Despite my intentions to write at least once a week, I’ve not written for a while. I will honestly say that disruptions in my work life got the better of me, with an uncertain future bringing me some mental perturbations. That, and I’ve found myself going down some deep rabbit holes that have not made my worldview any brighter. Indeed the world would appear, under the surface, to be far darker than many would like to imagine.
I’ve long been a fan of alternative theories. It probably started with Graham Hancock’s Fingerprints of the Gods. A book that lays out the case for an alternative pre-history to the human race. A fascinating story that concludes that we are a race with amnesia, and the true story of humanity is written in ancient monuments and out-of-place artefacts that mainstream archaeology tends to hand wave away without exploring their reason for existing. This book opened a mental door for me, what if some of our recorded history is wrong? Or deliberately changed? What is being hidden from us?
Being suspicious of mainstream narratives and seeking alternatives could very well lead you to be labelled as a conspiracy theorist. How does one end up here, and is there a way back?
Wake Up, Neo… The Matrix has you…
The Matrix was a seminal moment for many young minds of my generation (late Generation X). I imagine it also significantly boosted the sales of black leather trenchcoats and wraparound sunglasses. It perhaps brought to conscious thought an underlying feeling of unease that I, and many others, feel in the world today. It’s only natural then for inquiring minds to go seeking answers to explain the unknown or the mysterious. The human race has done this for many tens of thousands of years.
A person’s affinity for conspiracy theories combines many social, psychological and political factors. Conspiracy theories often give simplistic and compelling explanations for complex or unsettling events. It is a coping mechanism to help people make sense of a complex and chaotic world. Some studies have attributed an affinity to conspiracy theories (CT) with lower intelligence (Swami et al. (2014)). This is ironic considering that most CT believers consider themselves critical thinkers, unbound by indoctrination, able to see outside the official narrative and perform amazing feats of pattern recognition. This is partly because pattern recognition relies more on heuristics (from Ancient Greek εὑρίσκω (heurískō) ‘method of discovery’) than analytics, taking mental shortcuts to make quick and efficient decisions based on intuition, and operates almost subconsciously.
This type of thinking is complementary to analytics. Heuristics can lead to initial suspicions but must be followed up by analytics when attempting to prove a theory. The initial part of the process intuits that there is something out of place with the official narrative and can leap to wild conclusions. Take the Moon Landing conspiracy theory as an example. There are multiple theories as to why NASA and the US government might have faked a moon landing; political prestige, Cold War victory, distraction from domestic issues, alien contact, or experimental media manipulation. But the logistics of pulling off such a conspiracy, involving tens of thousands of people, makes it logically implausible. In this instance, I am applying Occam’s Razor. Pluralitas non est ponenda sine necessitate, “plurality should not be posited without necessity.” Or, given two competing theories, the simplest is preferred.
“A man with a conviction is a hard man to change. Tell him you disagree and he turns away. Show him facts or figures and he questions your sources. Appeal to logic and he fails to see your point.”
Jonathan Swift
This is not to say that NASA and the associated government and non-government agencies aren’t hiding something. They are hiding things from the general population and also from the politicians we vote in to supposedly oversee government operations. Files released decades after events show us that operations to safeguard the security of nations have been perverted and used against their citizens. The Five Eyes intelligence alliance, which began as a Cold War intelligence-sharing arrangement has become a pervasive and sinister surveillance system throughout the West. We can thank Snowden for exposing that one.
Factoid: People think the use of the term ‘conspiracy theorist’ was coined by the CIA to dismiss people who doubted the official narrative on the assassination of JFK in 1963, but the term is older than that. Recorded use of the phrase “conspiracy theory” dates back to at least 1863, and it was observed in reports following the 1881 shooting of then-President James A. Garfield, more than 60 years before the CIA was established.

