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The QAnon Deception: Everything You Need to Know about the World's Most Dangerous Conspiracy Theory
He is high up in U.S. Military Intelligence and goes by the code Q. His movement is known as QAnon. He works with Donald Trump, the 45th President of the United States, to defeat a global elite of child sex traffickers, led by the Rothschilds, Hillary Clinton, George Soros, and other Satan worshippers. Well, that’s the theory anyway. Q released his first directive for the epic battle against the Deep State on October 28, 2017 and since then has posted almost 5,000 messages. His followers constitute the heart of the QAnon movement and after three years they number in the hundreds of thousands in over 100 countries of the world. In a Townhall meeting in October 2020 President Trump said that he knows very little about QAnon except that the movement loves him and stands strong against pedophilia. This book is meant for President Trump and anyone else interested in the facts about the most dangerous and controversial conspiracy theory in the world. Get the basics about QAnon beliefs • Explore the possible identity of Q • Identify the basics about Satanism and QAnon • Study the wild and bizarre theories of Q and his disciples • Trace the criminal actions of various QAnon followers • Discover how QAnon hurts real work against child trafficking • Understand the appeal of the movement • Find out how QAnon harms the reputation of President Trump “The QAnon Deception is an informed, powerful, and fascinating analysis of the new conspiracy kid on the block. Professor Beverley delivers a devastating critique of QAnon while noting the movement’s strengths and appeal.” J. Gordon Melton—Founder and Director of the Institute for the Study of American Religion, Woodway, Texas “Professor Beverley makes the strange and complicated world of QAnon understandable while he dismantles its bizarre theories and unfounded claims. He also explains the odd relationship between QAnon and Donald Trump. This is definitely a case of truth being stranger than fiction.” Michael L. Brown, Ph.D.—Author, Evangelicals at the Will We Pass the Trump Test?, Host, Line of Fire radio broadcast James A. Beverley is Research Professor at Tyndale University in Toronto, Canada and Associate Director at the Institute for the Study of American Religion in Woodway, Texas. Author and editor of eighteen books, he has studied conspiracy theories throughout his 42-year career and is known internationally for his expertise on new and world religions.
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218 pages, Kindle Edition
Published December 23, 2020
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Displaying 1 - 9 of 9 reviews
January 28, 2021
On Saturday, October 28, 2017, a user named “Q Clearance Patriot” posted the following message on a 4Chan imageboard: “Hillary Clinton will be arrested between 7:45 AM - 8:30 AM EST on Monday - the morning on Oct 30, 2017.”
Thus began QAnon, an influential conspiracist movement on the fringes of American politics.
The QAnon Deception by James A. Beverley is a fair-minded, well-researched introduction and critique of this movement. The author is associate director of the Institute for the Study of American Religion in Woodway, Texas; research professor at Tyndale University in Toronto, Canada; and a specialist in new religions. He writes for a general audience, though as an evangelical Christian, he occasionally offers a theological evaluation of Q or warns of its infiltration in some quarters of American Christianity.
According to QAnon lore, Q Clearance Patriot — more commonly, “Q” — is “a high-ranking military figure who works with President Trump to provide important data on what is going on in Trump’s battles to defeat the enemies of democracy,” writes Beverley. (A “Q clearance” is a national security designation allowing a person to view top-secret intelligence.) Q posts cryptic messages (“Drops”) to user boards (first 4chan, and now 8chan/8kun) to update followers (“Anons”) about the progress of Trump’s battles.
Q’s messages seem to be cryptic by intention. One reason is supposedly defensive, to keep democracy’s enemies guessing. Another reason is to force Anons to think for themselves. As Q wrote on August 17, 2018: “This movement challenges people to not simply trust what is being reported. Research for yourself. Think for yourself. Trust yourself.”
Even so, a number of early QAnon adherents have shaped the basic contours of the movement. They are known as “bakers.” According to Beverley, the most influential of them are James Coleman Rogers (“Pamphlet Anon”), Paul Furber (“Baruch the Scribe”) and Tracy Diaz, (“Tracy Beanz”).
As a movement, QAnon is a clearinghouse for conspiracy theories. Beverley writes, “The QAnon belief system is composed of a conglomerate of conspiracy theories. Some are old ones involving the Rothschilds and the Illuminati, while others are new claims involving Donald Trump.”
The movement’s “ultimate conspiracy,” however, involves “Satanism and child sacrifice,” according to Beverley. “Joe M,” an influential QAnon baker, summarizes the matter this way:
"The purest of pure evil — beyond theft, corruption, murder, and blackmail — is the kidnapping, torture, raping, and sacrificing of children. The perpetrators are Luciferians and Satan-worshippers. They run pedophile networks across continents, through the Vatican, and underneath the cover of charities and child protective services. In short, they target and infiltrate any organization that puts them closest to their victims."
