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Secret Societies of America's Elite: From the Knights Templar to Skull and Bones
An expose of the dark and critical role secret societies play within the ruling families in America and their influence on American democracy, current events, and world history.
• Reveals the enormous influence secret societies still have on contemporary American life.
• Shows how the secret Masonic cells that smuggled in the democratic ideals inspiring the American Revolution also enabled the future elite of the new society to build huge fortunes.
Elite and secret societies have always been a major force in the history of Western civilization. The alliances formed in secret societies such as the Knights Templar, the Knights of Christ, and the Freemasons transcended patriotism and religious beliefs and had a powerful influence on the establishment of the United States of America. While these secret associations of merchants, smugglers, occultists, gamblers, spies, and slavers succeeded in freeing the United States from foreign domination, the dark side is that the elite used their secret connections to further their own wealth and power. These secret cells did not hesitate to sponsor the assassination of a president and even attempted to break up the union on several occasions when it was deemed expedient.
From the Sons of Liberty and the Essex Junto to the Ku Klux Klan, secret societies have played critical roles in building the fortunes of America's elite. Now Steven Sora reveals in alarming detail how secretive societies continue to wield power even today as organizations such as Yale's Skull & Bones unite America's modern ruling families as strongly as Masonic Lodges once connected the Astors, Livingstons, and Roosevelts. Their immense power and wealth allow this elite to control America to an even greater degree than the Templars once dominated Europe.
• Reveals the enormous influence secret societies still have on contemporary American life.
• Shows how the secret Masonic cells that smuggled in the democratic ideals inspiring the American Revolution also enabled the future elite of the new society to build huge fortunes.
Elite and secret societies have always been a major force in the history of Western civilization. The alliances formed in secret societies such as the Knights Templar, the Knights of Christ, and the Freemasons transcended patriotism and religious beliefs and had a powerful influence on the establishment of the United States of America. While these secret associations of merchants, smugglers, occultists, gamblers, spies, and slavers succeeded in freeing the United States from foreign domination, the dark side is that the elite used their secret connections to further their own wealth and power. These secret cells did not hesitate to sponsor the assassination of a president and even attempted to break up the union on several occasions when it was deemed expedient.
From the Sons of Liberty and the Essex Junto to the Ku Klux Klan, secret societies have played critical roles in building the fortunes of America's elite. Now Steven Sora reveals in alarming detail how secretive societies continue to wield power even today as organizations such as Yale's Skull & Bones unite America's modern ruling families as strongly as Masonic Lodges once connected the Astors, Livingstons, and Roosevelts. Their immense power and wealth allow this elite to control America to an even greater degree than the Templars once dominated Europe.
336 pages, Paperback
First published February 1, 2003
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Displaying 1 - 16 of 16 reviews
September 19, 2013
The author’s purpose in writing this book is to teach his readers about the history of societies like the Knights Templar. He is showing us how these different groups survived throughout history and how similar they are to our society. These individual groups all tell their own story and he is their narrator.
The theme of this book would be survival. These different societies each had their own rivals that tried to destroy the society the created. The pirates were arrested and killed by the English. English royalty was hanging pirates all the time because the pirates would take over their ships. A few English captains would become pirates because the pay was better, there was more respect, and all were treated equally.
This book is a narration. It tells the story of the Knights Templar, pirates, and other secret societies. The stories all go in a chronological order to show when each society was created and how it was relevant towards the other societies. It was effective in the way of telling the stories; the author included each group without breaking the story as a whole.
My opinion of this book would be that it was very descriptive, and all of the facts were accurate, but it didn’t keep your attention. Throughout reading the story; I felt that I was reading a history book instead of a story. I liked the book for the way it introduced different societies that I did not know, and that it had a great story line. I would put some funny moments into the story to keep the readers interested. Overall, it was a great book; it just did not keep my attention.
The theme of this book would be survival. These different societies each had their own rivals that tried to destroy the society the created. The pirates were arrested and killed by the English. English royalty was hanging pirates all the time because the pirates would take over their ships. A few English captains would become pirates because the pay was better, there was more respect, and all were treated equally.
This book is a narration. It tells the story of the Knights Templar, pirates, and other secret societies. The stories all go in a chronological order to show when each society was created and how it was relevant towards the other societies. It was effective in the way of telling the stories; the author included each group without breaking the story as a whole.
