Exploring the Hidden World of the Occult

Hey everybody, welcome back to Wondrium Now, where we give you an inside look at some of the shows currently streaming on Wondrium. I'm Rich Burnett, and in today's show we'll be discussing secret societies and the occult. So dim the lights, light some candles, and let's get started. Today's guest is Rick Spence. Rick is a professor emeritus of history at the University of Idaho and he specializes in all kinds of cool subjects from espionage to occultism and secret societies to name just a few. His latest series called Secrets of the Occult is now streaming on Wondrium. Let's take a look. The term occult ...tends to conjure up images of robed cultists at midnight sacrifices. And that's part of the picture, but only a very small one. A cult simply means hidden. It's a whole hidden world of unknown dimensions. A world driven not by good or evil, but intent, sometimes your intent. My name is Richard Spence, and I invite you to join me on a magical mystery tour of illumination, 30,000 years of fact, myth, and speculation. Over 24 episodes, we'll delve into topics such as divination, alchemy, witchcraft, and Satanism, along with more surprising subjects like UFOs, Santa Claus, and quantum physics. We'll also explore the role occult beliefs and practices played in historical events, such as the Russian Revolution and the Third Reich, along with occultism's influence on crime, politics, popular culture, culture, and religion. Once you know what to look for, you'll see that the occult, the hidden, is all around you, and you'll never see the world the same way again. Rick, thank you for joining us today. I'm delighted to be here, Rich. So your new series is all about the hidden and not-so-hidden world of the occult. Can you start us off by explaining a bit about what the occult is? Well, it's interesting you use the word hidden, because all the occult really means, the term means, is hidden. Specifically, hidden from sight. There are all kinds of... Occult things hidden in plain sight. The idea is that there's, essentially, is that there is a greater reality which our senses, our natural abilities only allow us to see a part of. And apparently there's just all kinds of cool stuff and spooky stuff in this greater reality that those who call themselves occultists seek to access. Because, you know, that's for all the real knowledge or some sort of greater knowledge. Greater world, greater knowledge. Let's get into a little bit about the actual content of your series. As I was reading through the topics that you cover, one thing that I found interesting personally was that you talk about occult rituals quite a bit. But one in particular that I wanted to ask you about was some surprising history about Christmas traditions. Can you tell me a little bit more about that? Ah, the occult ritual of the Christmas tree. Now there's one that will surprise a lot of people. But again, you have to look at a definition. So just in the way that I define a cult as something which is a world which is hidden from view, a ritual is actually pretty simple. You know, most people tend to think you have to have robes and candles, I don't know, and a sacrificed goat or something, but that's not really necessary. A ritual is simply a series of actions performed in a certain order. And almost always with the intention... of creating a desired result. So let's look at the Christmas tree. I mean, think about it. The Christmas tree is a particular type of tree. I mean, you don't generally go out and get a mulberry tree. It's always an evergreen. It's usually positioned in some sort of place of, a special place where it can be viewed, where it can be seen. And then you proceed, usually, if you keep in mind, in a fairly ritualized process. of decorating it, of adorning the tree. And the adorning the tree is turning it into, it's being created for a particular purpose. And once the tree is properly adorned, often capped with an angel, which is kind of interesting, then eventually the gifts that will later be distributed are placed underneath it in this position. They're in some ways sort of... sanctified by being placed under the tree. They have to be placed under the tree before you give them to people. Now the thing is, is that almost nobody thinks of this as a ritual. It's just, you know, it's a custom, it's a habit, it's a convenient thing that we do. But you know, when you're talking about customs, habits, just things that we do, you're talking about rituals. It's just a matter of semantics. So a lot of stories of the occult have mysterious origins. A lot of them feel like they come from faraway places. But I know in your course you actually discuss the occult and origins of occult that start in America. Can you touch on some of those? Well, America is a particular place, an interesting place in this regard, because what you've got are sort of two groups of humanity that... separated. You have the old world, Eurasia and Africa, which all for thousands of years, tens of thousands of years, mixed and matched customs back and forth, a huge exchange of everything from products to diseases. And then you had a migration of people from Northeastern Asia into the Americas. At some point, we're not entirely sure, but let's say it was 15,000 to 20,000 years ago. And then, until, you know, 1492, they were cut off from the rest of humanity. So one of the things which is interesting is for all the differences that you would find between Native American civilizations and cultures and