Skull and Bones is a worrisome and strange Yale
secret society. On August 17, 2000 there was an
interview with President George W. Bush that
bestirred controversy regarding his initiation into
Skull and Bones. Time Magazine asked if it troubled
him that he had been initiated into the Society when
he was a young man. President Bush responded, "No
qualms at all. I was honored." Inevitably some
people, knowing the Skull and Bones reputation of
blasphemy, were surprised that the President said he
was "honored." Others, particularly Christians
defended him saying, in effect, "Let's put this
aside. He was forgiven of that when he accepted
Christ." The disturbing fact, however, is that
President Bush's statement came many years after he
announced he had accepted Jesus as his Lord and
Savior.
In that light, the more one learns about Skull and
Bones, the more distressing the President's
statement becomes. It raises vexing questions for
those of us who live our life in Christ and do so as
evangelicals.
I
thought about this deeply because coming to Christ
is very important to me and I know the depth of soul
searching that is the essence of the Christian
tradition when one chooses to give one's life to
ones life to God. After reading the President's
statement, I felt compelled to investigate the
actual content of the Skull and Bones ritual that he
believed so honored him, hoping by this to
understand the man who is President of the United
States. And so I write this as a friend of the
President's soul, but also disturbed by what he has
called to himself.
The fruits of my investigations revealed some
details that are truly frightening that are not
included even in Alexandra Robbins' very revealing
book, Secrets of the Tomb: Skull and Bones, the Ivy
League and the Hidden Path to Power (Little Brown
and Company, 2002) , a book that provides us with
the most reliable account of the secret rites When
the President was interviewed by Time he could be
fairly certain that the nature of the initiation
would remain a secret. Subsequently, Mrs. Robbins
was able to find and interview scores of "Bonesmen"
as they are called, who were willing to describe the
rituals.
After reading the book, I prayed on whether I should
write about the actual meaning of this ritual,
specifically the meaning of one word, well-known to
students of New Testament Greek: "eulogia." ("Bonesmen"
are called Knights of Eulogia.) Ultimately, I felt
the message to speak of it, particularly to those of
us who safekeep the Christian tradition in these
dark times, because we need this information to
properly evaluate other matters of great concern
about the President.
I do this with a heavy heart. I can only imagine the
burdens of being a President. And I certainly admit,
as many of us will, to participating in activities
as a young man that as an adult I regret and of
which I believe I have repented. That is the way
young men are. However, when I looked more deeply, I
found these Skull and Bones rites to be of another
nature than youthful indiscretions, and to have
serious implications. Therefore I humbly offer this
information so that people can think about this in
their hearts.
Let me say some general things first about President
Bush as a young man and about the family and times
he was born into. In my quest for the truth about
the meaning of the President's Skull and Bones
comments, I found myself looking deeper into the
nature of his background that would lead him to
Skull and Bones. I learned much about the dynamic
relationship between him, his father and his
grandfather. I came from this inquiry believing they
played an important part in his initiation--in the
power he gave it, in what he made of it and in who
he become since. The Lord I believe led me to see
that the initiation was not just a "frat boy's
spoof" for young George W. Bush but a serious rite
of initiation for him with real consequences,
affecting his thinking and behavior afterwards.
As
we know, President Bush is the first-born son of a
formidable father. He was to be his father's heir.
Some of his history as a boy, as a teenager, and
especially in his twenties, is familiar to all of
us, and we can't help feeling affection and concern.
It was in his early twenties that he began his
twenty-year descent into alcoholism.
"When I was young and irresponsible, I behaved young
and irresponsible," President Bush says of this
time. In this remark he clearly was not including as
"irresponsible" his initiation into Skull and Bones,
as witness the statement of this 54-year-old
Christian man who says he was honored to be
initiated.
It was in 1968 that the 22-year-old was initiated
into the cult--as his father and grandfather
Prescott had been before him. As had been his uncles
Jonathan Bush, John Walker and George Herbert Walker
II, his great-uncle George Herbert Walker, Jr. and
cousin Ray Walker and numerous friends. Young George
was very much following in the footsteps of his
kinsmen. Such a multi generational experience, one
imagines, inevitably intensifies the emotion and
affects of the ritual and gives it more legitimacy
and power.
