28: The Bohemian Grove | Red Thread 01:50:39

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Your rotund figure bounces through the brushes of the trees as dew-covered leaves make way for you. You trek forward, through the dark, unsure of what you'll eventually find, until you come through the other side. In front of you stands an enormous statue of an owl, lit only by the flames held by way of torches nestled in the hands of the hundreds of robed men surrounding it.

Your bearded jaw hangs in awe. You expected a shadowy cabal of mysterious figures doing malicious business in these woods, but never pagan sacrificial rituals. The people need to see this, you think to yourself, as you push forward to find a better vantage point. Suddenly the ground heaves below you and you find yourself covered in water. Slippery footing has landed you in the lake. As the water covers your blubbery face, you curse the government and global elite for not making swimming lessons mandatory.

Suddenly, the sky parts and a voice finds you. "Push forward, my friend. The people need to know." You find the motivation to push your way out of the lake, but not before seeing something even greater than the paganistic ritual taking place only meters away.

Two frogs, both male, having gay sex. You have your story. Your name is Alex Jones. The voice from moments ago was Joe Rogan, and this is the Red Thread. What are we talking about this week, boys? Because the intro probably doesn't give any kind of indication as to what we're going to be talking about.

It's Bohemian Grove. Gay frog sex. Yay. Yeah. For people in the audience, I wrote that two minutes ago. So excuse the sloppiness. But you guys, how are you guys going? Everyone good? Yeah, I'm doing all right. How are you doing, Isaiah? Yeah.

I am doing fantastic, Charlie. Thank you for asking. Very excited to talk about Bohemian Grove. This is like cream of the crop for, you know, chronically online conspiracy theories. So, of course, I'm familiar with it. So I'm excited to talk about it. I'm actually not overly familiar with this one. What?

You just said, wait, before the episode, I thought you said you were. No, no, just Ryan Garcia and Bohemian Grove. So you're familiar with people who are familiar with Bohemian Grove. Yeah, I'm familiar with everything Ryan Garcia says about Bohemian Grove. All right. So Isaiah, how about you give a like short little synopsis about Bohemian Grove?

So effectively, Bohemian Grove is a sort of secret society, at least to our knowledge. Well, more technically, Bohemian Grove is a location that a sort of secret society meets at in like the Redwoods out west. Among the Grove, the members that we know of have been several like former U.S. presidents, you know, famous actors, stuff like that. The elite, so to speak, of society. And

They are very hush-hush and quiet about what exactly goes on at the Grove. But for some reason, across political aisles and across different career paths, all these important people choose to meet there. And then Alex Jones, who at the time was a no-name journalist, decided to sneak into Bohemian Grove and get footage of what was going on. And, well, we're going to talk about that today, but it was certainly...

strange interesting yeah yeah definitely definitely not what you would expect to see that kind of like what what is predominantly appearing to be a boys club right that's like the image that i have in my head about things like this where all these wealthy individuals and and you know successful people meet up uh together and behind closed doors it's usually just like boys clubs right where they just like it's like a big country club yeah yeah talk about shit talk about work talk about

you know their successes and stuff like that just hanging out back in um there there was a big one up near like a bar harbor main i remember when i was visiting it was like uh all these summer houses these people would say and the reason they were staying there is because it was during the prohibition and there were like tunnels dug to bring alcohol in from canada so every year all the guys would be like oh i'm sorry ma'am i gotta uh uh go to that thing you know

in Maine, and then they just go get hammered for a few weeks and come back. Yeah, that's what it usually is. That's what people assumed Bohemian Grove was, something like that. Yeah. And it's what people...

It's what people assume Freemasonry and stuff like that is as well. It's these really scary organizations and stuff, but it's usually just dudes hanging out from the sounds of it, from what I've read. But yeah, Bohemian Grove is definitely up there in terms of internet conspiracy theories, especially after that documentary by Alex Jones in the 2000s where he opened the lid on it and showed what it was like within the Bohemian Grove.

And as you said, Isaiah, Bohemian Grove is a place. It's a location, but the organization itself that surrounds the Grove or owns the Grove is the Bohemian Club. So that's the distinction there. The Bohemian Club is the actual people. Right, right.

So let's just get into it. Let's just talk about how it all began so we can go down to beginnings here and someone can read it. Sounds good to me. So the Bohemian Club, which owns the Bohemian Grove Campground, is a private club that was founded in 1872 in San Francisco at the Astor Hotel by a group of journalists and other creative minds with the intent to create a space and time to meet up regularly to connect.

The initial members, people like Henry "Harry" Edwards, Daniel O'Connell, James F. Bowman, and Tom Newcomb, weren't particularly wealthy or powerful people. They were mostly middle-class professionals working in journalism and the arts. To describe why a group of artists and creatives wanted to come together to create a private space and club for themselves, we first have to dive into bohemianism.

Bohemianism was a way of life that flourished into popularity in the mid-19th century. It was a lifestyle that became very popular with artists who lived in a way that wasn't traditionally normative. They tended to prioritize living in the moment as opposed to planning for the future. Community was a tentpole value of bohemianism, though with artists, likely unable to afford to buy or rent homes, instead choosing to hang out with their artist friends in bohemian campsites.

Another reason this was a very popular lifestyle was because artists and creatives generally speaking move around a lot to different cities and towns to perform or otherwise sell items that they create. Thus, these campsites were a popular way of moving around the country and meeting like-minded people.

This was all introduced by the French as bohemianism. It became widely associated with the artists and writers of the 19th century Paris, figures like Henry Merger, who wrote Sinès de la Ville de la Ville. Yep. Well, that was awesome. Great job. Hey, I got it. That was beautiful. It's like he got stuck in his throat halfway through. He started choking. I've got the next one on lock.

And later adaptations like Puccini's opera La Boheme. Oh, there we go. Look at that.

Incredible. They were instrumental in romanticizing the bohemian lifestyle. Then from French immigrants, bohemian communities flourished in cities like New York, particularly Greenwich Village, before the Civil War. After the American Civil War, the lifestyle-type membership changed as people with wealth began to see it as a lifestyle that spoke to things that they also enjoyed. Art, poetry, music, etc.,

Eventually, the lifestyle found itself moving to San Francisco. Hate Ashbury, predominantly, which is where the Bohemian Club would begin. Yeah, so that kind of explains the lifestyle. It's still around. It's kind of made a renaissance, especially over here in Australia. I don't know if it's popular over there, but it's called Boho. Never heard of that.

You haven't heard of boho? It's like, yeah, it's kind of like that artistic way of living, kind of like the 70s and 80s hippies kind of like moving around a lot and just feeling like... I think we all know someone like that, right? Someone who just kind of like doesn't really stay out of play. I mean, I don't know. All the ones I know aren't necessarily artists. They just don't want to get a house anywhere. Yeah.

But I mean, there's a lot of people, especially you'll see, like you mentioned Jackson online and stuff who like, you know, van living or something like that. You know, live with the art, so to speak, travel from place to place. It's not unheard of. But it is funny how even back then it was a thing that like artists middle class would do. And then the rich were like, I will have that for myself. That is my culture now. I'm taking it.

As soon as it starts to look slightly cool, they move in, the rich move in, and then push all the poor people out. They're like, ah, this is actually for us now. And what originally became like, well, we have to live this way, so let's make the most of it, is now like, wouldn't it be cute to live in some other places? Yeah, it looks so quirky. But it's only on the weekends, and then they go back to their mansions. Yeah, of course. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

What if we go camping this week? Wouldn't that be so fun? Wouldn't that be so bad? Your entire way of living is a holiday for me. A cute little Instagram post. Wouldn't it be a cute little challenge? Do you remember... God, who was it? Was it Bill Gates or something? Where he like LARPed as a fast food worker for a day? Yeah.

It's that kind of thing where like, I'm so wealthy that sometimes I like to see what plebeians do. It's like a fun activity. I want to get down on your level, see how the others live. And then they do it one day and they're like, well, that was interesting. Anyway. That was quite easy, actually. My job is so much harder.

I always find those kinds of like marketing stunts extremely frustrating as well. Like when some like Instagram or TikToker like does a photo shoot where they're like working at Walmart or something like, fuck you. How tone deaf do you have to be to

How tone deaf do you have to be as a management team, an agency, to be like, what if we put you with the commoners? Like what? To make the commoners buy our products. It's going to help you relate to the working class.

This is gonna, they're gonna look at this and say, oh, they're one of me, aren't they? As you have no clue how to use like the point of sale system or anything, you look at it cluelessly like it's some ancient piece of technology that's just been unearthed. So all you're doing is like putting a burden on the store because you're basically like a trainee that isn't gonna last. I hate it. I hate that. I always roll my eyes so fucking hard at those marketing stunts. Yeah, I feel like most people hate it.

Yeah. Why do they keep doing it then? Who keeps green lighting these moves? Who's funding these? Who's okay with this? It's the people at the Bohemian Grove, I'm telling you. They're doing this. It's to pin us against each other. I'll take the next paragraph.

So, six years after the club was formed, one of those founding members, Henry Harry Edwards, decided to relocate to New York City. This prompted a farewell party with around 100 members in attendance, which went on to become a yearly tradition without Harry. That's what you get for leaving. That's when shit got cool was when Harry left. Yeah, but he started the cool avalanche. Thank God none of that guy's gone.

Yeah, I guess. But surely if you are Harry. Charlie's 100% that guy who like gets left at a party and everyone's like, let's keep it going. And then it gets progressively. That's why he's coping. That's why Charlie's coping right now. Like, well, he started it. Harry was the progenitor of the fun. Like without Harry's farewell party, that shit wasn't going to be popping. It was bound to happen eventually. Harry was just this excuse for this.

I mean, Charlie, hold on. Charlie, you and I know as YouTubers with over a million subs that we have our little parties, so to speak, where we have our own fires. YouTuber parties. And rituals and owls and stuff like that. Like...

