We’re back with a special interview episode about secret societies and how they might relate to Call of Cthulhu.
In our recent episodes about cults, we briefly touched on how the representation of cults in Call of Cthulhu sometimes more resembled secret societies or magical orders. We thought it might be interesting to dig into what the differences are between these types of organisations. If nothing else, this may offer some inspiration for how we portray them in our games.
Once again, we have called upon expert help. Robert Howells is an author and researcher into secret societies. He has written books about the Priory of Sion and the Illuminati, and worked on a number of related television programmes.
This is a long and discursive discussion, drifting into many esoteric and occult areas, so we have split it into two episodes. Join us in a fortnight for the conclusion, when Rob and Scott tie all of this further into cults and Call of Cthulhu.
Links
Things we mention in this episode include:
- The Order of the Silver Twilight
- Inside the Priory of Sion by Robert Howells
- The Da Vinci Code by Dan Brown
- Holy Blood, Holy Grail by Michael Baigent, Richard Leigh, Henry Lincoln
- Watkins Books
- Priory of Sion
- Alchemy
- Sufism
- Freemasonry
- Order of the Knights Templar
- Order of Saint Lazarus
- Royal Dragon Court
- Freemasons’ Hall
- Kabbalism
- The Last Pope: Decoding St. Malachy’s Prophecy on the Fall of the Vatican by Robert Howells
- The Illuminati: The Counter Culture Revolution-From Secret Societies to Wilkileaks and Anonymous by Robert Howells
- Illuminati
- Anonymous
- Secret Societies
- Morality plays
- Magical orders
- Tongs
- Lazarus of Bethany
- Horus raising Osiris
- Isaac Newton and alchemy
- The Louvre and Freemasonry
- Chartres Cathedral labyrinth
- Gnosticism
- The lost feminine archetype
- Jesus as a rabbi
- Lineage of Jesus
- Parsifal
- Nag Hammadi library
- The Gospel of Mary
- Carl Jung
- Theosophy
- Thule Society
- Ku Klux Klan
- Long-time nuclear waste warning messages
- Hieronymus Bosch
- Sacred geometry
- Paintings of medieval priests with concubines
- Tantra
- Canonbury Lodge
- Michael Baigent
- Order of Assassins
- Aga Khan
- Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn
- Rosicrucianism
- The Goetia
- The Book of Thoth by Aleister Crowley
- Ordo Templi Orientis
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Re. ancient Egypt “slaves pulling stone blocks”, archaeologists now think that they weren’t slaves at all but Egyptians who wanted to be part of creating a monument to their pharaoh, gaining a little piece of his glory in heaven. The worker villages have inscriptions by teams who took pride in being the best sledge haulers, for example.
Almost none of what your friend outlined is accepted by mainstream historians, but would fall into the realm of batshit conspiracy theories.
Well, it did cross my mind but I thought it politic to say nothing.