The initiation takes place in an environment called
The Tomb where one encounters human and animal
skeletons and skulls. "The death's-head logo stamps
everything from crockery to painted borders on the
wall." (Robbins, p. 87). In this setting "Bonesmen"
return weekly after the initiation to talk about
what most matters to them. While many of the 1968
initiates spoke of Vietnam, George W. Bush is
witnessed to have spent most of his presentations in
the tomb speaking about his father--reportedly in
"at God-like terms." One of the President's 1968
classmates has said that being in Skull and Bones
made young George feel even closer to the line of
ancestors who had been in the secret group before
him--"it just kind of crystallized his value
system." (Robbins, p.178.) Skull and Bones, in this
view, became important because it was sealing in
young George a sense of identity with family as
mutual practitioners of the Skull and Bones rituals
and as adaptors of its beliefs.
We are seeing the powerful feeling that would come
from being a Bush-clan member meeting up against the
fragility and bravado of a 22-year-old man--an
unformed young man compared to his father and the
men in his family. I can imagine that the inner
pressures on young George were mounting. The reports
say he was known as a "party animal" when he was
accepted into Yale. Being an outsider with a Texas
accent, a famous father and sparse scholarly
interest, our future President showed himself as
openly contemptuous of Yale snobbery and thriving on
the boisterous warmth of male bonding. I can see
that at the moment of initiation into Skull and
Bones, there was a coming into manhood question that
had to be faced. As a young man beginning to
discover himself, he carried the essential dilemma
of any "chosen son"--effectively saying "I am of my
father's line (and proud of it) but I am most
certainly not my father." The reports of his
drinking at the time make it clear that young George
was showing his independence, that he was not
controlled by his father's patrician and very Yale
sensibility. It was his turn to step into the stream
of history but only on his own terms--or so a
witness might conclude from the young man's
behavior.
In this brew of father worship and simultaneous
rebellion and perhaps even disdain for some aspects
of his father's world, our future President entered
the Tomb.
With a hood placed on his head, the text of the
Robbins book reports, the initiate is "marched
throughout the Tomb on a pseudo-tour, during which
the knights and patriarchs shriek in high-pitched
voices jokes about the initiate's girlfriend or dog,
akin to benign 'yo' mama' cracks." (p.119.) Although
resembling Carnival rites in many cultures, in fact
the ritual soon begins to teeter dangerously toward
other dark ceremonies from anti-Christian secret
societies of the past.
The society has a story it claims gives historical
and even religious credibility and sanction to these
rites. The society's adopted myth states that the
Roman goddess Eulogia ascended into heaven in 322
BC. The society's lore refers to the 'First Miracle
of the origin of our Goddess' (Robbins, p.84) and to
her "second coming" toYale in 1832 to found the
society. "Eulogia! Eulogia! Eulogia!" the "Bonesmen"
shriek as the initiate is escorted into the inner
temple before he is compelled to sign his name to an
oath of secrecy.
After this the initiate is brought before a picture
of Judas Iscariot, whose name the group screams
three times, and then he is led to the heart of the
rite: the initiate is pushed to his knees before a
human skull filled with blood placed at the foot of
a human skeleton called Madame Pompadour.
The crowd "implores him to 'Drink it! Drink it!
Drink it!'" and he does. Then he is hurried to a man
dressed as the Pope. "But not before the D whips him
in the face with his tail. The initiate bends to
kiss the Pope's slippered toe on the skull."
(Robbins, p.120.) This is the core of the very
un-Christian and blasphemous rite that enfolded so
many members of the Bush clan into the secret
society, mirroring similar rites from earlier
blasphemous societies and indeed even some
devil-worshipping sects.
Now we must pause and consider these rites. What
might they mean today? What do the initiators intend
by havng young men in the rigors of modern education
submit to these un-Christian rites? Whom do they
hope the young men will become as a result? And what
actually happens to those who undergo these rites?
I was shocked to discover that the Goddess Eulogia
is a fabrication. And not a simple fabrication but
one that leads us to something very specific. There
never was a Roman goddess by that name. However,
students of New Testament Greek know that eulogia is
one of the names given to the sacrament as in St.