My opinion of this book would be that it was very descriptive, and all of the facts were accurate, but it didn’t keep your attention. Throughout reading the story; I felt that I was reading a history book instead of a story. I liked the book for the way it introduced different societies that I did not know, and that it had a great story line. I would put some funny moments into the story to keep the readers interested. Overall, it was a great book; it just did not keep my attention.
August 31, 2007
this book title could be an in justice,good title bad book it surprises me that native Americans don't know about this already.. " as free-masonry is open in the states..IE..
lodges are public " going to the lodge" is like "going's to the local pub".. here they did know those that want to admit it that George Washington was no the only president to have bought and sold slaves...(this book may have come to light at the right time)..with ever other country "apologizing for the slave trade..".
were master masons were agreeing to the oath that there (brothers) were pirates and corsairs.... vast fortunes were made form the (Golden age of pirate's).. it would seam that Temple's came of pirates... to create the birth of American dynasties...then the books read like a script form the film ..THE
GANGS OF NEW-YORK...But this was for the wealthy... (were the hero leave his girlfriend to enter a Private house)..or in the tom-Cruise film" far away..to an consort were in the depth of a new-york winter, she will survive.."...
excert form new-york..paper
In New York City, 45 billionaires live cheek-by-jowl with 1.6 million people who live in poverty. Progressives since Jacob Riis have seen the urban juxtaposition of wealth and poverty as a flaw of New York.
New York's wealth inequality reflects strength not weakness. The city's billionaires are the producers and the products of the city's extraordinary economy. The city's poverty reflects the fact that the less fortunate are drawn to New York by its economic openness, public transportation, and social structure. The fact that New York City( can attract both the very rich and the very poor is something to cheer,)...?..... it is not a cause for alarm. The real problem is not New York's inequality, but the false equality of those communities that have made no place for the less fortunate.
this is what the book states first was captain Kidd...pirate..born greenock-Scotland.. a-mason.. then the family's became prominent...GARDINER'S..LIVINGS TONS...MORRIS...
PHILIPS.. DEAN & LAFAYETTE. the war horses... the cushing family
from page ,,8... many of the families as American BLUE-BLOODS...our equivalent of aristocracy... have hidden in there ancestral-closet men who would make modern day organized criminals look like ..CHERUB'S... they were not mere horse-thieves.nor were they snake-oil...salesmen nor were they con men that were run out of town on train or horse...these....founding....fathers....?.. rose to wealth...and there powers to which is protected by institutions they put in place to insure their participation in the future..!!!
of the system..thanks to there ill gotten gains and power perpetuates its-self
lodges are public " going to the lodge" is like "going's to the local pub".. here they did know those that want to admit it that George Washington was no the only president to have bought and sold slaves...(this book may have come to light at the right time)..with ever other country "apologizing for the slave trade..".
were master masons were agreeing to the oath that there (brothers) were pirates and corsairs.... vast fortunes were made form the (Golden age of pirate's).. it would seam that Temple's came of pirates... to create the birth of American dynasties...then the books read like a script form the film ..THE
GANGS OF NEW-YORK...But this was for the wealthy... (were the hero leave his girlfriend to enter a Private house)..or in the tom-Cruise film" far away..to an consort were in the depth of a new-york winter, she will survive.."...
excert form new-york..paper
In New York City, 45 billionaires live cheek-by-jowl with 1.6 million people who live in poverty. Progressives since Jacob Riis have seen the urban juxtaposition of wealth and poverty as a flaw of New York.
New York's wealth inequality reflects strength not weakness. The city's billionaires are the producers and the products of the city's extraordinary economy. The city's poverty reflects the fact that the less fortunate are drawn to New York by its economic openness, public transportation, and social structure. The fact that New York City( can attract both the very rich and the very poor is something to cheer,)...?..... it is not a cause for alarm. The real problem is not New York's inequality, but the false equality of those communities that have made no place for the less fortunate.
this is what the book states first was captain Kidd...pirate..born greenock-Scotland.. a-mason.. then the family's became prominent...GARDINER'S..LIVINGS TONS...MORRIS...
