Original subtitles

Strange rituals in secluded compounds, esoteric symbols with

cryptic meanings, and blood oaths that last a lifetime.

For centuries, secret societies have been operating in the shadows,

influencing our culture and shaping our world in ways we can only imagine.

Mysterious groups are often rumored to practice chilling rituals and to

communicate using secret codes and strange symbols.

While the notion of a covert oath -bound brotherhood is intriguing, could the

claims that have been made about these secret societies be real or

mostly mythical?

Well,

That is what we'll try and find out.

New York City, October 31st, 1975.

While revelers enjoy Halloween festivities across the city, tucked away

sight, a group of men prepare a deadly, serious initiation ritual.

Michael Francis is about to become a member of America's most infamous

secret society, the Italian -American Mafia, or as its members call it, La

Cosa Nostra.

I don't like to use the term Mafia in America.

In America, it's really Cosa Nostra.

I grew up in the life. You know, my dad was the underboss of the Colombo family.

I was 24 years old when I got inducted.

It was Halloween night, 1975.

I was called into a room late at night.

Stood in front of the boss, held out my hand, took a knife, cut my fingers.

Some blood dropped on the floor.

He took a picture of a saint, lit it aflame, put it in my hands.

And he said, tonight, Michael Francis, you are born again into a new life, into

Cosa Nostra.

Betray your brothers and you will die, burn in hell like the saint is burning

your hands. Do you accept?

Yes, I do.

That's how it started.

La Cosa Nostra wants to make money and amass power.

I would say they are the deadliest criminal secret society in American

To join the mafia, you have to be pure Italian.

And secrecy is the norm.

You're told you can join this organization and you'll make all sorts

you'll be protected, but at the same time, if you reveal any secret, you're

going to be killed.

The dangerous secrets that La Cosa Nostra keeps revolve around criminal

enterprises like gambling, drug trafficking,

counterfeiting, and murder.

It's been estimated that at the height of their power, their crimes earned them

billions of dollars every year.

So how did this criminal secret society become so powerful?

The mafia really starts to sort of come together in New York City in the 1920s.

And there's a few factors as to why. Number one, prohibition.

Because banning alcohol instantly turns corner street thugs.

into very wealthy, powerful gangsters.

The underworld realizes Americans are still going to want to drink, and they

will be the ones to supply the alcohol.

So it becomes an enormous lucrative opportunity for gangsters.

In the early 1900s, the guys started migrating from Sicily into the United

States.

And before Prohibition, we were just a bunch of guys preying on each other,

trying to do these petty street crimes and being thugs.

Well, those guys figured out, hey, alcohol, people want to drink. We're

make them have it.

We were good at giving people what they wanted when they couldn't have it.

In New York State alone, there were 36 ,000 speakeasies.

Just to give you an idea of how lucrative this was.

And so now we start to get organized because no organization is anything

money.

Prohibition turned common thugs into kingpins and created an opportunity for

Cosa Nostra to get organized.

By the 1930s, Lucky Luciano and some other powerful gangsters formed

into a commission.

They decided that...

It would make sense if these gangsters were organized into families.

They designated five people to be the heads of five families in New York, and

other people were designated to be the leaders of families in other parts of

country.

Lucky Luciano comes up with the structure of the mafia as we know it

have a hierarchical structure.

You have boss, underboss, capo, which is like middle management.

TAPO is in charge of roughly 10 soldiers who do the actual grunt work.

Underneath the soldiers are associates.

An associate can be anybody who just happens to help the mafia.

And this really is the birth of the American mafia as we know it.

A strict hierarchy meant that only the bosses would know all the details of a

Cosa Nostra's criminal operations.

And to show their loyalty?

All members of the family would be required to take a powerful oath of

People, they don't understand what the oath is. They think once you come into

that life where you're taking an oath to lie, steal, cheat, kill.

Now, obviously, as part of that life, you know, those things happen.

But that's not what the oath is.

The oath of omerta means silence.

We're not even supposed to admit that the life exists. We're not supposed to

talk about it.

If you violate policies and rules, you can have serious consequences.

Omerta was critical to the success of the mafia.

In order to stay alive, in order to stay active, in order to stay powerful, you

can't have your members going out and talking to other people about what

doing. And so you have a code of silence.

