History Decoded: The 10 Greatest Conspiracies of All Time Read online

  Not exactly, as Reverend Benner explains. True Rosicrucians perceive the belief as a quest, a pursuit, one that persists throughout one’s life. “We identify ourselves as students of the philosophy,” Reverend Benner told us.

  This is important. Reverend Benner made it clear to us that Rosicrucians aspire to improvement, to growth, to the development of their spiritual and mental powers on an individual basis. And that the model for these pursuits and studies is none other than Jesus.

  Therein, she points out, lies the great conflict between well-established churches—and particularly the Roman Catholic Church—and the Rosicrucians.

  If a church teaches that Jesus was divine, the Son of God, she observes, then that’s that—we can follow such a figure, but we cannot aspire to become a figure like him.

  But, the reverend says, if Jesus was a man, one who applied himself and developed his spirit and his mind to an almost unbelievable degree, that’s something else altogether. We can all apply ourselves to developing our own skills and abilities, some of which, she believes, may be almost godlike in their reach and power. “We do believe in the powers of the mind. And we teach that ‘As you believe, so shall it be unto you,’” she says, referring in a very different way to the possibility of advanced mental powers and capabilities.

  What about using those powers to impose Rosicrucian will upon the world?

  To Reverend Benner, that doesn’t sound like true Rosicrucianism at all. “This is a very individualistic belief system,” she says without hesitation. Imposing one individual’s will upon another’s—or upon billions of others—is the very antithesis of Rosicrucianism. “Imposing something goes way against our tradition of individual liberty,” she says.

  Reverend Benner didn’t take Smith’s Sirhan Sirhan conspiracy theories any more seriously than I did. And she offered an interesting take on whether or not the Rosicrucians were behind the creation and construction of the Georgia Guidestones.

  “Again,” she said, “I think it’s more likely that it’s an individual who has studied our teachings and philosophy.”

  That, I find intriguing, and convincing. Far from being a secret mind-control cabal of the sort that Smith so deeply fears, Reverend Benner’s portrait of Rosicrucianism is of a loosely connected group of seekers after higher truths. One of those seekers may have found his higher truth best expressed in the creation of the Georgia Guidestones.

  Do I believe that those higher truths could include psychic abilities and other wild talents? Not necessarily. But the point is that rather than take the word of someone on the Internet who, bless him, starts out looking to find a conspiracy, and thus colors everything he sees with his own prejudgments, we actually sought out and spoke with someone who actively practices the beliefs in question. In talking with Reverend Benner, we not only learned quite a bit, we also gained some real insights into a possible motivation for the Georgia Guidestones.

  That’s the essence of decoding a mystery—going to the sources, and not being satisfied with secondhand reports. And that’s the approach that brought us to a documentary filmmaker and Rosicrucian researcher who offered some of the most startling insights of all. The fact that they were insights that history has since disproved is another vital lesson in the process.

  Symbol of Rosicrucianism

  A cross with a rose like this one at its center is exactly what the arrangement of the Georgia Guidestones resembles from above.

  Rev. Bette Benner

  The reverend says that imposing one individual’s will upon another’s is the very antithesis of Rosicrucianism.

  Mail-Order Mysteries

  The back pages of science fiction and hobbyist magazines often contained ads for Rosicrucian membership.

  The 2012 Connection

  Solar Storms

  The Guidestones’ creator, R. C. Christian, may have believed that a coming cycle of solar storms was going to bring a dramatic end to the world.

  Author and filmmaker Jay Weidner flatly states that the Rosicrucians not only aren’t out to murder six billion of their fellow humans, they’re actively trying to warn us of the large threats our whole world faces.

  Particularly, Weidner told us in 2011, the threat was of a massive cycle of solar storms, possibly capable of disrupting or even destroying the global communications network and power grid . . . and bringing about the collapse of civilization.

  I know—judging by the copyright on this book and the date you’re reading it, Weidner’s concerns regarding a 2012 solar storm cycle killing off most of us didn’t come true, any more than the Mayan Calendar predictions of the end of the world did. 2012 was far from the best year this old planet has seen, but it was also far from the last year . . . or even the worst. (So far, anyway.)

  But that wouldn’t change the possibility that R. C. Christian, in 1979, might have believed that the coming cycle of solar storms was going to bring a dramatic end to the world as we know it, and do so around the year 2012.

  For that matter, University of Georgia astronomer Loris Magnani pointed out to us that the peak current cycle of solar explosions was due in 2012 . . . or 2013. Not that he believed that even a catastrophic coronal mass ejection—a huge ball of energy cast out of the sun and, if the conditions are right, thrust onto a collision course with Earth—would bring an end to life as we know it.

  Far likelier to do that, he argued, would be the impact of an asteroid on the earth. It was just such an impact—of an asteroid or a portion of a comet—that brought an end to the dinosaurs 65 million years or so ago.

