Essentially, conspiracy theory offers an alternative model of history itself, and Forteans are nothing if not willing to question existing models. Most historical analyses offer an accidental model of history: history is created by the sum of the random actions of the masses, like the 'invisible hand' which guides all economic actions to beneficial result; political assassinations are carried out by 'lone nuts,' alienated and frustrated lunatics rather than conspiratorial agents serving an agenda; changes in governance (at least in democracy) are peaceful, orderly, and rational, within limits acceptable to the political center; impersonal sociological, technological, and economic forces cause social changes rather than individuals and secret societies acting with a quite specific purpose in mind. As Umberto Eco notes in one of his books, conspiracy theories help to bring order to a disordered world. Rather than having to accept that uncontrollable forces cause economic and social dislocations, we can point blame to a guiding hand in the misfortunes of history, and hopefully alleviate our social problems by releasing the grip of that hand.
Not all conspiracy theories are that sinister. Most occult groups posit a benevolent conspiracy - a "great white brotherhood" of mystical adepts guiding human evolution from behind the scenes. The very word conspiracy means nothing more wicked than "breathing together." (One can imagine a circle of Tibetan lamas sitting around some mystic sphere, planning the revolutions and evolutions the human race needs to ascend to the godhood that is its birthright.) Of course, most occult groups suspect that there is a counter-conspiracy of black adepts blocking the efforts of the good guys at every turn, seeking to seize the Grail (or whatever humanity needs for its salvation) and destroy it. Within this model, secret societies have secret rituals and passwords and so forth not so much to hide their evil actions from scrutiny, but to conceal esoteric knowledge from the uninitiated until the time is appropriate. This is said to reflect the admonitions of the Gospel, namely, "cast not pearls before swine." Man may not be morally ready for secret knowledge; one need only look at his use of atomic energy to see that, which some groups suggest is just one of the first occult secrets that man has re-discovered (it was known to the alchemists, according to some.)
One of the books to give conspiracy theories a great deal of impetus during the 1960s was the book Illuminatus! by Robert Shea and Robert Anton Wilson. The novel proposed that the supersecret Illuminati were agents of Lovecraftian Elder Things from the depths of space, but they were being fought by the Discordians, a group of Eris-worshipping freethinkers, anarchists, and rebels. (Eris was the goddess of discord and chaos in the Greek mythology; the only deity not invited to reside on Apollonian Mount Olympus.) Not surprisingly, Wilson is quite a Fortean himself, having written a blistering attack on those enforcers of consensus reality, the so-called skeptics of CSICOP. Today, in the 1990s, conspiratologists have received a new shot in the arm: just look at the signs of the times. The movie JFK. BCCI, BNL, Iraqgate, Iran-Contra, and Bush's "New World Order." The revelations of the CIA's MKULTRA and COINTELPRO operations. Ross Perot's fascination with the POW/MIA and "Narcotrafficking" conspiracies. Lyndon LaRouche running for president. The P2 Lodge in Italy and the Vatican Bank scandal. Kenneth Collier's Votescam. Many of these and more are detailed by conspiratologist Jonathan Vankin.
The basis of this model is that history is a finite line, and that line is moving toward some predetermined goal within a larger cosmic Plan. (Modern science still subscribes to the concept of a finite time - the Big Bang began the universe and the Big Crunch will end it - and has enshrined the doctrine of the Fall within the concept of Entropy: all things decay and proceed toward disorder.) The idea that there is a Plan behind history is the key idea for conspiracy theorists. In our era, the old religious idea that the goal of the Plan is salvation and that the conspiracy working against it is that of Satan, that old serpent, has given way to more materialistic/atheistic conceptions. The International Bankers' Conspiracy may be to amass the world's wealth through usury and put us all under control of One World Government, but this is just the old Gnostic/Cathar idea - of the Devil as Rex Mundi , King of the World - under a new guise. But most conspiratologists trace the International Bankers back to the Templars, themselves 'infected' with Gnostic or Islamic heresy, anyway.
