Retrospect
Retrospect
The Hidden World Of Secret Societies | Retrospect Ep.167
In this week’s episode we discussed the allure and mystery surrounding secret societies: who they are, how they influence societies, and why they capture our imaginations. From the Freemasons to the Rosicrucians, the Illuminati, and beyond, we’ll set the stage for deeper dives into the secrets of these enigmatic groups. Stay tuned for future episodes as we go into more detail, one group at a time.
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Keywords
Dallas traffic, secret societies, funeral attendance, baby reveal party, Renaissance Festival, Christmas concert, Mead tasting, gumbo cooking, Holy Trinity, Black Hand, Freemasons, Illuminati, Knights Templar, Opus Dei, secret society
Ian
Ian, welcome to the retrospect podcast, a sure people come together from different walks of life and discuss a topic from their generation's perspective. My name is Ian, and as always, I'm joined by Stoney.
Stoney
Hello
Ian
Jason.
Jason
Hello everyone.
Ian
How's it going?
Stoney
Well, I took a pretty good fall this morning.
Ian
Oh no.
Stoney
Jason came by and got me and brought me up here and almost called y'all and said, You're gonna have to do this one without me. So glad you're not hurting completely. Just lost my balance and went crashing down, took out about 20 were you in the kitchen? I was in the bedroom, luckily, because the last one of the other times I fell in the kitchen, I lost the fingertip.
Ian
Oh no, oh yeah. Remember that? Yep, I remember that.
Jason
This
Stoney
is just kind of getting old. I'm gonna be honest with you. This
Jason
is, you know, I could see how that would get very, very frustrating. Well,
Stoney
I'm here, so to our listeners, please forgive me if I'm not. Oh, what a 111, of our listeners said I was pissing vinegar. How was the piss and vinegar guy? So I'm not full of piss and vinegar today. Please forgive
Ian
me. So not quite as topped up. Yeah.
Jason
Well, it's a this past weekend. I had to make a an over a one day trip to Dallas.
Ian
Oh, yeah, you told me about that or told us about that last comeback. So,
Jason
yeah, that was a long drive. It was a long drive for one day and but we hit Dallas traffic about 4:30pm
Stoney
Oh no,
Jason
no, and I'm gonna tell you, it is their cars everywhere, yeah, the amount of roads in that city that are just going everywhere. Oh, and they're building more. I The GPS even struggles to keep up, because it tells you to go, you know, on this road for 300 feet. But yet it's kind of, you know, am I supposed to be in this one, or am I supposed to be in this one? And because they're literally running right alongside of each other? Well, which,
Stoney
which one do you use for maps? Do you use Google Maps? Ways? What do you Well,
Jason
use kind of a mixture of both. I was using Waze, you know, but Waze was telling us one thing, Google Maps was telling us another thing.
Stoney
So I'm a huge Waze person. I love Waze, especially now, because I can't remember what I'm doing right day to day basis. But Waze makes changes for accidents construction, and it has instant stuff, because other Wazers are putting information in. So it may, all of a sudden, it's happened to me driving down the road. This is okay. You need to take a right here, yeah, because something's up ahead. And it may not tell you everything that's up ahead, but you kind of know and go around, yeah, and so I like ways for that.
Jason
It was unbelievable. It's how much road work is being built. It's like this city is absolutely just, just where to get the money
Ian
on a smaller scale. When I took that trip to Houston, just south of smaller
Stoney
scale, I hate Houston more than I know Dallas.
Jason
I talk about all like a slightly, it's bigger than Dallas, really. Yeah, Houston's actually, I think the latest we have to Google this, maybe Houston may be the third largest city.
Stoney
I don't hate Houston, and the people I hate traffic. Oh, and that's okay, in case we have any listeners that are in Houston, I don't hate Houston. I just dislike driving in Houston, because you can go two miles and take an hour and a half. Yep. And that's what I don't like about Houston. For
Ian
me, I was the traffic was crazy, but again, I was having to, like, jump three lanes of traffic every time I would get onto a road. And was like, Okay, jump three lanes and take an immediate right. And I was like, Okay. And then I would do that, and then it would be like, Okay, you're only going to be on here for like, 100 feet. You got to jump four lanes to the left, to the left, and I'm like, I'm like, I have, I'm like, I'm, I'm that guy now that I hate where I'm sitting here. Like, sorry, guys, I just have to, like, anyways, I think that was probably a mixture of the Yeah, map set that I was on Houston
Jason
is number four in the United States. New York, Los Angeles, Chicago, Houston. Get out Dallas, Philadelphia, Phoenix, dang, San Antonio. San Antonio is bigger than Dallas, San Diego, and then Dallas, well, you
Stoney
see, you think about this, Dallas is Dallas Fort Worth, but Dallas itself isn't that big. But when
Jason
you add Fort Worth, the Metro place that's, you know, Dallas
Stoney
is actually kind of like three big cities that have kind of come together. And so Dallas is okay, but Houston is one city. Dallas is Dallas Fort Worth
Ian
cool, makes sense. I just, I was like, There's no way. And
Jason
I. Was for that. I mean driving in that city and people that are having to drive in that every single day, I'm like, and when I tell you there's just every lane charcoal block full of cars dumb out which direction, which side street, it was all full. That's when
Stoney
you need to win the lottery and have a driver every day,
Jason
or, even better, have a helicopter to your office building. You know, I have to drive on the road, but wild, yeah. So it was a, it was a short, just for our listeners. I attended a funeral. There just kind of a tragic death of my cousin's wife, and it was just a sad occasion. And so we ask for your your thoughts and prayers for for you know, her family during this time and and it should. I'm sure as time goes on, he'll have to, you know, I love to kind of yeah, get through this. So
Ian
what time did you get back home?
