Read The United States of Paranoia Online
Authors: Jesse Walker
81
. Quoted in Robert Anton Wilson, “Timothy Leary and His Psychological H-Bomb,”
The Realist
, August 1964.
82
. Quoted in Xeni Jardin, “BBC Punks Wikipedia in Game Marketing Ploy?” August 13, 2005, boingboing.net/2005/08/13/bbc-punks-wikipedia.html.
83
. youtube.com/watch?v=ESguSeFQzzk. In another throwback to the seventies, Dollins devoted a portion of the lecture to describing the movie
Telefon
. He suggested that the film’s army of Manchurian candidates actually exists and that it is capable of carrying out attacks on U.S. soil.
84
. In 1990, half a decade before those cards were published, the Secret Service raided Steve Jackson’s offices because an agent suspected that hackers were using an electronic bulletin board the company ran. The bulletin board was called Illuminati, and its tongue-in-cheek welcome message may have played a role in unleashing the raid. As District Judge Sam Sparks wrote, a federal agent “reviewed a printout of Illuminati on February 25, 1990, which read, ‘Greetings, Mortal! You have entered the secret computer system of the Illuminati, the on-line home of the world’s oldest and largest secret conspiracy . . . fronted by Steve Jackson Games, Incorporated. Fnord.’ The evidence in this case strongly suggests Agent Foley, without any further investigation, misconstrued this information to believe the Illuminati bulletin board was similar in purpose to [a different] bulletin board, which provided information to and was used by ‘hackers.’ ”
Steve Jackson Games v. United States Secret Service
, U.S. District Court, W.D. Texas, Austin Division, March 12, 1993. Years later, naturally, a story spread that the raid had been intended to stop the distribution of the
Illuminati
cards.
85
. Jonah Weiner, “Is Lady Gaga a Satanist Illuminati Slave?” November 21, 2011, slate.com/articles/arts/culturebox/2011/11/lady_gaga_kanye_west_jay_z_the_conspiracy_theories_that_say_pop_stars_are_illuminati_pawns.html.
86
. godlikeproductions.com/forum1/message1871717/pg1.
87
. Dr. Dre, “Been There, Done That,” on
The Aftermath
, CD, Aftermath Entertainment, 1996.
88
. Raekwon, Pusha T, Common, 2 Chainz, Cyhi the Prynce, Kid Cudi, and D’banj, “The Morning,” on
G.O.O.D. Music: Cruel Summer
, CD, G.O.O.D. Music/Def Jam, 2012.
89
. Prodigy, “Illuminati,” on
H.N.I.C. Pt. 2
, CD, AAO Music, 2008. Prodigy was heavily influenced by Malachi York, a figure whose worldview mixed black nationalism, ufology, and the legal theories of the sovereign citizens. In the lead-up to the 2012 presidential primaries, Prodigy endorsed the race’s most vocal critic of the New World Order, the constitutionalist libertarian Ron Paul.
90
.
Jonesy in the Morning
, WUSL, November 3, 2009.
91
. Rick Ross featuring Jay-Z, “Free Mason,” on
Teflon Don
, CD, Def Jam/Maybach Music/Slip N Slide, 2010.
92
. That was in the Marvel Comics universe. Marvel’s chief rival, DC, had already featured an evil order called the Illuminati in
Time Masters
, a 1990 miniseries written by Bob Wayne and Lewis Shiner. Shiner was a vocal fan of
Illuminatus!
, and Wayne used that interest to get him involved with the comic: “When Bob first pitched the
Time Masters
series to me, he put the Illuminati in there specifically to hook me.” Lewis Shiner, e-mail to the author, April 4, 2013.
93
.
Holy Blood, Holy Grail
also contributed a conspiracy theory to one of Robert Anton Wilson’s prequels to the
Illuminatus!
trilogy. See Robert Anton Wilson,
The Widow’s Son
(Bluejay, 1985).
94
. Dan Brown,
The Da Vinci Code
(Anchor Books, 2006), 273.
95
. The sculpture, Jim Sanborn’s
Kryptos
, itself contains a coded message, which amateurs and CIA analysts alike have been attempting to solve since the artwork was erected in 1990.
