The "Evil" Eye in the Pyramid

Our friend over at the Born Again Redneck had an apparently unwanted visitor today. While PJC was talking about Mel Gibson's foolish recent remarks, this dude wanted to talk about the Illuminati.

The Illuminati has been a center of fiction for many years including books such as Colin Wilson's Illuminati Trilogy to the Lara Croft, Tomb Raider movie. In the mid to late 70s a pathological liar named John Todd started claiming that he was a member of the Illuminati who had converted to Christianity started exposing which Christian leaders were actually members of the Illuminati. Fortunately he was not taken seriously by most Christians, though sadly Jack T Chick of Chick tracts was seduced by his lies and his previously outstanding Bible Tracts became paranoid rantings of world dominion, first by the Illuminati and later the Vatican. (And curiously enough, Jack T Chick and Alberto Riviera - another real winner - are the only major Christian activists that John Todd did not list as members of the Illuminati)

Some people genuinely believe this, others think it's a fantasy. Others are like me who believe there are genuine conspiracies and many plots afoot to rule the world, but there is no over-arching grand conspiracy led by a group of Satanists who secretly rule the world. As an aside these conspiracies that do exist spend as much time struggling with each other as they do chasing their pipe dream.

The reason for this is very simple. The fantasy series The Dragonlance Chronicles summed it up very well with a single sentence: Evil devours its own. Evil by its very nature must fight even against itself. Look at the mighty Communist movement that was going to unite the world but by the late 50s had divided into two hostile camps (China and Russia). Islam is divided into two camps as well that are killing each other all through the Islamic world. (The same could be said of Apostate Christianity though that has eased up in the last couple of centuries.)

I used to spend some time at conspiracy sites, giggling a little bit and rolling my eyes alot, though every now and then you saw something that made you stop and think, that was actually quite rare.

Some of the more absurd sites are

The Enterprise Mission where former NASA scientist Richard Hoagland tries to prove that NASA is controled by the Cult of Osiris (which was also partially responsible for Hitler). He has some great pictures on this site, and occasionally something worth reading but the man himself ... well let's not go there. (He is still going on about the face on Mars and how NASA faked the recent photos). I quit regularly visiting his site quite a while ago. He hasn't adjusted his views.

Rumormill News: This site is a real beauty. They will post anything by anyone and if you think some blogs are crazy you ought to see what winds up here.

Like I said, I do believe in conspiracies, but I do not believe that there is one grand conspiracy that explains everything. Instead we have dozens of small conspiracies that keep each other occupied while they dream their delusions of grandeur.