THE GREAT CONSPIRACY

The Secret Plot (usually published in paperback) is to dominate the world. The plotters are the Illuminati, the Freemasons, the Jews, the Catholics, the Protestants, the Monarchists, the Bolsheviks, or any selected combination. The plot has been brewing for anything from a hundred to a thousand years. Their exploits include every civil war and revolution in history, every spectacular assassination and world economic manoeuvring, especially those which went wrong. Everyone has heard the buzz-words like Trilateral and Bilderburg, even if we are not quite sure what they mean (financial machinations, and we know who’s the expert at that, don’t we?).

The latest “exposee” to land on my desk was about to be dropped in the wastepaper basket when I noticed that their arch-plotters of the past include William of Orange and, since my ancestor waged a dramatic campaign against the Dutchman who became King of England, I started reading.

Twelve closely-typed pages later, I felt more in need of headache tablets than rescue from the dreaded oligarchy which is scheming to take over the world. If They exist at all, they have been working on this sinister plot for centuries and are no further forward, so really why should we worry?

I noticed that the Conspiracy Theorists who sent me this latest onslaught on the world’s diminishing forests (benefactors of the paper industry, if nothing else) are also selling their own brand of herbal laxative. That is not merely an attempt to balance their budget because paranoia is not a best-seller. Anal preoccupation has a significance which presumably they do not realise; Freud explained the matter more thoroughly.

No doubt conspiracies exist, but the scale and complexity of this one is self-defeating. To be a conspirator (even unsuccessful conspirators like these) requires major resources of intelligence and expertise; therefore it is an elementary deduction that such clever people would find something more productive to do. But, if conspiracies did not exist, people would have to invent them. Conspiracies are needed. Uniting “us” against “them” is clearly comprehensible, but there is a deeper reason. If fighting your enemy is the most important action in your life, then your enemy has become the most important person in your life.

“Know Your Enemy”. To a point, that is useful tactics; beyond that point, it becomes a cloak for an obsessive fascination that has more to do with love than hatred. The compulsive studying of every facet of the alleged operation is not concerned with acquiring weapons to destroy Them; nor is it designed to obtain knowledge and thereby promote alliance, because the theorists are aware that, if they functioned at that level, they would not be on the outside looking in.

Now that we no longer believe in a supernatural being who cares for the welfare of Planet Earth and its inhabitants (or some of them), we have to look elsewhere for deity. The self-sufficient find it within themselves. The inadequate, aware of their own impotence, look outside. A king or dictator has, in the past, been a good substitute god, but such rulers are nowadays lacking in charisma (a deficiency which may, on the whole, be a good thing). Media over-exposure seems a prime cause of this reduction in glamour. To those who need the emotional crutch, the object of their worship must, above all, be mysterious. The King must not buy his underpants at Marks and Spencer.

The Conspiracy is mysterious. Disregard the fact that that is the only thing at which is has ever been totally successful. The Conspiracy is whatever you imagine it to be. Film-makers are well aware of this archetypal fantasy figure. Sitting behind his mahogany desk in his opulent office, the Boss issues his orders… He is not benevolent, in fact he is a hard master, but there is security in his service and rewards for loyalty.

When the Conspiracy takes over, there will be no more wars because there will be no opposition. Crime will not be permitted. There will be work and food and shelter for all. Breathing is about the most exciting thing that you will be allowed to do, but many people would find spiritual haven in that total security. It is the new Golden Age, and gold nowadays means economics, therefore type-casting the Conspiracy and highlighting the motivations of conspiracy-theorists.

Anonymous article taken from the Dark Lily Journal No 11, Society of Dark Lily (London 1990).