Paul's first letter to the Corinthians: "The cup of
blessing ('eulogia') which we bless, is it not the
communion of the blood of Christ?" Alarming to me
and perhaps it will be to you, rather than honoring
the sacrament, we see that the secret society
initiation culminates in a parody of partaking of
the blood of Christ. This parody is known in other
contexts as the sinful Black Mass. We know Black
Mass is not truly parody but blasphemy and
sacrilege. Invoking Judas, dishonoring the Pope and
violating the sacrament is terrible sacrilege.
I believe I am neither exaggerating nor distorting
to suggest that whatever young George's confusion as
to his being father's heir, the initiation provided
them with a shared secret. That secret is that both
partook of the devil's sacrament, in which the
chalice is a human skull, and did so within a secret
order explicitly committed to the accumulation of
wealth and power, as the Robbins book makes clear.
As
strange and troubling as all of this is, none of it
would make a difference to a man who has repented
and received Christ. God is good and generous beyond
measure. But, oddly enough, although the President
is professed to have joined us as an Evangelical in
1985 and speaks of the wonder-working power of faith
and is witnessed as a religious man with daily
prayer sessions at the White House, there is nowhere
in the public record any details that he repented .
Nor is there any evidence that he ever reflected on
the implications of his initiation nor renounced the
heart- chilling credo of wealth and power that he
committed his soul to as a youth, thereby joining
his lineage in this bond. Indeed, quite the opposite
seems to be the case. As author Robbins has stated,
"As president Bush has appointed fellow Bonesmen to
high-level positions, such as Edward McNalley, the
general council of the Office of Homeland Security
and senior associate counsel on national security.
Yet,although one of his first social gatherings at
the White House was a Skull and Bones reunion, Bush
feigned ignorance when asked recently about Bones:
'The thing is so secret that I'm not even sure it
still exists,' he replied." (Robbins, USA Today 25
September 2002).
It is right that we pray for Mr. Bush and pray
fervently, for his soul is profoundly endangered.
A detail about the founding of Skull and Bones might
help us understand the devil's place in this ritual.
As it turns out, shortly before founding the secret
society, William H. Russell had spent a year in
Germany. "When William Russell took some time off
from Yale to study in Germany, he could very well
have been introduced to a German student club with
the death's head logo, and then returned to Yale and
set up a branch of that club." (Robbins, p.82.) As
it happens Russell's time in Germany coincided with
the completion of Goethe's play "Faust"--the
essential text that examines what it means to sell
one's soul to the Devil. Goethe died within weeks of
completing this play, and all of Germany was alive
with the celebration of the great man's work in
1832. The first section of "Faust" had been released
and had played in German theaters for years. It
would be unlikely that Russell was unfamiliar with
Goethe's most famous work, which mirrors somewhat
the Skull and Bones ritual, most specifically the
secret signing he oath and the use of blood to seal
the rite:
Faust: If this will satisfy you, then I say let us
agree and put this farce to odd use.
Mephistopheles: Blood is a quite peculiar juice.
Faust sold his soul to the devil for power in this
temporal world. Let us now be witness to the issue
of the desire for power at all costs, and the desire
for money that makes for power outside God's world,
as it played its (Faustian?) hand through the men in
the Bush family line who have been initiated into
this rite. I could not help but note the glaring
reality that President Bush, his father George and
his grandfather Prescott span three generations of
profiting from war and trading with the enemy.
In 1924 Prescott Bush became manager of the United
Steel Works of the Union Banking Corporation that
was seized in October, 1942, by the U.S. government.
Prescott was charged with "running Nazi-funded
groups in the United States." He was involved in the
use of slave-labor in Southern Poland, and
Congressional investigators found that United Steel
Works supplied 50.8 percent of the pig iron needed
by the Nazi war machine.
Ten years later he was elected U.S. Senator from
Connecticut.
George (Senior), in the 1980s, was involved in
arming Iran in its bloody war against our then ally
Iraq. (The United States, I have also painfully
learned, armed Saddam Hussein against Iraq,including
providing him ingredients for chemical warfare.
Among other reasons there was a great deal of money
to be made arming both sides of such a war by
companies that were financially supporting the
election campaigns of the Reagan and Bush
administrations.)
