Original subtitles

[man sings] [mysterious orchestral music]

- [Narrator] It is one of the most mysterious places

on earth, an entire sovereign nation

surrounded by a single city.

The Vatican.

For centuries, it has influenced world events,

perhaps more than any other country on earth.

How could the world's smallest country wield such power?

Secrets?

The secrets it holds behind these very walls.

- It's a secret place for many reasons,

and one is that it gets up to things

it doesn't want people to know about.

[dramatic orchestral music]

- [Narrator] This is the setting

for Dan Brown's bestselling book, Angels & Demons,

but are dark forces trying to destroy

the Church, as Dan Brown suggests?

- I think secret societies evolved at that time

and came about through a reaction

to the ominous presence of the Catholic Church.

- [Narrator] Could an ancient cult rise again

to infiltrate Vatican security and assassinate a Pope?

- Popes have undoubtedly been murdered.

- [Narrator] Could this same secret society

be planning to take over world governments?

- The agenda of all secret societies is to rule

the masses, so that the masses become

slaves, fodder, malleable, useful,

eliminatable laboratory animals.

- [Narrator] And does this, the dollar bill,

hold the secret to a new world order?

- We have new world order right here on our dollar bills,

and yet most people are unaware of this.

- [Narrator] One person is on a mission

to uncover the answers to these very questions

and more that are raised in Dan Brown's frightening book.

Simon Cox, along with other noted experts,

are about to tell use what's fact,

what's fiction and what has yet to be revealed.

[dramatic synth music]

[contemplative synth music]

Rome, once the ruler of the Western world,

today, this nation's city is

both the cultural nerve center of Italy and the setting

of Dan Brown's bestselling novel, Angels & Demons.

- Rome is an amazing place, a city that is

like none other that I've ever seen.

It's a kind of revelation in the sense

that at every turn, there's something new.

It's like a palimpsest, which is a manuscript

in which something's been written but it's been written

over a pre-existing text that's been erased,

which itself was written over a previous text

that's been erased, so that it's layer upon layer,

and it's that layering that is

the city of Rome, endless and deep.

I mean, you turn a corner, there's a modern building sitting

on a Roman building, sitting on something earlier still,

and at every corner, at every turn is a new discovery.

[man sings] [mysterious orchestral music]

- [Narrator] But it's not only ancient buildings

which lay hidden beneath Rome streets.

In the city where Caesar was murdered,

where Constantine helped engineer

the emerging religion of Christianity,

a new and sinister society reportedly existed,

the Illuminati, the illuminated.

Dan Brown's Angels & Demons raises vital questions.

Do they still exist?

And if they do, who are they?

- Central theme within Angels & Demons is

this idea of a secret society called the Illuminati.

Did they really exist?

If so, what period of history?

Are they still around?

These are questions that are really thrown at us

from the book, and Dan Brown tries to answer them

by saying, yes, they're a real secret society.

They still exist today.

They still exert influence and pressure

just as they did through history.

- [Narrator] Historian Simon Cox has made

a career of studying the past.

Now, he's making a career investigating

the theories behind Dan Brown's mysteries.

In his newest book, Illuminating Angels & Demons,

Cox finds himself on the trail of the Illuminati,

much like Dan Brown's hero, and for good reason.

- It's a book that deals with secret societies,

with Christianity and its interaction

through the ages with us as people, as man,

and the idea that there may actually be

some other hidden thread of knowledge,

of illumination that runs through that.

[contemplative synth music]

- [Narrator] In the novel, a secret society

known as the Illuminati sets out to destroy the Vatican

and alter the course of world events.

For writer and conspiracy theorist Jim Marrs,

the threat is real.

- The final goal of the Illuminati is world domination.

They go into great detail

as to how they're gonna accomplish this.

They want to educate the young

and convert them to their way of thinking.

They want to destroy faith and confidence

not only in the political systems but in religion.

- Fact is slightly different, really, to the fiction

that Dan Brown has brought forward

in Angels & Demons in so much as the Illuminati,

through my research I found, did exist as a real society.

In fact, there were

several different versions of the Illuminati.

You have Illuminati springing up

in Southern France and in Spain.

- [Narrator] A look through history books

shows that over the centuries,

several groups have taken on this name.

In Spain, they were persecuted,

burned at the stake by the Catholic Church

during the famous Inquisitions,

but the mystery doesn't stop there.

- They're disparate groups.

They're not groups that are linked.

And the word, Illuminati, or illuminated ones

or ones who see the light, is actually,

when you think about it, it would be

a pretty normal name for various groups

who want to be enlightened, and so I think

that as a coherent body of people,

a coherent secret society that has lasted

throughout history, stretching all the way back

to Egyptian times and through to the modern era,

I think is a non-starter.

I don't think you have evidence for that.

However, we certainly have evidence

that a group called the Illuminati,

who may well have existed through to modern times,

certainly started in the 1770s in Bavaria.

[contemplative synth and chimes music]

- The Illuminati was a secret society supposedly formed

in the spring of 1776 by Adam Weishaupt,

who had been trained by the Jesuits.

- [Narrator] Devon Jackson is an investigative journalist

for some of the most important publications of today.

He believes the name Weishaupt is no accident.

Jackson suggests that the name was fictitious,

part of a secret code used throughout Europe

that was the beginning of a fight by elite members

of science against church-sponsored governments.

Even more, Jackson believes the Illuminati may have started

long before Adam Weishaupt took on the name.

The question raised, however, is

why would such a battle even exist?

- The Illuminati came into existence

around the time of Galileo because of having this need

to explore further and questioning things,

and it was in an age of science was burgeoning

and kind of busting out, literally almost,

out of the confines of the Catholic Church.

And so you had all these people like Galileo,

and up into the 18th and 19th century,

when exploration and this need for finding out things,

how things worked in nature or in the universe.

They just really had that need to find that out.

[contemplative piano and synth music]

- I think in earlier centuries,

the Church probably was anti-science

because they feared a conflict

between their dogma and scientific knowledge.

[mysterious synth music]

- [Narrator] Did Dan Brown have it right?

Could the Illuminati still exist?

Could they be trying to destroy world governments?

In his investigation, Simon Cox believes

the beginning of that answer lies

in the very title of Dan Brown's book,

a title that may lead us directly to the Illuminati.

- The book, Angels & Demons, I think, is titled so

because what you have here in Dan Brown's estimation,

I think, is the idea of the study of light and dark,

and so you have this study in dualism.

On the one side, we're not sure who the angels are.

We're not sure whether the angels is the Church or science

because this is a book about Church versus science.

On the other side, you have the demons.

Are the demons science?

Is it the Church?

We're unsure about this, and I think

that's the reasoning behind the title.

I think it's quite a clever title to use.

[mysterious synth music]

- Angels & Demons is a great title.

It does sum up very well the duality of the book

and the theme of angels that runs through it

in the Bernini statues that form

the clues that run throughout the book.

[man sings] [mysterious orchestral music]

- [Narrator] In Angels & Demons, the Illuminati gather

in secret meeting places throughout ancient Rome.

Each location anchors a surreptitious trail

that Dan Brown calls the Path of Illumination,

and each location is filled with Bernini's masterpieces,

which allegedly hold clues to this subversive path,

including his most famous work, The Ecstasy of Saint Teresa.

Her hand allegedly points towards this Path of Illumination.

Surprisingly, it forms a nearly-perfect cross

within the city of Rome.

- I think the Path of Illumination

that Dan Brown highlights in his book is real.

It's something that has been used throughout history,

although maybe not in the context that Brown is

actually bringing it forward in Angels & Demons.

The idea behind neophytes, behind initiates actually walking

a path, metaphorical, real, is something

that we do find symbolically throughout history.

[upbeat synth music]

- [Narrator] This alleged path starts

at Rome's most famous landmark, the Vatican,

a sight visited by up to 30 million tourists a year.

The path then crosses Tiber River to the east,

anchored at Santa Maria della Vittoria.

To the north, the cross begins at Santa Maria del Popolo

and ends to the south at Piazza Navona.

Why a cross for a group allegedly fighting the Church?

[dramatic synth music]

Clive Prince and Lynn Picknett,

co-authors of The Templar Revelation,

have researched its mysterious origins.

