My Top 10 Favorite Conspiracy Books

Here's a list of my ten fave books about conspiracies, UFOs, the paranormal, and etc. Even more than being books I love, the titles on this list are great for the "beginner" who is just starting to delve into these topics of interest:



10. Hollywood Babylon, by Kenneth Anger

This book isn't about the "Entertainment Illuminati" per se -- but it maps out the framework upon which much of that lore is based. Come thrill at the utter murderous debauchery of Hollywood (where life is apparently cheap)! The author/filmmaker was, and is, heavily into the occult, idolizing Aleister Crowley and working with such luminaries as Anton LaVey and Jack Parsons' widow Marjorie Cameron -- so if anybody would know about the Illuminati's influence in the movie industry, it would be this guy. Also had a sequel book with gorier photos.

9. Dead Names, by Simon

Purporting to be a history of the "Simon" version of the Necronomicon, this book provides not only a nice history of the occult in New York City and background on one of the most famous books of magic in the world -- but it also gives you an "insider's" look at the mass corruption (with possible connections to international espionage) of the various "Orthodox" Christian churches. You'll never quite feel like you're getting the complete story from author Simon, in part because the author is really Peter "Sinister Forces" Levenda (who has a great deal of fun with it all).

8. Subliminal Seduction, by Wilson Bryan Key

If you are into spotting the "secret messages" behind pop-culture, this book is the Bible. Key's ground-breaking work analyzes advertising for "hidden" subliminals (most involving sex) designed to help sell products. These subliminals include sex acts painted in ice cubes and the word "sex" drawn faintly all over photographs. You'll literally never look at ads the same way again; this might mean that you are going as mad as Key, or stumbling upon one of the greatest conspiracies of all time.

7. Hellhounds On Their Trail by R. Gary Patterson

An exhaustive look at the connection between the occult and the music industry, this book is a must for anybody interested in Illuminati/pop-music lore. As with "Hollywood Babylon," the secret societies within Music aren't named as such, but it becomes quickly clear that something bigger and more systematic is going on rather than a handful of unrelated cases. This is one of the few books that have massively creeped me out; as if there was something demonic hidden in the pages themselves (which I realize sounds corny, but that's how I really felt).

6. The Secret History Of The World, by Mark Booth

An epic overview of the history of esoteric thought since the dawn of recorded time, and of the secret societies that keep this knowledge alive (and hidden). You get a really good foundation in alchemy and occult symbology here, and it's stuff you can then apply to a whole host of other research. The only caveat is that, like "Dead Names," you always feel like the author is not telling you the full story -- or that he may have an agenda of his own (I am specifically referring to Booth's postscript entitled "Is The Anti-Christ Already Here?" -- a sharp departure from the balanced tone of the rest of the book).

5. Book Of Lies: The Disinformation Book of Magick

This is one of the very first books that introduced me to the word of conspiracies and the occult, and as such it was very formative for me. It covers it all: Crowley, Hitler, Sirius, William Burroughs, Lovecraft, LaVey, psychedelics, the Apocalypse. It will crack open your head and take you on a whole bunch of different directions (which, strangely, will all sort of take you to the same destination point).

4. The Spear Of Destiny, by Trevor Ravenscroft

This another of those conspiracy "meta-narratives" that ties together a massive amount of different people and ideas -- in this case, the occult, Nazis, secret societies, Christianity, reincarnation, and etc. And again, the narrator seems somewhat unreliable; but more than unreliable, he also seems somewhat mad. The conclusion Ravenscroft makes at the end of this book as to the Jews and the Holocaust is also quite jaw-dropping; the equivalent of driving a car steadily down a road for miles and then taking a sudden and violent left-turn right through the highway's shoulder and into a densely wooded area.

3. The Gods Of Eden, by William Bramley

This is, like "Behold A Pale Horse," a seminal work in conspiriology that countless writers have stole borrowed from. Bramley, a lawyer, systematically goes through the entire history of mankind, methodically building a case that alien "Custodians" have been manipulating humanity. Just like any good lawyer, Bramley will have you convinced of this tale of ancient astronauts and masonic secret societies whether you're a "believer" or not.

2. Sinister Forces, by Peter Levenda

I've admittedly only read the third and last volume of this series -- but its grand, operatic, all-encompassing narrative makes it a titanic work of conspiracy lore. This is Levenda's magnum opus, a work connecting the dots on everything from Satanism to JFK to MK-Ultra to Charles Manson to Jeffrey Dahmer. You can almost feel Levenda fighting off madness/depression/mania as he struggles to part it all down on paper; which is why, more than just conspiracy books, they almost read like works of art.

