Conspiracy theory

For other uses, see Conspiracy theory (disambiguation).

A conspiracy theory is a term that has come to refer to any theory which explains a historical or current event as the result of a secret plot by usually powerful Machiavellian conspirators, such as a "secret team" or "shadow government".

Conspiracy theories are often viewed with skepticism and sometimes ridicule because they are seldom supported by any conclusive evidence and contrast with institutional analysis, which focuses on people's collective behavior in publicly known institutions, as recorded in scholarly material and mainstream media reports, to explain historical or current events, rather than secretive coalitions of individuals. The term is therefore often used dismissively in an attempt to characterize a belief as outlandishly false and held by a person judged to be a crank or a group confined to the lunatic fringe. Such characterization is often the subject of dispute due to its possible unfairness and inaccuracy. Though conspiracy theorists are quickly dismissed as not credible, it is worth noting that the U.S. Government itself believes in conspiracies as there are many laws written for conspiracy.

In the late 20th and early 21st centuries, conspiracy theories have become commonplace in mass media, which has contributed to conspiracism emerging as a cultural phenomenon and the possible replacement of democracy by conspiracy as the dominant paradigm of political action in the public mind. Belief in conspiracy theories has therefore become a topic of interest for sociologists, psychologists and experts in folklore.

Terminology

The term "conspiracy theory" may be a neutral descriptor for any conspiracy claim. To conspire means "to join in a secret agreement to do an unlawful or wrongful act or to use such means to accomplish a lawful end." However, conspiracy theory is also used to indicate a narrative genre that includes a broad selection of (not necessarily related) arguments for the existence of grand conspiracies.

The word "theory" is, in this usage, sometimes considered to be more informal as in "speculation" or "hypothesis" rather than mainstream scientific theory. Also, the term conspiracy is typically used to indicate powerful figures, often of the Establishment, who are believed to be deceiving the population at large, as in political corruption. Although some conspiracies are not actually theories, they are often labeled as such by the general populace.

The first recorded use of the phrase "conspiracy theory" dates from 1909. Originally it was a neutral term but during the political upheaval of the 1960s it acquired its current derogatory sense. It entered the supplement to the Oxford English Dictionary as late as 1997.

The term "conspiracy theory" is frequently used by scholars and in popular culture to identify secret military, banking, or political actions aimed at stealing power or money from "the people". Less illustrious uses refer to folklore and urban legend and a variety of explanatory narratives which are constructed with methodological flaws. The term is also used in a pejorative sense to automatically dismiss claims that are deemed ridiculous, misconceived, paranoid, unfounded, outlandish or irrational. For example, the term "Watergate conspiracy theory" does not refer to the generally accepted version in which several participants actually were convicted of conspiracy, and others pardoned before any charges were filed, but to alternative and additional theories such as claims that that the source(s) of information called "Deep Throat" was a fabrication.

Daniel Pipes, in an early essay "adapted from a study prepared for the CIA", attempted to define which beliefs distinguish 'the conspiracy mentality' from 'more conventional patterns of thought'. He defined them as: appearances deceive; conspiracies drive history; nothing is haphazard; the enemy always gains power, fame, money, and sex.

Conspiracism

A world view that centrally places conspiracy theories in the unfolding of history is sometimes termed "conspiracism". The historian Richard Hofstadter addressed the role of paranoia and conspiracism throughout American history in his essay The Paranoid Style in American Politics, published in 1964. Bernard Bailyn's classic The Ideological Origins of the American Revolution (1967) notes that a similar phenomenon could be found in America during the time preceding the American Revolution. Conspiracism then labels people's attitudes as well as the type of conspiracy theories that are more global and historical in proportion. The term conspiracism was popularized by academic Frank P. Mintz in the 1980s. Academic work in conspiracy theories and conspiracism presents a range of hypotheses as a basis of studying the genre. Among the leading scholars of conspiracism are: Hofstadter, Karl Popper, Michael Barkun, Robert Alan Goldberg, Daniel Pipes, Mark Fenster, Mintz, Carl Sagan, George Johnson, and Gerald Posner.

According to Mintz, conspiracism denotes: "belief in the primacy of conspiracies in the unfolding of history":

"Conspiracism serves the needs of diverse political and social groups in America and elsewhere. It identifies elites, blames them for economic and social catastrophes, and assumes that things will be better once popular action can remove them from positions of power. As such, conspiracy theories do not typify a particular epoch or ideology".

Throughout human history, political and economic leaders genuinely have been the cause of enormous amounts of death and misery, and they sometimes have engaged in conspiracies while at the same time promoting conspiracy theories about their targets. Hitler and Stalin would be merely the most prominent examples; there have been numerous others. In some cases there have been claims dismissed as conspiracy theories that later proved to be true. The idea that history itself is controlled by large long-standing conspiracies is rejected by historian Bruce Cumings:

"But if conspiracies exist, they rarely move history; they make a difference at the margins from time to time, but with the unforeseen consequences of a logic outside the control of their authors: and this is what is wrong with 'conspiracy theory.' History is moved by the broad forces and large structures of human collectivities."