- Every religious spiritual esoteric discipline

will talk about the metaphorical Path of Illumination.

- Whether this exists in the sense of the Illuminati,

a group somewhere have their own views on this,

and you have to be initiated into it

and do certain things, perhaps horrible,

to receive illumination, is open to question.

- [Narrator] The Illuminati scientific beginnings,

the rituals and quest for power are closely tied

to the Vatican's own shrouded history.

But hidden deep within the Vatican are secret documents

which reportedly could be used to destroy the Church.

Has the Illuminati infiltrated the Vatican?

Have they found the hidden documents?

And what will happen if they

or another secret society finds them?

[upbeat orchestral music]

[man sings]

- The Roman Church obviously is

among the richest, most powerful institutions on the earth

and has been for many centuries,

and that's simply because if you go back to the time

of the Middle Ages, the Church commanded everything.

- [Narrator] For over a thousand years,

the Vatican influenced world events while wielding

vast control over both kingdoms and royalty.

- They told the kings what to do.

They loaned money.

They ran every facet of everyone's life.

Today, of course, with democracy, freedom

springing up around the world, they have lost

some of that power, but they are still

a very formidable institution.

[contemplative synth music]

One example of the power of the Roman Church is that,

in the 1980s, they were allowed to open an embassy

in Washington, D.C., which is still there today.

So we recognize the Vatican as a separate nation,

a separate state, and we have diplomatic relations with it,

even though, to many people, this flies in the face

of our contention that we have

separation of church and state.

[dramatic orchestral music]

- [Narrator] The Vatican's location is

a key part of Roman Catholic history,

one that goes to the core of its faith.

- According to Catholic and Vatican history,

the bones of Saint Peter are buried underneath the cupola

of Saint Peter's Basilica in Vatican City, Rome.

- [Narrator] But what if the Vatican is not built

over the remains of Saint Peter?

What if something else is buried

underneath its ancient floors?

- This, though, is open to debate,

and it is a contentious issue,

many people suggesting they're not his bones at all,

many people suggesting that they're

actually the bones of an animal.

[reflective string and organ music]

- [Narrator] Since its founding by Constantine the Great

nearly 400 years after the death of Jesus,

the Vatican has been dogged by accusations

of conspiracies and cover-ups,

rumors which have continued for centuries.

Some of those secrets could undermine

the very foundation of the Church.

It is information that the Church does not want to fall

into enemy hands, like the Illuminati.

- We have the Catacombs under the Vatican,

which hardly anyone has ever been able to penetrate.

All kinds of wild stories circulate about that,

up to and including the possibility

that they have the mummified body of Jesus,

that they have lots of ancient artifacts,

lots of historical objects that could point

to a more honest and true understanding of human origins.

- So, there is that reality behind it.

It's a secret place, it is secret for many reasons,

and one is that it gets up to things

it doesn't want people to know about.

- The Church believes that Saint Peter

was given the authority by Christ

to set up his church forever

because Saint Peter was the first person

to see the risen Christ.

This is a kind of article of faith of the Catholic Church,

and all you have to do is read the New Testament

to discover that it's wildly untrue.

The first person to see the risen Christ

was actually Mary Magdalene.

In fact, it's not even true that Peter was

the first male disciple to see the risen Jesus.

The first male disciple was John the Beloved,

so what's going on there then?

- [Narrator] For centuries, questions such as these

could not be raised in large parts

of the world without fear of persecution.

It goes to the heart of the Church.

Was Saint Peter really the one chosen to start the Church?

Is the Vatican the true resting place of his body?

Early scientists were some of the first to question.

With other religions growing in popularity,

the Church had a lot at stake.

- And the Catholic Church just took this position

that we have to be the one faith.

We can't have anybody else believing in these other gods

or polytheism or some other type of god.

It's gotta be the Catholic Church or nothing.

The Catholic Church took this position, I think,

in its first maybe 400 years of existence,

that they, at that time when there were also

these other faiths competing for people's souls,

so to speak, that they wanted to be

the one church that would dominate

over all other faiths that were out there.

[contemplative synth music]

- [Narrator] Adding to the controversy is

the Vatican's enormous financial wealth

and more importantly how it was achieved.

- I think the Vatican is secretive

about its finances because of the controversy

over how much money flows into the Church.

They don't want to detail how much money they have,

how much money they're worth.

In fact, it's really amazing, but I have found

in my work as a journalist in this country

that even local bishops, local priests,

they only know their picture,

their small piece of the puzzle.

They do not have entree to general accounting numbers

as to how much money or where it goes

or who's getting it or anything else.

[contemplative piano music]

- The Vatican has always been a very secretive place.

Well within living memory, there have been

sort of great financial scandals

involving the Vatican Bank and things like that.

- [Narrator] This enormous collection of wealth has had

one other unintentional consequence, making the job of pope

one of the most dangerous in the world.

[dramatic orchestral music] [people shouting]

While Dan Brown's Angels & Demon's plot revolved

around the fictional assassination of a pope,

his research was well based in historical fact.

- Could a pope be murdered?

Well, it's a question that Brown certainly brings up

within Angels & Demons, and it's certainly something

that undoubtedly has happened,

Celestine V being a classic example.

A five-inch nail in his head maybe kind of gives

that one away as a slightly suspicious circumstance.

[contemplative piano music]

- [Narrator] Steven Ostrow, a professor of art history,

has researched the early centuries of the Vatican,

uncovering a legacy of persecution and violence.

- The early popes were, almost to a one, martyred

because they represented a tradition of faith

that was contrary to the Roman law.

So if you go into Saint Peter's, for example,

all the piers of the main nave are adorned

with portraits of the early popes,

each and every one of whom was martyred for his faith.

So popes have long been killed because they are

not just religious but also political figures,

and so, yes, there's been intrigue,

yes, popes have been poisoned, murdered, martyred,

but I think in the modern era,

let's just say since the 17th century,

it hasn't been quite so bad as it was in the early days.

[contemplative synth music]

- [Narrator] The battles of the early Church

were over power, world domination,

the same goal as other secret societies.

- Scary times are good times for the Church.

The agenda of all secret societies that have

a negative impact is to rule the masses.

[dramatic orchestral music]

So that the masses become slaves.

But it all starts with the idea of a few elite people

looking down their noses at the rest of humanity.

- [Narrator] This early history of the Church was violent,

and like other kingdoms of its time,

the Church hierarchy was filled with hidden agendas

by groups competing for world power.

A new word developed to describe

the concealed schemes of this time.

- Calling the Church a pornocracy is

an interesting use of the term.

It's not a widely accepted or used term.

It literally means government by harlots,

by prostitutes, hence the root, porno, and it specifically

and historically refers to a time in the 10th century

beginning with a fairly inept pope

named Sergius III and a series of popes

who ruled by less than moral means.

Apparently, Sergius I, for example,

had a number of competing cardinals killed

in order so that he could assume the papal throne.

The term got applied then

because of these very powerful women members

of the aristocratic noble families of Rome

who kind of held the strings on the papacy

and determined who would be pope

at any given point, hence the term applied then.

[contemplative piano music]

- [Narrator] Much of this sordid history

and internal secret battles is said to be sealed away

in this building 100 yards behind the great basilica

on the Vatican grounds, the Archives.

This sprawling complex is said

to house the greatest collection

of sacred books and folios in the world.

Some have not been seen for centuries.

- The Vatican Libraries extend

for approximately 50 miles of books.

The collection is enormous.

- I've been asked what's in the secret Vatican Archives,

and I must say I don't know because they're secret,

and they have been secret for so many centuries.

- [Narrator] In Angels & Demons,

Robert Langdon manages to steal a historic document

from the archives that he thinks will help find

the location of a kidnapped cardinal.

Could such a theft be committed?

[contemplative synth music]

Paul Williams is a theologist,

and one of the very few researchers

ever allowed to pass through the Vatican's tight security

and examine its archives.

- You can't enter with a jacket.

You can't enter with an attache case.

You can't even carry a fountain pen.

The only thing you can take with you is

a graphite pencil and a notepad.

When you enter the archives, a cleric will present

exactly the document that you've requested,

if they've agreed to give you that document.

The cleric will remain with you

while you study that document.