People were adhering to Omerta because they were afraid that if they violated

the code, they would be killed.

If your mother is sick and dying and you're at her deathbed, And the family

calls you to service, you leave a mother, and you come and serve the

The family comes before anything.

You have to think that way. So, unfortunately, you know, you make a

could be your best friend that pulls the trigger on you.

During my 20 years in that life, unfortunately, I've seen things like

While authorities have known about the existence of La Cosa Nostra since the

1950s, the power of this criminal enterprise has faded with time.

But is the loyalty and commitment to the secret society still strong?

There are still organizations.

There are still five organized families in New York, but they simply don't have

the power or the impact that they had.

The bosses, the leaderships of the families have been convicted time and

again going back to the 1980s.

So the question, is it possible that there will be a resurgence of the mob?

I don't think we'll ever see the Lakota Nostra as effective or as powerful as it

once was, but we don't know.

One can only speculate.

We used to be front -page news. We had a lot of control in this country for

almost 100 years under some very difficult conditions.

We had connections right into the White House, 100%. Is it the same as it used

to be? No way.

But it's not going away in my lifetime. Just take my word for it.

The future of Acosta Nostra is a matter of debate. And as powerful as they once

were, their influence pales in comparison to another secret society,

helped orchestrate the very founding of the United States.

Richmond, Virginia.

In the historic neighborhood of Chaco Bottom, there's a two -story structure

known as Mason's Hall.

Originally dating back to 1785, it's the oldest meeting place in the United

States for a secret society known as the Freemasons.

Freemasonry is the world's largest, oldest, and probably best -known men's

fraternal organization.

It uses the terms and symbolism of the ancient Stonemason guild that built the

cathedrals in Europe during the Middle Ages.

Freemasonry openly advertises itself, but masonry does have secrets.

If you watch carefully, and you're driving into virtually any American

will notice there's usually a sign that has little signs attached to it telling

you what fraternal orders are there.

So the secrecy in Freemasonry is not the existence of the order. The secrecy is

what goes on within the order.

the things that you were never supposed to talk about.

It's estimated that there are about 6 million Freemasons around the world

all committed to an ancient organization whose history and mission are as

mysterious as its secret meetings.

There are mysteries about the origin of Freemasonry, when it really started in

history.

Legendarily, we trace ourselves back to the construction.

of King Solomon's Temple, which was considered this holy of holy places on

earth.

But historically, we believe that we may have grown out of the stonemason fields

during the Middle Ages, because there are a lot of practices that we do that

similar to the kinds of things they did, to identify themselves, for instance,

with secret handshakes and secret passwords.

Freemasonry is a system of morality veiled in allegory.

and illustrated by symbols.

For example, the square encompasses perhaps the most famous Masonic emblems.

You see it everywhere.

But what it symbolizes to us is the square is an angle of 90 degrees. It

deviates. It means you're going to tell the truth.

If Freemasonry is about telling the truth, you have to wonder...

Why do they veil the organization in such intense secrecy?

After all, what goes on behind the closed doors of a Masonic Lodge is only

to its members.

If you look at Masonic Lodges, you can't just walk in and say, I want to join.

You must be invited.

And traditionally, every single person in the lodge must agree upon the

admission. of a new member.

So it is highly selective.

Then you are at every step in your initiation sworn to secrecy.

Since it was formally founded in the 18th century in England, Freemasonry has

attracted a great deal of suspicion, largely because it operates behind

doors, it has weird rituals, and they have all sorts of grades in their

membership. some of which seem to be kept very secret.

It's an intense boys' club, and those boys include elite leaders or

big businessmen, police chiefs and so on. There's always been a rumour that if

you reach the top echelons of Freemasonry, and very few do, there'll

revelation that will dagger and shock you.

A great revelation?

Is it possible that those who ascend to the highest levels of Freemasonry are

privy to powerful secrets?

It's an intriguing thought, especially when you consider the influence that

secret society is said to have had on the founding of the United States.

April 19, 1775

The American Revolution begins with shots fired at the battles of Lexington

Concord.

After a bloody eight -year war, 13 colonies win their independence from the

British Empire.