The term conspiracism is used in the work of Michael Kelly, Chip Berlet, and Matthew N. Lyons.

According to Berlet and Lyons, "Conspiracism is a particular narrative form of scapegoating that frames demonized enemies as part of a vast insidious plot against the common good, while it valorizes the scapegoater as a hero for sounding the alarm".

Criticism

Conspiracy theories are the subject of broad critique by academics, politicians, and the media.

Validity

Perhaps the most contentious aspect of a conspiracy theory is the problem of settling a particular theory's truth to the satisfaction of both its proponents and its opponents. Particular accusations of conspiracy vary widely in their plausibility, but some common standards for assessing their likely truth value may be applied in each case:

• Occam's razor - does the alternative story explain more of the evidence than the mainstream story, or is it just a more complicated and therefore less useful explanation of the same evidence?
• Logic - Do the proofs offered follow the rules of logic, or do they employ fallacies of logic?
• Methodology - are the proofs offered for the argument well constructed, i.e., using sound methodology? Is there any clear standard to determine what evidence would prove or disprove the theory?
• Whistleblowers - how many people – and what kind – have to be loyal conspirators?
• Falsifiability - Is it possible to demonstrate that specific claims of the theory are false, or are they "unfalsifiable"?

Noam Chomsky, an academic critical of the United States establishment, contrasts conspiracy theory as more or less the opposite of institutional analysis, which focuses mostly on the public, long-term behaviour of publicly known institutions, as recorded in, e.g. scholarly documents or mainstream media reports, rather than secretive coalitions of individuals.

Controversy

Aside from controversies over the merits of particular conspiratorial claims, the general discussion of conspiracy theory is itself a matter of some public contention.

The term "conspiracy theory" is considered by different observers to be a neutral description for a conspiracy claim, a pejorative term used to dismiss such a claim without examination, and a term that can be positively embraced by proponents of such a claim. The term may be used by some for arguments they might not wholly believe but consider radical and exciting. The most widely accepted sense of the term is that which popular culture and academic usage share, certainly having negative implications for a narrative's probable truth value.

Given this popular understanding of the term, it can also be used illegitimately and inappropriately, as a means to dismiss what are in fact substantial and well-evidenced accusations. The legitimacy of each such usage will therefore be a matter of some controversy. Michael Parenti, in his 1996 essay which examines the role of progressive media in the use of the term, "The JFK Assassination II: Conspiracy Phobia On The Left", states,

"It is an either-or world for those on the Left who harbor an aversion for any kind of conspiracy investigation: either you are a structuralist in your approach to politics or a 'conspiracist' who reduces historical developments to the machinations of secret cabals, thereby causing us to lose sight of the larger systemic forces."

However, structuralist or institutional analysis shows that the term is misused when it is applied to institutions acting in pursuit of their acknowledged goals, e.g. thus, when a group of corporations engage in price-fixing in order to increase profits.

Certain proponents of conspiracy claims and their supporters argue that the term is entirely illegitimate, and should be considered just as politically manipulative as the Soviet practice of treating political dissidents as clinically insane.

But critics of this view claim that the argument bears little weight and that the claim itself serves to expose the paranoia common with conspiracy theorists. A similar complication occurs for terms such as UFO, which literally means "unidentified flying object" but connotes alien spacecraft, a concept also associated with some conspiracy theories, and thus possessing a certain social stigma. Michael Parenti gives an example of the use of the term which underscores the conflict in its use. He states,

"In most of its operations, the CIA is by definition a conspiracy, using covert actions and secret plans, many of which are of the most unsavory kind. What are covert operations if not conspiracies? At the same time, the CIA is an institution, a structural part of the national security state. In sum, the agency is an institutionalized conspiracy."

The term "conspiracy theory" is itself the object of a type of conspiracy theory, which argues that those using the term are manipulating their audience to disregard the topic under discussion, either in a deliberate attempt to conceal the truth, or as dupes of more deliberate conspirators.

When conspiracy theories are offered as official claims (e.g. originating from a governmental authority, such as an intelligence agency) they are not usually considered as conspiracy theories. For example, certain activities of the House Un-American Activities Committee may be considered to have been an official attempt to promote a conspiracy theory, yet its claims are seldom referred to as such.

Further difficulties arise from ambiguity regarding the term theory. In popular usage, this term is often used to refer to unfounded or weakly-based speculation, leading to the idea that "It's not a conspiracy theory if it's actually true".

Study of conspiracism

In 1936 American commentator H. L. Mencken wrote:

The central belief of every moron is that he is the victim of a mysterious conspiracy against his common rights and true deserts. He ascribes all his failure to get on in the world, all of his congenital incapacity and damfoolishness, to the machinations of werewolves assembled in Wall Street, or some other such den of infamy.