1. Cosmic Trigger, by Robert Anton Wilson

Yet another meta-narrative, this time weaving together the Illuminati (yes, referred to by name), aliens, synchronicities (as embodied by the "23 Enigma"), mind-expanding drugs, mythology...and of course Aleister Crowley. But what really made me place this book at the top is not just the skillful and humorous way we handles the subject matter -- but his overall advice on how to "handle" conspiracy/occult studies in general. Which is to say: keep an open mind and don't get too hung up o any one point of view (or, "reality tunnel"), as to avoid going stone-cold paranoid and get trapped in the "Chapel Perilous."

There were other books that I've also enjoyed that didn't quite make this list for one reason or another. I quite like David Icke's books, but they are hard to read straight through & are very derivative of other works (read "Gods of Eden" to see how much Icke "borrows"). "Behold A Pale Horse" by Bill Cooper is another book that I just couldn't read straight through, and was really bogged down by all the disparate sources and pages and pages of "official documents." Much of the MK-Ultra lore (Fritz Springmeier, "Trace-Formation," etc.) have some good stuff in it but also seems to go off the rails. Lastly, there's a rich library of conspiracy material with a specifically Christian view-point; I've avoided these in this list, as a lot of it hinges on "if you are not Saved you are going to Hell."

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Alex Jones, "Holmies," And Celebrity Doubles: Surfing Down The Chapel Perilous

Alex Jones makes the big-time.

"Chapel Perilous is a stage in the magickal quest in which your maps turn out to be totally inadequate for the territory and you're completely lost. And at that point you get an ally who helps you find your way back to something you can understand. And then after that for the rest of your life you've got this question: Was that ally a supernatural helper, or was it just part of my own mind trying to save me from going totally bonkers with this stuff? And the people I know who've had that kind of experience, very few of them have come to an absolutely certain conclusion about this." 
-- Robert Anton Wilson 

I've stayed away from this blog for a number of reasons as of late, as several things have depressed me deeply and have shook my decision to continue writing this stuff.


The biggest thing on my radar is the Alex Jones meltdown on CNN recently. What a horrorshow. A friend of mine suggested that he was invited to speak on the Piers Morgan program with the producers specifically anticipating that he would go batshit crazy and make everybody else who is interested in fringe subjects also look like loonies; I partially agree with this assessment. It's almost like I can't completely blame Jones, as I think that the way he acted on that program was pretty much his honest-to-God default mechanism -- a mix between feeling paranoid away from his homebase, the adrenaline pumping from being on national TV, and so on.

But you know, a meltdown such as this doesn't help the thousands of people who do have legitimate questions about the status quo -- who desire to have a rational convo on gun control and whatnot. Doesn't help the NRA, doesn't help the cause of Alex's followers, doesn't help, doesn't help, doesn't help. And then Drudge chimes in with more incendiary headlines featuring pics of Adolph Hitler (which pretty much Godwins the entire discussion). I read these comments on Alex's YouTube, see these headlines on Drudge, read these articles like "The New South" on Salon, and I just think this is all a horrible combination, that's ultimately going to result in some Waco-like disaster.

"They are all the same actor"

Along those lines, at the beginning of the week I had an acquaintance targeted on this massive conspiracy site as the "actor-double" of James Holmes. This was a major clusterfuck nightmare, complete with my friend's contact info right on the website. The site -- which is extensive -- pretty much believes that most major events in the U.S. and whatnot have been staged by using celebrity actors. This site believes that Alice Cooper and Steve Carell are the same person. I had to read this site like 10 times to figure out if it was just an Onion-like put-on. It wasn't. And the fact that my acquaintance -- who, unlike most of the people libeled on the site, pretty much isn't even a celebrity (with celebrity-level security)  -- had his life turned upside-down over this was just horrifying.

An example of James Holmes fan art

Then there was stuff like the James Holmes fan club community coming out in full force this week -- which is another post entirely. They have their own conspiracy theories, which dovetails into these new Sandy Hook conspiracies....this Venn diagram of teenage fangirls and hardcore old-school theorists (some of whom believe that no children were harmed in SH and it was all just a Hollywood production)...

All these things and more makes fringe researchers -- or the merely curious -- look like maniacs, and distracts people from the real issues.

