| Episode number | MB14 (Part 14 of 42) |
|---|---|
| Original air date | March 9, 1993 |
| Broadcast | Hour of the Time, WWCR shortwave |
| Chapter title | The Roshaniya |
| Primary text read on air | A History of Secret Societies by Arkon Daraul (1961) |
| Listen | Stream the series on archive.org |
Episode Summary
Episode 14 of the Mystery Babylon series aired on March 9, 1993, the day after the Skull and Bones broadcast. Cooper returns to Arkon Daraul’s A History of Secret Societies, now reading the chapter on the Roshaniya, an Afghan society calling itself the Illuminated Ones. The episode is essentially a sustained argument that the Bavarian Illuminati founded by Adam Weishaupt in 1776 did not originate with Weishaupt at all, but drew on a far older tradition of secret illuminist fraternities stretching from Afghanistan to Spain to France.
Daraul’s account introduces the Roshaniya through their founder Bayezid Ansari, who claimed his family had been initiated into the mysteries of the Ishmaelite religion as a reward for assisting the Prophet Mohammed after the flight from Mecca. Cooper interrupts early to declare that the Roshaniya are simply a later emergence of the old cult of the Assassins, and that the same esoteric core flows through each society in turn. The eight degrees of the Roshaniya, Daraul explains, moved from Seeker at the bottom through Disciple, Devotee, Enlightened One, Master, Commander, Priest, and King at the top. In the lower three degrees initiates repeated Arabic and Persian phrases said to convey powers of lordship, creation, life, protection, and absolute power. The fourth degree, Enlightened One, granted complete identification with a supreme power and direct communication with what Daraul calls the unknown or hidden supervisors. Above the fifth degree, the segregation of men and women in ritual was abandoned, and any Imam-ranked member could found his own lodge.
Bayezid established a school near Peshawar, collected roughly fifty disciples over three years, then moved his headquarters to a castle in the mountains of Afghanistan and began directing military and bandit operations. His declared doctrinal innovation was a denial of any conventional afterlife: the spirits of Order members, he taught, could continue to enjoy earthly pleasures by acting through living members. All people outside the Order, he announced, were lawful prey, identifiable as non-members by their failure to exchange the secret hand signal, a palm passed inward across the forehead with the countersign of holding the ear. Cooper inserts at this point that he has personally observed that very exchange between lawyers and judges in American courts of law.
The episode’s most consequential argument comes when Daraul’s text turns to parallels between the Roshaniya and the Bavarian Illuminati. Both organizations claimed the Prophet Mohammed as an initiate; both used a calendar identical to the Persian New Year festival; both had exactly eight degrees of initiation with similarly named ranks. Daraul maps them side by side, Seeker in the Roshaniya corresponding to Apprentice in the Illuminati, Disciple to Fellow-craft, Devotee to Master, and so on through to King. Cooper adds that the two are not parallel developments but one and the same. He further asserts that the Alumbrados, the Spanish Illuminated Ones condemned by the Grand Inquisition in 1623, gave rise to Ignatius Loyola and the Society of Jesus. Loyola, Cooper claims, had been the leader of the Alumbrados, making the Jesuits a direct institutional heir of the same illuminist current.
The second half of the broadcast pivots to the French branch of Illuminism and to the 1786 raid on the home of the Bavarian Illuminati lawyer Zwack, whose papers revealed a scheme to recruit women and young girls as agents for influencing men of power. Cooper reads Daraul’s account of an elaborate initiation ceremony held at the Chateau of Ermenonville, involving a hall draped in black, figures dressed as corpses, a blood-smeared ribbon tied to the candidate’s forehead, and a series of oaths severing every natural bond of loyalty to family, king, and nation. Cooper remarks that this ceremony precisely matches the initiation George Bush underwent at the Skull and Bones tomb at Yale. The episode closes with Cooper’s expansive commentary on the goal of all these societies taken together: to establish a one-world socialist state under a council of hidden supervisors designated Rex Mundi, Kings of the World, using the United States itself, Cooper claims, as the intended catalyst for a global New World Order.
Key Claims Made in This Episode
Documented from the broadcast. The site records these claims; it does not endorse them. Dated claims also appear in the series timeline.
- Cooper claims the Roshaniya of Afghanistan are a direct continuation of the Assassin cult, sharing the same esoteric doctrine, the same goal of world control, and the same secret-society structure.
- Cooper claims Bayezid Ansari founded the Roshaniya after his family received initiation into the Ishmaelite mysteries as a reward for assisting the Prophet Mohammed, giving the sect a lineage dating to the origins of Islam.