96
. The conspiracy text that took the everything-is-a-clue mind-set further than any other just might be “King-Kill/33°” (1987), James Shelby Downard’s samizdat essay on the JFK assassination. Downard analyzed the external world with techniques more akin to literary criticism, searching for symbolism and attributing it to a Masonic hidden hand. Here is a typical passage:
Let us take as an example the “Mason Road” in Texas that connects to the “Mason No El Bar” the Texas-New Mexico (“The Land of Enchantment”) border. This connecting line is on the 32nd degree. The thirty-second degree in Masonry of the Scottish Rite is the next to the highest degree awarded. . . .
When this thirty-second degree line is traced some little distance farther west, into Arizona, it crosses an old trail which meandered north of what is now another ghost town but which at one time was the town of “Ruby.” . . . [T]he Ruby road twists north into the area of two mountain peaks that are known as the Kennedy and Johnson Mountains.
Downard’s document was produced with the assistance of Michael A. Hoffman II, a Fortean anti-Semite who has staked out what may be a unique position on the intellectual spectrum: He believes that the Holocaust didn’t exist but fairies do.
97
. lysistrata, “He Let Them Down. He Ran Around and Hurt Them,” June 25, 2008, metafilter.com/72804/He-let-them-down-He-ran-around-and-hurt-them.
Epilogue: The Monster at the End of This Book
1
. David Hume,
The Natural History of Religion
(A. and H. Bradlaugh Bonner, 1889 [1757]), 11.
2
. Mark Phillips,
Satan in the Smoke? A Photojournalist’s 9/11 Story
(South Brooklyn Internet, 2011), e-book.
3
. “Devil Face in Smoke of 911 at the WTC,” n.d., at christianmedia.us/devil-face.html.
4
. Texe Marrs, “Face of the Devil,” n.d., at texemarrs.com/102001/face_of_devil.htm.
5
. Quoted in “Faces in the Cloud,” April 23, 2008, snopes.com/rumors/wtcface.asp.
6
. “Allah’s Edict Against Terrorism,” n.d., devilsmokemessageforum.blogspot.com/2012/06/comments.html.
7
. Sadly, the bird goes unmentioned in
The Da Vinci Code
.
8
. “Dali Gives His Theories on Painting,”
The Hartford Courant
, December 19, 1935.
9
. Rob MacDougall, “Pastplay,” May 5, 2010, www.robmacdougall.org/blog/2010/05/pastplay. The game was partly inspired by Umberto Eco’s 1988 novel
Foucault’s Pendulum
.
10
. Quoted in “Tim Powers Rewrites the Cold War,” October 10, 2006, powells.com/blog/interviews/tim-powers-rewrites-the-cold-war-by-dave.
11
. Paul Krassner,
Confessions of a Raving, Unconfined Nut
, 2nd ed. (New World Digital, 2010), 213.
12
. “Paranoia seems to require being imitated to be understood, and it, in turn, seems to understand only by imitation.” Eve Kosofsky Sedgwick,
Touching Feeling: Affect, Pedagogy, Performativity
(Duke University Press, 2003), 131.
13
. Michael Shermer,
The Believing Brain: From Ghosts and Gods to Politics and Conspiracies—How We Construct Beliefs and Reinforce Them as Truths
(Times Books, 2011), 87. Shermer applied the idea of agenticity to conspiracy theories on 207–27.
The pagination of this electronic edition does not match the edition from which it was created. To locate a specific entry, please use your e-book reader’s search tools.
Note: Page numbers in
italics
refer to illustrations.
abolitionists, 95–96, 98, 99, 101
Abraham, Larry, 200
Adams, John, 110, 113
Adams, John Quincy, 116, 122, 352
advertising, 72–73, 75, 77, 106, 203
African Americans:
Black Panthers, 130, 159, 162, 239, 383
and KKK, 99, 129, 289
and militias, 289–92
“night doctors,” 127–29
racial unrest, 104–8, 130–31
slave insurrections, 83–96, 98–99, 101, 132
and sterilization, 129–30
Tuskegee experiment, 128–29
agenticity, 337–38, 421
Agnew, Spiro, 169
A.I.