  At the same time, we live in such near-total dependence upon advanced technologies that even a minimal disruption of the power grid and communications networks would be catastrophic if not truly cataclysmic or apocalyptic. We’ve seen this in tragic miniature in the aftermath of a major storm such as Katrina or Sandy, the tsunami in Japan, and devastating earthquakes and volcanoes.

  Turn off the electricity, cut off the phones and the Internet. And—what?

  We find out very quickly just how fragile the veneer of civilization is when you take away lights, refrigeration, air-conditioning, telephone, and all the rest. In the case of a major regional disaster such as a storm or earthquake, neighboring systems can step in and offer assistance. But take out the entire grid across the country—or the planet—and leave it off for more than a very few days, and you’re going to have panic, breakdowns of order, looting, hoarding, possibly starvation, potentially a dramatic decrease in population.

  Leave the lights off for a very few weeks and you have . . . a potential depopulation apocalypse.

  And that, whatever the precise details and dates of such an apocalypse, is what Jay Weidner believes lies behind the Georgia Guidestones.

  “They are trying to set forth some rules so that people who survive the coming catastrophe can remake the world in a better way,” he said.

  Far from being an evil, satanic group trying to destroy the world, the Rosicrucians (as Weidner understands them) are trying to warn us.

  That makes sense to me—far more sense than trying to imagine a small group of people plotting the murder of more than six billion people.

  But it still doesn’t answer the question of who R. C. Christian is—or was.

  “Rosicrucians are actively trying to warn us of the large threats our whole world faces. They are trying to set forth some rules so that people who survive the coming catastrophe can remake the world in a better way.”

  —Jay Weidner, author and filmmaker

  Mystery Builder

  Ted Turner

  The media mogul and America’s largest individual owner of real estate has often been mentioned as a possible source of funding for the Guidestones. But, c’mon, can you really imagine the “Mouth of the South” not taking credit for this one?

 
Think about this—if you had a vision of an American Stonehenge, a massive granite creation bearing your philosophy for the world, and you possessed the resources to underwrite its creation, would you want to keep your name out of it? For most of us, I think the answer would be “probably not.” Our egos and our vanities might insist that we take at least some of the credit. Yet among the inscriptions on the monument is the announcement that their byline is a pseudonym. Is this humility—or deliberate misdirection?

  Human nature and the role vanity plays in it would seem to rule out one name often mentioned as a possible source of funding for the Guidestones: Ted Turner, media mogul and America’s largest individual owner of real estate. At one point, Turner argued that the earth would be better served by a far smaller population than our present numbers, a statement that generated much controversy at the time. But while the ideas expressed on the stones, if interpreted benignly, do reflect Turner’s well-known global harmony and environmental concerns, modesty, humility, and anonymity are not qualities often—or maybe ever—associated with the man once widely referred to as the “Mouth of the South.”

  So if the man behind the Georgia Guidestones wasn’t Turner or, probably, any other high-profile, well-heeled philanthropist or visionary, who was he?

  Only a few people ever met him. One was attorney Wyatt Martin, who handled the legal matters related to the Guidestones, and who signed a vow never to discuss his client, a vow he has kept.

  Another was Hudson Cone, who was present at the granite company when the Guidestones were being created. Cone remembers Christian as a tall, balding man, with a fringe of white hair. He was well spoken, and comported himself well. He gave no indication of who— or what—he represented.

  That ambiguity, Cone believes to this day, was deliberate.

  “Any time you have something with an air of mystery around it,” he said, “you invite different interpretations.”

  Those differing interpretations, Cone insists, are one of the things that have kept the Georgia Guidestones at the center of so much speculation and public interest. He has had people tell him that the site is the holiest spot, while others argue that it’s a profane location, a focal point for satanic power and ultimate evil.

  Cone doesn’t believe that the spot or the Guidestones are evil. In fact, he thinks that the questions the Guidestones raise are themselves its truest purpose.

  “I believe it was put here to stimulate curiosity,” Cone said.

  That, too, makes a lot of sense to me. What better way to get people talking—and thinking—about the nature of our relationship to the world and to one another—than by creating an enormous mystery . . . and presenting that mystery in the world’s great languages so that all can participate in the discussion?

  After all, as Reverend Benner told us, the purpose of the Rosicrucians is to pursue higher knowledge, and one of the great and proven methods of pursuing knowledge is by provoking discussion.

  What about those higher mental powers that the Rosicrucians seek? Is there anything to that? More than you might expect—as we discovered when we visited Dr. Melody Moore Jackson at the Georgia Institute of Technology.

  As Dr. Jackson demonstrated—to our amazement—we are in a golden age of advancement in brain science, and particularly in our ability to control brain waves and enhance our ability to use our very thoughts to directly manipulate objects.

  While Dr. Jackson, like most reputable scientists, doesn’t place much faith in astral projection or some of the wilder speculations surrounding Rosicrucian mental powers, she does point out that our increasing ability to link brain waves to machines such as robotic arms, hands, and other prosthetics, offers great promise to amputees and paraplegics.

  What most intrigued us was her observation that only about 20 percent of those who attempt to use her equipment to guide their brain waves into direct contact and manipulation of objects do so on the first try.

