Every year at midsummer, the secret rulers of the world meet in solemn conclave down the street from me.  In the down-at-the-heels resort town of Monte Rio, on the banks of the Russian River in California’s wine country, is the Bohemian Grove, a 2,700-acre “encampment” that houses the members of the Bohemian Club, founded in 1872 by a bunch of journalists and their friends.  While the Bohemian Club’s official headquarters is in downtown San Francisco, on the edges of what is now the Tenderloin, it is to this sylvan glade of towering redwoods and rustic riverside lodges that the financial and political elites repair for three weekends of—well, it depends on whom you believe.

According to professional conspiracist Alex Jones, the attendees engage in “satanic rituals” that date all the way back to the blood orgies of a “Babylonian death cult.”  To Jones and his followers, the Bohemians are the Secret Masters of the Universe.  Human sacrifice, invocations of the Evil One, and nightly orgies under the stars—these are just a few of the exotic goings-on that supposedly transpire in that Camp of the Devils.

The reality is much more mundane.  Yes, there are rituals, albeit ones more comparable to those of pretentious frat boys than a satanic cult.  Much is made of the ritual of the slaying and “cremation” of “Dull Care,” carried out on a giant altar in the shape of an owl, a ceremony complete with Druidic-looking “high priests” and lots of special effects—some of which are faintly audible a couple of miles downriver.  You can see the fireworks from my rooftop.

These events—lakeside speeches, informal gatherings, picnics, organized games, with nary a satanic sacrifice in sight—take place under conditions of extraordinary security.  The entrance to Bohemian Road, on the other side of the river from Monte Rio, is blocked off, and security guards roam the redwoods, looking for would-be infiltrators.  (If you want to laugh out loud, read the account in Jon Ronson’s hilarious Them: Adventures With Extremists of Alex Jones’ attempt to get in.)

The whole thing is supposed to be very undercover, and yet, in a small town like this, there is no way to hide the presence of some 2,000-plus wealthy and/or famous personages, a fair proportion of them instantly recognizable.  Indeed, evidence of the Bohemians precedes their actual arrival by weeks, as the townspeople find themselves in an unusual situation: Most of them are suddenly employed, and—for once—business is booming.

The productions that are a Bohemian mainstay require a huge stage, built by local carpenters—and nearly half the population, to hear them tell it, are contractors of one sort or another.  Add to these the legions of waiters (no waitresses; this is an all-male affair), security guards, and gofers of one sort or another, and you have a small army of attendants to the rich and powerful.  The town is rife with rumors of their comings and goings: So-and-so saw Henry Kissinger drunk and falling down in the parking lot; a certain former president of the United States was seen urinating on a redwood; the inhabitants of a certain lodge had a rather unusual “entertainment” involving a lady of the evening, a 70-year-old billionaire, and a “cocktail” mixed with some mighty powerful ingredients.  In bygone days, the local bars were filled up with these “ladies,” but most of these have since gone out of business—a consequence of the economic policies pursued by these Bohemian worthies back in the real world—and so the practice of “jumping the river” (i.e., seeking out female company) has somewhat abated.

The mythic lore surrounding the Bohemian conclaves is in large part a self-created mystique, provoked—perhaps deliberately—by the extreme secrecy that shrouds these gatherings in mystery.  Indeed, an atmosphere of mystic insularity emanates from the very earth in these parts, where the trees tower above the gamboling elites, and the nightly mist that wafts in from the Pacific wraps its ghostly tentacles around hundred-year-old redwoods.

It is oddly comforting, in a way, to believe that a cabal of plutocrats and their political minions meet here, in the darkness of the forest, to plot their continuing rule of the world.  As the moon rises over the river, and the stars shine down on their secret deliberations, the Powers That Be chart the course they have set for the rest of us: the ups, the downs, the booms, the recessions—in short, the shape of things to come.  They have a Plan, and it is carried out—according to the Alex Joneses of this world—with military precision.

But the most cursory overview of the events now unfolding in the world outside this little village where I have taken refuge is enough to disabuse me of this notion.  For what I see isn’t a Plan, but a coming chaos—a world veering out of control.

Aha! the conspiracists say, that is the Plan!  Well, then, I say with a smile, it is certainly working.