Under the view of time which prevailed in matrifocal, agricultural societies, even the idea of history was not possible. Most societies accepted that there were alternating forces ruling the universe - one masculine, the other feminine, usually - but that there was simply a continual oscillation of power between them. (This is the central concept of Taoism) There was no struggle for ultimate victory, no fixed period where the contest between them would be held, no situation where mankind was forced to choose sides between the white hats and the black. Death itself was not that important, as people would be reborn in a new incarnation, as part of the ceaseless turning of the wheel of metempsychosis. As the seasons turned and returned, so would the human soul, in a new form. In the Aryo-Persian vision, life became a concrete span, fixed in itself, and one's actions would determine their fate in the afterlife - paradise or damnation, heaven or hell. You either were for Ahura Mazda, and became a Zoroastrian, or you were a heretic and quite certainly against him. One could escape the embrace of Mother Earth, who was womb and tomb, and take your place among the thunder gods of the sky, if one obeyed Mazdean precepts. Which "conspiracy" you chose to support became of vital importance.
So too did the early Christians meet in secret in the Catacombs, to hide from that Great Beast 666, who was (to them) the Roman Emperor Nero and his minions. In the eschatological vision that developed when the immanent Kingdom of Heaven failed to materialize, Christians came to suppose that the Great Beast was an Antichrist who would put them through a tribulation before the return of their Messiah. Like the Essenes before them, they felt that the Forces of Light and the Forces of Darkness would engage in a titanic struggle. As the Book of Revelations portends, the servants of the Lamb and the fallen angels of Lucifer will struggle one last time, and with the victory of the Ancient of Days, the New Jerusalem and the Kingdom will be inaugurated. This pattern is deceptively simple: the white hats versus the black hats; but is a template that seems to be used in a wide variety of places. Look at Richard Shaver's vision, where the evil underground deros fought with the teros , servants of the noble Titans from the sky, for the possession of man's soul using 'telogs' and evil rays. Or all the 'weird science' groups like Borderland Sciences who claim we would have free energy, a cure for cancer, antigravity, and one hour orgasms, if the government weren't conspiring to keep such things hidden from us.
UFOlogy seems to be in the grip of just such a template right now. As John Keel notes, the idea is as old as man himself: the sons of Heaven versus the forces of darkness. In modern, 'scientific' UFOlogy we see it scripted in a new way: the sinister, manipulative Grays versus the benevolent, friendly Pleideans. One can see it in L. Ron Hubbard's vast intergalactic conspiracy tale (described in his fiction books, but also a key part of Dianetics) where one group of space beings tries to help man climb the evolutionary ladder while another group tries to imprison him in his animalistic state. And, buying into the pattern, the UFOlogists assume the U.S. government is part of some vast conspiracy with the wicked Grays, having given them operating bases here on Earth and free rein to abduct humans and mutilate cattle, in exchange for alien technology. (A Faustian bargain with the devil?) There is some argument as to when this agreement was reached, but the current version is that this contract with the devil was signed at Holloman Air Force Base in 1964. Watching the descent of some UFOlogists into abject paranoia can be somewhat depressing.
One of the documents floating around the world of conspiratology is the so-called Gemstone File. Ostensibly about the JFK assassination, this document contains a subplot about the manufacturing of rubies (for use in lasers? It isn't always clear.) In any case, the file ties together so many of the confusing events of the past 30 years, if you believe it. Watergate, JFK and RFK's assassination, the Bay of Pigs, Chappaquiddick, and Hoffa's disappearance are tied together in a seamless web. It almost seems like with yet another great sweep it might take in Marilyn Monroe's mysterious death, the slaying of John Lennon, and the murder of MLK, with the wave of a hand. The essential thesis of the Gemstone File is that Aristotle Onassis controlled the Mafia and the Southeast Asia drug trade, and not a small number of politicians (including Roosevelt, Nixon, and JFK) as well. Along the way, he apparently used a "double" to take control of Howard Hughes' financial empire, planted cronies to seize almost all the national organized labor groups, and, like a true Mafiosi, murdered (with poisoned apple pie) just about anybody that got in his way.
