Secret Societies: The Underworld of History | Full Episode | The Great Courses

foreign [Music] on October 6 1929 Lieutenant Frank Conde for the Los Angeles Police Department peered down into a wooden box inside was the body of a young woman she lay in a fetal position wrapped in a white blanket her hair spread over her face like a veil at first glance she almost appeared to be sleeping but she wasn't she was dead and she had been for almost five years in the interim she had been moved at least twice kept on ice for 14 months embalmed with pickling spices and concealed in a hidden tomb under her parents bedroom next to her were the corpses of seven pet dogs all killed to keep her company in Frank conifer's 20 years as a cop he'd seen a lot of things but nothing like this the dead girl's name was Willow Rhodes she was 16 when she died LAPD officers acting on a tip now came knocking at her parents home they asked the couple about The Disappearance of their adopted daughter and although William and Martha Rhodes were at first uncooperative Williams soon broke down and led the cops to the makeshift Mausoleum under the floorboards his distraught wife insisted that Willow wasn't really dead and she wasn't just little Willow Rhodes she was the Tree of Life a Celestial Princess and the future Queen awaiting Resurrection the seven dead puppies represented the seven notes of Gabriel's Celestial trumpet and they were part of a ritual or Concord that promised this the woman the roads regarded as their leader and a messenger of God had told them so and they believed it the leader's name was May Otis Blackburn and she led something called the divine order of the Royal Arms of the great eleven others just called it the Blackburn cult the cult was already under investigation an oil man named Clifford Dabney had accused Blackburn of bilking him out of forty thousand dollars the money was supposed to finance the writing and publication of a book to be titled the great Sixth Seal Mae Blackburn said the work would be dictated to her by the Archangel Gabriel it revealed the secrets of the universe including this keys to Resurrection and immortality and even where to find more oil Blackburn also had gotten the oil man Dabney to deter some land in Southern California's Simi Valley there she'd built a colony for her followers dubbed Harmony Hamlet its centerpiece was a Golden Throne inside a temple that awaited the arrival of a white Messiah there was also a natural Amphitheater where the cult conducted elaborate nocturnal rituals including the bloody sacrifice of mules dogs and just maybe humans known to her faithful as Queen May and the heel of God the 50ish May Blackburn ruled everything and everyone with an iron fist people who crossed her had a tendency to disappear one of them was Sammy rizzio the husband of her daughter Ruth Wieland Ruth before becoming a high priestess and her mom's Chief accomplice had been an aspiring actress taxi dancer and songwriter it was Ruth's acting bug that brought the whole family to Hollywood in the early 1920s but that went out the window when she and her mom started channeling messages from the Archangel Gabriel Mama may also had a husband of sorts he was Ward Blackburn a self-described Oriental Mystic who was also May's stepbrother and a pedophile given what we know is easy to label May Blackburn a charlatan in her order a con but the grade 11 was just one of hundreds of Cults new religions and esoteric orders operating in California at the time and there is still more Nationwide among May Blackburn's competitors in spiritual enlightenment were zaralda and Omar's Love Cult the Christian Church of psychosophy and a house of Judah that featured Garden of Eden orgies complete with the burnt offering of live Lambs there's also Hickory Hall which seems to have been a sacramentoistic group run by a very strict most high interpretress as something called The Pisgah crater cult Blackburn's grade 11 was a mishmash of Christian Science mind over matter and outright paganism poor little Willow most likely died from an untreated abscessed tooth but Queen May insisted that the girl had perished from wrongful belief still there's a creepy suggestion that her death may have been some kind of test or sacrifice Mae Blackburn had a knack with poisons and she told the faithful that Willa had died to save the world as for the roads authorities decided that all they could charge them with were failure to report a death and unlawful disposal of a corpse they didn't either researcher Samuel Fort speculates that at the heart of the Blackburn cult was the worship of the ancient Greek mystery goddess Hikari the goddess of night of sorcery and of dogs the same Hikari as conjured by the three witches of Macbeth but how did an ancient cult dedicated to Hikari end up in 20th century Southern California did May Blackburn resurrected or did she discover something already there also the order Simi Valley Hideaway was just a few miles away from the Spawn movie Ranch which would become the headquarters of Charles Manson's family 40 years later and