Belief in conspiracy theories has become a topic of interest for sociologists, psychologists and experts in folklore since at least the 1960s, when the assassination of US President John F. Kennedy eventually provoked an unprecedented public response directed against the official version of the case as expounded in the Report of the Warren Commission.

Psychological origins

According to some psychologists, a person who believes in one conspiracy theory tends to believe in others; a person who does not believe in one conspiracy theory tends not to believe another. This may be caused by differences in the information upon which parties rely in formulating their conclusions.

Psychologists believe that the search for meaning is common in conspiracism and the development of conspiracy theories, and may be powerful enough alone to lead to the first formulating of the idea. Once cognized, confirmation bias and avoidance of cognitive dissonance may reinforce the belief. In a context where a conspiracy theory has become popular within a social group, communal reinforcement may equally play a part. Some research carried out at the University of Kent, UK suggests people may be influenced by conspiracy theories without being aware that their attitudes have changed. After reading popular conspiracy theories about the death of Diana, Princess of Wales, participants in this study correctly estimated how much their peers' attitudes had changed, but significantly underestimated how much their own attitudes had changed to become more in favour of the conspiracy theories. The authors conclude that conspiracy theories may therefore have a 'hidden power' to influence people's beliefs.

Humanistic psychologists argue that even if the cabal behind the conspiracy is almost always perceived as hostile there is, often, still an element of reassurance in it, for conspiracy theorists, in part because it is more consoling to think that complications and upheavals in human affairs, at least, are created by human beings rather than factors beyond human control. Belief in such a cabal is a device for reassuring oneself that certain occurrences are not random, but ordered by a human intelligence. This renders such occurrences comprehensible and potentially controllable. If a cabal can be implicated in a sequence of events, there is always the hope, however tenuous, of being able to break the cabal's power - or joining it and exercising some of that power oneself. Finally, belief in the power of such a cabal is an implicit assertion of human dignity - an often unconscious but necessary affirmation that man is not totally helpless, but is responsible, at least in some measure, for his own destiny.

Projection

Some historians have argued that there is an element of psychological projection in conspiracism. This projection, according to the argument, is manifested in the form of attribution of undesirable characteristics of the self to the conspirators. Richard Hofstadter, in his essay The Paranoid Style in American Politics, stated that:

...it is hard to resist the conclusion that this enemy is on many counts the projection of the self; both the ideal and the unacceptable aspects of the self are attributed to him. The enemy may be the cosmopolitan intellectual, but the paranoid will outdo him in the apparatus of scholarship... the Ku Klux Klan imitated Catholicism to the point of donning priestly vestments, developing an elaborate ritual and an equally elaborate hierarchy. The John Birch Society emulates Communist cells and quasi-secret operation through "front" groups, and preaches a ruthless prosecution of the ideological war along lines very similar to those it finds in the Communist enemy. Spokesmen of the various fundamentalist anti-Communist "crusades" openly express their admiration for the dedication and discipline the Communist cause calls forth.

Hofstadter also noted that "sexual freedom" is a vice frequently attributed to the conspiracist's target group, noting that "very often the fantasies of true believers reveal strong sadomasochistic outlets, vividly expressed, for example, in the delight of anti-Masons with the cruelty of Masonic punishments."

Epistemic bias

It is possible that certain basic human epistemic biases are projected onto the material under scrutiny. According to one study humans apply a 'rule of thumb' by which we expect a significant event to have a significant cause. The study offered subjects four versions of events, in which a foreign president was (a) successfully assassinated, (b) wounded but survived, (c) survived with wounds but died of a heart attack at a later date, and (d) was unharmed. Subjects were significantly more likely to suspect conspiracy in the case of the 'major events' — in which the president died — than in the other cases, despite all other evidence available to them being equal.

Another epistemic 'rule of thumb' that can be misapplied to a mystery involving other humans is cui bono? (who stands to gain?). This sensitivity to the hidden motives of other people may be an evolved and universal feature of human consciousness. However, this is also a valid rule of thumb for detectives to use when generating a list of suspects to investigate. Used in this way "Who had the motive, means and opportunity?" is a perfectly valid use of this rule of thumb.

Clinical psychology

For relatively rare individuals, an obsessive compulsion to believe, prove or re-tell a conspiracy theory may indicate one or more of several well-understood psychological conditions, and other hypothetical ones: paranoia, denial, schizophrenia, mean world syndrome.

Socio-political origins

Christopher Hitchens represents conspiracy theories as the 'exhaust fumes of democracy', the unavoidable result of a large amount of information circulating among a large number of people. Other social commentators and sociologists argue that conspiracy theories are produced according to variables that may change within a democratic (or other type of) society.

Conspiratorial accounts can be emotionally satisfying when they place events in a readily-understandable, moral context. The subscriber to the theory is able to assign moral responsibility for an emotionally troubling event or situation to a clearly-conceived group of individuals. Crucially, that group does not include the believer. The believer may then feel excused of any moral or political responsibility for remedying whatever institutional or societal flaw might be the actual source of the dissonance.

