Introduction: Jordan Maxwell is a preeminent researcher and independent scholar in the field of occult / religious philosophy. His interest in these subjects began as far back as 1959. He served for three and a half years as the Religion Editor of Truth Seeker Magazine, America's oldest Freethought Journal (since 1873). His work exploring the hidden foundations of Western religions and secret societies creates enthusiastic responses from audiences around the world. He has conducted dozens of intensive seminars, hosted his own radio talk shows, guested on more than 600 radio shows, and written, produced and appeared in numerous television shows and documentaries (including three 2-hour specials for the CBS TV network, as well as the internationally acclaimed 5-part Ancient Mystery Series – all devoted to understanding ancient religions and their pervasive influence on world affairs today. His work on the subject of secret societies, both ancient and modern, and their symbols, has fascinated audiences around the world for decades. Considering the rapidly moving events of today, and the very real part that hidden religious agendas play in our modern war-torn world, he feels these controversial subjects are not only interesting to explore, but too important to ignore! His extraordinary presentations include documents and photographs seldom seen elsewhere.

Daily Bell: You are a researcher in the field of occult and religious philosophy. Your interest in these subjects began as far back as 1959. How did you get your start?

Jordan Maxwell: I got started because I began having strange, other-worldly experiences as a child and it continually led me to believe there is more to human life than we see. I began a life long journey of why things are, who we are, where did we come from. As I pursued it, I came to realize that the world is not just the mundane, materialistic place we see, but there are other things going on that don't meet the eye. I became very interested in things you don't see.

Daily Bell: You were Religion Editor of Truth Seeker Magazine, America's oldest "free thought" Journal. Tell us about that.

Jordan Maxwell: A mutual friend introduced me to Truth Seeker about 1992 and I worked there till about 1997. At the same time I was in a position to initiate projects for the corporation, and the corporation allowed me to choose which projects the corporation would finance. This is a very old and lucrative company, and I pretty much could dictate where the money could be spent. We were giving grants to writers, researchers, authors, astronauts, teachers and I was financing many famous people behind the scenes, people like Zecharia Sitchin and David Icke, with books based on esoteric nature, UFOs and truth seekers.

Daily Bell: You explore the hidden foundations of Western religions. What are they?

Jordan Maxwell: What a subject that is. Where should I start? The short story is that nothing in Western religion, which means, Judaism or Christianity, NOTHING, is what you think it is. Judaism did not come from where you think it did and Christianity did not develop the way you think it did. There are, in fact, in major research centers around the world, great libraries, great research institutions that have hundreds of thousands of reference books on this subject.

Daily Bell: You had access to some of those books?

Jordan Maxwell: It's not like I came up with this out of thin air but the average person obviously does not know. The origin of Judaism has nothing to do with ancient Israel, for instance; it has nothing to do with a B.C. religion. Judaism from all indications never existed in the B.C. It was not an ancient religion, and the concept of Judaism and God's chosen people was probably developed somewhere between the 8th – 12th century A.D in Europe and in the Middle East by the Vatican, by political, religious establishments and the Western world.

Daily Bell: That's a pretty powerful statement.

Jordan Maxwell: Again, Judaism is not a B.C. religion; in fact, historically speaking there was no ancient Israel, it never existed in the way we think of it today. Rome has dominated the world for at least 2,300 years, either under the Caesar or the Vatican. In our modern era, Europe dominates the world on behalf of the Vatican. But the Vatican and the political powers needed a legitimate foundation from which to guide the people. So long ago they developed the story of the ancient Hebrew people, the ancient Jewish people, ancient Israel, the land of almighty God to lend credence to the fact that they are now carrying on the work of almighty God, the Bible etc. Who would not want to go along with God? The narrative was to help create this new Roman religion, which was going to dominate the world.

I have spoken with rabbis; I have spoke with Jesuit authorities. They will admit, yes, well, none of the people in the Old Testament were actual living people. Most likely the Old Testament was not developed in the B.C. but in the A.D. So, again, we are talking about a religion that was developed by the powers-that-be in Europe to provide a foundation for what was going to come later.

