Eric left a really good comment about conspiracy theory, which reads in part:
I thought I had it all figured out (oh yeah, I’ll go live in the mountains, be free to grow my own food, build my flying machine, hack away to my heart’s content), but then the demons had to speak up: “that’s just what they WANT you to do!â€
And if it is, is that a bad thing?
I’ve been thinking about this a whole lot myself lately. Especially as I’ve dug deeper and deeper into the roots of drugs, counter-culture, & the New Age movement. Maybe I’m just seeing what I want to see, but there appears to be mounting evidence that the “bad guys” had a hand in designing and unfurling a lot of things I’d always held up as kind of heroic examples of resistance and freedom of expression.
What it really makes me wonder though is: Am I just playing right into their plans? And I’ll tell you what, it’s quite a little mental trap to wiggle around in. Cause I’ve conditioned myself to such a degree to be anti-establishment or anti-whatever, that if I found out I was functioning right on schedule according to their deeper plans, I’m not sure what I would do. Does that mean I would just renounce all the questions and become a Republican? Obviously it doesn’t mean that, but you see where I’m going… What is there to rebel against if the things that I’ve come to champion are not only fully sanctioned, but quite possibly according to somebody else’s design?
When I sit down and look at my own personal development and the development of my ideas, I have this overwhelming sense of: I’m in charge - I’ve called all the shots - This all comes from me. But what if we’ve all been subtly herded into this current mindspace towards some particular end? Does it matter if we came here on our own if this is where “they” (or at least some of “them”) actually want us to be?
If Tim Leary did work for the CIA, does that mean he didn’t also have a positive effect on millions of people? If the government was using Abstract Expressionism as a propaganda tool, does that mean they aren’t still some cool paintings? If Terence McKenna worked for the Rockefellers, isn’t he still a genius and a liberator? If Joseph Campbell helped create a social engineering program, doesn’t he still have some awesome ideas?
It’s a really weird thing to think about and ultimately probably useless. But I think it’s functioning very nicely as part of my larger self-assessment that I’m going through. Imagining this possibility, whether I believe it or choose to retain it for any period of time, is helping me to re-evaluate everything I thought I know. It’s giving me a chance to turn everything upside down and see what shakes loose. Maybe after I’ve done that, I’ll be able to know what’s really mine, and whether that even really matters.
- END -
ASSOCIATED CONTENT @TMBCHR (Auto-Generated)
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- The Cowardice of Conspiracy
15 Comments
tim ,it`s ok…. a counter-culture is still a culture and no matter what there are some really cool paintings. be thankful your eyes are looking and seeing in such a way as to recognise that. who knows what leary was about. the irish will to be contrary can be frustrating to get your head around, at the best of times. keep digging though, this mind appreciates it.
What I’ve begun to notice and write about recently is how the conspiracy culture seems to break into a couple of philosophical thrusts which cross polinate and struggle against each other, and present their disinct visions of the human future, at the same time as they both seem to pull humans away from a balanced and harmonious relationship to our inner and outer worlds.
there’s the luciferic strain, which is rooted in angelic visitation, aliens, gnostic rebellion against matter and limitation, lsd, the new age and the 60’s counter culture. and while this is the knee-jerk superior option for most of us, it’s a kind of an implied trap leading into delusion, fantasy and escapism, abdicating the material world.
on the other hand we have the ahrimanic strain which is all about materialism, mechanism, propaganda, media manipulation, mechanisation of the inner and outer being, culminating in nanotechnology, mind control, and totallly propagandised social spaces.
Maybe the opposition of the thrusts, the sheer disparity of it all is the point - it’s a creative dynamic leading to a new and different place altogether, which can only be built out of dismantling the pieces of the old
hell, mang, if you really wanna get turned around, what if it’s the ‘elites’ that are being played by the good guys and not vice-versa? we always assume that the con is this top-down structure and that the establishment-types are doing the duping, but what if the modus operandi of the invisible gnostic underground is actually ‘conning the con’? so, like in the case of rockefeller, what if he was conned by the IGU into thinking he needed to start abstract expressionism as a propaganda tool but they really had an underlying motive, which was to disseminate abstract expressionism into the world by duping the Black Iron Prison into thinking it needed it?
hell, this is an interesting concept . . . .
I LOVE IT! Then they got tricked into thinking they could use acid to control people, and then, BLAM! Perfect. You da man, Jeremy!
I love a good conspiracy theory for the same reason I like a good myth…not because it is literally true but because it reveals larger truths about human interactions with one another.
In fact, I prefer conspiracy over myth because conspiracy theorists strive to make their theories believable whereas most mythmakers strive for the opposite (e.g. the futuristic special effects of lucas’s Star Wars movie-myths).
