Canada's Experimental Torture-Killing of Children

 

Lincoln Park The secret history of Lincoln Park must be exposed to the light of day to ensure such horrific crimes against humanity are never again repeated.

Deception and Lies

Canada prides itself on being a modern democratic country with great respect and consideration for human rights and freedom. But the pristine image Canada portrays does not reflect the deceptive methods employed to hide her dirty secrets from the world.

Canada sends our troops to protect the people of Afghanistan, from crimes against humanity.

What would our soldiers think if they knew that the term, crimes against humanity, also applied to acts of brutality, administered by the Department of National Defense, and inflicted upon innocent Canadian men, women and children in our own country.

How many WWII veterans would be sickened to discover that Nazi war criminals were secretly imported into Canada, dressed in Canadian military uniforms and sanctioned to command secret military research programs. That known criminals were sanctioned to conduct human medical experiments similar if not identical to those performed upon innocent Jewish prisoners in Hitler's concentration camps, with the assistance of Canadian, British and American personnel.

One such facility was located on the Royal Canadian Air Force Station Lincoln Park, located in Calgary, Alberta, while facilities at the Suffield Research Station were utilized for the purpose of testing chemical and biological warfare agents.

Canadian men & women were kidnapped, confined and starved to death in order to determine their duration of survival without any solid food. Other men & women were subject to dehydration in order to determine their duration of survival without fluids.

Canadian men were kidnapped, confined and subjected to a biological warfare agent in order to determine the effectiveness of the agent to exterminate the wounded survivors of a nuclear exchange.

Perfectly healthy Canadian children were acquired from orphanages and hospitals for the purpose of human medical experimentation. Confined to wire cages (holding cells) the children suffered torture, sexual abuse, rape, medical operations, brainwashing, drug testing, electric shock treatment, insulin shock, chemical warfare agents and deprivation, whereby roughly 96% either died as a direct result of the experimental process or were systematically liquidated.

Some of those children who survived beyond the age of 9 years were subjected to further study, which included a program studying the long term effects of trauma. Therefore some individuals continued to be subject to brutal abuse for a period of roughly 30 years.

No consideration or medical assistance has been offered or provided to these survivors as the military command has seen fit to deny their existence and their injuries, despite suffering severe disabilities resulting from such severe brutality and torture.

The Lincoln Park records pertaining to the years 1954 through 1958 remain classified and actively protected by law some 50 years after the fact.

A ministerial inquiry initiated in 1993 resulted in an admission of responsibility by a member of the Canadian Forces Military Police National Investigative Service after accessing classified archived records, but that admission was quickly dismissed by those in command, which resulted in a cover-up similar to that applied to the Somalia investigation occurring at the same time and authorized by the same officers.

Intimidation and threats have been applied by the Department of National Defense and the Royal Canadian Mounted Police in an effort to avoid further disclosure and or investigation in respect to this matter.

All attempts to access assistance and consideration for survivors has been effectively blocked through the manipulation of official channels.

In October 1956 a Royal Canadian Air Force Military Police member was attempting to blow the whistle on the illegal actions occurring at Lincoln Park. His activities were discovered and both he and his wife were murdered in order to prevent disclosure. The two victims names were Charles Jackson and Jean Jackson who at the time of their deaths resided in Building 11 on the Lincoln Park Base. Records were destroyed and altered to prevent further inquiries. Archived records confirm the existence of Charles and Jean and their place of residence in 1956. Both murders were witnessed by a survivor in the context of experimental subjection to trauma.

On May 17, 1958 13 children aged 2 to 9 years were held in cells in the basement of the Lincoln Park Medical Research Facility. All of these children had suffered extensive injuries as a result of their participation in experimental programs. On the afternoon of May 17, 1958 all 13 children were put to death and their bodies removed from the base for disposal. All of which was witnessed by a survivor in the context of experimental subjection to trauma.

More than 23 children acquired for experimental programs either died or were killed as a result of injuries resulting from their participation in medical experiments between 1954 and 1958.

More than 42 men and women were kidnapped, confined and subjected to terminal experiments between 1954 and 1958.

Many of the children acquired for these secret experimental programs were also utilized for the purpose of child prostitution and the manufacture of child pornography.

Despite repeated appeals to the Canadian Dept. of National Defense, the Prime Ministers Office and the Royal Canadian Mounted Police by and on behalf of survivors all such appeals have failed to produce any form of assistance or care for disabled survivors of these secret experimental programs.

Posted by David Barclay at 4:29 PM 

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For 20 years, the CIA tried to establish control over the human mind with torture and drugs. It crippled thousands (or hundreds of thousands) of lives. Hereʼs more about the secret experiments of the MKUltra project

Author:

Serhii Pyvovarov

Editor:

Kateryna Kobernyk

 On August 3, 1977, the US Senate held a special hearing on the illegal activities of the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA). They related to the secret MKUltra program to find methods to control human consciousness and behavior. It all started back in 1953 against the background of hysteria in the US about the communist threat. The heads of the CIA seriously believed that the Soviet and Chinese special services had developed effective methods and drugs for "brainwashing". In order to keep up with competitors, the American secret service launched its own large-scale secret project. Over the next twenty years, the CIA conducted human experiments, often without their consent. Various forms of torture, hypnosis and, of course, drugs were used. The organizers of the project had high hopes for LSD information reference

Lysergic acid diethylamide, commonly known as LSD, is a potent psychedelic drug.