There will be porters and guards behind you,

so it would be absolutely impossible

to take anything out of that room.

Even if you were Harry Houdini, you just can't do it.

[man singing] [contemplative synth music]

- [Narrator] Such close attention to security

and restricted access raises the question,

is the Vatican hiding something in its archives?

What secrets can be found on its 50 miles of shelf space?

- There are rumored to be some fabulous documents in there

about the Second World War, about the Pope's involvement

or rather the Pope's non-involvement in the Holocaust

and his failure to speak out against the Holocaust.

- Of course, there must be truly secret Vatican archives

because the Church, dozens and dozens of other gospels,

for example, that weren't included in the New Testament

that has stuff in them that would seriously undermine

the Church if people knew about it.

So presumably there are an awful lot of books

that certainly researchers like me would give

my eyeteeth to see hidden somewhere in the Vatican.

- [Narrator] One of the secrets that is reportedly held here

comes right from the pages of Angels & Demons,

suppressed historical documents

including unpublished writings

and research by early scientists.

Those writings could include

materials of Galileo and Copernicus.

Both were considered enemies of the Church.

Both were linked by Dan Brown to the Illuminati.

- When Galileo made his revelation that, hey, the Earth

and the Moon and all the planets revolve around the Sun,

number one, this was disturbing

the orthodoxy of the Roman Church,

and, two, they probably were afraid that this would lend

a lot of support to sun worship,

which is one of the oldest, most primitive religions

and one that they were trying desperately to stamp out.

[contemplative synth music]

- I think it's interesting that within Angels & Demons,

it's not made implicit, it's not made clear

which one is the angel and which one is the demon.

- As Dan Brown asserts in his book,

even though it's fiction, to claim that Galileo and Bernini

were either part of the Illuminati or Freemasons,

it's not so farfetched, I don't think.

It's certainly open to possibility.

There were so many groups, secret groups, at that time.

It was just kind of the height of secret societies

throughout Europe between the 1400s to the 1800s.

- There's been an age-old war between church and science.

It's gone back as far as the foundation

of the church itself, and I think this is something

that's inevitable when you have a group,

a society like the church, like the Christian Church itself,

putting down tenants and dogmas

and doctrines that they say are absolute,

that are immovable, that are truths,

and you also have people challenging those truths.

[contemplative synth music]

- [Narrator] Did the Vatican's oppression of science

and knowledge spur the formation of secret societies?

Is the Illuminati one of them?

- Like most persecuted and suppressed organizations,

the Illuminati probably did go underground.

- [Narrator] The Illuminati appeared

late in the history of Europe,

but where did they really come from?

Some historians theorize that the Illuminati evolved

out of a once-powerful and legendary organization,

one that once protected the Pope

but then was destroyed by order of the Pope,

The Knights Templar, warrior priests.

But were they really eliminated?

[suspenseful orchestral music]

- The Knights Templar started out as the Order

of the Poor Knights of the Temple of Solomon.

- The Knights Templar were purportedly to be

in possession of the Holy Grail.

[dramatic piano and synth music]

- [Narrator] It was the year 1000.

The Western world believed in the legend of the Holy Grail,

a cup thought to hold the blood of Christ and his power.

And now, a secret society of warrior monks

allegedly found the Holy Grail.

Through this legend and the power it conveyed,

the Knights Templar became one of the most revered

and feared secret societies that ever existed.

Author Steven Ostrow and Devon Jackson, who have dedicated

years of research into the Knights Templar,

describe them as early defenders of the Vatican

who eventually became its biggest threat.

- They were ostensibly serving to free the roads

for pilgrims to go to Jerusalem.

They took up residence in the Temple of Solomon,

they lived in the stables of the Temples of Solomon,

and for about eight years, they conducted an excavation.

- The Knights Templar were these warrior monks,

and what they did was they sometimes served

as the guards for the pope, but what they largely did

was that they guarded the route, the pilgrims' route

and the crusaders' route on the way down to Jerusalem.

- There were only nine of them for about nine years,

so I don't think they could have done that,

at least not very efficiently.

They quite clearly had another agenda.

They did seem to be looking for something in the Holy Land.

They were very into secret knowledge.

- [Narrator] Even though they took a vow of poverty,

the Knights began accumulating

more wealth than many rulers of the day.

Land, money, shipping, the Knights began to finance

monarchies as well as the Vatican.

- The Knights Templar eventually became

kind of a Templar Incorporated.

They started the first branch banking, which means you could

deposit your gold and silver in England

and expect to take it out when you go to Jerusalem,

so you wouldn't have to carry it along the highways.

So they became the biggest property owner in Europe.

At the same time, they owned the biggest fleet.

- [Narrator] Their vast wealth and influence made

the Templars fearless and intimidating.

They bowed to no king or leader and soon not even the pope.

Their wealth, however, might not

have been their biggest threat.

Historian Lynn Picknett believes the Knights

may have started a new and competing religion.

- Knights Templar were accused of spitting

and trampling on the cross in secret ceremonies

and of worshiping a bearded, severed head,

and they certainly had a great reverence

for John the Baptist overtly.

And what was the significance of this?

We discovered that the Knights Templar,

when they were in the Middle East, met a group

that was known as the Church of John of the East,

and it was a group called the Mandeans,

who originated around Judea, Egypt, 2,000 years ago,

and they were John the Baptist's followers.

- [Narrator] The Knights might have been following

a cult sometimes called Johnnites,

but it's what Picknett says next

that might have doomed the fearless Knights.

- They rant and rave against Jesus,

who they say was a false profit,

who was a schismatic from John's religion,

and certainly it does seem, I mean,

modern scholars have found out that it's

very likely that Jesus was actually a follower,

started off as a follower of John the Baptist.

[contemplative synth music]

- [Narrator] Whatever the reason,

the Templars soon grew more secretive,

holding surreptitious meetings in hidden locations,

much like Dan Brown's Path of Illumination.

A growing allegiance to John the Baptist,

along with their wealth and power, made the Knights

the greatest threat the Vatican had ever seen.

- The Knights Templar refused to acknowledge

superiority of anybody.

They were becoming amazingly arrogant.

- They existed for about two centuries

as an incredibly powerful, in every sense, order,

and then they met with a very kind of sudden, abrupt

and rather nasty end at the beginning

of the 14th century, when first the King of France

and then the Pope turned on them.

[dramatic piano and synth music]

- Eventually, the Templar Order became so big

that they started to arouse the jealousy of the French king

and also the ire of the population.

They became regarded, in Sir Walter Scott's term,

as hoity as a Templar, meaning that they just were so proud,

they could do anything they want,

and so this aroused the people to be against them.

- Question's been debated ever since

exactly what the motivation for closing this order down was.

The standard reason that's given is

that the King of France simply wanted their money.

The reasons they were given at the time

for them being suppressed

was that they were the heretics and blasphemous.

- [Narrator] On October 12th, 1307,

the Knights Templar saw the end coming.

Historians are convinced that they managed

to spirit away their vast riches and collected treasure

just ahead of the advancing armies of the King of France.

- These wagon trains full of treasure were brought

to the Harbor of La Rochelle,

and from there, they were loaded on 17 Templar ships,

which basically disappeared from history.

The next day, Friday the 13th,

armies of French soldiers arrested all the Templars

at every temple that they could find.

- [Narrator] And then killed them at the stake.

Many were burned alive.

To this day, some 700 years later,

many people still fear Friday the 13th.

But by 1307, when the last Grand Knight of the Templars

was burned, the purge was complete.

King Philip of France now had the funds

to launch his war against King Edward I of England.

But was the purge successful?

Historical authorities like Jim Marrs think otherwise.

- It wasn't very effective because the Knights Templars

had plenty of warning that this was gonna happen.

In fact, they only rounded up a handful of them.

Most of them had fled or had simply changed clothes

and blended themselves into the general population.

[dramatic orchestral music]

- [Narrator] From here, the mystery deepens.

What happened to the surviving Knights Templar,

with their immense treasure and contempt for the Church?

Did their descendants become the Illuminati?

[dramatic orchestral music]

With the Templar supposedly vanquished in the late 1300s,

the Vatican regained its standing

as the world's most powerful institution.

But over time, a more formidable threat

to the Vatican came into being, science.

