From Abracadabra to Zombies

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reader comments: illuminati

30 Nov 2004
I read with interest the unsigned rant recently posted as feedback to the Illuminati page, and found it very typical of the sort of language you usually hear from disciples of Alex Jones.

Jones happens to hail from my hometown of Austin, Texas, so I have some experience with him. While he may be, in his own way, oddly sincere in what he believes and in the ideas he promulgates, his main tactic can be described as pure fear-mongering. Like believers in the paranormal, he starts from his conclusions (the government is out to get us) and looks for "evidence" to support them. Not surprisingly, he finds exactly what he wants, as virtually anything the government does (and in their frequent ineptitude they do much that is jaw-droppingly stupid that plays right into PCT hysteria) can interpreted into a suitably frightening gloom-and-doom scenario.

Jones' followers, like your nameless correspondent (for all I know he signed his letter then asked you not to print his name for fear the storm troopers would come for him, am I right?), view him and others like him as infallible, which means that the PCT movement is as much about cult of personality as it is about pandering to weird pathological needs in some to fear the government.

Jones, who doesn't work for a living, makes a handy bit of coin off his videos and tapes. I belong to a mailing list that was recently invaded by a Jones disciple, and his behavior was extraordinary. He considered himself a champion of skepticism and derided us for lacking "true skepticism" because we didn't believe his PCT claims unquestioningly. "True skepticism" is only that which is directed toward government claims; claims in opposition to the official story are worthy of belief simply because they are in opposition. Our suggestions that Jones and other purveyors of PCT scripture might not be infallible was met with increasingly shrill and abusive outbursts, which had the added irony of being accompanied by projections of his own behavior onto us. He eventually proved so insufferable he was kicked from the list, all the while insisting we were the government dupes and abusers and he the abused. Claiming the unassailability of his status as a skeptic all along, he never once entertained a notion any skeptic should: that he (and by extension, Jones and the other PCT figureheads he followed) could possibly be wrong.

Your letter writer seems the same. He makes numerous, increasingly far fetched claims for which he presents no specific evidence of his own. He emphasizes key words in all caps, for better emotional emphasis. Predictably, he simply insists you surf Alex's site. If Alex Jones or Myron Fagan say it's true, it must be true. That's it. He claims to have pictures of "FEMA detention camps" but presents none of them. (And if he did, they'd probably be as believable as the "OKC Ryder bomb truck in an Army compound" photo our guy tried to pass off to us.) He says the UN has documents detailing all sorts of nefarious plans to wipe us out, but presents none of them. And not once does he consider how it might even be scientifically possible for an implanted microchip to be used to control a human mind. These claims are made by the PCT scripture, and are believed, and that is that. Christian fundamentalists have a favorite bumper sticker: "The Bible says it. I believe it. That settles it." Replace "Bible" with "Alex Jones" and you have the PCT mindset in a nutshell.

Let me close with a thought. Assuming for a second the PCT's are right, it occurs to me that there are two practical approaches to the situation. Either take up arms and fight to the bitter end against the oncoming menace, or do nothing, and sit back waiting for the evil shadowy government assassins and UN mind controllers to kill us all. Alex Jones repeatedly stresses he does not condone the former (especially after one of his disciples was arrested in 2002, heavily armed and dressed in a homemade superhero costume, trespassing on the Bohemian Grove grounds looking for devil worshipers). Which leads me to ask, what's the point of the PCT industry, if not merely to exploit and encourage irrational fear — the better to sell books and videos?

Martin Wagner

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24 Jun 2004
Read your attempt to discredit believers in the "Illuminati". Especially Myron Fagan. Nowhere do you refute any of his sources or charges. That is because they are true and verifiable. Not all "conspiracy theorists" have all their facts straight and many make illogical and outrageous charges. Yet that is the case with any movement. But Myron Fagan is not one of them. Also, you might want to check out Alex Jones' website www.infowars.com I believe you'll have much trouble debunking him because all he does is take mainstream news articles and show the agenda. He backs up EVERYTHING he puts out. It's all verifiable. You pride your website on it's use of logic and critical thinking. Can any truly rational person, with any scintilla of logical ability, who can make connections via mosaic theory etc., refute that we are truly heading towards a one world fascistic gov't state as designed by the globalist elite? ALL YOU NEED TO DO READ THEIR OWN QUOTES !