(film), 325
Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms, U.S. Bureau of (ATF), 209–10, 270
aliens, 54, 59, 144–45, 223–26
and angels, 146, 149
films about, 69–71, 77–79, 178–80, 252–54, 296–97
Alien Registration Act (1940), 76
Al-Ikhlas, Rasul, 286
Allen, Gary, 105–8, 130, 200, 203, 240, 289, 366, 390
Allende, Salvador, 254
All the President’s Men
(film), 174
Al Qaeda, 45, 300–301, 410
alternate reality games (ARGs), 325–28, 331–32
alternate universes, 324–25
Altman, Robert, 383
Alumbrados
, 28, 117
American Revolution, 113–14, 116
Anderson, Jack, 163
Andros, Edmund, 32, 351
angels, 133–36, 145–50
Angels & Demons
(film), 330
Anson, Robert Sam,
They’ve Killed the President,
246
Antelman, Rabbi Marvin S.,
To Eliminate the Opiate
, 200
anti-Catholicism, 34–35, 56, 61, 91, 205, 372
anti-Communism, 141, 205, 317
Anti-Defamation League, 278
Anti-Federalists, 112–13, 316
Anti-Masonic Party, 122–23, 205, 291, 356, 371
anti-Semitism, 140–41, 144, 197–200, 208–9, 287–91, 308, 377, 388, 396, 420
antiterrorism, 297, 299–307
apocalypse, 202–7, 209–11, 302
apophenia, 335–36
Aquarian Conspiracy, 142, 376
Aqua Teen Hunger Force
(TV), 302
Árbenz, Jacobo, 253
Archer, Anne, 267, 403
Arise!
(video), 252
Arlington Road
(film), 293–94
Armageddon, 202–3
Articles of Confederation, 111–12, 116
Aryan Nations, 278, 289
Ascended Masters, 138–39, 140, 141, 142, 145, 146, 149
Ashley, James Mitchell, 7
Associated Press, 230, 333
Astley, Rick, 332
Atlanta, child murders, 128, 211
Baca, George, 93–94, 95
Bacon, Francis, 151, 376
The New Atlantis,
134, 140
Bahrdt, Charles Frederick, 369
Bailey, Alice, 139
Bailyn, Bernard,
The Ideological Origins of the American Revolution,
113–14, 116
Baldwin, Chuck, 304
Baldwin, Craig, 252–54
Ballard, Guy, 142, 144
Unveiled Mysteries,
143
Bambaataa, Afrika, 286
bankers, conspiracy of, 12, 123–25, 131, 140, 141, 187, 197, 199, 241, 242, 244, 321, 335, 387, 398
Banner, Bob, 281–83, 406
Banner, James, 121
Barbados, slave rebellions in, 87
Barker, Gray, 225–27, 394, 398
They Knew Too Much About Flying Saucers,
225,
227
Barker, William, 53
Barkun, Michael, 199, 276, 300–301
Barlow, John Perry, 136
Barr, Bob, 304
Barruel, Augustin,
Memoirs Illustrating the History of Jacobinism,
118, 197
Baum, L. Frank, 39–40, 70, 138
The Sea Fairies
, 125
BBC, 326–27
Beard, Charles, 369
Beast, The
(game), 325–26, 327, 417
Beatles, 203, 204, 346
Beck, Glenn, 14–15, 308, 318
Beecher, Rev. Henry Ward, 7
Being John Malkovich
(film), 323
Being There
(film), 178
Beirich, Heidi, 320
Bell, Arthur L., 141, 142, 377
Benevolent Conspiracy, 16, 335
angels, 133–36, 145–50
Ascended Masters, 138–39, 146, 149
Great White Brotherhood, 138, 139, 140–41, 142
in
Illuminatus!,
244
in Theosophy, 137–39, 140–41
Rosicrucians, 136–40, 150–51
Bennett, John C., 62
Berne, Eric, 327
Berry, Rev. Tom, 191, 207
Best, Joel, 301
Best, Stewart, 230–31
Biafra, Jello, 211
Billington, James H., 369–70
bin Laden, Osama, 45, 300–301, 332
birthers, 317–20
Birth of a Nation, The
(film), 100
Black Dragon Society, 104
Black Hills War, 35–36
Black Mass, 55, 242
Black Muslims, 287
Black Panthers, 130, 159, 162, 239, 383