Jason
Was it got back to back to the house sometime around 830 that night. We left right after the church service, we couldn't stay for the actual burial, because the way they did it was, they had the church service, yeah, then a reception, then they went to the burial. Oh, wow. So it was a little different. I've never attended. I actually kind of like that, yeah, and if we didn't have to get on the road, I would have said we could have stayed but, I mean, that would have put us leaving Dallas, you know, lately 30, you know, maybe closer to three o'clock. And I was like, I don't want to be getting home at 11 o'clock at night. So I took my mother and my cousin, and they originally want to go by themselves, and I said, Am I going to have no 280 plus year old women driving from where, you know, from where we're at to all the way to Dallas, and somehow fight that traffic now? So I ended up doing it and but, yeah, it was a nice little long trip, yeah, but Saturday,
Stoney
Heidi, Dr Miranda and I went to her daughter's reveal party. Okay, she's, she's having a baby, and we went to that. And it was pretty fun. It was kind of out on the water and nice little camp, and she's having a boy nice and Miranda is still trying to find the perfect grandmother name for her, okay, but I have chosen grumpy as my grandfather. Heck, yeah, so I'll be grumpy. I
Ian
love that. That's great.
Stoney
Yeah, what'd you do? Oh, did you make any cookies? No,
Ian
but I really, I have had enough people still waiting, enough people. I've had enough people put in some orders now that I think sometime next week, I'm gonna try and make another batch, because have a few events, so
Stoney
make another batch. You caught that,
Ian
right? Because I did one batch. I only it's only one.
Jason
Well, you know, I'm supposed to sit down with Stoney, and actually, he's gonna help me cook a big pot of gumbo. So I will trade you some gumbo. There we go for some cookies. But how about that? This
Ian
weekend, though, I went out to, as we talked about before, I think, on the last episode, I went out to the Renaissance Festival. Oh, the one in Louisiana traveled out that direction, and had a big fireworks finale, and I met a handful of, made a handful of new friends from Nashville, Tennessee that came down to come hang out. And it was a lot of fun. And we all just hung out. And I mean, I probably got a little too drunk, but it's okay. I had had a designated driver, so I was in the clear, but it was a lot of fun. We ended up all hanging out and having a great time. I made some new friends. So that's that was the big highlight of the weekend. And then there was a big like Christmas concert that I was a part of Sunday. That was a lot of a lot of work was going into that, and it sounded wonderful.
Stoney
Were you drinking Mead?
Ian
No, I was drinking a very heavy beer, imperial stout beer, and it was very
Stoney
that doesn't count. You need to, you need to get drunk. Be authentic.
Jason
Well, I had some Mead when I went to the Renaissance Festival. Yeah, it's always like, I've got to have me
Ian
that's sure they have a few good brands. But they also, at the at that location, specifically, they have a handful of really good beers on town when I
Stoney
can actually smell and taste stuff. Ian. Ian pinch me up with a great little Mead. What was it Viking blood, or something, blood, yeah. Have you had that one? I enjoyed that when I could actually taste stuff. And it was kind there was like three versions of it, right?
Ian
Yeah, there's. Handful of different flavors that you can get. But the Vikings blood, our Vikings order it. They have a local market around here. Okay, it sells it. It comes like in ceramic bottles. And the the brand is dust.
Stoney
Was the place we went to on, on, it was
Ian
a Total Wine, Total Wine, the Total Wine around us that has a lot of it. That's another place too. They carry all the versions. But Vikings blood specifically is Mead, which is, like, honey wine, yeah? But it's a mixture of hibiscus flower and I think, like, like, some sort of, like, some sort of berry or something. It's like, also kind of mixed in with it, so it had, it comes out as a kind of a red, purpley color, yeah. And it's a very, it has that very, the unique Mead flavor, that kind of like that funky, sweet kind of, that has all these other nice characters to it. Anyways, it's fun. I don't have any right now, but I need to buy some, actually,
Stoney
okay, so I think I have a bottle. Maybe I'll bring it. Yeah, we
Jason
might need a share love that
Stoney
we can try it, have a little sip of y'all can try it.
Jason
So it's a shame. I wish you could still do that. Stoney.
Stoney
Well, the good thing about when you come and do the the Gumbo is, I'll, I'll show you the process, and then you'll have to do all the taste testing to make sure we got all the right ingredients right. I think what I'm going to do is, is my brother wants a gumbo too, so I've got a turkey carcass in the freezer. So I think when you come to do yours, we're just going to do two gumbos side by side and just have fun with it.
Jason
Okay, oh, that does sound pretty cool, because I want some chicken in mind too. There you go.
Stoney
You can do a chicken and sausage, and I'll do a turkey and sausage and, right, we'll just go there.
Jason
How about that? Sounds good to me,
Stoney
and I'll show you the holier than thou. Quad, you know what the Holy Trinity is? Right? What's, what's the Holy Trinity?
Jason
It's green onion, onion and celery. If I believe
Stoney
green onion celery,
Ian
I forgot what the last one was. I don't remember. Come on.
Jason
I thought it was onions, right? Onions? Well, it's green onions and then white
Stoney
onions come at the very end. What's the Holy Trinity. Oh, wow.
Jason
Wait a minute. I'm blowing a blank, because I've always thought that that was, was white onion
Stoney
looking on there. What's the good? You got your little computer there?
