The Secret Life and Death of Abraham Lincoln

The following is an excerpt from the book: (now out of print but was sold on Amazon for $900)
 

Operation Midnight Climax: Something Else You Didn't Think the CIA would do..

Here's a government experiment that, when you Google it, has completely different image results than web results.

Operation Midnight Climax involved safe houses in New York and San Francisco, built for the sole purpose to study LSD effects on non-consenting individuals.

But in order to lure the individuals there, the CIA made these safe houses out to be, wait for it, Brothels. Prostitutes on the CIA payroll (yes, there was such a thing) lured "clients" back the houses.

Instead of having sex with them, though, they dosed them with a number of substances, most famously LSD. This also involved extensive use of marijuana.

The experiments were monitored behind a two-way mirror, kind of like a sick, twisted peep show.

Furthermore, it's alleged that the officials who ran the experiments described them as...

"it was fun, fun, fun. Where else could a red-blooded American boy lie, kill, cheat, steal, rape and pillage with the sanction and bidding of the All-highest?"

The most horrifying part was the idea of dosing non-consenting adults with drugs they couldn't possibly know the effects of.

It's been over 50 years, but Wayne Ritchie says he can still remember how it felt to be dosed with acid.

He was drinking bourbon and soda with other federal officers at a holiday party in 1957 at the U.S. Post Office Building on Seventh and Mission streets. They were cracking jokes and swapping stories when, suddenly, the room began to spin. The red and green lights on the Christmas tree in the corner spiraled wildly. Ritchie's body temperature rose. His gaze fixed on the dizzying colors around him.

The deputy U.S. marshal excused himself and went upstairs to his office, where he sat down and drank a glass of water. He needed to compose himself. But instead he came unglued. Ritchie feared the other marshals didn't want him around anymore. Then he obsessed about the probation officers across the hall and how they didn't like him, either. Everyone was out to get him. Ritchie felt he had to escape.

He fled to his apartment and sought comfort from his live-in girlfriend. It didn't go as planned. His girlfriend was there, but an argument erupted. She told him she was growing tired of San Francisco and wanted to return to New York City. Ritchie couldn't handle the situation. Frantic, he ran away again, this time to the Vagabond Bar where he threw back more bourbon and sodas. From there, he hit a few more bars, further cranking up his buzz. As he drank his way back to Seventh and Mission, Ritchie concocted a plan that would change his life.

Now in his mid-eighties and living in San Jose, Ritchie may be among the last of the living victims of MK-ULTRA, a Central Intelligence Agency operation that covertly tested lysergic acid diethylamide (LSD) on unwitting Americans in San Francisco and New York City from 1953 to 1964.

"I remember that night very clearly, yes I do," he said in a recent interview. "I was paranoid. I got down to where I thought everyone was against me. The whole world was against me."

After the day had bled into night on Dec. 20, 1957, Ritchie returned to his office in the Post Office Building and retrieved two service revolvers from his locker. He was going rogue.

"I decided if they want to get rid of me, I'll help them. I'll just go out and get my guns from my office and hold up a bar," Ritchie recalls. "I thought, 'I can get enough money to get my girlfriend an airline ticket back to New York, and I'll turn myself in.' But I was unsuccessful."

Out of his skull on a hallucinogen and alcohol, Ritchie rolled into the Shady Grove in the Fillmore District, and ordered one final bourbon and soda. After swallowing down the final drops, he pointed his revolver at the bartender and demanded money. Before joining the marshals, Ritchie served five years in the Marines and spent a year as an Alcatraz prison guard. But the cop had suddenly become the robber.

It was over in a flash. A waitress came up behind him and asked Ritchie what he was doing. When Ritchie turned around, a patron hit him over the head and knocked him unconscious. He awoke to a pair of police officers standing over him.

Ritchie says he had expected to get caught or killed.

The judge went easy on him and Ritchie avoided prison. He resigned from the Marshals Service, pleaded guilty to attempted armed robbery, paid a $500 fine, and was sentenced to five years' probation.

Ritchie's story is certainly peculiar, but not unique. Other San Franciscans were unsuspecting participants in a strange research program in which the government effectively broke the law in an effort to fight the Cold War.