Where responsible behavior is prevented by social conditions, or is simply beyond the ability of an individual, the conspiracy theory facilitates the emotional discharge or closure that such emotional challenges (after Erving Goffman) require. Like moral panics, conspiracy theories thus occur more frequently within communities that are experiencing social isolation or political dis-empowerment.

Mark Fenster argues that "just because overarching conspiracy theories are wrong does not mean they are not on to something. Specifically, they ideologically address real structural inequities, and constitute a response to a withering civil society and the concentration of the ownership of the means of production, which together leave the political subject without the ability to be recognized or to signify in the public realm" (1999: 67).

Sociological historian Holger Herwig found in studying German explanations for the origins of World War I:

Those events that are most important are hardest to understand, because they attract the greatest attention from myth makers and charlatans.

This normal process could be diverted by a number of influences. At the level of the individual, pressing psychological needs may influence the process, and certain of our universal mental tools may impose epistemic 'blind spots'. At the group or sociological level, historic factors may make the process of assigning satisfactory meanings more or less problematic.

Alternatively, conspiracy theories may arise when evidence available in the public record does not correspond with the common or official version of events. In this regard, conspiracy theories may sometimes serve to highlight 'blind spots' in the common or official interpretations of events (Fenster, 1999).

Media tropes

Media commentators regularly note a tendency in news media and wider culture to understand events through the prism of individual agents, as opposed to more complex structural or institutional accounts. If this is a true observation, it may be expected that the audience which both demands and consumes this emphasis itself is more receptive to personalized, dramatic accounts of social phenomena.

A second, perhaps related, media trope is the effort to allocate individual responsibility for negative events. The media have a tendency to start to seek culprits if an event occurs that is of such significance that it does not drop off the news agenda within a few days. Of this trend, it has been said that the concept of a pure accident is no longer permitted in a news item. Again, if this is a true observation, it may reflect a real change in how the media consumer perceives negative events.

Fusion paranoia

Michael Kelly, a Washington Post journalist and neoconservative critic of anti-war movements on both the left and right, coined the term "fusion paranoia" to refer to a political convergence of left-wing and right-wing activists around anti-war issues and civil liberties, which he claimed were motivated by a shared belief in conspiracism or anti-government views.

Social critics have adopted this term to refer to how the synthesis of paranoid conspiracy theories, which were once limited to American fringe audiences, has given them mass appeal and enabled them to become commonplace in mass media, thereby inaugurating an unrivaled period of millenarian activity in the U.S. of the late 20th and early 21st century. They warn that this development may not only fuel lone wolf terrorism but have devastating effects on American political life, such as producerist demagogy influencing elections as well as domestic and foreign policy.

Daniel Pipes, a Jerusalem Post journalist, wrote in the 2004 article Fusion paranoia:

Fears of a petty conspiracy – a political rival or business competitor plotting to do you harm – are as old as the human psyche. But fears of a grand conspiracy – that the Illuminati or Jews plan to take over the world – go back only 900 years and have been operational for just two centuries, since the French Revolution. Conspiracy theories grew in importance from then until World War II, when two arch-conspiracy theorists, Hitler and Stalin, faced off against each other, causing the greatest blood-letting in human history. This hideous spectacle sobered Americans, who in subsequent decades relegated conspiracy theories to the fringe, where mainly two groups promoted such ideas.

The politically disaffected: Blacks (Louis Farrakhan, Cynthia McKinney), the hard Right (John Birch Society, Pat Buchanan), and other alienated elements (Ross Perot, Lyndon LaRouche). Their theories imply a political agenda, but lack much of a following.

The culturally suspicious: These include "Kennedy assassinologists," "ufologists," and those who believe a reptilian race runs the earth and alien installations exist under the earth's surface. Such themes enjoy enormous popularity (a year 2000 poll found 43 percent of Americans believing in UFOs), but carry no political agenda.

The major new development, reports Barkun, professor of political science in the Maxwell School at Syracuse University, is not just an erosion in the divisions between these two groups, but their joining forces with occultists, persons bored by rationalism. Occultists are drawn to what Barkun calls the "cultural dumping ground of the heretical, the scandalous, the unfashionable, and the dangerous" – such as spiritualism, Theosophy, alternative medicine, alchemy, and astrology. Thus, the author who worries about the Secret Service taking orders from the Bavarian Illuminati is old school; the one who worries about a "joint Reptilian-Bavarian Illuminati" takeover is at the cutting edge of the new synthesis. These bizarre notions constitute what the late Michael Kelly termed "fusion paranoia," a promiscuous absorption of fears from any source whatsoever.