. But it wasnʼt possible to achieve the desired results. Many test subjects were left with a crippled psyche, some died. The exact number of victims is still unknown, as almost all documents related to the project were destroyed. "Babel" recalls one of the largest, most brutal and most secret operations of the CIA.

On April 10, 1953, Allen Dulles, who shortly before became director of the CIA, spoke at the Princeton University alumni meeting. During the speech, he also touched on international politics. In particular, he stated that the battle of ideologies with the countries of the socialist block has literally turned into a "war for brains".

Although the event where Dulles spoke was ordinary, the topic was very relevant. At that time, American society was experiencing another peak of the "Red Scare". Communist spies were searched for everywhere, in state establishments it turned into a real witch hunt. Stories about "brainwashing" by the special services of the USSR, China, and North Korea added fuel to the fire. Newspapers spread stories about American prisoners of war who returned home after the Korean War information reference

The 1950-1953 war between South Korea (supported by the West) and North Korea (supported by the USSR and China). After the ceasefire, Korea remained divided into two parts — communist and democratic.

 and repeated the theses of communist propaganda. And some refused to return to the US at all.

Sensational articles with headlines like "Brainwashing vs. Western Psychiatry" talked about new mind control methods and technologies that could convert anyone to communist ideology. This paranoia was also reflected in the culture. For example, the popular 1959 novel "The Manchurian Candidate" told the story of an American soldier who was brainwashed in North Korea and turned into a sleeper agent.

During his speech at Princeton, CIA Director Dulles described Soviet mind control methods as "disgusting and despicable," but effective. "We in the West have somewhat limited possibilities for brain warfare. Such experiments without consent, even on enemies, contradict not only American, but also universal human values," he concluded.

But three days after the speech, on April 13, 1953, Dulles launched a secret CIA project codenamed MKUltra. The program consisted of various "mind control" experiments: manipulating peopleʼs mental states, changing brain functions, modeling behavior, etc. Electroconvulsive therapy, hypnosis, polygraph, radiation, drugs, toxins and other chemicals were used. And also the most diverse types of torture: isolation, sensory deprivation, verbal and sexual violence.

The project was led by chemist and CIA poison expert Sidney Gottlieb. Expectations from the program were huge — from the creation of a universal "truth serum" for the interrogation of enemy agents to the methods of covert control of world political leaders.

Early experiments were conducted on those who, as the CIA stated, could not fight back — people with mental disorders, drug addicts, and prisoners. One of them was the boss of the American mafia, James "Whitey" Bulger. He was serving his sentence in a prison in Atlanta. James was offered to participate in the testing of new drugs in exchange for improved conditions. Bulger agreed, something he later regretted for the rest of his life: “There were eight of us in the cell, and all of us in a state of panic and paranoia. There was complete loss of appetite, hallucinations. I saw blood pouring from the walls, and the boys turning into skeletons right before my eyes, and the camera later turned into a dogʼs head. I felt like I was going crazy."

Bulger became one of the many experimental subjects on whom the psychedelic novelty — LSD information reference

Lysergic acid diethylamide, commonly known as LSD, is a potent psychedelic drug.

 — was tested. Mood-altering properties were described by its inventor, the Swiss chemist Alfred Hoffman, back in 1943. However, in the early 1950s, LSD was not yet widely known. But the CIA was interested in this thing. Gottlieb placed great hopes on her in the search for methods of mind control. Therefore, he spent about a quarter of a million dollars to buy almost the entire world supply of LSD — 10 kilograms, which was enough for 100 million doses. Last but not least, this was done in order to prevent the drug from reaching competitors from the social camp.

At first, Gottlieb distributed LSD to clinics, mental hospitals, and prisons for controlled experiments. But later he decided that for the purity of the experiment it was necessary to test the psychedelic on people secretly, without their consent. And then see how they will behave in their usual conditions.

LSD began to be given to soldiers, doctors, civil servants, famous public figures and even CIA employees. Unforeseen side effects often occurred. One of the operatives, who had once been given LSD in his morning coffee, ran through the streets of Washington, trying to escape from the machines, which turned into monsters for him. Another employee, Frank Olson, not understanding what was happening to him, threw himself out of the window of the thirteenth floor and died.

Gottlieb didnʼt stop there either. He arranged more and more complex experiments. One of the most famous covert operations was codenamed "Midnight Climax". The CIA bought several houses and apartments, spied on them with video cameras and microphones. They also arranged secret rooms that were separated from the rest of the room by special transparent mirrors. Selected and instructed prostitutes would bring random men here and secretly pump them with LSD. And the agents behind the mirrors watched what was happening and recorded audio and video.

Of course, there were also volunteers who agreed to experiments with LSD. Such well-known people were among them: the author of the novel "One Flew Over the Cuckooʼs Nest" Ken Kesey, one of the ideologues of the beat generation poet Allen Ginsberg, the author of the lyrics of the "Grateful Dead" rock group Robert Gunter. Subsequently, they became a kind of ambassadors of LSD in American and world culture. However, at the time, few people knew that the CIA was actually behind all this.

