Supernatural Philosophy I: Three Flavours Conspiracy

Recently, Alex Jones did an 'Ask Me Anything' question-and-answer session (archive link) on a reddit subforum dedicated to Donald Trump. Though there is nothing particulary novel in this interview, one answer particularly struck me as illustrative of the way that more 'grounded' conspiracists like Jones integrate esoteric lore into their worldview, which will lead us into the question of classifying conspiracists and understanding how such broad agreement can be reached between people who might be expected to have radically differing worldviews.  In part II of this post we shall look at some of the broad 'themes' of contemporary conspiracism and start linking those back to some of the themes of Lovecraftian horror, starting to tie our two subjects together.

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The Three Flavours of Conspiracism

 It is my personal belief that Conspiracists can be drawn into three broad camps. Apart from intractable arguments over the details of various conspiracies, the main schismatic element of conspiracism comes down to how the conspiracist approaches the concept of the supernatural and its relationship to their worldview and ideas.

The particular quote from Alex Jones that struck me as being particularly useful in illustrating this concept was this:

The elite believe that they are communicating with interdemensional creatures and they believe that they have to kill everyone to get to the super-technology. The psychopath cosmology is not to have kids and live on through them but that you must kill and enslave people to get ahead. Prove you're evil, prove you're hateful - you're just this God killing everyone.

Jones is what I like to call a Mundane conspiracy theorist. He never explicitly invokes magic or too obviously advanced technology (such as holograms or anti-gravity devices) in his discourse; yet, as this quote shows, he can integrate many of the theories of, for example, David Icke ('the elite are really child-eating vampire lizards') simply by re-casting them as 'mere beliefs' of the Cabal. The Mundane conspiracist can be thought of as being similiar in approach to a techno-thriller or a James Bond style spy movie; they generally operate (at least in terms of physical events) in the realm of the highly implausible but seemingly possible, though there are various ideas (such as 'Manchurian Candidate' style mind control) common among these sorts that are fairly firmly in the realm of science fiction. It is worth noting however that even these sorts of conspiracists tend to incorporate less overt supernatural elements, which we may understand in the context of our next sort of conspiracist.

The Theistic conspiracist operates from within the context of Christianity, or more rarely from the context of Islam or Mormonism, or very rarely indeed from Judaism, or some variation or fusion of one or more of these beliefs. Their particular flavour of religiosity can vary wildly, but tends towards abrahamic monotheism generally, and particularly the more idiosyncratic end of Protestantism, with a tendency towards highly literal, yet fanciful, interpretations of the bible and a strong anti-Catholic streak. The main thing that unites Theists, and an aspect of their thought which tends to resonate throughout the rest of conspiracism¹, is a cosmology of personified Good and Evil (God and Satan), actively engaged in spiritual conflict, which for them provides the backdrop to the machinations of the cabal. In this view, the Cabal are the willing or unwilling dupes of Satan, working to prepare the world for the End of Days under the guise of a global Satanic state. The weaker versions of this found in other forms of conspiracism give us the least obvious, but most permeating supernatural aspects of the cabal; their superhuman malice, which drives them forward to carry out the most immoral schemes in the most unethical ways, and their superhuman corruption, which ensures not a single one of them ever feels a pang of guilt, remorse or shame about the whole thing.

