Going back to the sixteenth century it is almost certain that, in different ways, John Dee, Giordano Bruno and Christopher Marlowe were all spies. – A Brief History of Secret Societies: An Unbiased History of…
David V. Barrett on the Chinese secret societies
The entire history of secret societies in China exemplifies the saying, ‘One man’s terrorist (or brigand, or bandit) is another man’s freedom fighter’. Many of these societies raised and maintained the devotion if their members…
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David V. Barrett on, er, rocket science
In a curious aside, [Aleister] Crowley was a significant influence on L/ Ron Hubbard, creator of the psychoanalytic system of Dianetics and founder of the controversial Church of Scientology. In 1945 Hubbard stayed for some…
Fail better
Насущныя составляющія конспирологическаго мышленiя – компилированіе и(ли) разработка нѣкихъ собственныхъ методическихъ указаній, которыя будутъ служить своего рода эрзацъ-картиной міра, съ одной стороны, и уменіе обнаруживать факты, имъ противурѣчащія, съ другой (см. также). Вотъ, къ примѣру,…
David V. Barrett (& Gareth Knight) on the active imagination
One of the main initiatory rituals of the HOGD [the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn]’s Second Order took place in a seven-sided vault based on that in which Christian Rosekreuz’s uncorrupted body is supposed…
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Victoria E. Pagán on Conspiracy vs. Contingency
The best defence against conspiracies, it would seem from both Livy and Tacitus, is fortune, an irrefutable force impervious to contradiction. Yet, it is hollow comfort to concede that the powder keg of contingency is…
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Victoria E. Pagán on how conspiracy theories operate
Tacitus is our only source for the persecution of Christians in 64, and therefore out only source for the earliest state persecution of Christians. Of course, he may have inserted into his narrative an ideological…
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Victoria E. Pagán on parallels
In the story of the death of Germanicus, there are haunting parallels to one of the most notorious conspiracy theories of modern times. A young man of military experience, beloved by the populace and marked…
Бываютъ странныя сближенья
Сдается мнѣ, будто fake news какъ понятіе, описанное въ агиткѣ ниже, – само плодъ теоріи заговора. The concept of ‘fake news’, along with a more eloquent term describing the same subject (‘post-truth’), emerged within the…
David V. Barrett on Rosicrucianism and the USA
The best-known Rosicrucian Orders today are based in the USA; indeed, reading their literature, one could almost be forgiven for thinking that Rosicrucianism is an invention peculiar to the United States; it is so tied…