it represents the quintessence of the privileged social class of the United States,whose worldview is far from the ideal of democracy that the rest of the population aspires to. For the past 50 years, members of the society have been involved in the implementation of "insidious acts" in the United States, from the invasion of the Bay of Pigs to the development of nuclear doctrine and the overthrow of the regime of Salvador Allende (Salvador Allende). However, they did this only outside of democratic institutions, hiding their agreements and relying on old friendships. However, not a single such decision was made within the society itself. Skull & Bones is not a hierarchical structure capable of making such decisions and implementing them. Be that as it may, this secret Order is the visible face of the "class enemy" represented by the "majestic aristocracy" of the United States. For the past 50 years, members of the society have been involved in the implementation of "insidious acts" in the United States, from the invasion of the Bay of Pigs to the development of nuclear doctrine and the overthrow of the regime of Salvador Allende (Salvador Allende). However, they did this only outside of democratic institutions, hiding their agreements and relying on old friendships. However, not a single such decision was made within the society itself. Skull & Bones is not a hierarchical structure capable of making such decisions and implementing them. Be that as it may, this secret Order is the visible face of the "class enemy" represented by the "majestic aristocracy" of the United States. For the past 50 years, members of the society have been involved in the implementation of "insidious acts" in the United States, from the invasion of the Bay of Pigs to the development of nuclear doctrine and the overthrow of the regime of Salvador Allende (Salvador Allende). However, they did this only outside of democratic institutions, hiding their agreements and relying on old friendships. However, not a single such decision was made within the society itself. Skull & Bones is not a hierarchical structure capable of making such decisions and implementing them. Be that as it may, this secret Order is the visible face of the "class enemy" represented by the "majestic aristocracy" of the United States. However, they did this only outside of democratic institutions, hiding their agreements and relying on old friendships. However, not a single such decision was made within the society itself. Skull & Bones is not a hierarchical structure capable of making such decisions and implementing them. Be that as it may, this secret Order is the visible face of the "class enemy" represented by the "majestic aristocracy" of the United States. However, they did this only outside of democratic institutions, hiding their agreements and relying on old friendships. However, not a single such decision was made within the society itself. Skull & Bones is not a hierarchical structure capable of making such decisions and implementing them. Be that as it may, this secret Order is the visible face of the "class enemy" represented by the "majestic aristocracy" of the United States.represented by the "majestic aristocracy" of the United States.represented by the "majestic aristocracy" of the United States.
[1] Secrets of the Tomb, Alexandra Robbins, Little, Brown and Company, 2002.
[2] Le blanchiment du crime en permet la répétition - L'arme éthique dans les nouvelles guerres occidentales, de Michel Tibon, Mémoire non publié, 1999.
[3] Alfonso Taft, will be the Minister of War, then the Attorney General and the US Ambassador to Russia; is the father of William Howard Taft, the only American politician who was first president of the country and then chairman of the Supreme Court.
[4] This is actually a complex play on words: Deer Island translates to "deer island" and Dear I land means something like "land belonging to me, dear."
[5] Anthony C. Sutton, America's Secret Establishment: An Introduction to the Order of Skull & Bones, Liberty House Press, 1986.