Jason
And and celery? I mean, I knew celery was in there. Celery is
Stoney
in there. Onion isn't, yeah, come on, come on.
Ian
Let's see. Let's see. Oh, I'm looking it up. There we go, because he's a let's see. Here we have, oh,
Stoney
uh huh, uh huh.
Ian
It's uh It's onions, bell peppers. There it is. Okay,
Stoney
yeah. So what I did was, and that's very good, except for me, celery never really.
Jason
Celery adds a little bit of sweetness,
Stoney
not even really. To me, Celery is only a crunch. So what I did was that's called the Holy Trinity, and that is normally the basis of all Cajun Creole food is started with the Holy Trinity. Well, I invented the holier than thou quad. And the holier than thou quad is onions, all four peppers, garlic and Rotel
Jason
and so I like in addition to the No, no, that's just a new one.
Stoney
That's a new one. That's what I call the holier than thou quad, instead of the Holy Trinity, the holier than thou quad. And I love the onions, and I use all four colors of the peppers, green, red, yellow and orange, yep. And then the the Rotel, just a little bit. It's not a whole bunch. And then garlic. And then, of course, at the very end of it, you put, you do put the green onions, because if you put the green onions and it just disappears and goes away. So I like the texture and the color from the stuff too. I like for my food to look nice, right? And give you a little texture when you're eating it too. So that's that's why I have
Jason
to try this. You're gonna you're gonna learn. I
Stoney
even shared it here with all of our listeners. That's right. If you have any questions, please feel free to write in at get offended together, at Gmail, dot, right, and throw your ideas out here, because we do love talking food and fellowship and hanging out together. So speaking of fellowship and hanging out together, okay, what's our what's the topic today?
Jason
Well, I you know kind of it's always been in the news. It's. You know, especially when people start talking about conspiracy theories and stuff like that. But there are groups of people that are known that we talk about on a regular basis. And so I thought we would have a an episode, kind of a 10,000 foot view of what we would call secret societies.
Stoney
Just a general discussion on secret societies, because there are so many rabbit holes. Oh yes, there are so many different directions to go in this. And I'm kind of hoping this will turn into some other episodes talking about maybe some specific societies. We could
Jason
definitely go into a lot more just kind of, I know, just doing some research for this podcast, it was like, it's a lot of stuff on this.
Stoney
I did something kind of fun, okay, I said, What are the top 15 secret societies from the world? Okay, all right, nice. I tell you what I'm gonna go up about that we'll go up number 15, the Black Hand. Anybody familiar with that one? Okay, the Council of Foreign Relations. Yep. Heard of that one? Unfortunately, the Ku Klux Klan, yep. Number 12 is the Thule Society, yep, stool, yep, fool. I'm sorry, thank you. The bohemian groove, yep, oh yeah, number 10, the hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn. Yep, yep. This one's interesting because there's a lot of stuff. This is a rabbit hole in itself. Opus die, yes, that we could do two hours on that one and barely even scratch the surface. Yeah,
Jason
I know about Opus die as as a Catholic,
Stoney
number eight, the Bilderberg Group. Yep, seven is the Order of the Golden Dawn. And this one has a lot to it too. And they've even been a couple of movies about this one, the Priory of Scion. Yep, Skull and Bones is number five. And I always, never pronounce this one right? The rest of Koreans, the Rosicrucians, rosaians, yeah. Then number three is the Knights Templar, which I disagree with them being number three. Number two is that way, Masons. This
Ian
is the most popular. Or, what is it?
Stoney
This is just or the top, top probably
Jason
about, I imagine they generate the list from the amount of internet searches for these particular groups. Number
Stoney
two is Freemasons, and number one is the Illuminati. Oh, that's a biggie, and that's that's different, because all the musicians supposedly have their own Illuminati, and you got to sell your soul to the devil for this to make this music and blah, blah, blah. But the original Illuminati was started in 1776 in Bavaria, yeah.
Jason
Matter of fact, I think it was a an attempt to, it was, it was anti Catholic, because it was fighting the authority of the Church in Bavaria, a matter of fact, a lot, I hate to say, a lot of these groups
Stoney
Catholic or anti Catholic generally,
Jason
are, or there is some origins of, you know, you know, originally, these groups served a way for like minded people to kind of share their ideas in because they they originated a time that saying this stuff out loud could could have dire social consequences for doing So. So so a lot of these groups started out as as ways for people to to kind of like, you know, have Brotherhood or sisterhood, or whatever the case may be, and and kind of share some some things that were not very but
Stoney
also, there's connections among these groups, right? NotI, the Freemasons and the Bilderberg Group are all so supposedly interconnected, they think one is the same. Now, the Bilderberg Group is a different thing, of people that get together every year in Europe and supposedly have these super secret meetings. Fun fact about that group is is you cannot be a pilot for them if you've had the vaccination, you cannot pilot a plane that transport these people if you've had the vaccination.