We all know how these things come to be, so you don't have to play nice. You don't know exactly what's going on in the grove, if you get my gist. The deep state assemblies, I see what you're saying. Of course, yeah, yeah, yeah. Can I come to one of those eventually, guys? No. Now that I'm doing a podcast? No, no, no, no. Of course you're welcome.

the one year i covers when it stops yeah yeah you come later uh and if they they ask you to take anything like any shots or anything on the way in that's just your vaccination you just need a club i'm the sacrifice i'm this yeah yeah correct all right so every year members of the bohemian club would go to different spots to camp together see it's like it's cute it's cute at the moment

That's a lot. Yeah, that's a lot. I mean, that was only 20 years, so in 20 years...

or 30 years, sorry. They amassed quite a lot of land. Back to the club itself, it has all the hallmarks of a gentleman's club or invite-only organization, which aren't by any means a rarity in most countries. I mean, they really aren't. I think my town has one, just like a local gentleman's club, stuff like that. They're all over the place, right? But what matters is the membership in this case. Like,

My local gentleman's club doesn't have the president of Australia in attendance or anything like that. So that's what makes Bohemian Club special. You talking about how big the property was is funny because I'm imagining that has to butt up against several other private properties. So there's probably some local guy who's like, I'll tell you what, hon, I shot at a deer, went to follow it, and boom, I ran into the owl people again. They all had their masks and robes on. Freak me out, so we lost another one.

Yeah. I mean, it would be kind of cool to have the owl people as your neighbors, I guess. It definitely wouldn't at all, actually. That's what you say until you come home at night and the devil's sitting on top of your dresser. Yeah. The owl people would be the worst neighbors. They have to be. Where's your sense of fun? Come on. As if you wouldn't love living next to the owl people with the demons and stuff. Okay, for one, we are the owl people, as discussed, plus million sub YouTubers grow up. Um...

But also, like, it can't be fun. Like, if you, not even if you're religious or whatever, if you live next to a group of people who routinely perform rituals, that has to weigh on your mind. There's no way you forget about that, right? Like, you see your neighbor pull into their driveway, there's no part of you that's like, ha ha, hi. Like...

Well, it's got to stick with you. Yeah, I guess it depends on what they're sacrificing and like what kind of. Oh, yeah. If it's a good old fashioned, you know, animal sacrifice. I'm right there. Hey, we call that a barbecue where I'm from. Right, brother. Yeah. Just put that pig on the rose. Who cares if they say a few funky words during their prayer? Ain't no different than me. But if it's a person, I got to bow out. That's where I draw my line. That's too far. Too far. Yeah.

So yeah, the club itself has all the features that most private men's social clubs would have, you know, a lengthy history. A website, www.bohemianclub.com slash red thread. We might be sponsored by the end of this video. That would be a great sponsorship. That would be hype. A headquarters located at 624 Taylor Street in San Francisco, California. Doxed ya, you sons of bitches. And even public job listings for both their Grove and Headquarter operations. So...

Yeah, they've got their own workforce, their own staff. They've got a headquarters, like just a pretty normal building in San Francisco. How on earth could these people be suspicious, Isaiah? Come on, they're just normal, good, honest Americans. I'm on their website right now and it talks about all the charities they donate to the local community. So I don't, yeah, I don't know who I am to say anything about them. You're right. You know what?

Bohemian Grove? Who cares? They're okay. They're okay in my eyes. Since its beginnings, the Bohemian Club has been represented by an owl symbol, which is a common symbol meant to convey knowledge and curiosity. The Greek goddess of wisdom, Athena, and the Athenians of ancient Greece held those values in high regard and were also adorned with owl imagery. There's a word for it, the Athenian owl. It's not called the Athenian. Is it going to pop up in a second? Do I need to shut up?

Am I getting ahead of myself? There's a word for it specifically when it shows up in symbolism. I'm forgetting it right now. It'll come to me in a second. But yeah, it's one of those owls. It's called Owl of Athena. I'm telling you there's another word for it. I'm not crazy. Yeah, why won't you listen to him? Can you stop fighting him? The Owl of Minerva? I mean, Minerva is a different name for Athena. Minervan Owl. That's it.

The Minerva now. Yeah, yeah. That's the word when it shows up in like symbols and stuff. Minerva is like the Roman version of Athena? Name for Athena, yes. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Correct. You're right. So I was, the important thing is I was still right, even if it was the same thing. Ultimately. Located within the grove is a nine meter tall hollow owl statue that stands where they perform the cremation of care ceremony. But more on that later. That's a fun little sprinkling you have in there. A teaser. Yeah. A teaser for what's to come.

Over the years, the Bohemian Club began to pique the interest of surrounding businessmen and there began to be a shift in the club dynamics.

While the club began as a meetup for connecting with like-minded people, the creative types began to allow businessmen into the group for the simple reason that they needed money to fund the club's activities and expansion. Damn it. The greed got to them. You know, the enticement of dog bulls. This is how it always goes. You got a fun little club with your boys. You know, you hang out, have a good time. Then you're like, hey, if we're wanting to put in a hot tub, you know, over by the lodge, we're good.

Gonna have to bring in a few animal sacrifices. Investors. I mean investors. Yeah, that's what they're called. Gonna have to do a few of those a year. As soon as money gets involved, it always ruins it. I'm telling you. It always ruins it. It's no longer fun. Just consider it like a clock in. You go to the ritual, you show up, and then you go home to your hot tub. It's part of the job.

While the club began as a meetup, um, club activities, the businessmen brought the money and resources for more land and facilities while the creatives became the entertainment and source of inspiration for the group. The businessmen still, of course, held a deep appreciation and interest in the arts and interests that align with the creatives. The club itself grew rapidly within those first few years from about 150 members to over 500 members between the founding year and 1887.

Several prolific creative types have been associated with the club between these times, as well with Mark Twain being a member and Oscar Wilde having been a guest. This could have done a lot to attract a lot of interest in the group. Yeah, I mean, Mark Twain, that's a big figure. That's a big name. Oscar Wilde, yep. Those are big names. I don't know how they got them originally. I guess it was just through...

uh you know acquaintances and stuff well yeah it was initially it was a club of people who enjoy the arts and then it was another like other people who were influential in society so it sounds a natural place for someone like mark twain or oscar wilde to be invited right yeah but like i'm sure there were so many clubs across america vying for the interest of mark twain probably

Like, you know, so many cities having their own art groups. I mean, likely he knew someone who was in it, right? That's how most of these things go. Friend of a friend. The club activities were mostly what one would expect of a group of artistic-minded men. While women were allowed to attend functions, they were only allowed to do so at the invitation and accompaniment of a man. It was very much a men's club at the end of the day. Things like showing off stuff they had created recently, drinking games, and so on.

One such game, the Jinx, would go on to have a prominent part in actually founding the Grove part of the organization. The Jinx was basically an early Scottish drinking game where you'd roll a dice and if you scored poorly, you need to either drink or do an embarrassing task. The club loved this activity and would often meet at one of their campsites in the nearby Redwood Forest to drink a lot and play the games like the Jinx.

This would become so common an activity that it would go on to motivate them to buy up the campsites and land, which would go on to form the grove. Why do you need such an excuse to just drink and play Truth or Dare, basically? What even is the game part of that? It just makes it more interactive. Yeah, it just makes it something like...

Little more silly so you can get more invested like the same reason why you play beer pong right like you could just drink But it's more fun to play beer pong Yeah, beer pong is a bit different than rolling a dice and whoever's got the lowest score drinks It's not all that different to be honest. It's still just a game the skill of old in beer pong there You gotta get the ball in the thing yeah, but there's always fun to like chance otherwise gambling wouldn't be popular and

yeah okay true plus like the there's no telling what the embarrassing task was it could have been like all right you now have to get naked and you know cut yourself for the devil although it was probably just like it was probably just mooning each other but in my head that's what it was yeah i like how that's the embarrassing task in your head cutting yourself for the devil as they go yeah

So quirky. Yeah. What? What would you call it? I'd call that truly demented, not really embarrassed. Yeah.

Yeah, if I'm playing Truth or Dare and the dare is cut yourself for the devil, I'm like, what fucking group is this? What party is this? But we're about to talk about what kind of group it is. What do you mean? What kind of group is this? That's true. This is the kind that would have a cut yourself for the devil game. All right.

The club was starting to gain the interest of high-profile political figures, one of them being former president William Howard Taft, who was quite fond of the Grove. Isn't Taft the really fat one? Yeah. Yeah, he was a big guy. His brother, Henry Waters Taft, was quoted saying, "'There among the giant redwoods, the spirit that is San Francisco was revealed to the visitors.'" I don't like that. Ha ha ha ha!

The amalgamation of... Yeah, I don't like that at all. The spirit was revealed. The amalgamation of San Francisco society through its love of beauty, through its cultural purpose, has no duplicate in America and the Bohemian Club, which unites the world of big business and the world of fine art, literature, and cultural ideals could only exist in a community such as this. Isn't, like, San Francisco a bit of a hellhole at the moment? Right now it is. It used to be.

People swear that San Francisco is like a really good part of California. I haven't been. The only thing I know about San Francisco is they have an interactive poop map where people mark feces on the street as like an alert. So you keep updated with your poop map.

If your city needs an interactive map, it's probably not trending in the right direction, if I had to guess. From my understanding, I am not an expert of this stuff at all. I've also not been there. But from my understanding, it's just neglected a lot of its lower income people for a long time. And they're getting the ramifications of that. Yeah, that's what I've heard. Like a lot of homeless people. Yeah. But there are still parts of the city that are...

very affluent well-to-do but it's like it's very like the haves and the have-nots to my understanding but at the time back then yes it was like

A super big, fancy, where all the cool kids go type place. Well, it's probably because they kept fucking diverting the money into the grove, apparently. Like, they were taking millions of dollars to build these. Wow, look at you. Are you telling me that the highest members of society was taking the money for themselves rather than disseminating it to the people who made it? I haven't heard that one before. That's an outrageous assertion.

Jackson, you're so silly. What are you talking about? Let's go back to talking about the Satan cult. What do you mean? That's made up of those same people. Maybe the homeless should invade the grove. I think that'd be cool. Use the grove. That'd be a pretty cool season finale, wouldn't it? That would probably activate a doomsday protocol. True. All the presidents or whatever, like fucking Taft, rises from the dead. Yeah.

