Speaker 1: From UFOs two, ghosts and government cover ups. History is
Speaker 1: riddled with unexplained events. You can turn back now or
Speaker 1: learn the stuff they don't want you to. Now came
Speaker 1: at I'm gonna try something interesting with this to open
Speaker 1: up our podcast. You ready, all right? Go with me
Speaker 1: on this. In a world where less than one percent
Speaker 1: the human population controls the futures, fates, and destiny of
Speaker 1: the entire human race, what can one man do? So
Speaker 1: that's like my film intro and then this, Yeah you like,
Speaker 1: I'm I'm trying to figure out who would play the
Speaker 1: protagonists in this movie about somebody fighting. The topic of
Speaker 1: today's podcast, the Illuminati. Oh man? Uh? Nicolas Cage. Nicolas Cage. Yeah,
Speaker 1: you know what? Not a bad pick because he could
Speaker 1: go weird with it if he if he had to.
Speaker 1: I feel like he has to go weird with stuff. Uh. Anyhow,
Speaker 1: Welcome to the podcast. My name is Ben Bolan. Oh,
Speaker 1: my name is Matt Frederick, and today we're here to
Speaker 1: talk a little bit about the Illuminati, by far, one
Speaker 1: of the most prevalent conspiracy theories. Um ever, really, Uh,
Speaker 1: the the Illuminati is something that we have covered extensively
Speaker 1: in our video show. I guess we have three three
Speaker 1: part series on that. We officially have three, but there
Speaker 1: is a fourth technical one on the Illuminati in the
Speaker 1: music industry that you can find. Yes, great point, Matt,
Speaker 1: and our series on the Illuminati covers a couple of
Speaker 1: things that we won't rehash too much here. It covers
Speaker 1: the what we know about the founding of the historical Illuminati.
Speaker 1: It covers the rumors and conjecture about some sort of
Speaker 1: secret past, Uh, what goes to the Illuminati in the
Speaker 1: modern day, right, who that might be? And then it
Speaker 1: asked some questions about the future now the music industry.
Speaker 1: One was a is a surprise to me how how
Speaker 1: prevalent that belief is. But let's just start with the facts.
Speaker 1: We'll get weird to get crazy with it as we
Speaker 1: go on, but let's start with the facts, Matt. What's
Speaker 1: the historical Illuminati? So we do know there's this man
Speaker 1: named Adam Wi Shot who in seventeen seventy six founded
Speaker 1: a secret society called the Illuminati, and it's real. You
Speaker 1: can look it up. He's real. And um, now, the
Speaker 1: question is how much further did that society grow? Did
Speaker 1: it become something bigger or was it a part of
Speaker 1: something much older, right, This is this is where the
Speaker 1: conspiracy theories start to come in. Yeah. Interesting side note,
Speaker 1: his name in the order was allegedly brother Spartacus Nice.
Speaker 1: So what did bro Spartacus have to do with any
Speaker 1: of the historical rumors about the Illuminati? When he started
Speaker 1: the very chapter there was also this rumor that he
Speaker 1: in a way encouraged that the Illuminati was actually uh
Speaker 1: secret society that was thousands of years old, and that
Speaker 1: this society was secretly again guiding humanity towards towards something
Speaker 1: or another. But we can fast forward past a lot
Speaker 1: of this because a lot of those claims are explored
Speaker 1: in our video series. What we wanted to talk about
Speaker 1: today is, first, if there is something like the Illuminati
Speaker 1: and it can be proven to exist, because that's the thing,
Speaker 1: that's the thing that makes skeptics and people who believe
Speaker 1: in the Illuminati bump heads often. Is this idea all right? First,
Speaker 1: the most difficult to believe part of something like this, right,
Speaker 1: would be, well, if there is one group of people
Speaker 1: that are somehow controlling the world, then how can it
Speaker 1: be a secret? How can there be absolutely no proof?
Speaker 1: And one of the conspiratorial responses to that would be
Speaker 1: that just proves how good they are. The proof is
Speaker 1: that it's not there. I can see Nicolas Cage saying
Speaker 1: that line. Right, yeah, but the but we we have
Speaker 1: found some interesting things that might change people's minds. Here's
Speaker 1: where here's where it gets weird. So we know that
Speaker 1: we know that there's not really at this point any
Speaker 1: hard proof that the the Illuminati as they're explored in
Speaker 1: a lot of conspiracy theories or a lot of alternative history.