Jason
Well, you know, believe it or not, just somewhat in recent times, you. A lot of people would recognize the name of of justice Anton Scalia. He had spent his last hours in a secret society that he was a member of, really, yeah, it was the international order of Saint Hubertus. It's basically a secret society that deals with hunters. Wow, no. So it was that, that particular society which I didn't know anything about, this society, I mean, it's, I read about it. It was instituted by an Austro, Austro Hungarian count Franz Anton spark in 1695 and named after Saint Hubert. St Hubert, just for our listener, was a hunter who once saw a golden cross between the horns of a stag. Huber Hubert heeded the divine message and thereafter chose a life of piety sparks order aimed to honor St Hubert's memory and promote responsible hunting and wildlife conservation. According to the official website, and it was its membership was they denied, actually membership to Adolf Hitler, which then he then officially dissolved it, and then, of course, it was reconstituted after World War Two. And there's an American chapter found it in the late 60s. So obviously, you know, it's, you know, they have a lot of groups that that exist that I didn't know about. Of course, I knew about all the regulars, the Illuminati and the Knights Templar and the Freemasons and, well,
Stoney
a third of US presidents have been Freemasons, yes, yeah, that we know of,
Jason
right? It's an interesting organization. I mean, they, I think they date their their membership back to the Middle Ages of the order of people who build cathedrals, and so they were able to recognize one another when they traveled from city to city by symbols and in signs. And, you know, of course, that's where probably handshakes and, oh yeah, you know, all that stuff. You know, kind of he developed over time.
Stoney
How many presidents were Skull and Bones? Remember, Skull and Bones comes from Yale,
Jason
right? I mean, I do know, like the bushes were,
Stoney
bushes were, I'm not William Taft. So there was three that we know of three, right?
Jason
You know? I mean, that's, you know, what was it that that movie came out, skull, skulls, or whatever, like that, something like that.
Stoney
That was actually a pretty good movie. Yeah, it was an interesting the skulls, I
Jason
think it was called, so, yeah, I mean, it's a,
Stoney
well, the Vanderbilts, the Rockefellers and the Buckleys were all Skull and Bones. Also. It was started in, I think what 1831 or 1832 I can't remember,
Jason
but forever ago. Well, you know, there, you know, there's a lot of these secret societies that they did provoke a backlash. I mean, I was reading here there was, believe it or not, you know, they said a national uproar against secret societies, led one concerned group to create an annual anti secret, anti secret society convention in 1869 Wow in Chicago, and the attendees went after the in quote, secular press. The organization secretary said that journalists either approved or ignored secret societies, while few religious papers have spoken enough to come out for Christ in opposition to masonry, but by 1892 the convention which deemed clandestine clubs to be evil to society any minutes to our civil institutions had failed to secure them anything but strong denunciation the Pittsburgh dispatch reported, so yeah, there's a lot of a lot of you know information, the improved benevolent and protective order of Elks of the world. Nearby that one, I'm not
Ian
we're getting into the we're getting into the, what is it? BC tier, well, I
Jason
mean, look, I'm reading this article. It's the eight secret society. Bodies you probably haven't heard of, okay,
Ian
yeah, well, that's so, I mean, factual.
Jason
It's, it's, you know, they have the the grand, the grand Orange Lodge of Ireland, okay, okay. This one's more commonly known as the Orange Order derives its name from William of Orange, a Protestant prince who later ruled over Britain and Ireland with his wife Mary. The order was founded in 1795 after the Battle of the diamond, a clash between Catholics and Protestants outside Logan. Logan laugal, a small village in modern day, Northern Ireland. Any of our listeners who are from Ireland, I apologize if I'm not some of these words correctly. Its purpose was to protect Protestants who were the majority in Ireland's northern provinces, but were outnumbered by Catholics and the rest of the country. By the mid 19th century, secret societies were banned in Ireland with an 1823 act declaring such groups an unlawful combination and Confederacy, given this prohibition, General William Frederick Villiers, the Lord lieutenant of Ireland, of Iceland, I should say, attracted the hour of Waterford news for supporting the Orange Order in 1849 the paper wrote, Lord Clarendon has been holding communication with an illegal society in Dublin for upwards of 10 days. The grand Orange Lodge, with its secret signs and passwords, has begun plotting with His Excellency during the whole of that period. This may seem strange, but this is a fact that's still an active, still an active order today, believe it or not, wow. What about the Odd Fellows?
Ian
No, I've heard of them, really.
Jason
Yeah, they said the exact origins have faded into history, but a website of a North Carolina branch of the altruistic society states that several chapters existed in England by the 18th century. The lodges were originally formed by working men for social purposes and forgiving the brethren aid and assisting them to obtain employment when out of work. The website notes, and you would think a lot of these things, I mean, this was before the days of government social network, you know. So, I mean, this is how kind of groups took care of one another. They just kind of banded together. And often time they formed, you know, kind of their own symbols and signs and, you know, of kind of taking care of your own, so to speak. So, yeah,
Stoney
well, it was a brotherhood, still is. It's just they're being run differently by the now the different generations, which was an interesting take to look into and how they're being run generationally, as we're a generational show, right? Um, but, uh, yeah, there's, there's some interesting stuff out there on scene,
Jason
Knights of Pythias. I think I part of that one the Knights of Pythias, yeah, they were actually for founded, they said, government employee Justin justice H Rathbone founded this group in Washington, DC in 1864 he felt that the US, then embroiled in the Civil War, needed an organization that practiced brotherly love. Rathbone named the order after the Greek legend of Damon and Pythias, a tale of personal sacrifice for the purpose of friendship. The group was first there was the first fraternal order to be chartered by an act of Congress after review by President Abraham Lincoln, the ninth of Matthias. Colors are blue, yellow and red, signifying friendship, charity and benevolence, respectfully, nice. So they're not all bad. Some of them, yeah, you know, have what I would call, you know, kind of sinister, right? You know, origins? Yeah, attached to them, which is
Ian
good to hear, because I feel like a lot of times when I think of secret society, it's always the always bad, or some always the rich,
Jason
nefarious, you know, there's some satanic origin, or
Ian
there's a catacombs somewhere that everyone's all dressed up in and, you know, doing suspicious. Activities. But, yeah, but, I
Jason
mean, the movie angels and demons and the Da Vinci Code really kind of ignited, oh, yeah, a lot, a lot of interest in secret societies, especially the, you know, groups like, you know, the Free, Free, Free Masons Opus die, even the Knights Templar. You know, the Knights Templar is an interesting group. Yeah,
Stoney
they are. Did you know that they basically invented banking checks, banking fees?