old world, as we call them, civilizations and cultures, after those millennia of separation. Well, what's the same? And one of the things that you find, which is the same, is that within American cultures, within Native American cultures, as in old world cultures, you have the occult. You have the concept of magic and spirits and a greater hidden world. And you have the same people who try to access that. Now, you know, Puritans would, you know, basically look at Native traditions and argue that, ah, you know, every idol they have is the devil. They're all doing devilish things. This is, you know. There was a great fear of the wilderness as being the realm of Satan because it was this, in many ways, kind of untamed natural world. But, again, from the aspect of someone who considered themselves an occultist, all of this is completely familiar. It was a common language which cultures separated over thousands and thousands of years could communicate through. So, you bring up a name. And of course, no discussion about the occult would be complete without discussing the biggest baddie of them all, Satan. So you brought him up. I'm curious, how does the devil himself fit into the narrative of the series? So one of the things, if you go back to, for instance, the earliest old world civilization that we really know of, the Sumerians, they had a whole variety of sort of, you know. good spirits and bad spirits, good gods and bad gods. And one of the things is that even the worst of them in some way would protect you against others. The ancient gods were neither particularly, they weren't necessarily good or bad. They didn't necessarily, you know, they liked certain people, they didn't like other ones. And so you're always trying to figure out a way in which to curry their favor. On the other hand, if you look at the general evolution of Satan, you have a deity which in some ways is rooted in these sort of ancient, ambiguous gods. The ones that could be hostile, but you could probably bring over to your side in some way, you know, by, you know, again, sacrificing a goat or your children or whatever might be necessary. But then you also have one. which in more modern times, Satanism becomes this kind of, well, it becomes a flip side of Christianity. What do I mean by that? Well, the key ritual in sort of modern Satanism is something called the Black Mass. Who else has a mass? Well, the Roman Catholic Mass, the Eastern Orthodox Mass, but that's something which is specific to... Christianity, and particularly in Western Europe to the Roman Catholic Church. And the Black Mass is really this sort of inversion or parody of it. And what that means, in a sense, is that really what was termed Satanism had no independent existence of its own. It was only the inverse of something else. And it then became, in some ways, a kind of anti-church, a kind of anti-Christianity. Something that if you wanted to, you know, basically... Defy everything that was considered to be the proper rules of behavior That's what it was that you would go to you would do the opposite of what you've had before sure Okay, Rick, so we got a few questions from our social media followers about the occult and your series Let's start with this one from Emily are on Facebook who asks? What is the most real-world danger that the occult poses? Well again the occult is A philosophy and a toolbox of techniques to access this larger world I was discussing. And the larger world, again, is full of all kinds of things. So, if you venture out into the wilderness without proper equipment and preparation, you know, you go barefoot, without a coat, without any kind of fire making it, you're going to run into trouble. So, for instance, you know, if an occultist is going to use a ritual to summon something from this world, you know, a demon, some sort of spirit, well, you go to great lengths in order to prepare magic circles, talismans, the whole ritual has to be carried out in a way. This is preparing yourself for a venture into this world in the same way that you would prepare yourself to go into the wilderness. And when you're done, you want to... send away whatever you're doing. This is why you get things like banishing rituals. As the saying goes, never call up what you cannot put down. In other words, don't get involved with something that you can't deal with. So the occult isn't something, again, which is inherently in and of itself evil or dangerous any more than nature is evil or dangerous. But it can be, and it has to be approached with preparation and caution. So you actually answered, for the most part, the next question we had from Ramon L. on Twitter, who asked, Is the occult ever linked to good causes, or is it by definition nefarious? It comes down to your intent. What do you intend to do? Again, if you're going out into the woods, if you're going out into nature, what is your intention? Are you going there just to wander among the flowers and appreciate the butterflies, or are you going there to hunt for food? I mean, that's a big difference to whatever it is you're going to encounter on the whole. Are you just going on a hike or are you going to go prospect for gold? What do you wish? Your intention is what guides every other action. Your intention will have a great deal of whatever it is that you attract to you. So here's one that is very specific to a very particular part of the occult. Doug M. on Instagram asks, at what point did a mainstream toy manufacturer decide to align itself with occult rituals, i.e. the Hasbro