Random thought I'd like to share. Maybe it's nuts.

What if the secret they're protecting isn't necessarily evil. Think of the force. It's just the force. Good or evil people can use it the same but for different purposes. The Phoenix Cabal jealously guards this knowledge because if the masses knew the secrets of their "magic" or gnosis, then they would be equally equipped to fight and defeat them. I'm making a huge assumption that their magic is really doing something. Consider it more of a lost science that they occasionally expose so that society advances one step forward (always under their control)

The child sacrifice but has NOTHING to do with an actual God rewarding them. It's a pledge to the cabal that they will be loyal for the rest of their life as they've just proven the depths of their devotion with their sacrifice.

Once they make the blood pledge they're given access to the great secrets.

Some of these secrets remain lost and buried in Mesopotamia which explains the constant wars there of the past two decades.

Think about it. The greatest scientists of all time have always had occult connections. They knew ahead of time and merely disclosed, and the cabal has always profited off the patents that emerge.

No evidence for this yet but I feel like I might be hovering over something big here. This is why the Gnostics had to be snuffed out and defamed because they were giving out the secrets for free. I can't believe that the Phoenicians had a hand at Nicea!