Bohemian Grove: Screening and discussion with journalist and film-maker Jon Ronson; Night one of “The Jon Ronson Adventures”

Date: Thursday, November 13th
Time: 8pm
Admission: $15 ( Tickets Here )
Location: Morbid Anatomy Museum, 424 Third Avenue, 11215 Brooklyn.

For nearly twenty years the author and documentary maker Jon Ronson has undertaken a series of extraordinary adventures. He infiltrated Bohemian Grove - the fabled shadowy cabal where world leaders undertake a berobed ceremony in front of a giant stone owl. He followed David Icke as he promoted his theory that the shadowy cabal are actually giant blood drinking lizards that have adopted human form. He was the first man ever to rummage through Stanley Kubrick’s belongings. He uncovered the Men Who Stare At Goats - the secret US military unit that attempted to teach Special Forces soldiers supernatural powers. Now the Morbid Anatomy Museum will be showing rare screenings of the highlights of Jon’s documentary career, with a talk and a Q&A by Jon after each one.

For years Jon Ronson heard talk that every summer our world leaders - the Bush family, Dick Cheney, Henry Kissinger - attend a top secret summer camp in the redwood forests of Northern California called Bohemian Grove. And on the Saturday night these leaders perform a ritual that culminates in a human effigy being thrown into the fiery belly of a giant stone owl. Could this possibly be true? In this film Jon teams up with the then almost unknown conspiracy talk show host Alex Jones and together they infiltrate Bohemian Grove.

“The Ballad of Ruby Ridge” (December 18)
In the early 1990s a family of white separatist conspiracy theorists – the Weaver family – went to live in a cabin on a mountain in rural Idaho. The father, Randy Weaver, got into trouble with the local BATF, and the trouble escalated, and escalated, until the Weaver family became embroiled in one of the darkest, saddest and most frightening moments in recent American history – the Siege of Ruby Ridge. In this film Jon returns to what’s left of the cabin with Randy’s delightful daughter, Rachel Weaver, to hear the inside story of this terrible siege – the siege that inspired Timothy McVeigh to blow up the Murrah Building in Oklahoma City.

“The Men Who Stare At Goats” (January 15)
This is the documentary that became the book  that became the George Clooney movie. In this film Jon uncovers a secret US military unit – the First Earth Battalion – that attempted to teach soldiers how to become invisible, and walk through walls, and sense plant auras, and kill goats just by staring at them. Jon travels America meeting members of the unit, and pieces together their bizarre secret history.

‘Tottenham Ayatollah’ (January 15)
Jon’s first film – a year (1996) with the militant Islamist Omar Bakri Mohammed, as he attempts to turn London into an Islamic State. It’s unexpectedly absurd and funny and slapstick. Ronson chauffeurs Omar Bakri to Office World so he can get his ‘Islam: The Future of Britain’ photocopies done. He takes Bakri fishing with other Islamic fundamentalist leaders who get annoyed with him: “How are you going to fight the Jihad, Omar Bakri, if you can’t hold a fish?” He watches as Omar attempts to invite Osama Bin Laden to London for a conference. Bu post 9/11 this is a really eye-opening film – an inside look at a fledgling terrorist campaign – a world that’s about to change and nobody knows it