like Manson May Blackburn had an odd fascination with Death Valley [Music] in 1928 in one of her strangest stunts Blackburn crammed two cars full of followers and embarked on a grueling two-week 500-mile spiritual Odyssey across the Mojave Desert the pace was glacial because the Autos could move no faster than the two pitiful mules tied to their bumpers the Caravan got at least as far as stovepipe Wells deep in Death Valley but Blackburn might have had another destination in mind she nattered on about a bottomless pit and a little ways further was Devil's Hole a natural thermal well of unknown depth Charles Manson believed that Devil's Hole hid the entrance to an inner world where he and his Brethren could hide some think Blackburn's real purpose was to use the desert or Devil's Hole as a Dumping Ground for unwanted items like bodies but no one ever found any of course they didn't find Manson's either as for the poor mules which may named the jaws of death they were gruesomely sacrificed back in harmony Hamlet expected me to start with something more familiar like the Freemasons or the Illuminati don't worry we'll eventually get to them but I wanted to begin with something out of the ordinary to make a point secret society has come in many forms and operate under many names and if you know what to look for you'll find them everywhere not just in the lodges so is a cult the same thing as a secret society not always but it can be the term cult after all is often an insult it's used to disparage groups mostly religious ones that fall outside the mainstream usually away outside Cults are also commonly assumed to exercise powerful psychological control over their members of course the same thing might be called cultivating loyalty so here's our working definition of secret society you might find others but this is mine first secret societies generally aren't secret most don't hide their existence sometimes they advertise it Masonic lodges announced their presence on signs outside almost every town that's for the benefit of brother Masons they just don't care who else sees it instead what's secret about most secret societies is what goes on inside that can include everything from rituals and passwords to what members really believe in and even their individual identities the best known secret society the million strong Freemasons prefer to think of themselves as a society with secrets Mae Blackburn played by the same rules she didn't hide the grade 11 under a bushel she relished publicity or at least good publicity at the same time Mae Blackburn built an isolated Community with a hidden Amphitheater to hide her organization's activities and she swore her followers to Absolute secrecy about things like you know a dead teenage princess slowly decomposing under the floor second secret societies are selective in who they recruit the selection might be broad or narrow but it's always there most of May Blackburn's followers were female and women held all the power in the order that's where the grade 11 comes from they were the 11 great Queens including May and Ruth who would rule the world from Marble mansions in the Hollywood Hills after the Sixth Seal was revealed and Paradise reigned on Earth this brings up the third common denominator in secret societies the promise of special knowledge status or power to the chosen initiates for the men following her May Blackburn dangled the bait of the white Messiah The Man Who Would Ascend The Golden Throne the frustrated Oil Man Clifford Dabney dreamed that role would be his but so did just about every other guy in The Cult so these are the key elements of a secret society one secrecy of beliefs and practices two selective recruitment and three the promise of special knowledge or status still as I said secret societies come in many shapes and sizes to give a taste of that variety and to preview what lies ahead let's look at examples from four very different places circumstances and times at first glance they might seem to have nothing in common but if you remember the key elements I just described they do [Music] start out Fuego at the bottom of South America among the most isolated and inhospitable places on Earth for thousands of years this island was home to the Ona people who ecked out an existence hunting and fishing they lived in small groups of 50 to 100. they had a system of beliefs and rituals that guided their day-to-day lives an important part of this was a secret society into which all males were initiated soon after puberty the society was run by the shamans who communicated with the spirits and who in turn control the Natural Forces controlling access to the spirits and their power meant controlling everything else including the women but it wasn't always that way the owners all male secret society was based on the legend of an earlier female order in the beginning women were believed to control access to the spirits from the spirits the women learned magic and used that to control men the men growing to resent this hatched a conspiracy to overturn the matriarchy they observe that females