The final variant is the Esoteric conspiracist. These are the conspiracists who retain a belief in the supernatural in some way (often understood through the lens of new-age pseudoscience) but reject the organising manichean framework of the Theists. Esotericists may well believe in a god, but it tends to be the deistic, platonic or gnostic sort of God, remote and unknowable. An important way to distinguish between them is that in the Theistic view, in line with various religious prophecies, the ultimate ascendancy and specific power of Good to triumph over Evil is assured; God will ultimately triumph, and he can empower individuals to triumph over the forces of Evil via their faith to call on his intercession. In the esoteric view this ultimate triumph is not so assured; good (or 'positive energy') can still overcome evil (or 'negative energy') but this energy is an abstract force, employed directly by conscious individuals using learnable techniques under the guidance of wise masters. The great drama of the Cabal thus becomes a reflection of a cosmic conflict between various groups, driven by ideology and the desire for resources. These groups may include various secret societies (including survivals of ancient civilisations), public national or religious groups, supernatural beings ('ascended masters', 'macrobes'), races or factions of interstellar or interdimensional aliens and so on. This is the wing of conspiracism in which many of the most recognisable 'nutty' aspects of conspiracism tend to reside: UFOs, shapeshifters, channelling and so on.

These three tendencies are not necessarily exclusionary, though they tend to be. Conspiracists can practice various sorts of syncretism, either deliberately, or through a lack of philosophical sophistication or rigour when it comes to their overall framing. Ultimately the three tendencies remain united within the intellectual structure of conspiracism. This is represented in the diagram below:

Ultimately, all these tendencies share the common features of conspiracism we have discussed before and it is this common framework which allows the easy transfer of ideas. It is important at this stage to understand how conspiracists conceptualise themselves and their participation within the conspiracist movement. One common, less pejoratively loaded term conspiracists use for themselves is 'Researcher'. A Researcher produces 'Information'; Information can be thought of as the molecular unit of conspiracist thought, consisting of an assortment of factoids, associations, ideas, notions, quotes, opinions, names, places and other tidbits of lore, as well as images, video and audio² that might be associated with them. Researchers produce and synthesise Information, and they perform judgements about the relative weight to be given to each unit, based on their own personal criteria, and they present their Research to others via various media. Individual units of Information can be taken from any source, most commonly other conspiracists, and it does not generally matter to a conspiracist what the beliefs of an originator of that Information might have been. Imagine a piece of Information that consists of the account of a sleep paralysis sufferer; to the Mundane, this might suggest some sort of program of government experimentation. To the Theist, it is evidence of the earthly activity of demons, and to the Esoteric it might suggest alien abductions or visitations from higher-dimensional beings. Conspiracists have at their disposal a variety of strategies that allow them to incorporate and develop Information, even if their personal philosophy is violently opposed to that of the originator. If the originator is part of an organisation they believe to be involved in the Cabal, then this might be an example of 'revelation of the method', an idea that deserves particular dissection in the future. If they believe the originator is a 'shill' or disinformation agent, then any part they like can be what conspiracists call a 'limited hangout', related to the idea that propaganda must mix some truth in with the lie. A rival conspiracist with different beliefs may have accidentally stumbled on some gold, but has of course misinterpreted it, and so on.

Thus, we come back to Jones' quote. Jones does not profess to believe in the occult, at least in the sense that he believes that black magicians can wield genuine supernatural powers. But he believes that the Cabal believes in the occult, and aliens, and thus anything that is to do with the occult or aliens can very neatly be folded into his worldview. Each major branch has a version of this sort of master strategy. Thus, we cannot easily isolate any part of Conspiracist lore from any other; just because someone does not believe in demons or aliens does not meant that ideas about demons or aliens cannot work their way into their thinking. Once you accept the premise of a grand conspiracy, the whole notion of a 'fringe' idea recedes, and the extremes become very much in reach.

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1 Perhaps unsurprisingly given the dominant role of Christianity in Western thought.

2 This granular structure will become important in the future as we move on to the topic of conspiracist aesthetics.

Defining 'Conspiracism'

Before moving into more specific strands of research and considering the artistic aspects of the book it makes some sense to try and define terms. What is meant by 'Conspiracism', in the sense that I am talking about here?

First, it is important to distinguish Conspiracism (with a capital C) from the more general phenomenon of paranoid thought and indeed from 'mere' conspiracy theory. When I talk about Conspiracism, I mean a specific political phenomenon, an international ideological current with multiple roots, sources and strands which are nevertheless connected by a shared culture and general set of beliefs about the world. Most specifically, due to the nature of my particular political concerns and the limits of my research, I am talking about Conspiracism as it exists within the Western world (where I believe its origins lie) and particularly the anglophone West.

