Fact Check

Is This John D. Rockefeller's 'Masonic Creed'?

An anonymous email from 2002 continues to circulate online.

Published Sept. 17, 2020

 (Library of Congress)
Image Via Library of Congress
Claim:
American tycoon and philanthropist John D. Rockefeller wrote a "masonic creed" that started with the sentence: "We will keep their lives short and their minds weak while pretending to do the opposite."

A lengthy piece of text touching on a wide range of Illuminati-related conspiracy theories is frequently circulated on social media as if it were taken from a "Masonic Creed" written by John D. Rockefeller, a businessman who founded the Standard Oil Company in 1870 and who is widely regarded as the richest American in history. As this text is rather long, we'll only include the first few paragraphs below:

TEXT TAKEN FROM JOHN D. ROCKEFELLER MASONIC CREED

We will keep their lives short and their minds weak while pretending to do the opposite. We will use our knowledge of science and technology in subtle ways so that they never see what is happening. We will use soft metals, aging accelerators and sedatives in food and water as well as in the air. They will be covered in poisons wherever they turn.

The soft metals will make them lose their minds. We will promise to find a cure from our many funds, and yet we will give them more poison. Chemical poisons will be absorbed through the skin of idiots who believe that certain hygiene and beauty products presented by great actors and musicians, will bring eternal youth to their faces and bodies, and through their thirsty and hungry mouths, we will destroy their minds and systems of internal organs. reproduction. However, their children will be born as disabled and deformed and we will hide this information.

The general gist of this text is that the "New World Order," the Illuminati, or some other global group of elites is enslaving the population via various nefarious deeds. The text is supposedly written from the perspective of some ominous insider of this shadowy group. But it was not written by Rockefeller. And in all likelihood, this text was not written by anyone with a connection to a global group of world-controlling elites. This text comes from an anonymous email that was posted to a banking website back in 2002.

The above-displayed text has been online for nearly two decades. One hint that it was not penned by Rockefeller is that it mentions a number of modern inventions that were not widespread or didn't exist during Rockefeller's life, which ended in 1937. For example, this text mentions "video games," but the first video game, "Pong," wasn't invented until two decades after Rockefeller's death.

The origins of this text provide another clue that this was not penned by Rockefeller. The above-displayed text was not discovered in archived documents from Rockefeller's estate, a newspaper article, or any of the biographies penned about the business mogul. This text first appeared on the internet after an anonymous person sent an email to the website BankIndex.com in 2002.

While BankIndex.com was largely a financial commentary website, this outlet also hosted a number of conspiratorial writings that were sent to them by readers. The above-displayed text was originally posted under the title "The Secret Covenant." At the time, this text was not attributed to Rockefeller or any other author, as it was posted anonymously.

BankIndex wrote at the time: "The Bankindex editorial staff thanks you for all your e-mails regarding this piece, but we do NOT know who he or she is. The piece came in through one of our forms and the Author left an unusable e-mail address. Thank you."

There's no evidence that "The Secret Covenant" was written by someone with knowledge of the inner workings of a secret global order set on enslaving humanity. As the above-displayed text doesn't contain any new, secret, or surprising information — conspiratorial claims about a "new world order" controlling the global population via nefarious methods have been around for centuries — this text, in all likelihood, was penned by an aficionado of Illuminati lore. Whoever the original author was, it was not Rockefeller.

Sources

APS News.   "This Month in Physics History. October 1958: Physicist Invents First Video Game."     October 2008.

BankIndex.com. &bsp; "The Secret Covenant."     21 June 2020.

Dan Evon is a former writer for Snopes.