Fuck, it is so depressing. Reading some old stuff from Robert Anton Wilson and Tim Leary that's cheering me up a little bit, as well as a Red Ice Radio interview with Drunvalo Melchizedek that at least gave me some new positive ideas -- I mean, I don't buy everything Melchizedek says, but it was a good change of pace with some insights I haven't thought of before. Stench of Truth as usual tries to refocus stuff on the issues. And I got some good synchromystic notes written out that might make some fruitful posts -- or at least research for shits and giggles -- down the line. But this week was rough, with me questioning a lot of stuff.

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Characteristics Of The Evolving Human

I've been at a loss as to what to write on this blog as of late; these neverending stories blasted through the media about mass-shootings, rapes, etc. -- I feel intuitively that this is happening now with a greater intensity because change and the evolution of humanity is accelerating on this planet.

So let's talk about this change and evolution.

My personal belief is that human beings are fast evolving/mutating into Something Else. We've been doing this for some time -- Robert Anton Wilson refers to it as "The Jumping Jesus" syndrome. But it has sharply accelerated now in the wake of 2012. And for every action is a reaction. So here's where we get the heavy dose of Crazy -- high partisanship, fundeMENTALism and fanaticism trying to reassert itself.

Our media -- movies, TV, comic books, video games, etc -- have been trying to communicate with us that this Change in humanity was about to/is taking place. I mean, this is what the whole concept of "The X-Men" is about. "Chronicle," "Looper," "Smallville," "Scanners," "Carrie," "Star Trek," "Star Wars," and on and on and on and on.

I think it's important not to idealize this Change or dress it too much up in the garments of New Age frippery. But I don't think there is a way to turn back the clock on this one. And yet, a lot of the strife we see in the news involves attempts to do just that -- to return us to a highly authoritarian, ignorant and frankly animalistic state of being.

What are the characteristics of this emerging human?

1) Ability to resolve paradoxes

The old way of thinking is that paradoxes are Bad -- affronts to the Good/Bad either/or schema. So the idea was, if you saw a paradox, SMASH IT. The emerging human can better resolve paradoxes, living with them in a playful manner rather than fanatically coming down in support of one side of the other. The emerging human understands that Life is Paradox, that the flow of existence is the simultaneous existence of This and That, all at the same time.




2) Acceptance of diversity

The universe is endlessly diverse, and the attempt to suppress/dominate all that is not of your species or clan or nation or race flies directly in the face of this fact. And yet this hatred of the Other has been the driving force of human history for millennia. It is born of animal instincts, biologically-driven from the most primal recesses of our brains to "protect" our genetic material and move it along, more or less unscathed and unfucked with, for presumably forever. But the emerging human is breaking free of the Animal, its perspective opening to other modes of being, the vastness of everything that Is and Will Be sharply coming into focus. From such a perspective, dominating/abusing/killing/raping/oppressing others simply because they are Other is an abomination -- and more than an abomination, it's utterly pointless.


3) Development of senses outside the primary 5

Humans have the potential for far more sensory input than the standard see, hear, touch, smell, and taste. Many of us know this. But these abilities have been ruthlessly suppressed and persecuted throughout human history to the point where the accepted view is that they are impossible. To even mention the concept of Intuition is to raise the hackles of the most seemingly rational individual. But no matter how thoroughly these "forgotten" senses have been rooted out, still they remain within our species, hovering right above our consciousness, reaching out to us in our dreams. Expect a startling increase in those who are in touch with these extra senses.

 
4) Extra-dimensionality

The emerging human will become more and more aware of the fact that Time is not linear -- that what we know as "local" is in fact pretty much everything. Contemporary physics is already pointing this out to us, but such knowledge will be intuitively understood by the masses of emerging humans, granting them the abilities to better live in Now and access All whenever they wish.



I'm always aware of those who are evolving when I meet them; I feel it as an immediate jump in my energy level as it interfaces with their own. Our job is to learn from them in order to evolve higher; and to help others in turn to evolve.

And I could point out again how a lot of the savagery we see reported in the news -- the rapes, the shootings, the out-and-out discrimination of others to the point of self-parody -- is the reaction to this evolutionary process. But that only increases the focus of our consciousness to the strife. What we contemplate on is what gets reflected back to us. We need to know injustice is going on, and find constructive methods to right the wrongs -- but we cannot be consumed by this. It's a paradox, to be sure -- but that's part of what's on our curriculum as developing humans to resolve anyway.

There is so much good information and work being done to expand our consciousness in so much alternative media -- while at the same time incorporating themes that fly in the face of this evolutionary process. Another paradox. My personal recommendation is to not avoid such sources of information and ideas, but develop a highly elastic, playful, and discerning mindspace with which to filter all this data. To studiously avoid one "side" or the other is to fall into the trap of black-white thinking, while deluding yourself that you are enlightened.