Why do we have RFID tracking chips being planned for every product? Why is there an Army War College position paper that talks of the inevitable implanting of every American with microchips for purposes of mind control and tracking? DON'T BELIEVE ME? Go to infowars.com and put in the search engine and you'll get a link to the article. Why is LA and NY trying out a test program to FORCIBLY embed RFID chips in the homeless? MAJOR MEDIA NEWSTORY. AP I believe. Why are there FEMA detention camps (I have pictures) manned by NATO/U.N. troops on American soil? Why does the U.N.'s OWN documents declare that national sovereignty, private property and individual rights must come to an end? Why do the U.N.'s own docs say that we need an 80% reduction in population by whatever means necessary?

I have many more questions and facts. Bt let me tell you this. I've done my research. And if you don't think there is a cabal of world leaders and elite bankers and politicians who want to see the DESTRUCTION of the U.S. - then you have your head in the sand!

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11 Nov 2002
The phrase "new world order" actually may originate from the statements made by Franklin D. Roosevelt and Winston Churchill. The outcome of WWII was clearly going to dictate the new world order and balance of powers, and the establishment of the U.N. was seen as a means of continuing the unprecedented cooperation and merging of national interests by providing an ongoing diplomatic forum that would continue to operate in peacetime, and the establishment of the Security Counsel with unilateral veto powers a means of further refining who the conquering powers felt they had to keep close counsel with. The allied military command of WWII headed by Eisenhower as Supreme Commander (directing both British and American forces) kind of laid the foundations for NATO.

A speech given by Franklin D. Roosevelt shortly after he signed the Lend-Lease Act (committing resources and aid to Britain in order to fend off the Nazi onslaught) remarks of Nazi Germany -

"These men and their hypnotized followers call this a new world order. It is not new, and it is not order." (Washington, D.C., March 15, 1941)

In the years following WWII, Winston Churchill made several remarkable speeches concerning the newly globalized community and the direction it should take, the role of the U.N. as a policing force, etcetera, most notably in his "Sinews of Peace" speech wherein he warns of an "Iron Curtain" falling over the Soviet held territories of Eastern Europe.

So, if the paranoid Illuminati conspiracy buffs really want to find who to blame for the international shadow government with its fleet of black helicopters, they need look no further than Winston Churchill and FDR (followed by Truman), the men who conceived of and implemented their own New World Order, which may not actually look so bad compared to the Nazi version that would have chiefly entailed the death or enslavement of most of the world's population.

Edward

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07 Dec 2000 
First of all I am not religious in any way, do not believe in the paranormal, I am not paranoid and I am certainly not mentally disturbed.

What does disturb me is the way in which you have everyone stereotyped into categories i.e. PCT's just because they happen to believe in a theory that is not taught or mentioned at school or college, or is not mentioned in written and broadcasted media.

reply: I hope I've given more justification for my belief that the illuminati are no longer real than that this notion is not taught in school or a topic in the mainstream mass media.

I happen to believe that maybe there is some truth in the concept of the "Illuminati" and it's goals i.e. total control, one world government etc. Although I do not believe in the witchcraft or the paranormal side of this theory. The reason for me believing this is not only due to the fact that everything in the media, written and broadcasted, fits in with the Illuminati theory even to this day. i.e. the election in the States, the way in which the election of the so called most powerful man in the world is being reduced to a farce. I also happen to live and work in UK for an American investment company (the companies insignia is the same as that can be found on the dollar bill and the same as that of British Intelligence, maybe coincidence) It is supposedly the largest in the world in terms of assets. Whilst working for this company within the IT department I have come to notice on numerous instances certain things that don't add up, all of which tie in with the theory. I can not go into detail, not because of facts or evidence (which I could get) but because I have signed certain confidentiality agreements and I'm sure you could find out who I am quite easily.

So please do not class me as a PCT's, but please try to maybe be a bit more open minded. And for all we know you and your web site could be set up to discredit the theorist anyway, by the way isn't all known science based on theories? Have you tested all these theories yourself, or do you dismiss them all as well?
Dan, UK

reply: Dan is right. I could be part of the Illuminati conspiracy. Perhaps I haven't written all this material in The Skeptic's Dictionary. Maybe it's just a front used to hook people or a smokescreen to set them off track. Dan's got his evidence he can't tell us about, so I can't comment on that. I will say, though, that (a) it is easy to find evidence to support just about any theory; and (b) some PCTs may turn out to be right once in a while, like Hillary Clinton's "vast right wing conspiracy." (See pp. 72-73 of my Becoming a Critical Thinker).)

illuminati