Political use

In his two volume work The Open Society and Its Enemies Popper used the term "conspiracy theory" to criticize the ideologies driving fascism, Nazism, Marxism and communism. Popper argued that totalitarianism was founded on "conspiracy theories" which drew on imaginary plots driven by paranoid scenarios predicated on tribalism, chauvinism, racism or classism. Popper did not argue against the existence of everyday conspiracies (as incorrectly suggested in much of the later literature). Popper even uses the term "conspiracy" to describe ordinary political activity in the classical Athens of Plato (who was the principal target of his attack in The Open Society & Its Enemies).

In his critique of Marx and the twentieth century totalitarians, Popper wrote, "I do not wish to imply that conspiracies never happen. On the contrary, they are typical social phenomena."

He reiterated his point, "Conspiracies occur, it must be admitted. But the striking fact which, in spite of their occurrence, disproved the conspiracy theory is that few of these conspiracies are ultimately successful. Conspirators rarely consummate their conspiracy."

Popper proposed the term "the conspiracy theory of society" to criticize the methodology of Marx, Hitler and others whom he deemed to be deluded by "historicism" - the reduction of history to an overt and naive distortion via a crude formulaic analysis usually predicated on an agenda replete with unsound presuppositions.

Examples

Main article: List of conspiracy theories

Fiction

Main article: Conspiracy fiction

Because of their dramatic potential, conspiracies are a popular theme in thrillers and science fiction. Complex history is recast as a morality play in which bad people cause bad events, and good people identify and defeat them. Fictional conspiracy theories offer neat, intuitive narratives, in which the conspirators' plot fits closely the dramatic needs of the story's plot. As mentioned above, the cui bono? aspect of conspiracy theories resembles one element of mystery stories: the search for a possibly hidden motive.

Dr. Strangelove was a 1964 comedy about modern nuclear warfare. The end of the world is precipitated by the delusions of General Jack D. Ripper who happens to be in control of a SAC nuclear air wing. General Ripper believes there is a Communist conspiracy which threatens to "sap and impurify" the "precious bodily fluids" of the American people with fluoridated water.

Conspiracy Theory is a 1997 thriller about a taxi driver (played by Mel Gibson) who publishes a newsletter in which he discusses what he suspects are government conspiracies, and it turns out that one or more of them are true.

The X-Files was a popular television show during the 1990s and early 2000s, which followed the investigations of three FBI agents, Fox Mulder, Dana Scully and John Doggett, who were sometimes helped by a group of conspiracy theorists known as The Lone Gunmen. Many of the episodes dealt with a plot for alien invasion overseen by elements of the U.S. government, led by an individual known only as the Cigarette Smoking Man and an even more mysterious international "Syndicate". The famous tag line of the series, "The Truth Is Out There", can be interpreted as reference to the meaning-seeking nature of the genre discussed above.

Umberto Eco's novel Foucault's Pendulum is a broad satire on conspiracism in which the characters attempt to construct an all-embracing conspiracy theory starting with the Templars and including the Bavarian Illuminati, the Rosicrucians, hollow Earth enthusiasts, the Cathars, and the Jesuits.

The three-part novel Illuminatus! by Robert Shea and Robert Anton Wilson (published in 1975) is a highly satirical, psychedelic novel dealing with complex, Byzantine conspiracies nested within other larger conspiracies—with the scale of the plots and the audacity of their plotters expanding to enfold more and more minds as the story progresses, evolving to wrap itself around many extant conspiracy theories such as the ones revolving around the Bavarian Illuminati, the Masons, the Vatican, the Mafia, governments large and small, and fringe groups of both left and right-wing persuasions. Their plottings merge with the overarching plans of several fictitious organizations—and also an actual "religion" which conceives of itself as a joke (the Discordians.) In an ironic twist of fate, Illuminatus! may have even caused the development of a real-world Discordian society (which manifests in loose clusters of affiliation, rather than as any formalized group) when the novel's cult success as a countercultural mainstay brought the "holy writ" of the Discordians, the Principia Discordia, out of obscurity over the final three decades of the twentieth century. Shea and Wilson used witty quotes drawn from this comedic pamphlet glorifying Eris, the Greek goddess of chaos and discord, as opening lines for chapters of the Illuminatus! books.

The 2003 novel Elvis and the Blue Moon Conspiracy by Mark McGinty tells the satirical story of the 1969 moon landing, where Elvis Presley accompanies astronauts Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin to the lunar surface and becomes the first man to walk on the moon. An accident on the surface causes NASA to abort the mission and broadcast a version of the landing without Elvis, later dubbed a "hoax" by a little known reporter named Dani Mitchell. Proving a humorous look at several conspiracy theories from the 1960s, the book ties together the assassination of JFK, the deaths of Elvis Presley and Marilyn Monroe and the first moon landing.

Conspiracy theories have even influenced video games. The critically acclaimed RPG/shooter Deus Ex, and its sequel (albeit to a lesser degree), Deus Ex: Invisible War, draw upon current-day conspiracy theories such as Majestic 12, Area 51, and the Illuminati.