Most of all, whatever you do, don't regard yourself as "enlightened." That causes all sorts of problems.

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Anatomy of A Sync: O.M.A.C., A.R.G.U.S., and All-Seeing Eyes

According to blogger/video-maker Jake Kotze, synchromysticism can be defined as:

"The art of realizing meaningful coincidence in the seemingly mundane with mystical or esoteric significance."

Recognizing and recording various "syncs," as they are known, can be a fascinating hobby with some potential for personal growth and a better understanding of the world around us. It also carries with it the danger of entering what Robert Anton Wilson refers to as "Chapel Perilous" -- you might become so caught up in noticing and sussing out the meaning of these various synchronicities that you become utterly obsessed. Because you'll find that the more you pay attention to them, the more they occur.

He has just entered Chapel Perilous, and needs to put the computer away

Also, if you try explaining even one synchromystic happening to an everyday individual, or maybe a family member, you'll often find yourself greeted with an expression halfway between blank and sighting some sort of large blue furry caterpillar on your nose. An expression you might be making right now as you decide this blog is rubbish and quickly click it away.

But if you're still here, let me give you an example of a fascinating series of syncs I had yesterday, all within period of an hour or so.

It all started with an Intention -- I was going to use the bit of free time I had to do some comic reading and take notes for this blog. I was sitting next to my husband, who was playing video games. As I picked up a copy of "Justice League International Annual" #1 to read, my husband switched off the games and flipped to an episode of the old 1980s "Incredible Hulk" animated series. He said there was an episode there that he remembered vividly from when he was a child, "Project Cyclops," and wanted to re-watch it.

Intrigued, I put down my comic and decided to watch the Hulk episode with him. It was about a super-computer situated deep in a mountain called "Cyclops". The computer itself was an eyeball in a pyramid-shaped glass container:

Now this has really caught my attention, because that's the classic "eye-in-the-triangle" symbol -- also known as "The Eye of Providence" -- the one we see on the dollar bill and various other places:

To conspiracy theorists, that "all-seeing eye" symbol automatically = tyranny, "New World Order," various shadowy secret societies, "Big Brother," etc. Strangely, this cartoon seems to mirror some of those concepts, as the "supercomputer" goes crazy and takes over all the appliances and monitors in the United States:

I could do a deeper analysis of the cartoon some other time, but suffice it to say that  the episode is a paranoid's wet dream, with scenes of TV sets and the like featuring that big human-looking eyeball staring at people and watching their activities. In general: a pretty entertaining and intelligent cartoon from that time-period.

Now that the cartoon is done, I go back to my reading, and the copy of "Justice International Annual" #1. And guess what? It is also heavily "ocular-centric," the biggest factor being of course O.M.A.C (who likes to use the word "eye" instead of "I"):

And guess what? A power-hungry, malevolent computer that uses the symbol of the eye also goes crazy. And we also get a scene of the "eye" on all the computer monitors, just like the Hulk cartoon:

Not only do we have O.M.A.C.'s "Brother Eye" in this comic, but liberal mention of the organization "A.R.G.U.S." -- Argus Panoptes being, of course, the Greek giant with a thousand eyes -- panoptes = "all seeing":

Now, what is the symbol for A.R.G.U.S. in the DC Universe?

That's right: an eye in a triangle.

Having quite enough of this High Weirdness and wishing to avoid the Chapel Perilous, I decide to toss my "studies" to the side and just pick up a random old issue of "MAD Magazine" to read. When I open it up, I find this:

At which time, I needed to go to the gym and do a few laps on the treadmill.

The point of this post is not to "suss out" any shadowy meanings attached to any of these coincidences (which, as I mentioned before, took place one-after-the-other in the span of about an hour), but to simply document that they happened at all. 

Syncs: it all might simply be a matter of focus

What happened here? Was it simply all chance? Was there any meaning to the syncs? Was there no meaning, but my intention/attention merely "attracted" similar things? Did my focus on one thing lead to similar things "popping" out for me, things I would have ignored otherwise?

Whatever the case, I think a sense of playfulness about the whole enterprise is key.

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Who Is The Master Who Makes The Flash Run?

“They say I'm The Flash! If it only were true I could help them! Please make it come true God!”

I've decided to give this blog a bit of a refocus. There's a billion comic book blogs out there, and I feel if I can't contribute some original thoughts beyond "I like this, I hate that; look at some coming attractions," this is a complete waste of my and your time.

