Conspiranoia!: The Mother of All Conspiracy Theories
by Devon Jackson
Amazon.com


Editorial Reviews

From Library Journal
Jackson, a journalist who has written for the New York Times and Vanity Fair, has composed an inventive but confusing encyclopedic book of conspiracy theories. Jackson's main innovation is to group sub-theories into larger conspiracies, such as "The Master Plan." But since he uses icons to classify theories, readers will need to go back and forth between the table of contents and the chapters to track their interests. And although the text contains a vast number of historical dates and names, Jackson intentionally includes no footnotes. The book should please conspiranoiacs because everyone--from Bill Gates to the Pope--is a potential conspirator; but it's peppered with too many phrases like "insiders say...." There are other books that provide source citations, like Robert Anton Wilson's Everything Is Under Control (LJ 8/98) and Jonathan Vankin and John Whalen's The 60 Greatest Conspiracies of All Time (Citadel, 1996. rev. ed.) and The 70 Greatest Conspiracies of All Time (Citadel, 1998. rev. ed.). Both are easier to follow than this volume. Public libraries may want to consider.
-Kimberly A. Bateman, Broward Cty. Lib., Deerfield Beach, FL
Copyright 2000 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Kirkus Reviews
The Truth Is In Here: a dense handbook of contemporary conspiracy theory, obsessively cross-referenced, the ideal millennial index to all the terrors of the fin de sicle. Former Details editor Jackson has an impressively multidimensional understanding of the oft-obscured relationship between archaic, ancient underground bodies like Freemasonry, Cabalists, Illuminati, and the Knights of Malta and such disturbing modern phenomena as the military-industrial complex, Scientology, the Klan, J. Edgar Hoover, neo-Nazis, the Trilateral Commission, and George Bush. He extends this grid along cultural and political vectors, and in the process constructs a Pynchonesque web of conspiracies both familiar (the Kennedy and King assassinations) and obscure (secretive New World Order collectives like the Bohemian Club and Bilderbergers). His choice of a guidebook format (each chapter proposing an evanescent overall conspiracy, in which all relevant paragraphs are cross-referenced by pictogram to the other conspiracy chapters) makes the material easier to grasp than a narrative like Gravitys Rainbow, but strangely numbs the unease that much of it provokes. Jacksons buzz-friendly nature demonstrates how such conspiracy culture - once personal, therefore unsettling - has been vitiated by the public mode of entertainment, in which myth becomes inseparable from malfeasance, the vital nature of malign conspiracy arguably reduced to simulacra. Whats missing is any effort to perform a larger, graver task: to figure out which of these malicious netherworlds of corruption might still be brought to account by an increasingly fractious, distracted citizenry. All that said, Jackson's debut remains a page-turner. His entries are concise, detailed, and occasionally hilarious, and they shed necessary light on many shameful episodes of our recent history (such as the CIAs Operation Paperclip, in which top Nazis were smuggled out of Europe to aid in the Cold War). Even readers skeptical of these looming conspiratorial structures may find such material too compelling for comfort. A thoughtful gift for anybody you suspect is considering relocation to rural Montana, or a bomb shelter. (75 photos and line drawings, 21 maps) -- Copyright ©1999, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.

Book Description
Conspiranoia (ken - spir - e - noi' - e): The tendency on the part of an individual or group toward rational or irrational, justifiable or excessive suspiciousness and distrustfulness of others based on the belief that others have joined in a secret agreement to commit an unlawful or wrongful act, or to keep the truth, as the believer sees it, secret. (from the introduction to Conspiranoia!)

What do Pan Am flight 103, JFK, mercury fillings, the Mars Pathfinder, Henry Luce, The Grateful Dead, Teletubbies, and Mad Cow Disease all have in common? The answer to this question is clearly that they are all, in some highly explosive, ultra-confidential fashion, related. Conspiranoia! does what no other conspiracy book has done before: it connects all the dots. Arranged by subject matter, it opens with "The Master Plan" and then branches off into twenty of the world's most famous conspiracy theories, showing through the use of intricate maps how everything and everyone is connected. Conspiranoia! is the perfect mixture of family tree, road map, encyclopedia, and guidebook to delight conspiracy fans and skeptics alike. It happily follows along on any and all of the paper trails, and cheekily grants license to myth as well as fact.

About the Author
Devon Jackson has had his hand on the pulse of the fringe for the past decade. Whether hanging out with people who love serial killers or tagging along with the so-called Sovereign Citizens of New York City, Jackson tackles head-on the subject matter that most journalists don't even go near. He has written for the Village Voice, Outside, Rolling Stone, The New York Times, Vanity Fair, Entertainment Weekly, Worth, and People. He is a former editor for Details and lives in Santa Fe, New Mexico.