Jason
They they've done a lot, yeah, after they have kind of reading about them a little bit, and what did you find out? Well, I'm just just kind of there, kind of what happened to them. It was basically after the end of the Crusades and fall of act. They, you know, they all returned to France, and I believe the King of France, believe was Philip the fifth, about to go back and look exactly, but the King of France, he had a lot of money. Yeah, he owed them, and he wanted it alone. And they basically said, No.
Stoney
So what he did was, was he passed a law and says, You can't be richer than the King of France. And so he passed this law, and he called the pope up on their special phone that they had way back then, and he says, I need you to excommunicate all these guys. And, well,
Jason
he basically needed them to dissolve the water, because it was a religious when we get there, yeah,
Stoney
okay, and, um, declare them heretics and traitors so that he could assassinate over 1000 of them on the original Friday the 13th, that's right. And what they did not realize was that that what he his plan was, was to kill him and take all their stuff, right? But the group split into two. Half of them were killed, and half of them disappeared. Because, if you remember, where was the Commandery in Jerusalem? Do you know where the commander he was in Jerusalem, underneath the Temple of Solomon, right? Yeah. Because they So, what did they find? No one knows. Yeah, there's
Jason
all kind of stories about what they found. I mean, I've read things where they held the bones of Jesus, Christ and the Holy Grail, you know, COVID, all of those things. You know, whether, whether that's true or not. You know, people make the claim they have it, if they have it.
Stoney
Oh, they were a pretty wealthy organization. They got gold and stuff from somewhere, right? Yeah. Well,
Jason
they needed, if they need, a to me, and this is what I think about some of this stuff. I mean, I you know, of course, as a Christian, I don't believe there's no bones of Jesus Christ, because Jesus Christ rose from the dead, right? Um, otherwise, you know, there's Christianity is not real if you don't have the resurrection. Um, to me, something that big. Why they have not considering today's age of anti religious fervor? Yeah, you know, let's think about it. You think they would have basically come out and said, Okay, we're going to prove it. Here it is, and kind of do the testing like they've done with the shroud of Tehran, which they've done extensive stuff with that shroud, and what I saw lately was pretty much confirm that that was the burial cloth of Jesus Christ.
Stoney
But I think the bones is a story. I think when you are a secret society, people like to make stuff up about it and try to tempt you into revealing your position or yourself. And I think that happens with the Freemasons. I think that happens with a lot of organizations like that. People just want to tempt you to showing your hand, so to speak. And I think that's a story that's kind of popped up to do that. It's like they played with what the Holy Grail was in one of the movies. What was the Holy Grail? That
Jason
was a chup of where it was, the cup Christ used at the Last Supper. Okay,
Stoney
but what did the Holy Grail wind up being his descendants?
Jason
Right? So,
Stoney
Mary Magdalene. Mary Magdalene, so I think they, they like to poke out there to kind of fish and see what's really out there. And, I mean, there's. It's fun for entertainment. But you know, it kind of
Jason
goes back to the story of, of of, of the Grail, you know, of King Arthur. Suppose, of the legend that Joseph, Joseph of Arimathea, shortly after the death of Christ, took a gathering of those early, early Christians, or followers of Christ, and they went to England, right? And supposedly, where the, you know, the Grail, would renew the land. And there's got a lot of, you know, symbolism there, and yeah, and everything else. What is that? Whether true or not? Who knows? But, yeah, it's, you know. Now, I one time read that actually the Freemasons actually came from the Knights Templar Well, I don't know if that's true or not, but I don't know for the longest time that is what the Knights Templars morphed into, well, what
Stoney
happened was, on the assassination day, a lot of the Templars went into hiding, and a lot of them went into the Freemasons. Some of them went into the Hospitallers. They still wanted their organization, but they had to do it. They hide. So there are Templars, supposedly in the Freemasons. Now, are they their original Templars? No, there's something else that's happened. The original split is still hidden. They're still watching. They're still observing. They're still doing things to protect certain things that don't need to happen or need to happen in God's time, and they're preventing it from happening in man's time. But yes, they did go into the Masons and the Hospitallers and a couple other groups like that. So, but are they the originals? No.
