Skull and Bones

Of all the American organisations that have been folded into the modern Illuminati myth, few have been more consistently named than Skull and Bones, the senior secret society at Yale University. Founded in 1832 and housed in a windowless building on the Yale campus known as “the Tomb,” Skull and Bones has, for nearly two centuries, been the subject of intense curiosity from journalists, conspiracy theorists, and former members who have either broken their vows of silence or been expelled for doing so. The society is, by any measure, an unusual organisation, and its actual history is rich enough to support a great deal of speculation. The question of whether it has any actual connection to the Bavarian Illuminati, however, is much narrower than the conspiracy literature typically suggests, and the answer turns out to be largely negative.

The Founding of Skull and Bones in 1832

Skull and Bones was founded at Yale College in 1832 by two members of a now-defunct society called Phi Beta Kappa. William Huntington Russell and Alphonso Taft, both Yale seniors at the time, traveled to Germany in 1831 and 1832, where they claim to have been initiated into a secret order with which they were deeply impressed. The two returned to Yale, gathered fifteen of their classmates, and founded the new order under the formal name “The Order of the Skull and Bones.” The detailed catalog of famous alleged Illuminati members includes the founders of Skull and Bones, though the membership of Skull and Bones in any formal Illuminati sense has never been established.

The German order that Russell and Taft claimed to have joined has been the subject of considerable historical investigation. The most thorough scholarship identifies the order as a chapter of a German student fraternity, possibly the Burschenschaft, possibly the Corps, or possibly a more obscure order. None of the candidates has any documented connection to the Bavarian Illuminati, which had been defunct for nearly half a century by the time of Russell and Taft’s visit. The claim that Skull and Bones is descended from, or affiliated with, the Bavarian Illuminati rests on a chain of inference that has no documentary support.

The Tomb at Yale

Skull and Bones is housed in a building at 64 High Street in New Haven, a windowless, vaguely Egyptian-looking structure built in 1856 in imitation of a mausoleum. The building is known as “the Tomb,” and it has been a Yale landmark ever since. The Tomb contains a number of rooms used by the society, including a central room called “the Inner Temple,” where the society’s meetings are held.

The Tomb has been the subject of intense curiosity over the years, and several former members have published accounts of its interior. The most famous such account is Alexandra Robbins’s Secrets of the Tomb, published in 2002, which describes the building, the society’s rituals, and the experience of being a member. Robbins’s account, drawn from interviews with dozens of Bonesmen (as members are called), describes a building decorated with the society’s symbols, including skulls and crossbones, photographs of prominent members, and a range of memorabilia accumulated over the society’s history.

The Order’s Rituals and Symbols

Skull and Bones has a long list of rituals and symbols, many of which the society has been careful to keep private. From the public accounts given by former members, the most prominent rituals include an extended initiation ceremony, in which the new members are subjected to a series of trials that include being called out of their beds in the middle of the night, led to the Tomb, and required to perform various tasks. The society’s symbols include a skull and crossbones (the basis of its name and the basis of its claim to have been founded in 1832), the number 322 (which the society interprets as the year 322 BC, when the Greek orator Demosthenes died, and which the conspiracy framework interprets as the year 1832), and a long list of other signs and passwords.

The most careful scholarly accounts of Skull and Bones treat the society’s rituals and symbols as the product of a specific historical moment: the 1830s, when American college students were deeply interested in German fraternal orders, Greek and Roman antiquity, and the visual culture of Egyptian and orientalist revival. The society’s most striking features, including the Tomb and the use of skull imagery, fit comfortably into this cultural moment and do not require any connection to the Bavarian Illuminati to be explained.

Notable Members Through History

Skull and Bones has had an unusually high proportion of prominent members, particularly in American politics and business. The most famous Bonesman is, perhaps, the late President George H. W. Bush, who was a member of the society as a Yale undergraduate in the late 1940s and who is said to have referred to himself as a Bonesman for the rest of his life. His son, George W. Bush, was also a member. The detailed catalog of famous alleged Illuminati members includes both Bush presidents, along with a long list of other Bonesmen who have gone on to prominent careers in American public life.

The Bush family connection is the most-discussed of all the society’s many political ties. Both President Bushes were members, as was their father, Prescott Bush, a Yale graduate of 1917 and a US senator from Connecticut. The family’s ties to the CIA are documented, as is the long history of Bonesmen who have gone on to senior positions in the intelligence community, in finance, and in the federal government.