Seymour Hersh first exposed MK-ULTRA in a New York Times article in 1974 that documented CIA illegalities, including the use of its own citizens as guinea pigs in games of war and espionage. John Marks expertly chronicled more of the operation in his 1979 book, The Search for the Manchurian Candidate. There have been other reports on the CIA's doping of civilians, but they have mostly dished about activities in New York City. Accounts of what actually occurred in San Francisco have been sparse and sporadic. But newly declassified CIA records, recent interviews, and a personal diary of an operative at Stanford Special Collections shed more light on the breadth of the San Francisco operation.

There were at least three CIA safe houses in the Bay Area where experiments went on. Chief among them was 225 Chestnut on Telegraph Hill, which operated from 1955 to 1965. The L-shaped apartment boasted sweeping waterfront views, and was just a short trip up the hill from North Beach's rowdy saloons. Inside, prostitutes paid by the government to lure clients to the apartment served up acid-laced cocktails to unsuspecting johns, while martini-swilling secret agents observed their every move from behind a two-way mirror. Recording devices were installed, some disguised as electrical outlets.

To get the guys in the mood, the walls were adorned with photographs of tortured women in bondage and provocative posters from French artist Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec. The agents grew fascinated with the kinky sex games that played out between the johns and the hookers. The two-way mirror in the bedroom gave the agents a close-up view of all the action.

The main man behind the mirror was burly, balding crime-buster George H. White, a Bureau of Narcotics maverick who made headlines breaking up opium and heroin rings in Europe, the Middle East, Latin America, and the U.S. Few knew he doubled as a CIA spook for Uncle Sam. He oversaw the San Francisco program, gleefully dubbing it Operation Midnight Climax.

"[White] was a real hard head," said Ritchie, who regularly ran into him in courtrooms and law enforcement offices in downtown San Francisco. "All of his agents were pretty much afraid to do anything without his full approval. White would turn on them, physically. He was a big tough guy."

American chemist Sidney Gottlieb was the brains behind White's brawn. It was the height of McCarthyism in the early '50s, and government intelligence leaders, claiming fear of communist regimes, were using hallucinogens to induce confessions from prisoners of war held in Korea, and brainwash spies into changing allegiances. What better way to examine the effects of LSD than to dose unsuspecting citizens in New York City and San Francisco?

The mind-bending laboratory on Telegraph Hill was called "the pad" in White's leather-bound journals. White's widow donated 10 boxes of his personal effects to Foothill College in Los Altos Hills after he died of cirrhosis of the liver in 1975. Now warehoused at Stanford, the journals, letters, and photographs provide a window into the mischievous life of a secret agent during the Cold War.

Before White joined the narcotics bureau, he worked in the Office of Strategic Services (OSS), a World War II-era intelligence agency that preceded the CIA. In a quest for truth serums, White and other OSS agents slipped concentrated tetrahydrocannabinol acetate (THCA) into the food and cigarettes of suspected communists, conscientious objectors, and mobsters in the 1940s. The experience wasn't a prerequisite for working in MK-ULTRA, but it helped.

Dr. James Hamilton, a Stanford Medical School psychiatrist, knew White from their OSS days. He was among the small group of researchers who had clearance to the pad. Gottlieb visited, too, but Operation Midnight Climax had no regular medical supervision.

And that became problematic. The first CIA brothel that White and Gottlieb ran in New York City had already gone awry. U.S. biological warfare specialist Frank Olson either jumped or was pushed from a 10th-floor hotel window in 1953, nine days after the CIA gave him LSD. When a CIA chemist, who was sharing the hotel room with Olson, met with police, they found White's initials and the address of a Greenwich Village safe house on a piece of paper in his pocket. The New York City operation was temporarily suspended when police investigated Olson's death, and restarted later.

White, a native Californian and former San Francisco newspaper reporter, yearned to return home. In 1955, Gottlieb let him.

Aside from Gottlieb's scattershot visits, White, now a "CIA consultant," had free rein over the S.F. safe houses. Ritchie says that White's right-hand man, Ike Feldman, ran around dressed like "a hot-shot drug dealer." Ritchie adds: "He tried to act like Al Capone." The pad quickly became something akin to a frat house for spies. "Eight-martini lunches" were enjoyed regularly, White noted in his journal. And on some occasions he watched the dubious research unfold while sitting on a portable toilet a friend donated to him. It was his "observational post."

What went on in the pad, apparently stayed in the pad.