Ouija board? Ouija board. Okay. The modern board goes back to, not to Hasbro or to Parker Brothers, but to a fellow by the name of Charles Kennard back in the, I think in 1891, is when the modern Ouija board comes along. And he teamed up with a fellow by the name of William Fold, who was a kind of game and novelty manufacturer, and they actually got a patent for this. And they had an interesting way to do it. If you're going to get a patent for it, you have to in some way demonstrate that whatever it is you're trying to patent actually works. How are you going to demonstrate that that actually works? Well, in this case, they brought in a medium, a woman by the name of Helen Peters, who used the board and attested to the... Patent officials there that, yes, indeed, she was contacting spirits. And, you know, they bought it. And thus it was born. It then passed into something called the William Fold Company, which manufactured the boards. I think they had the exclusive rights up until 1966. And then in 1966, Parker Brothers got it. And then it went further on. Why did Parker Brothers or Hasbro or anybody become involved? Because there was money in it. Great answers, Rick. We need to take a quick break, but can you stick around? Sure can. All right. I'd like to take a quick moment to remind you that guests on this show are experts from our family here at Wondrium. In addition to series about secret societies, you'll also find topics like science, history, mental health, and even foreign language instruction and personal development. There's something for everyone on Wondrium. And now, with the recent addition of hundreds of documentaries and So Rick, your Illuminati video from your previous series called Secret Societies, which is also streaming on Wondrium, it's quickly becoming one of our all-time most viewed lectures that I have posted to our YouTube channel. It's captured the imagination of a huge audience. It's solicited quite a few, I'm going to say, enlightening comments. But I want to run some of them by you here in a segment I'd like to call Don't be a Trolls. Are you ready? I'm ready. All right, so of course we got a lot of great comments such as good narrator's voice heart emoji and I love you guys as well as the fact is this video is great deserve uncountable views. Those are the good ones. But I also got a lot of comments like this. Who are the Illuminati, not who were they? So my question to you is, does the Illuminati still exist? So what I deal with in the Secret Societies course, the Illuminati that I'm talking about in that episode is the Bavarian Illuminati. That is a thing called the Illuminatenorden in German, which... It's historically recorded. It was real. It was around, not for very long. In the late 18th century, sort of came and went between about 1776 and 1786, and was formed and led by a fellow by the name of Adam Weishaupt, who indeed had a very detailed and rather practical plan for world domination. So that's the one that you can see. So that's what I'm dealing with there. Here's an interesting thing about the Bavarian Illuminati, or a couple of interesting things. One, they're not the first group that called themselves the Illuminati, which is simply Latin for those who are illuminated, those who've seen the light in some ways. If you go back to the Roman era and you look at early Christian communities, you know, one sort of hiding out in the catacombs, they often referred to themselves as Illuminati because they had seen the light. The truth had been revealed to them, and therefore an early Christian was an Illuminatis, and there were many other groups that used that term in one form or another. And we're not even talking about people who spoke languages other than Latin, who had words that also meant those who had seen the light, so the Illuminati were everywhere. So Adam Weishaupt did not invent the term. But the second point is that the Bavarian Illuminati, because they had an essentially… subversive political agenda were discovered and suppressed by the Bavarian royal government in the 1780s, but they weren't destroyed. So Adam Weishaupt was never arrested or put on trial. He simply moved to another German state where the prince was, guess what, a member of the Illuminati order. And he lived until... until the 1830s and continued to correspond with all of his Illuminati buddies. And none of them were arrested and killed either. I mean, there was never any mass roundup of the organization. It just got chased out of Bavaria and it went elsewhere. So the point is, is that it was never really destroyed. And therefore, since the Bavarian Illuminati, while they ceased to function in Bavaria, it continued. but in a much less visible form than it did otherwise, which means that it is indeed historically possible and even plausible that the Order continued to function. One of the other things that Weishaupt told his followers is, let our Order never be known publicly under its actual name, which raises a couple of questions as to what the actual name was, which, you know, is it the Order of the Illuminati, or was that itself a cover name? Now, those, again, are all things which are real. Those are the things that Weishaupt said. The reality is the Order existed. The Order was never destroyed. And that is, I think, at the root of many of the comments or much of the subsequent, I guess we'll call it, mythology, that the Illuminati are still around, that they're still ruling the world today, that in some way, you know, Beyoncé is a member of the