  That got us thinking. If two people out of ten have an innate ability to use their brain waves on a higher level than the rest of us—maybe there is something to the Rosicrucian belief that these abilities do exist, and can be developed.

  A Massive Undertaking

  One hundred and nineteen tons of solid granite slabs were carefully shaped to precise measurements, after which messages in the world’s eight most common languages were carved into the faces of the stones.

  The Unveiling

  The Guidestones’ unveiling in March 1980 was attended by more than 100 people. Once unveiled, the Stones immediately attracted controversy. Some said their messages called for a global embrace of rationalism and sustainability. Others said they were the Ten Commandments of the Antichrist.

  Why Georgia?

  One question that has remained throughout our investigation of the Georgia Guidestones is—why Georgia? Why were the stones placed on their particular site?

  Turns out there’s a serious—and mysterious—reason for that as well.

  The theory of Earth Changes, first propounded by the mystic Edgar Cayce early in the 20th century, argues that we are rapidly approaching a time of devastating changes to the surface of the earth. Those changes could be the result of earthquakes, asteroid or comet impact, super volcanoes, solar flares—whatever. As we’ve seen, particularly in terms of the 2012 believers—but also as with previous apocalypse believers such as those who feared the end of the world would accompany the new millennium, or those who saw global devastation coming as Halley’s Comet returned, or any of the hundreds of other doomsday faiths that have come and gone—the specific details of the actual apocalypse vary from believer to believer, and some of them have already been proved inaccurate.

  What matters for the purposes of decoding the Guidestones is the consequences of the devastation.

  And those consequences include a radically altered surface of the earth—a surface that will lack many of the most familiar features of the world we know.

  What sort of features?

  Minor things like: California, New York City, parts of Florida, and other landmasses throughout the world.

  That’s scary.

  But according to Cayce’s Earth Changes theory, it turns out that in addition to the changes that would alter the physical face of the world, there are “safe zones” that would ride out the earth changes, and in doing so provide a psychic focus for the energies needed to rebuild the world.

  Where are those safe zones?

  You guessed it—one of them is in rural Georgia. (See Exhibit 8C for a map.)

  It’s where the Guidestones stand, meaning they’re ready to help the survivors of the earth changes rebuild the world. And rebuild it better.

  I believe that the Georgia Guidestones are, on one level, exactly what they appear to be—a tool for getting people to think about the nature of existence, and the ways in which that existence could be improved.

  I think that there’s a good chance that the person behind them was a Rosicrucian.

  But I also think that there’s a motivation for the stones that may have been overlooked, and that the motivation lies in the times during which they were commissioned and created.

  The Georgia Guidestones came into being in the late 1970s and early 1980s—a time of enormous international tension between the United States and the then still-existing Soviet Union. At the heart of those tensions: tens of thousands of nuclear warheads, an arsenal of destruction aimed at each other’s throats, and more than capable of bringing civilization down in a mass of radioactive rubble.

  They were among the scariest times in human history—and a reminder that we don’t need an apocalypse beyond our control to end the world. For more than half a century, we have held the power to do it ourselves. Self-inflicted genocide by nuclear bombs controlled by our governments: No secret cabals need apply.

  And I think that it was the possibi
lity of just such a holocaust that prompted R. C. Christian to create the message he placed on the Georgia Guidestones. A message intended for the survivors of a global nuclear holocaust. A message designed to help them restore a balance to the earth—and to avoid the mistakes that destroyed their ancestors.

  That, I think, is the purpose of the Georgia Guidestones, and that’s the message we decoded during our investigation.

  Of course, there’s one person, if he’s still alive, who knows whether or not my interpretation is accurate, and that’s R. C. Christian, but he’s not talking.

  I just hope that he does come forth, and tell us whether or not any of our interpretations of the Georgia Guidestones is accurate. Or if there is another interpretation— perhaps brighter, perhaps darker—that we may have overlooked.

  Until then, we have the Georgia Guidestones themselves, speaking their message to the ages—and to each of us in their own way.

  Earth Changes

  According to the Earth Changes theory, the Georgia Guidestones are located in a zone that’s safe from devastating changes to the earth’s surface: earthquakes, floods, asteroids, volcanoes, solar flares—disasters that some believe will bring an end to modern civilization.

  DB Cooper: American Outlaw

  What if I told you that of all of America’s skyjackings, only one remains unsolved?

  On November 24, 1971, a passenger using the name Dan Cooper hijacked Northwest Orient Airlines Flight 305, headed from Portland to Seattle (see Exhibit 7A, the hijacker’s ticket voucher). After threatening to blow up the plane with a bomb, Cooper demanded four parachutes and $200,000.

  Fearing the worst, Northwest Airlines agreed. Once on the ground in Seattle, Cooper let the other passengers and some of the flight crew off the plane and had the money and parachutes brought on board. The plane refueled, took off again, and, at 10,000 feet, Cooper jumped from the back stairs of the Boeing 727 into the Pacific Northwest night.