I think you might want to look at the Knights Templar of the Vatican during the Crusades for a lot of the development of this sort of history. Many of the antecedents are borrowed. Christianity can be traced back to India and then to Egypt, and from Egypt to the Middle East. Where does Indiana Jones go to look for the lost Ark of the Covenant? To Rome? To Jerusalem? No, he goes to Jordan, to a place called Petra. When he finds it, who's got it? The Knights Templar. The Masonic Lodge is guarding the Holy Grail.

Daily Bell: OK, any other incendiary points?

Jordan Maxwell: I don't even believe for a minute that Muhammed ever lived. If you try and do real, hard, legitimate, open-minded research you begin to see there is a very strong possibility that Muhammed never lived and that Islam was developed by the same people that gave you Judaism and Christianity. These people are masters at the manipulation of the human race. Now, I have a high respect for spirituality and I am not saying that the Bible is not vital. I believe that the Bible is a very important book. But it's NOT a historical document. That is why it is called the greatest STORY ever told. It's an encoded story. You need to spend many years studying the occult use of symbols, words and terms to understand how the Bible is an encoded metaphor, developed probably between the 8th and 12th century A.D. in Europe.

Daily Bell: But there seems to be evidence that the Bible was codified around the 4th century A.D., earlier than you're projecting …

Jordan Maxwell: Well, the foundations on which Judaism and Christianity are based are actually very ancient. So there is a whole lot that we don't know, that is hidden. A word that I use all the time is "occult," which simply means hidden. Not evil or bad, just hidden. The great wisdom of the world has been hidden from us, we the people. The real wisdom, and knowledge and power is available on a need-to-know basis. And you don't need to know. Like George Carlin said, "the powers that be or the powers behind the throne are in a big club, and you ain't in it."

Did you ever try to figure out why we are at war, why we are starving and we're going broke, why we're being manipulated, exploited and ripped off? The masses of the people around the world, especially the oppressed and impoverished, don't realize what is happening. You have to look for patterns. There is a reason, for instance, you have three religions: Judaism, Christianity and Islam. You always have three: Father, Son and Holy Ghost; Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. You must always have three points of the divine. It goes back to the ancient concept of God being three points. There are mystical, hidden codes; hidden symbols right in front of you. But nobody cares about this kind of stuff. It has nothing to do with soccer or basketball or any other childish games that we humans like to play. But I decided earlier in my life that I want to know. People like myself who want to know, usually end up broke, poor, in prison, shot or assassinated. That's what happens when you know too much.

Daily Bell: You've been doing it a long time.

Jordan Maxwell: I have been looking at the subject of theology and government for about 50 years. European foundations and concepts trace back to the Vatican. I believe there is some kind of a hidden agenda, one of which the Vatican is the manipulator. The concept is very simple. It has to do with divide and conquer. Also, you need to understand that all royalty of Europe possess the "Divine Right of Kings," bestowed by the Vatican. So these people can create Kings and Princes. The whole world is in the hands of an occult driven society. All kinds of mischief is being planned for the world; it's all being orchestrated, I would say, going back to the Roman Empire. The EU and Europe are nothing more than the re-establishment of the ancient Roman Empire. The original EU document for the unification of Europe was signed in a church, in the Vatican-dominated Catholic Church.

Daily Bell: How does Babylon fit in? What do you think of David Icke's work? You indicate you helped fund him. We've interviewed him and he believes in an elite, reptilian bloodline. We've compared him to William Blake. We think he's creating an allegorical cosmogony, though of course he insists it's literal.

Jordan Maxwell: I don't know about reptilian bloodlines, but David and I have discussed them. I brought David Icke to America back in 1992. I financed his books, his tour and lectures and devoted large sums of money to his promotion. I have respect for David and I do believe that the there is something to the idea of reptilians. I think the reptilians do exist but they are probably inter-dimensional.

Science now knows that there are many dimensions, not just the three we are used to. Reptilians exist, but I don't know about the bloodlines. I have had many highly intelligent, well grounded, professional people around the world tell me of experiences with reptilians. You would be surprised to know the kinds of people I have spoke with; I am talking about heads of airlines, and doctors, neuro-surgeons, and numerous interesting people from around the world who have told me stories I have heard many, many times. I personally have never had any visions or visitations by reptilians but I believe they are inter-dimensional and can come and go.