I am specifically interested in the way comic books reflect -- and sometimes shape -- culture and politics. I can take an esoteric step beyond that and say that I'm very interested in the way comics reflect, shape, and even seemingly "predict" the elements of our very reality.

I think that last sentence really is the litmus test as to whether you want to keep reading this site.

Obligatory image at this point:

Sometime around the start of the 1990s, comics became Self Aware, due in large part to Grant Morrison's run on "Animal Man." Such a "meta" approach had been teased for many decades -- often though we already had those cute "the creators meet their creations" storylines such as "The Day I Saved The Life Of The Flash" in 1974, where writer Cary Bates appeared as himself to help the Scarlet Speedster out:

"Who is the mystery man that controls every move of the Flash's life?"

That caption makes me think of when Robert Anton Wilson discusses this Buddhist question:

"Who is the master who makes the grass green?"

In both cases, that Master is ourselves (or, in the case of Cary Bates, the person who wrote the cover copy). These stories and heroes are not created, maintained, and presented in a vacuum; we -- and our world -- are always a part of it. And the color of grass is dependent on how our senses and brain interpret it. Everything is dependent on our perception. 

This is why I think some fans get really psychotic over changes to, or "wrong interpretations" of, their beloved characters; because in their perception, Batman or Spider-Man or whomever really is -- in some timeless, objective way -- the way they perceive it to be. And a challenge to their personal experience of this character -- a challenge to their personal reality, which they see as an objective reality -- is taken as an act of "blasphemy" or even war.

One of my theories is that comics=religion to some people, even to those -- and sometimes especially to those -- who consider themselves "free" from religious belief. That's grist for what will do doubt be a lively future post.

Bates really got the ball rolling on the whole "metafiction" idea in comics, but Morrison wove it into the very heart and soul of "Animal Man" -- and, by implication, into the entire DC Comics universe as well, leading to such myriad self-referential elements in their comics such as the DC memorabilia-themed diner in Kingdom Come, the Bat-Mite/Mxyzptlk one-shot "World's Funnest," and a large portion of the animated series "Batman: The Brave and the Bold." 

Welcome to the Cafe Nostalgia; you can check in any time you like, but you can never leave

But whereas Morrison was getting at larger questions regarding the nature of reality and the totemistic qualities of these very familiar heroes, the "meta fad" in comics which started in the late 1990s and sort of slouched through almost every aspect of The Aughts, was obsessed and entranced with Nostalgia. In fact, "ultimate fanboy" Bat-Mite -- whose two appearances on the "Brave and Bold" cartoon pushed the "meta" button almost to unwatchable lengths -- became sort of the patron saint not only of transgressing the Fourth Wall, but of this whole period in comic book history.

Bat-Mite's meta-fart

Constantly fixating on and rehashing your Sacred Cows and favorite "gods" can be quite decadent -- and I see the last decade or so's obsession with nostalgia in both the comics industry and comics fandom as being the direct result of the anticipation of massive change on the horizon. There was a sense like every aspect of the Beloved -- heroes, retro-cool, key scenes, landmark issues, primal moments of adolescent pleasure -- needed to be honored and embalmed in the most elaborate and exclusive of collector's sets of all time. You know, before the impeding cataclysm (bad economy, corporatization, the death-knell of the paper format, steadily dwindling audience as the result of insular marketing strategies) wiped them away from the active stage.

And whereas these meta stories by Bates and Morrison posited the comics creator as the master who made the grass green and The Flash red -- increasingly the Artist's sovereignty was getting pushed to the side, as the Ultra Fanboy (as personified with our dimension-hopping Bat-Mite) duked it out with  what was revealed to be the true Creator (in the Old Testament sense of the word): the Company.

From the ultra-meta "Action Comics" #9 (analysis of the issue here)

In the war between Fan and Company, what is the role of the Artist?

And further: in such an environment, what becomes of the comic book hero itself -- his or her soul, the essence of the character? (It is my belief that they, too, have lives and existences of their own)

These questions -- and their answers -- are key to Understanding Comics in the present period. 

Morrison: "It's only a comic."

Animal Man: "It's not! IT'S NOT ONLY A COMIC! IT'S MY LIFE!"

And as we understand the comics, we can expand our vision and see what it says about our culture, our  reality, and our future.

I expect that only a relative few will take this blog journey with me; but if you do, I assure you it will be worth your while. Or at least give you a few blips until the next series of blips.

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