Blavatsky, Helena Petrovna, 137–39, 140, 142, 144, 389
Boing Boing,
326–27
Bonaparte, Napoleon, 120
Bond, James, 161, 175, 241, 300
Bonewits, Isaac, 195
Book of Revelation, 255
Boston Gazette,
115
Boyer, Paul,
Salem Possessed,
52
Brady, Mildred Edie, 237, 396
Brain Eaters, The
(film), 71
brainwashing, 21–22, 74–75, 165, 170–71, 284, 359
Branch Davidians, 210–11, 213, 270, 276, 277, 279, 285, 286
Britain:
and colonies, 109–15, 120
Glorious Revolution (1688), 109
rockers and mods in, 11
at war with Spain, 89, 92
witch hunts in, 51
Brooks, Elbridge Streeter, 36
Brown, Charles Brockden, 370
Brown, Dan, 330–31
Angels & Demons
, 330
Da Vinci Code, The
, 330–31
Brown, John, 95–96, 104
Brown, Rebecca, 205
Brown, Tony, 289, 407–8
Brown Scare (anti-Mexican), 360
Brown Scare (anti-Right), 76, 142, 173, 294, 310
Brunn, James Wenneker von, 307–8
Brussell, Mae, 169–70, 171–72, 184, 196, 229, 245, 256
Bryan, Gerald,
Psychic Dictatorship in America,
143–44
Bryan, William Jennings, 12
Buchanan, James, 4–5, 18
Buckley, William, Jr., 240
Buffy the Vampire Slayer
(TV), 330
Bulwer-Lytton, Edward George, 138
Burke, Edmund, 109
Burnham, Sophy, 152
A Book of Angels,
146–48
Burroughs, Rev. George, 52
Burroughs, William, 71, 75, 360
Burton, Mary, 88, 89
Bush, George H. W., 277
Bush, George W., 300, 316, 317, 346, 410
Butler, Richard, 289
Byrne, David, 252
Caesar (slave), 88
Calhoun, John, 4
Campbell, John W., Jr.,
Who Goes There?,
70
Campbell, W. Joseph, 21
Canfield, Michael,
Coup d’Etat in America,
168, 258
Cantor, Paul, 295
Cantril, Hadley, 20
Capricorn One
(film), 178
Carlsson, Carole, 202
Carmichael, Stokely, 131
Carpenter, John, 358
Carter, Chris, 417
Carter, Jimmy, 167
as antichrist, 191
as zombified robot, 283
Carr, William Guy, 198, 199, 201, 408
Catawba Meeting House, Virginia, 94
Catholics, as Enemy Outside, 34–35, 56, 61, 62, 88, 91, 92, 103, 205
Cell, The
(film), 323
Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), 17, 80, 125, 161, 164–65, 166, 170, 246, 248, 253–54, 331
chaos:
patterns in, 337
worship of, 222, 231–44
Chapman, Allan, 241
Chartier, Gary, 189
Cheepie, 35
Chermak, Steven, 278
Chess, Caron, 306–7
Chick, Jack T., 188, 190, 196, 201, 205, 206, 250, 386, 389, 392
child abuse, 211–16
Chomsky, Noam, 165–66, 167
Christian Anti-Communist Crusade, 240, 254
Christian Crusade, 14
Christian Identity movement, 208, 278
Church, Frank, 164, 165
Churchill, Robert, 278–79, 290, 314
Churchill, Winston, 197–98
Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints,
see
Mormons
Church of the SubGenius, 249–52, 255, 284, 400
Church’s Chicken, 129
Citizens’ Commission to Investigate the FBI, 162
Civilian Material Assistance, 270
Civil War, U.S., 132, 136
Clark, Mark, 162
Clark, Ramsey, 108
Clarke, Lee, 306–7
Clay, Henry, 122, 131–32
Clinton, Bill, 10, 292–93, 319, 408
Clinton, Hillary, 318
Close Encounters of the Third Kind
(film), 384
Coakley, Martha, 302
Cody, Buffalo Bill, 36
Cohen, Stanley, 10–12
COINTELPRO, 158–62, 164, 166, 167, 169, 171, 239
Cokely, Steve, 288
Cold War, 14, 71, 80, 277, 297
Colton, Rev. Calvin,
Protestant Jesuitism,
56–58
Columbus, Christopher, 134, 140
Comintern, 79, 201
