August 11, 2020 • 24 mins
Is there really an ancient, shadowy secret society running the world? If so, what's their endgame - and why hasn't anyone conclusively proven their existence? Join Ben and Matt as they look back on their Illuminati series in this classic episode of Stuff They Don't Want You To Know.
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
So last week we introduced you to the very first
audio podcast we did about the Nazi Party and UFOs,
the first of many. Uh we told you that we
had no idea what we were getting into, and today
we're bringing you another classic that you simply cannot find
(00:22):
on Apple podcast. This is a bit of stuff they
don't want you to know lore at this point, it's
the first time we stopped making as many puns and
cryptic references and said, hey, let's let's actually do a
show on the Illuminati. Oh yes, we're going to Bavaria
(00:45):
for this one, at least briefly, and then we're gonna
talk about all those rumors that you've been hearing about
this elusive group or perhaps group. Do you think we
do any spot on German accents in this episode? Gentlemen,
you know what? Wait for it, wait for it, wait
for it. You know, no, all of the three of us,
(01:07):
you probably, in my mind, you probably have the best
German accent since you lived there for a time. We
talk about Adam Wi Shops, who is sort of the
I don't know if he's quite the protagonist, but he's
definitely the Edward Bernese of this episode. Uh. We find
(01:28):
a lot of questions. We find questions we weren't expecting,
and we find uh, some timelines that don't quite match up.
Uh And spoiler alert, it turns out that whether or
not there's a real Illuminati, whatever you think, that means,
there are more groups than you might assume who believed
(01:50):
that they themselves are the Illuminati or they want to be. Well,
I'm talking too much. We'll see. And just before we
get started, a quick message from our benefactor. Join a
secret society today. They want you, they need you, but
you most certainly need them more than they need you.
This episode is brought to you by Illumination Global Unlimited
(02:13):
from UFOs two ghosts and government cover ups. History is
riddled with unexplained events. You can turn back now or
learn the stuff they don't want you to know that.
I'm gonna try something interesting with this to open up
our podcast. You ready, all right? Go with me on this.
(02:34):
In a world where less than one percent of the
human population controls the futures, fates, and destiny of the
entire human race, what can one man do? So that's
like my film intro and then this, yeah you like,
And I'm trying to figure out who will play the
protagonists in this movie about somebody fighting. The topic of
(02:58):
today's podcast, The Illuminate Nati oh Man Uh Nicolas Cage.
Nicolas Cage, Yeah, you know what, not a bad pick
because he could go weird with it if he if
he had to. I feel like he has to go
weird with stuff. Uh. Anyhow, Welcome to the podcast. My
name is Ben Bolan. Oh, my name is Matt Frederick,
and today we're here to talk a little bit about
(03:20):
the Illuminati. By far, one of the most prevalent conspiracy theories,
um ever really, Uh, the the Illuminati is something that
we have covered extensively in our video show. I guess
we have three three part series on that. We officially
have three, but there is a fourth technical one on
the Illuminati in the music industry that you can find. Yes,
(03:43):
great point, Matt, and our series on the Illuminati covers
a couple of things that we won't rehash too much here.
It covers the what we know about the founding of
the historical Illuminati. It covers the rumors and conjecture about
some sort of secret past what goes to the Illuminati
in the modern day, right, who that might be? And
(04:06):
then it asked some questions about the future now the
music industry. One was a it was a surprise to
me how how prevalent that belief is. But let's just
start with the facts. We'll get weird to get crazy
with it as we go on. But let's start with
the facts. Matt, what's the historical Illuminati? So we do
know there's this man named Adam Wi Shop who in
(04:29):
seventeen seventy six founded a secret society called the Illuminati.
And it's real. You can look it up. He's real.
And um, now the question is how much further did
that society grow? Did it become something bigger or was
it a part of something much older? Right? This is
this is where the conspiracy theories start to come in. Yeah.
(04:52):
Interesting side note, his name in the order was allegedly
brother Spartacus Nice. So what did bro Sparta because I
have to do with any of the historical rumors about
the Illuminati? When he started the very chapter, there was
also this rumor that he in a way encouraged that
(05:12):
the Illuminati was actually uh secret society that was thousands
of years old, and that this society was secretly again
guiding humanity towards towards something or another. But we can
fast forward past a lot of this because a lot
of those claims are explored in our video series. What
(05:35):
we wanted to talk about today is, first, if there
is something like the Illuminati and it can be proven
to exist, because that's the thing, that's the thing that
makes skeptics and people who believe in the Illuminati bump
heads often, is this idea all right? First, the most
difficult to believe part of something like this, right would be, well,
(05:57):
if there is one group of people that are somehow
controlling the world, then how can it be a secret?