You activated my trap card. Also joining the club around this time in 1913 was Herbert C. Hoover, who a few years later in 1929 went on to become the 31st president of the United States.

When elected president, he continued to frequent gatherings and his association with Bohemian Grove continued to propel its status as a meeting ground for the rich and powerful. Yeah, it seems like maybe one in three presidents at the time were part of the Bohemian Grove, which is nuts. But I guess they all invited each other back when presidents liked each other. That's what it probably was. Or also the fact that they were...

Most of them were high-ranking members of society beforehand. I know Reagan and Nixon were members. Yeah, they were. And both of them were famous before being president, right? Yeah. You can see the lines of how they got there in the first place.

Well, maybe the Bohemian Grove is like a way for the wealthy to kind of designate who would be the next president if they're controlling it. Now you're thinking, now you're talking right. Whoever wins the jinx, it's between like a pineapple in your butt cheeks and becoming president. It's your turn to be president. And then they work on that, making that happen for the next four years or whatever. Damn, I should have chose drink instead of embarrassing task. Yeah.

well maybe becoming the president is the embarrassing task like you've got to do your time now haha we have to laugh at you idiot you can't just be wealthy and powerful in the background now you've got to go back to the grove where we have the nine feet tall alien goth women you know that we just do whatever we want you have to go work for four years idiot idiot suck to suck loser i'll take the next part

Bohemian Grove has and continues to be a strictly male-only private club. There are only four women who were honorary members in the early years of the organization. God, they must have been so badass, by the way, to be women members at the time. Yeah, it must have been crazy.

They must have been butt-chugging the shit out of those beers. They did not have nearly as many privileges as the men. The club is exclusive, capped at around 2,700 members. Many wait years and years for an opportunity to join. Some members reportedly pay lesser fees, and these are the more creative artists of the group.

The club also has honorary members. As mentioned before, there have been four women who had become honorary members long ago. These members don't need to pay any fees toward the club, but sacrifice some privileges. Some of the more notable members of Bohemian Grove are Clint Eastwood, Richard Nixon, and Ronald Reagan.

Yeah, but there were so many. They were like so... I could list them endlessly. Although I was actually thinking this a second ago. Do you guys think that the Colonel, you know, the KFC Colonel may have been a Bohemian Grove member? I don't know why he's like the pinnacle of American civilization. I want to ask why that specifically came to your mind. I was thinking about it before when Mark Twain came up because I always conflate the two. Like they both are very similar in my eyes.

How in the fuck is Mark Twain and the KFC Colonel similar to you? Look it up. Do you not know anything about the Colonel? I mean, I know a little bit about him, but...

Do you mean like appearance wise? Yeah, yeah, yeah. Appearance wise, sure. I get how they look similar. Yeah, they look exactly the same. It's like the cuddle is like a well-groomed Mark Twain. They're fundamentally different people. How? Hold on, because Mark Twain, I know I'm speaking to an Australian, so I'll be patient.

Mark Twain was an author and also I guess the colonel is an author of chicken. It's the same shit. He's just like really good at making chicken. He's a businessman, right? He's an author of chicken. An author of chicken is a really cool way of saying nothing. That's awesome.

An author of chicken. Colonel Sanders is from a region of Kentucky a lot of my family's from. So there's a lot of local lore around him and whatnot. And I've seen the location where he apparently shot a guy.

Oh, that's pretty cool. Yeah, he shot a competitor. Is that how he becomes a member of the Bohemian Grove? You have to take a soul before you're able to become a member. I swear he shot a guy who was a business competitor. He was in a parking lot. Back when duels used to be a thing, probably.

Back when duels used to be, it wasn't that long ago. Wait, how long ago? Like the 30s and 40s. It wasn't the old West. Good Lord, dude. What is your understanding of American history? Is it cowboys and then World War II? And now we have YouTube?

I don't know what happened in between YouTube and the Wild West. The real colonel died in 1980. That's so long ago. That's 40 years ago. When did they stop doing duels? Probably like the mid-1800s, I would say. It was in the twilight of the Old West, so it would have been...

Maybe duels were still allowed after the Civil War, but not long, if so.

Yeah, so that's 18... It extends a bit into the 1800s, I'm sure. Okay, when do you think Colonel Sanders was alive? When do you think that happened? Well, when do you say he died? I don't know when they invented chicken. I assume like early 1900s. When did they invent chicken? When did they invent chicken? I want you to think about what you just said, okay? I need you to appreciate what just came out of your mouth, okay? I meant his version of chicken. I meant the Kentucky Fried Chicken. Charlie, don't say anything. Jack?

Jackson, when do you think Kentucky fried chicken? Keep in mind, we're talking about the process of frying chicken. Yeah, yeah, yeah. When do you think it started? You said that he died towards the end of the 90s, so I'm going to guess like 1910.

You think he started chicken when he was five years old and died in the 90s at 90-something years old? I don't know. I don't know anything about him. Kentucky Fried Chicken opened in... When was chicken... Chicken has always existed. Chicken has been here as long as we have. It's a bird. It's not true. It came from Bohemian Grove. When did they invent chicken?

Okay, Kentucky Fried Chicken started in 1952. Okay. Whoa, that's way later than I would have ever expected. Like even outside of the jokes. It is a fast food chain. Do you think that in World War I? No, I know enough about KFC to know it wasn't always a fast food chain. It started as a family restaurant.

Okay, it started as a restaurant and then quickly became a fast food chain. What do you want from me? It was a chain. There were multiple of them. Eventually. I mean, all chains start as one single store. Okay, sure, sure. But it became famous when the fast food thing started. There weren't soldiers shipping off to France in World War I who were stopping and getting a bucket of fried chicken on the way. I'm going to beat you up. I'm coming to your house.

I can't believe Australia exists. You know what my understanding of Australian history is? There were a bunch of prisoners who got ditched onto an island and then Dingo showed up and ate a bunch of people and now you built a big opera house. That's my knowledge. And it's full of spiders. You know what we have here? We've got KFC.

Yeah, that's the disgrace. I'm going to call corporate and tell them to get that out of there. This was a special moment. I'm glad we all got to experience the dumbest moment of Red Thread so far together. When did they invent chicken? Oh, I bet he did it in 1910. I bet. When did Colonel Sanders, when was he predominantly in the lab?

Were these chickens coming up with KFC? 1952. KFC opened in 1952. Okay. I will also say that in North Corbin, Kentucky, which is a town I grew up near, during that period, Sanders was involved in a shootout with Matt Stewart, a local competitor, over the repainting of a sign directing traffic to his station. Okay. And as we've established, that was 150 years after when doors were allowed.

So it wasn't a duel It was a cold blooded murder He shot a guy I looked it up and duels were outlawed In like 1862 I just closed it and forgot But it was the mid 1800s During the civil war Makes sense

Yeah, I forgot what the original point was. So Colonel Sanders probably not... Wait, no, he would have been in the prime position to be a member of the Bohemian Grove then. He was successful at the time when it was really popular. Was Colonel Sanders in the Bohemian Grove?

Is there a KFC in the Nemia Grove? This all started with Jackson saying Colonel Sanders and Mark Twain are like the same person. Yeah, then he gets them confused. Real quick, while you search that up, just a quick word from our sponsors. When you're on the run from a deadly super cult, the last thing that you want to worry about is unneeded subscriptions. But thankfully, today's sponsor, Rocket Money, is...

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Yeah, okay, that's a different thing. No, I know, I know, I know, but I'm saying like, surely you can't be a Freemason and a Bohemian member, right? No, that'd be a conflict of interest.

I mean, they're not like they're both. They both pray to the devil. All right. No, I'm kidding. Kidding. Mason's going to sign an NDA. It's two different groups. So there's like 2700 people at the Grove. It's like a men's club, whereas the Freemasons is like an order of like higher thinkers or whatever. Nowadays, it's pretty much just a boys club, but I'm sure you could be both.

But no, I can't see in the records that Colonel Sanders was in Bohemian Grove. If you create a chicken, you can do anything.

It was during the early 20th century period where the focus of the group shifted away from a celebration of the arts to a more hedonistic retreat for the wealthiest people. Perhaps not hedonistic in the way one might expect, but the focus was more on that the wealthy would holiday for a few weeks in the grove while celebrations and rituals were performed.

Artistic pursuits would appear to be the basis for the values, but the motive was simply pleasure and entertainment, as wealthy and powerful mingled with their high-profile artist friends. From the 1930s onward, membership and activities became more secretive and something interesting happened. The demographic shifted pretty drastically. The creature type, or the creative types, were demoted in a way to associate member status. The true members, the businessmen, and the powerful figures essentially took over.

The artists were relegated as simply entertainment. You can see this reflected in the membership costs. The costs started somewhat low with $100 in 1887 alongside a couple of dollars a month in membership fees. That ballooned to a whopping $10,000 with an extra $600 a month just to join in 1994. Yeah, and I did double check that doesn't track with inflation or anything. They definitely did increase their costs significantly like three times

uh what it would be if it was yeah inflation between inflation for a hundred years is a lot but i don't think it's a hundred times as much one hundred to ten thousand dollars i've man that killed me charlie the creature just imagining like this changed a little bit the rich introduced the creature to the grove strongly changed the group dynamic yeah it does sound like an scp

It is funny, though. We were kind of joking about it earlier with the Bohemian lifestyle thing, but this was literally the kind of creative times for like, oh, let's set up a little club. And the rich are like, cool, that will be $10,000 and only my friends can come. Well, it literally was an investment then, right? For these businessmen. They literally started, they invested in this club. They built all these cool, it's like an amusement park, Bohemian Grove, basically. All these structures and stuff.

They invested all that money and then they're like, well, we got to make a return on our investment. Let's just increase the price and kick out all those fucking homeless artists or whatever and take over basically, which is what they did. Have you seen the CIA sketches of what it looks like?