receive their initiation at puberty younger girls were ignorant of magic so one night the men killed the initiated women and girls as they slept sparing Only the Young and ignorant from that night forward men ruled the world and women next let's go to Medieval Italy one day in the spring of 1307 inhabitants of the northern Italian town of vercelli gathered to watch an execution of Heretics or religious dissidents the best known was the leader fra dolcino for the past few years he'd been the leader of a thousand strong Society of like-mainted Believers dubbed for lack of a better name but both synonyms rejecting the authority of the Pope the church and all worldly power the dolcinians built a fort in the mountains where they practiced primitive communism and gender equality awaiting the day of judgment assured his followers that they were an enlightened Elite everything they did was blessed by God all who rejected their views were Sinners and enemies so the dolcinians raided The Villages below pillaging torturing and murdering people Crusaders stormed The dulcinian's Hideout and killed or captured most of them the Inquisition demanded that fraudul Chino explained his monstrous Behavior towards fellow Christians replied with scripture Titus 1 15. to the pure all things are pure in one form or another we'll hear that over and over throughout this course basically it's a way of saying that the ends justifies the means dolcino saw the villagers as infidels deserving of death so he and his followers committed no sin the Inquisition didn't buy it the day ended with dulcino castrated and dismembered and his mortal remains burned on a pyre but like many secret societies the dolcinians never disappeared their spirit and their example lived on in the 20th century Italian leftists hailed for adolcino as a socialist Jesus fans of Umberto echo in his novel the name of the Rose might recall that bill simians make an appearance in the story next we'll take a trip to the Wild West in the old mining towns of California Nevada you'll come across brass plaques commemorating historical places and events pay attention and you'll notice that many of these plaques are the handiwork of an organization calling itself the ancient and honorable order of e clampus Vitus or ecv the plaques often commemorate things like saloons and bordellos not the usual local history but there's nothing usual about e-clampus vitus back in the 1850s the mining camps of Gold Country were home to thousands of men struggling to strike it rich among them or the well-established lodges such as the Odd Fellows and the Freemasons and the members of these established societies were mostly influential and well-to-do citizens at the same time many ordinary miners found them pretentious parading around in sashes and aprons and way too serious even worse Masons and Oddfellows didn't allow drinking in their lodges so around 1851 a group of miners in mokonomy California formed the first chapter of e clampus Vitus or clampers for short the New Order spread like wildfire among the mining camps of Shaney house the clamper's rituals and terminology were a Lampoon of stuffed shirt Freemasons their motto was Credo huia absurdum I believe it because it's absurd every Lodge or chapter was headed by a grand Noble humbug presiding over the whole thing was the clam patriarch as opposed to aprons and sashes clampers paraded around in red shirts and vests and hats festooned with handmade Badges and ribbons membership was By Invitation Only initiation rituals were Rowdy Rough and often thought up on the spot they always ended with the new initiate buying his brothers a round of drinks drinking was the heart of fraternal activity pranks and practical jokes are also part of the fun clappers weren't just drunken Hellraisers though they came to the aid of sick and injured minors as well as widows and orphans as the mining towns played out in the late 1800s so did the clampers by the 1920s the society had basically ceased to exist but in 1931 a San Francisco lawyer an amateur historian named Carl wheat decided to revive the order he kept the drinking while adding a new purpose historical preservation thus eclampus Vitus was reborn and still exists today while the revived clampers were somewhat more respectable than their predecessors they preserved a taste for pranks in 1936 some of the brothers concocted a brass plate which they buried and then pretended to discover the plate purported to prove the arrival of English private terrorists of Francis Drake in California in 1579 and that Drake claimed the whole place for Queen Elizabeth the first for 40 years the plate was taken as authentic the tendency of clampers to play jokes and make up Tall Tales also means that the origins of the society are impossible to determine with certainty one story is that it was started in West Virginia by a man named Ephraim B be supposedly acted on the instructions of the emperor of China others link the clappers to a New Orleans Lampoon society called the Sons of Malta but the sons of Malta didn't come into being until after