Bohemian Grove

Bohemian Grove is a 2,700-acre (1,100 ha) campground located at 20601 Bohemian Avenue, in Monte Rio, California, belonging to a private San Francisco-based men's art club known as the Bohemian Club. In mid-July each year, Bohemian Grove hosts a two-week, three-weekend encampment of some of the most powerful men in the world.

Introduction

The Bohemian Club's all-male membership and guest list includes artists, particularly musicians, as well as many prominent business leaders, government officials (including U.S. presidents), senior media executives, and people of power. Members may invite guests to the Grove although those guests are subject to a screening procedure. A guest's first glimpse of the Grove typically is during the "Spring Jinks" in June, preceding the main July encampment. Bohemian club members can schedule private day-use events at the Grove any time it is not being used for Club-wide purposes, and are allowed at these times to bring spouses, family and friends, though female and minor guests must be off the property by 9 or 10 pm.

After 40 years of membership the men earn "Old Guard" status, giving them reserved seating at the Grove's daily talks, as well as other perquisites. Former president Herbert Hoover was inducted into the Old Guard on March 19, 1953; he had joined the club exactly 40 years prior. Redwood branches from the Grove were flown to the Waldorf-Astoria Hotel in New York City where they were used to decorate a banquet room for the celebration. In his acceptance speech, Hoover compared the honor of the "Old Guard" status to his frequent role as veteran counselor to later presidents.

The Club motto is "Weaving Spiders Come Not Here", which implies that outside concerns and business deals are to be left outside. When gathered in groups, Bohemians usually adhere to the injunction, though discussion of business often occurs between pairs of members. Important political and business deals have been developed at the Grove. The Grove is particularly famous for a Manhattan Project planning meeting that took place there in September 1942, which subsequently led to the atomic bomb. Those attending this meeting included Ernest Lawrence, U.C. Berkeley colleague Robert Oppenheimer, various military officials, the S-1 Committee heads such as the presidents of Harvard, Yale and Princeton along with representatives of Standard Oil and General Electric. At the time, Oppenheimer was not an official S-1 member due to security clearance troubles with the U.S. wartime Government, though Lawrence and Oppenheimer hosted the meeting. Grove members take particular pride in this event and often relate the story to new attendees.

History

The tradition of a summer encampment was established six years after the Bohemian Club was formed in 1872. Henry "Harry" Edwards, a stage actor and founding member, announced that he was relocating to New York City to further his career. On June 29, 1878, somewhat fewer than 100 Bohemians gathered in the Redwoods in Marin County near Taylorville (present-day Samuel P. Taylor State Park) for an evening sendoff party in Edwards' honor. Freely flowing liquor and some Japanese lanterns put a glow on the festivities, and club members retired at a late hour to the modest comfort of blankets laid on the dense mat of Redwood needles. This festive gathering was repeated the next year without Edwards, and became the club's yearly encampment. By 1882 the members of the Club camped together at various locations in both Marin and Sonoma County, including the present-day Muir Woods and a redwood grove that once stood near Duncans Mills, several miles down the Russian River from the current location. From 1893 Bohemians rented the current location, and in 1899 purchased it from Melvin Cyrus Meeker who had developed a successful logging operation in the area. Gradually over the next decades, members of the Club purchased land surrounding the original location to the perimeter of the basin in which it resides.

Writer and journalist William Henry Irwin said of the Grove,

You come upon it suddenly. One step and its glory is over you. There is no perspective; you cannot get far enough away from one of the trees to see it as a whole. There they stand, a world of height above you, their pinnacles hidden by their topmost fringes of branches or lost in the sky.

Not long after the Club's establishment by newspaper journalists, it was commandeered by prominent San Francisco-based businessmen, who provided the financial resources necessary to acquire further land and facilities at the Grove. However, they still retained the "bohemians"â€"the artists and musiciansâ€"who continued to entertain international members and guests.