Obviously, pedophilia is evil, and all should oppose it. But is satanic child sacrifice really the goal of a cabal of global elites? That is a central claim made by QAnon adherents.
And that brings us to The QAnon Deception’s assessment of the movement. Throughout the book, Beverley rightfully and helpfully reminds readers not to attack the motives, intelligence, or sanity of QAnon adherents. People of good will can be wrong, after all, even grievously so.
What needs to be evaluated are QAnon’s truth claims, the statements QAnon makes about how the world works. On that count, QAnon is a failure. Beverley scatters his criticisms of QAnon throughout the book, helpfully gathering and summarizing them in the Afterword. They fall into three broad categories:
Doubts about Q. Though Q posted 4,953 times between October 28, 2017, and December 8, 2020, no one knows Q’s identity. Though QAnon lore portrays him as a high-ranking military figure, there is no proof of this, and some lines of evidence suggest several people post as Q.
Moreover, Q posts appear exclusively on imageboards (4chan, 8chan/8kun) that Beverley describes as “the racist, bigoted, sexist, and hateful basements of the Internet.” Why would a morally upstanding military figure reveal the existence of a global conspiracy of satanic pedophiles on imageboards infamous for, among other things, posting pornography (including child pornography)?
As quoted above, Q encouraged Anons to think for themselves. So, why do they subscribe to the beliefs of someone they know nothing about?
Doubts about Q’s Drops. Second, Anons follow Q because they believe he offers them an insider’s perspective on a global conspiracy. His predictions are like Ariadne’s thread, leading Anons out of the labyrinthine confusion of day-to-day politics into the clear light of day about what actually drives current events.
The problem is that many, if not most, of Q’s predictions don’t pan out. Take the first Drop quoted at the outset of this review. It made a very specific prediction about the date and time of Hilary Clinton’s impending arrest. More than three years later, that arrest still has not happened. Failed predictions — including about President Trump’s 2020 reelection — are leading many Anons to grow disillusioned with Q and the QAnon movement.
QAnon’s Harms. Third, Beverley writes, “the QAnon movement has harmed individual, family, social and political life in America and around the world.” It has impugned politicians without evidence, predicted events that didn’t happen, divided Americans needlessly, and inspired a few extremists to commit crimes.
Though The QAnon Deception was published a month before rioters stormed the U.S. Capitol on January 6, 2021, it is not coincidental that the most photographed person who participated in that event was Jake Angeli — the guy in the fur hat with horns — who is known as the “QAnon Shaman.” Belief leads to action, it seems, and bad beliefs to bad actions.
I highly recommend James A. Beverley’s The QAnon Deception to readers interested in learning more about QAnon. Its criticisms of the movement hit their target. And as a Christian minister, I especially appreciate those occasions when Beverley turns from his general audience and addresses his fellow evangelicals about Q’s influence among some of our fellow churchgoers. His book deserves a wide and influential reading.
Book Reviewed
James A. Beverley, The QAnon Deception: Everything You Need to Know about the World’s Most Dangerous Conspiracy Theory (Concord, NC: EqualTime Books, 2020).
P.S. If you liked my review, please click "Helpful" on my Amazon review page.
P.P.S. This review first appeared at InfluenceMagazine.com and is posted here with permission.
Thus began QAnon, an influential conspiracist movement on the fringes of American politics.
The QAnon Deception by James A. Beverley is a fair-minded, well-researched introduction and critique of this movement. The author is associate director of the Institute for the Study of American Religion in Woodway, Texas; research professor at Tyndale University in Toronto, Canada; and a specialist in new religions. He writes for a general audience, though as an evangelical Christian, he occasionally offers a theological evaluation of Q or warns of its infiltration in some quarters of American Christianity.
According to QAnon lore, Q Clearance Patriot — more commonly, “Q” — is “a high-ranking military figure who works with President Trump to provide important data on what is going on in Trump’s battles to defeat the enemies of democracy,” writes Beverley. (A “Q clearance” is a national security designation allowing a person to view top-secret intelligence.) Q posts cryptic messages (“Drops”) to user boards (first 4chan, and now 8chan/8kun) to update followers (“Anons”) about the progress of Trump’s battles.
Q’s messages seem to be cryptic by intention. One reason is supposedly defensive, to keep democracy’s enemies guessing. Another reason is to force Anons to think for themselves. As Q wrote on August 17, 2018: “This movement challenges people to not simply trust what is being reported. Research for yourself. Think for yourself. Trust yourself.”