As part of MKUltra project, the CIA secretly funded nearly a hundred studies at colleges, universities, hospitals, and pharmaceutical companies. One of the most famous examples is the story of the American psychologist Donald Cameron. From 1957 to 1964, he worked at the Montreal Institute in Canada to refine his concept of "psychological management." It was she who interested the CIA. So the agency funded the research through a shell organization called the Society for Research in Human Ecology.

Cameron tried to cure various mental disorders by erasing memories and reprogramming the psyche. For this, subjects were put into a drug-induced coma for several weeks or even months. At this time, they were played recordings of various sounds or voice commands, which were constantly repeated. Experiments were conducted even on those who applied to the institute with such problems as neurosis, anxiety or postpartum depression. Many of Cameronʼs patients only got worse from such therapy, and for some of them it all ended with amnesia.

Gottlieb conducted the most brutal experiments in foreign secret prisons of the CIA, mainly in Germany, Japan and the Philippines. Prisoners were considered expendable. And the experiments were carried out by captive "specialists" who practiced similar "research" in Nazi and Japanese concentration camps. Subjects were subjected to various types of torture. In addition to LSD, they experimented with heroin, morphine, cocaine, mescaline, psilocybin and other things. They studied how a person would react to "chemical cocktails": barbiturate was injected into one arm, amphetamine into the other.

After ten years of various experiments, it was not possible to achieve the desired results and learn to control human consciousness. The MKUltra program was gradually scaled back, first in 1964 and then in 1967. In 1973, it was decided to terminate it urgently. Then the CIA got caught up in the Watergate scandal, which was connected with the illegal wiretapping of political opponents of President Richard Nixon. The chief at the time Richard Helms feared that during the investigation, information about MKUltra would emerge. So he ordered to destroy all documents related to the project.

He worried for a reason. As early as 1974, articles about illegal CIA experiments on citizens of the United States and other countries began to appear in American newspapers. In 1975, a congressional committee began investigating the agencyʼs MKUltra program. In particular, they became interested in the death of CIA employee Frank Olson, who was secretly injected with LSD as part of an experiment. In 1977, part of the MKUltra documents were accidentally found in a financial archive, where they got into due to bureaucratic confusion.

To study these documents, on August 3, 1977, the Senate held a special hearing. By the way, one of the participants in these hearings was a young senator from the state of Delaware Joseph Biden. Now he is the current head of the White House. However, they learned not so much then. Unless they established that about a quarter of a billion dollars were spent on the program. However, it was not possible to establish the exact number of victims and dead participants of the experiments. Everything was limited by the decree of then-President Gerald Ford forbidding the CIA to conduct experiments on people without their consent.

The documents contained the names of operatives associated with the MKUltra program. But at the hearings, they stated that they did not remember the details. Former project manager Sidney Gottlieb also complained about memory problems. Journalist Stephen Kinzer, who investigated the experiments of the MKUltra program, said of Gottlieb: “He wanted to gain control over peopleʼs minds and realized that this was a two-step process. The existing mind had to be destroyed first and then replaced with something else. The second stage did not work out, but in the first Gottlieb achieved considerable success.”

Translated from Ukrainian by Ruslana Stoltz.

Source

Sources

Sources: Stephen Kinzer. Poisoner in Chief: Sidney Gottlieb and the CIA Search for Mind Control. Henry Holt and Co., 2019. Anne Collins. In the Sleep Room: The Story of the CIA Brainwashing Experiments in Canada. Key Porter Books, 1998. Gordon Thomas. Journey Into Madness: The True Story of Secret CIA Mind Control and Medical Abuse. Bantam, 1989. US Senate: Joint Hearing before the Select Committee on Intelligence and the Subcommittee on Health and Scientific Research of the Committee on Human Resources, 95th Cong., 1st Sess. August 3, 1977.

 

Illuminati’s Grip on the Music Industry: How a Secret Society Controls Your Favorite Songs and Artists

Introduction The Illuminati is a secret organization that allegedly controls the world’s major institutions, including governments, banks, and the media. According to conspiracy theories, the Illuminati also controls the music industry, using it to spread their subliminal messages to the masses. In this article, we will explore how the Illuminati allegedly controls the music industry with evidence and examples.

History of the Illuminati the Illuminati was founded in Bavaria in the late 18th century by a man named Adam Weishaupt. The organization’s goal was to promote reason and knowledge and to combat the influence of religion on society. However, the Illuminati was disbanded in the late 18th century, and many believe that it still exists today, operating in secret.

Control of the Music Industry According to conspiracy theories, the Illuminati uses the music industry to spread their message and influence the masses. The Illuminati allegedly controls major record labels, music festivals, and awards shows. They use their influence to promote artists who have pledged allegiance to the Illuminati and who spread their message through their music.

Symbols and Messages in Music One of the ways the Illuminati allegedly spreads their message is through the use of symbols and messages in music. Many believe that the Illuminati uses symbols such as the all-seeing eye, the pyramid, and the devil’s horns in music videos and album covers. They also believe that artists insert subliminal messages in their music, which can only be heard when played backwards.