Daily Bell: Let's stay on the issue of bloodlines. Is there a modern elite that tracks its bloodlines back to ancient Babylon?

Jordan Maxwell: I don' t know if it goes back to Babylon as such, but it would not surprise me because all of our religious and business is based on the Knights Templars and the Crusaders who went into the Middle East and began their take over of what we call the Middle East – on behalf of Rome and the Vatican. The Knights Templar learned many things from the indigenous people in the Middle East. They brought back what they learned to Europe and developed a whole system of occult religion and laws and what we call theology and government. I would say there are probably a handful of people who are very knowledgeable in all of this. You may find them at the Vatican and in Britain. It's a huge, secret, powerful, organizational arrangement.

As an American, I feel royalty is a fraud. I believe all men are equal and should be permitted to live on the earth equally, not a handful picked by the Vatican. I call it the Roman system – fascist, Mafiosi, Opus Dei, Illuminati … It's a criminal syndicate. My God, this world is dirty. It is filthy and degenerate because of the Roman system of secret societies. Go back and watch the classic Godfather III. Michael Corleone the mafia boss of New York is sitting in the Vatican and dealing directly with the Holy Father and the Vatican is dealing directly with the mafia.

Adolf Hitler was working directly with the Vatican. The Nazis were a tied form of Catholicism. People who do not understand ancient religions and ancient theologies and symbols and words do not realize that Nazism was a Roman Catholic operation. How did the Nazi's get out of Germany in the last days of the war? They got out through the Vatican. The Vatican gave the top Nazis who were leaving Germany passports, falsified identification, gave them money ans sent people all over the world. There are all kinds of documents here in America, showing that the Vatican had a line called The Ratline. The Vatican Ratline was rats leaving the ship. The Vatican was providing safe passage to Argentina, Paraguay, Uruguay, Brazil, Mexico – all Catholic countries. We're too ignorant, ill informed, bigoted and stupid and we don't see the real truth right in front of us.

Daily Bell: Has the Internet made a difference? Is the elite in retreat?

Jordan Maxwell: I don't think the power elite has ever been in retreat. The Internet does not hurt them at all; it is their tool, they developed it. All the technology America has today and what the Western world uses today … I can guarantee you, it is at least 100 years behind what the powers-that-be already have. The reason I know this is I have spoke with high officials in corporate America and in government and they all say the same thing. What you have today coming out on the market, top-of-the-line new computers and new technology is old stuff the government doesn't need anymore. Since the governments don't need them anymore, they have something much better.

Anything brand new on the market in computers and technology is at least 50-100 years behind what's actually here. What the government actually has. You have no idea what the government of this world actually in fact has. But it has nothing to do with what we call the best or top of the line today. No that's the stuff that governments have thrown away, they don't need anymore and now you can have it. One day the entire earth will be a kind of big program. Slowly but surely human rights are losing the battle. The rat race is over and the rats have won. We are as a human race nothing more than movable property. Your very body is nothing more than a security on the stock exchange. You are owned by corporations and banks, but you just don't know it in the big picture. Your body is a corporation. That's why when you die you are a corpse, you are defunct; you are now out of business.

It's all very interesting how the government, banking and religion really work. And I will guarantee you, nothing in this world works the way you think it does. Nothing. Banks do not loan money. The authorities are not here to protect you. Oil is not a fossil fuel. It's almost embarrassing that people think oil is a fossil fuel – meaning it's the bodies of the dead dinosaurs.

Another thing that bothers me is the belief that the pyramids of Egypt were built as tombs for the Pharaohs. Pharaohs were buried in the Valley of the Kings. No Pharaohs were ever buried anywhere near a pyramid. That's Hollywood, that's Mickey Mouse and Donald Duck. Silly nonsense to get to the poor, working class people of the world on television, which of course the Rockefellers own. Anybody who knows anything about Egypt knows, that nowhere in ancient Egypt is there any mention of a pyramid. Nowhere. The Egyptians are famous for keeping records of everything but there is nothing recorded talking about pyramids.