Illuminati. Everybody in the music industry and the movies are influenced by them. So that's where the idea comes from, because there's no... end to it. And so again, you're, you're dealing with something that could exist, but In what form? Under what name? With what particular agenda in mind? Right. That's where the legend is there. And how much truth there is in that, well, that all depends. It is not going away. It's not going away. So, of course, when it comes to conspiracy theories, you know, it's only a matter of time before JFK comes into the discussion. So here's a good one. And I apologize if it sounds like I'm stumbling through the words. I'm reading it in which it was written. JFK's famous speech, and he knew who he was dealing with and how these evil societies grow in their evilness and would take full control. They assassinated him. So what about it? Did the Illuminati have JFK assassinated? Well, let's start with what I think the speech which is being referred to here. I'm going to have to rely upon memory. So, I mean, I get the year. I think this is a speech that he gave to the American Newspaper Publishers Association in 1961. So soon after he was elected. And it's a speech that goes into a number of things. But one of the things that he was addressing is that, you know, secrecy is, he argues, is essentially un-American. And secret societies, you know. Groups that attempt to secretly influence politics and society is an un-American type of thing, and we have to be opposed to that. It's an interesting thing to be talking to newspaper publishers about, but did Kennedy, in a public address, seem to condemn what he viewed as a kind of nefarious influence of secret societies, groups that were attempting to secretly influence politics, society, culture, whatever it might be? He did. He also was assassinated a couple of years later. All right, you've got those two things. Those are part of the record. Those are real. Now, the connection between them is an assumption. I'm not saying that the writer of that question is right or wrong. I'm just saying that, what does that mean? Remember, was his assassination in some way a consequence of his opposition to secret societies? You can believe that. You can imagine that. You can't prove it. Just as you can't prove most things. But that, again, is where these ideas, these comments arise from. So here's a commenter that wants to address how the Illuminati is currently operating. What makes you think that this is in the past? It's absolutely huge. The influencers, so to speak, subliminal or outright, they do mind control. 100%. 100%. So what do you think, Rick? Are influencers members of the Illuminati that are controlling our minds? So one can create a not wholly irrational idea that in some way the Bavarian Illuminati mutated and have continued to mutate since the 18th century into something else. But you can't show me exactly what that is. But you shouldn't be able to. If they're doing their job right, you shouldn't be able to pin that down. It comes down to the question, are there people trying to influence us subliminally? Yeah. That's what advertising is all about. I mean, there's a constant effort. There are people on YouTube, on the internet, who proudly call themselves influencers. That's a title that people go after because of the idea that they can influence people, usually to buy something. But if you can influence someone to buy something, you can influence them in... other directions, the way of shaping public opinion. So that undoubtedly is there. There's a vast industry of people out there who are constantly trying to manipulate and influence all of us. I'd like to, if I could step in, sorry I didn't mean to step over your answer, but I just wanted to make the point that as a quasi-host on a YouTube show connected with a, I'd say subscription service. I am officially announcing right now that I am not now or never have been part of the Illuminati. So that's out there. And neither have I. I'm open to offers. So here's one. A commenter proposes this what-if scenario. What if they caused COVID? That's the entire comment. What if they caused COVID? So what are your thoughts? Would the Illuminati benefit from causing a global pandemic, Rick? Uh... Well, if they own a lot of stock in pharmaceutical companies. There you go. There you go. Okay. Maybe that's it. Maybe they've become pharmaceutical companies. So I'd like to end. Here with one final comment that appears to be from the Illuminati themselves, according to their account name. The Illuminati would like us to know that we're not only watching you, but we're also watching this video. So I'd like to say awesome, and I hope that the Illuminati checks out Rick's new course, The Secrets of the Occult. Yeah, because you'll get mentioned in there too. So Rick, thank you so much for joining us today. And where can people find out more about you and your work? Well, you can go to my page, which is still at the University of Idaho, U-I-D-A-H-O, look under history, and there you can find more about me and my work. And then also, they can check out my Wondrium professor program as well. Thank you so much, and I will talk to you soon. All right. Thank you. Bye-bye. And that'll do it for a episode of One Dream Now. To learn who our upcoming guests are and to ask them questions, make sure to keep an eye on our social media feeds. You can find links to all of them in the description below. We'll be back soon with another great show. Be sure to subscribe so you don't miss it.

