Paranoia is for the strong!

Everything is Under Control: Conspiracies, Cults & Cover-Ups – Robert Anton Wilson, Miriam Joan Hill (1988)

My man Robert Anton Wilson never disappoints!  His books have blown my mind countless times and altered how I perceive my reality tunnel, all to my benefit.  Robert Anton Wilson (RAW), due to his exposure to so much of the fringe, has compiled a vast storehouse of information on conspiracies, perceived conspiracies, and the people involved in them.  With this book, he has created an encyclopedic collection of most of the important names, places, and events dealt with by “conspiratologists.” 

The listings are alphabetical and nearly every one provides links to further online reading about the subject.  Everything is covered, from the far-right (“The Federal Reserve is run by communists!”), to the far-left (“The Federal Reserve is run by fascists!”), and from ridiculously implausible ideas (“Jesus was an alien from Orion and the Opus Dei organization keeps this a secret”) to actual real-life conspiracies that came to light (The P2 conspiracy where the Vatican, the CIA, and the MAFIA were all hand in hand creating many dozens of fake banks worldwide and laundering cocaine money, or the Iran/Contra conspiracy where the CIA was buying cocaine with guns and selling the cocaine in the USA to buy more guns, in an effort to undermine the elected government of Nicaragua).  The overall effect either leaves you doubting everything you hear or open to anything you may hear.  Either way it is a good change from the norm!

"They" were out to get Hunter S. Thompson too....

There are many people these days that dismiss anything called a “conspiracy” with a shrug, as if the very term “conspiracy” means fanciful or make-believe.  This is part of the ruse!!!  Conspiracies are very real and take place every day all around us.  If they were not real why does every government in the world have laws against conspiracy, and top secret intelligence offices to combat conspiracy?  Only the truly deluded and stupid dismiss outright the idea that conspiracies exist.  The world is full of unscrupulous people, all with specific agendas, and all with the desire to avoid the eye of the government or the police.  It happens every single day, especially IN the government, as organizations like the CIA do not have to report what they do to anyone, and purposefully maintain shields and ruses to deflect attention away from their actual activities.  Those that get too close to uncovering the truth are “exposed” as quacks believing in conspiracy theories, and the idiots who like to live their lives thinking as little as possible automatically dismiss them.  Like RAW quotes in this book, “Just because you’re paranoid does not mean they are not out to get you.”

(To read this book, click here: http://endthelie.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/04/Everything-Is-Under-Control-Conspiracies-Cults-and-Cover-ups-0062734172.pdf )

Before Ripley's Believe it...or Not! There was Charles Fort!

The Books of Charles Fort – Charles Fort (1975)

            Charles Fort was an odd man.  He spent much of his life collecting news clippings, stories, articles, and anything else that mentioned strange occurrences, especially those of the natural world.  This was at a time when the newspapers had two or three editions daily, and each city had multiple newspapers.  Every bit of interesting info was published somewhere and Mr. Fort collected them all.  He would also frequent the main New York City Public Library reading old scientific journals and other periodicals from around the world.  He collected and made notes of any anomalous phenomena that could not be explained by the science of his time.  This led to the writing of several books, including classics like The Book of The Damned, New Lands, and Lo!.

            These books made Charles Fort something of a cult figure and his name is now tied to any such anomalous phenomena.  It is referred to as “Fortean” or as “Forteana.”  Mr. Fort was the first to collect all these stories, and he helped make skepticism about dogmatic science grow.  This book contains three of Charles Fort’s works compiled into one volume.

            His first book, “The Book of The Damned,” begins with these lines,

                        “A procession of the damned.  By the damned, I mean the excluded.  We shall have a procession of data that Science has excluded”

            I had read a lot about Mr. Fort and his legacy but reading his work and “hearing” his sardonic voice in my head helped me to understand the humor inherent in his writing.  Sometimes people that follow Fort do so with no humor, which is sad, since so many anomalous things are so funny and weird.  Many of the so-called Forteans would be better served understanding how critical the humor is to the whole process.

They probably do not think a personification of Death leaving a trail of shit is funny either, but I do!

            One of the best things about reading Charles Fort’s work is that it reminds one to keep an open mind because we know surprisingly little about the world around us still, and that mystery is never far away.  I am always attracted to the sardonic, the cynical, the irreverent, and Mr. Fort is a personal hero of mine, for he was just one man and his obsession, inspiring countless thousands for generations.

(Digital versions of Charles Fort's books can be read here: http://sacred-texts.com/fort/index.htm )