Membership and operation

The Bohemian Club is a private club; only active members of the Club (known as "Bohos" or "Grovers") and their guests may visit the Grove. These guests have been known to include politicians and notable figures from countries outside the U.S. Particularly during the midsummer encampment, the number of guests is strictly limited due to the small size of the facilities. Nevertheless, up to 2,900 members and guests have been reported as attending some of the annual encampments.

The membership list has included every Republican Party and some Democratic Party U.S. presidents since 1923, many cabinet officials, directors and CEOs of large corporations including major financial institutions. Major military contractors, oil companies, banks (including the Federal Reserve), utilities (including nuclear power) and national media (broadcast and print) have high-ranking officials as club members or guests.

Camp valets

Camp valets are responsible for the operation of the individual camps. The "head" valets are akin to a general manager's position at a resort, club, restaurant, or hotel. Service staff include female workers whose presence at the Grove is limited to daylight hours and to central areas close to the main gate. Male workers may be housed at the Grove within the boundaries of the camp to which they are assigned or in peripheral service areas. High-status workers stay in small private quarters but most workers are housed in rustic bunkhouses.

Facilities

The main encampment area consists of 160 acres (0.65 km²) of old-growth redwood trees over 1,000 years old, with some trees exceeding 300 feet (90 m) in height.

The primary activities taking place at the Grove are varied and expansive entertainment, such as a grand main stage and a smaller, more intimate stage. Thus, the majority of common facilities are entertainment venues, interspersed among the giant redwoods.

There are also sleeping quarters, or "camps" scattered throughout the grove, of which it is reported there were a total of 118 as of 2007. These camps, which are frequently patrilineal, are the principal means through which high-level business and political contacts and friendships are formed.

The pre-eminent camps are:

• Hill Billies (Big Business/Banking/Politics/Universities/Media/Texas Business);
• Mandalay (Big Business/Defense Contractors/Politics/U.S. Presidents);
• Cave Man (Think Tanks/Oil Companies/Banking/Defense Contractors/Universities/Media);
• Stowaway (Rockefeller Family Members/Oil Companies/Banking/Think Tanks);
• Uplifters (Corporate Executives/Big Business);
• Owls Nest (U.S. Presidents/Military/Defense Contractors);
• Hideaway (Foundations/Military/Defense Contractors);
• Isle of Aves (Military/Defense Contractors);
• Lost Angels (Banking/Defense Contractors/Media);
• Silverado squatters (Big Business/Defense Contractors);
• Sempervirens (California-based Corporations);
• Hillside (Militaryâ€"Joint Chiefs of Staff);
• Idlewild (California-based Corporations)

The central spaces for recreation and entertainment are:

• Grove Stageâ€"an amphitheater with seating for 2,000 used primarily for the Grove Play production, on the last weekend of the midsummer encampment. The stage extends up the hillside, and is also home to the second largest outdoor pipe organ in the world.
• Field Circleâ€"a bowl-shaped amphitheater used for the mid-encampment "Low Jinks" musical comedy, for "Spring Jinks" in early June and for a variety of other performances.
• Campfire Circleâ€"has a campfire pit in the middle of the circle, surrounded by carved redwood log benches. Used for smaller performances in a more intimate setting.
• Museum Stageâ€"a semi-outdoor venue with a covered stage. Lectures and small ensemble performances.
• Dining Circleâ€"seating approximately 1,500 diners simultaneously.
• Clubhouseâ€"designed by Bernard Maybeck in 1903, completed in 1904 on a bluff overlooking the Russian River; a multi-purpose dining, drinking and entertainment building; the site of the Manhattan Project planning meeting held in 1942.
• The Owl Shrine and the Lakeâ€"an artificial lake in the middle of the grove, used for the noon-time concerts and also the venue of the Cremation of Care, that takes place on the first Saturday of the encampment. It is also the location of the 12:30 pm daily "Lakeside Talks." These significant informal talks (many on public policy issues) have been given over the years by entertainers, professors, astronauts, business leaders, cabinet officers, CIA directors, future presidents and former presidents.