Amazon.com: Conspiranoia!: The Mother of All Conspiracy Theories: Devon Jackson: Books

The Truth is Out There… Way Out There
by George Case
Skeptics Society
December 30th, 2004


The following is an article on conspiracy theories, by George Case, who has published numerous Op-Ed pieces in the Vancouver Sun daily newspaper, and is also the author of a speculative novel titled Silence Descends: The End of the Information Age 2000-2500 , published in 1997 by Arsenal Pulp Press to positive reviews in the U.S. and Canada. E-mail: georgcas@vpl.ca

The peak popularity of the television series The X-Files, and the initial Internet-boosted acceleration of the Information Revolution are behind us, but their legacies live on, in the pervasive familiarity of the conspiracy theory. Indeed, the trust-no-one phenomenon is today so much a part of our culture that it has become an object of suspicion: recent books such as Daniel Pipes’ Conspiracy: How the Paranoid Style Flourishes and Where it Comes From, Robert Anton Wilson’s Everything is Under Control: Conspiracies, Cults, and Cover-Ups, and Devon Jackson’s Conspiranoia! The Mother of All Conspiracy Theories, dissect the history, nature, and function of phobic fantasies in all their sprawling interconnectedness. Yet conspiracy theories—let’s call them CTs—remain almost routine elements of our socio-political discourse, even if few of their exponents would describe them as such, and even if fewer of us recognize one when we see it. Why?

A lot of CTs’ attractiveness, logicians will say, is in their dexterity at skirting the basic rules of deduction and inference. The world is complicated; many arguable factors contribute to events; CTs simplify things enormously and with great flair. Psychologists might add that the sheer randomness of modern life is so distressing that CTs offer a weirdly reassuring “master narrative” no longer provided by religion. No matter how malevolent the alleged String-Pullers are said to be, they are perhaps less scary than the thought of no String-Pullers at all. And rhetoricians may remind us that CTs are a kind of all-purpose argument winner, inevitably shutting down further debate by invoking sinister, shadowy agents whose very elusiveness confirms their existence and influence. Through all of these—supposition, evasion, innuendo—CTs work, in journalism, education, political activism, and ordinary conversation. But they aren’t infallible: studied carefully, they form patterns, fall into categories, and hide errors of reason and common sense. A brief field guide to their habits may help detect them before they turn dangerous.

Hidden Connection CTs
George H. W. Bush and Osama bin Laden have shared interests in a Saudi oil company. Lee Harvey Oswald was seen in his future killer Jack Ruby’s Dallas nightclub. A numerical translation of Bill Gates’ full name adds up to 666. Or, the synchronicities found in any daily newspaper, e.g. “Unexpected Shutdown of Corruption Inquiry” on page one, and “Lawyer’s Death Called Foul Play” on page ten. As Hidden Connections, such links are essentially twisted chains of circumstantial evidence, whereby any tenuous overlaps of time, place, and incident become proof of deliberate collusion. But all of us are never more than a few relationships removed from everyone else (the so-called “six degrees of separation”), and putative causes and effects are always happening around each other, especially in hindsight; a really compelling Hidden Connection would accurately predict a future event, rather than employing the hindsight bias by stringing together a disparate assortment of dots after the fact. Chance, simultaneity, and accidents are never conceded by Hidden Connection spotters, and their only conclusion is the ultimate hanging question, “Coincidence? You be the judge.” In the court of Hidden Connection CTs, a verdict of “Guilty” is never in doubt.

Manipulated Media CTs
At their most sensible these might reflect the view that print and broadcast news and entertainment outlets have an interest in maintaining a stable, none-too-critical audience of pliant consumers. But towards the fringe the Manipulated Media message is less “Don’t believe everything you hear,” and more “Don’t believe anything you hear,” with the straightforward truth—that trivial material can distract people from serious matters—embellished into a scenario where all information is mere propaganda that obscures government or corporate misdeeds. Implicit here is the assumption of a single entity called “the media” that can be wholly hijacked by a single body, giving us deathless slurs like “The Jews control Hollywood” (did they steal it from the Amish?). Thus the inconvenient responsibility of informing oneself through one or many of the thousands of publicly available news and opinion sources is dismissed. Manipulated Media CTs are a favorite of anyone who hasn’t seen their own ideology spelled out in banner headlines or heard it echo back from the six o’clock news. Nowadays given a wide forum in the free-for-all of the Internet, their odd irony is that it’s only ever through the media that we’re told how spun, suppressed, and censored the media is.