Daily Bell: So where did the pyramids come from and what are they?

Jordan Maxwell: One thing we know for sure is that they are not burial tombs for the Pharaohs. The Valley of the Kings is where the Pharaohs are buried and the Queens are buried in the Valley of the Queens. The Egyptians were very good at keeping records, but there are no records whatsoever, nothing in the Egyptian world period on the subject of pyramids. Nothing. No mention, no pictures, no drawings. Now we also know that some of the most ancient explorers that went in to Egypt said that the ancient Egyptian people they met told them that they had no idea in the world where those pyramids came from. They were there before the ancient Egyptians settled there. So who built the pyramids?

I suspect they were put there by a far more ancient civilization than the Egyptians. Who were those people? I don't know. There is no doubt in my mind that there have been civilizations on earth for millions of years. We are finding out-of-place artifacts all over the world. We haven't even begun to suspect the complexity of ancient civilizations. I am totally convinced that there have been very high levels of intelligence on this earth millions of years ago. And I think there is a very good case that can be made for that.

Now, in the Old Testament, the book of Jeremiah basically says, "God, which has set signs in wonders in the land of Egypt, said in that day shall there be an altar to the Lord in the midst of the land of Egypt." It goes on to say that this shall be a sign that the Lord is in Egypt. Now, it's been decided that the great pyramid of Giza sits on the border between the north of Egypt and southern Egypt, because Egypt was divided into two separate countries, Upper and Lower. The border is in the middle of Egypt, until one Pharaoh brought the two countries together. So therefore the great pyramid is the altar in the midst of the land of Egypt and the pillar at the border for a sign that the Lord is in Egypt.

There are pyramids around the earth. Who built the pyramids and where did the very concept of a triangle point come from? Go back in time and you begin to see there is a world of knowledge about ancient history that we have never been told. As I have said many times before, America is the most well informed country and people on the face of the earth. The only problem with that is 99% of what's known is not true.

The religious leaders tell you what you should think. It's called pontification. But they only scratch the surface. First of all the people speaking today don't know what the ancients were doing. Second, all the ancient scriptures speak about a star people. The Sumerians, my goodness, there's texts coming out from Sumer 5,000 – 6,000 years ago talking about the ancient Gods that the people saw come down from heaven with great magic.

India, Egypt, Sumer … ancient scripture talks about Gods who came down from the heavens. Whoever is running our planet is well aware that hundreds of thousands of years ago there was a higher intelligence here. The pyramids and all these concepts were given to us by a higher intelligence, whether indigenous to the earth or not. Everything is based on ancient stuff that we humans are not privy to know.

Daily Bell: Where do the world's religions come from? There are ancient drowned cities such as Dwarka now coming to light. Is it possible that this initial religion was part and parcel of an ancient lost civilization, some 15,000 years old and drowned when the glaciers melted 7,000 years ago?

Jordan Maxwell: I think that if you can go back into mankind's history, as far back as we have records for, and that's not very far, which is about 10 – 15,000 years, we begin to see what is called the religious concepts and ideas. The basic concept was there was a war going on for the minds of men. It was a Heavenly war, but basically a war between lightness and darkness. All of this goes back to a very ancient source and fear of the darkness. And that is the basis for world religion especially in the world today. Now I am not talking about spiritual discipline like Buddhism or any other spiritual disciplines. I am talking about Judaism, Christianity and Islam. When you do your homework the terms and concepts are all there for you to see. When you understand all the symbols and concepts, it's a very simple story. But the whole world has been lied to about the occult and mystical things going on; it's really a shame how ignorant the human family really is. We've lost our humanity, we've lost our money, we've lost our morals and now the world is in the process of losing its mind.

I for one loved the idea of the founding concept of America: All men are created equal and free and all men should be respected as part of natural rights. And that you should be able to have liberty, freedom and justice. But it's all gone. There is no freedom, no liberty and there is no justice. I will give you a prophecy: The world is headed toward a George Orwell movie. The whole world is headed toward a dark, occult prison. There's something going on here on this earth that if we don't awaken from we are going to find out we have all been had.