Examples of Illuminati Influence in the Music Industry There are several examples of alleged Illuminati influence in the music industry. One of the most popular examples is the music video for Beyoncé’s “Formation.” In the video, Beyoncé is seen standing on top of a sinking police car with a graffiti message that reads “stop shooting us.” Many believe that this is a nod to the Black Lives Matter movement, which they believe is an Illuminati front organization.

Another example of alleged Illuminati influence is the “666” hand sign that many musicians, including Jay-Z, Kanye West, and Lady Gaga, have been photographed making. Many believe that this hand sign is a symbol of allegiance to the Illuminati.

Conclusion While there is no concrete evidence that the Illuminati controls the music industry, many conspiracy theorists believe that they do. They point to symbols and messages in music, as well as examples of alleged Illuminati influence in the industry, as evidence. Whether or not the Illuminati truly controls the music industry is up for debate, but it is clear that the idea has gained a significant following among conspiracy theorists.

Syed Ahmad

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The New World Order: The conspiracy theory and the power of the Internet

By

Giancarlo Elia Valori

“The Illuminati, a mysterious international organisation made up of the world’s top political and social elites, controls the workings of the entire world behind the scenes”. This is the world’s most famous conspiracy theory about the New World Order.

For hundreds of years, legends about the Illuminati have been spread and many people currently believe that the Illuminati still exist. It is believed that the Illuminati operate in various fields such as global politics, military affairs, finance and mass media and control the historical process of the entire world.

The ultimate goal is to establish a New World Order. Nobody can prove it, but many people believe it. This is the greatest paradox about conspiracy theories.

In the 2009 film, Angels and Demons – based on Dan Brown’s best seller of the same name about Professor Langdon, played by Tom Hanks – the story of the Illuminati, who supposedly originated in Europe during the Age of Enlightenment, was recalled. There were physicists, mathematicians and astronomers who questioned the “erroneous teachings” of the authority of the Holy See and dedicated themselves to the scientific field of the search for truth.

Eventually, the Illuminati were forced to become a clandestine organisation and have continued to recruit members for hundreds of years to this day. In Angels and Demons, the historical facts are clearly questionable, and the movie appeared after the great economic crisis of 2007-2008.

The New World Order conspiracy theory has been circulating for a long time and is full of mysterious theories that, however, convince many people who are powerless and dissatisfied with the current state of the world.

The Illuminati, who advocate the establishment of a New World Order through the planning of a series of political and financial events (the financial tsunami of 2007-2008 is said to have been planned by the Illuminati), attempt to influence the course of world history, and ultimately establish an authoritarian world government.

Supporters of the New World Order theory believe that even the powerful US government is now just a puppet government. While another “shadow government” made up of a few people makes decisions that will change the fate of the planet.

You might think that all of the above is just crackpot theories. Many people, however, believe this is true. According to a 2013 poll conducted by the Public Policy Polling Foundation, 28% of US voters believe that the New World Order is actually taking hold.

Brian L. Keeley, a professor of philosophy at Pitts College who devotes himself to the study of modern conspiracy theories, believes that an important feature of conspiracy theorists is that they cite some trivial and overlooked incidents and then propose a perfect explanation compared to an embarrassed official response. The reason why the conspiracy theory explanation can be widely disseminated is that it has no argumentation process to deny. It is just a judgement that jumps directly from hypothesis to conclusion. In the argumentation process, it is only a subjective interpretation of the event.

Nevertheless, for the public that does not fully understand the incident, the conspiracy theory provides an “explanation” for the unknown part of the said incident, and this “explanation” cannot be denied (because its very existence is not corroborated by real arguments and facts). It is therefore recognised as a valid argument by many people.

For example, no one has substantial evidence to prove that the Illuminati actually exist, but no one can prove that the Illuminati are purely fictitious. Therefore, you cannot deny their existence because their existence is “perfection without evidence”.

Columnist Martha Gill wrote in The Guardian on the subject, describing the Illuminati as the most enduring conspiracy theory organisation in world history.

“Conspiracy theories relating to the 1969 moon landing mission, the Kennedy assassination, the 9/11 attacks, etc., are all limited to a specific time and place. But conspiracy theories supporting the existence of the Illuminati can connect them. Anything about these connections, however, is difficult to prove”. In other words, the supporters of conspiracy theories may have common imagination and attribute everything to this organisation, so that every irrational phenomenon in the world can be explained.

Although no one can prove the real existence of the Illuminati, there is actually an alleged “global shadow government” in the world whose name is the Bilderberg Group. The Bilderberg Group holds an annual world-class private meeting and participants include elites from all walks of society such as government, business, media, science and technology.

Known as the “World’s Most Mysterious Conference”, the Bilderberg Group invites various famous political and economic figures to participate in its meetings every year.

Prince Bernhard van Lippe-Biesterfeld (1911-2004) held the first meeting in 1954. As the venue for the meeting was the Bilderberg Hotel in Oosterbeek, that name was used as the name of the group.

The existence of the Bilderberg Group is not a secret, but the content of the topics discussed at the Conferences is absolutely confidential and mainstream media cannot report on the content of the meetings.