Symbolism and rituals

Since the founding of the club, the Bohemian Grove's mascot has been an owl, symbolizing knowledge. A 40-foot (12 m) hollow owl statue made of concrete over steel supports stands at the head of the lake in the Grove; this Owl Shrine was designed by sculptor and two-time club president Haig Patigian, and built in the 1920s. Since 1929, the Owl Shrine has served as the backdrop of the yearly Cremation of Care ceremony.

The Club's patron saint is John of Nepomuk, who legend says suffered death at the hands of a Bohemian monarch rather than disclose the confessional secrets of the queen. A large wood carving of St. John in cleric robes with his index finger over his lips stands at the shore of the lake in the Grove, symbolizing the secrecy kept by the Grove's attendees throughout its long history.

Cremation of Care

The Cremation of Care ceremony was first conducted in the Bohemian Grove at the Midsummer encampment in 1881, devised by James F. Bowman with George T. Bromley playing the High Priest. It was originally set up within the plot of the serious "High Jinks" dramatic performance on the first weekend of the summer encampment, after which the spirit of "Care", slain by the Jinks hero, was solemnly cremated. The ceremony served as a catharsis for pent-up high spirits, and "to present symbolically the salvation of the trees by the club ..." The Cremation of Care was separated from the Grove Play in 1913 and moved to the first night to become "an exorcising of the Demon to ensure the success of the ensuing two weeks." The Grove Play was moved to the last weekend of the encampment.

The ceremony takes place in front of the Owl Shrine, a 40-foot (12 m) hollow owl statue made of concrete over steel supports. The moss- and lichen-covered statue simulates a natural rock formation, yet holds electrical and audio equipment within it. For many years, a recording of the voice of club member Walter Cronkite was used as the voice of The Owl during the ceremony. Music and pyrotechnics accompany the ritual for dramatic effect.

Grove Play

Each year, a Grove Play is performed for one night during the final weekend of the summer encampment. The play is a large-scale musical theatrical production, written and composed by club members, involving some 300 people, including chorus, cast, stage crew and orchestra. The first Grove Play was performed in 1902; during the war years 1943â€"1945 the stage was dark. In 1975, an observer estimated that the Grove Play cost between $20,000 and $30,000, an amount that would be as high as $131,000 in today's dollars.

Protests and controversies

With its combination of wealth and power, Bohemian Grove's secrecy has been a target for protest for many years. The Bohemian Grove Action Network of Occidental, California, organizes protests and has aided journalists who wish to penetrate the secrecy surrounding the encampment. Over the years, individuals have infiltrated the Grove then later published video and claimed accounts of the activities at Bohemian Grove.

Infiltrations

In the summer of 1989, Spy magazine writer Philip Weiss spent some seven days in the camp posing as a guest, which led to his November 1989 article "Inside Bohemian Grove". He wrote about uninhibited behavior he witnessed: "You know you are inside the Bohemian Grove when you come down a trail in the woods and hear piano music from amid a group of tents and then round a bend to see a man with a beer in one hand and his penis in the other, urinating into the bushes. This is the most gloried-in ritual of the encampment, the freedom of powerful men to pee wherever they like ..." Weiss noticed "hundreds of cigars whose smokers had ignited them in defiance of the California Forest Service's posted warnings."

On July 15, 2000, controversial conspiracy theorist Alex Jones and his cameraman, Mike Hanson, snuck into the Grove. With a hidden camera, Jones and Hanson were able to film the Cremation of Care ceremony. The footage was the centerpiece of Jones' documentary Dark Secrets: Inside Bohemian Grove. Jones claimed that the Cremation of Care was an "ancient Canaanite, Luciferian, Babylon mystery religion ceremony," and that the owl statue was Moloch. The Grove and Jones' investigation were covered by Jon Ronson in Channel 4's four-part documentary, Secret Rulers of the World. Ronson documented his view of the ritual in his book, Them: Adventures With Extremists, writing "My lasting impression was of an all-pervading sense of immaturity: the Elvis impersonators, the pseudo-pagan spooky rituals, the heavy drinking. These people might have reached the apex of their professions but emotionally they seemed trapped in their college years."

