America’s Secret Establishment

America’s Secret Establishment; An Introduction to the Order of Skull and Bones, by Antony Sutton ★★
America’s Secret Establishment is an exposé of the secret society located at Yale University called the Order of the Skull and Bones.  Sutton managed to obtain a modest amount of documentation and information detailing the character and nature of this very obscure society, where even the most inane details of the society are considered top secret. The Order initiates only 15 people per year, all-male, and thus maintains a tight seal on the membership and activities of the Order. For the most part, much of what Sutton had to say about the Order was entirely conjectural, since the information was not available. What Sutton was able to determine was the membership of the Order, and thus to identify influences in America and throughout the world that these individuals played. Through extrapolation, Sutton was able to conclude that the Order had every intention of turning the world into one massive socialist state, the New World Order.
Though Sutton is quite informative about the Skull and Bones, his book left too much out to make it of value. First, he concludes that the Order controls every aspect of American society, not only from politics, but from religion, economics, business, education, and law. This is hypothesized since there happen to be members of the Order who are prominent lawyers, and high up in politics (presidency), and religion (control of Union Seminary). Yet, the Order tends to pick the top of the Yale class students who are active in sports, highly sociable, i.e, the most-likely-to-succeed candidates. Thus, Sutton’s identification of members of the Order being involved in all aspects of society is slightly more profound than saying that there is an Ivy League or New England secret society conspiracy. That is not to say that I don’t find it bothersome that so many prominent leaders in society are members of a secret society. Unfortunately, our act of taking the Order seriously only increases the sense of significance that society members maintain.
The first chapter is a review of the evidence for the society, and the known structure of the society. Sutton makes it clear that this is not a right or left-wing political society, in that it has members from both stripes, including many liberals, as well as George Bush and William Buckley.  Chapter 2 tries to show how the Order has attempted to destroy education in America. He does this first by complaining against the new methods of teaching reading. He then outlines how the educational theory came from Germany and was brought into the US in an attempt to make every schoolchild a servile entity for the state. The basis for education, Sutton would say, is Hegelian. Perhaps it is also Kantian. Sutton has to blame all defects on Hegel since it was Hegel that gave rise to both Karl Marx (socialism) and Adam Smith (capitalism). Plus, Hegel explains (according to Sutton) why the Order can make entirely opposite actions and be internally consistent—they merely are trying to create a Hegelian dialectic of two opposites, that will lead to a resolution, and the Order profits off of the entire process of resolution. The secret society of the Illuminati is occasionally thrown in, even though this society was eliminated in the late 1700s. I guess Sutton figures it still lives on as a super-secret society and the parent of the Order as well as the Fabian Society in England.
The third chapter delves into the Order creating war. Sutton leaves enormous gaps. He was able to identify various members of the Order acting as banking personnel that provided loans to both the Bolsheviks and to Hitler. With Hitler, it was a matter of shear corporate greed, and I doubt a conspiracy was involved, even members of the Order might have been involved in the secret trades with Hitler. With the Bolsheviks, it is another story, as Sutton presupposes that those Bankers that operated in Russia were able to foretell the future of Soviet communism. It seems (correctly) that members of the Order perhaps saw an advantage of a strong Bolshevik influence in diminishing Western trade, such as with competition for the supply of oil.
The fourth chapter attempts to prove that the Order of Skull and Bones is deeply entwined with the occult, and is a Satanic society. He mentions certain rituals, and certain symbolism within the Order headquarters that offer unquestioned “proof” of such occultism occurring. Such may be the case, but Sutton’s evidence is flimsy, at best. The use of skull and bones, the note that initiates take a bath naked in mud, etc. seems more sophomoric than representative of deep evil.
I read this book with the understanding from brother Dennis that Sutton was one of the more insightful investigators into the secret societies and conspiracies that are besetting America. Perhaps, but this book is so weak as to be laughable if it wishes to develop that thesis. Sutton so often has to provide conjectures. He suggests that there is a big circle of influence, through the Council of Foreign Relations, a tighter circle of the Order of Skull and Bones, but then, even in the Order, there is only a select few in the inner circle that truly control the Order, and thus control the world. This suggests that there is a substantial chain of command between circles, yet Sutton provides no evidence that this exists. Sutton must constantly bring back Hegel in order to explain why the Order seems to continually act in odds with itself. I find this reasoning entirely non-convincing. Even Christ noted that a house divided cannot stand, should the person be the devil himself.
After reading this book, I quickly reviewed another conspiracy book in my library, Bloodlines of the Illuminati by Fritz Springmeier.

This book does not seem to be intended to be read cover to cover. It covers a number of families, including the Rothschilds, Onassis’, Kennedy’s, DuPonts and Russells. Springmeier is a mostly self-acclaimed preacher with two years of bible school. He notes how these families have intimate ties with Judaism, Roman Catholicism, the Jehovah Witnesses, and Mormons, and thus indites them all as part of the conspiracy. He is able to trace various families, and thus hypothesize regarding secret influences that these families have held on society.
The ultimate bottom line is that as I read more and more about the secret societies that rule the world, and create their own wars, stock market collapses, educational failures, etc., etc., I am less convinced that there is anything organized and controlling. I am more convinced that there is much out there that we will never know about; secrets exchanged, deals engaged, money, weapons, and technology transferred, all against the law, but all supporting the notion that all of mankind is fundamentally and to the core, evil. So it is not surprising that evil desires darkness to work its dirty deeds.
Sutton even admits that the John Birch Society has disagreed with him regarding the absolute significance of highly organized conspiracy. I agree with the JBS that the Order feeds the system with individuals that hold their own interests to the disadvantage of the rest of society. But, I must return to my book review by Peter Leithart, and heavily criticized by brother Dennis. Dennis even had the audacity of calling Peter Leithart an idiot, and simply did not understand the fundamentals about how the world really works. My final conclusion is that Leithart is the wiser, and perhaps the idiot is one who simply cannot believe that others might possess the more Scriptural insight. Perhaps Dennis did not realize that Leithart had studied under Gary North, and sits in the Reformed camp. To reiterate, Leithart emphasized that the “us” and “them” are not the people vs. the conspirators, but it is the people of God vs. the people of the devil. Leithart has a correct (and Reformed as compared to Anabaptist) sense of how Christians should interact with society. While the Anabaptists (and Dennis) create a gnostic sense of body/soul dualism, the Reformers see mankind as a monism, and that interaction in society is not in itself wrong. Thus, Christians can be active in politics, in public debate, in working to offer a Christian influence to society. To hide will not avoid the tarnish of secularism as the heart, even of the Christian, will remain to corrupt and destroy.
For those texts that are loved and devoured by conspiracy theorists, I have yet Caroll Quigley’s Tragedy & Hope. It may be a while before I get to that text. I plan to read yet a book by a physician on the brotherhood of darkness, as well as a book by Gary North on conspiracy theories. This whole subject of conspiracy theories looks interesting, and I certainly wouldn’t disagree that there is a handful of bankers and politicians that operate in a clandestine fashion to pretend that they “control” the world. Those who seek world domination are the greatest fools, failing to see how God controls them and laughs at them. It is worth memorizing the second Psalm, which couldn’t have summarized things better, …
Why do the nations rage
and the peoples plot in vain?
²  The kings of the earth set themselves,
and the rulers take counsel together,
against the Lord and against his Anointed, saying,
³  “Let us burst their bonds apart
and cast away their cords from us.”
⁴  He who sits in the heavens laughs;
the Lord holds them in derision.
⁵  Then he will speak to them in his wrath,
and terrify them in his fury, saying,
⁶  “As for me, I have set my King
on Zion, my holy hill.”