Rick Spence

Organized pedophilia exists. Child and human trafficking exists. At some point, at some time, someone will put all of those together. In fact, certainly they already have.

Well, first thing I have to point out is that Bohemian Grove is a place, not an organization. It's where the Bohemian Club meets. It's that 2,700-acre old-growth redwood near north of San Francisco. The Bohemian Club began back in the 1870s. Its initial members were mostly journalists.

In fact, supposedly the name itself comes from, it was a term for an itinerant journalist who moved from paper to paper was called the Bohemian.

And although I think there may be other reasons why that particular term was chosen as well, but I think the original five members, there were like three journalists, there was a merchant and there was a vintner guy who owned a vineyards, California, how surprising. None of them terribly wealthy, but they formed an exclusive men's club. Was and still is.

Nothing terribly unusual about that at the time. But it became fashionable. And as it became fashionable, more wealthy people wanted to become part of it. And the thing about getting rich guys to join your club is what do rich guys have? Money. And of course, it's one of those rich guys that bought Bohemian Grove, where now you build your... your old boy's summer camp, which is what it is.

They got cabins with goofy names. They go there. They perform skits. They dress up in costumes. True, some of those skits look like pagan human sacrifices, but it's just a skit. What's really going on there? On the one hand, you can argue, look, it's a rich guy's club. They like to get out there. The whole motto of the place is weaving spiders come not here.

So we're never going to talk about business. We just want to get out into the woods, put on some robes, burn a couple of effigies in front of the owl, have a good time. Probably get drunk a lot.

Well, part of it is the ritual aspect of it. And that clearly is a ritual. Rituals are pretty simple. Rituals are just a series of actions performed in a precise sequence to produce an effect. That describes a lot of things. It describes plays, symphonies, every movie you've ever seen. A movie is a ritual. It is a series of actions carried out

in a precise sequence to produce an effect, with an added soundtrack to cue you to what emotions you're supposed to be feeling.

Part of it is to create this kind of sense, I suppose, of group solidarity. You know, you're all going to appear, and also a way of sort of transcending yourself, in a way. You know, when you put on the robe... It's like putting on a uniform. You are in some way a different or more important person. It's a ritual. The key ritual at Bohemian Grove is a thing called the cremation of care.

And that's what it's supposed to be. We're rich, important people. We have to make all of these critical decisions. Life is so hard. So we're going to go out here in the woods and we're going to kick back. And we're all going to gather around the lake and then we're going to carry, you know, it's wicker. It's not a real person. And how would you know?

And then we're going to, and we're going to, and this is the cremation of our care, but it's a ritual which is meant to produce a sense of solidarity and relief among those people who are there. The question comes down with the rituals is how seriously do you take them? How important is this to the people who carry them out?

And the interesting answer to that is that for some people, it's just boring. I mean, there are probably people standing around the owl who think this is ridiculous and can't wait for it to get over with. There are other people who are kind of excited about it and get caught up into it. But other people can take it very seriously.

It's all a matter of the intention that you have about what the ritual means. And I don't mean to suggest by that that there's anything necessarily sinister about what's going on. But it is clearly a ritual carried out for some kind of group reinforcing purpose. And you're absolutely right. You don't have to do it that way.

I've gone to summer camps and we never carried out mock sacrifices in front of an owl. We did all those other things. We didn't even have any robes either. So it goes beyond merely a rich guy's summer camp, although that's an aspect of it. But it also, I think, often obscures it. Focusing on Bohemian Grove at the getaway of the club ignores that the club is around all the time.

That's what's at the center of this. It is the club and its members. So despite all the talk about no weaving spiders coming around here, one of the other features of the summer meeting are things called lakeside talks. And this often people are invited to go there. And one of the people who was invited, I think around 1968 was Richard Nixon, who was making his political comeback.

And he was invited to give a talk where very important people are listening. And Nixon in his memoirs realized what was going on. He was being auditioned as to whether or not he was going to be right. He recognized that that was really the beginning of his second presidential campaign. He was being vetted.

So one of the main theories, call it a conspiracy theory or not, about the bohemian club and the gatherings is that people of wealth and influence gather together and And whether or not it's part of the agenda or not, inevitably, you're going to talk about things of interest.

But to me, the mere fact that you invite people in, political leaders, to give lakeside talks means that there are weaving spiders which are going on. And it is a perfect private venue to vet people for political office.

Well, see, here's the question. Are these guys actually picking who's going to be president? Is that the decision which is being made or are they just deciding what horses they're going to back? Right. I think the latter is the simpler version of it, but it doesn't mean it's the other way around. But these are the kinds of, you know, I mean, Nixon was, you know, there was the whole 1960 thing.