Dr. John Erskine has lived next door to the location since 1954. "I had a feeling that things went on there that were none of my business. It wasn't overt. People weren't screaming out the windows," says Erskine, standing outside the acid house.

The property is undergoing renovation. Just a few months ago, a construction crew pulled microphones, wires, and recording instruments out of the walls.

Ruth Kelley was a singer at a San Francisco club called The Black Sheep. Her unexpected trip into another dimension happened to her onstage.

Young, attractive Kelley caught White's eye, though she rejected his advances. White or one of his men eventually dosed her with LSD just before she went onstage, according to a deposition of Frank Laubinger, a CIA official who led a program in the 1980s that made contact with victims of MK-ULTRA. "The LSD definitely took some effect during her act." Kelley reportedly went to the hospital, but was fine ... once the effects of the drug, that she didn't know she was on, wore off.

How test subjects were chosen by the agents varied. In the case of the Telegraph Hill safe house, working girls would pick up johns in North Beach bars and restaurants, then bring them back for experimentation and observation. Other times, White and his wife would host dinner parties where guests might get dosed with a hallucinogenic cocktail without their knowledge. And seemingly random San Franciscans like Kelley were victimized for no other reason than their paths crossed with White and his men at the wrong time. White wrote in his diary how he slipped acid to unsuspecting civilians at local beaches, and in city bars and restaurants.

There were two other Bay Area safe houses where the CIA researched LSD and other chemicals: Room 49 of the Plantation Inn at Lombard and Webster streets, and 261 Green St. in Mill Valley.

People from all walks of life were potential targets. From an internal CIA memo: "The effectiveness of the substances on individuals at all social levels, high and low, native Americans and foreign is of great significance, and testing has been performed on a variety of individuals within these categories," wrote CIA Inspector General Lyman Kirkpatrick in 1963.

But, as a 1976 Senate Select Committee on Intelligence Activities noted, there was no medical pre-screening. "Paradoxically, greater care seemed to have been taken for the safety of foreign nations against whom LSD was used abroad. In several cases [overseas] medical examinations were performed prior to the use of LSD," the committee reported. "The [domestic] program ... demonstrates a failure of the CIA's leadership to pay adequate attention to the rights of individuals and to provide effective guidance to CIA employees. Though it was known that the testing was dangerous, the lives of subjects were placed in jeopardy and their rights were ignored during the 10 years of testing that followed Dr. Olson's death." Although it was clear that the laws of the United States were being violated, the testing continued.

CIA operatives also admitted to experimenting with LSD themselves. In a 1970 letter to UC Berkeley psychiatry professor Harvey Powelson, White wrote how he "served as a guinea pig from time to time. My personal observation was that the effect of all of these drugs was essentially the same, except for the degree or extent of the effect. THCA was more potent than marihuana [sic] and LSD more potent than THCA. So far as I was concerned, 'clear thinking' was non-existent while under the influence of any of these drugs. I did feel at times I was having a 'mind-expanding' experience but this vanished like a dream immediately after the session."

By all accounts, White enjoyed the undercover work he was doing. Perhaps a little too much. He would write in a 1971 letter to Gottlieb, "Of course I was a very minor missionary, actually a heretic, but I toiled wholeheartedly in the vineyards because it was fun, fun, fun. Where else could a red-blooded American boy lie, kill and cheat, steal, deceive, rape and pillage with the sanction and blessing of the All-Highest? Pretty Good Stuff, Brudder!"

Few inside the CIA even knew about MK-ULTRA and its sub-projects. The domestic experiments escaped scrutiny for a decade, until President John F. Kennedy, smarting from the botched Bay of Pigs invasion, forced CIA director Allen Dulles, who first signed off on MK-ULTRA, to resign. The agency's activities in San Francisco were so secret that not even the CIA's new director, John McCone, was informed of them when he took over in 1963. But incoming CIA Inspector General John Earman didn't sugarcoat what he learned. "The concepts involved in manipulating human behavior are found by many people both within and outside the Agency to be distasteful and unethical," he wrote, questioning whether the clandestine activities were even legal. "Public disclosure of some aspects of MKULTRA activity could induce serious adverse reaction in U.S. public opinion, as well as stimulate offensive and defensive action in this field on the part of foreign intelligence services."