How can there be absolutely no proof? And one of
the conspiratorial responses to that would be that just proves
how good they are. The proof is that it's not there.
I can see Nicholas Cage saying that line, right, yeah,
but the but we we have found some interesting things
(06:20):
that might change people's minds. Here's where here's where it
gets weird. So we know that we know that there's
not really at this point, any hard proof that the
the Illuminati, as they're explored in a lot of conspiracy theories,
are a lot of alternative history. We know there's no
solid universally agreed on proof that this group exists in
(06:42):
the modern age. But what we can prove is that
there are a lot of extremely wealthy, extremely powerful groups
that exist, and in particular now those groups are a
lot of times corporations with controlled banks UM. Usually some
kind of corporate entity, right, but it could also be
(07:04):
some sort of religious entity or religious affiliated, religiously affiliated entity.
For instance, the Catholic Church has Opus day. UH. There
are there, of course numerous incidents UM or examples rather
in history of of groups that arose to uh an
(07:25):
unknown power level, and we're able at some point in
history to exert control over something behind the curtain, like
P two in Italy, right propaganda do which was an
offshoot of the Freemasons. UM. But the thing is, when
when we talk about this there there are a couple
of ways to look at it. First, is it is
(07:46):
it kind of disappointing? Are we throwing cold water on
the idea, because what we're proposing is that secret societies
have existed, or secretive at least, and they continue to
wield some sort of influence over span of time, but
maybe not for all of human history. Or we can
look at it the second way, which I think is
(08:07):
the more realistic and frankly more frightening way, which is
that there's not one group of people controlling the world effectively,
there are multiple groups of people attempting to control the world,
which leads inevitably too horrible horrible things. Yeah, the conflict
gets uh, let's say, ratcheted up when when the stakes
(08:30):
are world control, right, and we we know, for instance that, um,
it's funny. There's a great article in uh Straight Dope,
uh where the you know, the guy that's straight dope,
Cecil Adams. Someone asks him if there's any truth to
the stories about secret societies like the Illuminati, the Bilderberg
counselor on foreign relations, trilateral commissions, so on, and uh
(08:55):
he goes. In his response, he says, you know what
is crazy A secretive group that does wield a lot
of influence, the n s A. Yeah, exactly, That's exactly
what I was thinking this whole time. Yeah, well, you
hit the nail on the head, my friend, because if
you think about it, the n s A does have
some of the superpowers often ascribed to the Illuminati. But
(09:19):
also you know, it's it's it's weird because it's human nature.
Humans are gregarious and cooperative and more than the some
of their parts. So of course in human society, people
with influence will attempt to pull their powers to gain
more influence. Um. And at this point, again, it really
(09:39):
depends on where you fall in um, where you fall
in the priorities of the critical thinking exercise? Is it
really to you? Is the lack of proof of the
quote unquote conspiratorial illuminati? Uh? Is that lack of proof
proof and it's of of itself? Or is the claim
of a single secret societ I so extraordinary that it
(10:02):
requires just amazing watertight evidence. It's so weird. It sounds
as though to me, let's say, I'm gonna take it
from the conspiratorial stamp. Okay, yeah, it sounds to me
as though the illumin audio is some kind or at
least the word is kind of a smoke screen for
a lot of these other very powerful groups. It's almost
(10:25):
a thing that you look at instead of the real thing.
Oh I see okay. So and and it's also kind
of um, you're just saying it could be kind of
a misdirection, And you're also saying also pointing out that
it functions as an umbrella term of stuff of sorts
right near a strawman in a way. Yeah, yeah, And
maybe that is to the detriment of people who do
(10:47):
deserve to know more about uh secretive meetings that can
affect the course of history or your life as an individual.
One one thing if we look at like a ven diagram,
one thing that all secret society conspiracy theories have in
common is that they believe the goal of the society
(11:08):
is somehow to remove autonomy or agency or severenity from
nation states or individuals. And that's a that's an understandable thing.
And I'm putting in a very base level. But maybe
calling something illuminati is is oversimplifying, maybe sensationalizing a little bit.
But in future episodes, when we explore some of those
(11:30):
other groups we just name dropped, we're going to see
that there can be um, some disturbing grains of truth
uh in in these claims. Now, we're not saying these
people are necessarily half reptile, half human creatures with some
strange blood oath to I don't know, make everybody like
(11:51):
two and a half men or something the TV show,
I have no idea, but but the goals the the
ascribed goals in the specifics. My point being, they can
vary widely, and they can also vary. They can vary
widely in terms of content, but they can also vary
widely in terms of plausibility. Well, okay, so I agreed.