I've seen like a park map. I don't know if that's a sketch by them. They did in their little internal document that's now released to public. They have this little like sketch of what the inside of the Grove looks like. And there's little areas that they have named like a dining hall, another dining hall, a

the cave the caveman cave the last like it sounds like amusement park names when everything's designated yeah well wait is it is it this picture right below uh here where it says what happens no uh it's not that one here i'll just drop the cia document in the chat i didn't see that it's like the first three pages are the the drawing of what the cave of what the uh grove looks like

I mean, obviously the one you have here is more detailed, better. It's not like a hand drawing on paper, but. So for people, for people, audio listeners, obviously these are going to be on the screen for the video. Um, but for audio listeners, I can best describe this map that I'm looking at the one that I've got in the document as it's like a Disneyland park map, basically like that kind of cute cutesy cartoonish style. Disney probably drew it. Yeah. I mean, probably maybe. Um, and

And then your one is definitely like, you know, black and white kind of sketches. Yeah, it's for an internal document. Like, it's not what they would hang up on the sides like I imagine this one at the Grove was. Yeah, yeah, yeah. All right, Charlie, you want to continue?

So, what happens at Bohemian Grove? Every July for two weeks, three weekends, the members of Bohemian Grove and their guests meet for an exclusive camp. It's a strictly invite-only event that is heavily hidden from the public. There are different living and sleeping sections of the camp that the group is divided into for the two weeks, like the Hillbillies Camp and Shoestring Camp.

I say camp, but even back decades ago, there the camps had running water and shuttle buses and were very comfortable. Fun fact, George Bush Sr. and George Bush Jr. stayed at the hillbillies camp.

Each of these camps had their own regulars and their own identity. Yeah, so there were just a bunch of camp places around the campgrounds where all these high-profile individuals would kind of group up together and they would stay at these individual camps. Usually, I think it was between 12 and maybe 20 people per campsite. So, kind of intimate. And then, yeah, just the amenities at the place were...

incredible like shuttle buses to take you to each location obviously if you're a president this is probably all fun and games and stuff like that but it's you're still used to a you know a degree of comfort well also imagine the time period this is occurring in right this is before this stuff was mainstream like everywhere else it was like you know the the newest of the news so to speak yeah

As well as the many camps to house the powerful members, Bohemian Grove also contained two amphitheater stages, a campfire pit, a circular intimate stage, a semi-outdoor stage, a dining circle, a clubhouse, and their infamous 9-meter-tall owl shrine, and the artificial lake they created where the daily lakeside talks would take place at 12.30 p.m. every day.

These are more informal, but still influential speeches by prominent members and guests that cover a wide array of topics including politics, business, science, and culture. The more significant talkers would be on the weekend lakeside talks, as that was when the camp would have their highest attendance. Even if the topic is not of interest to everyone, many saw these talks as important. Being able to hear influential leaders or people in business talk informally about topics without reporters and off-record was a valuable takeaway for everyone.

It's kind of like a private TED talk, essentially. This entire thing is like a TED talk conference. More like a business retreat, honestly, is what it sounds like. A lot of the time, you would have political opponents there. And outside of cameras and stuff, the opponents would just say exactly what they thought. That's why a lot of people kind of accuse the Grove of...

holding a lot of future elections and stuff like that not just in the whole like oh they rigged the they rigged the game or whatever but also because like well we don't know what was said behind closed doors we don't know what deals or policy changes are being said you know like who's to say what's actually going to happen when they have a private meeting where they can talk about their real feelings away from us yeah that's where a lot of the accusations come from

Their real feelings being those of love and compassion and tenderness. What the camp actually is, is that they all get together and they just kiss. They just make out with each other. And that's why they don't want any women to show up. So they can't see them kissing. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Yeah. It's why there's no reporters or anything. I love that it's all so far just like business talks, TED talks, like therapy sessions that they said no women. It's so interesting. Like you could definitely have women be there. Like why not? It's not like they're doing boys stuff. It's just talking. I'm not saying that all of them are or anything, but you know for a fact there is gay things happening. Like there is some people who are openly like

maybe opposed to it or like they have their wife back at home or whatever who just has like a week out of the year to just let loose. Yeah.

I mean, you can't have this many powerful people and wealthy people around together. And not fuck. I was going to say, and not have like... Yeah, we know those YouTube parties, right, Charlie? Yeah, I can't wait to be invited to one of those. No, I was going to say, like, you can't have that many powerful people around and not like expect hedonistic values to kind of come into it as well. Of course. I think like those orgies and stuff are probably...

Like, if it's not all of them, I'm going to say it's all of them, just to really take a hard stance. But it's at least some of them. Some of them are taking an awful lot of them. Yeah, it has to be. Well, I mean, think about it this way, right? Think about, like, you know, our modern grove, so to speak. Jeffrey Epstein, right? And there's our reference for this episode. We know that in the modern age, when people have that level of power, of fame, wealth, you know, above the law, effectively, that...

you know, normal hookups and drugs don't do it anymore. So they have to keep pushing the bar for more and more evil things to get off, right? To like scratch that itch. So that's been going on since the beginning of time. We know like historically what ancient cultures and stuff like that we're getting up to. We know about a lot of the like crazy, you know,

and whatnot that's happened across empires through the years. So what do you think was happening in the United States in a secret club that was hush-hush with no cameras or anything solely composed of those people? The exact same thing. Had to be.

Yeah, like I said, I'm pretty sure every single person, it's a two week long orgy for every single person, guaranteed. Of course, constantly, non-stop, all the time. Mandatory. You know that when you're paying the membership fee. It's an orgy membership fee. You better come ready to go. Slick as a seal. Oh no.

George Bush Jr. George Bush Sr. and George Bush Jr. are staying at the same place too? Oh no! What are they doing? It can't be!

Important figures like the previously mentioned former president Herbert C. Hoover was a regular in these lakeside talks, and in 1971, President Nixon was planning on being a featured lakeside speaker, but the newspaper got wind that he was planning a secret disappearance for an unknown speech to an influential American man, and ultimately decided to cancel so as to not put Bohemian Grove at risk.

He couldn't just leave them empty-handed, though, and sent through a letter expressing his sadness that he couldn't attend the camp which hangs in the entrance of the reading room within the clubhouse in San Francisco. He actually encouraged the Bohemian Grove to keep going and applauded what they do, even said that while anyone can want to be the President of the United States, only a few could aspire to being the President of the Club.

which is a crazy greatest honor. That's a wild crazy. Imagine. Well, who was like, who is the president of the club? I actually don't know that, but imagine being the president of the club and having the little president of the, like the most powerful country in the world. Look up to you. Like what the fuck? That's insane. I wish I could, I want to be you when I grow up. Yeah. There is, is there any information at all on the president of the Bohemian Grove?

I don't know. I didn't actually find anything like that. I don't know. Maybe it's the fucking Lorax or something for these trees. Yeah.

President of the Bohemian Grove. Richard Nixon also made a comment about Bohemian Grove in 1971, where he was recorded talking about upper-class citizens in San Francisco and said, The Bohemian Grove, which I attend from time to time, it is the most slur goddamn thing you could ever imagine within that San Francisco crowd. Gay slur, by the way. But I'm sure that was just to throw people off the scent and was intended to cover the Bohemian Grove again.

That is, by the way, one of the funniest quotes ever. Because I remember when I was super interested in the Grove reading everything about it, I'm like, oh, Nixon, what did he say about it? It's just that quote. He's just insulting them after praising them? Like, what the fuck? What happened? Well, there's two options. There's either Nixon values the club as like, I need to...

make contacts there like it's a good tool to have as a politician uh so he you know against his will sort of attends meetings and stuff like that so he sends a letter like oh sorry i can't make it haha i really want to be like you because you're the coolest and then in actuality he's like that's the dumbest thing ever i can't stand it sucks or like you said he was trying to throw off yeah throw him off whatever yeah

It's like, you don't want to join that. You don't want to join it. It sucks. As he holidays there every year for two weeks with the gay orgies. There were chats about rearming America, space warfare, and general topics like public policies, geopolitics, leadership, economy, corporate strategies, financial market, and much more, all in this secretive setting.

In September 1942, Manhattan Project meeting took place at the Bohemian Club, meetings that eventually resulted in the creation of the atomic bomb. Attending this was the likes of Ernest Lawrence and J. Robert Oppenheimer and other involved individuals at the time.

Apparently the Grove is proud of this meeting that was held there, boasting the details to new members. Did we see any of that in Oppenheimer? Yeah, did we see any of it in the movie? It was a deleted scene where they had the buttfuck in a Bohemian Grove chapter. Crazy, crazy side plot.

Bohemian Grove is seen as a perfect opportunity to network, socialize, and drink. Attendees would hike, swim, boat, and golf while enjoying each other's company. The artistic bohemian thread from its roots still lingering with performances from members during what is called hijinks, a callback to the dice game that became one of the first regular activities of the camp,

Full-length musical comedies or dramas performed in the amphitheaters. There's another activity that happens at Bohemian Grove which has piqued a lot of interest. The cremation of care ceremony. I will say I didn't know there was a golf course there. And now I really, really, really, really, really need to play on the Bohemian Grove golf course. Just for the principle.

You guys are big YouTubers. Have you been invited? Do you think that there's any YouTuber that's been invited to Bohemian Grove? Who among us is not? No, I'm joking. The only person I could even imagine being important enough to be invited would be Mr. Beast. But can you not fly a drone over this and just look down? Having a full golf course, assuming 18 holes, that'd be super visible. Can you not just drone over this? They know the club's there.

Like, we know where it's at. Yeah. People have, like, gone in there while, you know, off-season or whatever and filmed inside. Oh, okay, okay, okay. We've seen inside. I think you probably could fly a drone over, but I don't think anyone has.

It's probably not, like, restricted airspace. I don't know. Yeah, that's what I was wondering, because, like, I feel like you could just see everything that was going on. It wouldn't really be that secretive. If you put a drone over the tree line, Moloch flies up to the sky and curses your lineage for eight operations. So I think it's obviously, like, guarded private property, obviously, but I don't think...

I don't think the campsite itself is like the secretive part of the organization. It's the events that take place. You a million percent would get Dick Cheney'd if you got within like a mile of it while something was going on, I'm sure. That makes sense then. Okay, that checks out.

