The United States of Paranoia (55 page)

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.

INDEX

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