(12:13):
One of the things that we have found is that
one of the best ways to exert control is by
controlling money, uh currency, sure, yes, and also belief, like
you said, with religion, controlling what what a massive people
believe is. It's highly important if you want to control
the world. But going back to the money, sorry to
(12:34):
go on the officur there we there's this great Forbes
article that we've been looking at and it's kind of old.
It's from two thousand eleven, but and it's entitled the
forty seven Companies that Control Everything, and it's a study
that was done by the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology
in Zurich, and it's one of the one of the
(12:55):
best micro reads that I've done in a while. The
the actual study, which you can find if you search
for this online. Uh it there's a link inside this
Forbes article to the actual study in the Big Model
and Everything, and it explains to their findings. So what
they've did in this study essentially is that they they
(13:16):
looked at forty three thousand and sixty transnational corporations and
then they started connecting the dots, the share ownership dots here,
and they found that based on their model, there's kind
of a bow tie shape, and they found a dominant
core right of these investment companies that have stakes in
(13:38):
each other and stakes somehow uh into about of the
wealth in this network of forty three thousand huge corporations um.
And when you look at the numbers, it's it's pretty distressing, uh,
seventy thirty seven companies, I believe control of that global
(14:02):
wealth UM. And then this what's strange with this is
that some of the individuals in these companies may be
serving on multiple boards UM. And it's also it's also
distressing and surprising to think that, given just the size
of the world's economy, that the wealth would be concentrated
(14:25):
so much in a hundred and forties seven companies. Now
the top ones are going to your point, the top
ones are financial and interest right like Barclays is number one,
at least it was at the time it was at
the time of this article, and some people might be
listening to us right now, Matt and seeing you guys
(14:47):
are exaggerating or that's that doesn't necessarily mean they have
great control over the world's economy. Where you guys are
shills for the corporations, right, or you guys are shills
the regions. Yeah, but we're if we're just looking at
some of the facts here, we do know that these
We do know that some people have rejected this study,
(15:09):
most notably a guy named Eric Savitts who when he
was writing um with Forbes, he wrote a retort uh
claiming that these companies in the top fifty list they're
just investment companies. They are operating, So that means that
maybe they're just putting their money in a lot of
(15:30):
different pies so that they can diversify and remain stable. Now,
for for my money, personally, this it's still disturbing that
there would be that kind of inequality of control. But
I do think that's a fair point, because you know,
the money that these companies have is not necessarily money
(15:53):
that they are directly managing, right, Yeah, that's true. It's
tied to indices. A lot of this money so like uh,
like mutual funds, exactly, hedge funds, mutual funds, all that
kind of stuff. So then but then another Forbes writer
Brennan cofy after who wrote that article. I think it
was Savats, Yeah, Eric Savitts Okay. So then it's so
(16:15):
great to kind of read through these articles and fours
of the different writers kind of shooting words at each other.
So then, uh, this other guy, Brandon Kofe, Right, he's
a contributor who it does say on here that he
works for someone else. Now so I don't know what
that means as far as writing this article, but anyway,
he says that there are actually four companies inside this
(16:39):
massive list that was outlined in the seven companies that
actually do exert a certain amount of control because, like
you said, all of that money, a lot of that
money is controlled by the indices. There's five percent of
it that is not that is that can be directly manipulated,
and that is by these four companies that actually have
(17:00):
an ability to to influence this money. McGraw Hill, Northwestern Mutual,
cm E Group and Barkley's because Barkley's purchased Lehman Brothers.
Uh what is it? They're Lehman Aggregate bond indecks. So
that's weird because most people in the United States probably
(17:21):
associate McGraw hill with textbooks. Yeah, that's that's exactly what
it was. Weird. I imagine these textbooks publishers. Maybe that's
just the side hustle. They own standard and poors. Ah yeah, yeah, yeah,
that makes sense. So they own some of the indusseries.
And that's that's interesting because let's think about the numbers here.
(17:41):
We went from over forty three thousand transnational corporations to
seven hundred and thirty seven that control eighty percent of
global wealth in some way, to uh forty seven it
to four companies that it exert some sort of influence
(18:01):
over those other seven. Yeah, over of the actively managed funds.