Committee in Solidarity with the People of El Salvador, 166
Committee on Public Information, 42–44,
43
Communism:
anti-Communism, 141, 205, 317
films about, 73–75
and homosexuals, 80
and Illuminati, 201, 248
and liberals, 293
and race riots, 105–8
Red Scares, 13, 23, 73, 75, 76, 103–5, 162, 237, 293
Condon, Richard, 296
The Manchurian Candidate,
74–75
Winter Kills,
176
Congress, U.S., threats against members of, 312–13
Conspiracy
(game), 400
Conspiracy Dessert Club, 401
Conspiracy Digest,
221, 244–46, 283
“Conspiracy Fandom,” 283–85
Conspiracy for the Day,
284–85, 329
Conspiracy Nation,
285
conspiracy theories, 8–9, 161, 216
defectors spreading tales of, 205
in economic downturns, 14–15, 93–94
fanzines, 221, 283–85
fear of insurrection, 95, 108
as folklore, 15, 16–17, 221
and Internet, 276, 284–85, 320, 329–30
primal myths of, 16
secret societies, 199
in wartime, 27, 89
conspiracy thriller movies, 1970s, 172–78
Constitution, U.S., 112–13, 115–16, 120
constitutionalists, 290, 314
Continental Congress, 111
Conversation, The
(film), 176
Coode, John, 32, 351
Coogan, Gertrude, 199
Cooper, William (ufologist), 288–89
Behold a Pale Horse,
284, 288
Cooper, William (rapper), 289
Cooter, Amy, 314
Coppola, Francis Ford, 176, 177
Corman, Roger, 387
Cosby, William, 89
Cosmatos, George, 266, 403
Council of 13, 187, 201
Council of 33, 187, 201
Council of 500, 187
Council on Foreign Relations, 187, 200, 335
Counter Terrorism Operations Center, 303
Covenant, the Sword, and the Arm of the Lord, The (CSA), 208–10
Cover-Up Lowdown
(comic), 246–48,
247
Critique,
281, 282–83
Crowley, Aleister, 376
Crowley, John, vii
Cuffee (slave), 85, 89, 90
Cumbey, Constance, 142
Cunningham, David, 158
Curry, James, 229
Custer, George Armstrong, 36
Dabney, Charles W., 12
Dalí, Salvador, 336
Daly, Michael, 320
Daniel, Clifton, 183–84
Danites, 63, 65
Dark City
(film), 322
Davidson, Gustav,
A Dictionary of Angels,
146
Da Vinci Code, The
(film), 330
Davis, David Brion, 61, 62
Day of the Dead, The
(film), 364
Dean, John, 163
Declaration of Independence, 111, 120, 135, 140, 151, 367, 370
Dee, John, 145–46, 151, 378
Deep Throat, 166–67
Dees, Morris, 278
Demiurge cycle, 323–24
De Niro, Robert, 405
Dennehy, Brian, 263
DePugh, Robert, 14
Dery, Mark, 221
Destroying Angels, 63–64
Dick, Philip K., 322, 323–24
VALIS
, 417
Dies, Martin, 104, 237
Dirks, Nicholas, 166
Disch, Thomas M., 221, 393
Discordians, 221, 231–33, 239–43, 248, 249, 252, 257
Dobbs, J. R. “Bob”, 249–50, 252, 255
Dobbs, Lou, 318–19
Doherty, Thomas, 73–4
Dollins, Stephen, 328, 418
Domino Principle, The
(film), 176–78
Donahue, Phil, 192, 387
Donnelly, Ignatius, 376
Donnie Darko
(film), 322
Dorson, Richard, 35
Douglas, Stephen, 7
Dowdy, John, 81
Downard, James Shelby, 420
Downs, Hugh, 213, 215
Doyle, Arthur Conan,
A Study in Scarlet
, 65
Drake, James David, 26, 29
Drummond, Philo (pseud.), 250
Duffield, Rev. George, 6
Dulles, Allen, 254
Dungeons & Dragons, 206, 216
Dunsany, Reginald (pseud.), 229
Dwight, Timothy, 118
Dye, John Smith, 4–7, 18, 196, 344
The Adder’s Den,
5–6
Dylan, Bob, 168
East Village Other
(
EVO
),
219–22, 241,
220
Eastwood, Clint, 176
Eckartshausen, Karl von, 137