PHILIPS.. DEAN & LAFAYETTE. the war horses... the cushing family
from page ,,8... many of the families as American BLUE-BLOODS...our equivalent of aristocracy... have hidden in there ancestral-closet men who would make modern day organized criminals look like ..CHERUB'S... they were not mere horse-thieves.nor were they snake-oil...salesmen nor were they con men that were run out of town on train or horse...these....founding....fathers....?.. rose to wealth...and there powers to which is protected by institutions they put in place to insure their participation in the future..!!!
of the system..thanks to there ill gotten gains and power perpetuates its-self
January 7, 2014
I read this book when I was sixteen years old. At the time I was obsessed with Freemasonry and the Roman Church, secret societies in general, and the occult. So it tied in with that interest. I liked it a lot at the time. But actually it is full of factual errors. For example, I remember one passage in the book where the author stated that King James VI of Scotland who became the first James of England in 1603 "was both a Roman Catholic and a Freemason" I do not know if he was a Mason, but he was certainly not a Catholic because he is the monarch who started the Protestant "plantations" of Ulster. His descendant James II was Catholic maybe that's why he thought this. The book was full of other factual errors to. However, if a person was just being introduced to the topic of secret societies it is useful. I did learn some relevant facts in the book. For example I learned about the claim that Freemasonry evolved from the Knights Templar. It also had a negative on me though because it resulted in me getting my facts about secret societies wrong. Also he focused on discredited conspiracy theories such as Freemasonry and the Vatican being involved in the JFK assassination.
February 14, 2014
كتاب أسرار وخفايا ليس من السهل الاطلاع عليها مجتمعة هكذا فى كتاب واحد
يتناول الكتاب واقعة حل جماعة فرسان المعبد التى لعبت ادوارا عديدة فى القرون الوسطى فى حروب الصليبيين وقد انقسمت الجماعة بعد ذللك الى جمعيات أخرى تحت أسماء مختلفة ، ومنها ما انطوى تحت الجمعيات الماسونية
ويقص الكتاب كيف عمل افراد العائلات الكبيرة فى أمريكا ما قبل الاستقلال فى التجارة والتهريب وأعمال القرصنة وفوق كل شئ تجارة الرق. وقد استمرت تلك الأعمال بعد الاستقلال عن انجلتراوبمشاركة من شخصيات إنجليزية . وقد استخدمت تلك العائلات الأمريكية المعروفة الأموال التى كدستها من وراء تلك الأعمال غير القانونية فى إنشاء الشركات الضخمة والسكك الحديدجية والبنى التحتية التى توجد فى البلاد الآن ، وامتلاك أسهم وأموال تلك المؤسسات
يتناول الكتاب واقعة حل جماعة فرسان المعبد التى لعبت ادوارا عديدة فى القرون الوسطى فى حروب الصليبيين وقد انقسمت الجماعة بعد ذللك الى جمعيات أخرى تحت أسماء مختلفة ، ومنها ما انطوى تحت الجمعيات الماسونية
ويقص الكتاب كيف عمل افراد العائلات الكبيرة فى أمريكا ما قبل الاستقلال فى التجارة والتهريب وأعمال القرصنة وفوق كل شئ تجارة الرق. وقد استمرت تلك الأعمال بعد الاستقلال عن انجلتراوبمشاركة من شخصيات إنجليزية . وقد استخدمت تلك العائلات الأمريكية المعروفة الأموال التى كدستها من وراء تلك الأعمال غير القانونية فى إنشاء الشركات الضخمة والسكك الحديدجية والبنى التحتية التى توجد فى البلاد الآن ، وامتلاك أسهم وأموال تلك المؤسسات
February 22, 2015
I liked this book overall as it filled in some gaps in what I now consider the truth about American History. Some find the content to be madness, but even if a portion is true we have much to be concerned about. Not annotated, but I have read much of the same content in other more reliable materials. Not taught in the schools and never will be. I was surprised that some of my friends seem very conversant with the facts e.g. the smuggling, and slave and opium trade in the Northeast. This book is worth reading.
June 3, 2014
This book isn't too bad! It's my first on the subject and I was excited to read it... It covers lots of names and lots of dates... More like a history book rather than a story... But the stories in the book- of how things came to be- how and who got into power- events that took place- was interesting. I would read more on the subject for sure- this book just seemed like a good "summary".
November 26, 2012
A Real Eye opener of how secret Societies Basically rule this Country In always have since the Beginning of time. All Controled by very elite Families but these families use the elite connections to Build their own personal Wealth and Power over our country....