Even so, a number of early QAnon adherents have shaped the basic contours of the movement. They are known as “bakers.” According to Beverley, the most influential of them are James Coleman Rogers (“Pamphlet Anon”), Paul Furber (“Baruch the Scribe”) and Tracy Diaz, (“Tracy Beanz”).
As a movement, QAnon is a clearinghouse for conspiracy theories. Beverley writes, “The QAnon belief system is composed of a conglomerate of conspiracy theories. Some are old ones involving the Rothschilds and the Illuminati, while others are new claims involving Donald Trump.”
The movement’s “ultimate conspiracy,” however, involves “Satanism and child sacrifice,” according to Beverley. “Joe M,” an influential QAnon baker, summarizes the matter this way:
"The purest of pure evil — beyond theft, corruption, murder, and blackmail — is the kidnapping, torture, raping, and sacrificing of children. The perpetrators are Luciferians and Satan-worshippers. They run pedophile networks across continents, through the Vatican, and underneath the cover of charities and child protective services. In short, they target and infiltrate any organization that puts them closest to their victims."
Obviously, pedophilia is evil, and all should oppose it. But is satanic child sacrifice really the goal of a cabal of global elites? That is a central claim made by QAnon adherents.
And that brings us to The QAnon Deception’s assessment of the movement. Throughout the book, Beverley rightfully and helpfully reminds readers not to attack the motives, intelligence, or sanity of QAnon adherents. People of good will can be wrong, after all, even grievously so.
What needs to be evaluated are QAnon’s truth claims, the statements QAnon makes about how the world works. On that count, QAnon is a failure. Beverley scatters his criticisms of QAnon throughout the book, helpfully gathering and summarizing them in the Afterword. They fall into three broad categories:
Doubts about Q. Though Q posted 4,953 times between October 28, 2017, and December 8, 2020, no one knows Q’s identity. Though QAnon lore portrays him as a high-ranking military figure, there is no proof of this, and some lines of evidence suggest several people post as Q.
Moreover, Q posts appear exclusively on imageboards (4chan, 8chan/8kun) that Beverley describes as “the racist, bigoted, sexist, and hateful basements of the Internet.” Why would a morally upstanding military figure reveal the existence of a global conspiracy of satanic pedophiles on imageboards infamous for, among other things, posting pornography (including child pornography)?
As quoted above, Q encouraged Anons to think for themselves. So, why do they subscribe to the beliefs of someone they know nothing about?
Doubts about Q’s Drops. Second, Anons follow Q because they believe he offers them an insider’s perspective on a global conspiracy. His predictions are like Ariadne’s thread, leading Anons out of the labyrinthine confusion of day-to-day politics into the clear light of day about what actually drives current events.
The problem is that many, if not most, of Q’s predictions don’t pan out. Take the first Drop quoted at the outset of this review. It made a very specific prediction about the date and time of Hilary Clinton’s impending arrest. More than three years later, that arrest still has not happened. Failed predictions — including about President Trump’s 2020 reelection — are leading many Anons to grow disillusioned with Q and the QAnon movement.
QAnon’s Harms. Third, Beverley writes, “the QAnon movement has harmed individual, family, social and political life in America and around the world.” It has impugned politicians without evidence, predicted events that didn’t happen, divided Americans needlessly, and inspired a few extremists to commit crimes.
Though The QAnon Deception was published a month before rioters stormed the U.S. Capitol on January 6, 2021, it is not coincidental that the most photographed person who participated in that event was Jake Angeli — the guy in the fur hat with horns — who is known as the “QAnon Shaman.” Belief leads to action, it seems, and bad beliefs to bad actions.
I highly recommend James A. Beverley’s The QAnon Deception to readers interested in learning more about QAnon. Its criticisms of the movement hit their target. And as a Christian minister, I especially appreciate those occasions when Beverley turns from his general audience and addresses his fellow evangelicals about Q’s influence among some of our fellow churchgoers. His book deserves a wide and influential reading.
Book Reviewed
James A. Beverley, The QAnon Deception: Everything You Need to Know about the World’s Most Dangerous Conspiracy Theory (Concord, NC: EqualTime Books, 2020).
P.S. If you liked my review, please click "Helpful" on my Amazon review page.
P.P.S. This review first appeared at InfluenceMagazine.com and is posted here with permission.
September 7, 2021
I first heard of Q early in the Covid epidemic and after one video, i was astonished that anyone gave it a second thought- much less was sharing links!! I was so saddened and discouraged as time went on to see more and more people getting sucked in to the Q rabbit hole. Very excited to read this book and feel equipped to share truth and try to shine light into the dark underworld of Q followers.