Jason
Well, as I said, it's a they're an interesting group. There's a lot of information on the knights, Templars, and often wonder if,
Stoney
how much of that is real? Well,
Jason
we don't a lot of this stuff we don't know is real. I mean, I'm sure there's a lot of embellishment with some of this stuff, because, I mean, the thing about secret society is, or, you know, their secret and intrigues people, and people have a tendency of probably adding more stuff to it than what it actually is. But, I mean, you know, I mean, is there some sinister group controlling the world? You know, some would say the Illuminati is doing that. I mean, it's what's recently transpired in our news today, we've been seeing a lot of people with black eyes. Some people say that's a, you know, some sort of secret society, or the Black Eye Society. You know that I was listening to this podcast regarding this Black Eye Society, and they were saying that the actual black eye is some sort of procedure that enables them to see it. Kind of pierced the illusion of our world,
Ian
believe it or not, what's that? Was the movie they live. Oh yeah, already put the glass, I
Jason
guess in some way. I mean, I was listening to this, this podcast, I believe it was called Spreaker. Was the name of it, if I got mistaken, but there was, he was, did an episode on secret societies and that kind of stuff and and what I was able to pick up, it was some sort of surgical procedure that enabled you to to pierce the veil of into the world of the supernatural. So you'd be able to actually see spirits, whether or now that's true or not, I don't know. I mean, everybody saw Jay Leno, would you know, his all messed up and and all this stuff. He explained what happened with that he had fallen down. But there's a lot of these, you know, actors and actresses that seem to have a black eye, which seems kind of weird, you know. I mean, you know, every now and then somebody get a black eye, but you know, when you got everybody getting a black eye, it kind of like, okay, what's happening here? So, you know, it's interesting to hear some of the stories on that. But here, I mean, just some other these kind of out of the way, kind of groups, interesting here the ancient order of foresters,
Ian
yeah,
Jason
known today as the foresters friendly society. So this group was established in England as the ancient order foresters in 1834 according to their website, founding members organized to help people as they walk through life, as they walk through the forest of life, establishing a communal system of funding, reminiscent of an of of the unemployment insurance programs or labor union seen today back then, members recognize that by paying a few pence a week into a common fund, they will be able to offer sick pay and funeral grants when needed. The website noted. So this kind of goes back to what I mentioned earlier. Yeah, a lot of these groups founded with, actually, a way of, you know, it was kind of very primitive way of of government, you know, before the idea of of government programs, you know, came about, right? So I
Stoney
didn't realize you were gonna sneak off to that one so quick. But you know, one, you know, who is pretty famous right now that had the black eye, right? Who's that? Vladimir Putin,
Jason
yeah, I saw that really well. They say, supposedly got that, I think, in a judo actually, okay.
Stoney
And Jay Leno supposedly fell. How many people are supposedly having these accidents? It was accident. But now all these people are just kind of popping up, black eyes off. That's
Jason
the new one, right now. I mean, I was reading something that this was a, you know, which I thought was interesting, listening to this podcast on the black eye that it, you know, there's being some sort of procedure that enables you to pierce the illusion of this world and actually see the real world, which is, you know, all the demonic activity that surrounds us and wild world is in such terrible shape and Just gonna be a crazy thing to have though. Yeah, I don't know if I would want to want to see that. Yeah, every moment of my, of my life is if I could switch it off. Maybe
Stoney
that's why they only do it in one eye you can close. So if all of a sudden you see what people walking around with one eye closed, you know what they're doing.
Ian
Or if all of a sudden, eye patches become fashion again.
Jason
Yeah. I mean, just some of this. I mean, it's, as I said, you know how true this is. And you know, I look right now, with all the stuff that's come out, with, with, with, with the Diddy stuff, oh yeah, and the Epstein stuff, I think some of these things are probably becoming a little bit more palatable. Well,
Stoney
this is the new Illuminati, okay, when they're doing the little diamond thing with their hands and stuff like that, when you're supposedly selling your soul to the devil to make music, when Who are you selling your soul to some of these guys, where you got to pay money. You know you want, you want Jay Z on your album, you're cutting him a check, no matter whether that album does good or not, right? Well, who's the? Who's this Illuminati? I
Jason
mean, I think the idea of, especially in entertainment, and we touched on this. Guys remember back when we did the episode on frequencies? Yeah, the federal, the CIA and they, they have been involved with the manipulation of frequencies in mind control going, it goes back a long way. Yes, it does. And I'm wondering, if you know this is why certain music seems to sell and others doesn't. You know, what is it about particular things that just seem to catch people? I'm wondering if there's something there. You know, I'm always kind of like throwing out that little question mark. Don't, don't discount it, you know, I know it may sound a little crazy, yeah, but, you know, keep an open mind with some of this stuff. You have to kind of be able to kind of sift through stuff and yeah, and kind of get to the truth behind it. But I was thinking about this, you know, that came to my brain with the idea that, you know, I find it strange that all these music entertainers seem to be caught up in this kind of stuff, yeah. And I just like, what is world's going on with this? Yeah, I
Stoney
was kind of curious about that. And so I used AI, and there's a hashtag out there, you know, for our listeners that know Stoney for President. So what I did was, was I was conversing with AI, and I said, How hard would it be to start a new secret society? I. On the hashtag. Based on the hashtag, Stoney for President. And I said, I want you to develop everything. There's already 440, applicants that I don't even know about, that want to join the secret society.
Jason
I think you need to go with it. Stoney for President, I think you need to go with it?
Stoney
I was just curious. It even broke it down. I said, remember, this is a generational podcast. So it broke it down on how boomers, if they were in power, if they were in the authority, how the purpose, the structure, the operations, the communications. It even developed signatures on like the Signet rings and things like that. How Gen X would run the society, how the millennials would run the society, how Gen Z would run the society, and what would it would be based on right? And it was so interesting that the boomers view Stoney as a stoic leader of timeless values, okay? The Gen X embraces Stoney as the counter cultural icon fighting against the system. Millennials transform Stoney into a unifying figure for global global collaboration, which kind of worried me about the New World Order, and Gen Z turned Stoney into a meme powered phenomenon, breaking barriers with technology and creativity. And I'm like, Oh my God, what did I just do? Dang. So it was really interesting to see how much stuff is on the internet and the thought process in these things. It was, it was goofy, and I just Yeah, so basically, the boomers would be the grand quarry. That would be the name of it. The Gen X would be the rock rebels, that would be the name of the society. And the millennials would be the Stoney collective, and Gen Z would be Stoney stands united.