Follow the White Rabbit
While the phrase ‘follow the white rabbit’ appeared first in Lewis Carrol’s Alice in Wonderland, its use in The Matrix was apt and evocative. When Neo opens his apartment door to Dujour (White Rabbit Girl) and her boyfriend Choi, it leads him into a fantastical world filled with strange and intriguing characters, starting a journey that would fundamentally alter his worldview and down unknown roads. This is the route that many seekers of the “truth” take. These paths encourage curiosity and the pursuit of knowledge, stepping out of one’s comfort zone to explore new ideas, experiences and realities.
Stepping back from conspiracy theories we get to conspiracy truths. This is when facts or evidence come to light that confirms the existence of a previously held conspiracy, revealing that certain events or actions were deliberately hidden or misrepresented. Often this is evidence that agencies or governments are far more manipulative or evil than we could imagine (Tuskegee Syphilis Study, Watergate, Snowden’s release of NSA surveillance). Revealing this information is hugely dangerous for anyone involved. Whistleblowers tend to end up ‘suicided’ or ‘removed’ after the release of damaging information. It is often joked that nothing came of the Panama Paper scandal other than to the journalist (Daphne Anne Caruana Galizia) who was assassinated by a car bomb after she reported on it.
You take the blue pill – the story ends, you wake up in your bed and believe whatever you want to believe.
Morpheus – The Matrix
Conspiracy truths lead to several outcomes for people. The first, and probably most common, is burying your head in the sand. Yes, the government lied to us for a century, but this time they are telling the truth. This is the cognitive dissonance that comes from challenging widely accepted narratives, especially the one where governments act for the benefit of the people. Rejecting this new information is the comfortable lie you tell yourself, this is taking the blue pill. Watching this effect from the outside is challenging in and of itself.
The vast majority of people would prefer to remain inside the machine that has controlled their lives from birth. Rejecting a truthful version of reality that conflicts with deeply held beliefs can invoke emotional or psychological reactions. This reaction is similar to the five stages of grief, some people never move past Denial and on to Anger, Bargaining, Depression and Acceptance. I am perhaps coming out of the other side of the Depression stage, highlighted by my recent mindset of which I am painfully aware, and indeed, partly why I use the catharsis of writing to quantify my thinking.
Some, like Cypher, make their bargain with the powers that be and get plugged back in.

Do not try and bend the spoon
The human tendency to see patterns that do not exist is called apophenia. An initial underlying feeling that you are being lied to and subject to propaganda by our governments and media is probably correct. There’s plenty of evidence in the present and the past to justify this train of thought. Unfortunately, once you are convinced of this situation you can start to question everything. Connecting evidence that has no business being connected outside of how society and influence and power have always worked.
That John Kerry and George W. Bush were part of a ‘secret society’ called the Skull and Bones club (Yale University) is publicly available information. With members and initiates supposedly performing bizarre and morbid rituals as part of the ceremonies. Men of influence, money and prestigious lineage running the world is, of course, how it has always been. Yet this (mis)understanding of how upper society functions can lead to wild conjecture on the Illuminati and other shadowy global power structures.
If apophenia gives rise to the perception of causal relationships between events, which are mostly unconnected, and pareidolia gives rise to the same in uncorrelated data, then why does our brain do this to us? This is often a case of ‘false pattern prediction’ that can be understood through studies of cognitive sciences and under the paradigm of predictive coding. This theory posits that the brain is constantly generating and updating a mental model of the environment. This would have been useful as a survival mechanism. It would have allowed early hunter-gatherers to detect anomalies, anticipate danger and avoid harm. It could have been useful socially by allowing us to anticipate the needs and behaviour of other humans. There’s a good indication it would also have been useful for skill acquisition, adaptation to varied environments, route mapping and creating mental models of the surrounding landscape.
“Just because you’re paranoid, doesn’t mean they’re not after you.”
In a world that feels utterly bewilderingly complex at times, finding refuge in conspiracy theories is a coping mechanism. It is fed by cognitive biases such as patternicity and confirmation bias. Believing one CT means you are highly likely to believe others. People who feel like they have no control in life may pick out patterns to find understanding and reduce uncertainty. It is also a response to anxiety and stress as individuals see patterns and connections to make sense of their environment and reduce perceived threats.
Factoid: A 2020 Ipsos poll found that 17% of Americans believed that “a group of Satan-worshipping elites who run a child sex ring are trying to control our politics and media“.

Conclusion
I am of the firm opinion that there is a necessary halfway house between the blithely unaware, and the mentally crippled, that I must force myself to inhabit. Being unable to function in society has its drawbacks. I am also aware that our governments obfuscate truths and lie continually and have done so for a century. A barrage of gaslighting and propaganda pushed out to maintain control over the narrative and public opinion. This manipulation is, in part, why people perceive a ‘wrongness’ with society and why those who are inclined to question everything feel so drawn to conspiracies. Even if it isn’t the correct answer, it’s enough of an answer to placate our primitive pattern recognition abilities. That they often don’t hold up to any analytical process doesn’t matter.
“You have attributed conditions to villainy that simply result from stupidity.”
Robert A. Heinlein – Logic of Empire (also known as Hanlon’s Razor)
Quite often the heinous acts of those in power are discovered decades after the fact, which does not help the case for the establishment. As Hanlon’s Razor posits, and I would argue is more often than not, correct, is that we forget a lot of stupid people end up in unelected government positions. Wielding far more power than they should ever have been given. Subsequently, in hiding or lying about their activities, they create a fertile breeding ground for those who want to question everything.
Of course, if I was a member of a shadowy cabal of globalists intent on keeping control of the human population this is exactly the sort of article I would write to gaslighting my readers.
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