And some believe that American Freemasons were the guiding hand in this

conflict.

Freemasonry made a significant impact on our founding fathers.

and those who fought in the Revolutionary War.

We had 81 generals in the Continental Army, 33 of which were Freemasons.

41%. Virtually every English king in the 18th century on was a Mason,

with the exception of one, George III, oddly enough.

I found it very interesting that an American revolution largely populated by

American Freemasons rebelled against a king who was, Not a Freemason. Would

have done that had he been a fraternal Masonic brother?

That itself is another mystery.

Might the American War for Independence have been handled differently if King

George III was a member of the Freemasons?

We will never know.

But the influence of the secret society on the founding of America may be

evident in a document published by Benjamin Franklin.

40 years before the Revolution, that shares a striking similarity to the U

Constitution.

One of the great things that Franklin did for us was he published in 1734 a

of the Constitution of the Freemasons.

This book outlined the separation of powers like we have in the American

government. We have a secret ballot.

All members are equal.

Equality of mankind.

These are things that if you remove them from a Masonic context could sound very

American.

But I believe that they influenced our founding fathers and the young nation.

Many of the things the founding fathers insisted on having in the U .S.

Constitution come directly out of the Masonic constitutions.

Betrayal among your peers.

Freedom of religion.

Freedom of speech.

Many of these concepts wind up in the U .S. Constitution.

These kinds of freedoms, we don't even give a second thought to today. But at

the time, these were things that people were getting shot over.

It's incredible to think that the U .S. Constitution, the supreme law of the

United States of America, was largely influenced by a secret society.

And many have wondered.

Do Freemasons wield the same power and influence in America that they once did?

There's a problem asking somebody like me, how influential have the Masons

When any answer that I give you, you're going to say, ah, it's exactly what they

would say.

And so that becomes chasing your own tail in terms of how do you get to the

bottom of it.

People will always be fascinated by the mystery.

The mystery of a closed door is always going to charge the imagination.

Freemasons certainly had a hand in the founding of America.

But might their true purpose be more nefarious than they claim?

Well, whatever the case may be, there is another powerful secret society that is

formed at one of the most prestigious institutions in the world.

whose shadowy reputation has given it the name the Brotherhood of Death.

Washington, D .C., November 2, 2004.

The incumbent president, Republican George W. Bush, narrowly defeats his

political rival, Democratic Senator John Kerry.

While these two opposing statesmen have politics in common, They also share an

intriguing lifelong membership to a highly exclusive secret society at Yale

University called the Order of Skull and Bones.

Amazingly, in 2004, we were guaranteed that year to have a Skull and Bones

member as a president of the United States.

But it's interesting that neither Kerry nor...

G .W. Bush would ever discuss their affiliation with the Skull and Bones

Society at Yale.

And so you start to wonder, what kind of blood oaths did they sign for the rest

of their lives that nothing leaks?

The Order of Skull and Bones, also known as the Brethren of Death, was

originally founded by six Yale students in 1832.

In 1856, they built their headquarters on campus, which is known as the Tomb.

And with all these ominous names, it begs the question, what is this

secret society really all about?

The name of the society, Skull and Bones, that's a mystery where it came

But it certainly reflects the desire to carry on in secret and darkness.

Members are sworn to such secrecy that they're not even supposed to admit to

being members of Skull and Bones.

Members are the elite of the elite within Yale.

Only about 1 ,500 high school students get into Yale every year.

And then out of that 1 ,500, once they reach their junior year of college, only

15 of those get selected.

or tapped, as they say, to be a member of the senior society.

The members of Skull and Bones have become presidents and various

Supreme Court justices, and many of them ended up with the CIA.

What's most fascinating to me about the Skull and Bones organization is how

incredibly effective they have been over time at guarding their secrets.

A century more, they have managed to keep secret what goes on inside the

What goes on inside the tomb?

That's a million -dollar question that no one is willing to answer.

But over the years, rumors have spread of strange rituals that take place

inside the Skull and Bones secretive headquarters.

Certainly part of the ritual.

that are rumored to take place within the mausoleum tomb include skeletal

remains.

And that members of Skull and Bones lie in a coffin and that they bow before the

skulls.

And possibly include kissing of the skull.