Ian
That's good. Yeah,
Stoney
I'm sorry. I just thought it was funny. Um, trying to take a different take on this, because I know this is gonna turn into some other stuff, but, um, I was kind of concerned when, you know, just goofing around what AI is doing on the internet, to have 40 people already wanting to apply to be members of this with no website, with no nothing, and I'm like, oh, Lord Jesus, help me. Here we are. Yeah, so thought y'all would get a kick out of that. Yeah, that's fun.
Ian
Well, you're gonna give people ideas now, that's
Stoney
right, Stoney for President.
Jason
You need a role with that. You take and run with it. You might form your own secret society.
Stoney
Well, that was, that was that was, that was kind of the idea. I just didn't realize it would be that easy. That's
Ian
interesting.
Jason
Yeah, I also find
Ian
interesting. It sounds like a lot of these secret societies started in like the 1800s at some point in time they did, which is interesting. Well,
Stoney
the Freemasons and the temple, yeah, hundreds of years before that. But yeah, a lot of us do seem like it popped up in the late 1800s back when all the Rockefellers, Vanderbilts, Rothschilds and all of this money started. They wanted to kind of control some things and keep their itinerary of the world in secret, so to speak. So
Jason
Well we, I mean, some of this stuff is, is just absolutely, you know, it's, it's, I mean, some of this stuff is all over the place. I don't, I don't know. I uh, I don't want to be like, automatically discount this stuff, yeah, because I do try to keep an open mind with some of this stuff. But comment, some of this stuff can be wild.
Stoney
Well, how about this? Would either of you all be part of a secret society like this. And if you would, what type of society would you want to be a member of?
Ian
I don't know, man,
Jason
well, I believe it or not, I would thought about one time joining want to be at Opus die, really well, I could see that I. Want to be Opus die, or Opus D. I forget how it's pronounced. I
Stoney
think it's both Opus. It's depending on it's called.
Jason
I think it's D. Unfortunately, it was kind of made out to be, you know, they kind of with the way, you know, Dan Brown introduced the Mad Monk, and he would whip himself. And, you know, of course there, I mean, there's a lot of truth in that, because there was a lot of people back in the early days of especially, what were they called the monastic period of Christianity, for mortification of the flesh and the idea of of of, you know, that's how I would obtain, you know, pleasing to God, because, unfortunately, a byproduct of early Christian thought was the tension that existed between the flesh, yeah, and the spirit and and unfortunately. I mean, you know, of course, there was, it was, you know, Gnostic groups that basically
adopted a view that the body, anything associated with the flesh, was bad, right? And was evil and and which was, which kind of flew against the idea of, you know that, you know, God created the body, and so the body is sacred, but I could understand how some people would view would take some of Paul's writings and and basically come to a conclusion that the body is bad and the spirit is Good. So what happens is you start to see some, some heresies develop in the early, early triumphs of Christianity, of the dual nature and duality and all these things. And there are a lot of different names for some of these, these heresies that occurred in the early, early church, where the body, you know, they was like, you know, your body's terrible. And they was basically telling people, don't even get married, you don't have children, because the act of copulating was, was, was was sinful and terrible, because, you know, anything to do with the flesh was evil and of the devil and everything else. So it's like, yeah, houses, societies are supposed to operate here, but, but unfortunately, some of those practices kind of evolved in time with some of these religious orders of mortifying the flesh, yeah? And unfortunately, it did, you know, of course, that was really COVID, somewhat of an extreme view of that which has been condemned. I mean, I know, as a Catholic that, you know, the body is to be sacred, is not to be abused, yeah, and not to be, you know, so the you do anything to hurt the body is actually bad. But I could see how, how that could evolve, yeah, over time. You know, with with that kind of, that kind of thing,
Stoney
and that's maybe what we can do in the future on some of these is just start, you know, pick one or two of them, and kind of look at the good and bad of each right, what, what, what have what good have they done, and what, where has it gone in the kind of an evil, you know, dark direction.
Jason
Love to get somebody to from Opus Dei, okay, to come on. I don't, I don't think I know anybody. I do know some people who are or lay, lay people who are members of a Franciscan Order, okay, but that's different. Yeah,
Stoney
I think, I think Opus Dei would be interested, interesting.
Jason
But the question is, you know who? I don't even know who that would be. I've got some feelers out for some people, and some topics I want to I'd love to talk about, yeah, we need somebody that is an expert right in that, right? So, yeah,
Stoney
and I've got a friend of mine who's a Mason, and I've asked if he could be interested in coming on, and he's pondering it right now, yeah,
Jason
because a lot of them a bit, I mean, you know, and you know, you know Mason, you know, of course, you know, I can't be, you know, as Catholic, you can't have anything to do with with Mason. Three really, right? I know that it's, it's prohibited. Matter of fact, the church has put out over 20 degrees, even though there are some Catholics. Now, unfortunately, what, what's, what's, what's happened? Because the origin of Free Masonry, often time the came about with in opposition to the Catholic Church. Oh, okay, I see. And once again, this is what I'm saying. Kind of goes back to what I said earlier. The a lot of these groups were ways for people to come together and share things that they could not share out in public,
Stoney
because a lot of the times the church and some of the things that I'm sorry the Catholic Church did was to control the people, right, right, right, you know, so, so they did these things in secret, so that, because they were scared of being excommunicated, right?
