Read Online Conspiracy: History’s Greatest Plots, Collusions and Cover-Ups by Charlotte Greig - Free Book Online
Authors: Charlotte Greig
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elite university? Such people would naturally go on to run the country, of course.
S EXUAL HISTORY
Not so, say the conspiracy theorists, pointing to the bizarre bonding rituals and obsessive secrecy of the Skull and Bones crew. Their bonding rituals include lying in coffins and telling your fellow initiates your entire sexual history, thereby potentially laying yourself open to blackmail. And the secrecy itself inevitably invites suspicion – not to mention the financial support the Skull and Bones offers to its members or the private island in the Hudson River that is kept exclusively for the use of members. How does all that square with the democratic ideals of America?
The Temple at Yale, allegedly used by the secret Skull and Bones society for its rituals.
Some have been minded to compare the Skull and Bones oath of secrecy with the Mafia's code of omerta. However, as leading Skull and Bones expert Ron Rosenbaum has pointed out, "I think Skull and Bones has had slightly more success than the mafia in the sense that the leaders of the five mafia families are all doing 100 years in jail, while the leaders of the Skull and Bones families are doing four and eight years in the White House."
T HE P ROTOCOLS O F T HE E LDERS O F Z ION
The document known as The Protocols Of The Elders Of Zion is one of the earliest, most successful and enduring of all conspiracy theories. First circulated in Russia during the early twentieth century it purports to be a kind of manual for world domination that was written by a mysterious cabal of Jewish elders. It was then used to fuel fears that there was an international Jewish conspiracy that sought to take over the world. So successful was it in its aims that it has been used again and again over the ensuing century. Wherever there has been a rush of anti-Semitism, from Hitler's Germany to the training camps of Al-Qaeda, you can guarantee that a copy of The Protocols Of The Elders Of Zion will never be hard to find.
The document may only have appeared in its currently recognized form in the final years of Tsarist Russia, but it has its roots in the mid-nineteenth century. The story begins with a French popular novel called
The Mysteries Of The People
, written by Eugène Sue, which featured a group of Jesuits that were plotting to take over the world. This notion of a massive conspiracy was then taken up by the French satirist Maurice Joly, who used it in an 1864 pamphlet titled "Dialogues in Hell Between Machiavelli and Montesquieu", which attacked the political ambitions of the then French ruler, Napoleon III. This time, however, the plotters, as the title suggests, were operating from beyond the grave.
Then, in 1868, Hermann Goedsche, a German anti-Semite and spy, wrote a book named
Biarritz
. This included a chapter entitled "The Jewish Cemetery in Prague and the Council of Representatives of the Twelve Tribes of Israel". The chapter described an imaginary secret rabbinical cabal meeting which was held in the cemetery at midnight every hundred years to plan the agenda for the Jewish Conspiracy. The set-up was plainly taken from an Alexandre Dumas novel, while the supposed secret agenda was actually straight from Joly's "Dialogues in Hell...".
S ECRET POLICE
However, turning the supposed conspirators from Jesuits or dead philosophers into Jews touched a nerve and by the 1890s copies of this chapter of Goedsche's book, now treated as fact rather than fantasy or satire, were starting to circulate in Russia. Before long the Tsar's secret police, the Okhrana, recognized the potential popularity of the material and one of their operatives, Matvei Golovinski, worked up a book-length version of this fantastical Zionist plot. The book, now known as The Protocols Of The Elders Of Zion, was widely circulated and was undoubtedly influential in inflaming the anti-Jewish pogrom that swept Russia in 1905–1906.
Vladimir Lenin preaches to the masses, Russia 1917. The fact that some Bolshevik
S EXUAL HISTORY
Not so, say the conspiracy theorists, pointing to the bizarre bonding rituals and obsessive secrecy of the Skull and Bones crew. Their bonding rituals include lying in coffins and telling your fellow initiates your entire sexual history, thereby potentially laying yourself open to blackmail. And the secrecy itself inevitably invites suspicion – not to mention the financial support the Skull and Bones offers to its members or the private island in the Hudson River that is kept exclusively for the use of members. How does all that square with the democratic ideals of America?
The Temple at Yale, allegedly used by the secret Skull and Bones society for its rituals.
Some have been minded to compare the Skull and Bones oath of secrecy with the Mafia's code of omerta. However, as leading Skull and Bones expert Ron Rosenbaum has pointed out, "I think Skull and Bones has had slightly more success than the mafia in the sense that the leaders of the five mafia families are all doing 100 years in jail, while the leaders of the Skull and Bones families are doing four and eight years in the White House."
T HE P ROTOCOLS O F T HE E LDERS O F Z ION
The document known as The Protocols Of The Elders Of Zion is one of the earliest, most successful and enduring of all conspiracy theories. First circulated in Russia during the early twentieth century it purports to be a kind of manual for world domination that was written by a mysterious cabal of Jewish elders. It was then used to fuel fears that there was an international Jewish conspiracy that sought to take over the world. So successful was it in its aims that it has been used again and again over the ensuing century. Wherever there has been a rush of anti-Semitism, from Hitler's Germany to the training camps of Al-Qaeda, you can guarantee that a copy of The Protocols Of The Elders Of Zion will never be hard to find.
The document may only have appeared in its currently recognized form in the final years of Tsarist Russia, but it has its roots in the mid-nineteenth century. The story begins with a French popular novel called
The Mysteries Of The People
, written by Eugène Sue, which featured a group of Jesuits that were plotting to take over the world. This notion of a massive conspiracy was then taken up by the French satirist Maurice Joly, who used it in an 1864 pamphlet titled "Dialogues in Hell Between Machiavelli and Montesquieu", which attacked the political ambitions of the then French ruler, Napoleon III. This time, however, the plotters, as the title suggests, were operating from beyond the grave.
Then, in 1868, Hermann Goedsche, a German anti-Semite and spy, wrote a book named
Biarritz
. This included a chapter entitled "The Jewish Cemetery in Prague and the Council of Representatives of the Twelve Tribes of Israel". The chapter described an imaginary secret rabbinical cabal meeting which was held in the cemetery at midnight every hundred years to plan the agenda for the Jewish Conspiracy. The set-up was plainly taken from an Alexandre Dumas novel, while the supposed secret agenda was actually straight from Joly's "Dialogues in Hell...".
S ECRET POLICE
However, turning the supposed conspirators from Jesuits or dead philosophers into Jews touched a nerve and by the 1890s copies of this chapter of Goedsche's book, now treated as fact rather than fantasy or satire, were starting to circulate in Russia. Before long the Tsar's secret police, the Okhrana, recognized the potential popularity of the material and one of their operatives, Matvei Golovinski, worked up a book-length version of this fantastical Zionist plot. The book, now known as The Protocols Of The Elders Of Zion, was widely circulated and was undoubtedly influential in inflaming the anti-Jewish pogrom that swept Russia in 1905–1906.
Vladimir Lenin preaches to the masses, Russia 1917. The fact that some Bolshevik
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