Secret Societies: Inside the World's Most Notorious Organizations (33 page)

6. If it is necessary for anyone to leave the circle before the ritual is complete, they must cut a “door” in the “walls” with their hand, holding the fingers straight and describing a rectangular space that they step through, “closing” the door behind them. When returning, they “open” the “door,” close it gently, and “smooth” the outline with their hand.

7. Within the Circle, Wiccans may note a marked increase in temperature; opening a “door” creates a rush of cold air, the mark of negativism.

The Circle provides a safe, comforting and effective location for Wiccans to initiate change by focusing their natural powers—change in themselves, in their loved ones and in the world at large. The change, however, must be positive; Wicca prohibits the use of magickal power to harm others.

Derived from the naturalistic roots of Shamanism, Wicca bases much of its beliefs and customs on cycles of life, the moon, and especially the seasons, marking them with eight holiday “sabbats” during the “wheel of the year.” Primary sabbats fall on or near traditional equinoxes of the sun; other sabbats occur on “cross-quarter” days, which occur on or near the first day of February, May, August and November. The sabbats include these:

Imbolg
(im-molg), also known as Candlemas, celebrated on February 2 to mark the first stirrings of spring and the return of light to the world.

Ostara
(oh-star-ah), the day of the vernal equinox March 21 or 22, when light and dark are in perfect balance, with light mastering dark.

Beltane
(bell-tane), the first day of May, the Celts’ beginning of summer (Beltane is a derivation of the Gaelic “Bel-fire”). On Beltane, fires were lit to commemorate the return of life and fertility, a day adopted by other cultures for similar celebrations. The fertility connection is associated with couples falling in love on this date.

Litha
(lee-tha), the summer solstice; it acknowledges the sun's gift of light, warmth and life.

Lammas
, or
Lughnasadh
(loon-na-sah), August 1, a prompt for everyone to begin harvesting and make preparations for winter. Lughnasadh is named for the Celtic warrior Lugh, who spared the life of his enemy in return for learning the secrets of agricultural prosperity. This day marks the first of three sabbats dedicated to harvesting.

Mabon
(may-ben), the autumnal equinox on September 21 or 22, a joyous day marked again by equal lengths of day and night, with dark now mastering light. This marks the time of the second harvest.

Samhain
(sow-in), October 31, a day of much importance because, among other things, it signifies the beginning of the Wiccan year. The word, derived from the Gaelics
amhuinn
, means “summer's end.” With the rise of Christianity, Samhain was changed to Hallowmas, or All Saints’ Day, to commemorate the souls of the blessed dead canonized that year, and the night before Hallowmas became Halloween, All Hallows Eve, or Hollantide. On Samhain, the major sabbat in Wicca, the veil between the material world and the spiritual world is considered at its thinnest, a time when the spirits of departed loved ones may congregate around Samhain fires to grow warm and express their love for surviving kin.

Yule
(yool), the winter solstice, December 21 or 22, marking the longest night of the year and reminding us that the gods must be reborn in order to bring light and warmth back to our earth.

Most benefits of Wicca appear to dwell in the minds of its practitioners, who could rightly claim that this does not invalidate its power. But, as we saw with Rosicrucianism, modern Kabbalah, and the Priory of Sion, the movement's actual history and many of its “ancient” myths are linked to characters of questionable veracity. In this case, at least one of the characters manages to taint the modern Wicca movement with deep skepticism.

Remember the horrific trials of witches during the burning years, especially those conducted at the height of the Inquisition's most appalling activities? The Catholic Church is noted for its methodical recording of events, including Inquisition torture sessions conducted on suspected witches. Detailed accounts of every statement and even every cry of agony were assiduously written and reviewed. In fear and anguish, accused witches would admit or volunteer a host of activities while being tortured. Their confessions frequently included having sexual intercourse with Satan, casting spells upon innocent people, influencing the weather to bring storms and drought upon the land, changing themselves into cats and other animals, and any other iniquity that sprang to the minds of the inquisitors and were demanded of the accused.

Yet nowhere among thousands of accounts do the “witches” identify their Great Goddess or Horned God. No depiction of magic circles exists in any of the transcripts, nor is any information proffered of sabbats and their celebration. Is it possible that, among the thousands of accused witches submitted to questioning under torture, none was either familiar enough with these rituals to describe them, or weak enough to reveal them? Is it likely that no practicing witches were ever submitted to the Inquisition, and thus the torturers had no opportunity to question the only real sources of all the wickedness they were seeking to eradicate?

Or is it plausible that these specific “ancient” rights and tenets are not ancient at all, but modern inventions that sprang from the minds of people who sought glory, wealth and perhaps carnal reward from claiming access to supposedly ancient occult knowledge? If so, at least two individuals, both men of questionable honor, are prime suspects.

One is the familiar Aleister Crowley, who employed the occult as a means of breaking virtually every moral law and precept encountered during his decadent lifetime. Near the end of his life, when he was near-penniless and living in Hastings, Crowley was visited by Gerald Brosseau Gardner. Intrigued by
Crowley's claim of access to occult secrets, Gardner was immediately initiated into Crowley's Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn and the Masonic Ordo Templi Orientis (oto). As an honored member of these organizations, he met with Crowley several times before Crowley's death in December 1947. Soon after, Gardner declared that he had been appointed Grand Master of the oto, destined to fill Crowley's position as the unquestioned leader of occult movements through the English-speaking world.

