Bohemian Grove: What Happens in the Redwoods

What Is Bohemian Grove?

Bohemian Grove is a 2,700-acre private campground in Monte Rio, Sonoma County, California, owned by the Bohemian Club — a private men-only organization founded in San Francisco in 1872 by artists, writers, actors, lawyers, and journalists. What started as a bohemian gathering eventually became one of the most exclusive and secretive concentrations of power on Earth.

Every July, the club hosts a two-week retreat. Roughly 2,000–2,700 men attend, organized into ~118 "camps" — fraternity-style lodging groups with names like Hill Billies, Mandalay, Cave Man, Poison Oak, and Owl's Nest. Full membership is capped around 2,700, with a 15-year waiting list, ~$25,000 initiation fee, and ~$600/month dues.

The compound is secured year-round by private security supplemented by law enforcement and federal agencies. Trespassers are apprehended, photographed, fingerprinted, and databased. No women after dark. No media. No public access. The club's patron saint is John of Nepomuk — a man who, according to legend, died rather than reveal secrets.

The 2023 Membership List — Who's in the Club

In February 2026, journalist Daniel Boguslaw published the full 2023 camp membership list — ~2,200 names. A club member confirmed its authenticity. Picked up by the NY Post, SF Standard, and SFGate.

Intelligence, Military & National Security

Government, Politics & Policy

Wall Street, Tech & Industry

Media, Entertainment & Academia

Dynastic Wealth

This is a small sample. The full list contains ~2,200 names. Justice Clarence Thomas reportedly attended for decades as a guest — alongside Harlan Crow (Dog House camp), the GOP donor at the center of the Thomas ethics controversy.

The Cremation of Care — What Actually Happens

On the first night of every retreat since 1881, the club performs the Cremation of Care. It was filmed in 2000 by Alex Jones with a hidden camera and independently documented by journalist Jon Ronson for Channel 4.

The ceremony takes place beside an artificial lake, in front of a hollow concrete owl statue (~30–40 ft tall) containing hidden audio equipment. Participants wear robes. A High Priest flanked by acolytes and eighteen torchbearers delivers invocations. An effigy called "Dull Care" is ferried across the lake, received at the altar of the owl, placed on a funeral pyre, and set ablaze amid pyrotechnics, music, and chanting. For years, the recorded voice from inside the owl was Walter Cronkite's.

A 1913 club decision placed this ceremony on opening night as "an exorcising of the Demon to ensure the success of the ensuing two weeks." Their language.

The club's own framing describes it as burning away the "dull cares of conscience." Read literally: 2,200 of the most powerful men in America ritually destroy their moral compass before two weeks of secret policy-making.

The Effigy — From Domhoff's Firsthand Account

The most detailed firsthand description comes from sociologist G. William Domhoff, who attended as a guest researcher and published The Bohemian Grove and Other Retreats (1975).

According to Domhoff: the effigy is a life-sized, realistic human body replica made of black muslin wrapped around a wooden skeleton, carried in a full-size open coffin. A procession of hooded, robed figures carries this coffin past the dining area as members fall into line behind the pallbearers in a funeral march accompanied by a dirge.

Domhoff — the academic who dismissed occult interpretations — describes witnessing: a life-sized, realistic human body replica, carried in a full-size open coffin, in a funeral procession led by hooded figures, burned before a 40-foot idol that the club's own Annals call a "deity."

A copy of Domhoff's book was found in the Abbottabad compound where Osama bin Laden was killed — hosted on the CIA's own reading library.

From the Ceremony Script Itself

The language of the Cremation of Care — recorded by Jones in 2000, corroborated by Domhoff:

"The Owl is in His leafy temple. Let all within the Grove be reverent before Him... Here is Bohemia's shrine and holy are the pillars of this house."

The owl is addressed as "Him" in a "temple" with "holy pillars." Religious language.

"O Owl! Prince of all mortal wisdom, Owl of Bohemia, we beseech thee, Grant us thy counsel."

The owl is beseeched as a "Prince" — an entity being petitioned.

"As vanished Babylon and goodly Tyre, so shall they also vanish."

Reverent invocation of Babylon and Tyre — the civilizations most associated with Moloch worship and Phoenician child sacrifice.

Most revealing — "Dull Care" speaks back before being burned:

"Fools! Fools! When will ye learn that me ye cannot slay? Year after year ye burn me in this Grove... But when again ye turn your feet toward the market-place, am I not waiting for you, as of old?"

Conscience tells the elites: no matter how many times you ritually destroy me, I return when you go back to the market-place — their positions of power. The ceremony is explicitly about killing conscience before returning to the systems they control.

The Owl — Symbol of What, Exactly?

The Annals of the Bohemian Club (Vol. V, p. 431) describe the Owl Shrine as a "tutelary deity" symbolizing "all mortal wisdom." The club's own word: deity.

Minerva/Athena: Goddess of wisdom — and strategic warfare. Not merely wisdom; the wisdom of domination.

Lilith: Night-demon associated with owls in Jewish mystical tradition. Isaiah 34:14 references lilit dwelling among ruins alongside owls.