Rick is a professor emeritus of history at the University of Idaho and he specializes in all kinds of cool subjects from espionage to occultism and secret societies to name just a few. His latest series called Secrets of the Occult is now streaming on Wondrium. Let's take a look.

The term occult ...tends to conjure up images of robed cultists at midnight sacrifices. And that's part of the picture, but only a very small one. A cult simply means hidden. It's a whole hidden world of unknown dimensions. A world driven not by good or evil, but intent, sometimes your intent.

My name is Richard Spence, and I invite you to join me on a magical mystery tour of illumination, 30,000 years of fact, myth, and speculation. Over 24 episodes, we'll delve into topics such as divination, alchemy, witchcraft, and Satanism, along with more surprising subjects like UFOs, Santa Claus, and quantum physics. We'll also explore the role occult beliefs and practices played in historical events, such as the Russian Revolution and the Third Reich, along with occultism's influence on crime, politics, popular culture, culture, and religion. Once you know what to look for, you'll see that the occult, the hidden, is all around you, and you'll never see the world the same way again.

Rick, thank you for joining us today. I'm delighted to be here, Rich. So your new series is all about the hidden and not-so-hidden world of the occult.

Can you start us off by explaining a bit about what the occult is? Well, it's interesting you use the word hidden, because all the occult really means, the term means, is hidden. Specifically, hidden from sight. There are all kinds of... Occult things hidden in plain sight.

The idea is that there's, essentially, is that there is a greater reality which our senses, our natural abilities only allow us to see a part of. And apparently there's just all kinds of cool stuff and spooky stuff in this greater reality that those who call themselves occultists seek to access. Because, you know, that's for all the real knowledge or some sort of greater knowledge. Greater world, greater knowledge.

Let's get into a little bit about the actual content of your series. As I was reading through the topics that you cover, one thing that I found interesting personally was that you talk about occult rituals quite a bit. But one in particular that I wanted to ask you about was some surprising history about Christmas traditions. Can you tell me a little bit more about that?

Ah, the occult ritual of the Christmas tree. Now there's one that will surprise a lot of people. But again, you have to look at a definition. So just in the way that I define a cult as something which is a world which is hidden from view, a ritual is actually pretty simple. You know, most people tend to think you have to have robes and candles, I don't know, and a sacrificed goat or something, but that's not really necessary.

A ritual is simply a series of actions performed in a certain order. And almost always with the intention... of creating a desired result. So let's look at the Christmas tree. I mean, think about it.

The Christmas tree is a particular type of tree. I mean, you don't generally go out and get a mulberry tree. It's always an evergreen.

It's usually positioned in some sort of place of, a special place where it can be viewed, where it can be seen. And then you proceed, usually, if you keep in mind, in a fairly ritualized process. of decorating it, of adorning the tree. And the adorning the tree is turning it into, it's being created for a particular purpose.

And once the tree is properly adorned, often capped with an angel, which is kind of interesting, then eventually the gifts that will later be distributed are placed underneath it in this position. They're in some ways sort of... sanctified by being placed under the tree.

They have to be placed under the tree before you give them to people. Now the thing is, is that almost nobody thinks of this as a ritual. It's just, you know, it's a custom, it's a habit, it's a convenient thing that we do.

But you know, when you're talking about customs, habits, just things that we do, you're talking about rituals. It's just a matter of semantics. So a lot of stories of the occult have mysterious origins. A lot of them feel like they come from faraway places.

But I know in your course you actually discuss the occult and origins of occult that start in America. Can you touch on some of those? Well, America is a particular place, an interesting place in this regard, because what you've got are sort of two groups of humanity that...

separated. You have the old world, Eurasia and Africa, which all for thousands of years, tens of thousands of years, mixed and matched customs back and forth, a huge exchange of everything from products to diseases. And then you had a migration of people from Northeastern Asia into the Americas. At some point, we're not entirely sure, but let's say it was 15,000 to 20,000 years ago. And then, until, you know, 1492, they were cut off from the rest of humanity.

So one of the things which is interesting is for all the differences that you would find between Native American civilizations and cultures and old world, as we call them, civilizations and cultures, after those millennia of separation. Well, what's the same? And one of the things that you find, which is the same, is that within American cultures, within Native American cultures, as in old world cultures, you have the occult.

