YALE University in the USA is one of the renowned Ivy League universities and the third oldest university in America founded in 1701 and named after a wealthy merchant and phi-lanthropist called Elihu Yale who had made substantial donations to the university.
Yale is extremely selective in its admissions and is among the world’s most highly rated universities in terms of academic and social prestige.
Apart from academic and social standards this university also has the distinction of being home to one of the most renowned and secret societies of the world called Skull and Bones.
The Skull and Bones super-secret society of students at Yale University was founded in 1832.
Members are called Bonesmen and most of them have risen to top positions in American society in politics, business, academia and the military.
Some recent members are William Howard Tuft, George H.W.Bush and George W.Bush all of them occupied the white house as Presidents of the USA.
Out of the thousands of Bonesman to reach positions of power and prestige some other names can be John Kerry, Evan Galbraith and McGeorge Bundy.
Like every other aspect the symbol of the society is also shrouded in mystery.
The emblem of the society is Skull and Bones and has a number “322” beneath it and this number is sup-posed to represent the year 322 BCE and some members of the society even claim to trace their roots to that year.
The Headquarter of the society is an iconic brownstone building on the Yale Campus called the Tomb which was originally built in 1856 and then doubled in size in 1903 and has then been further enlarged.
The symbol or the emblem of the society consists of a human skull and two large bones crossed together underneath the skull.
This design dates back to the Knights Templars in the time of the crusades.
The Templars were a very rich and extremely powerful catholic military order supported by the Catholic Church in 1129.
The Templars became a threat to the Church and they were then persecuted by the church and brutally hunted and killed in large numbers.
According to legend the Skull and cross bones are that of Jacues de Molay the last grand master of the Nights Templars.
According to legend Molay was burnt alive by the church, and when the Templars came looking for his bones, the only found the skull and femurs.
This became a symbol of death and danger and earned the name “The Jolly Roger” the flag used by sea pirates all over the world.
Skull and Bones chooses 15 new members every spring at a ceremony called “Tap Day” juniors are notified of their selection by a society member who ritually taps them on the shoulder.
Some new members are very high achieving students and others are members of socially prominent families.
Yale has admitted women since 1969 but girls were not granted membership of Skulls and Bones until 1992.
George Bush and John Kerry were the two Bonesmen who competed with each other for the presidency of the USA but they would never share the details of their membership of Skull and Bones with their voters or supporters.
During the election campaign when questioned by the media about their membership both refused to answer any questions related to Skull and Bones and this has been the response of some of the most powerful men of the 20th century.
Bonesmen as they are called never reveal what goes on in their inner sanctum, the windowless building on the Yale campus called the Tomb.
During the last two centuries Bonesmen have included Presidents, Cabinet members, captains of industry, Academics, Bankers and Military com-manders and often their sons and daughters making it a social and political network like no other in human history.
So far all members of the Skull and Bones have responded to questions with utter silence until very recently a brave and enterprising Yale graduate, Alexandra Robbins managed to break the wall of silence in her book titled “Secrets of the Tomb” and she writes “I spoke with 100 members of Skull and Bones and they were members who were tired of the secrecy, and that’s why they were willing to talk to me.
But probably twice that number hung up on me, harassed me, or even threatened me.
” It is a fact that Skull and Bones is as essential to Yale University as the Whiffenpoofs, the tables down at a pub called Mory’s and the Yale mascot the ever slobbering bull dog.
Skull and Bones with all its secrecy, relics and rituals has chosen only 15 people every year and it has only 800 living members at any one time but a lot of Bonesmen have risen to positions of great power which many believe is the real purpose of this secret society to get as many members as possible into positions of power.
President Bush had tapped five fellow Bonesmen to join his administration, he selected William Donaldson, Skull and Bones 1953, the head of the Securities and Exchange Commission.
Like the President, he had taken the Bones oath of silence.
Since its founding, this society has been the pinnacle of Yale University’s secret societies and the headquarters of the society or the Tomb also owns a forty acre island on the Saint Lawrence River worth hundreds of millions of dollars.
It is also an open secret that every member of the Skull and Bones receives a grant of a hundred thousand dollars as a graduation gift from the society.
Conspiracy theorists and researchers have even made certain comparisons with the Mafia.
Some have theorized that Skull and Bones has had slightly more success than the Mafia in the sense that the leaders of the top Mafia families are doing 100 years in jail, and the leaders of Skull and Bones are doing four and eight years in the White House.
—The writer is Professor of History, based in Islamabad.
