The Bohemian Club

The Bohemian Club is an elite invitation-only social club founded in San Francisco in 1872 by a group of male artists, writers, actors, lawyers, and journalists, all of whom were wealthy, had some measure of fame, and were interested in arts and culture. Since its founding the club has expanded to include politicians and businessmen. The club is known especially for its annual summer retreat at what is known as Bohemian Grove in the redwood forest of California’s Sonoma county, an event cloaked in secrecy and controversy.

Notable members or attendees of the Bohemian Club have included:

• Clint Eastwood
• Henry Kissinger
• Walter Cronkite
• Richard Nixon
• Ronald Reagan
• Charles Schwab
• Ambrose Bierce
• Bret Harte
• Mark Twain
• Jack London

Founding and influence

The Bohemian Club was founded by a group that included journalists who wrote for the San Francisco Examiner. The term bohemian was meant to conjure the cultured, intellectual urbanite. They chose an owl as the club’s totem and gathered regularly to socialize, drink, and put on theatrical and musical performances. The club met in temporary locations until it established a permanent headquarters in the early 1930s on Taylor Street in downtown San Francisco.

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Over more than a century, the Bohemian Club has grown to a membership of about 2,600 and, according to its website, has “a sizeable waiting list.” The group has commanded the attention of the elite and powerful: The Ronald Reagan Presidential Library is filled with correspondence inviting not just Reagan, but also key presidential advisers including Michael Deaver and Edwin Meese to the summer event at Bohemian Grove. Meese attended at least one such event and sent a thank-you note to the head of the Colorado Republicans indicating the influence exerted by those in attendance:

The time at the Bohemian Grove was well spent. It was definitely relaxing and a chance to do a little bit of “politicking” for the Administration. The perfect combination, don’t you agree? Your kind words about our efforts are much appreciated, and we certainly will remember the Colorado Republicans are standing in our corner.

The emergence of the Grove

The annual trip to Sonoma began in the summer of 1878. In the 20th century the members retreat garnered a reputation for highly secretive and cultish rituals, the most well-known of which is the “Cremation of Care,” instituted in 1881 as an opening ceremony whose purpose is to make the club members “carefree” from the outset of the retreat. The performance takes place in front of the large concrete owl (built in 1929) in the center of the camp at Bohemian Grove.

The “Cremation of Care” is described on the club’s website as:

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A traditional (100+ years) musical drama celebrating members’ brief but welcome midsummer escape from life’s cares.

The site of the club’s Sonoma retreat covers about 2,700 acres (1,093 hectares) and includes a small lake, commissary, artists studio, infirmary, and firehouse. The 16-day “encampment” involves, among other things, concerts, theater, informal lectures (“Lakeside Talks”), parties, and casual networking and government policy review—all out of the public eye.

Despite Meese’s reference to networking and relaxing being the “perfect combination,” the club maintains that the goal of the encampment is to provide an escape from the work world. The Bohemian Grove’s motto—from Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream—is “Weaving spiders, come not here.”

21st-century controversy and conspiracies

In the 21st century the Bohemian Club maintained its reputation for being highly exclusive with a predominantly white membership of the richest and often most politically conservative men in the United States. But it has come under increasing scrutiny.

Over the years, journalists have tried—with mixed success—to infiltrate the encampment to report on what actually goes on there. In 2000 Alex Jones, founder of the far-right conspiracy theory website Infowars, secretly filmed the “Cremation of Care” ceremony. In 2023 ProPublica reported that U.S. Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas had been going to Bohemian Grove for decades as a guest. Activists have staged numerous protests outside the Grove, pointing to economic inequality and other social justice issues.