They Know Everything CTs
This posits that important figures behind closed doors instigate or are aware of impending disasters, but allow or encourage them to precipitate some broader, beneficial (to them) outcome. The Iraq war (started by the U.S. to guarantee its oil supply), the September 11 attacks (sanctioned by the CIA to kick start an American pipeline project in Afghanistan) are only the latest fodder for such speculation. Oliver Stone’s film JFK may represent its supreme example. The problem with They Know Everything CTs is that these kinds of elaborately murderous schemes are hardly the most effective or predictable means of steering the tides of history. It has been pointed out, for example, that if Franklin D. Roosevelt knew the Japanese were about to attack Pearl Harbor but let them proceed because he wanted a pretext for U.S. entry into World War II, why wouldn’t he have prevented the attack at the last minute? Wouldn’t an intercepted “surprise” have produced the same result as a successful one? Similarly, was atomizing several thousand New Yorkers an obvious, practical step to the commercial exploitation of Central Asian gas reserves? And why would the U.S. military shoot down TWA 800 over Long Island, with so many potential witnesses? And would assassinating John F. Kennedy on a sunny afternoon safely ensure his successor’s dragging the U.S. arms industry into a profitable Vietnam War? If They—whoever They are—really Know Everything, would They gamble so big on such catastrophic rolls of the dice? And how good are They at conspiring if Their cover gets blown so easily and so widely?

The blunt truth is that conspiracy theories very seldom make a solid case. Either they play on pre-existing prejudices (how corrupt you already take the government / the media / big business to be), or contradict each other (if the Iraq war is all about Halliburton contracts, then it can’t be about Judeo-Christian millennial fanatics within the Bush administration; if the Mafia killed JFK, then the Freemasons are off the hook), or defy rational dispute (so the more the supposed conspiracy is denied, the more obviously there is one). CTs do not admit the glum, unresolved reality that public and private officials of good will may make single mistakes that spin vast webs of unintended consequences, nor do they allow that the likelihood of a few cynical individuals covertly trumping the infinite variables of human and organizational interaction, and never getting caught at it, is pretty slim. For all their curiously gratifying implications (“We didn’t lose; they cheated,” sums up Daniel Pipes), they permit us to forfeit our rights as engaged, aware citizens by insisting on a permanently skewed, nothing-is-as-it-seems order. If conspirators are running the world, then why bother to read, vote, think, discuss, act, progress? Today, more than ever, we should be demanding straight answers to our questions. Whether or not we think of them as “conspiracy theories,” glib brushoffs about Hidden Connections, about a Manipulated Media, and about how They Know Everything, are no longer good enough.

http://www.skeptic.com/eskeptic/04-1...l#conspiracies

I Still can't see how a jet could crash through such a narrow hole as was on the side of the Pentagon and how the two towers collapsed neatly on to their bases when usually a explosives specialist have to blast the steel supports of tall buildings in sequence to bring the structure down i a similar manner

The relevant question is "why": why would Bush or Cheney or neocons or whoever choose this method to achieve their ends? Was this the only possible way to change government policy, or whatever they were trying to do? Was Bush that desperate to change his public image?

And why are conspiracy theorists usually people with no experience of science or government? Do you really think it's possible to fool the entire U.S. bureaucracy? Do you really understand the technical issues involved in destroying high-rise office towers?

Conspiracy theorists pretend to be experts on everything, when they're usually ignorant paranoid nobodies, in my humble opinion. And how about the way they provide a distraction from real issues, how is this helpful?

Regardless of "why" this method was chosen, it worked. Apparently, many people actually believe the government conspiracy version of 9/11 events that, among other things, 19 hijackers took over a few planes and took out the Twin Towers and damaged the Pentagon all without generating any action from the U.S. government or military. Why? Because everyone was confused as to whether what was being reported by air traffic controllers was "real life" or "training" due to an actual training exercise occuring simultaneously and protraying similar scenarios.

The documents that you provided in the previous discussion proved the contentions of the "conspircy theorist" scientists that you pooh-poohed, namely that the Twin Towers were the first steel towers in history to completely collapse due to fire. The facts be damned!!

Accidental theorists, skeptics, and supporters of the government's conspiracy version "argue" by belittling and mocking conspiracy "theorists," by asking apparently "rhetorical" questions such as "Do you really believe that the U.S. government would do that to the American people?," and by repeatedly claiming that conspiracy theories "distract from the real issues."

First of all, I realize that it's necessary to resort to insults when your own data proves our points. I understand.
Second, yes, I do believe a government could commit an atrocity such as 9/11 on its own people. Read history.
Third, if we are right about 9/11 and you try to shut us up, then you are part of the coverup. What could be a realer issue than a government duping its people into going into (pre-planned) wars, allowing thousands to be killed in those wars, and curtailling liberty in the name of protecting freedom?