- Dan Brown's Illuminati are a society

of essentially scientists, is the word he uses.

It wasn't a word that was used at that time.

That was formed in the 1500s so that they could

pursue their work and share their work in secret

because of the Church's attitude

to the work they were doing.

- [Narrator] Betty Ann Brown, an art history professor,

feels that early scientists, astronomers,

and even artists were the first to challenge

the Vatican's view on man and nature.

- The Church has functioned to explain the meaning

of existence in a particular way.

And science's explanation

has often conflicted with the Church's.

Certainly that was the reason that Galileo was

a threat to the Church, because if he suggests

that the Earth is not the center of the universe,

that the Earth revolves around the Sun, he's challenging

the Catholic tenant that the Earth was central.

- There were supporters of Galileo within the Church

who disagreed with the view that if he was right,

it proved these passages of the Bible

to be wrong on theological grounds,

so, yes, there were those who backed him, but obviously it's

the pope's word that goes at any given time.

[contemplative synth music]

- [Narrator] The Renaissance became

a dangerous time to be a scientist.

Many paid with their lives, including Giordano Bruno,

a brilliant scientist and a follower of Copernicus.

He was imprisoned in the very same church

as was Dan Brown's heroine, Castel di Sant'Angelo.

- One of the prime examples of the Church coming down hard

on scientific thinkers was the story of Bruno,

who was a bit of an extremist in some of his views.

- [Narrator] Bruno was famous throughout Western Europe

for developing memory skills, a sensational theory in 1576.

And because he believed like Copernicus

that the Earth revolved around the Sun,

he became an enemy of the Church.

The Church taught that the universe

revolved around the Earth.

[dramatic synth music]

- And so the Church arrested him

and imprisoned him for almost eight years, I believe,

and tried to convince him to recant

his teachings, and he refused,

and in the year 1600, he was burned at the stake.

- [Narrator] Galileo could have faced the same fate.

Like Bruno, he too was put on trial twice

for his scientific studies.

These trials were a central part of Angels & Demons' plot.

- The story of Galileo is very often misunderstood.

There were two trials regarding Galileo.

One occurred in 1616 in which he was taken

before Church officials because he upheld

the Copernican theory at that time

that the Earth revolved around the Sun

and that the Earth was not the center of the universe.

At that time, during his first trial,

he was brought there by the scientists from Italy.

In 1616, he recanted that, and he said,

oh, yeah, I agree now with Ptolemy

that the Earth is the center of the universe.

Well, he went back to the university and continued teaching

that the Earth revolved around the Sun.

He was brought before the Inquisition in 1632.

The trial was held in 1633.

There's a common conception that Galileo

was beaten to his knees and forced to recant

and thrown into a dungeon and starved.

All of these things are not true.

Galileo was, at the time of his trial,

was living in the Villa Medici.

He was living in the lap of luxury.

As soon as he recanted in 1633,

his sentence of a term in prison was nullified by the Pope,

and the Pope immediately gave him a pension to live on

for the rest of his life, which he did, and a nice position.

- [Narrator] Did this persecution

drive Galileo to join an underground movement

and, as Dan Brown suggests, the Illuminati?

Historian Clive Prince has the answer.

- Galileo couldn't have been a member of the Illuminati

because it didn't exist in his day.

As to whether he was a member of a similar society,

there's no evidence either of his involvement

in any kind of movement like that or of his inclination

to be involved in anything like that.

- [Narrator] Still, many leading artists

and scientists of the day began joining

secret societies, like the Priory of Sion,

familiar to readers of The Da Vinci Code.

- As far as I can tell, Leonardo da Vinci

and Isaac Newton were both members

of the Priory of Sion, but definitely with Da Vinci.

He was into a lot of strange stuff.

He was kind of a polymath, and so it makes sense

that he would be into that, and he was very much into,

in terms of his paintings and his drawings,

there was a lot of stuff that people still

don't know exactly what it means,

and it probably points to maybe his membership in this

or some other group of secret people.

- Well, in Angels & Demons, the idea behind much of this is

that you look at people like Bernini, a sculptor,

and Raphael, and Dan Brown postulates and puts forward

this idea that they may have been

members of this secret organization, the Illuminati.

My research has shown that that is undoubtedly not the case.

People like Bernini and Raphael were god-fearing folk.

- They were kind of coming around at that period

of the Age of Reason and Enlightenment

and when a lot of scientists such as Galileo

were pursuing knowledge that was

outside the purview of the Catholic Church

and using rationality and scientific method

to get at what they saw as deeper, larger, grander truths.

- [Narrator] Those larger, grander truths were sought after

by more than just Renaissance scientists.

- This is a war that's been going on

for a long time for control of the planet.

How do you fight such a war?

[contemplative percussion and synth music]

- Rome is today and has been for centuries

the seat of the Catholic Church,

which means the fundamental center of the Christian faith.

It is a mixture of many other sources,

from Egypt, from Africa, and from all over the planet.

- [Narrator] Symbols from other ancient lands

cover the city of Rome.

It's one reason Dan Brown set Angels & Demons there.

Another is its massive treasure of artwork.

Art historian Betty Brown suggests

both were used to convey covert messages.

Some might have even been

on the fictitious Path of Illumination.

- Bernini, as the Illuminati artist,

used Egyptian motifs so much in his work,

and that's because there was at the time that he was working

very much a vogue for things Egyptian, for Egyptian symbols.

- Since he chose Bernini as the central character

in Rome, it's particularly good.

The Baroque period was a time in which Western culture

was centered around the production of images.

Rome was the picture-making center

of the entire civilization.

Bernini was a superstar on that stage.

[dramatic orchestral music]

- [Narrator] Superstar might be an understatement.

Bernini was one of the most famous artists of all time.

Working in the 1600s, he designed

the famous columns at Saint Peter's Square

and the 140 intimidating saints that stare down from them.

- Bernini, as an artist, may well have actually embedded

within much of his artwork certain symbols

and ideas that the Church would have seen

as kind of in opposition to their standpoint at the time,

but I think that just like Raphael,

Bernini's marker or symbols themselves

were really just talking about these new scientific ideas,

the ideas of Copernicus and Galileo,

and incorporating them within the artwork.

[contemplative percussion and synth music]

- The Church of Santa Maria del Popolo is

a sight like many churches in Rome that has a deep history.

It's an important place for the Illuminati

if the Illuminati master is gonna be Bernini

because it has two major Bernini sculptures.

It has a Bernini sculpture of Daniel

and one, a pairing of an angel and Habakkuk.

And the angel has come to Habakkuk

to tell him to rescue or help Daniel,

and the angel is pointing in one direction.

Habakkuk, resisting for a moment,

is pointing in another direction.

Dan Brown uses the angel and Habakkuk sculpture

to suggest that the angel is pointing

in the direction of the next clue.

So that's a first major step

on his fictional path of the Illuminati.

[dramatic orchestral music]

- [Narrator] Another location

on Dan Brown's Path of Illumination,

[people chattering] [fountain hissing]

Bernini's Four Rivers Fountain.

It's the southwestern tip of the path's cross

over the Tiber River.

And at the center of this Baroque masterwork

is this, a large obelisk.

Did Bernini purposefully place

this pagan object here as some type of signal?

- The obelisk at the center of the Four Rivers Fountain is

another one of the ancient obelisks

that were brought to Rome, and it lay in another site

of the city but under dirt and years of debris.

The pope who patronized Bernini and created that fountain

was Innocent X, who wanted to create

a monument at the center of that piazza,

which was in a sense his kind of family turf.

His family's palace is right adjacent to it.

Wanted a monument that marked the center of the piazza

and glorified him and the Church as well.

- An interesting question though is why Bernini used

Egyptian motifs so much in his work.

- [Narrator] It's a question that has intrigued

conspiracy theorists for centuries.

- In the Fountain of the Four Rivers,

each of the human figures represents a river,

and so it's accompanied by symbols

designating which river that is.

Those are the more overt symbols,

but Bernini could have hidden all manner

of other little tricks in there had he chosen to do so.

[water splashing]

- [Narrator] But it isn't the fountain

that has most historians perplexed.

It's this sculpture, often considered Bernini's masterpiece,

and it's right on the eastern end

of Dan Brown's Path of Illumination.