Earman noted numerous civilians grew ill from the effects of the psychoactive drugs they were secretly slipped, and it would be embarrassing if doctors were to discover what the government had been doing. He recommended closing the safe houses. Yet high-ranking intelligence officers called for the continuance of Midnight Climax. "While I share your uneasiness and distaste for any program which tends to intrude upon an individual's private and legal prerogatives, I believe it is necessary that the Agency maintain a central role in this activity," wrote Richard Helms, then the CIA's deputy director of plans.

Testing of unwitting individuals was suspended in 1964, at least officially. Still, the CIA safe houses in San Francisco and New York City continued to operate for a year and a half longer. Scrutiny of the program intensified at CIA headquarters in Virginia, and subsequently the Bay Area safe houses shut down in 1965. New York City's operation stopped in 1966. Intelligence officers conceded that the drug-testing exposed the agency to a serious "moral problem."

The fun was over. White retired from law enforcement in 1965 and became the fire marshal at Stinson Beach. He wrote a swashbuckling autobiography titled A Diet of Danger that crowed about his Bureau of Narcotics adventures. It conspicuously left out Operation Midnight Climax. Publishers rejected the book in 1971.

Lawmakers were incredulous when they learned of the CIA's secret plots. But specifics at the time were scant.

Helms, one of MK-ULTRA's original architects, succeeded McCone as CIA director in 1966. Before Helms and Gottlieb resigned in the early 1970s, they ordered all of the project's paperwork destroyed. A massive paper purge occurred in 1973, just as Washington found itself in the throes of the Watergate scandal. In an attempt to clean house, that same year new CIA Director James Schlesinger ordered agency employees to inform him of illegal government activities. That's when he learned of Olson's fatal plunge in New York City, and the acid tests.

It didn't take long before details leaked to Hersh. The investigative journalist's groundbreaking article in the New York Times exposed the CIA's vast illegal domestic surveillance programs. The government had been screening U.S. mail, wiretapping journalists' phones, and plotting assassinations. And, oh yeah, it had also been dosing hundreds of civilians with LSD, as well as significant military populations, in the name of defense. Americans demanded answers.

Donald Rumsfeld, then chief of staff for President Gerald Ford, and Rumsfeld's deputy, Dick Cheney, wanted Hersh prosecuted for revealing government secrets. But Ford didn't heed their advice. He appointed a committee chaired by Vice President Nelson Rockefeller to investigate the intelligence improprieties. U.S. Sen. Frank Church also headed a congressional investigation of CIA malfeasance in 1974, and Sen. Edward Kennedy held hearings on MK-ULTRA in the Subcommittee on Health and Scientific Research.

While most of the CIA's records detailing the top-secret programs were destroyed, bureaucratic bumbling spared a cache of 20,000 documents from the shredder. In 1977, Marks, author of The Search for the Manchurian Candidate, filed a Freedom of Information Act request, which provided him with many redacted versions of the surviving MK-ULTRA records.

Then, in exchange for immunity from prosecution, Gottlieb answered questions before the Senate. To gain "firsthand knowledge," he said, agents "extensively" experimented with LSD on themselves before giving it to the public.

Kennedy tried to put it in perspective. "There is a light side to it, but there is also an enormously serious side," he said. "There are perhaps any number of Americans who are walking around today on the East Coast or West Coast who were given drugs, with all the kinds of physical and psychological damage that can be caused."

CIA Director Adm. Stansfield Turner testified that 44 colleges and universities, 15 research foundations and pharmaceutical companies, 12 hospitals and clinics, and three penal institutions across the country were used for MK-ULTRA research that included LSD, painkillers, and other drugs.

Using a front organization, Gottlieb distributed millions of dollars in drug research grants to Stanford, UC Berkeley, and other institutions, which only later learned the money's source. Stanford acknowledged its faculty received close to $40,000 over eight years from the CIA's secret program. It had hosted several studies on the effects of drugs on interrogations, and also spent money developing miniature lie detectors and other spy equipment.

Lawmakers denounced the CIA's covert domestic activities, but ultimately no disciplinary action was taken. Gottlieb and the others behind the acid experiments were not prosecuted or punished.

But the innocent victims of these programs had to be notified, the Senate subcommittee concluded. Tracking down victims proved difficult, since so little of that data survived the CIA's paper-shredding.

A victim's taskforce was established, but despite estimates of hundreds, maybe thousands of people exposed to the CIA's mind-control program, records show only 14 of them were notified.