Jason
We can't, you know. I mean, you know, it's hard to forget people to understand what ex communication meant, oh, yeah, prior to, you know, the what happened during the Reformation, right? You know, we kind of look, we think of the term ex communication is something that you know. Well, you know, whatever you know we you know, it doesn't carry the weight it once did. Matter of fact, I think the last person I know of that was I heard about and just reading about that the church ex communicated was, was Leander Perez. If you remember, Leander Perez was the parish president of Plaquemines Parish in Louisiana, and he was excommunicated because of his virulent segregation is used. Wow, okay, so the church actually excommunicated him, wow, from the faith, and that basically means that you're prohibited from receiving the sacraments. So I mean, let's go back in time to the idea that there is no salvation outside the church, so the idea of being excommunicated, which means I can't receive the sacraments. I can't receive the Sacrament of Reconciliation. I can't receive the Eucharist, which means I was damned to hell. So that carried with it a very powerful social power over people, right? Because there was, you know, nothing else. I mean, we live in a world now that you know the results of the Reformation, what happened after that, with the the fracturing of Christianity into various groups, all with sometimes very different opinions on some very essential things. But prior to that, that was it, yeah, and, and so it carried with it a very powerful penalty. So, you know, excommunication, now it doesn't nearly carry the weight. Most
Stoney
people realize salvation doesn't come from the church. Salvation comes from Christ period, but so it but they use that fear well to control the population.
Jason
I mean, yeah, but as I said, it carried with it that much weight because of just how the social order, how society had evolved from the time of of Christ to then how Europe evolved, and such and such. So a lot of these groups formed as a means of communicating with each other to basically prevent the church event, the church. So, right? That's why Catholics cannot be now. There are many Catholics that join masons, right? They did. Part of the reason why eventually the church had to come out and say what it did on on masonry. Now a lot of people think when it comes to masons, they think of the Shriners. And the Shriners are an out, kind of an out growth of some of masonry. So to an ordinary person, well, you know, the Shriners go out and
Stoney
help people while they're not exactly a secret society, not
Jason
really a secret society. I mean, they have their own rituals and stuff like that, but they're not what people when we think of, at least when we think of what Freemasonry was, yeah, where it came from, how it evolved,
Stoney
is different than what when you think of Shriners, you're not thinking of world domination or the right they are the Freemasons. You're thinking Illuminati. Be, you know, permeating
Jason
that, you know, the very fabric of our society and stuff like that. So I, you know, but yeah, I can't be, I couldn't be a mason at all. I'm a Knight of Columbus, which is, which is a different organization, which is a Catholic organization. And that's a little bit different deal, but Opus Dei is a completely different deal. And Opus Dei is is a, in essence, it's a, it's a, it was a religious order I should believe, founded by a priest in I believe South America, if I'm not mistaken, is where,
Stoney
but it's mostly for lay people. There's, it's run by the top people, but it's made up of both. It's made up of religious. There's no nuns, there's no things like that in it. It's just so
Jason
we group of lay people, yeah, you know, but
Stoney
want a better life because, you know, they believe that everybody should aspire to be a saint, yeah. And how do you do that? And Opus Dei supposedly tries to help you do that, if possible.
Jason
Now, the Golden Dawn, they have a cult organization like the Golden Dawn and Scientology have adopted Masonic rituals and it's hierarchy of initiation. But, you know, once again, sometimes different groups kind of borrow other things, and they use that within their own,
Ian
you know, their own practices and
Jason
stuff exactly. Yeah, yeah. So here sometimes secret societies can be infiltrated and weaponized by bad actors, the way Jeffrey. Jeffrey Epstein used the edge foundation okay to curry favor and protect himself. Wow. So yeah, here it is somebody that's, you know, you know, a lot of these organizations were probably good, and unfortunately, you get some bad actors that that kind of kind of warp some of that. And yeah, it can kind of give this impression. But, you know, Americans have always been kind of fascinated with secret societies. I mean, the whole idea, it's secret, of course, that makes it gets the Wonder. It gets the senses tingling. Yeah, you know, curiosity, what's going on there? Yeah? So, yeah,
Ian
that's cool. I'm excited. Also, like we had mentioned a little while ago, we were talking about potentially, um, kind of deep diving into, yeah, one of these on, like, in a future episode, so maybe not immediately, but in the next few episodes that we could, we could pick one of these, and let's just pick a couple of them, right, right, and go a little bit more into detail of all of it. So, okay,
Stoney
oh well. We got our website, podcast.com, we got the the email, get offended together@gmail.com
Ian
Yep, we also have you can go on to usually, you can type in retrospect pod and find most places that we're at. Spotify. You can leave comments now as well as YouTube channel,
Stoney
and if I could add there a couple of times, there's so many out there, and people are trying to find something, if you type in retrospect and Stoney or retrospect, Jason, or retrospect, Ian, it helps kind of bring you to that, because sometimes it can get lost, yeah, so
Ian
many different ways. Or again, if you don't want to deal with all that kind of stuff in each one of the episodes, they have a link there, and that link brings you to all the it's our, it's our dot website, dot cards, website thing where it has all the links. So if you want to find any stuff
Stoney
there, you can share us. Yeah, put us out there. You know how it is. Let that be our Christmas present. Share us to 100 people and say, Merry Christmas. Love it.
Ian
That sounds wonderful. Yeah.
Jason
Well, we've unraveled the mysteries of secret societies, or maybe we've just added a few more layers to the entry. Either way, let's agree on one thing, if a secret society is ever looking for a charismatic podcast hosting leader, they know where to find. Stoney. Thanks for turning in to the retrospect podcast. Until next time. Keep your secrets safe and your conspiracies entertaining,
Ian
but until next time, thank you so much for listening. Bye,
Jason
goodbye everyone and God bless
Stoney
Hey. Thanks for hanging out with us today. You're the best peace.