Skull and Bones has been rumored to have taken the skulls of many different

people. Among them, There are rumors that they've stolen the bones of

Geronimo was an Apache warrior chief.

He was legendary for his powers in fighting the U .S. Army.

Some say that the skull of Geronimo is used in the initiation rites.

Why would they do this?

Is it some kind of sick trophy?

Possibly. But also throughout history, there's been this idea that's continued

throughout the centuries that a head or a skull somehow still contains the

power of that person, maybe the spiritual power, and that to own the

skull or head will give you that power.

Do bonesmen use human remains in strange, perhaps even occult, rituals?

Or is this all just sensational rumor and speculation?

Well, remarkably, in 2005, journalist Mark Wartman uncovered physical

evidence that suggests there could be truth to this dark practice.

I was in the bowels of the Yale University Library doing research for a

and... Within this stack of letters about the life of Skull and Bones, in

1918, there's one page that talks about the robbing of

Geronimo's grave.

And it says, we have Geronimo the Terrible's skull, femurs,

and horse tack, and we've brought them back to the tomb in New Haven.

I was flabbergasted.

Electricity went through me when I saw that.

There it was in black and white.

When it came out, members of Geronimo's family, ancestors, were

immediately appalled, and they filed lawsuits to recover the bones.

Skull and Bones refused to comment on the matter.

In 2010, the lawsuit against Skull and Bones was dismissed on a technicality.

So we may never know the truth, just like everything else that goes on inside

this exclusive secret society.

Now, it's certainly true that these are many of the most powerful people in

America and indeed the whole world.

But we'll never know what secrets lie within the tomb.

And those bones may or may not be there, but we'll never get to the bottom of

this mystery.

You know, it's interesting to consider that there's a long list of powerful

world leaders who share the very secret experience of being a bonesman.

But there's another influential group that meets in Northern California.

It began as a small social club and has grown...

into a strange gathering of the global elite.

Sonoma County, California.

Seventy -five miles north of San Francisco lies an ancient redwood

And nestled deep within this protective canopy is the home of a mysterious,

privately owned sanctuary known as the Bohemian Grove.

The Bohemian Grove is a remarkable place. It's 2 ,700 acres of old -growth

redwood forest.

Some of them are over 1 ,000 years old, as high as 300 feet tall.

And it's shrouded kind of jungle -like with a compound of over 100 camps.

Some are quite rustic and spartan, and others are quite elaborate. And there

lakes and streams running through it.

It's really quite beautiful.

While the Bohemian Grove might appear to be a welcoming oasis, uninvited guests

are definitely not welcome.

Because this secluded enclave belongs to a secretive group of billionaires that

appropriately call themselves the Bohemian Club.

The Bohemian Club is for rich guys.

That's the easiest way to think of it.

They're usually somewhere between about 2 ,200 and 2 ,500 members.

What do millionaires and billionaires do secluded in their private summer camp

in the woods?

You've got mega billionaires.

You've got political donors.

You've got former presidents who are all members.

So when you start to see this confluence of power and influence at this place,

you start to wonder what's going on.

While whatever is happening within the seclusion of a bohemian grove may be

private, it's not exactly a secret that something intriguing may be taking place

there.

But who are its members?

And why are they so protective of their privacy?

Perhaps a clue might be found by examining the club's origins.

The Bohemian Club was started in San Francisco in the 1800s.

And it was originally started for theatrical people and writers, poets,

men of letters.

But they found out pretty quickly that most of those people don't make a lot of

money. And so in order to keep the doors open, they would also start inviting in

moneyed patrons of the arts who would like to rub shoulders with these writers

and poets and actors.

And then around 1929 or 1930,

President Herbert Hoover becomes a member of the club.

Being a president, he wanted more secrecy.

And eventually the old journalist, artsy crowd pretty much fades away, and

you get millionaires, billionaires, and politicians, as it is today.

Over the decades, prominent names such as newspaper tycoon William Randolph

Hearst, financier David Rockefeller, and diplomat Henry Kissinger have all been

linked to the Bohemian Club, adding to its reputation.

But what could society's elite and influential members be hiding from the

outside world?

Buddy Levy is an investigative journalist who was arrested while

infiltrate Bohemian Grove in 2010.