Speaker 1: We know there's no solid, universally agreed on proof that
Speaker 1: this group exists in the modern age. But what we
Speaker 1: can prove is that there are a lot of extremely wealthy,
Speaker 1: extremely powerful groups that exist, and in particular now those
Speaker 1: groups are a lot of times corporations with controlled banks.
Speaker 1: Um usually some kind of corporate entity, right, But it
Speaker 1: could also be some sort of religious entity or religious affiliated,
Speaker 1: religiously affiliated entity, for instance, the like church has Opus day. Uh.
Speaker 1: There are there, of course, numerous incidents um or examples
Speaker 1: rather in history of of groups that arose to uh
Speaker 1: unknown power level, and we're able at some point in
Speaker 1: history to exert control over something behind the curtain like
Speaker 1: P two in Italy, right, propaganda do which was an
Speaker 1: offshoot of the Freemasons. Um. But the thing is, when
Speaker 1: when we talk about this there there are a couple
Speaker 1: of ways to look at it. First, is it is
Speaker 1: it kind of disappointing? Are we throwing cold water on
Speaker 1: the idea, because what we're proposing is that secret societies
Speaker 1: have existed, or secretive at least, and they continue to
Speaker 1: wield some sort of influence over span of time, but
Speaker 1: maybe not for all of human history. Or we can
Speaker 1: look at it the second way, which I think is
Speaker 1: the more realistic and frankly more frightening way, which is
Speaker 1: that there's not one group of people controlling the world effectively,
Speaker 1: there are multiple groups of people attempting to control the world,
Speaker 1: which leads inevitably too horrible horrible things. Yeah, the conflict gets, uh,
Speaker 1: let's say, ratcheted up when when the stakes are world control, right,
Speaker 1: and we we know for instance that, um, it's funny.
Speaker 1: There's a great article in uh Straight Dope, uh where
Speaker 1: the you know, the guy at Straight Dope, Cecil Adams.
Speaker 1: Someone asks him if there's any truth to the stories
Speaker 1: about secret societies like the Illuminati, The Builderberg Council on
Speaker 1: Foreign Relations trilateral commissions, so on, and uh, he goes
Speaker 1: in his response, he says, you know what is crazy?
Speaker 1: A secretive group that does wield a lot of influence
Speaker 1: the n s A. Yeah, exactly, That's exactly what I
Speaker 1: was thinking this whole time. Yeah, well, you hit the
Speaker 1: nail on the head, my friend, because if you think
Speaker 1: about the n ESA does have some of the superpowers
Speaker 1: often ascribed to the Illuminati. But also, you know, it's
Speaker 1: it's it's weird because it's human nature. Humans are gregarious
Speaker 1: and cooperative and more than the sum of their parts.
Speaker 1: So of course in human society, people with influence will
Speaker 1: attempt to pull their powers to gain more influence. UM.
Speaker 1: And at this point, again, it really depends on where
Speaker 1: you fall in um, where you fall in the priorities
Speaker 1: of the critical thinking exercise. Is it really to you?
Speaker 1: Is the lack of proof of the quote unquote conspiratorial Illuminati? Uh?
Speaker 1: Is that lack of proof proof in it's of of itself?
Speaker 1: Or is the claim of a single secret society so
Speaker 1: extraordinary that it requires just amazing, watertight evidence. It sounds
Speaker 1: it's so weird. It sounds as though to me, let's say,
Speaker 1: I'm gonna take it from the conspiratory stamp. Okay, Yeah,
Speaker 1: it sounds to me as though the illumin audio is
Speaker 1: some kind or at least the word is kind of
Speaker 1: a smoke screen for a lot of these other very
Speaker 1: powerful groups. It's almost the thing that you look at
Speaker 1: instead of the real thing. Oh I see, okay, So
Speaker 1: and and it's also kind of um just saying it
Speaker 1: could be kind of a misdirection. And you're also saying
Speaker 1: also pointing out that it functions as an umbrella term
Speaker 1: of stuff of sorts right near a strawman in a way. Yeah. Yeah,
Speaker 1: And maybe that is to the detriment of people who
Speaker 1: do deserve to know more about uh secretive meetings that
Speaker 1: can affect the course of history or your life as
Speaker 1: an individual. One one thing if we look at like
Speaker 1: a ven diagram, one thing that all secret society conspiracy
Speaker 1: theories have in common is that they believe the goal
Speaker 1: of the society is somehow to remove autonomy or agency
Speaker 1: or serenity from nation states or individuals. And that's a
Speaker 1: that's an understandable thing, and I'm putting it in in a
Speaker 1: very base level. But maybe calling something illuminati is is oversimplifying,
Speaker 1: maybe sensationalizing a little bit. But in future episodes when
Speaker 1: we explore some of those other groups we just name dropped,
Speaker 1: we're going to see that there can be um some
Speaker 1: disturbing grains of truth uh in in these claims. Now,
Speaker 1: we're not saying these people are necessarily half reptile, half
Speaker 1: human creatures with some strange blood oath to I don't know,
Speaker 1: make everybody like two and a half men or something.