The Bilderberg Group issues a press release every year to introduce the Conference participants and the outline of the topics discussed. Over the years, participants have come from many places, including Prince Philip of Edinburgh (1921-2021) of the British Royal Family, Crown Prince Charles, former British Prime Ministers, French President Macron, German Chancellor Merkel, former US Presidents Bush and Clinton, and even Bill Gates and other Internet giants. There were also Italians, as reported years ago in a newspaper of our country.

The 2018 Conference was held in Turin, Italy, in June. According to the description on the Bilderberg Group’s official website, the main topics included European populism, the development of artificial intelligence, quantum computer technology and the “post-truth” era. Obviously the actual content and results of the meeting’s discussion have never been reported.

Therefore, the Bilderberg Group has naturally become a locus where conspiracy theorists want to draw material. They describe the Bilderberg Group as true evidence of the theory that a very small number of elites controls the world, and the participants are planning a New World Order.

On the subject of strange things, let us give some examples. In June 2018, the British Royal Family was also caught up in conspiracy theories. When Prince Harry and his wife Meghan attended a show, they were caught on camera motionless, like two stiff and dull robots. Later related clips went viral on the Internet and netizens were in an uproar: many people believed that the distinguished members of the Royal Family were actually robots developed by high technology.

However, the management of the London museum, Madame Tussauds, later explained the mystery by stating that Harry and Meghan were only played by two actors who wore extremely high-realism wax masks on their faces – all to promote an exhibition of wax statues – and inadvertently caused an uproar.

In that short video, Harry and Meghan did not change their facial appearance and their expressions were stiff just like robots. Consequently, conspiracy theorists used this as evidence that they were robots secretly built by the British Royal Family.

This argument is an extension of the ‘trivial evidence’ mentioned above. The argument proponents ignore any argumentation process and directly draw the final conclusion through the above stated “trivial evidence”. This conclusion is highly topical and quite appealing. With the fast spread of the Internet, the “quick truth” will naturally be recognised and sought after by many people.

I think many people still remember the “Mandela effect” that spread wildly across the Internet in the early years as a false memory. The name “Mandela effect” is believed to have come from Fiona Broome, a self-described “paranormal consultant”, who created a website called the “Mandela effect”. Supporters of the ‘Mandela effect’ claim to “remember” that former South African President Mandela died in prison in the 1980s. But in reality, after being released from prison, Mandela served as President of South Africa from 1994 to 1999 and died in December 2013.

So why should anyone believe this seemingly absurd statement? The Internet has become a support platform for a lot of false content, fake news, as well as unreasonableness and lack of justification. When someone shared that ‘false memory’ with others on the Internet, many people believed it to be true, and even suddenly recalled having that memory: “Mandela died in prison that year”.

As a result, lies inconsistent with facts continue to spread. The lie is repeated thousands of times and many people consider it to be the truth: this learning phase is the first misleading rule on the Internet.

In the Internet era, multidimensional and multiplatform features have generated a number of online “malignancies” of conspiracy theories. Moreover, their dissemination ability is not limited to “believers” only. Since online social media provide a widespread and wide dissemination platform, one passes it onto ten people, ten spread it to a hundred, a hundred to a thousand, and so it goes on in geometric fashion, thus turning a ‘hot’ topic on the Internet into an absolute truth. Those who want to believe are naturally prepared and willing to do so. Moreover, these false opinions on the Internet may even have an impact on the real world.

For example, at the political level, everyone can now comment and participate in the online arena. For politicians to get the right to speak and set the agenda, the key is to rely on the public’s direction on the Internet. The Internet discourse has become the dominant factor of the political storytelling, and not vice versa. The characteristics of social networks are precisely the breeding ground for conspiracy theories.

The Internet is easy to spread among the public and it is exactly the breeding ground for conspiracy theories.

Nowadays, conspiracy theories are enough to influence politics and even political developments. A specific conspiracy theory gains a number of supporters through the Internet that promotes it to become a highly debated topic among the public. Consequently, it enters the real political arena coming from the virtual community and its influence can change the direction of governmental decisions.

Looking at it from another perspective, when conspiracy theories are put on the Internet and continue to proliferate – regardless of whether the Illuminati exist or not – they are enough to establish a New World Order. The real-world public opinions, as well as the composition of opinions and the basis of social discussions are changed, and thus world’s countries, politics and rulers are affected.

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What is the Illuminati conspiracy theory?

The existence of a secret society known as the Illuminati remains one of the most enduring conspiracy theories of modern times.

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‘Great replacement’: what is the conspiracy theory?

Doctors, politicians, actors and musicians have been accused of being members of a shadowy group that supposedly controls the world.

While most of the rumours are fiction, the group itself was real, though its influence was not nearly as vast and enduring as modern conspiracists claim.

How did the Illuminati start?

The Order of the Illuminati was a secret group founded in Bavaria in 1776 by Adam Weishaupt, who believed “the monarchy and the church were repressing freedom of thought”, said National Geographic.

 How did the Illuminati start?

The Order of the Illuminati was a secret group founded in Bavaria in 1776 by Adam Weishaupt, who believed “the monarchy and the church were repressing freedom of thought”, said National Geographic.