Ishtar/Inanna: The "Burney Relief" (c. 1800 BCE) shows a winged goddess flanked by owls. Ishtar's worship involved ritual magic and ecstatic rites.

The owl in the ancient Near East was a creature of night, death, the underworld, and hidden knowledge. These are not unrelated lineages — they are branches of the same tree.

The Moloch Question — Coincidence or Continuity?

Moloch was a Canaanite deity associated with child sacrifice by fire. "You shall not give any of your children to devote them by fire to Moloch" (Leviticus 18:21). Children were burned at Topheth in the Valley of Hinnom — a place so horrifying it became the basis for Hell. In Carthage, tophets yielded thousands of charred infant remains.

The Parallels

1. A giant idol presiding over sacrifice by fire. 2. The club's own Annals call the owl a "deity." 3. Robed priests conducting ritual before the idol. 4. The burning of conscience — exchanging moral constraint for unencumbered power (identical transactional structure to Moloch sacrifice). 5. Water crossing before the sacrifice — a feature of mystery religion initiation across cultures. 6. The ceremony reverently invokes Babylon and Tyre by name. 7. One widely-cited analysis states early club records referred to the owl as "Moloch" — the club denies it, but even the charitable interpretation (a character name in early scripts) is significant.

Real Decisions, Real Consequences

The Manhattan Project (1942)

The S-1 Executive Committee met at the Grove's clubhouse in September 1942. Oppenheimer and Lawrence hosted. Military officers attended in civilian clothing. This meeting led to General Groves being appointed director of the Manhattan Project. A photograph exists in the National Archives. The weapon that killed ~200,000 people was incubated where its architects had just burned their "care."

The Eisenhower-Nixon Relationship (1950)

Eisenhower and Nixon first met at Cave Man Camp as guests of Herbert Hoover. This catalyzed the partnership that placed both in the White House. Nixon launched his 1968 campaign from the Grove.

Social Security Reform (1981–1983)

A Reagan Library memo shows Reagan assistant Edwin Harper sent Alan Greenspan "Social Security Reform Proposals" discussed at the Grove. Reagan enacted cuts in 1983 that affect Americans today.

Heritage Foundation & Project 2025

~25% of Heritage Foundation's board were Bohemian Club members during Project 2025 drafting. Co-founder Edwin Feulner attended the 2023 encampment. Senator David McCormick (Mandalay) received campaign donations from fellow members.

The Bechtel–State Department Pipeline

In 1981, members George Shultz and Caspar Weinberger — both Bechtel executives — were appointed by fellow member Reagan to lead State and Defense. Riley and Gary Bechtel are on the 2023 list.

Lakeside Talks

Daily policy briefings on topics including defense strategy, American leadership, and constitutional law — delivered by Secretaries of Defense, Supreme Court justices, and military commanders to an audience controlling trillions in capital.

What Observers Have Said

G. William Domhoff (sociologist, attended as researcher): Published the definitive study. Describes a life-sized human body in a coffin. Called it a "harmless put-on" — but his own description says otherwise.

Alex Jones (2000): Filmed the ceremony. Called it "ancient Canaanite, Luciferian, Babylon mystery religion." His footage has never been disputed.

Jon Ronson (journalist): "An all-pervading sense of immaturity... pseudo-pagan spooky rituals, heavy drinking." The banality-of-evil framing where world-altering rituals are disguised as juvenile fun.

Philip Weiss (Spy Magazine, 1989): Infiltrated for seven days. Documented the mix of ritual, heavy drinking, and policy discussions.

Richard Nixon (1971 White House tape): "The most faggy goddamned thing you could ever imagine." Despite his contempt, he kept attending — and launched his presidential campaign there.

European Psychiatry Journal (2016): Peer-reviewed paper referenced "reports of elaborate rituals with 'mock' human sacrifices at the highly secretive annual Bohemian Grove summer festival."

The Bigger Picture

2,200+ of the most powerful men in America gather every year in a secured compound. They dress in robes and burn a life-sized human body replica — representing their conscience — in a coffin, at the foot of a 40-foot owl their own records call a "deity." The script invokes Babylon and Tyre. Then they spend two weeks giving policy talks and making decisions that affect every one of us.

The Manhattan Project. Social Security. Presidential campaigns. Project 2025. The Bechtel pipeline. All discussed, shaped, or advanced at Bohemian Grove — with zero public accountability.

The most dangerous possibility may not be the most dramatic one. It may simply be that the world's most powerful men have built a 143-year-old tradition of ritually abandoning their moral conscience before exercising their power — completely hidden from public view, and continuing right now.

Quick Reference

Further Research

Primary Sources

Books

G. William Domhoff — "The Bohemian Grove and Other Retreats" (1975)

Gregg Herken — "Brotherhood of the Bomb" (2002)

Jon Ronson — "Them: Adventures with Extremists" (2001)

Documentaries

Alex Jones — "Dark Secrets: Inside Bohemian Grove" (2000)

Jon Ronson — "Secret Rulers of the World" (2001, Channel 4)

More Perfect Union — "We Went to Bohemian Grove" (2026)

News