Prescott Bush was involved with Union Banking, while
George W. (Junior), I discovered in my researches,
was involved with the Bank of Credit and Commerce
International, partially owned by Osama bin Laden's
ber-in-law Khalid bin Malfouz . Bank of Credit was
called by the U.S. Senate "one of the largest
criminal enterprises in history." Before September
11, 2001, Malfouz was identified as a major
supporter of bin Laden's Jihad. George W. Bush's
business relations with the bin Laden's go back to
the 1970s, when Mr. Malfouz arranged a sweetheart
loan of $25 million to bail out of the troubles of
his failing oil business.
It has been well-established that members of the bin
Laden family other Saudi nationals were flown from
America at a time after 9/11 when no airlines flew
American skies. Former Presidential advisor Richard
Clark has said he approved some Saudi departures
after the general flying ban on aircraft was lifted,
based on information from the FBI. But who made the
decision to approve the flight that took place
before the flying ban was lifted, remains a secret,
as does the reasons why.
The question of who profits from war must be
addressed in Iraq as it had been in World War II
with President Bush's grandfather. With grieved
heart, when I looked to answer this, having been led
to this journey by what I learned about Skull and
Bones, I found that the companies that are profiting
from huge contracts are those closest to and most
generous with the President's political party and
closest to administration officials, including the
Vice President.
And, of course, the lies and exaggerations that led
to the war- the non-existent weapons of mass
destruction, the non- existent ties between Hussein
and Al Qaeda- are now the reality of the daily news.
Over 2000 American dead and 30,000 Iraqi.
In this light, let us return then to President Bush
having stated he had been "honored" to become a "Bonesman"
and to his hosting the secret society members in the
the House. Some have asked--is he in fact a true
Christian? A few have suggested he sought to succeed
as a politician after years of alcoholism and many
failures in his career by drawing to himself a base
of us evangelical voters. For myself, for a long
time I deeply trusted the President because I
believed he trusted God. I continued to trust him
until some months ago . I am now sadly reminded of
the words of Christ : "The devil is the father of
lies."
Soon after it became clear the President's Iraq
statements were gravely amiss, I came across the
President's remark about being "honored" as a member
of Skull and Bones. Thus I began my quest to learn
about Skull and Bones. I wondered if this could lie
at the root of the contradiction between the
President's behavior and his professed faith. As
scripture tells us: Jesus saith unto him, I am the
way, the truth, and the life: no man cometh unto the
Father, but by me--John 14:6.
When a man or woman truly accepts this, as we know,
he or she must live in Christ and be true to His way
and renounce the ways of the world that are built on
falsehoods and the love of power. Finally, for me,
there were the photos of torture in Iraqi prisons,
and the news reports of unreleased videotape of
children being tortured. This was soon followed by
the Wall Street Journal's revelations of the
administrations legal efforts to avoid prosecution
for torture. And more recently the White House
efforts to veto John McCains efforts to outlaw
torture. (McCain himself was tortured in Vietnam and
claims that a policy of torture endangers Americans
in Iraq.) More than ever I was alerted to the danger
the President's soul is in. Is it for a moment
possible that a Christian could justify torture? Is
he a Christian or have we been lied to?
The ancestral pattern is clear: Trading with the
enemy and profiting from war. The Skull and Bones
initiation, to the degree it sets young men on a
path of ruthless worldly seeking and flaunting of
Christian values, was successful. Prescott Bush's
legacy, it heart-renderingly appears, is alive and
well and living in the White House--and if we are
silent we are all implicated.
Prayer is the order of the day, for President Bush
is before anything else a child of God.
"And the Devil, taking him up into a high mountain,
showed him all the kingdoms of the world in a moment
of time. And the Devil said unto him, 'All this
power I give you and the glory of them; for that is
delivered unto me; and to whomsoever I will give to
if thou therefore wilt worship me, all shall be
thine.'" -- The Gospel According to Luke
"
We must confront the privileged elite who have
destroyed a large part of the world." Hugo Chavez
"If one really wishes to know how justice is
administered in a country, one does not question the
policemen, the lawyers, the judges, or the protected
members of the middle class. One goes to the
unprotected - those, precisely, who need the laws'
protection most - and listens to their testimony."
--
James Baldwin (1924-1987)