Dr. Olson's family sued the government, claiming the scientist's death was not actually connected to the LSD he took. They claimed a government operative pushed him out of the window so he wouldn't divulge information about a classified CIA interrogation program concerning the use of biological weapons in the Korean War. Olson's family ultimately accepted an out-of-court settlement from the U.S. government for $750,000. There have been other lawsuits, including a class-action from alleged victims of the CIA's programs in Canada, and other reparations have been paid.

The Vietnam Veterans of America filed suit in San Francisco federal court in 2009, claiming at least 7,800 soldiers were, without their knowledge, given as many as 400 types of drugs and chemicals, including sarin, amphetamines, barbiturates, mustard gas, and LSD by the Army and CIA. Just last month, the group filed a petition in San Francisco seeking class-action status. The suit does not ask for money but instead seeks to overturn a 1950 Supreme Court decision that effectively insulates the government from liability under the Federal Torts Claims Act. The vets also want to discover the substances and doses they received, and get care for any resulting health conditions.

In spring 1999, Ritchie opened a copy of the San Jose Mercury News and read Gottlieb's obituary. Then it hit him.

"I didn't know that name at all. I'd never heard of him," Ritchie said. "But what caught my eye were LSD and George White. George White was a supervising narcotics officer in 1957 in San Francisco and I knew him. When I read the article, it said he was working with the CIA testing mind-control drugs with the help of drug-addicted prostitutes. I put it together. He was drugging people without their knowledge. I thought, 'My God, how could he have done that to me?'"

Ritchie began his own research into the CIA's drugging activity, and grew convinced the CIA dosed him. Ritchie brought a lawsuit against the United States and its agents, claiming his attempted armed robbery at the bar was set in motion when agents slipped LSD into his drink at the Christmas party.

White's journal puts him in the same place as Ritchie the day the dosing and robbery occurred. An entry in White's leather-bound book for Dec. 20, 1957, reads: "Xmas party Fed bldg Press Room."

Ritchie's complaint leaned heavily on the deposition of Feldman, the former agent under White. Feldman's testimony was at times incriminating, contradictory, and combative. "I didn't do any follow-up, period, because it wasn't a very good thing to go and say 'How do you feel today?' You don't give them a tip. You just back away and let them worry, like this nitwit, Ritchie," Feldman said in a deposition.

A district court ruled in 2005 that Ritchie failed to prove that an LSD-induced psychotic disorder triggered his failed robbery attempt. The judge called it "a troubling case and that if indeed true [Ritchie] has paid a terrible price in the name of national security." Noting that federal agents in San Francisco were doing "things that were reprehensible," the judge concluded "it was not clear by a preponderance of the evidence that Mr. Ritchie was administered LSD. It may be what happened. But we don't operate on hunches." To this day, Ritchie says he is "absolutely shocked" he lost the case.

Now house-bound and suffering from emphysema and other ailments — all of which he attributes to old age — Ritchie isn't bitter about his long, strange trip. He simply chalks it up to the government doing the best it could during difficult times.

"They thought they were helping the country," Ritchie said.

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25 Biggest Secret Societies To Ever Exist

Secret societies are typically groups whose rituals and activities are hidden away from non-members. Since the time of the crusades, hundreds of secret societies have been formed from different parts of the world to serve diverse political, social and religious purposes. Here is a list of the 25 biggest secret societies to ever exist as well as a glimpse at the conspiracy theories associated with them. While some of them are believed to be fictitious or have already been dissolved, traces of their existence or their legend remain apparent even until today.

25

Ancient Order of Hibernians

The Ancient Order of Hibernians was organized in 1890 and is a fraternal circle of Irish Roman Catholics who uphold the values of friendship, charity and oneness among its members. This organization has historically been primarily devoted to protecting Catholic churches from anti-Catholic forces, and assisting Irish Catholic immigrants to get into America, especially those who faced discrimination or harsh coal mining working conditions.

24

National Grange

Oliver Hudson Kelley organized the National Grange in 1867 following the order given to him by President Andrew Johnson to visit the southern United States and identify the war-ravaged areas that needed rehabilitation. In response to the order, he proposed the formation of a secret society that would promote the advancement of rural life. Today, this secret society uses the Masonic Fraternity as its model but accommodates both men and women.

23

The United Ancient Order of Druids

The Ancient Order of Druids (AOD) is a fraternal organisation founded in London, England in 1781 that still operates to this day. It is the earliest known English group to be founded based upon the iconography of the ancient druids, who were priest-like figures in Iron Age Celtic paganism.