There is a sm- they have like a voice actor, they get like Keith David out there or something to be the owl. That's so cool. It's like Morgan Freeman. Come on.

Right.

This ritual is intended to free the participants of all worries they have in their professional and personal lives and live to the values of the camp. Creativity, relaxation, camaraderie. The ritual is very secretive and restricted access, and nature of the ceremony has led many to speculate on its true intentions. Some believe that the cremation of care is an occult or pagan ritual. Aspects such as the dramatic setting, use of fire, and presence of the looming owl statue have been interpreted as evidence of ancient or esoteric practices

as well as the use of robes and chanting. So there's a picture of the owl statue up there. And again, people, this owl statue has been there for ages, like very early in the club's history. And people have gone in there and filmed it since. It does not look like an owl to me. I still don't see the owl.

Doesn't look like an owl to me either for what it's worth. So the reason we know it's an owl. Also, I just want to mention people will pray to anything but God. So the reason we know it's an owl is because the owl shows up all over the grove. Yeah. I'm just saying the specific statue that does not look like now to me.

I'm not saying it's not. I know it's intended to be an owl because they speak of it as being an owl. You're just saying it's a bad. It's a bad. I'm saying their craftsmanship is shit. Yeah. I got you. It looks like trash. Come on. This is meant to be a club of artists and stuff. They must have built that after all the artists were kicked out or whatever because it looks like shit. Calling it out. Calling it how I see it.

So the owl, which I don't think we mentioned specifically, there's pictures of it, but the motto as you walk into Bohemian Grove is weaving spiders come not here.

For one's a wild quote, but that sign has an owl. A bunch of the other symbol of has now owls are also used in a lot of different societies, mainly to represent wisdom. But there's also some subtext across like other pagan societies and stuff like that, that owls are representative of like various deities and stuff like that. They can also see in the dark. So good eyesight, like seeing the truth, maybe.

seeing the truth which goes along with wisdom and stuff like that right um there's also symbolism of the owl being a predator right that it is a um like of the well haha yeah child predator i didn't put that one together that it preys on the rest of society but that also fits once you think about it um

The owl connects to a lot of stuff across different beliefs and conditions. Well, after we talk about the Alex Jones stuff, I'll talk about the ritual and all that.

The owl is a very like malleable symbol. It can be used for a whole bunch of reasons. As most iconography and symbols can really, they can be interpreted in a lot of different ways. But I think in the particular case of the Bohemian Grove, they intended it as a symbol of we are superior, we're knowledgeable and smart and awesome, basically. Weaving spiders, I think this quote is weaving spiders not come here.

I think that's the slogan when you walk into the Grove. And that is a quote from a Shakespeare piece of work called A Midsummer Night's Dream. And if I recall correctly, it's about warding off fairies or something along those lines from a queen or a princess. Like kicking fairies out of a home, basically. And I think that's...

meant to basically be like in this situation like no outside is allowed right that's like what the quote is meant to mean I also think it implies like if you come to the club looking to

looking to serve your own interest or conniving like you're plotting something you're not welcome effectively right like where this is supposed to be where people can kind of let their hair loose not worry about yeah that's what they say but that's because they have they are their own weaving spider i'm sure

Yeah, I was going to say the Bohemian Grove themselves, the Bohemian Club on their website says that that quote is basically like, we want people to come to the club to hang out and have fun, not talk about business, not make deals and all that kind of stuff. Leave all the outside world on the outside. But we've seen, we've seen, like we've heard testimonials and people talking about how conversations at the Bohemian Grove

you know do revolve around like making business deals and stuff like that still talking about work outside it's not like an enforced rule so i think that either they don't follow the rule as closely anymore or maybe misdirection on their part and it actually is just like a pretty overt way of saying no outsiders it could be both but that's how i interpret it

Yeah, let's talk about the thing that propelled this really into the mainstream conversations, which is the Alex Jones documentary and the cremation of care ritual, which is what most people have seen. Do you mind if I take this? Because this is my favorite. This is like my crack. Yeah, you'll have the most to say about it, definitely, I think. It goes over my head, really, all the interpretations.

All right, so it's safe to say, we will start with something we're all aware of, Alex Jones. Safe to say Alex Jones is a pretty wild public figure. Working in radio and television most of his life, he is known as being a far-right conspiracy theorist that has spread full... I just had flashbacks to that video that guy made about me. Far-right conspiracy theorist, haven't heard that phrase in a bit. He's...

knows being a far right he is a fuck like alex jones is a no no no don't get me wrong he is he is for sure i just i'm just saying that involuntarily i had flashbacks yeah yeah but no 100 100 i agree yeah

who has spread false information about many tragic events, such as the Sandy Hook Elementary School mass shooting. Alex made claims that the horrific event was staged and fake with actors. He was sued for defamation by three of the parents whose children were killed in the mass shooting and was ultimately ordered to pay damages and heavily criticized by the judge. And let's not forget this, his commentary on gay frogs. The man is clearly unique, so why are we talking about him? Yeah, so...

To clarify, Alex Jones, very insane opinions, you know, over the top stuff like that. Just because we're talking about something he did doesn't mean it is a...

a blessing on the whole person, right? In his whole life or anything. No, no, no. Just in this one event, he did leak data, right? Yeah, he obviously showed stuff about Bohemian Grove, but his interpretation of the Bohemian Grove is also very conspiratorial itself. Sure. And with his history, you definitely have to take a look at what Alex Jones is saying and actually try to...

it logically. I mean, it's Alex Jones, right? So you've got to like really, really look closely at what he says in order to, you know, not just wildly believe him and his claims. We know that at this point. It's so easy to believe some of his claims though, like the interdimensional, like pedophile vampires that are trying to break through the realms. Yeah. It's also like, even if Alex Jones presents fine,

fine data he coats it so hard like the gay frogs thing right like that came from a story where there was some lab or some chemical company that was like breaking the law and dumping like toxins into local river streams and stuff like that and it was something about it was causing the frogs to like not be able to mate properly and like they weren't reproducing and it was damaging the ecosystem so that's a fascinating story about like

a company overseeing ecological ramifications of their actions in order to turn a profit. But Alex takes all that information and turns it into they're making the frogs gay. And it's like, okay, well, goddamn globalists.

doing something like that does propel it into the mainstream I don't think as many people would know about it in the first place if he didn't do it in such a salacious way but how many people know that part of the story? zero, actually zero they're just making the frogs gay that's all anyone takes from it kind of poisons the well on good information sometimes so yeah

Not when he's explicitly taking non-existent information to make it into a conspiracy. Whatever, we get it. Yeah, he's an entertainment figure. Goddamn bloob was stuck in my house last night, jerked me off my sleep. I had to wash my pants. He is undeniably entertaining, for sure. During the Bohemian Grove camp of 2000, Alex Jones snuck into the camp and created the documentary Dark Secrets Inside Bohemian Grove.

Alex and his cameraman, Mike Hansen, wore preppy clothes with hidden cameras in their travel backpack. They trekked through the nearby forest around midnight and upon coming up to the community located the cremation of care ceremony that was about to happen. After discreetly setting up their camcorder, they managed to film the entire ceremony and from it, they were able to create a two-hour documentary.

Alex was able to film the rope figures burning up the effigy, the owl statue, while providing his own commentary on the events unfolding in front of him, suggesting that the ceremony had darker meanings behind it. They were successfully in the camp for four hours before they left after the ceremony. Um, so, uh,

It's because of that, of Alex going up, filming it, making the documentary and all that, that we know about the ceremony itself. Because it's not like that's something they put on their website, right? Um...

That's how we know about the ceremony itself. That's how we know about the logistics of it, what they say during it, how it goes about. And we have footage of the whole thing to prove it, right? So in that case, we know it definitively happens. We know it is a fact that happens and how they go about it and stuff like that. So in that case, that's information that would have got out otherwise. So, you know,

Dark Secrets Inside Bohemian Grove released the same year as Alex's platform, InfoWars. He starts off the documentary by acknowledging his calling out of the global elite or the New World Order.

Alex drills in that influential figures from around the world, politicians, heads of industries, and more come together to perform, quote, ancient Canaanite Luciferian Babylon mystery religion ceremonies. Well, he's got the spirit, I guess. Yeah, that's a lot of words right there.

And how they worship and sacrifice to a god called Moloch. But who is Moloch? Oh boy, now we're getting... Who's this Moloch he talks of? So, Moloch, a pagan deity also known as the ancient god of child sacrifice. Allegedly, worshippers, quote, boiled children alive in the bowels of a big bronze statue with the body of a man and the head of a bull.

The involvement of child sacrifice while worshipping Moloch had been represented in biblical sources, but also Greek and Roman.

The meaning of Moloch is debated. In recent years, many believe that the word stands for the act of sacrificing. While previously it referred to a Canaanite god, a polytheistic group of ancient Semitic religions that was practiced by the people in the Levanta area around the Bronze Age. Moloch is often mentioned in Leviticus, with the passage in 18 verse 21 saying, Do not allow any of your children to be offered to Moloch.

That's good advice for a god that is known for child sacrifice. That's a pretty good message. Okay, I'll finish this last sentence and mention my theory about Moloch. Moloch is often depicted as a bull-headed humanoid figure with outstretched arms and a hollowed-out center part where the sacrificial offerings would take place. Okay, so the way we know about Moloch, the earliest records we have of it is like the...

the Bible, right? In the book of Leviticus and stuff like that, there would be mentions of... I think the original wording in the KJV is like, do not give your children to Moloch, or do not give your children unto Moloch, whatever. And then there are some other places in the Bible. I think Moloch's mentioned again. Yes, it says...

In Judges, I believe, it's referring to a group of people who do evil. It says they are the sons of Moloch, right? So, Moloch's mentioned a few times as being a bad thing, right? An entity of evil. Now, demons in the Bible, or specifically demonology, is often presented... Like, most people think of Lucifer or Satan as kind of the king of demons. Which...

Which is kind of true in that he was the one who rebelled against God and caused the downfall. But Lucifer doesn't really have any power, so to speak. He tempts humanity, sure. And he still has the bastardized powers of God and whatnot.