You have the concept of magic and spirits and a greater hidden world. And you have the same people who try to access that. Now, you know, Puritans would, you know, basically look at Native traditions and argue that, ah, you know, every idol they have is the devil. They're all doing devilish things. This is, you know.

There was a great fear of the wilderness as being the realm of Satan because it was this, in many ways, kind of untamed natural world. But, again, from the aspect of someone who considered themselves an occultist, all of this is completely familiar. It was a common language which cultures separated over thousands and thousands of years could communicate through.

So, you bring up a name. And of course, no discussion about the occult would be complete without discussing the biggest baddie of them all, Satan. So you brought him up.

I'm curious, how does the devil himself fit into the narrative of the series? So one of the things, if you go back to, for instance, the earliest old world civilization that we really know of, the Sumerians, they had a whole variety of sort of, you know. good spirits and bad spirits, good gods and bad gods.

And one of the things is that even the worst of them in some way would protect you against others. The ancient gods were neither particularly, they weren't necessarily good or bad. They didn't necessarily, you know, they liked certain people, they didn't like other ones.

And so you're always trying to figure out a way in which to curry their favor. On the other hand, if you look at the general evolution of Satan, you have a deity which in some ways is rooted in these sort of ancient, ambiguous gods. The ones that could be hostile, but you could probably bring over to your side in some way, you know, by, you know, again, sacrificing a goat or your children or whatever might be necessary. But then you also have one.

which in more modern times, Satanism becomes this kind of, well, it becomes a flip side of Christianity. What do I mean by that? Well, the key ritual in sort of modern Satanism is something called the Black Mass. Who else has a mass? Well, the Roman Catholic Mass, the Eastern Orthodox Mass, but that's something which is specific to...

Christianity, and particularly in Western Europe to the Roman Catholic Church. And the Black Mass is really this sort of inversion or parody of it. And what that means, in a sense, is that really what was termed Satanism had no independent existence of its own. It was only the inverse of something else.

And it then became, in some ways, a kind of anti-church, a kind of anti-Christianity. Something that if you wanted to, you know, basically... Defy everything that was considered to be the proper rules of behavior That's what it was that you would go to you would do the opposite of what you've had before sure Okay, Rick, so we got a few questions from our social media followers about the occult and your series Let's start with this one from Emily are on Facebook who asks? What is the most real-world danger that the occult poses? Well again the occult is A philosophy and a toolbox of techniques to access this larger world I was discussing.

And the larger world, again, is full of all kinds of things. So, if you venture out into the wilderness without proper equipment and preparation, you know, you go barefoot, without a coat, without any kind of fire making it, you're going to run into trouble. So, for instance, you know, if an occultist is going to use a ritual to summon something from this world, you know, a demon, some sort of spirit, well, you go to great lengths in order to prepare magic circles, talismans, the whole ritual has to be carried out in a way. This is preparing yourself for a venture into this world in the same way that you would prepare yourself to go into the wilderness.

And when you're done, you want to... send away whatever you're doing. This is why you get things like banishing rituals.

As the saying goes, never call up what you cannot put down. In other words, don't get involved with something that you can't deal with. So the occult isn't something, again, which is inherently in and of itself evil or dangerous any more than nature is evil or dangerous. But it can be, and it has to be approached with preparation and caution.

So you actually answered, for the most part, the next question we had from Ramon L. on Twitter, who asked, Is the occult ever linked to good causes, or is it by definition nefarious? It comes down to your intent. What do you intend to do?

Again, if you're going out into the woods, if you're going out into nature, what is your intention? Are you going there just to wander among the flowers and appreciate the butterflies, or are you going there to hunt for food? I mean, that's a big difference to whatever it is you're going to encounter on the whole. Are you just going on a hike or are you going to go prospect for gold?

What do you wish? Your intention is what guides every other action. Your intention will have a great deal of whatever it is that you attract to you. So here's one that is very specific to a very particular part of the occult.

Doug M. on Instagram asks, at what point did a mainstream toy manufacturer decide to align itself with occult rituals, i.e. the Hasbro Ouija board? Ouija board. Okay.

