Say, What?

Illuminati, Whati?

“The truth of this world is that it is actually chaotic. The truth is that it is not The Illuminati, or the Jewish Banking Conspiracy, or the Gray Alien Theory…The truth is far more frightening—Nobody is in charge!

Alan Moore

“History is much more the product of chaos than of conspiracy.” Zbigniew Brezezinski

          I’m hearing more and more conspiracy theories lately. I don’t know whether this is a particularly fertile time for ever more outrageous conspiracy theories, or what, but the internet has become the playground for completely crazy notions—gray aliens, human reptiles, secret cabals and underground networks of oligarchs who rule the world. I just made that last one up, but it makes way more sense than the others. I do know that there are many criminally minded persons who have ways of manipulating systems to keep themselves in power and keep other people down. That’s as old as the Holy Roman Empire—maybe even older. But the truth is that the world, by its very nature, is governed by entropy—because there is always the possibility, actually the probability, that random events will change any circumstance in ways that no one predict.

          Because life is random, and we don’t have control over much of anything, we feel vulnerable and afraid. So, we make up explanations for what might have caused this or that, and since we have an enormous capacity for creativity, they can be completely off the wall. I remember when my children were small, they created storylines for play which always opened with: “Let’s pretend that…” They knew it was play, that it was pretend and not real, but for at least a little while, they could escape into fantasy and have fun. Conspiracy theories are exactly that—escapism for people who are afraid of the world as it is—random and unpredictable.

          We can creatively explain away cruelty, and tragedy, and injustice by creating a fantastic story that has no basis in fact, (i.e. the Democrats are running a child pornography sex-trafficking ring out of a DC pizza parlor!) but if enough people pick it up and run with it, it becomes their reality. The internet has made this exponentially easier.

          I certainly don’t have a solution for this. If it sounds ridiculous, it probably is, and that’s about all I have to offer. When we find ourselves doing what my grandmother called “wool-gathering,” ruminating over something that’s happened, and trying to explain it in ways that we can tolerate, then tune in. Tune in to your own capacity for creative explanation. We make up stories—some plausible, some not—and then tell ourselves they are so. But I haven’t seen any gray aliens lately, have you? And the Illuminati have not painted crosses on my door—of course, my daddy was a Free Mason, so who knows. Maybe I’m being spared. Boy-howdy! It’s a weird world. You hang in there—watch your back! Have a “blessed day.”

                                                  In the Spirit,

                                                  Jane