And this is this is interesting because at this level,
the money at this level is amazing. And going back
to going back to your statement, which I totally agree
with about the way to influence society directly or indirectly
(18:22):
through finance. Um, it reminds me of what was that
old roths Rothschild attributed quote where it says, give me
control of the nation's money supply. I'm paraphrasing, but it
was something like give me control of a nation's money supply,
and I don't care who's in office. And that is
in my opinion, whether or not that is is an
(18:42):
actual statement the guy made because Rothschild family members are
often misquoted, but whether or not he actually said that,
I think that is a profound point and it's an
absolutely true point. Controlling the money supply is a way
to control so much more. And as we're recording this,
we had just recorded a couple of episodes on the
(19:05):
gold Standard, which was an illuminating experience for us. And uh,
we hope that you check out this video here. No
met I gotta ask you in the future when we
cover other secret societies, what's one of the first ones
you want to take a crack at in our audio,
I would like to hit Skull and Bones. Uh. Purely
(19:27):
for the two thousand four election. Ah. Yes, Skull and
Bones UH as secretive, elite collegiate organization and so probably
the most politically correct way to say and uh. And
then two thousand four election, and it made weird waves
in the media because both the both of the candidates
for president, Democrat and Republican, were members of the Skull
(19:51):
and Bones organization. In college, and it made and also
part of their terms. They refused to speak about it. Yes,
both of them rephis to speak about it. Well, because
it's a secret society. Come on, man, Yeah, but if
you want to avoid if you want to avoid speculation,
if it's like in Hitchcock movies, you know where they
say one of the masterful things that Alfred Hitchcock did
(20:12):
is he never really showed the monster on screen all
the time. Right, So the monster that you create in
your mind with a lack of some sort of evidence
is is going to tend to be just terrifying. So
you mean kind of like the Illuminati, kind of like
the Illuminati. Nice way to bring it back around. Um,
(20:32):
and maybe that's why people are so upset. But let's
I'd like to end this episode with just naming some
of the craziest things we've heard about the Illuminati, like
craziest theories, and then inviting our listeners to respond and
do the same. Okay, that sounds great, all right, Um
to go first, Yeah, you go first. You've got a
good one, I'm sure. Well. I think one of my
(20:54):
favorite ones was that the the Illuminati as we think
of it today has its roots in the Brotherhood of
the Snake, which is an ancient Egyptian secret society based
on aliens that made human beings. Oh cool, kind of
an ancient aliens thing, I got you. Another one that
I had heard, um, was that the Illuminati attempts to
(21:18):
control society through pop music. Now we've done an episode
on this, but that it's specifically linked to um underground
pedophilia rings that for some reason. Yeah, and we do
know Now this is a bit dark, but we'll we'll
keep it appropriate um for for families here. That we
(21:39):
do know that there have been in the past some
crazy sex scandals along that time, along those lines with
involving powerful people. Um, I'm thinking most notably about the
incidents in Belgium. But the that does that prove that
there's this huge secret society or does that prove that
(21:59):
they're that powerful people can also just be really twisted,
messed up folks in their private lives. Yeah, I'd hope
to lean towards the ladder, but I don't know. Yeah
that maybe that's something we can explore in an audio podcast.
That's some those kinds of topics and allegations were stuff
that we can't really explore in a video because we Yeah,
(22:22):
we couldn't show it to you tastefully, and I wouldn't
want to. I don't know, it's there's there's an integrity
there that I wouldn't want to. Yeah, that we don't
want to cross a line on. But okay, So another
crazy thing I heard about the Illuminati. I heard that
the Illuminati, uh descended from secret hermetic orders and that
(22:46):
magic works, and that they practice working magic. Nice. Now
would that have anything to do with Bohemian Grove and
the creation of Kara? Is that just completely different? Oh? Nice,
Bohemian grove, that's a it when we have to cover
that too. Bohemian groove, ladies and gentlemen is a real thing.
You've probably heard of it. But if you haven't, go
(23:07):
check our videos on the Bohemian Grove. Now, Uh, let's say,
let's see, uh, Matt, I'd like to return to the
Illuminati in the future. Um. I. I enjoyed doing our
series on it, but I felt like there was so
much more we could have explored. So what I'd like
to propose for our next recording is that when we
(23:29):
touch on the Illuminati again, let's go with uh, let's
try to find some really specific instance of alleged Illuminati meddling.
What do you say? That sounds great? All right, So
we're gonna go off and work on that. In the meantime,
we hope that you guys have enjoyed a little bit
of our show Notes episode on the Illuminati video series.