The Bush Family Connection

The Bush family’s ties to Skull and Bones have been a fixture of conspiracy literature for decades. The fact that both President Bushes and their father were all members of the same Yale society has been treated, in some versions of the conspiracy, as evidence of a multi-generational Illuminati plot to control the American presidency.

The reality is more mundane. Skull and Bones taps about fifteen Yale seniors a year, and the society’s membership has, since the late 19th century, been concentrated among white, wealthy, and well-connected Americans. The Bush family fits this pattern exactly. The society’s role in American public life is significant but not unusual: it is one of several “final clubs” at Yale, and its members have, like the members of similar organisations at similar institutions, gone on to disproportionately prominent careers. None of this requires a hidden society to explain, and the conspiracy framework typically takes real features of American elite reproduction and treats them as evidence of a coordinated plot.

The CIA Connection

The Skull and Bones connection to the American intelligence community has been a particularly rich vein of conspiracy speculation. Several of the most senior figures in the early CIA were Bonesmen, and the most-discussed case is that of William F. Buckley Jr., a Yale graduate of 1950 who went on to found the National Review and to serve as a CIA officer in Mexico.

The actual CIA connection is real but limited. The early CIA recruited heavily from the Ivy League, and Skull and Bones was one of several societies whose members were attractive recruits. The agency was, throughout its early years, dominated by East Coast elites with the same demographic profile as Bonesmen. None of this requires a connection to the Bavarian Illuminati to be explained, and the conspiracy framework typically takes the well-documented pattern of elite recruitment and treats it as evidence of a coordinated plot.

How It Differs from the Bavarian Illuminati

The actual relationship between Skull and Bones and the Bavarian Illuminati is, on the documentary record, essentially nil. The Bavarian Illuminati were a small Bavarian student society founded in 1776 and suppressed by the Bavarian government in 1786. Skull and Bones is an American undergraduate society founded in 1832 by two Yale students who had visited Germany. The two organisations have different founding dates, different founding members, different purposes, different organisational structures, and different historical contexts.

The most careful scholarly accounts treat the alleged connection as the result of two independent phenomena. The first is the American 19th-century fascination with German fraternal orders, which led Russell and Taft to found a society that borrowed elements from German models. The second is the 20th-century conspiracy framework, which has taken a wide range of European and American fraternal organisations and treated them as a single hidden order.

The Modern Conspiracy Angle

The Skull and Bones story has been enormously productive for the modern conspiracy literature. The society’s high-profile membership, the closed-door nature of its meetings, the elaborate rituals, and the well-documented concentration of its members in positions of American political and economic power have all made it a natural target. The conspiracy framework has, in particular, used Skull and Bones as a kind of American counterpart to the European fraternal orders, treating it as the visible face of a hidden order that has infiltrated the American government.

The most elaborate versions of the conspiracy treat Skull and Bones as a kind of recruitment pipeline, in which promising young Americans are identified at Yale, initiated into the order, and then supported in their subsequent careers as a kind of long-term investment. There is, in fact, evidence for the broad outlines of this claim: the society’s members do, in fact, support one another’s careers, and the network of Bonesmen in American public life is, in fact, unusually dense. The conspiracy framework takes this real feature and treats it as evidence of a coordinated plot, when in fact it is closer to the ordinary operation of an old-boys’ network.

A Balanced Assessment

The most balanced assessment of Skull and Bones treats it as what its own members and most of its scholarly observers have always said it is: an exclusive American college society, founded in the early 19th century, with a long history of producing prominent alumni. The society is unusual, but it is not unique. Final clubs at Yale, the Fox Club at Harvard, Scroll and Key, and a long list of similar organisations at other American universities have similar features. The society’s role in American elite reproduction is significant, and its members have, in fact, gone on to disproportionately prominent careers, but the same is true of the members of similar organisations.

The actual evidence for a connection to the Bavarian Illuminati is, on the documentary record, essentially nil. The society’s German origins are real, but the German order with which Russell and Taft were associated has no documented connection to the Bavarian Illuminati. The society’s political influence is real, but it is the result of the ordinary features of American elite reproduction, not the work of a centuries-old European secret society.