See also

9/11 conspiracy theories Apollo Moon Landing hoax conspiracy theories Area 51 Assassination Bermuda Triangle Bilderberg Group Black helicopters Boris III of Bulgaria Conspiracy Council on Foreign Relations Chem trails Espionage Free energy suppression Freemasons Furtive fallacy Government Warehouse Herbert Kitchener, 1st Earl Kitchener Holocaust denial Illuminati

Jesuits John F. Kennedy assassination conspiracy theories Liberty Lobby New World Order New World Order (film) Paul is dead Percy Bysshe Shelley Priory of Sion Pseudoscience Robert Anton Wilson Roswell UFO Incident Secret Team Skull and Bones Sovereign Citizen Movement Tin foil hat Trilateral Commission Vatican Secret Archives The X-Files Yitzhak Rabin assassination conspiracy theories

Concepts

Apophenia Cabal Clustering illusion Consensus Cock-up theory Conspiracy? (the History Channel) Conspiracy in criminal law

Conspiracy theories (fictional) Conspsiracy theorists List of conspiracy theories Mind Control Paranoia Paranoia (magazine) The Paranoid Style in American Politics

Conspiracy theorists

The following people are known to have proposed conspiracy theories:

James Jesus Angleton (1917 - 1987)	American Cold War spymaster whose paranoid excesses as the CIA's counter-intelligence czar, arising from false information provided by his KGB defector friend Anatoliy Golitsyn, had adverse effects on the Agency.
Art Bell (born 1945)	American founder and longtime host of the paranormal-themed radio program Coast to Coast AM.
Peter Beter (1921 - 1987)	American lawyer and author who claimed that world events were being controlled by three factions, the Rockefeller family, the "Bolshevik-Zionist axis," and the Kremlin.
Mae Brussell (1922 - 1988)	American conspiracy theorist and radio personality, focusing on the assassination of John F. Kennedy.
William Guy Carr (1895 - 1959)	Canadian naval officer and author responsible for creating the American Illuminati demonology.
Jack T. Chick (born 1924)	American publisher of comic book-style tracts, known as Chick Tracts, often depicting conspiracy theories featuring Satan, the Catholic Church, Communists, Muslims, rock musicians, scientists, and politicians, as well as other groups and subjects behind popular entertainment, role-playing games, and other perceived ills of modern culture.
Jerome Corsi (born 1946)	American author who theorizes about a potential North American Union, advances 9/11 conspiracy theories, believes in abiogenic petroleum origin and theorizes a conspiracy between oil companies and politicians to maintain pricing.
Francis E. Dec (1926 - 1996)	Disbarred American lawyer from Hempstead, New York who is today known for having in the 1970s and 80s mass-mailed various rambling flyers and rants to randomly selected addressees all across the US, in which he purported to warn the public of an omnipotent machine-entity he referred to as the "World-wide Mad Deadly Communist Gangster Computer God."
James Shelby Downard (1913 - 1998)	American author who perceived occult symbolism, twilight language and synchronicity behind historical events in the 20th century.
David Emory (born 1949)	American talk radio host who asserts that an obscure, sinister, organization called the "Underground Reich" maintains the interests of the German industry, banking and finance, which survived World War II as a major part of the global capital elite. Based in the San Francisco Bay area.
Myron C. Fagan (1887 - 1972)	American writer, producer and director for film and theatre, who wrote and produced plays and pamphlets claiming the United Nations was a Communist front for [[New World Order (conspiracy theory)|one world government]].
Anatoliy Golitsyn (1926 - ?)	Soviet KGB defector who provided the CIA with false information and later wrote a book claiming that the fall of communism in Eastern Europe was a hoax.
Des Griffin	American author espousing a right-wing Christian view of global conspiracies and the New World Order.
G. Edward Griffin
Zaid Hamid
Patrick Haseldine (born 1942)	Former British diplomat, dismissed in 1989 by the Thatcher government for writing a letter to The Guardian on 7 December 1988. His subsequent conspiracy theory seeking to incriminate apartheid South Africa over the 21 December 1988 Lockerbie bombing alleged that the aircraft was downed in order to assassinate Bernt Carlsson, UN Commissioner for Namibia.
Stanley Hilton	American lawyer who filed a subsequently dismissed $7-billion lawsuit against Bush Administration officials, accusing them of complicity in the September 11, 2001 attacks.
Richard Hoagland (born 1945)	American author whose books claim that advanced civilizations exist or once existed on the Moon and Mars, and NASA and the United States government are conspiring to keep this secret. Latest theories of this nature include the Jovian satellite Europa and what he claims killed the Columbia shuttle astronauts.
Michael A. Hoffman II (born 1954)	American historian who posits conspiracies about Jewish control of the United States and about the Holocaust.
Leonard G. Horowitz	American author, former dentist, who claimed in a book, Emerging Viruses, that HIV/AIDS was engineered by the U.S. as a biological warfare agent. Reportedly inspired Nation of Islam leader Louis Farrakhan to caution against vaccinating children; mentioned by Rev. Jeremiah Wright in support of Wright's similar claim.
Kent E. Hovind (born 1953)	Young-earth creationist speaking on Creation, Evolution, and Dinosaurs.
David Icke (born 1952)	British writer and public speaker who claims that the world is ruled by a secret group called the "Global Elite" or "Illuminati," which he has linked to The Protocols of the Elders of Zion.
Alex Jones (born 1974)	Syndicated radio host, film maker and web site publisher. Has been referred to as a "conspiracy theorist." Considers himself a libertarian and a patriot. Based in Austin, TX.	Timothy F. LaHaye (born 1926)	Joint author, with Jerry F. Jenkins, of the Left Behind novels.
Lyndon H. LaRouche Jr. (born 1922)	American activist and self-styled politician whose publications rail against what he calls "Synarchism" and who, in spite of having received a felony conviction for mail fraud, has repeatedly sought election—thus far, without success—to the office of President of the United States.
Rauni-Leena Luukanen-Kilde
William S. Lind	Paleoconservative activist and director of the Center for Cultural Conservatism at the Free Congress Foundation, Lind claims "Political Correctness is cultural Marxism." and claims scholars associated with the Institute for Social Research at University of Frankfurt am Main in Germany (the ) determined to overthrow Western Christian culture and have turned college campuses into "small ivy covered North Koreas, where the student or faculty member who dares to cross any of the lines set up by the gender feminist or the homosexual-rights activists, or the local black or Hispanic group, or any of the other sainted "victims" groups that PC revolves around, quickly find themselves in judicial trouble." Lind's theory has been embraced by conservative commentator Patrick Buchanan and by Michael Minnicino who is associated with Lyndon Larouche's Schiller Institute.
Jim Marrs (born 1943)	American author who has written such books as: Rule by Secrecy, Alien Agenda, Crossfire, and The Rise of the Fourth Reich.
Texe Marrs
Ken McCarthy (born 1959)	Owns and operates BrasscheckTV via his AMACORD consulting business. Massive provider of conspiracy content, videos and alternative news stories. Site named for Upton Sinclair's book The Brass Check, an early analysis of the significance and impact of ownership patterns of US news sources
Thierry Meyssan
Gary North
Roberto Pinotti
Jeff Rense	American radio show host and web site producer, mostly UFO and 9-11 conspiracy theories.
Lew Rockwell
Christopher W. Ruddy
Ben Stein (born 1944)	former Nixon speechwriter turned actor/game show host, whose movie, "Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed" alleges a vast conspiracy among modern scientists to squelch evidence for creationism in order to promote atheism.
Oliver Stone	Academy award-winning film director and screenwriter
John A. Stormer
Webster Tarpley

