Independent UK Covers Skull And Bones, Leaves Out Key Facts

The Independent has reported on the infamous Skull and Bones group. However, there is just one problem: the article fails to mention key facts from history about the organization.

The author leaves out plenty of information, and it appears to be just a fluff piece to discredit anyone who questions why there is a windowless building called “The Tomb” at Yale’s courtyard where elitists meet.

Ending the article with:

Mr Bush’s tenure as president of the Zapata Offshore oil company has even led the Skull and Bones to be blamed for the Kennedy assassination, with conspiracy theorists suggesting his business in the Gulf of Mexico gave the order the ideal platform to recruit Cuban revolutionaries to organise the hit on JFK in Dallas, Texas, on 22 November 1963.

The chances of finding out the truth remain slim, however.

Although the author briefly mentions some of the history of Skull and Bones, they leave out a ton of information on the secret society itself.

However, the article seems mainly focused on George H.W. Bush’s involvement with the organization.

“Bush was a member of the elite Skull and Bones society, a group that enrolls 15 new undergraduates every spring after selected candidates have been notified with a tap on the shoulder, an event that has taken place every ‘Tap Day’ since 1879,” the author wrote.

Full details of the ritual initiation were omitted, as was any mention that new frat members are referred to as “Neophytes” and Skull and Bones is sometimes referred to as the “Brotherhood of Death. The author does get some credit for mentioning the coffin ritual and confessions of sexual history in detail. Although, that’s where the credit ends because Independent UK failed to mention that Neophytes lay naked inside that coffin and touch each other while confessing their sexual deviances and masturbating. After which they are rewarded with a no-strings-attached gift of $15,000, The Atlantic reported.

“In exchange for swearing allegiance to your fellow Bonesmen, lying in a coffin during an initiatory “rebirthing” ceremony and revealing your entire sexual history in frank detail, the order promises its members lifelong financial stability, effectively buying their silence as to its workings,” The Independent wrote.

From The Atlantic article:

The story of Skull and Bones begins in December of 1832. Upset (according to one account) by changes in the Phi Beta Kappa election process, a Yale senior named William Russell and a group of classmates decided to form the Eulogian Club as an American chapter of a German student organization. The club paid obeisance to Eulogia, the goddess of eloquence, who took her place in the pantheon upon the death of the orator Demosthenes, in 322 B.C., and who is said to have returned in a kind of Second Coming on the occasion of the society’s inception. The Yale society fastened a picture of its symbol—a skull and crossbones—to the door of the chapel where it met. Today the number 322, recalling the date of Demosthenes’ death, appears on society stationery. The number has such mystical overtones that in 1967 a graduate student with no ties to Skull and Bones donated $322,000 to the society.”

The Atlantic article goes on to describe the initiation ritual:

The initiation ceremony, held in April, involves as many alumni, or “patriarchs,” as possible, one of whom in each instance serves as the supervisor, known as Uncle Toby. The Inner Temple is cleared of furniture except for two chairs and a table, and Bonesmen past and present assemble: Uncle Toby in a robe; the shortest senior, or “Little Devil,” in a satanic costume; a Bonesman with a deep voice in a Don Quixote costume; one in papal vestments; another dressed as Elihu Yale; four of the brawniest in the role of “shakers”; and a crew of extras wearing skeleton costumes and carrying noisemakers. According to the initiation script, Uncle Toby “sounds like the only sane person in the room.”

As an initiate enters the room, patriarchs standing outside the Inner Temple shout, “Who is it?” The shakers bellow the initiate’s name, which the patriarchs echo. The shakers push the initiate toward the table, where the secrecy oath has been placed, and he is enjoined to “Read! Read! Read!” The shakers then half-carry the initiate to a picture of Eulogia, and the Bonesmen shriek, “Eulogia! Eulogia! Eulogia!” After another trip to the oath, the shakers fire the initiate toward a picture of a woman that Bonesmen call Connubial Bliss.

The Independent article also fails to mention the lawsuit in 2009 by Native American descendants of the Apache chief Geronimo accusing Skull and Bones – and specifically George Bush Sr’s father Prescott Bush – of stealing the skull. The Native Americans demanded that Skull and Bones return Geronimo’s skull.

Although perhaps the biggest piece of information missing from the article is a leaked tape of a Skull and Bones ritual that ABC exposed in 2001. Bonesmen can be seen and heard engaging in an occult ritual involving kissing human skulls, followed by what was described by the ABC host as “performing a mock killing” on one of the Neophytes.

“Even though it may seem silly to us, it seems to mean something to them,” Ron Rosenbaum, the reporter for the New York Post who helped obtain the video of the rituals said, during a 2001 interview with ABC News. “You can’t argue with the success of Skull and Bones.” The ABC host went on to explain that Skull and Bones members have “groomed the American ruling class for generations,” producing heads of Wall Street, Congress, the Supreme Court, and even presidents in the White House.

Another journalist, Tim Russert, asked both former President George W. Bush and then Secretary John Kerry about Skull and Bones in a 2004 interview. Russert later died of a heart attack four years later in 2008 — make of that what you will, it could be a coincidence or something more sinister.

The Atlantic article notes that in the year 2000 there was no one killed for digging into the organization. However, that might have changed in 2008.

“So far as we know, although Ron Rosenbaum, the author of a 1977 Esquire article on Skull and Bones, wrote that a Bonesman warned him not to get too close: “The alumni still care,” the source warned.

Don’t laugh. They don’t like people tampering and prying. The power of Bones is incredible. They’ve got their hands on every lever of power in the country. You’ll see—it’s like trying to look into the Mafia.

In 2011, Business Insider published a top 15 of the most powerful members of Skull and Bones; included in that list to name a few names were former presidents William Howard Taft, George H.W. Bush and his son George W. Bush, as well as former Secretary of State and Senator, John Kerry.

Other Bonesmen include U.S. President William Howard Taft, Morrison R. Waite (Chief Justice of the Supreme Court), Henry Luce (Time-Life), Harold Stanley (founder of Morgan Stanley), Frederick W. Smith (founder of Fedex), John Daniels (founder of Archer Daniels Midland), Henry P. Davison (senior partner Morgan Guaranty Trust), Pierre Jay (first chairman of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York), Artemus Gates (President of New York Trust Company, Union Pacific, TIME, Boeing Company), Senator John Chaffe, Russell W. Davenport (editor Fortune Magazine), Austan Goolsbee (Chairman of President Obama’s Council of Economic Advisers), Nicholas Brady, the first presidents of the University of California, Johns Hopkins University, and Cornell University.

Activist Post last year looked into Henry Luce who could be titled the “father of mainstream media.” He was referred to as “the most influential private citizen in America of his day.”

The Russell Trust Association (R.T.A.), named after one of the organization’s founders General William Huntington Russell, is the alumni organization that owns Skull and Bones properties and oversees all the organization’s activity.

Comedian Trevor Moore did a skit where he tells kids about Skull and Bones; and although it’s supposed to comedy, it’s probably not very far off from being accurate.