Gerald Brosseau Gardner. The godfather of modern Wicca or just another dirty old man?

In many ways, Gardner appeared well qualified for the position. Born into an upper-class British family in 1884, he spent much of his youth touring the Mediterranean and Middle East regions, and as a young man lived in Ceylon (now Sri Lanka), Borneo, Singapore and Malaya, acquiring an interest in occult practices encountered along the way. He joined various organizations, including an order of the Rosicrucians, and an English group calling itself The Rite of Egyptian Mysteries.

By the 1930s, Gardner was married and living in England, cultivating an interest in nudism that he nurtured the rest of his life. He also began to write, publishing a couple of so-so novels and, in 1954,
Witchcraft Today
, his
magnum opus
and the first modern book on the subject of Wicca. The book's timing is interesting, coming barely three years after Britain repealed laws banning the practice of witchcraft, and its content is revealing. Building on the writings of Margaret Murray, an earlier occultist whose 1933 book
The God of the Witches
identified witchcraft as a pagan religion predating Christianity, Gardner's book introduced the concept of the Great Goddess and the Horned God. It was also the first book to introduce the term Wicca (spelled by Gardner as “Wica”) to describe the movement.

The book proved a great success and elevated Gardner, who cultivated a pseudo-Satanic appearance with pointed goatee and
upswept hair, to celebrity status. He followed
The God of Witches
with
The Meaning of Witchcraft
in 1959, and soon began claiming that a “Cone of Power” created by resident witches in Britain had saved the country from a Nazi invasion during World War ii. When pressed for details, he was more than vague. “That was done which may not be done except in great emergency,” he explained. “Mighty forces were used of which I may not speak. Now, to do this means using one's life-force.”

Or perhaps not. Gardner himself noted that “witches are consummate leg-pullers; they are taught it as part of their stock-in-trade.” He was either pulling legs or creating a fraud when he claimed to hold a Ph.D. from the University of Singapore, acquiring it in 1934 which, an investigation into his past discovered, was several years prior to the university's existence. His claimed doctorate in literature from the University of Toulouse set heads scratching; no one at Toulouse had any knowledge or record of his attendance.

Other red flags appeared. Along with an interest in the occult, Gardner maintained a similarly powerful interest and pursuit of something his followers excused as “fleshly fulfillment,” a means perhaps of attaining spiritual development through physical excesses. One of Gardner's guidelines to female adherents of Wicca included performing rituals sky-clad, especially within his sight and, perhaps, more for his carnal enjoyment than for the witches’ spiritual communication. He also advocated The Great Rite, which involved Gardener having sexual intercourse on a metal-clad table with the Great Priestess selected from among female members of the coven. When no volunteers were available, Gardner employed the practical solution of hiring a prostitute to play the role.

Gardner died in 1964. Within a few years his movement, which may have been conceived by its founder more as a libertine sex cult than a means of spiritual fulfillment, arrived in North America, where it rode to great heights on rising tides of psychedelia and hippiedom. Later enthusiasts, in the cooler light of a 1970s dawn, transformed Wicca into a staid neo-
Puritanism, expressing its gentle near-narcissistic character in visions of angelic nymphs dancing in diaphanous gowns beneath the moon and along the shores of star-dappled waters.

Wicca remains a secretive tradition by adherents who fear being ridiculed and ostracized by conformist society, making it impossible to accurately judge the number of followers who create magickal circles and join covens. Their actions may satisfy spiritual longing and bring inner peace to many people unable to tap these resources elsewhere. But their claim that Wicca represents a fount of ancient wisdom and mysteries remains doubtful.

ELEVEN

SKULL & BONES

AMERICA'S SECRET ESTABLISHMENT

MOST SECRET SOCIETIES ARE EITHER FRATERNAL ASSOCIATIONS
with convoluted rituals or criminal groups whose activities could be curtailed by willful law enforcement.

One, however, exerts day-to-day influence over the lives of virtually everyone on the planet, and it achieves this end not with a tightly structured organization but via an association of privileged young men attending a prestigious university. Its existence is verifiable, its history is linked to Masonic traditions and Illuminati objectives, its practices remain shadowy, and its activities are replete with suspicious behavior. It is Skull & Bones, a hatchery of American leadership whose members have not only achieved power and prominence on a scale far in excess of their numbers, but retain their close bond throughout their careers, creating at least the semblance of a cabal and perhaps something much more than that.

Officially, Skull & Bones resides in a windowless mausoleum-like building on the campus of Yale University. Known as The Tomb, the brownstone structure was built in 1856 and remains the site of the group's meetings each Thursday and Sunday evening. Only fifteen new members annually are selected from the junior class for membership in Skull & Bones, serving during their senior year. This important distinction means the organization's focus is on its members’ future activities in the outside world, not on their temporary campus life. Let everyday fraternities engage in juvenile bouts of binge drinking and
pranks; Skull & Bones members fix their attention on bigger things, including the exercise of global influence.