At its most essential, Conspiracism can be defined as the belief that the course of history and the development of culture and the intellectual and political landscape is controlled primarily by the secret actions of one or more groups of persons who are acting towards selfish, perhaps even explicitly malign, ends. Conspiracism rejects all forms of historical materialism and all other open historical narratives; all 'great men' are puppets, bit-players or charlatans, and progress is a deliberately crafted illusion. At its core, therefore, Conspiracism, despite its calls for the overthrow of the political establishment is a conservative, reactionary and parochial current of thought.¹ When the historical roots of Conspiracism are studied it can be seen that it has always flourished in times where radical political upheavals have threatened an entrenched class. This can be extended back to the witch panics, pogroms and religious wars of the late middle ages, but is perhaps most obvious in the European reaction to the French revolution and the Revolutions of 1848, in the general reaction to the October Revolution of 1917 and to the spread of Communism after the Second World War.

The general term I like to use for the idea of this controlling group within Conspiracism generally is 'the Cabal'.² It is important to note that the 'Cabal' is not simply the government and other established authorities, though these may well be subsumed within it. Conspiracists are not simply right-libertarians, though there is some significant crossover with that political persuasion. The important thing to bear in mind here is the crucial importance of secrecy to the Conspiracist worldview. One recurring theme in Conspiracist writings is Plato's allegory of the cave, and interpreting this allegory from the Conspiracist worldview is a good way of understanding how Conspiracists conceptualise the Cabal and their relationship to it.

The allegory of the cave centres around the idea of prisoners who are kept chained in a dark cave, and who come to believe that shadows projected on a wall in front of them constitute reality; only by freeing themselves can the prisoners actually grasp something of the true nature of things. Plato meant this to say something about the difference between the world that is intelligible to our senses and the 'perfect' world of pure thought where Ideal Forms exist, which can be accessed by philosophy. The Conspiracist interpretation is broadly along the same lines, though often (but by no means always) less metaphysical. To the Conspiracist, the prisoners are the vast majority of people, the 'sheep', who do not share their worldview, and are instead content to consume a false reality created by the Cabal; the 'propaganda' of mass culture and the 'indoctrination' of the academy. The Conspiracist on the other hand is the Philosopher, who can break their own chains and 'awaken', turning round to see the machinery of projection and its operators, and beyond them the Truth that has been obscured.

Thus we have the general structure of Conspiracism at its broadest level; a secretive Cabal who play with the perceptions of the populace in order to control them for their own ends. Within this structure exists a multiplicity of thought, some of it diametrically opposed in its choices of how to populate the Cabal, which is akin to the doctrinal squabbling inherent in any ideological movement. These can be organised into broad strands or schools, which I shall explore at a later date. It should be noted however that there exists significant cross-pollination among every strand of Conspiracism; there is a common literature of theories, facts, quasi-facts, myths, misconceptions and errata which they all draw from in common. This will be important when it comes time to more clearly explore how the seemingly 'mundane' conspiracism that revolves around more mainstream Conspiracist figures like Donald Trump and Alex Jones, with its modern thriller landscape of backroom politics, secret deals, spies and hackers and so forth is intimately connected to the more esoteric, David Icke world of aliens, holograms and parallel dimensions suggested by the impetus for this project.

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 1 It has not been at all surprising to me to see many more mainstream Conspiracist thinkers in the US, after spending years fulminating over the imminent arrival of a fascist police state under Bush, Obama or Clinton, jump straight into bed with an overt authoritarian like Trump.

2 The occult flavour of this term seems appropriate given the deep parallels and connections that exist between Conspiracism and various branches of esoteric thought, which is such a broad topic that it will require much separate later discussion.