But it's not like he is some grand ruler over all these other demons. There's several demons that were also cast out of heaven that do their own thing, you know, while existing on earth. And most of them are depicted in very unique figures. Like there is, uh, most of the demons have some kind of animalistic attribute to them. Like there's, uh, the fish looking demon daggone, um,

There is the ox-looking one of Baal, and then we have Moloch that doesn't really get a description. So now we think, like, you know, anthropologists have looked at the history and said that it seems Moloch may just be a word for sacrificing children, right? Right, so not actually like a deity or a demon, but more just the act itself.

Exactly. So when the Bible says, do not give your children to Moloch, it's saying don't give your child to child sacrifice. And when it says that this group of invaders is the sons of Moloch, it means they are the sons of people that have committed child sacrifice, right? Is that really a lesson that needed to be explicitly taught to people? Like, don't sacrifice your children. It's not good. Yes.

It did. It happened a lot. Yeah, it was happening all the time, constantly, especially across like... Paganistic rituals and stuff. Absolutely. Across the Canaanite religions and stuff like that. Because here's the thing to mention. This is, of course, if you believe the Bible to be true, which I do, but if you don't, that's fine. But in the Bible...

We see that, yes, God is powerful and stuff, but these other demons are also powerful. If someone goes and prays to them, like, sure, they're damning their soul or what have you, but the demon gives them things on Earth. It gives them the power and the wealth and things they ask for. So...

If the demon says your family will prosper and your life will go well, you just need to sacrifice one child to it. There were several people willing to make that deal. And then who were they to say otherwise when demons would perform miracles and magic and stuff like that?

Like they made a compelling point that made people want to sacrifice to them, which is one of the big differentiators in the Old Testament that the other nations are, or at least the nations going against the people of God, are arguing for the wealth and power they have through demons, whereas the people of God might suffer, but there's the preservation of their soul through everything, which is one of the big conflicts of the Old Testament.

Yeah, I mean, also even outside of just the religious context, right? In these early ages, like think about like ancient Greece and like Sparta and stuff. They would regularly discard children that weren't of worth to them. So, you know, getting rid of children or sacrificing them was not uncommon, let's say. Yes, it was a pretty common thing to happen. And again, like the early...

Abrahamic belief was that children are to be preserved, loved, not as a tool to be traded or something to be cast off. Now, my theory about Moloch

Is that where we see all those statues, like that, because there are like records, at least of statues with like ovens inside of them that people would cast children into and stuff like that. I don't think that is a statue of Moloch. I think it's a statue of Bale. Yeah, because it's the ox head. Yes, because Bale's depicted as the ox and Bale is mentioned a ton throughout Old Testament and old religions and stuff like that. And...

A lot of the times we hear mention of people at least sacrificing their riches or their gold to bail, burning them in a fire. And if human sacrifice was a thing, it makes sense to also sacrifice people to bail. So I think Moloch just means child sacrifice. And the reason he's depicted as a bull is a lot of the stuff associated with this Moloch is actually sacrifices of bail. That's my theory around it. So is that a wildly, you know, widely believed theory or is it? Uh, I,

I'm not the first person I've heard mention it. I've heard other people say, yeah, the statues of Moloch might actually be statues of Baal. Because there's still debate around if Moloch was a deity or if it just means, you know, the sacrifice of children. But some people still believe that Moloch was intended to be a being of itself, like a demon. Yes. There are people that still do. And there's like, there's arguments for that in, you know,

Like history, historical texts outside of... I'm like, where I'm a Christian, I try to just focus on the biblical side of it. And it's like, okay, the parts of the Bible that mention Moloch, I see how that could just mean child sacrifice. Like that makes sense to me. So I'm more willing to go with that. But there's people who look at, you know, early...

Canaanite texts and stuff like that that say otherwise. So, you know, there's arguments on both sides. But my theory is that the statues of Moloch are actually statues of Belle. I know that probably doesn't matter to 90% of the audience, but as a nerd for this stuff, it matters to me. Yeah. It also matters to Bohemian Grove. You're right. Man, what a way to bring that back. Thank you. Mm-hmm.

So Alex Jones at the start of the documentary first states that this new world order crowd of people are not going to run his life. His exact quote is, I don't want to be a part of their control freak system. I don't like these degenerate inbred new world order crowd people. They don't run my life. They don't control me. That was good. Thank you. You both are good at it. I'll give you credit where credit's due.

It's such an easy impression. You just have to act like you've been smoking for 10 years, tighten your throat, and then just get really mad. Yeah. It's good.

When Alex Jones interviewed locals in the area, the general gist was that they knew about Bohemian Grove, but didn't really know about the ceremonies happening. There were rumors. One heard that they run around naked and one man told the story of when he was parked nearby off the side of the road to have a cigarette when the Secret Service came up behind and began to ask him why he was there.

Although he delves into what is believed to be happening at Bohemian Grove, Alex Jones' main pinpoint focus during the documentary was the cremation of care ceremony. Yeah, real quick, do you guys think that, because there was a bunch of presidents here, so would the Secret Service...

Would they have to be members as well? Or were they just like honorary like guards or whatever? Well, no, like there was definitely staff at Bohemian Grove, like who was driving the shuttle bus, right? You wouldn't have fucking George Bush senior behind the wheel. So obviously there was other people there that weren't members. Yeah. We know, we know there was stuff because they have the ghost of Walt Disney driving everything everywhere. Yeah. They just have spirits doing it. Moloch. Moloch is just a bus driver. A giant bull man's driving. Yeah.

That's funny. The Cremation of Cares ceremony has been performed at the Bohemian Grove for well over 100 years. In the documentary, they show that before the ceremony, all of the members joined together in a massive feast. As he is walking through the camp, you can hear lots of chatting, singing, and music. After the feast, the Bohemian Grove members then make their way to the lake to prepare for the ceremony with the owl statue in the background.

He shows a program on the ceremony that is given out to members, pointing out that at the front is a small drawing of a demon and inside a picture of what he describes looking like a child burning in flames. Yeah, so like, you know how when you go to like a... I don't know, like a presentation or something, a play or something, they give you like a program at the start, like a sheet of what's happening in it. Like, that's what he's talking about here. And yeah, I mean, there is...

There does appear to be a drawing. It's a pretty low res picture there. I'll try to find a better one for the episode. But yeah, there does seem to be a drawing of, you know, a childlike figure being burned, like in a sacrifice. But it could also just be a, you know, a person. It could, it might not be a child. It's hard to interpret. Yeah. So, um, that I'm not so much sure about the child one, but that is a bajillion percent, um,

demon Or something that whatever that little person yeah, whatever that little person What are you talking about? It's a way He's here to teach you how to calm your nerves and stuff like that become kung fu expert He's getting rid of your hair through the act of martial arts Like wait other other turtle demons

No, there might be. Hold on. Like you said, there was a fish one. Yeah, there's a fish one. We're going to get to, I was saving it for a little bit, but there is an owl demon that I was going to talk about in a second. I don't think that's meant to be an owl. I don't think at least of the 72 demons of Solomon. I don't think one of them is a turtle, but there's 72 of them. So I don't know. I mean, there's the Kappa from like Japanese mythology, but that doesn't count.

No, I don't think there's a demon turtle. I'm pretty sure. Okay, it might not be a demon then. Maybe it's like a person. Is there a beetle demon? Hold on. To me, it looks like a beetle. Like the way the legs are so long and stiff. I don't know. To me, it looks like a person because he's got little boots on. I'm just going to keep reading. Just keep reading.

Charlie, would you like to read this in like a high priest voice?

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That was good. That was great. I appreciate that. That was awesome, Charlie. So good. You know what? You can come to the next meeting. How's that? All right, cool. I punched my ticket. The Bohemian Club has said that the weaving spiders come not here line is about the prohibition of discussing external politics and businesses while at club meetings, but from other events and general discussions about how members act inside the club, we know that's not an enforced rule.

So therefore it is either a lie or no longer a rule that is taken seriously. If it's a lie and the phrase has a D has a different meaning, it could simply mean no outsiders, which could make sense for the secret society club. It's up to interpretation. Who knows that first line that Charlie read? Oh, so perfectly. The owls in his leafy temple, uh, let all within the grove be reverent before him. So definitely religious, uh,

Yes, okay, thank you. I was... I try not to be... I mean, I am a conspiracy theorist, but I try not to be, unless I feel it's warranted. But this isn't just...

At the very least, they're adopting religious symbolism for an artistic play, right? But it feels like more than just, oh, we're burning a statue, right? Like, be reverent, lift up your heads. Yeah, it's uplifting. It's uplifting some religious context. Yeah, he specifically says here, Bohemia Shrine and the holy are the pillars of this house. It's like, you know...

It's, you know, it's, it's, it's gotta be at the very least it's blasphemous. If not outright. At the very least, at the very least, it's a playwright that knows how to like mix and match kind of religious themes and religious concepts into something that is akin to like a paganistic ritual. Making it sound religious. Yeah. Yeah. It continued. Oh, Charlie, would you like to continue the voice?

Hail, Bohemians, with the ripples of waters, the song of birds, such music as inspires the sinking soul, do we invite you to midsummer's joy.

The sky above is blue and sewn with stars. The first floor is heaped with fragrant grit. The evening's cool kisses yours. And then after this, they speak of old friends and members who have passed and invite them to join in the... Oh, no. Yeah, I mean, immediately. I haven't seen the transcript of what's said during these meetings.

Absolutely not. So they talk about friends who have passed and invite them to join the ritual with. Mm-hmm.

Gather ye forest folk and cast your spell over these mortals. Touch their world-blind eyes with carrion. Open their eyes to fancy. Follow the memories of yesterday and seal the gates of sorrow. I channeled a little bit of Shaggy there for a minute. That's what I was about to say. It sounds like Shaggy in disguise trying to be the ritual leader. Oh yeah, true. Like it's an investigation...

like zoinks gather the worst folk scoob like the shagging them have broken in to bohemian grove and now they've like hijinks their way into being like in line with everyone yeah well no to to like find out who's who's in charge of the bohemian grove they've got to put on the plane yeah like they're disguised as like yeah exactly richard nixon

and I would have got away with it too so with that quote something jumped out to me touch their world blind eyes with carrion like carrion birds I would assume like ravens and stuff which to me is like druidic in nature

So there's a bunch of different kind of... Again, it's like a combination of a bunch of different religions. It's a lot of different pagan beliefs, right? Yeah. Kind of inserted into one, which goes to the credit of what you were saying, of this probably isn't one specific religion or anything, as much as it is someone just making it sound religious. Yeah, making it sound religious to convey a bunch...