The modern board goes back to, not to Hasbro or to Parker Brothers, but to a fellow by the name of Charles Kennard back in the, I think in 1891, is when the modern Ouija board comes along. And he teamed up with a fellow by the name of William Fold, who was a kind of game and novelty manufacturer, and they actually got a patent for this. And they had an interesting way to do it. If you're going to get a patent for it, you have to in some way demonstrate that whatever it is you're trying to patent actually works. How are you going to demonstrate that that actually works?

Well, in this case, they brought in a medium, a woman by the name of Helen Peters, who used the board and attested to the... Patent officials there that, yes, indeed, she was contacting spirits. And, you know, they bought it.

And thus it was born. It then passed into something called the William Fold Company, which manufactured the boards. I think they had the exclusive rights up until 1966. And then in 1966, Parker Brothers got it.

And then it went further on. Why did Parker Brothers or Hasbro or anybody become involved? Because there was money in it. Great answers, Rick. We need to take a quick break, but can you stick around?

Sure can. All right. I'd like to take a quick moment to remind you that guests on this show are experts from our family here at Wondrium. In addition to series about secret societies, you'll also find topics like science, history, mental health, and even foreign language instruction and personal development. There's something for everyone on Wondrium.

And now, with the recent addition of hundreds of documentaries and So Rick, your Illuminati video from your previous series called Secret Societies, which is also streaming on Wondrium, it's quickly becoming one of our all-time most viewed lectures that I have posted to our YouTube channel. It's captured the imagination of a huge audience. It's solicited quite a few, I'm going to say, enlightening comments.

But I want to run some of them by you here in a segment I'd like to call Don't be a Trolls. Are you ready? I'm ready. All right, so of course we got a lot of great comments such as good narrator's voice heart emoji and I love you guys as well as the fact is this video is great deserve uncountable views. Those are the good ones.

But I also got a lot of comments like this. Who are the Illuminati, not who were they? So my question to you is, does the Illuminati still exist? So what I deal with in the Secret Societies course, the Illuminati that I'm talking about in that episode is the Bavarian Illuminati. That is a thing called the Illuminatenorden in German, which...

It's historically recorded. It was real. It was around, not for very long. In the late 18th century, sort of came and went between about 1776 and 1786, and was formed and led by a fellow by the name of Adam Weishaupt, who indeed had a very detailed and rather practical plan for world domination.

So that's the one that you can see. So that's what I'm dealing with there. Here's an interesting thing about the Bavarian Illuminati, or a couple of interesting things. One, they're not the first group that called themselves the Illuminati, which is simply Latin for those who are illuminated, those who've seen the light in some ways. If you go back to the Roman era and you look at early Christian communities, you know, one sort of hiding out in the catacombs, they often referred to themselves as Illuminati because they had seen the light.

The truth had been revealed to them, and therefore an early Christian was an Illuminatis, and there were many other groups that used that term in one form or another. And we're not even talking about people who spoke languages other than Latin, who had words that also meant those who had seen the light, so the Illuminati were everywhere. So Adam Weishaupt did not invent the term.

But the second point is that the Bavarian Illuminati, because they had an essentially… subversive political agenda were discovered and suppressed by the Bavarian royal government in the 1780s, but they weren't destroyed. So Adam Weishaupt was never arrested or put on trial. He simply moved to another German state where the prince was, guess what, a member of the Illuminati order.

And he lived until... until the 1830s and continued to correspond with all of his Illuminati buddies. And none of them were arrested and killed either.

I mean, there was never any mass roundup of the organization. It just got chased out of Bavaria and it went elsewhere. So the point is, is that it was never really destroyed. And therefore, since the Bavarian Illuminati, while they ceased to function in Bavaria, it continued.

but in a much less visible form than it did otherwise, which means that it is indeed historically possible and even plausible that the Order continued to function. One of the other things that Weishaupt told his followers is, let our Order never be known publicly under its actual name, which raises a couple of questions as to what the actual name was, which, you know, is it the Order of the Illuminati, or was that itself a cover name? Now, those, again, are all things which are real. Those are the things that Weishaupt said.

The reality is the Order existed. The Order was never destroyed. And that is, I think, at the root of many of the comments or much of the subsequent, I guess we'll call it, mythology, that the Illuminati are still around, that they're still ruling the world today, that in some way, you know, Beyoncé is a member of the Illuminati. Everybody in the music industry and the movies are influenced by them. So that's where the idea comes from, because there's no...

end to it. And so again, you're, you're dealing with something that could exist, but In what form? Under what name?

