Founder's Statement

Cicada 3301 started out as a series of puzzles that allow people to take a pilgrimage of sorts. Part spiritual, part philosophical, we point to the need for privacy and also the need for an interior renaissance.

We have used ciphers, steganography, riddles and illusions to take the pilgrim on a journey with the objective of minimizing the importance of ego - because we feel that ego is exactly the problem in today's world.

In today's world, our leaders, presidents, advertisers and influencers promote a toxic culture of narcissism. Whereas we emphasize growing past one's juvenile narcissism to arrive at a state of maturity that some call enlightenment.

We have writers, poets, composers, artists, historians and philosophers in our ranks and we grow year by year, as people sicken of constant media fear-mongering and overreaching government control.

Instead of creating paranoia or the urge to gather arms and cause a revolution, our path is one of renaissance, one of music, and beauty and art and adventure. A path of renewal, not destruction.

Cicada 3301 publicly started in 2012, but the ideas pre-date that name. We merely wanted a collection of bards, like one would have encountered in the renaissances of Ancient Greece, the renaissances of Florence and Krakow, and the renaissances that occurred in earlier times, usually after humanity faced and overcame a crisis.

We are a non-political movement, if we can be described as a movement.

We have raised money for the impoverished, and for displaced women and children in war-torn countries.

Once you reject fear, you have time to concentrate on creation, and we hope we have helped many on their path.

We do not have a hierarchy, and we do not have any other goal other than to gather engineers of renaissance for the purpose of providing beauty and art/music for this world.

Thomas A. Schoenberger
March 3rd, 2023