(23:50):
You can watch the series itself if you go to
test tubo dot com, slash conspiracy Stuff or YouTube. We're
still conspiracy stuff there too, and there is a full
playlist on YouTube where you can just click one button
and watch the entire thing. And you can check us
out on Facebook. You can send us a tweet if
you don't trust Facebook. And that's the end of this
(24:11):
classic episode. If you have any thoughts or questions about
this episode, you can get into contact with us in
a number of different ways. One of the best is
to give us a call. Our number is one eight
three three std w y t K. If you don't
want to do that, you can send us a good
old fashioned email. We are conspiracy at i heart radio
(24:32):
dot com. Stuff they Don't want you to Know is
a production of I heart Radio. For more podcasts from
my heart Radio, visit the i heart Radio app Apple
Podcasts or wherever you listen to your favorite shows,
So last week we introduced you to the very first
audio podcast we did about the Nazi Party and UFOs,
the first of many. Uh we told you that we
had no idea what we were getting into, and today
we're bringing you another classic that you simply cannot find
(00:22):
on Apple podcast. This is a bit of stuff they
don't want you to know lore at this point, it's
the first time we stopped making as many puns and
cryptic references and said, hey, let's let's actually do a
show on the Illuminati. Oh yes, we're going to Bavaria
(00:45):
for this one, at least briefly, and then we're gonna
talk about all those rumors that you've been hearing about
this elusive group or perhaps group. Do you think we
do any spot on German accents in this episode? Gentlemen,
you know what? Wait for it, wait for it, wait
for it. You know, no, all of the three of us,
(01:07):
you probably, in my mind, you probably have the best
German accent since you lived there for a time. We
talk about Adam Wi Shops, who is sort of the
I don't know if he's quite the protagonist, but he's
definitely the Edward Bernese of this episode. Uh. We find
(01:28):
a lot of questions. We find questions we weren't expecting,
and we find uh, some timelines that don't quite match up.
Uh And spoiler alert, it turns out that whether or
not there's a real Illuminati, whatever you think, that means,
there are more groups than you might assume who believed
(01:50):
that they themselves are the Illuminati or they want to be. Well,
I'm talking too much. We'll see. And just before we
get started, a quick message from our benefactor. Join a
secret society today. They want you, they need you, but
you most certainly need them more than they need you.
This episode is brought to you by Illumination Global Unlimited
(02:13):
from UFOs two ghosts and government cover ups. History is
riddled with unexplained events. You can turn back now or
learn the stuff they don't want you to know that.
I'm gonna try something interesting with this to open up
our podcast. You ready, all right? Go with me on this.
(02:34):
In a world where less than one percent of the
human population controls the futures, fates, and destiny of the
entire human race, what can one man do? So that's
like my film intro and then this, yeah you like,
And I'm trying to figure out who will play the
protagonists in this movie about somebody fighting. The topic of
(02:58):
today's podcast, The Illuminate Nati oh Man Uh Nicolas Cage.
Nicolas Cage, Yeah, you know what, not a bad pick
because he could go weird with it if he if
he had to. I feel like he has to go
weird with stuff. Uh. Anyhow, Welcome to the podcast. My
name is Ben Bolan. Oh, my name is Matt Frederick,
and today we're here to talk a little bit about
(03:20):
the Illuminati. By far, one of the most prevalent conspiracy theories,
um ever really, Uh, the the Illuminati is something that
we have covered extensively in our video show. I guess
we have three three part series on that. We officially
have three, but there is a fourth technical one on
the Illuminati in the music industry that you can find. Yes,
(03:43):
great point, Matt, and our series on the Illuminati covers
a couple of things that we won't rehash too much here.
It covers the what we know about the founding of
the historical Illuminati. It covers the rumors and conjecture about
some sort of secret past what goes to the Illuminati
in the modern day, right, who that might be? And
(04:06):
then it asked some questions about the future now the
music industry. One was a it was a surprise to
me how how prevalent that belief is. But let's just
start with the facts. We'll get weird to get crazy
with it as we go on. But let's start with
the facts. Matt, what's the historical Illuminati? So we do
know there's this man named Adam Wi Shop who in
(04:29):
seventeen seventy six founded a secret society called the Illuminati.
And it's real. You can look it up. He's real.
And um, now the question is how much further did
that society grow? Did it become something bigger or was
it a part of something much older? Right? This is
this is where the conspiracy theories start to come in. Yeah.
(04:52):
Interesting side note, his name in the order was allegedly
brother Spartacus Nice. So what did bro Sparta because I
have to do with any of the historical rumors about
the Illuminati? When he started the very chapter, there was
also this rumor that he in a way encouraged that
(05:12):
the Illuminati was actually uh secret society that was thousands
of years old, and that this society was secretly again
guiding humanity towards towards something or another. But we can
fast forward past a lot of this because a lot
of those claims are explored in our video series. What
(05:35):
we wanted to talk about today is, first, if there
is something like the Illuminati and it can be proven
to exist, because that's the thing, that's the thing that
makes skeptics and people who believe in the Illuminati bump
heads often, is this idea all right? First, the most
difficult to believe part of something like this, right would be, well,
(05:57):
if there is one group of people that are somehow
controlling the world, then how can it be a secret?