Like they've got themes in mind and then they're using a bunch of different religions to convey those themes. Because they're referring to the members of the crowd there by saying touch their world blind eyes with carrion, you know, kind of open their minds, so to speak. Yeah. So the priest also talks about ancient civilizations like Babylon and Tyr to talk about the cultural themes of power and triumph over earthly concerns.

There's a big emphasis on nature and how great nature can bring lasting happiness and talks about nature like she is a god. Now that, ooh, now that's explicitly demonic. Well...

See, okay, it is explicitly demonic in the Bible. The Bible warns about turning your love of God into the love of God's creation. You know, like, it's good to love God's creation, but that's not your God. But at the same time, that idea was disseminated into a lot of other paganistic beliefs, like the Greeks and the Romans and stuff like that. So here, they could be using it as demonic influence, or they could be using it as Greek and Roman influence. Like Gaia. Yeah, like Gaia or something like that. Yeah.

Which is what the Bible talks about. God made everything. Don't confuse his creation for the thing that needs worshipped, right? Well, it could also, again, be like a druidic belief. It could. They were very big on nature. Yeah. Once the speech is finished, mystical music begins, which transcends into a dramatic call to action-like tune. More men handling torches come and yell...

I'll try and channel Carl Weezer. Jimmy's mom, bohemians and priests, the desperate call of heavy hearts is answered by the power of your fellowship, dull care is slain. That was pretty good. That was a good Carl Weezer priest. He's good. He's good at like cartoon voices. Yeah, yeah. At like nasally cartoon voices. He's got it on lock. He's good at it. I've been working on it.

So this is met with applause from the cheering of the crowd. And as we talked about, dull care is the human effigy that is burned in front of the owl statue. Very Wicker Man-esque. So they begin to talk about a body that has been brought to be sent to the, quote, funeral pure to the joyous pipings of a funeral march. Probably meant to be funeral pyre, right? I feel like pyre makes more sense. Oh, yeah, yeah. To the funeral pyre.

To the joyous pipings of Funeral Marsh, yeah. Probably. You and Y are next to each other on the keyboard, so I assume my fat finger's that. This body is the effigy that is going to be set ablaze. The pyre is approached by men with torches as a loud laugh startles through the air with the loud shot sound and the voice of care. Do Squidward this time. Ha!

No, that's not working. Do someone in Spongebob. That was like Invader Zim almost. That was like a different... That one wasn't close. What would you say, Jackson? Just do someone in Spongebob. You can do a Spongebob one, surely. Fuck, I don't know. I haven't practiced any Spongebob ones. The Invader Zim one was pretty good. Yeah, do Invader Zim there. Yeah.

I don't know if I can channel that again. I can try Mr. Krabs. Alright, yeah, go for it. Me money, fools! Fools! When will ye learn that ye cannot slay? Year after year ye burn in this grove. Lifting your puss- oh, puny, not pussy. Lifting your puny shouts of triumphs to the stars.

When again ye turn your faces to the marketplace, do ye not find me waiting as of old? Fools, fools, fools to dream ye conquer care. Well, just like a traditional pirate there, I think, but still very good. I love the pussy line. Lifting your pussy. I don't remember that episode of Spongebob.

That was when they were doing the dolphin noise, the sentence enhancers. You kiss your mother with that mouth? Oh, yeah, it's so good. So they come up to the pyre, and that's supposed to be the voice of the effigy they're about to burn, right? Yeah.

Yeah, so the thing they're about to burn says, you know, you can't slay me. You're puny shouts. Basically, I'll always be here. See me in the marketplace. Yeah, this is all incredibly theatrical. The priest replies.

Say, thy mocking spirit, it is not all a dream. We know thou waiteth for us when this is our sylvan holiday is ended. We shall meet thee and fight thee as of old, and some of us prevail against thee, and some thou shalt destroy. But this too we know. Year after year within this happy grove our fellowship bans thee for a space.

*laughs* *laughs*

I'll put some dramatic music behind it in the edit. All of this is going to be so good. Sounds good. Once again, they're fighting each other. It's basically like a conversation where the effigy is saying, you can't defeat me, I'll always be there. And then triumphant human spirit, whatever, is like, oh, well, some will win, some will lose, whatever, such as the war against, you know,

Yeah, we're prepared for some of us to lose this war as long as we keep coming back to this grove and we keep trying. We fight for those who win, blah blah blah, whatever. I also love the idea, so the hypocritical nature as well of these ideals being spattered by like, you know, billionaire industry leaders who are probably tearing apart the earth.

destroying the earth mining it to steal all its resources and they come to this club and they talk about how we're on the side of nature nature will prevail the trees are good it's almost like the artists who are putting this together are almost doing this as like a middle finger to the elites in attendance you know because it's all about how cares drag us apart whatever

So, Care responds by screaming. Yeah, you gotta scream this time. There you go. It wasn't really a scream. It was good. It's good. Followed by particularly evil sounding laughter.

Ha ha ha. Not with these flames. Mwahaha. Not with these flames which hither ye have brought from regions where I reign. Ye fools in precise spit upon your fire.

fireworks shoot through the sky and the crowd applauds the priest again speaks yeah they got fire they got the whole nine i'm telling you it's literally just like a disneyland fucking this whole thing's a video by the way you could just watch this it's literally it's literally like what i would expect if i went to disney world and they did like a you know one of their late night you know firework shows or whatever it's literally that this is where disney got his idea you know when disney probably fucking made this thing

Probably. He was a member of the club. He was a member of the club. Famously, he had a club member's book where he drew a little picture of Mickey Mouse on a page right next to the owl. Yeah, there we go. See? That's cool. Yeah. So not with these flames, fireworks shoot up and then the priest speaks.

Ow! Prince of all mortal wisdom, owl of Bohemia, we beseech thee, grant us thy counsel. Demons can be referred to as princes in various religions and mythical traditions. You're getting a little bit ahead of me there at the end of this. I was going to talk about the owl demon, but we'll get there in a second. So a deep voice starts to sing, the owl's voice. So whatever voice you want to attribute to the owl. Is there an owl you know?

It just says deep voice. I was going to just try and do like a baritone. No fire, no fire. Be kindled in the world where care is nourished on the hates of men and drive him from this grove.

"One flame alone must light this fire" It's very Eeyore-esque. Yeah, it's very good. Yeah, yeah. "One flame alone must light this fire" "A pure eternal flame, a pure eternal flame at last within the lamp of fellowship" "Upon the altar of Bohemia" Very nice. Perfect. There's a whole cast of your favorite cartoon characters that have shown up for this episode of Red Thread. It's fantastic.

There's some more chanting thanking the owl for its adoration and about banishing care as a fire is lit, which sends the crowd into its biggest applause yet. Sparklers light the river and music plays as everyone celebrates the beginnings of the yearly camp.

Reflecting on what he just witnessed, Alex believes that what he just saw was a mixture of Babylonian Canaanite cult of Moloch with ancient druidic rituals. Again, he's got the spirit. Well, I love that these billionaires are probably just having fun just shooting the shit, basically. Like, they're putting on, like, a Romeo and Juliet in the park style presentation just because they've got infinite money packs or whatever. They're just having fun. There's, like, no... It was just some artist that they hired that put this all together and...

And they have no kind of like religious connotation or interpretation of what's happening. They're just following along because it's fun. And then you cut back to Alex Jones and he's freaking out about the demons that he's just seen. And he's like, it's like, again, it's like if he went to Disney and watched a stage play there, I would love to see him freak out about that. But also I...

Like, it's possible that there's something deeper here, right? That these people actually do believe in some kind of... Well, the upper echelon is actually, like, fucking depraved. Like, they do a lot of evil shit. So it's not unfathomable. Yeah, I'm not ruling it out. Yeah. It's not unfathomable these people also like the devil. Yeah. The god of hedonism. The administrator of it, so to speak. There's some more chanting...

Sparkler side of the river. Reflecting on what he just saw calls it a demon. Where is it? But despite the insistence that the owl is connected to Moloch, there really isn't any evidence of connection. And in fact, in a 1904 Bohemian Grove play, two years before the owl and care play was written, it's pretty explicit about who the figures actually are.

In the earlier version of the play, the owl is actually the god Apollo, and the figure Apollo slays is a fictional Greek demon named Meladon, which would be Kare in the new play. Essentially, Apollo reaches the conclusion that the old gods were greedy and wrong, and he basically supplicates himself to the Abrahamic god.

This is a lot of religious analysis across pagan gods and Abrahamic gods, but basically the play is about Seraphim, or the archangels, defeating the Greek gods. Yeah, so that was an earlier play, and then they adjusted it in the play that would then go on to be the mainstay of these festivities, where it's like, you know, care and the owl, basically, taking the place of these figures. Yeah, so you have, like...

it's depicting almost the old gods as the antagonist, so to speak, right? Like, um, they're greedy, they're evil, whatever. And they are done away with by the new gods, the, the seraphim or whatever, which is basically their stand in for the new shunning out the old. It's like, like you said, not any one particular religion or idea. It's kind of just like the aesthetics of a bunch of different ones. Yeah. Yeah.

At the end of the day, the ceremony is absolutely meant to be a pagan ritual in a sense. So the documentarians weren't exactly wrong, but nowhere in there is an actual child sacrifice, nor is there anything to do with Moloch. And ultimately, it appears to simply be a play that is meant to resemble a pagan ritual or a combination of various pagan rituals in general. Yeah.