Also filmed for The Order of Death was Jones' return to the entrance of the Bohemian Grove in 2005 where he filmed a protest organized by the Bohemian Grove Action Network that took place at the Grove's entrance on Bohemian Highway, only to discover a majority of the protesters engaging in an "occult counter-ritual" known as the Resurrection of Care, supposedly a counter-ritual against the Cremation of Care. Jones' narration for the film lambasted the protesters' actions and motivations from a religious standpoint. In 2005, Chris Jones (no relation) walked into the Grove when hired as an employee, and videotaped the Owl Shrine in daylight, even venturing inside the hollow statue. He also captured footage of effigies, the lakeside, and select camps; as well as stealing a membership list. Chris Jones said he was propositioned for sex several times by the Grovers. Alex Jones included Chris Jones' video in "The Order of Death".

On January 19, 2002, 37-year-old Richard McCaslin was arrested after his nighttime infiltration of the Bohemian Grove, where he set several fires. He was heavily armed and wearing a skull mask and outfit with "Phantom Patriot" written across the chest.

Actor/writer Harry Shearer (This Is Spinal Tap, Saturday Night Live, The Simpsons), who has attended at least one Bohemian Club event, wrote and directed The Teddy Bears' Picnic, a parody of Bohemian Grove mock pagan pageantry and drunken revelry.

Women

Though no woman has ever been given full membership in the Bohemian Club, the four female honorary members were hostess Margaret Bowman, poet Ina Coolbrith (who served as librarian for the Club), actress Elizabeth Crocker Bowers and writer Sara Jane Lippincott. Since Coolbrith's death in 1928, no other woman has been made a member. These honorary members and other women guests have been allowed into the Bohemian "City Club" building and as daytime guests of the Grove, but not to the upper floors of the City Club nor as guests to the main summer encampment at the Grove. Annual "Ladies' Jinks" were held at the Club especially for spouses and invited guests.

In 1978 the Bohemian Club was charged with discrimination by the California Department of Fair Employment and Housing over its refusal to hire women employees. In January 1981, an administrative law judge issued a decision supporting the practices of the Club, noting that club members at the Grove "urinate in the open without even the use of rudimentary toilet facilities" and that the presence of females would alter club members' behavior. However, the judge's decision was overruled by the State Fair Employment and Housing Commission, which on October 17, 1981, ordered the Club to begin recruiting and hiring women as employees. In 1986 the Bohemian Club went to the California Supreme Court over the issue, arguing that their freedom of association was being harmed; the Court found against the Club and denied a review in 1987, forcing the Club to begin hiring female workers during the summer encampment at the Grove in Monte Rio. This ruling became quoted as a legal precedent and was discussed during the 1995â€"1996 floor debate surrounding California Senate Bill SB 2110 (Maddy), a proposed bill concerning whether tax-exempt organizations (including fraternal clubs) should be exempt from the Unruh Civil Rights Act.

Logging

Outside the central camp area which is the site of the old-growth grove, but within the 2,712 acres (10.98 km²) owned by the Bohemian Club, logging activities have been underway since 1984. Approximately 11,000,000 board feet (26,000 m³) of lumber equivalents were removed from the surrounding redwood and Douglas fir forest from 1984 to 2007. In 2007, the Bohemian Club board filed application for a nonindustrial logging permit available to landowners with less than 2,500 acres (10 km²) of timberland, which would allow them to steadily increase their logging in the second-growth stands from 800,000 board feet (1,900 m³) per year to 1,700,000 board feet (4,000 m³) over the course of the 50-year permit. The board had been advised by Tom Bonnicksen, a retired forestry professor, that they should conduct group selection logging to reduce the risk of fire burning through the dense second-growth stands, damaging the old-growth forest the Club wants to protect. The Bohemian Club stated that an expansion of logging activities was needed to prevent fires, and that money made from the sale of the lumber would be used to stabilize access roads and to clear fire-promoting species like tanoaks and underbrush. The California Department of Fish and Game, have instead recommended single-tree logging to preserve the habitats of murrelets and spotted owls in senescent trees. Philip Rundel, University of California, Berkeley professor of biology said that redwoods are not very flammable and "This is clearly a logging project, not a project to reduce fire hazard". Reed F. Noss, professor at the University of California, Davis, has written that fires within redwood forests do not need to be prevented, that young redwoods are adapted to regenerate well in the destruction left behind by the fires typical of the climate.