Speaker 1: That the goal the TV show I have no idea,
Speaker 1: but but the goals that the ascribed goals in the specifics,
Speaker 1: my point being, they can vary widely, and they can
Speaker 1: also vary. They can vary widely in terms of content,
Speaker 1: but they can also vary widely in terms of plausibility. Well, okay,
Speaker 1: so I agreed. One of the things that we have
Speaker 1: owned is that one of the best ways to exert
Speaker 1: control is by controlling money, uh currency, sure, yes, and
Speaker 1: also belief, like you said, with religion, controlling what what
Speaker 1: a massive people believe is. It's highly important if you
Speaker 1: want to control the world. But going back to the money,
Speaker 1: sorry to go on the off four there we there's
Speaker 1: this great Forbes article that we've been looking at, and
Speaker 1: it's kind of old it's from two thousand eleven, but
Speaker 1: and it's entitled The one and forty seven Companies that
Speaker 1: Control Everything, and it's a study that was done by
Speaker 1: the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Zurich, and it's
Speaker 1: one of the one of the best micro reads that
Speaker 1: I've done in a while. The actual study, which you
Speaker 1: can find if you search for this online. It there's
Speaker 1: a link inside this Forbes article to the actual study
Speaker 1: in the big model and everything, and it explains to
Speaker 1: their findings. So what they did in this study essentially
Speaker 1: is that a they looked at forty three thousand and
Speaker 1: sixty transnational corporations and then they started connecting the dots,
Speaker 1: the share ownership dots here and they found that based
Speaker 1: on their model, there's kind of a bow tie shape
Speaker 1: and they found a dominant core right of these investment
Speaker 1: companies that have steaks in each other and stakes somehow
Speaker 1: uh into about of the wealth in this network of
Speaker 1: forty three thousand huge corporations UM. And when you look
Speaker 1: at the numbers, it's it's pretty distressing. Uh, seventy seven
Speaker 1: thirty seven companies I believe control of that global wealth UM.
Speaker 1: And then this was what's strange with this is that
Speaker 1: some of the individuals in these companies may be serving
Speaker 1: on multiple boards UM. And it's also it's also distressing
Speaker 1: and surprising to think that, given just the size of
Speaker 1: the world's economy, that the wealth would be concentrated so
Speaker 1: much in a hundred and forty seven companies. Now the
Speaker 1: top ones are going to your point, the top ones
Speaker 1: are financial and interest, right like Barclays is number one,
Speaker 1: at least it was at the time it was at
Speaker 1: the time of this article. And some people might be
Speaker 1: listening to us right now, Matt and seeing you guys
Speaker 1: are exaggerating or that's that doesn't necessarily mean they have
Speaker 1: great control over the world's economy. Are shills for the corporations, right,
Speaker 1: or you guys are shills reasons? Yeah, but we're if
Speaker 1: we're just looking at some of the facts here, we
Speaker 1: do know that these We do know that some people
Speaker 1: have rejected this study, most notably a guy named Eric Savitts,
Speaker 1: who when he was writing UM with Forbes, he wrote
Speaker 1: a retort uh claiming that these companies in the top
Speaker 1: fifty list they're just investment companies. They are operating, so
Speaker 1: that means that maybe they're just putting their money in
Speaker 1: a lot of different pies so that they can diversify
Speaker 1: and remain stable. Now, for for my money personally, this
Speaker 1: it's still disturbing that there would be that kind of
Speaker 1: inequality of control. But I do think that's a fair point,
Speaker 1: because you know, the money that these companies have is
Speaker 1: not necessarily money that they are directly managing. Right, Yeah,
Speaker 1: that's true. It's tied to indicase a lot of this money,
Speaker 1: so like, uh, like mutual funds exactly, hedge funds, mutual funds,
Speaker 1: all that kind of stuff. So then but then another
Speaker 1: Forbes writer Brennan cofey after who wrote that article, I
Speaker 1: think it was Sabat's Yeah, Eric saviatts okay. So then
Speaker 1: it's so great to kind of read through these articles
Speaker 1: and fours of the different writers kind of shooting words
Speaker 1: at each other. So then, uh, this other guy, Brinton Kofy, Right,
Speaker 1: he's a contributor who it does say on here that
Speaker 1: he works for someone else now, so I don't know
Speaker 1: what that means as far as writing this article, but anyway,
Speaker 1: he says that there are actually four companies inside this
Speaker 1: massive list that was outlined in the one companies that
Speaker 1: actually do exert a certain amount of control because, like
Speaker 1: you said, all of that money, a lot of that
Speaker 1: money is controlled by the indices. There's five percent of
Speaker 1: it that is not that is that can be directly manipulated,
Speaker 1: and that is by these four companies that actually have
Speaker 1: an ability to to influence this money. McGraw hill, Northwestern Mutual,
Speaker 1: c m E Group, and Barkley's because Barkley's purchased Lehman Brothers.