Yeah, this is me writing, so I don't know if you guys agree with this, but ultimately I think people are fine to have conspiratorial ideas about the Bohemian Grove and club because, of course, it's a bunch of really powerful, wealthy people meeting up in secrecy. So I totally get why people are uneasy about it and conspiratorial in nature. And I definitely think there are conspiracies here to be had. Like, what are they actually talking about in their little private clubs and stuff?

But I've seen, me myself, I've seen like little evidence that suggests that the events that take place at the Grove are anything more than like a boys club with an eye for pageantry basically. Just like putting on dumb plays and stuff like that. So that's my opinion. You could interpret it another way. You could definitely believe in the conspiracy. I don't think you're stupid for thinking that, you know, there's a conspiracy here.

It's of course concerning to some degree that these ultra wealthy and influential people are conspiring behind closed doors in their exclusive club. But are they sacrificing children to an ancient god of death? Probably not, as far as I believe. What were you going to say about... I wanted to get what you were going to say about the princes. Was there more to be said about how demons can be referred to as princes? Yes. So, alright. In the Bible, like I mentioned...

Demons are basically the angels that fell from heaven with Lucifer. So we have Lucifer, he's an obvious one. But among that, there is sort of descriptors given to several of the demons that fell. So we know that within the courts of heaven, so to speak, there is some kind of hierarchy.

I said there was no hierarchy with the demons. I meant that it's not like Lucifer is the king of them. There is like an order of power, so to speak, with them, so to speak. Lucifer is mentioned as being one of the princes of hell, and he's also described in the New Testament, but I think it was Paul, described him as the prince of the air. So, like...

Lucifer is certainly a powerful demon, but it's not like he's their sole leader. There's other princes mentioned. So, but yeah, in heaven, we see there's a hierarchy. There is the classes of like the seraphim, the cherubim, there's the archangels, there's the messengers, there's stuff like that. So it seems that when they were cast from heaven, they similarly kept a sort of hierarchy.

hierarchy to them as well. One of the most common mentioned one is princes. So princes are demons that are given specific names. Throughout the Bible, they're given specific people that follow after them. Things I've already mentioned earlier, like Baal, right, or Dagon, or stuff like that, that became gods of other groups of people and stuff like that at the time. Because within the Bible,

It says that the demons' primary point, because it's not like they're going to win against the armies of heaven, their primary goal is to deceive man. If the demons can't win, they just want God to lose in as many opportunities as he can. And the way they do that is by turning humans away from God. As we talked about, giving them blessings, giving them things they want in exchange for committing acts of evil, committing their soul or worship to the demons, what have you. So...

There are a bunch of princes that are mentioned as doing that that convince the sons of man, as the Bible calls other people of the world, convincing them that there's some kind of god or deity that's worthy of worship. Most of the time, like I mentioned, these demons have appearances similar to animals. There's things like Bel, things like Dagon. And there is an owl demon. Right?

Right? So the owl demon, for one, to clarify where I get this from, there is a book called The Lesser Key of Solomon. Are either of you all familiar with it? I've heard of it. I've heard of Solomon. The short version is that it's believed in like not so much Christianity, but mainly like Judaism. And like, I guess you could say,

extracurricular Judaism. Like, I don't think everyone believes this, at least not within Christianity. Um, basically it says that when Solomon constructed the original temple, he enslaved several demons to do it. Uh, Solomon was described in the Bible as the wisest man who ever lived. So he used that wisdom to enslave demons, to do the work of God. Um,

So there was a book called The Lesser Key of Solomon that is effectively a catalog of 72 of those demons. What the demons do. It's like a bestiary of demons? That's pretty cool.

Yeah, yeah. It's a listing of what they do, what they appear as, how to summon them, what they can give you, what they want in return. Stuff like that. Is that not seen as kind of like, I don't know the word, sacrilegious? Oh, okay. Hold on. Hold on. To clarify, it's not that Solomon wrote the book. It's that Solomon was seen as a leader of them. So then later when like, it's not like religious at all. Okay, let me clarify. Solomon...

enslaving demons is an extra-Judaistic test, the book The Lesser Key of Solomon is explicitly anti-Christian.

like away from it stuff like that it's just saying like oh here's 72 of the demons he used here's how to summon them here's how to get stuff from them things like that it's just named after solomon because he was believed to be the original one to do it right okay yeah so the book the lesser key of solomon's basically like a catalog of them and one of them uh which i googled to see which number was this source is claiming it's the 36th of the 72 that could be off um

But his name is Stolas. And I hate that some people probably know that because that's a character in Hell of a Boss, you know, the Vivzie Pop series. The owl demon in that's named Stolas. I hate people probably know it from that. But in The Lesser Key of Solomon...

Stolas is a demon that is depicted as an owl man. So each of the demons do something. They have a specialty. Stolas' specialty is witchcraft and astrology. So if people pray to him, ask for his guidance, he can help them with fortune telling. He can help them know the future, things like that, right? Now, I don't ascribe a ton of...

of value to the lesser key of Solomon. I think a lot of it's interesting because it's like, oh, where did these historical threads come from and stuff like that? But I don't think in my own belief that demons are something that can be readily called upon, get favors from, maybe in the times of the Old Testament, but not since the death of Christ, in my own belief at least. Well, they wouldn't be very powerful if you could just summon them like that. Exactly, yeah. It's not like nowadays we can, you know...

They don't like Pokemon. Yeah, yeah. We can't just call on them. We can't make them appear and stuff like that. We're in the age of faith now anyway. It's moved from the age of law where stuff happened literally in humanity. Now we're on to the time of the supernatural, so to speak. But...

That being said, Paul says those who seek after strange spirits often find them. I treat it still with caution because while I don't think all of it is exactly true, I think it comes from a place of truth. Like, you know, there's some truth in it. So I try to be cautious with it. And going back to what the Bible does say about demons, all that they want to do

It's not to win. They know they're not going to win against heaven. It's not to establish a kingdom. They just need to turn people away from God. That's their entire point. They do that just to sow chaos, basically? Well, I mean, God cast them out of heaven because originally Lucifer had pride that he thought he would be as great as God, and he tried to destroy the courts of heaven, so to speak. So God removed Lucifer from himself, and then...

When God created man, Lucifer's dedication was to destroy God's creation, which is us. So sin, evil, death, chaos, whatever was entered into the world. And then humans, because we have free will, can basically choose which way we want to follow. We can go to the side of God towards what we were supposed to be, or we can go to the side of Satan and his pride, effectively. So that's the demon's whole endgame, effectively. So if all the demons have to do

is use their, um,

use discourse or use misinformation or what have you to turn people away from God, then it doesn't really matter if the people are necessarily right about everything they do. Like look at Bohemian Grove, for example, like, like we talked about, I don't think any of this is explicitly devil worship or it's any kind of like religious beliefs. Like we talked about, they blend like eight different religions into this. It's clearly just a presentation, right? Yeah.

But the end result is people burning human effigies in front of a statue that looks like the demon stole us. And even if they don't know they're doing all of that, that is still a far, far removal from God. There's at least pieces in there that are real. And that's what scares me about it. No,

Not that I think they know what they're doing, but I think it is the end result of what the demons effectively want to happen. So even if they're going the wrong direction, they're still winding up in the same place, in my opinion, which is why I'm freaked out about it and don't like Bohemian Grove. Yeah, that's fair. I think, again, there's probably so many different interpretations of it that that is a completely valid interpretation of it. Me personally, I think due to the fact that two years before the play, um,

they changed Apollo to an owl. I personally believe, and this is just from my interpretation, that the owl is just meant to symbolize, like they just took Roman or Greek iconography and they took the owl from Apollo's sister, Athena, basically, and just thought that that was a pretty cool image to use. And maybe that's a very reductive way of looking at it, but because they were using Apollo behind...

No, I agree 100%. I don't think that the people that were doing it had any malice or connection to it. I just, again, think the end result is... I make the joke early, people will pray to anything but God. I think it's just an application of that, even if it took some extra steps to get there. But yeah, I think they picked the owl because that was the club logo.

that had the owl on everything. Yeah, they just incorporated it into the play. Which is probably from them looking at ancient Greek stories and stuff like that and going, who's the Greek figure for knowledge? Because we're so cool and smart. And then they're like, oh, Athena, she uses an owl. Cool, let's use an owl.

And then it's kind of ballooned from there. But you're right. Like, if you're looking at it from a religious context, it doesn't really matter what the motive was if the outcome is still like... Yeah. The end result is burning a human in front of a nine meter tall owl statue. Like, it doesn't matter how you got there. You still wound up there. Yeah. Yeah.

I don't think there's anything legitimately sinister about Bohemian Grove. I think it's just a bunch of really cringe old guys that go there, have sex, and then do plays. I don't think they're sacrificing anyone. I really don't even think they know what they're watching when they're watching those plays. I really don't. I don't think they have any concept of what they're doing. I'm just saying from a religious perspective, it's once again like...

we we instantly created we yeah we walked away from God in another direction even if we didn't mean to yeah yeah which is why I think it's cringe and don't like it but yeah I don't think any of the guys there are conceptual of what's going on I think they're dumb to it yep all right so that's gonna do it that's everything about Bohemian Grove basically I think we got all our thoughts out there at the end there about like how we how we believe like what we believe about the situation and

Uh, big, big thank you to you guys for listening to this episode. Remember we're on iTunes and Spotify and you can, you know, support the show by rating us over there. Uh, really does mean a lot if you help us out that way. Um, yeah, that's, that's about it. Show notes in the description. If you want to read what we've just read, basically other than that, really big, thank you to still tuning in. Uh, it's really awesome to still see the support for the show. Even, you know, 27 episodes in really does mean a lot. Um,

Thank you very much. Thank you, Charlie, for doing just a masterclass of voice acting there for us as well. I appreciate that. Thank you for the practice. Yeah, it's all good. After they hear that, they're going to recruit you to come do the owl voice. Oh, you're going to be working from within the owl. Yeah, that'd be cool. I'll make sure to let you guys know. Yeah, please. And if you could get us like guest invites or whatever, that'd be sick. I'll ask for some plus ones. Thanks. Appreciate that. All right. Thank you, everyone, for listening. We'll see you next time in the Red Thread. Bye. Bye.

Thanks, bye-bye. See y'all later. Bye.