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WERE MYSTERIOUS STONE AT GEORGIA MONUMENT DESIGNED BY SECRET SOCIETY OF ROSICRUCIANS?

Are there "illuminati"? Do secret groups -- and one in particular -- exert clandestine influence (and even have hidden hand signals)? When is something a real concern and when is it the adult version of telling ghost stories around a campfire?

The question crops up due to the many conspiracy websites on the internet, and it's not as if there is no cause for some focus. Each year, powerful men and women from around the world meet in an exquisitely clandestine manner at various conferences such as the Bilderberg Group (various locations each year, usually in Europe) or Bohemian Grove (in northern California). Why is it, many ask, that such powerful people meet annually in secret? This needs to be watched. The fear is that international bankers, financiers, government ministers, diplomats, and media moguls are shaping public policy and determining future trends without public scrutiny. Are these what conspiracists refer to as illuminati -- "illuminated" ones who control the course of history?

It is not uncommon to see names like "Kissinger" and "Rockefeller" in the logs of past meetings, and even presidents.

On other occasions, however, it may go a bit far.

During half-time at the 2013 Super Bowl, a singer named Beyoncé Knowles at one point in her controversial routine formed her hands in the shape of a pyramid and looked through them. Many took that to be a furtive "illuminati" signal -- since the legendary cadre is said to use an eye in a pyramid as one of its marks of identification. (As it turns out, the same hand gesture is used to pay homage to her husband's company, Roc-A-Fella Records, which uses a diamond -- a pyramid -- as it symbol).

There are those who pin everything from the Kennedy assassination, the French Revolution, population control, public education woes, and international wars on the Illuminati. 

Thus, caution. Thus, discernment. Everyone has his own idea of how far "too far" is.

The Illuminati were formed in 1776 by Adam Weishaupt -- a Jesuit-trained law professor from Bavaria at the behest of the Rothschild banking family (which has also been involved in the Bilderberg meetings). It was a group meant to quietly influence government and corporations; it supposedly disbanded after functioning for a century or so.

Others speculate that the "Illuminati" still exist but are even smaller than those groups and more occultic. One modern candidate has been the Rosicrucians -- a tiny Masonic-like group whose magazine, New Age, no longer published, said it all.

Rosicrucianism is defined as a generic term referring to studies or membership within a secret philosophical society, notes an online source, said to have been founded in late medieval Germany by Christian Rosenkreuz. It holds a doctrine or theology "built on esoteric truths of the ancient past" -- Druids, Egyptians, Babylonians -- which, "concealed from the average man, provide insight into nature, the physical universe and the spiritual realm." Rosicrucianism is symbolized by the Rosy Cross.

Whether or not they still exist in a substantial way, or more like a fading, eccentric club, there is reason to believe they may have been behind the mysterious monument known in the U.S. as the "Georgia Guidestones"  -- Stonehenge-like configurations of granite less than a hundred miles east of Atlanta that chart certain dates astronomically and have words etched in various languages (even Hebrew and Swahili) guiding the future course of the world.

The builders have managed to remain secret for all these years (the monument was completed in 1979) but were said to be a small, patriotic group represented by a man who called himself "R. C. Christian" and flew to Georgia from various locations (a different one each time) to direct construction; he also provided funding from various banks.

Christian admitted that the name he used was a pseudonym; only a banker was allowed to know his real surname (and only because that was a legal requirement).

Mysterious? Yes. Many believe Christian was a Rosicrucian and cite the fact that the Rosicrucians are thought to date to late medieval times, when they were founded, as mentioned, by Christian Rosenkreuz (also known as Father R. C. Rosie Cross). Rosicrucians are an occult group that long have been associated with movements toward a "new world order" -- something the message on the monuments likewise promotes (along with population reduction).

While many of the theories reach into bizarre claims, it is interesting that before departing from one another to travel various parts of the world -- fanning out to plant their seeds -- the Rosicrucians were said to have established six rules. the fifth of which stated that the letters "R.C." should be their seal, mark, and character from that time onward.

Note the pseudonym used in Georgia.

Meanwhile the sixth rule specified that the Fraternity should remain unknown to the world for a period of one hundred years. 

Two manifestos -- anonymous like the Georgia Guidestones -- were first published in Germany: Fama Fraternitatis RC (The Fame of the Brotherhood of RC) and Confessio Fraternitatis (The Confession of the Brotherhood of RC).

Also like the Guidestones, these outline the interests of the society, but nonetheless maintain the secrecy of the Order.

Adds a website: Rosicrucianism, as the cross symbolism potentially suggests, does not exist wholly apart from Christianity. Rather, it operates as a sect that is explicitly opposed to Catholicism and whose secret society and syncretic eye toward astrology and evolution certainly sets it apart from the beliefs of many modern day Christians.

A key stated aspect is the ultimate goal: “to prepare a new phase of the Christian religion to be used during the coming age now at hand, for as the world and man evolve so also must religion change." The guidestones seem to foresee a future calamity and formation of a new world organization afterwards. The monument is obviously meant to withstand such a future event.

"In his Secret Symbols of the Rosicrucians, Dr. Franz Hartmann describes the Fraternity as 'a secret society of men possessing superhuman--if not supernatural--powers; they were said to be able to prophesy future events, to penetrate into the deepest mysteries of Nature, to transform iron, copper, lead, or mercury into gold, to prepare an Elixir of Life, or universal panacea, by the use of which they could preserve their youth and manhood; and moreover it was believed that they could command the elemental spirits of Nature, and knew the secret of the Philosopher's Stone, a substance which rendered him who possessed it all-powerful, immortal, and supremely wise,'" says a book about the order.

Prayer need, here. Also: occult watch. A little fraternity that has seen its better days, or the tip of some kind of iceberg? If nothing else, a common and unsettling spirit moves.