Anonymous conspiracy quote falsely attributed to John D. Rockefeller

The context

A Facebook user recently posted a photo of John D. Rockefeller, an American oil magnate, alongside a quote labeled as the "John D. Rockefeller Masonic creed." This quote allegedly describes a plan for societal control, stating, "We will keep their lives short and their minds weak while pretending to do the opposite," and suggests using soft metals to make people "lose their minds." The post garnered over 500 shares on the platform. The same image has been shared on X (formerly Twitter), with one post receiving almost 600,000 views.

However, this claim is false, as the quote has been misleadingly attributed to John D. Rockefeller.

What we found

A reverse image search revealed that the image has been circulating online since at least 2020. Analysis of Google Trends over the last 20 years shows that interest in a web search of "Rockefeller Masonic creed" peaked in September 2020 and surged again this September.

Google Trends graph showing the popularity of the web search "Rockefeller Masonic creed" over the last 20 years

A review of documents and keyword searches conducted in the Rockefeller Archive Center's online archives found no evidence that John D. Rockefeller authored this quote.

In 2020, Snopes traced the quote's origins back to a 2002 post, "Secret Covenant," anonymously submitted to Bankindex.com, a financial website. This original post detailed a conspiratorial plan for societal control through manipulation and deception. The version currently circulating includes only a portion of the original text, with slight adjustments in wording.

Notably, the 2002 post did not attribute the text to Rockefeller. It stated, "The Bankindex editorial staff thanks you for all your e-mails regarding this piece, but we do NOT know who he or she is. The piece came in through one of our forms, and the Author left an unusable e-mail address." This also suggests that interest in the quote predates its recent resurgence and attribution to John D. Rockefeller. Moreover, Rockefeller died in 1937, so he could not have made or submitted these blog posts in 2002.

We contacted the Rockefeller Archives Center but have yet to receive a response.

John D. Rockefeller, the founder of the Standard Oil Company and one of the wealthiest individuals in modern history, has been the target of many conspiracy theories linking him to the New World Order and the Illuminati, among others. In 2022, Logically Facts debunked a claim that the oil magnate founded Western medicine to sell oil-derived pharmaceuticals.

The verdict

The claim that John D. Rockefeller wrote such a document is false. The text was anonymously posted in 2002 and has no known connection to Rockefeller.