References

• American Heritage Dictionary, "Conspiracy theory"
• Barkun, Michael. 2003. A Culture of Conspiracy: Apocalyptic Visions in Contemporary America. Berkeley: University of California Press. ISBN 0-520-23805-2
• Chase, Alston. 2003. Harvard and the Unabomber: The Education of an American Terrorist. New York: W. W. Norton & Company. ISBN 0-393-02002-9
• Fenster, Mark. 1999. Conspiracy Theories: Secrecy and Power in American Culture. Minneapolis, MN: University of Minnesota Press. ISBN 0-8166-3243-X
• Goldberg, Robert Alan. 2001. Enemies Within: The Culture of Conspiracy in Modern America. New Haven & London: Yale University Press. ISBN 0-300-09000-5
• Hofstadter, Richard. 1965. The Paranoid Style in American Politics and Other Essays. New York: Alfred A. Knopf. ISBN 0-674-65461-7
• Johnson, George 1983. Architects of Fear: Conspiracy Theories and Paranoia in American Politics. Los Angeles: Jeremy P. Tarcher, Inc. ISBN 0-87477-275-3
• Melley, Timothy. 1999. Empire of Conspiracy: The Culture of Paranoia in Postwar America. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press. ISBN 0-8014-8606-8
• Mintz, Frank P. 1985. The Liberty Lobby and the American Right: Race, Conspiracy, and Culture. Westport, CT: Greenwood. ISBN 0-313-24393-X
• Pipes, Daniel. 1997. Conspiracy: How the Paranoid Style Flourishes and Where It Comes from. New York: The Free Press. ISBN 0-684-87111-4
• ---. 1998. The Hidden Hand: Middle East Fears of Conspiracy. New York: St. Martin's Press. ISBN 0-312-17688-0
• Popper, Karl R. 1945. The Open Society and Its Enemies. Princeton: Princeton University Press. ISBN 0-691-01968-1
• Posner, Gerald. 1993. Case Closed: Lee Harvey Oswald and the Assassination of JFK. New York: The Random House. ISBN 0-385-47446-6
• Sagan, Carl. 1996. The Demon-Haunted World: Science as a Candle in the Dark. New York: The Random House. ISBN 0-394-53512-X
• Vankin, Jonathan, and John Whalen. 2004. The 80 Greatest Conspiracies of All Time. New York: Citadel Press. ISBN 0-8065-2531-2