How can there be absolutely no proof? And one of
the conspiratorial responses to that would be that just proves
how good they are. The proof is that it's not there.
I can see Nicholas Cage saying that line, right, yeah,
but the but we we have found some interesting things
(06:20):
that might change people's minds. Here's where here's where it
gets weird. So we know that we know that there's
not really at this point, any hard proof that the
the Illuminati, as they're explored in a lot of conspiracy theories,
are a lot of alternative history. We know there's no
solid universally agreed on proof that this group exists in
(06:42):
the modern age. But what we can prove is that
there are a lot of extremely wealthy, extremely powerful groups
that exist, and in particular now those groups are a
lot of times corporations with controlled banks UM. Usually some
kind of corporate entity, right, but it could also be
(07:04):
some sort of religious entity or religious affiliated, religiously affiliated entity.
For instance, the Catholic Church has Opus day. UH. There
are there, of course numerous incidents UM or examples rather
in history of of groups that arose to uh an
(07:25):
unknown power level, and we're able at some point in
history to exert control over something behind the curtain, like
P two in Italy, right propaganda do which was an
offshoot of the Freemasons. UM. But the thing is, when
when we talk about this there there are a couple
of ways to look at it. First, is it is
(07:46):
it kind of disappointing? Are we throwing cold water on
the idea, because what we're proposing is that secret societies
have existed, or secretive at least, and they continue to
wield some sort of influence over span of time, but
maybe not for all of human history. Or we can
look at it the second way, which I think is
(08:07):
the more realistic and frankly more frightening way, which is
that there's not one group of people controlling the world effectively,
there are multiple groups of people attempting to control the world,
which leads inevitably too horrible horrible things. Yeah, the conflict
gets uh, let's say, ratcheted up when when the stakes
(08:30):
are world control, right, and we we know, for instance that, um,
it's funny. There's a great article in uh Straight Dope,
uh where the you know, the guy that's straight dope,
Cecil Adams. Someone asks him if there's any truth to
the stories about secret societies like the Illuminati, the Bilderberg
counselor on foreign relations, trilateral commissions, so on, and uh
(08:55):
he goes. In his response, he says, you know what
is crazy A secretive group that does wield a lot
of influence, the n s A. Yeah, exactly, That's exactly
what I was thinking this whole time. Yeah, well, you
hit the nail on the head, my friend, because if
you think about it, the n s A does have
some of the superpowers often ascribed to the Illuminati. But
(09:19):
also you know, it's it's it's weird because it's human nature.
Humans are gregarious and cooperative and more than the some
of their parts. So of course in human society, people
with influence will attempt to pull their powers to gain
more influence. Um. And at this point, again, it really
(09:39):
depends on where you fall in um, where you fall
in the priorities of the critical thinking exercise? Is it
really to you? Is the lack of proof of the
quote unquote conspiratorial illuminati? Uh? Is that lack of proof
proof and it's of of itself? Or is the claim
of a single secret societ I so extraordinary that it
(10:02):
requires just amazing watertight evidence. It's so weird. It sounds
as though to me, let's say, I'm gonna take it
from the conspiratorial stamp. Okay, yeah, it sounds to me
as though the illumin audio is some kind or at
least the word is kind of a smoke screen for
a lot of these other very powerful groups. It's almost
(10:25):
a thing that you look at instead of the real thing.
Oh I see okay. So and and it's also kind
of um, you're just saying it could be kind of
a misdirection, And you're also saying also pointing out that
it functions as an umbrella term of stuff of sorts
right near a strawman in a way. Yeah, yeah, And
maybe that is to the detriment of people who do
(10:47):
deserve to know more about uh secretive meetings that can
affect the course of history or your life as an individual.
One one thing if we look at like a ven diagram,
one thing that all secret society conspiracy theories have in
common is that they believe the goal of the society
(11:08):
is somehow to remove autonomy or agency or severenity from
nation states or individuals. And that's a that's an understandable thing.
And I'm putting in a very base level. But maybe
calling something illuminati is is oversimplifying, maybe sensationalizing a little bit.
But in future episodes, when we explore some of those
(11:30):
other groups we just name dropped, we're going to see
that there can be um, some disturbing grains of truth
uh in in these claims. Now, we're not saying these
people are necessarily half reptile, half human creatures with some
strange blood oath to I don't know, make everybody like
(11:51):
two and a half men or something the TV show,
I have no idea, but but the goals the the
ascribed goals in the specifics. My point being, they can
vary widely, and they can also vary. They can vary
widely in terms of content, but they can also vary
widely in terms of plausibility. Well, okay, so I agreed.