What we are seeing here is a daily education on why universal suffrage is a huge mistake. We have a government elected by females and nutters.

Blessings

Bob

Much of the aluminum becomes melted metal or flamible vapor upon impact at 500 mph. The crash is not like a 50 mph crash. The wings vanish. Heavy steel engines etc., smash through, and the hole in the Pentagon was as wide as those parts. But there is almost nothing left of an airplane after a 500 mph crash, no bodies. A few bits of aluminum will be blown free, and some heavy steel and titanium parts weill be left in the wreckage. That is what to look for in a 500 mph crash. We are used to seeing the wreckage of low speed crashes, but few of us have experience looking at the wreckage of high speed 500 mph airplane crases. Part of the reason is that there are few such high speed crashes, and part of the reason is that there isn't enough airplane wreckage (or bodies) left to look at when that does happen.



I can see how you have trouble understanding it because the towers DID NOT come down on their bases. They spread out over many acres of the plaza area, and pushed through to fill up several stores of underground garage and subway area beneath. One tower fell beyond the plaza and destoyed a 50 story building across the street, building 7. Big multi-story pieces of steel were left standing.

An explosives demolition likely would have attacked near the bottom, and deliberatly tried to just tip them over like trees. That is what the 1993 Al-Queda attack tried to do. But the collapse began near the top, where the airplanes hit them. Could a government conspiracy plant explosives in secret that would survive an airplane crash and fire and then be able to begin a collapse on the same floors? Unlikely.

A building demolition expert MIGHT have been able to drop such buildings into their own footprints, but the WTC towers covered the whole plaza area and across the street to take out a large building there.

Blessings

Bob

Akuus, you realize that accusing someone of a conspiracy like this (mass murder) is the same as a woman making a false accusation of rape

Do you really want to reject traditions of scientific/legal/logical analysis developed over centuries by men of good will? Isn't this simply surrendering to emotionalism?

Conspiracy theorizing/Intelligent Design/paranormal speculation: I don't see any functional difference in the irrationality of these subjects

And people who can't laugh at themselves (like feminists) are immature imo

Really? Wow. Would you care to add some logical commentary to that "analogy" to flesh it out a little? What you are saying is: Some (most?) women who make rape claims are lying; therefore, all conspiracy theories are false. Hmmm....

How have we conspiracy realists done that? The only credible evidence anyone on this site from the anti-conspiracy crowd has offered is this:

Here is another survey of multi-story buildings that collapsed
http://www.haifire.com/presentations...pse_Survey.pdf

The thing is, this proves the point of that the WTC was the "first building in hisotry to collapse from fire."

Look at the link and you will find the following:

Building Structure # of Floors Hours Burned Result

WTC TT's Steel 110/110 1, 1.5 Total/total
Alexis Nihon Steel 15 5 Partial 11th floor
1st NY Plaza Steel 50 ? Several beams fell
1 Meridian Steel 38 18 Damage to 9 floors
Broadgate Steel 14 4.5 ?
1st Interstate Steel 62 3.5 Damage to 4 floors

You accidental theorists are the ones who are resorting to emotionalism and demogoguery with slander, mockery, ad hominem tactics and red herring comments.

Wow.
Conspiracy theory- about conspiracies
Intelligent Design- about creation vs. evolution
Paranormal Speculation- about ghosts, et. al.

What's the connection? We CT's aren't asking you to believe in creation, evolution or Caspar the Friendly Ghost. We are asking you to acknowledge some of the basics of human nature and history.

For example, do you believe that power corrupts people who have it, has no effect on their inherent nature, or somehow purifies them?

Also, if you will recognize commonly accepted historical conspiracies (conspiracy- a plot, an agreement among people who conspire. conspire- to join in a secret agreement to do an unlawful or wrongful act, to scheme) such as the cattle range wars of the American southwest in the 1800's to take land; the use of eminent domain or other forms of coercion to aquire land for railroads, oil, and now shopping plazas; Benedict Arnold and Quisling's acts of betrayal; insider trading; organized crime, etc., why do you doubt that presidents, prime ministers, kings, queens, diplomats and international bankers would not scheme, plot or conspire to engage in activity that would harm their own people and others for power and profit? What happens when one rises to such a level in the hierarchy? Does one suddenly become immune to greed, corruption, and blackmail?

I assume this comment refers to mine about the use of mockery to "discredit" CT's. The point is that you people have to resort ot mockery because history, science, and logic are not on your side. If they were, you would stick to the facts.