After controversy raised by opponents of the harvesting plan, the club moved to clearly establish their qualification for the permit by offering 163 acres (0.66 km²) to the Rocky Mountain Elk Foundation in Missoula, Montana for a conservation easement. A further 56.75 acres (229,700 m²) were written off as not being available for commercial logging, bringing the total to 2,316 acres (9.37 km²) and thereby qualifying for the permit. Opponents and their lawyers interpret the relevant law as counting all timberland and not just that actually subject to the logging permit. They state that if the total of timberland is counted, 2,535.75 acres (10.2618 km²) are owned by the club, so the permit should not be granted.

On March 10, 2011, Judge René A. Chouteau rejected the Non-Industrial Timber Management Plan (NTMP) that Cal-Fire had approved. The suit, brought by the Sierra Club and the Bohemian Redwood Rescue Club, sought to have the NTMP annulled. The ruling calls on the Bohemian Club to draft a new NTMP that offers alternatives to its proposed rate of logging. At present the Bohemian Club is not allowed to log any of its property.

Fictional depictions

A large portion of the novel Significant Others by Armistead Maupin takes place in the Bohemian Grove, where the rituals are described in detail.

Quotations

• "The Bohemian club! Did you say Bohemian club? That's where all those rich Republicans go up and stand naked against redwood trees, right? I've never been to the Bohemian club but you oughta go. It'd be good for you. You'd get some fresh air." â€"President Bill Clinton to a heckler
• "The Bohemian Grove, that I attend from time to timeâ€"the Easterners and the others come thereâ€"but it is the most faggy goddamn thing you could ever imagine, that San Francisco crowd that goes in there; it's just terrible! I mean I won't shake hands with anybody from San Francisco." â€"President Richard M. Nixon on the Watergate tapes, Bohemian Club member starting in 1953.
• "If I were to choose the speech that gave me the most pleasure and satisfaction in my political career, it would be my Lakeside Speech at the Bohemian Grove in July 1967. Because this speech traditionally was off the record it received no publicity at the time. But in many important ways it marked the first milestone on my road to the presidency." â€"President Richard Nixon, Memoirs (1978).

See also

• Trilateral Commission
• Bilderberg Group
• Belizean Grove
• List of Bohemian Club members
• The Family (club)
• Rancheros visitadores