(12:13):
One of the things that we have found is that
one of the best ways to exert control is by
controlling money, uh currency, sure, yes, and also belief, like
you said, with religion, controlling what what a massive people
believe is. It's highly important if you want to control
the world. But going back to the money, sorry to
(12:34):
go on the officur there we there's this great Forbes
article that we've been looking at and it's kind of old.
It's from two thousand eleven, but and it's entitled the
forty seven Companies that Control Everything, and it's a study
that was done by the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology
in Zurich, and it's one of the one of the
(12:55):
best micro reads that I've done in a while. The
the actual study, which you can find if you search
for this online. Uh it there's a link inside this
Forbes article to the actual study in the Big Model
and Everything, and it explains to their findings. So what
they've did in this study essentially is that they they
(13:16):
looked at forty three thousand and sixty transnational corporations and
then they started connecting the dots, the share ownership dots here,
and they found that based on their model, there's kind
of a bow tie shape, and they found a dominant
core right of these investment companies that have stakes in
(13:38):
each other and stakes somehow uh into about of the
wealth in this network of forty three thousand huge corporations um.
And when you look at the numbers, it's it's pretty distressing, uh,
seventy thirty seven companies, I believe control of that global
(14:02):
wealth UM. And then this what's strange with this is
that some of the individuals in these companies may be
serving on multiple boards UM. And it's also it's also
distressing and surprising to think that, given just the size
of the world's economy, that the wealth would be concentrated
(14:25):
so much in a hundred and forties seven companies. Now
the top ones are going to your point, the top
ones are financial and interest right like Barclays is number one,
at least it was at the time it was at
the time of this article, and some people might be
listening to us right now, Matt and seeing you guys
(14:47):
are exaggerating or that's that doesn't necessarily mean they have
great control over the world's economy. Where you guys are
shills for the corporations, right, or you guys are shills
the regions. Yeah, but we're if we're just looking at
some of the facts here, we do know that these
We do know that some people have rejected this study,
(15:09):
most notably a guy named Eric Savitts who when he
was writing um with Forbes, he wrote a retort uh
claiming that these companies in the top fifty list they're
just investment companies. They are operating, So that means that
maybe they're just putting their money in a lot of
(15:30):
different pies so that they can diversify and remain stable. Now,
for for my money, personally, this it's still disturbing that
there would be that kind of inequality of control. But
I do think that's a fair point, because you know,
the money that these companies have is not necessarily money
(15:53):
that they are directly managing, right, Yeah, that's true. It's
tied to indices. A lot of this money so like uh,
like mutual funds, exactly, hedge funds, mutual funds, all that
kind of stuff. So then but then another Forbes writer
Brennan cofy after who wrote that article. I think it
was Savats, Yeah, Eric Savitts Okay. So then it's so
(16:15):
great to kind of read through these articles and fours
of the different writers kind of shooting words at each other.
So then, uh, this other guy, Brandon Kofe, Right, he's
a contributor who it does say on here that he
works for someone else. Now so I don't know what
that means as far as writing this article, but anyway,
he says that there are actually four companies inside this
(16:39):
massive list that was outlined in the seven companies that
actually do exert a certain amount of control because, like
you said, all of that money, a lot of that
money is controlled by the indices. There's five percent of
it that is not that is that can be directly manipulated,
and that is by these four companies that actually have
(17:00):
an ability to to influence this money. McGraw Hill, Northwestern Mutual,
cm E Group and Barkley's because Barkley's purchased Lehman Brothers.
Uh what is it? They're Lehman Aggregate bond indecks. So
that's weird because most people in the United States probably
(17:21):
associate McGraw hill with textbooks. Yeah, that's that's exactly what
it was. Weird. I imagine these textbooks publishers. Maybe that's
just the side hustle. They own standard and poors. Ah yeah, yeah, yeah,
that makes sense. So they own some of the indusseries.
And that's that's interesting because let's think about the numbers here.
(17:41):
We went from over forty three thousand transnational corporations to
seven hundred and thirty seven that control eighty percent of
global wealth in some way, to uh forty seven it
to four companies that it exert some sort of influence
(18:01):
over those other seven. Yeah, over of the actively managed funds.