Just like we have to be careful not to start thinking of myths as literally true, we shouldn’t think of conspiracies as literally true.
For example, my view on conspiracy theories has always been informed by an offhand remarck I heard G. Gordon Liddy(of all people) make about 10 years ago. In response to a caller who asked about the existence of secret societies in Washington, DC. He said that “sure all these groups exist, they are all very active and influential, but none of them have ruled or will rule the world because they are more interested in competing with one another and petty infighting.”
I think that is useful to keep in mind whenever one delves into conspiracies.
In a way I think conspiracy theorizing provides us with the comforting notion that human beings are in control. The conspirators may be evil, but at least we can still claim that our species (or some bipedal variant from elsewhere) is in control. Conspiracy theories allow people a way to avoid dealing with the frightening possibility that human beings as a species are NOT in control, in fact no one is. In a way it is paradoxically related to some adults’ desire to return to their childhood - when mom and dad could take care of everything. Of course, this return is framed in a negative way - the loss of individual freedom thanks to the nefarious conspirators. But on some level I think the conspiracy theorist derives psychic satisfaction from actually believing that some identifiable group is in CONTROL.
I think it’s important to remember that even elites are human. Therefore, it is not impossible for an elite to like abstract expressionism on its own terms, and therefore fund it. Human beings, including elites, love beauty.
But, going along with Jeremy’s comment, the seeds of rebellion are always contained in any control structure. Even the archons reflect the light of Sophia. Our subconscious always rebels against the designs of the ego.
the Lsd thing is a good example:
the Ahrimanic intelligence agencies disseminate lsd for the purposes of control research, but it backfires into a Luciferian drop-out from the social control mechanism, but as the mechanism tightens it’s grip toward the end of the sixties, the drops outs either become marginalised escapists, or they end up feeding ideas back into the machine. the bay area was the cradle of the computing revolution, after all… which spawned all kind of surveilance tech and military weponry, but also the mass information exchange of the internet, just in time for the closure of the media around the gulf war I, leading to the schism we have now where the machine has more or less safely sequestered us in our digital ghetto, where we will eventually come up with the means to break out of the machine again…
On the question of “Do I really like what I like because I like it, or because some force wants me to?”
What’s the difference?
We’re acted upon by innumerable forces: History, programming, astrology, chemicals in the environment and within our bodies, etc. There is no way to be uninfluenced.
The best thing to remember is simple answers are fine, even if contradictory. The problem is when you get to simple, coherent answers, and then stop looking.
I like Firefly. I hate Fox. Something I hate made something I like. If I was consistent, this would bother me. But, I believe six impossible things before breakfast, so I’m fine.
What tickles my funny bone about this stuff is the question:
Are there altruistic moles in these secret orders?
Types whom grew up in the dark system, have played the game all of their lives, but are intetionally are ciphers in the order out of chaos.
Thus a guy like Leary (I don`t assume to know his motives), whom acknowledges the covert power structure in the CIA, but uses it to advance positive changes.
Secondly, I believe that humans are not infallible. Thus no matter what kind of Utopic vision some may have of a one world order of consumer zombies attached to technological control - systems, people always fuck up one time or another.
Good stuff to think about…
You’re the authority
driving to work today, a thought crossed my mind that never occurred to me in all the years since I can remember. having been raised in the Age of AIDS, my attitude towards sexuality is shared by many in my age range, but not by Baby Boomers who used to get “free love” in the ’60’s and ’70’s. Their attitude is one of wistfulness and a longing to return to a “simpler time”, whereas myself and my peers views sex as a positive thing that can have awful, deadly repercussions…
My only conspiratorial thoughts about AIDS up until now have been the usual lot: was it engineered by men as population control? as a genocide tool, or a way to eradicate homosexuals and deviants?
Then, the epiphany hit me– no matter what people think or postulate, it is a FACT that AIDS has worked as a definite sort of thought control. My attitude towards promiscuous people, for example, is that if they’re not careful, they’ll catch AIDS. And yet, I’ve never known anyone personally who had it. I’ve met people who had it, but they were not close associates.
To try and find out who engineered it, if anyone actually did, seems almost pointless now. I look at the younger generations, and they are gravitating back to the Boomer sex attitude– promiscuity is going up among the kids. They know about AIDS too, but they aren’t as scared as we were. In fact, they are getting downright risky.
This is the backlash of such a system of thought control, and it makes me wonder if it is an undesired side effect… or the actual endgame of a bigger enterprise…
Your thoughts?
someone once said that if you can imagine something happening, no matter how strange it may seem, it`s happening somewhere.
I used to play that game all the time when I was bored.
Just randomly noting that someone right NOW - Is snorting cocao puffs up his nose!
Good times….
well, no, not that strange……………………..
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