It hardly seems like an accident.

- The Ecstasy of Saint Teresa is one

of Bernini's most extraordinary works.

The sculptural group is the centerpiece

of an entire ensemble and chapel

that Bernini designed for the Cornaro family,

a wealthy Venetian family, and it illustrates or gives form

to one of the most remarkable passages in her writings

that describes one of her many encounters with the divine.

- [Narrator] It's the tip of the arrow that allegedly holds

an Illuminati clue, fire, one of the four elements.

The Illuminati were early scientists.

Earth, wind, fire, and water were the elements

with which they worked, and in Dan Brown's book,

each was used to kill a cardinal.

Did the Illuminati truly use their most important symbols

for such a frightening means?

- Teresa of Avila is a fabulous woman

from Christian history.

Santa Teresa reformed the Carmelite Order,

allowing women who weren't incredibly privileged

to enter the convent by basically working their way through,

rather than coming in with such an immense dowry,

that it would pay for their room

and board for their entire lives.

She traveled all over Spain, founding the convents,

and, during her life, had several visionary experiences.

- Saint Teresa of Avila was in many ways

the poster child of the Catholic Reformation,

and her experience, her ecstasy, there was

this new emphasis on having an emotional experience of piety

and an emotional experience of god and of Jesus.

[contemplative synth music]

- [Narrator] This artist outlived

eight popes, eight benefactors.

This allowed Bernini to create

much of the most valued artwork throughout the Vatican,

including the famous Saint Peter's Square.

But another Renaissance artist may also have left

similar secret messages in his works, Raphael,

only it wasn't with obelisks or spears of fire.

And one anchors yet another arm

of the cross on the Path of Illumination.

- Well, the pyramids in the Chigi Chapel are fairly unique

in terms of Renaissance tomb imagery and form.

They were actually designed by Raphael,

who was the architect and designer of the chapel,

in the 16th century, the early 16th century,

and they were very much meant to evoke

the grander of ancient Rome and earlier civilizations still.

When Raphael designed those tombs,

he was very much thinking about the symbolic meaning

of the pyramid, going back to Egyptian

and ancient Roman culture, and in its form,

it embodied kind of perfection on the one hand

and, on the other, the idea of salvation and eternity.

- [Narrator] Dan Brown appropriated

this site for the Illuminati

as yet another clue, the element of earth.

Does this make Raphael a conspirator?

- I think it's highly possible

that any of these incredible creative geniuses

could have been a member of a secret society,

certainly could have been true for Raphael,

certainly could have been true for Bernini.

- And I think that Bernini and Raphael

and many of the artists at the time

would have been seen in modern terms as reformers.

They still relied fundamentally upon the Church.

They were still god-fearing folk.

They would have seen these ideas,

the very idea of a secret society as anathema,

but they were reformers, and they wanted to bring forward

some of these new scientific ideas,

and I think that's what Dan Brown is really getting at

with a lot of his work within Angels & Demons.

[mysterious orchestral music]

- [Narrator] While Bernini and Raphael lived

long before the Illuminati were known,

other symbols on the Path of Illumination

may have true connections to secret societies.

- Symbolically, Egypt is the source

for the Illuminati symbols that are so significant

in the mystery of Angels & Demons

- Angels & Demons starts with Robert Langdon,

the main character, dreaming of Egypt.

I think this is Dan Brown using this device within the novel

to draw us into the idea that Egypt and Egyptian symbolism

is gonna play a very important part in his book.

- [Narrator] In both Rome and Vatican City,

numerous Egyptian obelisks like these sit in open display.

Their origins are pagan, yet here they are

in one of the most religious sites on earth.

The reason they are here goes back

to the very beginning of modern Christianity.

- The obelisks within Rome seem odd on the surface.

You walk around Rome, you see obelisks.

There are actually 13 obelisks within Rome.

These obelisks account for more obelisks

than are actually standing within Egypt.

- [Narrator] In Angels & Demons,

the obelisks also help to form

the Path of Illumination that Robert Langdon uncovers.

Professor Eric Johnson is

a religious history scholar at UCLA.

He suggests there's a reason

that Egyptian mysticism was very influential

in Christian-dominated Europe and why such symbols

would have been used by secret societies.

- There is a fascination with Egyptian culture

or at least Egyptian philosophy during the Renaissance.

Renaissance humanists thought that the Egyptians were

this source of very, very ancient wisdom that had been lost,

and so there's this attempt to recover

this ancient knowledge and ancient wisdom.

- I think the obelisk in Saint Peter's Square weighs

about 180,000 tons, and so they had to construct

massive casings in order to house it, to put it

on a kind of causeway and move it.

Even if it was just several hundred meters,

it was a colossal undertaking, thousands of men, horses,

and you name it in order to achieve the moving.

[contemplative synth music]

- [Narrator] It is at the foot of this obelisk

where one of Dan Brown's most gruesome murders takes place.

The final clue is left by Bernini,

who created this square in 1656 to hold 300,000,

a staggering number for its day

and a testament to the power of the Church.

It is this elliptical relief laid

in the center of the square by the obelisk,

the West Ponente, wind.

- This stands in Saint Peter's Square.

It's on one side of the grand obelisk there in the square,

the West Ponente, and it really just represents the idea

of the wind blowing from the west, the west wind.

There are certain Christian symbolic references here

that you could make and you could put into that.

- What Dan Brown had in his book about the Illuminati,

what makes them a little bit more on the edge,

a darker edge of things, is the fact that a lot

of their symbology and the way they went about things

and some of their so-called rituals,

they borrowed a lot of their symbology

and that kind of stuff from Egyptians, from Babylonians,

which everybody was doing that at the time.

[upbeat synth music]

- I would probably catch some flack for saying this,

but it's quite obvious to any student of the Bible

that the Bible, of course, on which Christianity

is based is actually a hodgepodge

of ancient oral traditions, old stories.

I'll give you one classic example,

is the story Noah and the arc and taking in the animals.

This is a story that dates back to the Sumerian tablets

that predate the Bible by probably

at least about 4,000 years, and in the Sumerian tablets,

we have the exact same story.

- The Church appropriated many symbols.

There are some scholars who believe

that the Christian cross symbol is actually

an appropriation of the Egyptian ankh symbol,

which, as you know, is like a cross but with a rounded top,

but it was worn as crosses are worn today.

The image of Christ as Good Shepard,

the young boy holding the sheep,

that's an appropriated symbol as well from ancient times.

- Egyptian religion and what we know

as modern-day Christianity only fundamentally

differ in a few points really.

Egyptian religion was a religion of symbolism.

Christianity, you could argue,

is a religion of symbolism, too.

We have the symbol of the cross, for instance,

which is probably the best known symbol

that we have in the world today.

- [Narrator] Experts suggest that one major difference

separates Christianity from Egyptian religion,

the belief in dualism, especially good and evil.

This theme runs throughout Angels & Demons.

It also accurately describes the epic battle

between the church and science,

between the Illuminati and organized religion.

- The Egyptians really didn't see

things in forms of black and white.

They didn't see things as a yin-and-yang type of scenario.

It was shades of gray.

You had to have one to have the other.

Order and chaos, they must sit side by side.

Horus and Seth, these two characters

from the Egyptian pantheon of gods,

must be together in order to give us

a completeness in the world.

- But the Christian idea is that you have the good god

and you have the devil, and that one is

ultimately totally good and one is totally bad.

Well, even Set, the ancient Egyptian god,

wasn't totally bad.

He had his place in the pantheon of gods

and a place in the welfare of many, even,

representing that part of men and women

and representing the balance.

The Egyptians were very big on balance,

whereas Christianity isn't.

- In Christian elements of religion,

you really do have a definite black and white, and it's used

in a very different sense to this idea of balance.

You have heaven and hell.

You have God and the devil.

And it's a case of you must take your choice.

It's you must pick, are you with us or against us?

And it's this element to Christianity that really is

one of the most fundamental differences

to the earlier Egyptian religious iconography.

[contemplative synth music]

- So this is another way in which Rome transformed itself

into a sacred center for the entire empire,

and so all the gods that were venerated in the empire

were venerated in that temple.

Later on, after Christianity becomes legalized

and then later becomes the official religion

of the Roman Empire, it was normal

for a lot of these old pagan temples

to be reconverted to become Christian.