And this is this is interesting because at this level,
the money at this level is amazing. And going back
to going back to your statement, which I totally agree
with about the way to influence society directly or indirectly
(18:22):
through finance. Um, it reminds me of what was that
old roths Rothschild attributed quote where it says, give me
control of the nation's money supply. I'm paraphrasing, but it
was something like give me control of a nation's money supply,
and I don't care who's in office. And that is
in my opinion, whether or not that is is an
(18:42):
actual statement the guy made because Rothschild family members are
often misquoted, but whether or not he actually said that,
I think that is a profound point and it's an
absolutely true point. Controlling the money supply is a way
to control so much more. And as we're recording this,
we had just recorded a couple of episodes on the
(19:05):
gold Standard, which was an illuminating experience for us. And uh,
we hope that you check out this video here. No
met I gotta ask you in the future when we
cover other secret societies, what's one of the first ones
you want to take a crack at in our audio,
I would like to hit Skull and Bones. Uh. Purely
(19:27):
for the two thousand four election. Ah. Yes, Skull and
Bones UH as secretive, elite collegiate organization and so probably
the most politically correct way to say and uh. And
then two thousand four election, and it made weird waves
in the media because both the both of the candidates
for president, Democrat and Republican, were members of the Skull
(19:51):
and Bones organization. In college, and it made and also
part of their terms. They refused to speak about it. Yes,
both of them rephis to speak about it. Well, because
it's a secret society. Come on, man, Yeah, but if
you want to avoid if you want to avoid speculation,
if it's like in Hitchcock movies, you know where they
say one of the masterful things that Alfred Hitchcock did
(20:12):
is he never really showed the monster on screen all
the time. Right, So the monster that you create in
your mind with a lack of some sort of evidence
is is going to tend to be just terrifying. So
you mean kind of like the Illuminati, kind of like
the Illuminati. Nice way to bring it back around. Um,
(20:32):
and maybe that's why people are so upset. But let's
I'd like to end this episode with just naming some
of the craziest things we've heard about the Illuminati, like
craziest theories, and then inviting our listeners to respond and
do the same. Okay, that sounds great, all right, Um
to go first, Yeah, you go first. You've got a
good one, I'm sure. Well. I think one of my
(20:54):
favorite ones was that the the Illuminati as we think
of it today has its roots in the Brotherhood of
the Snake, which is an ancient Egyptian secret society based
on aliens that made human beings. Oh cool, kind of
an ancient aliens thing, I got you. Another one that
I had heard, um, was that the Illuminati attempts to
(21:18):
control society through pop music. Now we've done an episode
on this, but that it's specifically linked to um underground
pedophilia rings that for some reason. Yeah, and we do
know Now this is a bit dark, but we'll we'll
keep it appropriate um for for families here. That we
(21:39):
do know that there have been in the past some
crazy sex scandals along that time, along those lines with
involving powerful people. Um, I'm thinking most notably about the
incidents in Belgium. But the that does that prove that
there's this huge secret society or does that prove that
(21:59):
they're that powerful people can also just be really twisted,
messed up folks in their private lives. Yeah, I'd hope
to lean towards the ladder, but I don't know. Yeah
that maybe that's something we can explore in an audio podcast.
That's some those kinds of topics and allegations were stuff
that we can't really explore in a video because we Yeah,
(22:22):
we couldn't show it to you tastefully, and I wouldn't
want to. I don't know, it's there's there's an integrity
there that I wouldn't want to. Yeah, that we don't
want to cross a line on. But okay, So another
crazy thing I heard about the Illuminati. I heard that
the Illuminati, uh descended from secret hermetic orders and that
(22:46):
magic works, and that they practice working magic. Nice. Now
would that have anything to do with Bohemian Grove and
the creation of Kara? Is that just completely different? Oh? Nice,
Bohemian grove, that's a it when we have to cover
that too. Bohemian groove, ladies and gentlemen is a real thing.
You've probably heard of it. But if you haven't, go
(23:07):
check our videos on the Bohemian Grove. Now, Uh, let's say,
let's see, uh, Matt, I'd like to return to the
Illuminati in the future. Um. I. I enjoyed doing our
series on it, but I felt like there was so
much more we could have explored. So what I'd like
to propose for our next recording is that when we
(23:29):
touch on the Illuminati again, let's go with uh, let's
try to find some really specific instance of alleged Illuminati meddling.
What do you say? That sounds great? All right, So
we're gonna go off and work on that. In the meantime,
we hope that you guys have enjoyed a little bit
of our show Notes episode on the Illuminati video series.
(23:50):
You can watch the series itself if you go to
test tubo dot com, slash conspiracy Stuff or YouTube. We're
still conspiracy stuff there too, and there is a full
playlist on YouTube where you can just click one button
and watch the entire thing. And you can check us
out on Facebook. You can send us a tweet if
you don't trust Facebook. And that's the end of this
(24:11):
classic episode. If you have any thoughts or questions about
this episode, you can get into contact with us in
a number of different ways. One of the best is
to give us a call. Our number is one eight
three three std w y t K. If you don't
want to do that, you can send us a good
old fashioned email. We are conspiracy at i heart radio
(24:32):
dot com. Stuff they Don't want you to Know is
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