The society grew from a handful of men to a few thousand, including some influential members, with the most famous thought to have been the German thinker Johann Wolfgang von Goethe – although this is disputed. However, it didn’t last long after Karl Theodor, Duke of Bavaria, outlawed secret groups on punishment of death in the late 1780s.

“Most of the group’s secrets were disclosed or published, and, if you believe most historians, the Illuminati disappeared,” said Vox. Yet, from the moment the real-life group disbanded, “the myth expanded”.

How did the myth develop?

According to the author David Bramwell, the 1960s “era of counter-culture mania, LSD and interest in Eastern philosophy is largely responsible for the group’s (totally unsubstantiated) modern incarnation”, said BBC Future. “It all began somewhere amid the Summer of Love and the hippie phenomenon, when a small, printed text emerged: Principia Discordia,” explained the broadcaster.

The book extolled an alternative belief system – Discordianism – which preached a form of anarchism and gave birth to the Discordian movement, which ultimately wished to cause civil disobedience through practical jokes and hoaxes.

One of the main proponents of this new ideology was a writer called Robert Anton Wilson, who wanted to bring chaos back into society by spreading “misinformation through all portals – through counter culture, through the mainstream media”, said Bramwell. Followers did this by sending fake letters to magazines, attributing cover-ups and conspiracy theories, such as the JFK assassination, to a secret elite organisation called the Illuminati.

Wilson went on to turn these theories into a book, “The Illuminatus Trilogy”, which became a surprise cult success and was even made into a stage play in Liverpool, launching the careers of British actors Bill Nighy and Jim Broadbent.

There were much earlier “Illuminati panics”, said Vox, such as in 1798, when George Washington “wrote a letter addressing the Illuminati threat (he believed it had been avoided, but his mentioning it helped bolster the myth)”. These “fizzled out”, but nevertheless “gave the group a patina of legitimacy”, said the site.

The idea of a powerful global elite conspiring to rule the world remained a niche belief upheld by a handful of enthusiasts until the 1990s. The internet changed all that, giving conspiracy theorists a global platform to expound their beliefs and present their evidence to a massive audience.

How popular is the myth today?

It remains “one of the world’s most widely punted conspiracy theories”, said BBC Future. But other similar myths have cropped up over the years.

The New World Order conspiracy, for example, overlaps with the Illuminati conspiracy, but they are “not synonymous”, explained the Institute for Strategic Dialogue.

Theories about how the New World Order operates range from relatively straightforward ideas to the outright bizarre. The group has been linked “to everything from the French Revolution to the assassination of JFK” and served as “inspiration for Dan Brown’s Angels & Demons and Foucault’s Pendulum by Umberto Eco”, said History.com.

Both conspiracy theories are rooted in a belief that “a cabal of elites is working behind the scenes to orchestrate global events to enslave the global populace”, explained the Middlebury Institute of International Studies.

Conspiracy theorists often analyse public events for “evidence” of Illuminati influence. The symbols most associated with the Illuminati include pentagrams, goats, the all-seeing eye in a triangle – such as the one that appears on US banknotes – and the number 666.

This has led to claims that some of the American Founding Fathers were members, with Thomas Jefferson accused in the aftermath of the War of Independence.

US President Joe Biden fanned the flames of the conspiracy in 2022 when he referred to a coming “new world order” in the wake of the Ukraine crisis. The Independent reported that it was clear “he was referring to the shifting sands of geopolitical relations”. However, this didn’t stop Twitter lighting up with outlandish ideas.

Who is supposedly a member?

Aside from the US president, Beyonce and Jay-Z are frequently depicted as lords of the New World Order. Both have denied the claims.

Beyonce’s immense fame and popularity have long made her a favourite target for conspiracy theorists. Illuminati “experts” seized upon her half-time performance at the 2013 Super Bowl as an example of her “devilworshipping” choreography, even accusing her on-stage alter ego Sasha Fierce of being a “demonic entity”.

Jay Z has also been accused of hiding secret symbols such as goat imagery and devil horns in his music videos. The logo for his own music label, Roc-A-Fella Records, is a pyramid – one of the most well-known Illuminati logos.

Some musicians seem to enjoy deliberately playing with symbols connected to secret societies. For instance, Rihanna frequently incorporated Illuminati images into her music videos, and even joked about the theories in the video for “S&M”, which featured a fake newspaper with a headline declaring her “Princess of the Illuminati”.

David Rockefeller, Henry Kissinger, Jacob Rothschild and even Queen Elizabeth II were all rumoured to be members due to their wealth and influence. The late Queen, according to entertainment site Complex, was accused of running a “cloning centre where she replicated celebrities to help fulfill the Illuminati’s vision of a New World Order”.

Katy Perry once told Rolling Stone the theory was the preserve of “weird people on the internet” but admitted she was flattered to be named among the supposed members: “I guess you’ve kind of made it when they think you’re in the Illuminati!”

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What Do You think?  Does it exist?

Conspiracy Theory Definition -Who Is Likely to Believe in Conspiracy Theories?

