(and women, of course)
There are dozens, if not more, relatively new and ancient secret societies in the world today; all of them have a single aim driving their existence and continued survival; world domination.
There is, to my mind, one small problem with that picture; how can they all be working towards world domination? Surely we only need one shadow government subverting everything? They cannot be competing to be the dominant subverter surely?
That would, we believe, be rather silly.
So, a more logical mind would come to a different conclusion; either there are no secret societies at all or there is only one of that that is real; the others are inventions of people like Dan Brown. perhaps he is responsible for all of them but the secret masters let him live for their amusement.
Everybody Wants To....
Tear for Fears references aside, there are, at last count, over 100 secret societies operating either large-scale or minor subversion. Let us list some of them, at least those we get to meet to a degree in The Chronicles of Enoch;
The Illuminati; Made popular by Mr. Brown though few remember the original Illuminati Trilogy that started it all. They are, allegedly, an organisation formed by some of history's greatest minds whose primary objective is to bring down the Catholic Church and usher in a new age of secular equality for all. As long as said people do what the Illuminati tell them to do. They are "always watching over" us and are said to monitor all communications and surveil every single person in the world for their own protection for unnamed evil forces (possibly the Catholic Chruch).
The Rothschilds; A massive banking legacy that controls all the world's politicians and decides who wins elections. They own all of the world's banks and control all of the wealth; therefore are dominant in pretty much every aspect of society and life if you think about. It is supposed that there might be a mild antisemetic element to this conspiracy but when has that ever stopped someone?
The Nine Unknown Men; a society formed in India somewhere around around either the beginning of the 19th Century of the current era or 270 B.C, depending on who you listen to. These nine men were elected to hide away and guard knowledge deemed dangerous to the human race but vital for its eventual survival. They were to watch and guard until the time was deemed right. They have supposedly leaked secret knowledge on advanced technology and so forth to trustworthy individuals (such as Nikola Tesla) over the years.
The Knights Templar; on Friday 13th October 1307, all members of this order were supposedly arrested and executed in quite a well-synchronised operation for the time. They were tried for heresy and devil-worship but, it was thought, their accusers were either after their vast fortune in cash and land deeds or whatever it was that they found under what is now the Western Wall in Jersusalem. Though thought to be extinct, many believe that the Order survives today and may even have morphed into Freemasonry and Roscrucians, and even the modern Knights Templar.
The Skull and Bones Society; based out of America's elite Yale University "Bonesmen" as members are called have included men such as George H.W Bush, George W. Bush, members of Fortune 500 corporations, and the CIA. They are said to be part of a plan for these wealthy and influential individuals to, you may be surprised to learn, take over the world.
Opus Dei; Formed by a Spanish priest in 1928, "The Work of God" is an orthodox Catholic organisation recognised and funded by the Vatican. They are said to own and control a number of banks in Spain, Latin America, and a number of other predominantly Catholic countries. Their exact aims are uncertain but Catholic domination is seen as one of them.
The Bilberbergs; not a secret society as such because everyone knows about their meetings and where they take place but nobody except the very influential attendees know what happens at those closed-door meetings. The Premiers of the world's nations, important academics, financial risining stars, and others deemed worthy of an invite. The fact that the Chatham House Rule nondisclosure is applied to all attendees, conspiracy is rife in regards to this group.
That is, of course, not even a fraction of the number of shadowy organisations out there either. They all seem to share a number of important things in common;
World Domination
Secret Knowledge
Hidden Sources of Wealth
Influential Members
A Lot of Rumours But Nothing Proveable
The question of why there are so many of them is one nobody seems willing to provide a decent answer to or, how they are going to share the world once they have dominated it to their satisfaction
The Chronicles Makes its Move
Those of you who have been paying attention to our artworks will have noticed that a number of those secret societies get at least a nod in The Chronicles. It might be their symbolism being hidden in such an artwork and, therefore, being associated with certain characters, it might be characters either claiming or truly belonging to one of those organisations, it might be a certain character claiming to be feeding all rumours related to a number of these societies on the internet but they are there.
The Chronicles cannot be a work that deeply involves conspiracies and not included at least two of them.
The Illuminati; we meet at least three Illuminati characters towards the end of Darkness Within;
Douglas Fairfield; their Chief of Operations and Intelligence based out of Home Base, an artificially created island somewhere in the South Pacific. This island is hidden from all forms of detection using technology of unknown origin. Fairfield is a former Met Police and Mi6 operative and manages a vast surveillance network that uses covert drones, hacking into metropolitan CCTV networks, and backdoors into the monitoring networks most governments use to keep an eye on their citizens. Asmodeus has womed his way undetected into some of their servers.
Kaleb Aristedes; a billionaire playboy (there must always be one) and accomplished pilot who acts as 'taxi driver' for the Illuminati. He ferries whoever needs to be taken between Home Base and anywhere else in the world using a series of hidden fuel dumps across the ocean.
Lord Sir James Perrithwaite; former politician, distant cousin to the Queen who died over 30 years ago. The Illuminati like to pick their Grandmasters from the dead as it makes things less complicated, ultimately. It also means that Perrithwaite may never leave Home Base or be seen in the world, especially considering his former position.
An amusing note to add at this point is that my decision to include the Illuminati was inspired by how easy they are to join these days. I got an email telling me that all I had to do to join is sign up. I could rise through the levels of their ranks by purchasing their cheaply made jewellery and associated tat. I'd always thought it was more challenging than that was signed up with no hesitation. I kept getting thier well-written motivational emails for a while until they realised I was unlikely to make a purchase.
The Nine Unknown Men; there is only one of the Men present in Darkness Within but we do have plans to involve others later on in the series;
Rabbi Tav Pachowski; rabbi Pachowski was recruited into the Unknown Men by Marcus Vanderbilt, the father of Charles and Peter. At this time, the rabbia has actively been collecting intelligence on known Fallen angels and Nephilim around the Atlanta area. He has been tailing Sable for what may well turn out to be very personal reasons.
Of course, there is no denying that Asmodeus is very much involved in an awful lot of conspiracy traffic these days; many of the stranger pieces of information regarding the weirdest of the secret societies tend to come from his archives and bots. He especially likes the ones which cause arguments and mistrust, they are the kind that, he'll tell you, require hard work and artistry.
Conclusion
There is no question that people are fascinated by the possibility of secret people, doing secret things in secret places which affect the rest of us. There is a lasting appeal to knowing a little bit more about these shadowy figures we can influence in no way whatsoever, or at least thinking that we do of course.
Just like ancient peoples invented gods and demi-urges to explain difficult, unexpected or inexplicable natural events, modern people need explanations too, it would seem. We need to believe there is some kind of sense and order to it all in direct opposition to all evidence.
Nefaerious secret people manipulating everything from the shows on television to the words you consciously see in the newspapers are as good an explanation as any other.
Asmodeus has one final word for you, though;
"...these people who told you about these organisations, these societies that hide in secret places and, basically control everything, right? These people who provide the information you read about; how do they do that when said organisations seem rather keen on secrecy and privacy and, it is hinted, are not shy about discouraging - terminally quite often - interest in their activities? How did they stay alive long enough to actually report it?
"So, I think we can safely say that any information you are seeing on the internet either comes from this very room or, you can assume that it is faked by someone else because the mere fact that it is 'out there' means that it is in no way a threat to Them; whichever They it happens to be referring to or popular at the time..."