22

United Order of the Golden Cross

In 1876, Dr. J.H. Morgan organized the United Order of the Golden Cross to provide a means through which members can have a safe and economical method of getting life insurance policies. Though it originated in England, the strength of this secret society lies in its New York chapter. Its members today are men and women from Indiana, Columbia, Tennessee and Kentucky who pledged to abstain from taking alcoholic drinks. The Golden Cross is among the very few secret societies that treat men and women equally.

21

The Mystic Order of Veiled Prophets of the Enchanted Realm

A Freemason organization more commonly known as M.O.V.P.E.R. or The Grotto, was originally created to “add in greater measure to the Masonic fraternal spirit the charm of radiant cheerfulness and to maintain within the fraternity an impetus of royal good fellowship”. One of their most notable accomplishments is their resolution to establish a 501(c)3 national charitable program, named the Humanitarian Foundation whose first project was “Aid for the Cerebral Palsy Child”. Since its inception over $1,000,000 has been contributed to Research for Cerebral Palsy.

20

Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn

Also known as the Golden Dawn this was a “magical order” active in Great Britain during the late 19th and early 20th centuries, which practiced theurgy and spiritual development. It has been one of the largest single influences on 20th-century Western occultism.

19

Foresters Society

Foresters Friendly Society is a British friendly society which was formed in 1834 as the Ancient Order of Foresters. Although not as secret or mysterious as some of the others on this list its nearly 70,000 strong membership deserves some mention. As far as purpose is concerned, as with most friendly societies it primarily seeks to provide insurance policies to its members.

18

Illuminati

“Illuminati” typically refers to various organizations claiming or purported to have unsubstantiated links to the original (and very real) Bavarian Illuminati or similar secret societies, and often alleged to conspire to control world affairs by masterminding events and planting agents in government and corporations to establish a New World Order and gain further political power and influence. Central to some of the most widely known and elaborate conspiracy theories, the Illuminati have been depicted as lurking in the shadows and pulling the strings and levers of power in dozens of novels, movies, television shows, comics, video games, and music videos.

17

Knights of Columbus

The Knights of Columbus is the largest network of Catholic men and their families throughout the world. Founded in 1882, most of the rituals of this organization are modeled after those of the Masonic Lodge. Today it has over 11,000 councils all over the globe and boasts of the insurance policies that it provides for its members.

16

Knights of Pythias

The Knights of Pythias was the first fraternal organization to receive a charter under an act of the United States Congress. It was founded by Justus H. Rathbone, who had been inspired by a play by the Irish poet John Banim about the legend of Damon and Pythias. A member must be at least 18 years of age. He cannot be a professional gambler, or involved with illegal drugs or alcohol and he must have a belief in a Supreme Being.

15

Ku Klux Klan

The Ku Klux Klan (KKK), informally known as the Klan, is the name of three distinct past and present far-right organizations in the United States, which have advocated extremist reactionary currents such as white supremacy, white nationalism, and anti-immigration, historically expressed through terrorism. It is classified as a hate group by the Anti-Defamation League and the Southern Poverty Law Center.

14

Bilderberg Group

Also known as the Bilderberg Club, the Biderberg Group is a secret society composed of some of the most influential men in the world, including prime ministers, presidents and international bankers. It is believed that the major purpose of this private club is “to create an aristocracy of purpose” between the United States and Europe. This organization is so private that only its steering committee decides who should be enlisted as its members.

13

The Loyal Order of Moose

Founded in 1888 by the Scottish Dr. Wilson, the Loyal Order of Moose dedicates itself to providing health benefits to its members. The organization went through hard times in the 20th century after it lost most of it members until a man named James Davis took the reins and helped Moose recover from its membership slump. He convinced and recruited thousands of new members and established a thriving network of Moose Lodges throughout the United States.

12

Freemasonry

A fraternal society that was established between the 16th and 17th century, Freemasonry has over six million members today and remains actively engaged in the conduct of charitable works in the secluded communities of Scotland and England. Its members uphold the constitution drafted by Scottish minister James Anderson, where the establishment of fraternal friendship is central.

