![]() Instead of a foreboding, secretive-looking structure, I came upon an out-of-service gas station. The vaguely Italianate-sounding rep listed on the agency’s otherwise bare-bones website, Helen Milano, wasn’t answering my emails, so I drove to the Beverly Hills address listed on the site. The Illuminati deems itself “an elite organization of world leaders, business authorities, innovators, artists and other influential members of this planet.” It enlists a PR firm that caters to “planetary influencers” like religious movements, global corporations and heads of state. Photography provided by Jason Schmidt/Trunk Archive I haven’t been tapped to join one, which makes me all the more curious: Do they still exist? And in today’s world, is anyone actually joining? What had compelled me to sneak a peek at the goings-on behind OTO’s (appropriately, as it turns out) closed doors? Like most Americans, I have a mild obsession with secret societies. Nodding casually at no one in particular, I avoided all eye contact until the ceremony ended then backed out of the room and raced to my car. Seconds before all eyes were fixed on me, I mumbled to the man next to me that he could take my spot. As my turn approached, my mind frantically raced: How could I escape? Watching members stand one by one, I realized I was supposed to stand alone, kneel before the nude “priestess” and recite the OTO creed. True panic set in when “communion” began. In sheer Midwestern Catholic shock, I found myself staring open-mouthed at a nude woman propped up on the altar, apparently a key element of the ritual. That is, until they were no longer robe-clad. I attempted to maintain a casual expression that conveyed “Sure, I participate in secret ritualistic dramas all the time” as I watched the robe-clad members of OTO’s Los Angeles chapter conduct quasi-Masonic rites of rebirth. Monastic chanting and cloyingly sweet incense enveloped me as I sat along the perimeter of the ceremony room of clandestine fraternal society Ordo Templi Orientis.
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