With what particular agenda in mind? Right. That's where the legend is there.

And how much truth there is in that, well, that all depends. It is not going away. It's not going away. So, of course, when it comes to conspiracy theories, you know, it's only a matter of time before JFK comes into the discussion. So here's a good one.

And I apologize if it sounds like I'm stumbling through the words. I'm reading it in which it was written. JFK's famous speech, and he knew who he was dealing with and how these evil societies grow in their evilness and would take full control. They assassinated him. So what about it?

Did the Illuminati have JFK assassinated? Well, let's start with what I think the speech which is being referred to here. I'm going to have to rely upon memory. So, I mean, I get the year.

I think this is a speech that he gave to the American Newspaper Publishers Association in 1961. So soon after he was elected. And it's a speech that goes into a number of things. But one of the things that he was addressing is that, you know, secrecy is, he argues, is essentially un-American. And secret societies, you know. Groups that attempt to secretly influence politics and society is an un-American type of thing, and we have to be opposed to that.

It's an interesting thing to be talking to newspaper publishers about, but did Kennedy, in a public address, seem to condemn what he viewed as a kind of nefarious influence of secret societies, groups that were attempting to secretly influence politics, society, culture, whatever it might be? He did. He also was assassinated a couple of years later.

All right, you've got those two things. Those are part of the record. Those are real.

Now, the connection between them is an assumption. I'm not saying that the writer of that question is right or wrong. I'm just saying that, what does that mean?

Remember, was his assassination in some way a consequence of his opposition to secret societies? You can believe that. You can imagine that. You can't prove it. Just as you can't prove most things.

But that, again, is where these ideas, these comments arise from. So here's a commenter that wants to address how the Illuminati is currently operating. What makes you think that this is in the past?

It's absolutely huge. The influencers, so to speak, subliminal or outright, they do mind control. 100%.

100%. So what do you think, Rick? Are influencers members of the Illuminati that are controlling our minds? So one can create a not wholly irrational idea that in some way the Bavarian Illuminati mutated and have continued to mutate since the 18th century into something else. But you can't show me exactly what that is.

But you shouldn't be able to. If they're doing their job right, you shouldn't be able to pin that down. It comes down to the question, are there people trying to influence us subliminally?

Yeah. That's what advertising is all about. I mean, there's a constant effort. There are people on YouTube, on the internet, who proudly call themselves influencers. That's a title that people go after because of the idea that they can influence people, usually to buy something.

But if you can influence someone to buy something, you can influence them in... other directions, the way of shaping public opinion. So that undoubtedly is there. There's a vast industry of people out there who are constantly trying to manipulate and influence all of us.

I'd like to, if I could step in, sorry I didn't mean to step over your answer, but I just wanted to make the point that as a quasi-host on a YouTube show connected with a, I'd say subscription service. I am officially announcing right now that I am not now or never have been part of the Illuminati. So that's out there.

And neither have I. I'm open to offers. So here's one.

A commenter proposes this what-if scenario. What if they caused COVID? That's the entire comment. What if they caused COVID?

So what are your thoughts? Would the Illuminati benefit from causing a global pandemic, Rick? Uh...

Well, if they own a lot of stock in pharmaceutical companies. There you go. There you go. Okay.

Maybe that's it. Maybe they've become pharmaceutical companies. So I'd like to end.

Here with one final comment that appears to be from the Illuminati themselves, according to their account name. The Illuminati would like us to know that we're not only watching you, but we're also watching this video. So I'd like to say awesome, and I hope that the Illuminati checks out Rick's new course, The Secrets of the Occult. Yeah, because you'll get mentioned in there too.

So Rick, thank you so much for joining us today. And where can people find out more about you and your work? Well, you can go to my page, which is still at the University of Idaho, U-I-D-A-H-O, look under history, and there you can find more about me and my work.

And then also, they can check out my Wondrium professor program as well. Thank you so much, and I will talk to you soon. All right. Thank you.

Bye-bye. And that'll do it for a episode of One Dream Now. To learn who our upcoming guests are and to ask them questions, make sure to keep an eye on our social media feeds. You can find links to all of them in the description below. We'll be back soon with another great show.

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Transcript for:Exploring the Hidden World of the Occult

Transcript for:
Exploring the Hidden World of the Occult