11

P.E.O. Sisterhood

A women’s organization with about 250,000 members in the United States and Canada, P.E.O. Sisterhood was organized on January 21, 1869 to provide opportunities for education to all its female members around the world. The society has organized chapters in the United States and Canada and is known for being the second sorority to have ever been formed in the United States. Currently headquartered in Iowa, Canada, P.E.O. Sisterhood maintains its traditions of secrecy even after its “It’s OK to talk about P.E.O.” campaign in the 20th century.

10

The Improved Order of Red Men

The Improved Order of Red Men was organized on December 16, 1773 by some members of the Sons of Liberty to promote liberty as well as to challenge the tyranny of the monarchy of England. Throughout the course of the Revolutionary War, members of the Red Men joined the Continental Army to push for the downfall of the English crown. The rituals of its members are patterned on the rituals practiced by the Native Americans.

9

The Ancient Arabic Order of the Nobles of the Mystic Shrine

Commonly known as Shriners and abbreviated A.A.O.N.M.S., they were established in 1870, and are an appendant body to Freemasonry. In 2010, the Ancient Arabic Order of the Nobles of the Mystic Shrine, as well as Shriners North America, changed its name to Shriners International, now covering nearly 200 temples (chapters) across North America, South America, Europe and Southeast Asia. The organization is best known for the Shriners Hospitals for Children it administers, and the red fezzes that members wear.

8

Woodmen

Established in 1883 by Joseph Cullen Root, Woodmen is among the largest fraternal benefit societies today with about 845,000 members worldwide. Members of this organization are called “Neighbors” and conduct fraternal projects for various communities. Its services include the donation of equipment to police and fire and rescue units as well as the provision of assistance to senior citizens, orphans and disaster victims. Known today as the Modern Woodmen of America, the society uses an axe, beetle and wedge as its primary symbols.

7

Knights of the Golden Eagle

The Knights of the Golden Eagle is a fraternal benefit society founded in Baltimore, Maryland, in 1873. At the peak of membership in 1900, this organization was active in 20 states with approximately 20,000 members. It began to decline about 1943-1944, during World War II. Some historians believed that this fraternal organization had become extinct.

6

Ordo Templi Orientis

The “Ordo Templi Orientis” or the “Order of the Temple of the East” was founded at the beginning of the 20th century as an international fraternal and religious organization dedicated to have the Law of Thelma as its guiding principle. Membership in this organization is like in Freemasonry where an initiatory system followed by a series of secret ritual dramas is among the prerequisites. The purpose of the system it adopts is to strengthen fraternal ties as well as to introduce its spiritual teachings.

5

The Priory of Sion

The Priory of Sion is an umbrella society composed of multiple smaller groups that all aim to allow and convince their members to involve themselves in studies and mutual aid. Considered the most controversial secret society to have ever existed in the Christian world, the Priory of Sion is said to have been founded as early as 1099 by a man named Godfrey of Boullion on Mount Zion.

4

Thule Society

Initially named “The Study Group for Germanic Antiquity,” the Thule Society is a secret organization formed in Munich, Germany principally created to return power to Germany after its defeat in the First World War and the fall of the Treaty of Versailles. Its name was derived from a fictitious northern country from Greek mythology, Thule. Since 1917, people who seek to become members of this secret society have been obliged to undergo a “blood declaration of faith” before being admitted.

3

The Sons of Liberty

The Sons of Liberty was a group consisting of American patriots that originated in the pre-independence North American British colonies. The group was formed to protect the rights of the colonists and to take to the streets against the taxes by the British government. They are best known for undertaking the Boston Tea Party in 1773, which led to the Intolerable Acts (an intense crackdown by the British government), and a counter-mobilization by the Patriots.

2

Rosicrucians

Devoted to the pursuit of esoteric wisdom, the Rosicrucians is a secret organization founded between the 16th and 17th century to spread occult doctrines and occult powers. By the dawn of the 17th century, two books were published to allude to the rituals of Rosicrucians, which generally bring together elements of Egyptian Hermeticism, Gnosticism as well as Jewish Cabalism. It is believed that Isaac Newton was a member of this secret organization.

1

Skull and Bones

Informally known as “Bones,” Skull and Bones is a secret society that evolved from a group of senior students from Yale University. The senior class of Yale founded the organization in 1832 to show its resistance to the debating societies of the university – Linonia, Brothers in Unity and the Calliopean Society. Much like the Illuminati, this society is sometimes theorized to play a critical role in global conspiracies that aim to dominate the world.

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