Speaker 1: Uh what is it, They're Lehman Aggregate Bond Index. So
Speaker 1: that's weird because most people in the United States probably
Speaker 1: associate McGraw hill with textbooks. Yeah, that's that's exactly what
Speaker 1: when it's weird, I imagine these textbooks publishers. Maybe that's
Speaker 1: just the side hustle they own Standard and ah yeah, yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: that makes sense. So they own some of the indices.
Speaker 1: And that's that's interesting because let's think about the numbers here.
Speaker 1: We went from over forty three thousand transnational corporations to
Speaker 1: seven hundred and thirty seven that control eighty percent of
Speaker 1: global wealth in some way, to uh one and forty
Speaker 1: seven it to four companies that exert some sort of
Speaker 1: influence over those other hundred forty seven YEA of the
Speaker 1: actively managed funds. And this is this is interesting because
Speaker 1: at this level, the money at this level is amazing.
Speaker 1: And going back to going back to your statement, which
Speaker 1: I totally agree with about the way to influence society
Speaker 1: directly or indirectly through finance. UM, it reminds me of
Speaker 1: what was that old roths Rothschild attributed quote where it says,
Speaker 1: give me control of the nation's money supply. I'm paraphrasing,
Speaker 1: but it was something like, give me control of a
Speaker 1: nation's money supply, and I don't care who's in office.
Speaker 1: And that is in my opinion, whether or not that
Speaker 1: is is an actual statement the guy made because Rothschild
Speaker 1: family members are often misquoted, but whether or not he
Speaker 1: actually said that, I think that is a profound point
Speaker 1: and it's an absolutely true point. Controlling the money supply
Speaker 1: is a way to control so much more. And um,
Speaker 1: as we're recording this, we had just recorded a couple
Speaker 1: of episodes on the gold Standard, which was an illuminating
Speaker 1: experience for us. And uh, we hope that you check
Speaker 1: out this video here. No met I gotta ask you
Speaker 1: in the future when we cover other secret societies what's
Speaker 1: one of the first ones you want to take a
Speaker 1: crack at in our audio. I would like to hit
Speaker 1: skull and Bones. Uh, particularly for the two thousand four election. Ah. Yes,
Speaker 1: Skull and Bones uh as secretive, elite collegiate organization. It's
Speaker 1: probably the most politically correct way to say and uh.