[man singing in foreign language]

- [Narrator] It's one of these very pagan temples

that became one of the most famous basilicas

in Rome, the Pantheon.

Hundred of thousands of tourists flock here every year,

yet few likely know that when they look up,

they are looking at a demon hole.

Many now however may think of it as an Illuminati landmark.

- The Pantheon has a large hole in its roof,

and it's actually a false trail that leads

Langdon and Vittoria to the tomb of Raphael.

- [Narrator] This so-called demon's hole in the temple

shows yet again a pagan symbol remade as a Christian symbol,

another example of dualism, good versus evil.

- They think one of the murders

is actually gonna take place there.

It doesn't take place there.

What's interesting is that they bring

into this part of the story the idea of the demon's hole,

and this demon hole, they equate

with the roof of the Pantheon.

- [Narrator] Historian Simon Cox

believes that the Path of Illumination

may be real, at least in one sense.

- I think the Path of Illumination

that Dan Brown highlights in his book is real.

It's something that has been used throughout history,

although maybe not in the context that Brown

is actually bringing it forward within Angels & Demons.

The idea behind neophytes, behind initiates

actually walking a path, metaphorical, real, is something

that we do find symbolically throughout history.

- [Narrator] As the Vatican continued to rule,

evidence suggests that the Illuminati

stayed underground for centuries.

Their goal of achieving enlightenment through science

would slowly take a dark turn.

A grand conspiracy was planned, a plan for world domination.

[upbeat synth music]

[mysterious orchestral music]

- Well, we've all heard that knowledge is power,

but secret knowledge is even more powerful.

And the Illuminati, if they still call themselves that,

is a movement whose basic philosophy

is the end justifies the means.

- [Narrator] Conspiracy theorists have concluded

that the modern-day Illuminati are

a powerful entity in the world today,

[people applauding]

even if they no longer carry the name.

- They will do anything to further their agenda,

kill, maim, destroy, lie, cheat,

steal, whatever, and this is quite effective

because they will pose as anything.

They're liberals.

They're conservatives.

They're fascists.

They're Communists.

They're Democrats.

They're Republicans.

They're anything that will further their agenda,

and this makes for a very, very powerful

and effective secret conspiracy.

[contemplative synth music] [people chattering]

- [Narrator] Theorists like Jim Marrs and Paul Williams

suggest that the Illuminati's call to arms came

with the formation of the most controversial secret society

of the last 300 years.

The Freemasons, an ancient sect of builders

and stonecutters that may date back to Egypt.

- Freemason was actually a half-French, half-Anglo term,

and it just meant somebody that was free,

or frere, as in brother, and a mason,

which was actually in the building arts.

Later on, when they could not be Templars anymore,

these masons banded together, and they weren't just masons.

They were anybody in the building arts.

They would form lodges, and so if a brother mason came

from another lodge into your town,

you would be responsible to help give him shelter,

give him food and, if possible, give him a job to do.

- [Narrator] Others, like investigative journalist

Jon Rappaport, believe that the Knights Templar

never were destroyed.

They simply went underground for centuries.

[contemplative piano music]

But now, Rappaport suggests the Knights have

finally reemerged and possibly infiltrated the Freemasons.

- Freemasons, to me, evolved out of the Knights Templar.

Knights Templar were partially destroyed

by edict of the Pope and the King of France,

fled the scene, reformed themselves

as a kind of secret society called the Masons,

put their Templar past behind them publicly

so that no one hopefully would discover

that this was a reformulation.

- When the Knights Templars came back from the Holy Land

with all of their newfound wealth and knowledge,

they proceeded to work closely with primitive

but existing stonemason guilds,

and these were stonemasons who would clump together

to form kind of a union and then collectively worked

to build cathedrals and churches.

And so it was the stonemason guilds

that were the genesis of the Freemasonry.

- But the Freemasons, as an organization,

has survived for an incredibly long time,

given that even though they didn't set themselves up

in direct opposition to the Church,

the Church had a huge fear of that gnostic-based belief

that you could attain this knowledge on your own.

[dramatic piano music]

- [Narrator] Like the Templars before them,

the Freemasons became an enemy of the Vatican,

who views them as a threat to its sovereignty.

- Freemasonry has been the target

of 17 separate degrees by the Church.

It is outlawed by the Church, and members

of the Catholic church that become Freemasons

are subject to excommunication.

- You cannot be a Catholic and a Mason.

From the time of its inception,

Freemasonry remained anathema to the Catholic Church.

- [Narrator] In the United States, it is believed

that the Freemasons became established

as early as the Revolutionary War.

More importantly, author Jim Marrs

and others believe they quickly became

political players in the fledgling government.

- According to the Masons themselves,

they played a very, very big role.

The Boston Tea Party reportedly took place

by members of a Masonic lodge who completed

their lodge meeting and then went out and dressed up

as Indians and dumped the tea into the Boston Harbor.

[contemplative synth music]

- [Narrator] The number of America's founding fathers

who were also Freemasons might be a startling fact to many.

- In the United States during colonial times,

Freemasonry was the grease of the economy,

that in many cities, you had to become

a Mason in order to do business.

Benjamin Franklin understood that when he went

to Philadelphia, that by becoming a Freemason, his newspaper

and his printing press would get jobs from the city.

John Hancock knew that in Boston,

where about a third of the people depended on him

for their income, he could trust people if they were Masons,

so he would not give a job to someone that wasn't a Mason.

George Washington was actually told in a letter

by his brother, if he wants to get surveying jobs, to become

a Mason and that would facilitate him getting those jobs.

- And of the 57 some-odd signers

of the Declaration of Independence,

at least 50 of 'em were known to be Masons,

so there's really not much question that the Masons played

a very prominent role in the founding of America.

[dramatic orchestral music]

- [Narrator] Perhaps it was coincidence,

but the founding of the Illuminati in Bavaria

appears to come full-circle with the founding of America.

Did the Illuminati find a sympathetic secret society

in the newly-formed United States?

- The Illuminati were founded

in kind of a banner year of 1776.

That's their date, and May 1st, no less,

kind of international communism, May Day.

And they were called the bearers of light,

Illuminati, from illumination.

You kind of find this knowledge about yourself

or information through the light.

- There have in fact been several Illuminati groups.

The best known one is the Bavarian Illuminati group,

and it's best-known because its ideals of liberty,

equality and fraternity, if that sounds familiar,

they became fundamental to the enlightenment

that appealed to the founding fathers of this country.

- [Narrator] With Freemasonry firmly established

in both the United States and Europe,

the Illuminati reportedly began to secretly expand

their power base by infiltrating Masonic lodges.

- But in 1782, at the Wilhelmsbad convention,

the Illuminati rolled themselves into the Knights Templars

and into their creation, the Freemasonry,

and this is where the merging of the Illuminati

and the Freemasons took place.

- Some of those lodges have been infiltrated, for example,

by Adam Weishaupt, who formed the Illuminati in 1776.

He thought a very good way to spread the word

was to simply infiltrate and take over

certain already-established Masonic lodges,

and if it is internationally-controlled from one point

and if that point has some very dark agenda.

- [Narrator] Even founding father George Washington,

a Freemason, openly feared the Illuminati's infiltration.

- Interestingly, George Washington said

that he believed in the Illuminati conspiracy,

but he said it's nothing to do with Freemasonry.

Although he distanced Freemasonry from it,

he himself actually believed in this Illuminati conspiracy.

- A small group of people would have to run paradise

to make sure that it is maintained.

The idea was, we'll present this concept

of the abolition of private property.

That will be our front.

There's a lot of people that would love that as a dream

because they feel that that would create true equality.

- [Narrator] But these utopian ideals masked

a drive for complete control of world events.

Could that drive lead them to take over the United States?

[dramatic synth music]

[man singing] [dramatic orchestral music]

While the Illuminized Freemasons

were expanding their ranks globally,

the Roman Catholic Church had slowly declined

in wealth, power, and influence.

In order to survive, the Vatican was forced to compromise.

Some critics say they made covert deals with the devil.

[Adolf speaking in foreign language]

Others believe it might have resurrected

assassinations of modern-day popes.