Definitions from Oxford Languages · Learn more

con·spir·a·cy the·o·ry

/kənˈspirəsē ˈTHiərē,ˈTHirē/

noun

plural noun: conspiracy theories

a belief that some secret but influential organization is responsible for an event or phenomenon.

"they sought to account for the attacks in terms of a conspiracy theory"

After nearly 30 years of research, we finally have a portrait of the typical conspiracy theorist, although many of the details are still fuzzy

Jonathan Jarry M.Sc. | 28 Jul 2023 

Critical ThinkingPseudoscience

  

Pre-pandemic, the question I would most often get was, “How do I know whom to trust when it comes to health and science information?”

Over three years after a new virus began sweeping the globe, the question I hear again and again is, “Why is it that my husband/sister/aunt/father believes in all this conspiratorial nonsense?”

As it turns out, the two questions are related (more on that later), but until now, I could only offer empathy and hypotheses. Although conspiracy theories have been stowed away on humanity’s whispers for millennia, research into the people who hold these beliefs only got started in earnest about thirty years ago.

Studies have attempted to see if people who believe in a particular conspiracy theory or who have a general propensity for believing in these theories have something else in common. This link might predispose them to be convinced by stories of sinister machinations or it might be something that is fed by conspiracy theories and grows as a consequence. Either way, scientists were looking for associations and they found plenty. But early on, these studies were not very good or generalizable, which meant there were plenty of contradictions in the literature.

Of course, the very idea of scientists at educational institutions studying people’s propensity to buy into allegations of dark cabals will make these same people sneer. “Institutions can’t be trusted,” they will argue. “Conspiracies are real.” Obviously, some are. Watergate was a conspiracy. The tobacco industry knowing their product caused cancer and conducting a massive campaign of disinformation was a conspiracy. Even your own friends planning your surprise birthday party could, technically, qualify as a conspiracy, depending on how you define the term.

For our purposes, though, a conspiracy is an explanation of events which blames a group of powerful people who make secret plans to benefit themselves and harm the common good. Popular conspiracy theories include alien contact, the assassination of John F. Kennedy by multiple shooters, the cover-up of the dangers of genetically modified foods, and the manufacturing of a fake crisis in the form of global warming. During the COVID-19 pandemic, new conspiracy theories emerged, such as Bill Gates as the master orchestrator of this world-changing event and the pharmaceutical industry’s denial of the effectiveness of hydroxychloroquine and ivermectin.

So, who believes these large conspiracy theories, often built on surprising allegations with little evidence behind them? A team of researchers from Emory University, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and the University of Regina undertook a colossal effort recently. They grabbed every English-language study ever conducted to look at belief in conspiracy theories and its potential link to personality and motivation in order to conduct a meta-analysis of this data. In total, there were 170 studies involving over 158,000 research participants.

They crunched the numbers to see what was strongly associated with believing conspiracy theories and what wasn’t. Many of their results were to be expected, but some were quite surprising.

Three tendencies were strongly correlated with conspiracy ideation, which is the inclination to endorse conspiracy theories. They were: perceiving threat and danger; relying on intuition and having odd beliefs and experiences; and being antagonistic and feeling superior. You can think of each as a pillar that supports conspiracy ideation and/or is nurtured by it, and each pillar can be looked at in more detail.

Perceiving threat and danger

Conspiracy theorists tend to believe the world is dangerous and that life is a violent struggle in which others pose a threat. This is not only supported by the data but is clear from watching top influencers in their community. Dark forces are coming for our children and our collective freedoms, they often say. Every institution is a threat, from pharmaceutical companies to universities, from media outlets to government. Paranoia is strongly correlated with conspiracy ideation, although it differs from it in other ways. With paranoia, the delusion is that everyone is out to get you personally; with conspiracy ideation, the delusion is that powerful people are out to get you and everyone else.

This acute sense that the world is full of danger leads to one of the clearest associations with belief in conspiracy theories: distrust. This lack of trust was studied from multiple angles and it kept being linked to conspiracy ideation. After all, how could you trust institutions when you perceive them all as being threats to you and the people around you?

Conspiracy theorists look at our planet with a combination of cynicism and a feeling of powerlessness. They see society’s moral rules as breaking down and they feel alienated from others. It’s no surprise, then, that when a strong and loud leader comes along and reveals they too see the world in a similar light and they have a plan, conspiracy theorists will flock to them like moths to a flame.

Relying on intuition and having odd beliefs and experiences

The world is a complex and often counterintuitive place, which is why we need science and analytical thinking to make sense of it. But conspiracy theorists are more likely to rely on their intuition—their gut—to figure out what’s really happening. Intuitive thinking is easier and faster, and it has helped our species evade predators in our distant past, so conspiracy theorists use it to make sense of the modern threats they perceive all around them. Analytical thinking, with its deductions and inferences and reliance on scientific data, is harder on the brain and more time-consuming. To believe in a grand conspiracy theory, simply follow your instincts.

As for having odd beliefs and experiences, the data we have so far on conspiracy ideation move us away from healthy personality traits and into the domain of psychopathology. Indeed, scientists have tested conspiracy theorists for all sorts of traits that range from normal (like how extraverted or conscientious they might be) to abnormal (like hostility and paranoia, which give rise to distress and impairment). There was little association with normal personality traits. The strong associations were with abnormal traits, and one of them was the tendency to have unusual experiences. This can mean delusions, magical beliefs, or hallucinations, for example. These unusual experiences can fuel creativity, but they can also give people a skewed and disturbing perception of the world.

