RP375 The Skull and Bones Society

 RP375 The Skull and Bones Society

Outside a room guarded by an iron door, 15 new members nervously await their initiation. They can hear strange noises, cries, and screams coming from within the sanctuary. One enters. He sees robed figures, men in skeleton costumes, and a man dressed as the devil; they push him to a table and chant" Read!" He reads the secret oath. The robed figures grab him and push him toward a picture of Eulalia— the society's own goddess of eloquence." Eulalia！ Eulalia!" the figures chant.
He is rushed outside, where the figures scream, wail, and urge him toward a white tent." The hangman equals death," they shout." The devil equals death! Death equals death!" In the tent he picks up a thigh bone. Out in the open again, he sees a terrifying scene before him. A butcher towers over a figure covered in fake blood. The initiate approaches a skull on the ground near the butcher, kneels, and kisses it. The butcher enacts cutting the figure's throat, a motion that symbolizes the initiate's death to the barbarian world and rebirth into The Order.
The Skull and Bones is Yale's oldest secret society, with nearly 200 years of hidden tradition and a habit of producing some of America's most important future leaders.
This disturbing description of the society's initiation ritual has been pieced together by journalists from countless interviews and secret recordings. No one except true members of the society really know what goes on behind the doors of the Skull and Bones club. The members are sworn to secrecy, keeping the society's inner workings quiet under strict oaths of silence.
While it may be just an eccentric debate society that meets every Thursday and Sunday evening, the Skull and Bones club's obsession with death and connection with turning out America's power elite separate it from other college societies.
In the 2004 US presidential election, George W. Bush and his opponent John Kerry (both former Bonesmen) were asked about their time in the society." It's so secret we can't talk about it," said President Bush. While Kerry, when asked what it meant that both had been initiated into the society, replied," Not much, because it's a secret."