- Well, first with the Lateran Treaty of Mussolini

and then to a reported secret concord

between Hitler and the Vatican,

there were accommodations made prior to World War II

between the Fascists and the Church

that basically was kind of,

we'll leave you alone if you'll leave us alone.

That's why there were no prominent outcry

against the atrocities of Hitler

and the Nazis by the Church.

- [Narrator] This alleged secret infiltration

of the Vatican by outside powers

may have saved them from ruin.

However, some say it also made them a co-conspirator

in the genocide that was to follow.

[gunfire rattling]

- Pope Pius XI signed the concordat with Hitler

and the concordat with Mussolini.

He had promoted these two fascist regimes.

Toward the end of his pontificate,

he lived to recant these views.

He knew that he was wrong.

He saw that the herding of the Jewish populations

throughout Germany and Poland into ghettos,

the creation of concentration camps,

the persecution of Catholic clerics throughout Germany.

[dramatic synth music] [people chattering]

- [Narrator] By 1939, Pope Pius XI could no longer abide

by the clandestine agreement he had made

with Italian dictator Mussolini.

He decided to separate the Church from the Fascists.

It would be the last decision he ever made.

- Just on the eve of World War II, Pope Pius XI announced

that he was not happy with these concordats

that had been reached with the Fascists,

Mussolini and Hitler, and was threatening to come forward

and expose these deals that had been made between the Church

and the Fascists, but then he died suddenly.

- [Narrator] The sudden death of Pius XI killed

the plan to break the Vatican's alliance with the Fascists.

Just like popes being murdered and martyred

in the Middle Ages, once again,

the job of being pope had become deadly.

Scholars today still raise disturbing questions

about the Pope's death.

- As soon as he died, the papal chamber

was entered by two people, just two.

One was Cardinal Pacelli, who later became Pope Pius XII,

who was the engineer of the concordat with Hitler.

The second was the Vatican physician.

- [Narrator] Cardinal Pacelli and the Vatican physician

immediately ordered Pius XI's body to be embalmed.

The Church had never allowed this practice before.

Also, the Vatican did not allow an autopsy

to be performed, raising further suspicions.

Pius XI's death remains a mystery to this day.

- There is reason to believe that Italian Fascists

poisoned him, [chuckles] but of course

as with most conspiracies, you keep them covered up

not through absolute covering-up

of facts but through obfuscation.

There's so much claim and counterclaim

and controversy that most people

just finally get tired of it and turn away.

- [Narrator] This was not the last time

in recent history that secrets, cover-ups,

even deaths would scandalize the Church.

On May 5th, 1998, Italians woke to shocking headlines.

[speaks in foreign language] Violence had erupted

within the Vatican, one of the most secret

and protected cities on earth.

Someone had been murdered within its walls.

- On May 4th, 1998, a nun made her way through the barracks

of the Swiss Guard in the Vatican

and discovered the bodies of the commander

of the Swiss Guard, Alois Estermann, his wife Gladys,

and a young lance corporal, Cedric Tornay.

The Vatican, a few hours later,

said that the young lance corporal had shot the commander

and his wife before turning the gun on himself.

[contemplative synth and chimes music]

- [Narrator] What was behind this horrific crime?

Had the fortress of the Vatican been infiltrated?

Was it part of a larger plot to overthrow the Church?

Dan Brown couldn't have written the ensuing cover-up better.

- It was only four hours after the bodies were discovered

that the Vatican announced that,

according to its official version,

the lance corporal had killed the commander and his wife

and then killed himself in a fit of madness.

We weren't told what the basis for this conclusion was.

- [Narrator] The terse nature of the Vatican's statement

about the Swiss Guard murders only inflamed the story more.

- Basically, the Italian newspapers had

no idea what to make of all this,

and all they had to go on were a few lines from the Vatican,

so of course that's where the questions started.

- [Narrator] What appeared on the surface as a bizarre crime

in one of the most protected secret societies on earth

may have been more political than previously known.

- Cedric Tornay was made out to be a madman, an alcoholic,

a drug addict by the Vatican, but the truth is

that he was actually quite a typical Swiss Guard.

He was dedicated to the pope, he swore to sacrifice

his life, if necessary, for the pope,

and he wanted to act as a bodyguard for the pope,

and all these expectations that he harbored in him

were, of course, turned out to be illusions.

- [Narrator] But in another twist,

investigative journalist Devon Jackson finds

a possible link between the Swiss Guard,

this elite army sworn to protect the pope and Church,

and a secret society from the past, the Knights Templar.

[dramatic organ music]

The very Knights who once guarded

the pope were destroyed by the pope.

[shield thumps]

Did this investigation expose

the resurgence of this secret society?

It's a case that never has been solved,

and like their predecessors, the Knights Templar,

the Swiss Guard are tightly keeping their secrets.

- Despite the huge pressure for a public investigation,

the public wanting to find out

more about the cause of the murders,

the Vatican battened down its hatches completely.

It refused an offer of help

from the Italian Interior Ministry.

It refused offers of help from other Italian crime experts.

The morning following the murders,

all the Swiss Guards were gathered together by the chaplain,

and they were made to swear silence on the affair

and anything they knew about the protagonists involved.

- [Narrator] While the murders cast

a more scrutinizing light on the Swiss Guards,

their undying dedication to the pope is beyond dispute.

In many ways, they are just as secretive as the Vatican.

- The Swiss Guard is a secretive institution

like any department inside the Vatican.

The officers, the men of the Swiss Guard

have to swear an oath of loyalty to the Church,

and it's inculcated into them that that includes

defending the interests of the Church at all times.

- [Narrator] Though Dan Brown depicts the Swiss Guards

as a sophisticated private army in Angels & Demons,

experts tell a different story.

- It's fairer to characterize the Swiss Guard

as a tourist attraction, a paper tiger

rather than a crack fighting force.

- [Narrator] Because of their tangible connection

with the Vatican, some even suspect

that papal foes like Knights Templar infiltrated

the Swiss Guards centuries ago.

- When the Knights Templars took off their tunics

and rolled themselves into the general population,

it stands to reason that they would insinuate themselves

into positions of power, to include the Swiss Guards

around the Vatican, to include the secret societies.

They probably infiltrated many walks of life.

- The Vatican has always been rumored to have

a secret service, but it's not an intelligence system

as we know it in other Western countries.

It's basically a network of information,

a prodigious network of information

because it's based on priests in Italy

but of course all over the world

and all sorts of religious institutions

who bring in a flow of information to the Vatican.

But there are some blind spots,

and one of them is terrorism, and that's why

the Vatican have to rely on information

from people like the CIA, the French secret service,

or even the Italian secret service.

My key conclusion after watching

and talking to the Swiss Guards is

that they're not equipped to protect the pope.

[contemplative synth music]

- [Narrator] The biggest threat to the Vatican,

though, may not be from terrorists.

Have secret societies infiltrated the Church itself?

Some believe that they have, and that there is a money trail

leading to more murders at the Vatican,

perhaps even of another pope.

- It would be most instructive

if everyone was to study the P2 scandal in Italy

back during the administration

of Ronald Reagan back in the '80s.

P2 stands for Propaganda Due, which is

the name of a Masonic lodge in Italy.

They said they were financed through Illuminized Freemasons

in Switzerland known as the Gnomes of Zurich.

It was a heck of a story, and it was big news in Europe,

but over in America, we barely got

to hear much of anything about it.

- [Narrator] The Propaganda Due had

close business relations with the Vatican Bank, which was

headed by Chicago-born archbishop Thomas Marcinkus.

Eventually, several high-ranking cardinals and bishops

became members of the Masonic-led P2.

- But, here we have it in the 1960s,

a secret Masonic organization that became

incredibly powerful, with tentacles throughout the world,

and you had over 121 Catholic hierarchs.

I'm talking about archbishops, bishops,

cardinals, members of the society.

- [Narrator] By 1978, the newly-appointed Pope John Paul I

became aware of the Vatican's relationship with P2.

He began an investigation,

but he would not live to see it completed.

Did the trail from the Knights Templar

to the Illuminati and finally to the Masons

somehow lead to John Paul's premature death?

Historian Clive Prince believes

it could have been an inside job.