The fact that abnormal and not ordinary personality traits are so strongly correlated with believing conspiracy theories is hard to reconcile with how many of us believe in conspiracy theories, though. This meta-analysis itself opens with a shocking statement on the universality of conspiracy ideation: “Most surveyed participants all over the world endorse at least one conspiracy theory.” And that impressive statistic does not appear to have changed much over time. Still, it is important to remember that the link between abnormal traits like paranoia and belief in conspiracy theories is not an inevitability. You can think of it as a risk factor. To put it bluntly, not everyone who believes we never landed on the Moon needs to see a psychiatrist to be prescribed anti-psychotic medication.

Being antagonistic and feeling superior

This association with abnormal personality traits also brings forward two traits that tend to be associated with conspiracy ideation: antagonism and a feeling of superiority.

Conspiracy theorists often think very highly of their in-group. People who are not like them are held accountable for the ills of the world, while their own community of like-minded conspiracy theorists is seen as blameless and exceptional.

This feeling of superiority touches upon the only normal personality trait that has been strongly linked to conspiracy ideation: reduced humility. There is an unwarranted assurance that often comes with believing in all-powerful cabals. It leads adherents of the theory to believe in the moral supremacy of their own group of rebels.

As for antagonism, the authors define it as having an exaggerated sense of self, a callous disregard for the feelings and needs of others, being manipulative and aggressive.

Surprises and limitations

There were surprises, though, in this meta-analysis. Over the years, researchers and science communicators alike have wondered if this or that trait might not help explain why people buy into conspiracy theories. For some of these hypotheses, the answer, for now at least, seems to be no.

As mentioned before, none of the Big Five personality traits (openness, conscientiousness, extraversion, agreeableness, and neuroticism) showed a strong association with believing in conspiracy theories. Similarly, we often think that the desire for certainty—for knowing what is really going on and what explains what we see in the world—drives people to conspiracy theories, which offer black-and-white explanations. But that does not appear to be a strong motivator. The same goes for the need for personal control in the world: the link with conspiracy ideation was surprisingly small.

Even more unexpected was the finding surrounding agenticity. It is our brain’s tendency to see agents—creatures with a will and an intent—even where there are none. Imagine you are walking in a forest and you hear a sudden rustling sound. Immediately, your brain thinks, “It’s an animal.” It could be an animal, which has a will and an intent, or it could simply be the wind, which doesn’t. We are quick to ascribe to patterns a consciousness, because that ability has kept us away from the jaws of predators for millennia. But it was also hypothesized that this could drive people to seeing agency in random patterns and thus to believe in conspiracy theories. To a conspiracy theorist, events that are unconnected seem to be actually linked by a common agent: a cabal of powerful people. However, in scientific studies, this trigger-happy agency attribution had only a tiny association with believing in conspiracy theories. Sometimes a hypothesis, as logical as it may sound, turns out to be false.

For now, though, we finally see a portrait of the typical conspiracy theorist emerge from the literature: someone who sees danger around them, who uses their intuition to figure things out, who has odd beliefs and experiences, who often shows hostility, and who feels their group of like-minded people is much superior to the rest of the world. This snapshot, however, comes with a number of asterisks, which remind us of the serious limitations of our knowledge so far.

Some traits were only tested in a handful of studies. Alienation, for example, has been examined in three studies, compared to the 40 studies that have looked at the link with mistrust. More studies of these traits might result in stronger or weaker associations. Belief in conspiracy theories also suffers from having been studied mostly in what are known as WEIRD populations. This is not to say that conspiracy theorists are weird, but that their beliefs have been examined mostly in Westernized, Educated, Industrialized, Rich, and Democratic populations. Most of what we know about conspiracy theorists comes from examining American research subjects, especially college students and online participants. How generalizable these findings are to, for example, France or Japan remains to be seen.

What to do about it

While this meta-analysis helps us understand who is more susceptible to believing in conspiracy theories, it tells us very little about what to do about it. True, believing that the Apollo moon landings were faked may appear innocuous and we might think it best to leave it alone, but we know with great certainty that the more you believe in one conspiracy theory, the more likely you are to believe in others, and we have seen the harmful effects of believing that Democrats stole the 2020 Presidential election in the United States or that the number of Jews killed by the Nazis has been exaggerated on purpose.

We have tools to fight back against misinformation, for example. We know that reminding people to be accurate before sharing a piece of news on social media can help reduce the number of falsehoods they spread. But if you believe in conspiracy theories, you already think you are being accurate in what you are sharing, so this intervention is unlikely to sway your actions. The authors of the meta-analysis write that we need new interventions for dealing with this, perhaps something that will reduce the perception that other people are a threat.

I have already written about what can be done if you personally know someone who takes conspiracy theories as gospel: the bottom line is to use empathy, avoid confrontations, and keep the dialogue going if you can. That’s hardly a silver bullet and it can strain someone’s patience. But it’s a start.

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