Monte Cook - The Skeptics Guide to Conspiracies: From the Knights Templar to the JFK Assassination: Uncovering the [Real] Truth Behind the Worlds Most Controversial Conspiracy Theories

THIS IS A BOOK ABOUT conspiracy theories. If you've ever wondered what exactly went on in Roswell, New Mexico, in 1947 or what some researchers have discovered regarding the assassinations of the Kennedys or Martin Luther King Jr., this book is for you. This book will present you with different viewpoints from conspiracy theorists on those topics and many others. You won't find anything here attempting to convince you that conspiracies are real. This book is not going to change your worldview, but it will provide you with some interesting information. Nothing in this book is made up at least by the author.

Conspiracy theories usually (but not always) involve either the government or a secret society, and sometimes both. Conspiracy theorists (or conspiracists) believe mysterious things are happening all around them. Not only that, but the truth has been covered up.

You'll never hear about a conspiracy theory that says things are better than they seem. The shadow government isn't secretly plotting with philanthropic deeds in mind. Although it is true that one theory says aliens only want to bring us peace and prosperity. But the same theory says the government is trying to stop them from doing so.

Conspiracy theories have been around a long time. In the first century B.C.E. there were those who wondered who was really behind the assassination of Julius Caesar. Theories about the coming end of the world were popular in the Middle Ages. (In fact, you'll see that some of the theories discussed later in the book started in the Middle Ages.)

Despite the fact that the theories themselves can be convoluted, most conspiracy adherents believe the world is a simpler place than it really is. It's easier to believe in an evil cabal of assassins than a deranged lone gunman. After all, if one man can commit such a heinous act, what does that say about the rest of us? Evil, sometimes, is an easier pill to swallow. At least then we know where to point our fingers.

People who believe in conspiracies like to single out a group of people and attribute most of the world's ills to them. When we see tragedy, it's somehow comforting to believe that evil people caused it. Understanding a world filled with coincidence, random happenstance, and human error presents a greater challenge than one in which everything is linked and there's an underlying reason for what's really going on.

That said, not all conspiracy theories are inherently incorrect, unproven, or poorly assembled. The Watergate break-in, for example, was a conspiracy, and no one doubts that it happened.

Well, almost no one.

Still, conspiracy theories say as much about those who assemble and disseminate them and the people who believe them as they do about the people involved.

Theorists dwell upon what they want to be true, and what they fear to be true. The ufologist wants UFOs to exist. The Kennedy assassination conspiracists are afraid of the conspiracy they know is out there.

Conspiracy theories frequently dwell on meaningless coincidence. For example, symbol-fascinated theorist Christopher Knowles focuses on the use of the pyramid as a Masonic and Illuminati symbol. When a pyramid-shaped hotel was built in Pyongyang, North Korea, he assumed it must be linked to a conspiracy (especially, as he points out, since it is 330 feet tall, and thirty-three is the number of degrees in Scottish rite Freemasonry). Conspiracists often focus on semantics or wordplay.