- Many people have suspected that that was

a result of some kind of faction within the Church,

within the Curia, the Church's civil service, if you like,

that didn't want this man to be pope

because of financial scandals that were going on at the time

that they thought he might uncover.

- [Narrator] A few years after the death of John Paul I,

the Vatican was swept up in the Ambrosiano affair

one of the world's biggest banking scandals,

which led to another bizarre death.

- The P2 were also very big into banking,

and around this time, the Bank Ambrosiano,

one of the largest banks in Italy,

and it was called the Vatican Bank, failed.

The head of the bank was a person named Roberto Calvi,

who was found hanging from the Blackfriars Bridge in London

with stones in his pocket, kind of symbolic

of a Masonic assassination rather than in a simple hanging.

- A Masonic rule says that a traitor

should be dangled before the rising tide, which he was,

and a traitor should be assassinated

with the marks of Masonry, the group that he had betrayed,

ergo the five bricks within his pockets.

[people chattering]

- [Narrator] While the assassination of a pope

is fiction in Angels & Demons,

the world watched in horror as a real assassination attempt

of Pope John Paul was broadcast live on television.

[gun fires] [people shouting]

Even today, the question remains,

was it a lone gunman or was there a larger plot?

- The assassination attempt against Pope John Paul II

in May 1981 in Saint Peter's Square is

the only murder attempt in recent times.

He was surrounded by Vatican security officials,

including senior officers of the Swiss Guard.

- The attempted assassination of John Paul II back in 1981,

that it wasn't another case of a lone gunman,

this guy Ali Agca, who was a Muslim,

that it involved both the KGB,

through some weird still-shady Bulgarian connection.

[choir singing]

- [Narrator] Did Pope John Paul II's strong stance

against communism incite the plot to assassinate him?

Was his attacker part of an ancient secret society

called the Assassins,

which have been linked to the Knights Templar?

- Ronald Reagan and John Paul II set up

this agreement where they were in a battle.

It was kind of toward the end of the Cold War,

so they wanted to get rid of communism

and the liberation theologists

which were all in South America and Central America

at that time, at the height of their controversial rise.

Reagan said, if you help me defeat communism,

I'll do what I can to kinda keep

the liberation theology movement down there

and allow you to keep more control over those people.

It's documented that Reagan and John Paul II,

as the head of the Vatican, were gonna try and do

what they could to stamp out communism.

So, naturally, the Soviet Union felt threatened enough

to perhaps use this Bulgarian connection to off the Pope.

[dramatic synth music]

- [Narrator] If there was a conspiracy to kill John Paul II,

the Vatican's perpetual secrecy effectively killed

the investigation into the case.

- We have the case just after the attempted murder

of Pope John Paul II in 1981 when the Italian authorities,

trying to find out information from the Church

about what they might have known

about the run-up to that attempted assassination,

but there, the Church refused to give

any information to the magistrates,

so much so that one Italian public prosecutor accused

the Vatican of placing a tombstone on his inquiry.

- [Narrator] But it wasn't just

the Vatican that was threatened.

Reportedly, the Illuminati had infiltrated the Freemasons.

And across the ocean in a prosperous America,

the Freemasons were surprisingly aggressive

at infiltrating the government of the United States,

eventually reaching its highest levels.

- To the question, which Presidents were Mason,

it's more, which Presidents were not Masons.

You go up to George Bush and Delano Roosevelt,

Harry Truman, Reagan, it's just a laundry list.

Just about every President has been a Freemason.

It's just funny to think of who the Freemasons have been

or are, like the astronaut Buzz Aldrin

or John Wayne or Bob Hope or W. C. Fields.

It's like, what are they getting out of being a Freemason?

And it's a fraternal organization,

and this is where the Freemasons have been at odds.

- Franklin Roosevelt was one of them

that did reach the highest level of Masonry,

and he worked his way up for a long time in Masonry.

Gerald Ford might have been given

the title strictly as an honorary basis,

but some Masons believe as many as a 1/3

of the Presidents of the United States were Freemasons.

- [Narrator] During Franklin Roosevelt's presidency,

a subtle change in the $1 bill

is thought to have signaled the arrival

of a powerful secret society in the United States.

- One of the things Dan Brown mentions

in his books is the Masonic imagery

on the dollar bill, and there's much to that.

We have the Great Seal which has a lot of Masonic imagery,

such as the arrows and the olive branch.

Here we have the all-seeing eye of knowledge

at the top of the pyramid, but it's separated

from the rest of the pyramid, and this is Illuminati imagery

indicating that they alone have this knowledge

and that all the rest of us are down here

on the lower part of the pyramid.

[reflective synth and string music]

- [Narrator] Treasury Secretary Henry Wallace,

who according to Simon Cox was a Freemason, added

Masonic symbols to the great seal of the United States.

He also added these frightening words.

- The term, novus ordo seclorum,

actually means the new world order.

Masonry calls this god, the Great Architect.

- So, in other words, we have new world order

right here on our dollar bills,

and yet most people are unaware of this.

- [Narrator] The dollar bill might be

just the beginning of evidence that the long trail

of the Knights Templar to the Illuminati

and now to the Freemasons has infiltrated

the government of the world's largest free nation.

- The Washington Monument is an obelisk.

It's in the form of an Egyptian structure

that basically has the same meaning.

It was originally for the god Osiris, but it's just the sign

of any god and the power of that god.

The whole layout of Washington, D.C.

is done to a sacred architecture.

The Capitol Building, the White House,

and the Washington Monument are

the three most important pieces there.

- [Narrator] The most startling evidence

of Illuminati influence is with the Bilderberg Commission,

arguably one of the most powerful groups in the world,

who many suspect of controlling

the world's economy and even its governments.

- The Bilderbergers came along in 1954, I think.

They were founded by another Freemason,

this guy Prince Bernhard, who was

part of this Merovingian dynasty,

as he claims, also affiliated with the Nazis.

They used to meet in this hotel

in the Netherlands called the Hotel Bilderberg,

so they just started calling it the Bilderbergers.

At one of their later meetings,

David Rockefeller, who a lot of people see him

as this huge kind of master puppet

kind of pulling the strings of world leaders,

he proposed the idea at a Bilderberger meeting

that we should have a commission,

which later came to be called the Trilateral Commission,

which is coincidentally there are three parts of a pyramid.

- The purpose of the Bilderberg Group was

a united Europe, started with a common market.

You now have the European Union

that is desperately trying to get its member-nations

to ratify a constitution that will mean

that the already top-heavy governments

of these individual countries in Europe will now be run

by a super top-heavy organization called the European Union.

Bureaucrats will run all of Europe.

There will be no borders.

The rule of the few over the many.

- There's a great deal of secrecy,

especially with the Bilderbergers.

There is a great deal of privacy

of what goes on within the council

in the formulation of the Trilateral Commission,

and the fact that they want to try and shape the world

as they see it, that's what is best for the world

and we know how to do that that,

that's what leads to lumping them in

with the new world order, the pyramid, the eye

and the pyramid, lumping them in with Masonic traditions.

[dramatic orchestral music]

- [Narrator] The Vatican is saved

at the end of Angels & Demons, but does the fight

between science and the Church continue today?

- I've been asked, in the struggle

between the Illuminati and the Church, who's winning?

And it's hard to say because this is a sub rosa conflict.

You don't read about it in your newspapers

or your news magazines, and you don't see it on television.

But stepping back and taking the long view,

I think you find that the influence of the Church is waning,

and there is growing chaos in the political field

and growing control in the corporate field,

so I would have to say the Illuminati

seem to be ahead at this point.

- They've always fought against science,

and even though it's 400, 500 years late,

they finally just got around to absolving Galileo

of claiming that the Sun was the center of the universe.

- They would still kill Galileo today or chain him up.

They would still burn Giordano Bruno at the stake,

as they did, if they could get away with it.

They just know they can't get away with it.

They have to do this by other means.

That is the hope, that is the plan, that is the strategy,

to support situations in which chaos will reign.

[upbeat synth and percussion music]

- [Narrator] Does the Illuminati

still wield power in secret societies?

Are they still fighting for a new world order?

- This is a war that's been going on

for a long time for control of the planet.

How do you fight such a war?

- [Narrator] And in the end, who will win?

[upbeat synth and percussion music]

[ominous orchestral music]