- Cooper claims the Roshaniya taught that all people outside the Order were lawful prey, identifiable by a secret hand signal still exchanged today between lawyers and judges in American courtrooms.
- Cooper claims the Bavarian Illuminati founded by Adam Weishaupt in 1776 and the Afghan Roshaniya are in fact the same organization, citing parallel calendar systems, shared degree names, and both groups claiming Mohammed as an initiate.
- Cooper claims Ignatius Loyola was the leader of the Alumbrados, the Spanish Illuminated Ones condemned by the Inquisition in 1623, and that the Society of Jesus he founded is the same sect under a different name.
- Cooper claims the 1786 raid on lawyer Zwack’s house revealed Illuminati plans to recruit women and young girls as instruments for influencing powerful men, along with instructions for forging the seals of important persons.
- Cooper claims a Bavarian Illuminati courier, struck dead by lightning, was found carrying papers whose contents later appeared almost word for word in the Protocols of the Wise Men of Zion.
- Cooper claims the elaborate initiation ceremony at the French Chateau of Ermenonville, involving oaths severing all natural loyalties, is the exact ceremony George Bush underwent in the tomb at Yale University.
- Cooper claims the highest council of the Illuminati, nine hidden supervisors, holds the title Rex Mundi, or Kings of the World, and that these men created the United States as the instrument to bring about a global New World Order.
- Cooper claims international Communism is the direct product of the Mystery Schools of the Illuminati, and that the founding of the United States was equally a product of the same secret plan.
Primary Sources Cited in This Episode
| Source | Status | Where to find it |
|---|---|---|
| A History of Secret Societies, Arkon Daraul (1961) | Not public domain; read on air at length, treated here under quotation only | Library copies; see our sources hub |
| Morals and Dogma, Albert Pike (1871) | Public domain | Scans on archive.org |
| The Protocols of the Elders of Zion (disputed document, 1903 publication) | Public domain in most jurisdictions; cited by Cooper as confirmation of Illuminati plans | Search archive.org (for historical study; the document is a proven forgery) |
Notable Quotes
In actual fact, they are all the same. The Alumbrados, the Roshaniya, the Bavarian Illuminati: all the same, with one and the same plan, with one and the same goal.
Cooper, MB14, March 9, 1993
And you can see that sign being exchanged even today in the courts of law all over the United States of America between lawyers and judges.
Cooper, MB14, March 9, 1993
Historians’ View
No documented connection between the Afghan Roshaniya and the Bavarian Illuminati has been established by historians. Daraul’s book, which Cooper reads from, itself acknowledges the parallels are hard to account for but may be coincidence. The claim that Ignatius Loyola led the Alumbrados before founding the Jesuits is not supported in standard histories of the Society of Jesus; Loyola was investigated by the Inquisition in connection with the Alumbrados but was cleared and went on to found the Jesuits independently. The Protocols of the Wise Men of Zion is a widely documented antisemitic forgery first published in Russia in 1903; the claim that the Bavarian courier’s papers later became its text is Cooper’s own assertion without cited evidence. We record these claims as broadcast; we do not endorse them.
Frequently Asked Questions
What is Mystery Babylon episode 14 about?
Episode 14 examines the Roshaniya, an Afghan secret society of the sixteenth century that Cooper presents as a precursor of the Bavarian Illuminati. Reading from Arkon Daraul’s A History of Secret Societies, Cooper argues that all illuminist fraternities, from Afghanistan to Bavaria to Spain, share the same esoteric core and the same goal of world domination. The Secret Societies hub collects related episodes.
Who were the Roshaniya?
The Roshaniya, or Illuminated Ones, were a sixteenth-century Afghan religious and military movement founded by Bayezid Ansari, also known as Pir-i-Roshan. They had eight degrees of initiation and were suppressed by the Mughal empire. Daraul’s account, which Cooper reads on air, is one of the few English-language sources on the group.
What books does Cooper read from in episode 14?
The entire episode draws from Arkon Daraul’s A History of Secret Societies (1961). Cooper also briefly references Albert Pike’s Morals and Dogma and his own book Behold a Pale Horse in passing commentary.
Where can I listen to episode 14?
The series is preserved on archive.org. We never host or distribute the audio ourselves; see our content policy.
Continue the Series
- Previous: MB13: The Skull and Bones
- Next: MB15: Quotes by Freemasons
- Topic hub: Secret Societies
- Related hub: Freemasonry
- Every dated claim from this episode: series timeline
- Full index: Mystery Babylon Complete Episode Guide
- Books cited: sources and bibliography