Another interesting document making its way around more metaphysically oriented conspiracy researchers is the so-called "Spiritual Revolutionary primer." This document suggests that rebellious spiritual beings were behind the psychedelic, sexual, and political revolutions of the 1960s, and that they are acting as evolutionary agents for humanity. Opposing them, however, are the so-called "Theocrats." These spiritual beings created all the organized religions so that they could "eat" the souls of worshippers and devotees at death, and their goal is the spiritual imprisonment of man. He is to be kept ignorant of his own nature and kept a slave to their whims. "Theocratic" religious doctrines focus very heavily on the 'sinfulness' of disobedience and the importance of 'faith', i.e. blind trust. Apparently, the "Theocrats" and the "Maverick" spirits are engaged in struggle for who will control the destiny of humankind. The book contains a wise warning to all would-be channelers: consider the words of spirits, for some messages may be coming from "Theocrats" in disguise! One can easily see why fundamentalist Christians shirked in horror at this document's suggestion of the central importance of the rebellious Lucifer.
These documents almost seem to take paranoia and transform it into metanoia. You get the sense that almost every tragedy, every political misfortune, every scandal, is the result of the Onassis Mob or the Theocrats jerking all our strings. Paranoia is the sense that you as an individual are being persecuted by some outside agency. But metanoia is a sense of collective injustice: that somehow each and everyone of us is at the mercy of invisible forces we cannot control. Hieronymus Bosch's paintings and some of Phillip K. Dick's writings convey this sense of metaphysical conspiracy. Dick's sinister police-state universe seemed run by forces beyond the IRS or CIA: almost as if a band of Gnostic Archons was pulling their strings. Many mystic writers have pointed out that the metanoid conviction - that the universe is infinitely unjust and is so vast as to drown you in your insignificance and all of its forces are, indeed, watching your efforts and pitched against you - is part of the "Dark Night of the Soul" or "Chapel Perilous" from which true enlightenment can follow, if one has the courage to cross the Abyss. Metanoia can lead to some amazing insights. If it seems like our world is being run by madmen, Gurdjieff reminds us that it is... because they are all robots. They can no more be held responsible for their actions than someone thrashing in his sleep. But metanoia also can lead to Gnostic anarchism as well, which is not surprising...
The Protocols of the Elders of Zion , a forgery concocted amost certainly by a Russian Okhrana (secret police) officer named Sergei Nilus, from a 19th century document by Maurice Joly about a fictitious dialogue between Napoleon and Machiavelli, is the arch-conspiracy tale of all time. Nilus probably altered the story not so much to embarass Jews - he was certainly an anti-Semite - as to expose the Freemasons who were so prominent in the Romanov court. After all, why would a group of non-Masons sign anything as "elders of Zion of the 33rd degree" since there are 33 degrees in Scottish Rite Masonry? The Protocols describe a group of conspirators seeking to destabilize all the world's government through a host of villanies - fomenting revolutions, devaluing currencies, provoking wars - so that they can take over the world and rule it for their King. For people who remembered the chaos of 1848, it seemed like a plausible scenario. The Protocols led to many anti-Jewish pogroms in Eastern Europe, and may have contributed to the Holocaust by influencing the Nazis. Even today the Protocols are standard reading among radical Palestinian and Arab nationalist groups, which is not surprising, since many terrorist groups there were trained by Edward Skorzezny, an ex-S.S. officer from Germany.
The danger of conspiracy theorizing is that it can lead to such demonization and scapegoating - if not of Jews, then of Catholics, Masons, or people named Rockefeller. Finding a scapegoat is convenient - the ancient Hebrews would place all their sins upon the 'Azazel' (scape-goat) and then drive it into the wilderness to rid themselves of evil. It enables a society to somehow localize evil and cast it out, and to remove a fixed 'disease' from the body politic. Whether called 'ethnic hygiene' or 'ethnic cleansing,' such notions often lead to genocide. Conspiracies always will exist: groups of individuals will conspire for short-term goals and interests, and people are right to be watchful of such things. But the notion that there is some fixed Enemy who has operated throughout history, threatening Civilization itself since the beginning, is merely the "Devil theory" updated for the modern age. And it is a poisonous and dangerous idea. It is one thing to examine a temporary confluence of interests for an immediate political goal, such as the JFK or Lincoln assassinations. But I am wary of those people, like the LaRouchites, who try and extend conspiracies throughout all time. They are often as dangerous as the conspiracy they imagine themselves to be struggling against.
Steve Mizrach