February 1, 2008
Sometimes you have to just sit back, relax, and read a great collection of conspiracy theories....
September 8, 2009
If you are interested in how the people in power got the way they are today. then this book is for you. It details many untold stories of corruption and scandals all throughout history.. dope book
July 3, 2013
eye opening
February 10, 2017
Mr Sora gave a great history of why these societies came to life and their evolution and involvement in shaping the world as it is todayEnjoyed this book!
July 13, 2025
Sometimes you pick up a book knowing it's going to be a mistake but you hope that it'll be a dumb, fun mistake that you can laugh over and maybe learn a couple of cool facts.
This has me sitting here realising I wasted $2 on what's only good for how *not* to write about history. To say Sora writes in generalities is an understatement, nothing is presented in a proper linear fashion, Sir Walter Scott's romances are presented as credible historical fact, and the introduction is so out in left field that I'm not sure it's even in the stadium at this point. I enjoy a good conspiracy theory "what if" because even if it's not accurate it can at least be fun.
I DNF'd at page 37. I getting a headache from raising my eyebrows and shaking my head at how bad the presentation and misrepresentation of facts were, along with very odd phrasing that made no sense. I'd also reached for my phone twice to confirm a few details that I was pretty sure weren't accurate (one about the name origin for Lewis was wildly misrepresented at best, and the other about the name origin of the Jolly Roger is hotly contested). I'd also pulled out my own copy of Desmond Seward's "The Monks of War" to fact check a couple of statements. Again, technically true but jumbled into a mess of words.
An argument can be made that I'm reading this from the luxury of having access to the internet to fact check as well as reading from a post-declassification of the trials of Templars from the Vatican's libraries in 2007. However, the presentation is such a mess that I can't believe a publishing house allowed this to go to print!
Very cool cover; someone needs to throw Steven Sora and Dan Brown in a locked room and see who emerges the victor.
This has me sitting here realising I wasted $2 on what's only good for how *not* to write about history. To say Sora writes in generalities is an understatement, nothing is presented in a proper linear fashion, Sir Walter Scott's romances are presented as credible historical fact, and the introduction is so out in left field that I'm not sure it's even in the stadium at this point. I enjoy a good conspiracy theory "what if" because even if it's not accurate it can at least be fun.
I DNF'd at page 37. I getting a headache from raising my eyebrows and shaking my head at how bad the presentation and misrepresentation of facts were, along with very odd phrasing that made no sense. I'd also reached for my phone twice to confirm a few details that I was pretty sure weren't accurate (one about the name origin for Lewis was wildly misrepresented at best, and the other about the name origin of the Jolly Roger is hotly contested). I'd also pulled out my own copy of Desmond Seward's "The Monks of War" to fact check a couple of statements. Again, technically true but jumbled into a mess of words.
An argument can be made that I'm reading this from the luxury of having access to the internet to fact check as well as reading from a post-declassification of the trials of Templars from the Vatican's libraries in 2007. However, the presentation is such a mess that I can't believe a publishing house allowed this to go to print!
Very cool cover; someone needs to throw Steven Sora and Dan Brown in a locked room and see who emerges the victor.
October 30, 2023
More like 2.5 stars
Such an interesting topic, but the book, in my opinion, was poorly written. Some parts were repetitive and it could have benefited from some good editing in spots. It also jumped around a lot chronologically which also made it challenging to follow. But still, such an interesting topic....recommend if you are into this topic.
Such an interesting topic, but the book, in my opinion, was poorly written. Some parts were repetitive and it could have benefited from some good editing in spots. It also jumped around a lot chronologically which also made it challenging to follow. But still, such an interesting topic....recommend if you are into this topic.
November 16, 2025
Extremely misleading title. 95% of this book is about piracy (as in actual pirates in ships) and the opium trade that proliferated in centuries past. Secret societies are only mentioned briefly--mostly in the beginning and the last chapter. If you're looking for a book that delves into the inner workings of secret societies, stay far away from this one.
February 11, 2008
This is your standard conspiracy fare. Easy reading and above all questionable substance. I went through a phase where I was really into these kinds of books. You take what you need and leave the rest. Parts about the Skulls and Knights Templars are pretty cool other parts are a bit far fetched.
January 26, 2013
This author is all over the place except where he should be. This is not a very good book about secret societies, there are many other books that are much better than this one.
Displaying 1 - 16 of 16 reviews