And according to him,

Its members go to great lengths to keep their secrets.

I had been doing some research into the Bohemian Grove, and I wanted to get a

really close, personal look at the grounds themselves.

Initially, I went up to the front gate and was quickly confronted by security

people who said, this is private property and you can't get in here.

I subsequently decided to trek up the perimeter of the grove itself.

And within a minute, there was a police officer there.

I was being cuffed and stuffed in the back of a squad car.

And there was very little said except you're going to jail.

The Grove members don't really want you to see what's going on.

It's sort of like what goes on in the Grove should stay in the Grove, you

Various leaks over the years have led to speculation.

The members of the Bohemian Club are doing everything from making illegal

backroom deals to selecting U .S. presidential candidates.

But some experts believe that there's something even more nefarious occurring

within the confines of the Bohemian Grove.

And as evidence, they point to footage that was leaked online in 2024.

taken from inside the dense forest location.

Oh, Bohemia, we are back.

On 2024, some enterprising folks snuck in to Bohemian Grove

and caught video of the opening ceremony of that year's

summer encampment, the Cremation of Care ritual.

It's a big show. This is a production.

Everybody's all gotten dressed up in their robes. You've got hundreds of

onlookers and orchestral accompaniment.

Then you've got the boat, which is sort of carrying this wicker effigy, which is

placed at the foot of this 40 -foot pseudo -stone owl, and it's burned.

While recent footage is largely obscured by trees, there have been other leaked

photographs over the years that clearly show this strange ceremony.

And many have wondered, what is the true purpose of what looks like a pagan

ritual?

The cremation of care ceremony is interesting.

They burn an effigy of a child to this seemingly owl god.

You've got this class of elites doing pagan activities and having a

strange or unexplained sort of version of religious belief systems.

The explanation of the club, certainly, is that we're just playing around, and

the ceremony is all part of the fun.

Now, others have argued that, no, there's no such thing as a mock human

sacrifice.

Is this a sinister, malevolent recreation of a

pagan sacrifice?

Or is it just playing at doing that?

The real meaning is only known to the people who are participating in it, but

maybe not even them.

And that's the true secret part of it.

We may never truly know what goes on inside the top secret gatherings at the

Bohemian Grove, but...

Based on its elite membership and high security, it does spark the imagination.

But there's another secret society of a very different kind, one that's said to

protect something extremely controversial and profoundly sacred, the

secret bloodline of Jesus Christ.

The Church of St. Mary Magdalene We're in the Chateau, France.

This quiet church is believed by some to date back to the 8th century.

And according to folklore, it may also be connected to a thousand -year -old

conspiracy surrounding a secret society known as the Priory of Sion.

The idea of the Priory of Sion is that it was a bloodline.

conspiracy to protect the descendants of Jesus and Mary Magdalene because they

claimed that Mary Magdalene and Jesus were in relationship, been married, and

had children.

And their bloodline becomes the founding dynasty of the royal families of

France. And the belief is that Mary Magdalene came to Rennes -le -Chateau

because of that and created communities in this place.

The idea that Jesus and Mary Magdalene were either married or that he was his

concubine was something that was seen as heresy by the Catholic Church and

indeed had to be stamped out.

But knowledge of the existence of this secret bloodline was preserved by the

Priory of Zion, keeping it quiet across the centuries.

Could there be a secret society that protects the possible bloodline of Jesus

Christ? That's certainly a controversial notion, but many are convinced that

it's true.

And as evidence, they point to a local legend about a 19th century priest

stationed in Rennes -le -Château named Father Berenger Saunière.

Father Berenger Saunière.

was the parish priest of Rennes -le -Château. And it's long been believed

Saunière discovered some kind of secret during his renovations of

the church.

It was said that he found documents inside a very ancient pillar and that

these documents contained various ciphers and long lists.

of members of the Priory of Zion and ancient genealogies that came through

and through Mary Magdalene into France via a child that was born to

the couple.

Although to some people it might be a nice romantic story, no -one knows what

Berenguer Saunier discovered in his church.

But the interesting thing is he became extraordinarily wealthy virtually

overnight.