There is no injustice in the universe. We get what we pay for. What goes around comes around. The concept is Karma. So what we have put out in different ways, we are getting it back now. We are getting it back in spades. The Vatican and British Royalty and the royalty of Europe never forgot for one minute what happened back in 1776. A bunch of people we now call Americans stood up to the King of England and stood up to the Vatican. The British royalty don't forget that. We left you alone but now we are going to teach you a lesson. We are going to destroy your civilization, your freedom; we are going to destroy your liberty and never again will you stand up against the Holy Father in Rome. That is what is happening today. America is being destroyed, nobody knows why or how and nobody understands the secret societies.

Daily Bell: Let's stay on this for a moment. Is the Hindu "religion" the most ancient of all? Did the Hindu religion actually constitute an ancient advanced society? Did ancient Indians visit the moon?

Jordan Maxwell: So much of British civilization – the symbols for royalty, national coats of arms, on flags, official symbols, Union Jack – all come from India. If you go to ancient India in the temples you will find all sorts of strange markings and symbols. America is nothing more than a product of the old British, East India Company. The East India Company was formed by the Queen to sell products and drugs and to manipulate people in the Middle East. You need to understand that America was based on the whole corporate structure and that was the British East India Company. The colonies were colonies of the British East India Corporation.

Daily Bell: Let's leave corporatism for a moment. You've written a lot about sexual symbolism in world religions.

Jordan Maxwell: Sexual symbolism is everywhere. The church is called Mother Church. Mother is the one that gives birth. In Western churches, you will see pointed arches; the windows and doors are always pointed and the pointed arch is the symbol for the female. There is sexual symbolism in government, too. The male erection of the Washington Monument points right at the ovaries of the Oval Office. The word congre … just go to a law dictionary and look up the word. Congress is a Latin word for sex. The capital building's dome is the same as the Vatican dome. Caesar ruled Rome from something called Capital Hill. Today we have "congre" on the hill.

Daily Bell: What about Astro-Theology?

Jordan Maxwell: That's one of my favorite subjects. It explains where world religion comes from. When you start tracing population flows and the ancient world and their symbols – Syria, Babylonia, Egypt – you begin to see the march of a whole system of religion, government, commerce, drugs … rock and roll. The more we change, the more we stay the same. And unless or until the world awakens to the facts of their ignorance, we are doomed as a human population.

Daily Bell: Where do Druids fit in?

Jordan Maxwell: In Europe, for thousands of years before the Roman Empire, Europe was dominated by a religious class of people we call the Celts; and their religious system was Druidic. The Druids were very powerful; and even today Europe uses Druidic symbols. One of the most important symbols of the Druids was a magic wand. Everyone plays to the music of the master who waves the wand. That magic wand was a symbol of power and if you go back in history you'll find that magic wands were always made out of the wood of the holly tree. It was made out of holly-wood. The entire world contains an occult, hidden system. But it's about time the human race wakes up to the fact that we are being programmed. We don't even learn how to think; we have to watch television to think for ourselves. We watch television programs to be programmed.

We live each day like an animal grazing on the Serengeti, raising our young, basking in the sun, strolling around not knowing that the lions are approaching. The lions are coming. There is an old saying, "Destiny comes to those who listen; fate will find the rest."

Daily Bell: Any books or articles you would like to refer people to?

Jordan Maxwell: There are two books and one is on my website. It's called ‘Symbols, Sex and the Stars". It's the easiest book to read on world religions, where they come from, what they mean. And the second book I would recommend is written Manley Palmer Hall, and called Secret Teachings of all Ages. It is a monstrous book with all the religions and cults of the whole world and where they actually came from and what they are doing. Both are amazing and will certainly give you more basics for what you need to know about religions.

Daily Bell: Any closing thoughts?

Jordan Maxwell: I feel there will be some very extraordinary events this year that will change the world as we know it. I am not a prophet or a great teacher, just an ordinary man fascinated with wisdom and knowledge that not many people want to know. That's who I am and that's what I do. Thanks for your interest.