But it is the initiation rite, involving masturbation in an open coffin while recounting adolescent sexual exploits, which has made the club's activities infamous. Raiders have reported other unexplained items, including a bloodied knife in a glass case. Other such societies followed and have flourished at Yale, with names such a Scroll and Key, Wolfs Head, or Book and Snake, but Skull and Bones has remained the central, most enigmatic and best know of the lot. And it is precisely the eminence of its clandestine membership that has led to repeated charges that the society has sought to influence the course of American history. In Britain,' he maintains, 'the aristocracy does provide some control mechanism, however small.
Birth is very democratic, because it is an accident.
In his eyes, Skull and Bones is not simply a microcosmic subset of a wider American elite, it is 'the top of the pile and in the driver's seat. They are responsible for what goes on. Not unlike some Masonic ceremonies, it involves a compromising of individual dignity and thereby ensures a Bonesman's loyalty to his society. Furthermore, links between members of the society and the CIA are indisputable but are relevant largely insofar as these powerful individuals would wish to keep such ignominious acts as the stealing of trophies from tarnishing their reputations. Steve possessed photographs and documents stolen from the Bones crypt by a raiding party, and he maintained that he was in great danger because of them.