Chris Smith: The Bohemian Grove and the menace of truly fake news

The Bohemian Grove Encampment, the cushy and exclusive campout you love to hate unless you get invited, kicks off this weekend on the fringe of Monte Rio.

A young British photographer, Jack Latham, had hoped to be outside the gate to launch his new photo book, “Parliament of Owls.” But a family illness prohibited him from leaving England.

Still, Latham would like to spread word of his book among the relatively few of us who know or care about the male-only, midsummer retreat at the Bohemian Club of San Francisco’s splendid redwood camp on the Russian River.

Already the black-and-white photos in “Parliament of Owls,” named for the statues and images of owls that are the visual mascot of the nearly 150-year-old encampment, have won a couple of significant awards.

It’s an intriguing book for several reasons. One is that Latham, 29, shot no photos within the grove because it’s a secretive and private place and, obviously, he wasn’t let in.

Then there’s the subtle theme of “Parliament of Owls.”

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IT IS NOT that the summer camp for 1 percenters and other generally well-connected and well-heeled men is a weird and terrible thing.

Latham said by phone from near London, “The grove is really just the start of something I think is far more important.”

His point: the consequences of fake news and conspiracy theories, like those swirling around the Grove, can be perilous.

Central to Latham’s book are photos of “Phantom Patriot” Richard McCaslin, the gullible, hero-costumed Christian and Marine Corps veteran from Austin who in 2002 armed himself for battle and slipped commando-like into the camp.

It was January. There was nothing going on in the grove, no campers were there.

McCaslin didn’t know that. What he knew of the place was what he’d learned from the unhinged conspiracy theorist Alex Jones, founder of InfoWars.

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JONES HAD SNEAKED into the encampment in 2000 with a video camera. His narration of the barely distinguishable footage he shot of the opening weekend’s lakeside Cremation of Care ceremony suggested that he’d witnessed the sacrifice of a child.

“Phantom Patriot” McCaslin viewed the video on the Internet and felt called to action. When he stole into the grove on Jan. 19, 2002, intent on liberating intended victims of occult sacrifice, he wore a bulletproof vest and carried a rifle, a handgun, ?150 rounds of ammunition, a sword and a fireworks launcher.

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HE SURRENDERED, thank heavens, upon being confronted by law enforcement officers. But it could have been ugly.

Photographer Latham finds it alarming that President Donald Trump follows Jones’ InfoWars and once declared that Jones’ “reputation is amazing.”

Latham views grove intruder McCaslin’s conscience-driven but potentially deadly raid as a case study of the peril that can come when “voids of context” lead to the acceptance of fiction as truth.

He said by phone from across the pond he has no particular problem with the Bohemian Grove Encampment:

“It’s a golf club, pretty much.”

But he suspects it would be good on many levels if what’s said and done under the redwoods every year at this time were more out in the open.

You can reach Staff ?Writer Chris Smith at 707-521-5211 and chris.smith@pressdemocrat.com.