Inside the world's elite secret societies

These days, when any icky nouveau riche can buy a Gulfstream jet and show his face at Davos, the real ruling class has to do something to distinguish themselves from the plebes. When you're a true member of what David Rothkopf, a visiting scholar at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, refers to as the "superclass," you belong to exclusive and often secretive clubs that keep out the moneyed riffraff. Membership in one of the following four groups is essential if you want to count yourself among the upper reaches of society. Of course, any closed society is bound to have detractors, those sad little men and women outside the gilded gates who claim that the members of the superclass secretly pull the strings of all the world's governments and continue to oppress the poor and middle classes. But, as any true member of the superclass knows, the oppression is half the fun.

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BOHEMIAN GROVE
Famous Attendees: Walter Cronkite, David Rockefeller, Henry Kissinger, Ronald Reagan, Richard Nixon, George H.W. Bush, William F. Buckley, Herbert Hoover
Founded: 1872
Motto: "Weaving Spiders, Come Not Here"

Perched on the banks of the Russian River, 70 miles north of San Francisco, the ultra-exclusive, all-male Bohemian Club owns a 2,700-acre summer retreat known as Bohemian Grove. Referred to by Richard Nixon as "the most faggy goddamned thing you could ever imagine," the Grove appears to be little more than a shit-faced summer camp for the world's wealthy and powerful men, replete with fart jokes and outdoor group urination. The totem of the Grove is the owl, and the image of the big-eyed bird is festooned all over the Grove campgrounds. There is a ceremony central to the Grove summer respite called the Cremation of Care, in which a dummy signifying the cares of the world is burned in front of a concrete owl, whose voice is provided by Walter Cronkite. In addition, each year the dignified men of the Grove perform in a variety show called the Low Jinks, which is mostly an outlet for Puerto Rican jokes and dressing in women's clothing.

Despite its ribald patina and the Grove's rule of not talking shop, when you get heads of state and captains of industry drunk in the woods, some world-altering deals get sealed. Reagan's Star Wars defense initiative reportedly had its origins under the Grove's redwood trees, and rumors persist that the atomic bomb–producing Manhattan Project began at the Boho's enclave. According to Philip Weiss, who infiltrated Bohemian Grove for Spy in 1989, "Politicians say there is no place like the Grove to help get a campaign rolling." And more recently, a rumor circulated that Arnold Schwarzenegger was hand-picked by California Republican bigwigs to run for governor at the 2003 retreat. In addition, Grove detractors say that prostitution runs rampant on the Russian River. But really, why get drunk in the woods without a prostitute?