References

Notes

Bibliography

• Domhoff, G. William. The Bohemian Grove and Other Retreats: A study in ruling class cohesiveness, Harper and Row, 1974.
• Field, Charles K. The Cremation of Care, 1946, 1953
• Fletcher, Robert H. The Annals of the Bohemian Club, Hicks-Judd, 1900
• Garnett, Porter. The Bohemian Jinks: A Treatise, 1908
• Hanson, Mike. Bohemian Grove: Cult Of Conspiracy, iUniverse Inc, 2004
• Hodapp, Christopher; Alice Von Kannon (2008). Conspiracy Theories & Secret Societies For Dummies. Hoboken, NJ: Wiley. ISBN 0-470-18408-6. 
• Hoover, Herbert. Memoirs, Vol 2: The Cabinet and the Presidency, Macmillan, 1952.
  • Hoover was a prominent figure in the Grove's history and coined the phrase: "The Greatest Men's Party on Earth".
• Hotaling, Richard M; Sabin, Wallace Arthur; and Sterling, George. "Bohemian Grove" in The Twilight of Kings: A Masque of Democracy, the 16th Grove play (1918)
• Ickes, Harold L.. The Secret Diary of Harold L. Ickes, Vol 1. The First Thousand Days, 1933â€"36. Simon and Schuster, 1953.
  • Ickes was Secretary of the Interior during the New Deal.
• Isaacson, Walter. Kissinger: A Biography, New York: Simon & Schuster, 1992, (updated) 2005.
  • Contains a brief reference to his attendance at the Grove and fame for his performances in various skits.
• Maupin, Armistead. Significant Others, Chatto and Windus, 1988.
  • A fictionalized account of the grove, as described from the point of view of one of the major characters in the fifth of the Tales of the City series. Sympathetic and well informed, it includes an accurate description of the Cremation of Care ceremony.
• McCartney, Laton. Friends in High Places: The Bechtel Story: The Most Secret Corporation and how It Engineered the World, Ballantine Books, Updated edition, 1989.
  • For the network of links between the Californian-based and privately owned Bechtel Corporation and members of Reagan's Cabinet, along with their camp membership in the Grove.
• Nader, Ralph. The Big Boys, Pantheon, 1987.
  • Contains a chapter on high-level businessmen and the tightly held secrecy of their Club membership.
• Nixon, Richard. RN : The Memoirs of Richard Nixon, Grosset & Dunlap, 1978.
• Phillips, Peter Martin. A Relative Advantage: Sociology of the San Francisco Bohemian Club
  • A definitive look at the history of the Grove and the composition of Bohemian Club members and their social, business and political affiliations, updating Domhoff's book (see above). Phillips is Professor of Sociology at Sonoma State University in California. he attended events at the Grove and conducted scores of interviews with attendees in his research.
• Quigley, Carroll. Tragedy And Hope: A History of the World in Our Time, G. S. G. & Associates, Incorporated, 1975.
  • This book serves as the basis for many current conspiracy theories and studies of socio-economic elites.
• Santilli, Armand. The Boys at Bohemian Grove, Xlibris Corporation, 2004
• Schmidt, Helmut, Men and Powers : A Political Retrospective, Random House, 1990.
  • Schmidt states that Germany had similar institutions, some of which included such rituals as Cremation of Care, but that his favorite was the Bohemian Grove.
• Shultz, George P.. Turmoil and Triumph: Diplomacy, Power and the Victory of the American Ideal, Macmillan Publishing Company, 1993.
• Stephens, Henry Morse; Sabin, Wallace Arthur; and Dobie, Charles Caldwell. "Bohemian Club" in St. Patrick at Tara, 1909 Grove play
• Warren, Earl. The Memoirs of Chief Justice Earl Warren , Madison Books, 2001. A frequent attendee, Warren mentions the Grove in his reminiscences.
• Watson, Thomas J. Jr. and Petre, Peter. Father, Son & Co. : My Life at IBM and Beyond, Bantam, 2000. An IBM CEO gives an insider's business perspective on the Grove.

External links

• "An Elite Alliance". March 2006, article on former NASA head and current LSU Chancellor Sean O'Keefe's participation in the Bohemian Grove.
• Images of Bohemian Grove, ca. 1906â€"1909, The Bancroft Library.
• "Old Bohemia, New Bohemia" (compares Bohemian Grove and Burning Man). Forbes Magazine. 1999.
• William F. Buckley, Jr. "Newt Draws Fire". National Review. September 11, 1995. On The Right. Rebuts stories of men running around naked at the Grove.
• Save Bohemian Grove The website of the group that brought suit against the Grove for its logging practices.
• "The Bohemian Club Grove Play". UNZ.org.
• "The Phoenix Nest". UNZ.org.
• Richard Nixon 1967 speech at the Bohemian Groove Nixon Foundation