the clampers appeared no one can even tell you exactly what e clampas Vitus means that presumably is part of the joke we're going to find that mysterious or uncertain Origins are commonplace among secret societies even the establishment free misses so let's jump to Southern California in the present day and that beloved icon of American popular culture Disneyland around 2015 something new appeared in the park among the throngs of visitors some noticed roaming groups and matching jackets with matching emblems and not just any jackets the denim sleeveless Cuts were dead ringers for those worn by Hell's Angels and other biker gangs and like Banker cuts the jackets bore patches proclaiming the group's name and the wearer's status but these weren't bikers they were social clubs formed by devoted Disney fans and given names like the big bad wolves and the white rabbits it was all harmless fun or that's how it started out the Social Clubs grew some attracting 50 or more members they would visit the park together and some members of the general public began to feel uneasy even intimidated stores of social clubbers behaving aggressively towards other guests began to spread unease increased when some clubs started packing lines to take over rides for their exclusive use Club rivalries emerged what started out as good-natured competition grew tense as some started taking things seriously members of One Club were accused of trying to shake down a charity promoter there were incidents of verbal even physical confrontations between rival clubs Disneyland official who'd welcome the clubs started to wonder if that was really such a good idea it's all fun and games until somebody gets pushed off the Matterhorn so these examples ranging from the semi-mythical to the deadly Sirius to the almost comical have plenty in common whatever their avowed purpose each is selective internally secretive and offer their members some sort of special status like most secret societies they're also a kind of artificial family hence the common practice of members calling one another brother or sister secret societies aren't an aberration in human behavior they're a normal Universal part of it if you were in a fraternity or a sorority in college you were in a secret society and they have almost infinite variety among the Ona people membership was based on gender the purpose was to gain power and control Ona men were willing to kill their own mothers for that the dolcinians believed that they had a direct pipeline to the divine the followers of frondo Chino are an example of something else as well a secret society seen only Through The Eyes of his enemies were they really as terrible as the church claimed the clamper show how a society can form in opposition 2 and an imitation of another group they also demonstrate the common confusion about where and when a society originated in addition the clampers show the tendency of societies to disappear and reappear a question we'll also confront is whether we're looking at one Society using different names or different societies using the same name the Disney Club show the continued appeal of selectivity special status and a unifying Devotion to something even if it's Tinkerbell they also show how societies can spontaneously evolve and how they arouse suspicion and hostility among Outsiders I call this course the real history of secret societies and I should explain why I don't mean the opposite of fake history there's a common belief that history is a known quantity but it's all recorded in a book just sitting there for us to absorb that's dead wrong the vast majority of Human Experience everything that people have said and done has been lost in time like tears in the rain history is really an effort to reconstruct the past and the experience of it from the few facts that survive that gives lots of room for interpretation and speculation so most of what passes for history is actually opinion Real History is incomplete contradictory and argumentative in short it's messy a past seen through a glass Darkly and when you add secrecy to the mix well things really get messy so in this course I'm not always going to tell you just what's true and what isn't because often it's just not clear instead of definite answers there's often going to be a range of possibilities usually I'm not setting out to defend or to debunk anything that's because real history is like life a permanent state of uncertainty so we're going on a journey across centuries and continents in search of secret societies in all the variety that will take us to some very dark places and frankly some silly ones what I want you to listen and look for in these lectures is the repetition of names and more importantly ideas the same things coming up again and again in slightly different name or form or context I can't guarantee it will all make sense but I guarantee it'll be interesting and enlightening get ready here we go [Music]

Channel: The Great Courses

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Length: 25min 18sec (1518 seconds)

Published: Mon Oct 24 2022