Speaker 1: And then two thousand four election and it made some
Speaker 1: weird waves in the media because both the both of
Speaker 1: the candidates for president Democrat and Republican were members of
Speaker 1: the Skull and Bones organization in college, and it made
Speaker 1: and also part of their terms. They refused to speak
Speaker 1: about it. Yes, both of them refused to speak about it. Well,
Speaker 1: because it's a secret society. Come on, yeah, But if
Speaker 1: you want to avoid if you want to avoid speculation,
Speaker 1: if it's like in Hitchcock movies, you know where they
Speaker 1: say one of the masterful things that Alfred Hitchcock did
Speaker 1: is he never really showed the monster on screen all
Speaker 1: the time. Right, So the monster that you create in
Speaker 1: your mind with a lack of some sort of evidence
Speaker 1: is is going to tend to be just terrifying. So
Speaker 1: you mean kind of like the Illuminati, kind of like
Speaker 1: the Illuminati. Nice way to bring it back around. Um,
Speaker 1: and maybe that's why people are so upset. But let's
Speaker 1: I'd like to end this episode with just naming some
Speaker 1: of the craziest things we've heard about the Illuminati, like
Speaker 1: craziest theories, and then inviting our listeners to respond and
Speaker 1: do the same. Okay, that sounds great, all right, UM
Speaker 1: to go first, Yeah, you go first. You've got a
Speaker 1: good one, I'm sure. Well. I think one of my
Speaker 1: favorite ones was that the the Illuminati as we think
Speaker 1: of it today has its roots in the Brotherhood of
Speaker 1: the Snake, which is an ancient Egyptian secret society based
Speaker 1: on aliens that made human beings. Oh cool, kind of
Speaker 1: an ancient aliens thing, I got you. Another one that
Speaker 1: I had heard, uh, was that the Illumini attempts to
Speaker 1: control society through pop music. Now we've done an episode
Speaker 1: on this, but that it's specifically linked to um underground
Speaker 1: pedophilia rings that for some reason. Yeah, and UM, we
Speaker 1: do know now this is a bit dark, but we'll
Speaker 1: we'll keep it appropriate, um for for families here. That
Speaker 1: we do know that there have been in the past
Speaker 1: some crazy sex scandals along that time along those lines
Speaker 1: with involving powerful people. UM. I'm thinking, most notably about
Speaker 1: the incidents in Belgium. But the that does that prove
Speaker 1: that there's this huge secret society or does that prove
Speaker 1: that they're that powerful? People can also just be really twisted,
Speaker 1: messed up folks in their private lives. Yeah, I hope
Speaker 1: to lean towards the ladder, but I don't know. Yeah
Speaker 1: that maybe that's something we can explore in an audio podcast.
Speaker 1: That's something those kinds of topics and allegations were stuff
Speaker 1: that we can't really explore a video because we Yeah,
Speaker 1: we couldn't show it to you tastefully, and I wouldn't
Speaker 1: want to. I don't know. It's there's there's an integrity
Speaker 1: there that I wouldn't want to. Yeah, that we don't
Speaker 1: want to cross a line on. But okay, So another
Speaker 1: crazy thing I heard about the Illuminati. I heard that
Speaker 1: the Illuminati uh descended from secret hermetic orders and that
Speaker 1: magic works, and that they practice working magic. Nice. Now
Speaker 1: would that have anything to do with Bohemian Grove and
Speaker 1: the creation of caros? That just completely different? Oh, nice,
Speaker 1: Bohemian Grove, that's a good one. We have to cover
Speaker 1: that too. Bohemian Grove ladies and gentlemen is a real thing.
Speaker 1: You've probably heard of it, but if you haven't, go
Speaker 1: check out our videos on the Bohemian Grove. Now, uh,
Speaker 1: let's say, let's see, Uh, Matt, I'd like to return
Speaker 1: to the Illuminati in the future. Um. I. I enjoyed
Speaker 1: doing our series on it, but I felt like there
Speaker 1: was so much more we could have explored. So what
Speaker 1: I'd like to propose for our next recording is that
Speaker 1: when we touch on the Illuminati again, let's go with, uh,
Speaker 1: let's try to find some really specific instance of alleged
Speaker 1: Illuminati meddling. What do you say? That sounds great? Alright,
Speaker 1: so we're gonna go off and work on that. In
Speaker 1: the meantime, we hope that you guys have enjoyed a
Speaker 1: little bit of our show Notes episode on the Illuminati
Speaker 1: video series. You can watch the series itself if you
Speaker 1: go to test tube dot com, slash conspiracy Stuff or YouTube.
Speaker 1: We're still conspiracy stuff there too, and there is a
Speaker 1: full playlist on YouTube where you can just click one
Speaker 1: button and watch the entire thing. And you can check
Speaker 1: us out on Facebook. You can send us a tweet.
Speaker 1: If you don't trust Facebook, you can drop us an
Speaker 1: email directly. We are conspiracy at Discovery dot com. From
Speaker 1: more on this topic, another unexplained phenomenon, visit test tube
Speaker 1: dot com slash conspiracy stuff. You can also get in
Speaker 1: touch on Twitter at the handle at conspiracy stuff.