Richard B. Spence > Quotes

“So how can we determine what’s real and what’s not? We can’t. We can just pick and choose what we want to believe and rationalize it as best we can. Reality, after all, is basically a movie projected inside our heads. It’s based on the colors our senses permit us to see, the sounds they permit us to hear and whatever else our brains let slip through the gates. But outside our limited senses, surrounding us, there is, unquestionably, a much greater reality, a universe we live in but cannot see. Well, most of us, anyway. Out there, in the dark, All Things Are Possible.”
― Richard B. Spence, The Orphan Conspiracies: 29 Conspiracy Theories from The Orphan Trilogy

“However intrinsically loony an idea may be, when people believe it, and act on that belief, it attains a power that can shape reality around it. A simple case in point is Nazi anti-Semitism. The fringe and utterly bogus notion that Jews represented a kind of biological contamination that had to be eradicated root and branch became the operative philosophy of a political regime and as a result millions of people died.”
― Richard B. Spence, The Orphan Conspiracies: 29 Conspiracy Theories from The Orphan Trilogy

“A key theme is that human history, behavior and reality are governed not by what we know but by what we believe.”
― Richard B. Spence, The Orphan Conspiracies: 29 Conspiracy Theories from The Orphan Trilogy

“Maybe the most dangerous thing about the “Illuminati” isn’t that such a master cabal has ever existed, but that some people believe it should and wreak havoc under the delusion they run the world.”
― Richard B. Spence, The Orphan Conspiracies: 29 Conspiracy Theories from The Orphan Trilogy

“So how can we determine what’s real and what’s not? We can’t. We can just pick and choose what we want to believe and rationalize it as best we can. Reality, after all, is basically a movie projected inside our heads. It’s based on the colors our senses permit us to see, the sounds they permit us to hear and whatever else our brains let slip through the gates. But outside our limited senses, surrounding us, there is, unquestionably, a much greater reality, a universe we live in but cannot see. Well, most of us, anyway. Out there, in the dark, All Things Are Possible.”
― Richard B. Spence, The Orphan Conspiracies: 29 Conspiracy Theories from The Orphan Trilogy”
― Richard B. Spence, The Orphan Conspiracies: 29 Conspiracy Theories from The Orphan Trilogy

“Let's start out in Tierra del Fuego, at the bottom of South America, among the most isolated and inhospitable places on Earth. For thousands of years, this island was home to the Ona people, who eked out an existence hunting and fishing. They lived in small groups of 50 to 100. They had a system of beliefs and rituals that guided their day-to-day lives.

An important part of this was a secret society into which all males were initiated soon after puberty. The society was run by the shamans, who communicated with the spirits and who in turn controlled the natural forces. Controlling access to the spirits and their power meant controlling everything else, including the women.

But it wasn't always that way.

The Onas' all-male secret society was based on the legend of an earlier female order. In the beginning, women were believed to control access to the spirits. From the spirits, the women learned magic and used that to control men.

The men, growing to resent this, hatched a conspiracy to overturn the matriarchy.

They observed that females received their initiation at puberty. Younger girls were ignorant of magic. So one night, the men killed the initiated women and girls as they slept, sparing only the young and ignorant.

From that night forward, men ruled the world and women.”
― Richard B. Spence, The Real History of Secret Societies

“Arnold Rothstein embodied the maxim that 'a smart man with a pencil can steal more than a thug with a gun'. Unlike Diamond Annie or or Don Vito, Rothstein didn't grow up in poverty, he was the son of a wealthy and respected businessman; his older brother studied to become a rabbi. Arnold had no use for such things. . . . Rothstein believed crime was simply another business, and should be run like one. He used money to buy influence, and influence to make more money. His influence reached from Manhattan street gangs all the way up to Tammany Hall.
Rothstein immediately realized what a gift prohibition was for the underworld. But he also saw a bright future for other illegal commodities, including narcotics. Rothstein played a part in setting up one of the first international drug operations; from top to bottom it was run by secret societies, including Chinese Tongs, Germany militarists, Japanese Black Dragons, and even the Soviet secret police.”
― Richard B. Spence, The Real History of Secret Societies