I appreciated how the author is clear that just because something is a conspiracy, doesn't necessarily make it false. He spent many hours gathering evidence and searching for proof for his criticisms and concerns- an aspect of research before making claims that truly is lacking in the Q world despite their admonishment to do your own research.
Page 142 "The thousands and thousands of hours wasted on "studying" Q could have been spent on the real rescue of kidnapped children, legitimate enterprises against other real crimes, and any number of huge tasks to promote good in society." Travis View arguing QAnon offers "the illusion of activity." 😞😞😞
Great insight and points to consider to share with a loved one or friend who is caught up in this cult.
I appreciated how the author is clear that just because something is a conspiracy, doesn't necessarily make it false. He spent many hours gathering evidence and searching for proof for his criticisms and concerns- an aspect of research before making claims that truly is lacking in the Q world despite their admonishment to do your own research.
Page 142 "The thousands and thousands of hours wasted on "studying" Q could have been spent on the real rescue of kidnapped children, legitimate enterprises against other real crimes, and any number of huge tasks to promote good in society." Travis View arguing QAnon offers "the illusion of activity." 😞😞😞
Great insight and points to consider to share with a loved one or friend who is caught up in this cult.
March 5, 2021
I finally finished this 215 page expose of QAnon. If you know nothing about Q and the Anons, this appears to be the book to read. He talks about the origins of the movement, the identity of Q or Qs; it’s connection to Satanism, antisemitism and the enemies of QAnon.
Beverley has provided a helpful tool to navigate this ever changing cult-like phenomenon. I highly recommend this book if you are in the hunt to understand this group. Beverley sticks to the facts and truly has no axe to grind.
What was confusing about this book is that the author gives out kudos to charismatic preacher Rodney Howard Brown. Oddly, Brown is a huge source of conspiracies among Christians. Beverley did not discuss why he is so thankful to RHB. If anybody would gravitate to the Q conspiracy, it is RHB.
QAnon has quieted down since November’s election. But if Trump decides to run again, we can assume QAnon will return in full force.
Beverley has provided a helpful tool to navigate this ever changing cult-like phenomenon. I highly recommend this book if you are in the hunt to understand this group. Beverley sticks to the facts and truly has no axe to grind.
What was confusing about this book is that the author gives out kudos to charismatic preacher Rodney Howard Brown. Oddly, Brown is a huge source of conspiracies among Christians. Beverley did not discuss why he is so thankful to RHB. If anybody would gravitate to the Q conspiracy, it is RHB.
QAnon has quieted down since November’s election. But if Trump decides to run again, we can assume QAnon will return in full force.
January 29, 2021
An Excellent Guide to QAnon.
James (Jim) Beverley, a Canadian Evangelical expert on cults and world religions. He taught for many years at Tyndale University in Toronto. He has authored nearly 20 books. In this most recent volume he provides a primer on who’s who and what’s what in the conspiracy theory movement known as QAnon. He helps us separate the husk from the corn and guides us in a balanced and irenic fashion. Beverley’s research is thorough and his assessment of QAnon is clear but restrained. His classroom experience is evidenced by how he makes this complicated subject understandable. I highly recommend it.
James (Jim) Beverley, a Canadian Evangelical expert on cults and world religions. He taught for many years at Tyndale University in Toronto. He has authored nearly 20 books. In this most recent volume he provides a primer on who’s who and what’s what in the conspiracy theory movement known as QAnon. He helps us separate the husk from the corn and guides us in a balanced and irenic fashion. Beverley’s research is thorough and his assessment of QAnon is clear but restrained. His classroom experience is evidenced by how he makes this complicated subject understandable. I highly recommend it.
May 5, 2021
Very detailed with a lot of references to follow up on. The 9th chapter Afterword: A Final Reflection is worth the price of the book. It is helpful to have this to understand this group and to have potentially productive discussions with its adherents.
May 1, 2024
Oddly dressed up as an academic work with plentiful references but uses The Da Vinci Code as a major source (with a dedicated appendix). Reading this book told me what I already knew - there's nothing interesting about QAnon!
July 4, 2021
QAnon Deception
This is a quick read for those who want to understand how the outrageous QAnon conspiracy has found a foothold in our country and our political discourse.
This is a quick read for those who want to understand how the outrageous QAnon conspiracy has found a foothold in our country and our political discourse.
April 10, 2022
resource flled
insightful, well research, concerns presented with humility and care. The last half of the book is resources for further study.
insightful, well research, concerns presented with humility and care. The last half of the book is resources for further study.
June 17, 2022
Interesting and disturbing content, with a large reference section. Unfortunately, not very well written or edited.
Displaying 1 - 9 of 9 reviews