Real story of secretive Bohemian Grove club – cremations, ex-presidents and $25k entry

Boxer Ryan Garcia has thrust a secretive elite club into the spotlight with a bizarre rant – so what actually is Bohemian Grove?

Garcia, 25, made a series of unsubstantiated allegations about the gentlemen's club Bohemian Club to Andrew Tate, whose headquarters is known as Bohemian Grove.

But what is Bohemian Grove, a site that has reportedly seen US presidents and business leaders visit?

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According to Business Insider, Bohemian Grove is almost 150 years old and is found in a redwood grove in Sonoma County, California. Every June and July, some of America’s wealthiest and most powerful men flock to the forest site.

Although guests are welcome, minors and women must leave when night falls, leaving the men to take part in hedonistic drinking and partying rituals.

The redwood forest itself is found “70 miles north of [Monte Rio, in North California]” and is made up of “four and a quarter square miles of rugged, majestic terrain that members consider sacred”, according to journalist Phillip Weiss, who visited in 1987.

To kick things off during the first weekend of the summer encampment, robed figures sacrifice an effigy in order to get rid of all the “worries from the gathered members”.

These strange traditions date back to the earliest days of the gentlemen's club, which first started in 1872 in San Francisco. Although for the first years it was rented, the plot of land was bought outright by the Bohemian Club in 1899.

It was reportedly a space where artists, journalists and military leaders could come and kick back away from the prying eyes of the public.

"You come upon it suddenly," poet and club member Will Irwin wrote of the woodland grove in 1908. "One step and its glory is over you."

In 2009, Vanity Fair reported that wannabe members of the club had to wait on a list for years and then be prepared to pay a £19,700 entry fee.

Over the years, the club’s secrecy and weird behind-closed-doors rituals have sparked many sinister online rumours. Right-wing conspiracy theorist Alex Jones once attempted to film a cremation at the site in 2000.

Jones and his cameraman reportedly entered the camp with a hidden camera and managed to capture a Bohemian Grove ceremony called Cremation of the Care. During the ritual, members wear costumes and cremate a coffin effigy in front of a 12-metre tall totem of an owl.

Jones later released the footage as part of a documentary titled ‘Dark Secrets: Inside Bohemian Grove’.

A spokesperson for the Bohemian Grove told the Washington Post that the ceremony was “a traditional musical drama celebrating nature and summertime.” While they also said that Jones’ comments in the clip were inaccurate, they confirmed the footage was real.

American journalist Phillip Weiss also snuck into Bohemian Grove in 1987 and reported back on his findings for Spy magazine. According to Weiss, the ‘religion’ these super rich blokes observed was “right-wing, laissez-fair and quintessentially western, with some Druid tree worship thrown in for fun”.

The journalist said that during his time there he saw a priest leading a ritual that had “vaguely homosexual undertones”, while the boozed-up party-goers drank from morning til night and would be constantly queuing up for a spot to urinate on a tree.

The clientele that gathered at the club was, according to Weiss, made up of top figures from Reagan’s government and included high-ranking members of the press.

The number of political leaders who have been part of the club is unconfirmed, although Theodore Roosevelt was granted honorary club membership when he became president.

Ronald Reagan was officially inducted into the Bohemian Club in 1975, and reportedly used his position in the club to run for president later on that decade. Meanwhile, Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas is a member of the club and has attended the retreat with billionaire real estate developer Harlan Crow, ProPublica reported.

Although Bohemian Grove does sound like a hedonistic playground for some of America’s most influential top dogs, there is nothing suggesting Ryan Garcia’s outrageous claims about child molestation are backed up.