And there is this persistent idea that Baroness Thornare was working with the

Priory of Zion or that they recruited him to help them preserve and protect

sacred bloodline of Jesus.

Was this humble priest's newfound wealth proof of his involvement with the

Priory of Zion?

While the idea persists, no one can say.

What is known, however, is that years later, In 1967, another set of documents

related to the Priory of Sion was allegedly discovered by a Frenchman

Pierre Blantard.

The Priory of Sion comes to our awareness because of a man named Pierre

Blantard. He comes forward and claims to be a leader of this society,

claims to be one of these bloodline descendants who should be on the throne.

And he found documents in the Bibliothèque Nationale in France that

argument.

It's a real sensation until it comes out that all of these documents are

forgeries and that Plantard's claims are a hoax.

The whole thing was made up. None of it's real.

In 1993, Plantard admitted under oath.

that he forged the Priory documents and planted them in the bibliotheque to

support his outrageous claim.

But despite his deception, many believe that there really is a secret society

sworn to protect the descendants of Jesus Christ.

The reason that what Plantard did worked so well is that he couched this idea of

the Priory of Zion in some real information.

And so this has always been the mystery of Renle Chateau and Berenger Saunière.

Was there a Priory of Zion that was really a legitimate secret society?

Although the Priory of Zion could be seen as a fabrication, it's quite clear

that there is a genuine mystery here.

So did the Priory of Zion really exist?

Ultimately, we don't know.

August 12th, 2024.

The global research firm Statista publishes the result of an eye -opening

survey.

Approximately 21 % of adults in the United States believe that a shadowy,

anonymous group runs the entire world. And it highlights one of the most

enduring conspiracy theories of the modern age.

That our reality...

is controlled by a sinister secret society known as the Illuminati.

The Illuminati is a secret society established on May 1st, 1776 by

Adam Weishaupt in Germany.

And one of the main components and structures of the Illuminati was secrecy

anonymity with the idea that you could never shut it down or destroy the

organization because it didn't technically exist.

The Illuminati wanted to create this new world order, which is this idea of

creating this special governing order of super smart elites that kings

had no divine right to rule, that popes were picked by men, not by God.

And so this new world order that the Illuminati wanted to create was a

democratic society, sort of.

as long as they could be in charge.

As far as we know, the Illuminati disbanded in 1787 after one of its

exposed the society's existence.

So why do so many people believe that the secret organization not only still

exists, but also rules the world?

Many believe the answer is in plain sight on the U .S.

dollar bill.

The great seal on the back of the dollar bill.

has lots of images packed into a pretty small space.

They picked a pyramid because the pyramid is the most enduring building

in human history.

It's stood there thousands of years and probably will continue to stand for

thousands of years.

The all -seeing eye of Providence, people think that that's some sort of an

representation of an all -seeing eye looking over its citizens.

The Latin phrase says, New Order of the Ages.

Novus Ordo Seclorum was added to the Great Seal to mark that America was

to be the New World Order.

The Illuminati is a pervasive theory today because many believe the

is a variety of CEOs, politicians, and elites that are making plans to steer

wills of the masses towards their will.

Whether or not the Bavarian Illuminati was actually disbanded doesn't

necessarily matter. A lot of their ideas are still present to this day.

Is the Illuminati still pulling strings behind the scenes today?

Millions of people certainly believe they are.

But like every secret society, it's possible the whole truth will

never be revealed.

Secret societies are fascinating and they have been for a really long time

think they're going to be forever.

They trade in symbology and they have secret communicative signs.

There's a fascination with what we can't know, but even more so with what we

aren't allowed to know.

It just makes us want to pry deeper and deeper and try to uncover what is the

truth.

We have this idea of a secret society of elites making plans for the masses.

What they do is hidden in secrecy. We don't know if the truth is being

suppressed. I think ultimately it's a good thing to start questioning the

of reality.

The idea of a secret society with the power to control the world anonymously

both compelling and deeply concerning.

There have been many conspiracy theories about the reach these clandestine

groups may have and the dark rituals they are set to practice.

But while some stories feel a bit far -fetched, there does seem to be actual

secret organizations with known members who really do wield

incredible power and influence.

Perhaps. Time will tell the true intent of these secret societies, but for now,

they remain unexplained.