Further reading

• Conspiracism, Political Research Associates
• Cziesche, Dominik (2003). "Panoply of the Absurd". Der Spiegel. Der Spiegel. Retrieved 2006-06-06. {{cite web}}: Unknown parameter |coauthors= ignored (|author= suggested) (help)
• Parsons, Charlotte (2001). "Why we need conspiracy theories". BBC News - Americas. BBC. Retrieved 2006-06-26.
• Meigs, James B. (2006). "The Conspiracy Industry". Popular Mechanics. Hearst Communications, Inc. Retrieved 2006-10-13.
• James McConnachie and Robin Tudge (2005). The Rough Guide to Conspiracy Theories. Rough Guides. ISBN 978-1843534457.
• Barry Coward, ed. (2004). Conspiracies and Conspiracy Theory in Early Modern Europe: From the Waldensians to the French Revolution. Ashgate Publishing. ISBN 0754635643. {{cite book}}: Unknown parameter |coauthor= ignored (|author= suggested) (help)
• Peter Knight, ed. (2003). Conspiracy Theories in American History: An Encyclopedia. ABC-Clio. ISBN 1576078124.
• Gordon B. Arnold, ed. (2008). Conspiracy Theory in Film, Television, and Politics. Praeger Publishers. p. 200. ISBN 0275994627.
• West, Harry G. and Todd Sanders (eds) Transparency and Conspiracy: Ethnographies of Suspicion in the New World Order. Durham: Duke University Press. ISBN 978-0822330240
• Rudmin, Floyd (2003). "Conspiracy Theory As Naive Deconstructive History". newdemocracy.org. Retrieved 2008-04-18.

Conspiracist literature

• The Protocols of the Elders of Zion.
• Balsiger, David W. and Charles E. Sellier, Jr. (1977). The Lincoln Conspiracy. Los Angeles: Schick Sun Classic Books. ISBN 1-56849-531-5.
• Bryan, Gerald B. (2000) [1940]. Psychic Dictatorship in America. Paolini International LLC. ISBN 0-9666213-1-X. {{cite book}}: Unknown parameter |coauthors= ignored (|author= suggested) (help)
• Cooper, Milton William (1991). Behold a Pale Horse. Light Technology Publications. ISBN 0-929385-22-5.
• Icke, David (2004). And the Truth Shall Set You Free: The 21st Century Edition. Bridge of Love. ISBN 0-9538810-5-9.
• Levenda, Peter (2005). Sinister Forces: Trilogy. Trine Day. ISBN 0-9752906-2-2.
• Marrs, Texe (1996). Project L.U.C.I.D.: The Beast 666 Universal Human Control System. Living Truth Publishers. ISBN 1-884302-02-5.
• Pelley, William Dudley (1950). Star Guests: Design for Mortality. Noblesville, Indiana: Soulcraft Press.
• Robertson, Pat (1992). The New World Order. W Publishing Group. ISBN 0-8499-3394-3.
• Wilson, Robert Anton (2002). TSOG: The Thing That Ate the Constitution, Tempe, AZ: New Falcon Publications. ISBN 1-56184-169-2.
• Yallop, David A. (1984). In God's Name: An Investigation into the Murder of Pope John Paul I. New York: Bantam Dell Publishing Group. ISBN 0-553-05073-7.
• York, Byron (2005). The Vast Left Wing Conspiracy: The Untold Story of How Democratic Operatives, Eccentric Billionaires, Liberal Activists, and Assorted Celebrities Tried to Bring Down a President - and Why They'll Try Even Harder Next Time. New York: Crown Forum. ISBN 1-4000-8238-2.
• Conspiracies, Conspiracy Theories and the Secrets of 9/11, by Mathias Bröckers. Sees conspiracy as a fundamental principle between cooperation and competition. Proposes a new science of "conspirology."

External links

• The Economics of Conspiracy Theories
• An Integral Approach to Conspiracy Theory
• On the hunt for a conspiracy theory, CS Monitor article
• 'The Paranoid Style in American Politics' Richard Hofstadter, Harper's 1964 November
• Brasscheck TV - Ken McCarthy's Conspiracy journalism site, videos, e-mail subscription
• Amir Butler: Our Credibility Problem is a Conspiracy - A discussion of the spread of conspiracy theories in the Muslim community
• PanicWatch.org - Media panic, health scares, paranoia, and conspiracy theories
• Analysis of the appeal of conspiracy theories with suggestions for more accurate ad hoc internet reporting of them by Author Naomi Wolf
• Conspiracy theories --- the truth may really be out there or it might be a load of bull Article in the November 13-19, 2008 Issue of the University of Ottawa Student Newspaper
• "MediaTropes eJournal", Stuart J. Murray, "Editorial Introduction: 'Media Tropes'," MediaTropes, Vol. 2, no. 1 (2009): i-x