Under the Eye of Power: How Fear of Secret Societies Shapes American Democracy

by Colin Dickey

From beloved cultural historian and acclaimed author of Ghostland comes a history of America's obsession with secret societies and the conspiracies of hidden power

The United States was born in paranoia. From the American Revolution (thought by some to be a conspiracy organized by the French) to the Salem witch trials to the Satanic Panic, the Illuminati, and QAnon, one of the most enduring narratives that defines the United States is simply secret groups are conspiring to pervert the will of the people and the rule of law. We’d like to assume these panics exist only at the fringes of society, or are unique features of the internet age. But history tells us, in fact, that they are woven into the fabric of American democracy.

Cultural historian Colin Dickey has built a career studying how our most irrational beliefs reach the mainstream, why, and what they tell us about ourselves. In Under the Eye of Power, Dickey charts the history of America through its paranoias and fears of secret societies, while seeking to explain why so many people—including some of the most powerful people in the country—continue to subscribe to these conspiracy theories. Paradoxically, he finds, belief in the fantastical and conspiratorial can be more soothing than what we fear the the chaos and randomness of history, the rising and falling of fortunes in America, and the messiness of democracy. Only in seeing the cycle of this history, Dickey says, can we break it.

Genres: Nonfiction, History, Politics, Audiobook, Sociology, American History, Conspiracy Theories

368 pages, Kindle Edition

First published July 11, 2023

About the author

Colin Dickey grew up in San Jose, California, a few miles from the Winchester Mystery House, the most haunted house in America. As a writer, speaker, and academic, he has made a career out of collecting unusual objects and hidden histories all over the country. He’s a regular contributor to the LA Review of Books and Lapham’s Quarterly, and is the co-editor (with Joanna Ebenstein) of The Morbid Anatomy Anthology. He is also a member of the Order of the Good Death, a collective of artists, writers, and death industry professionals interested in improving the Western world’s relationship with mortality. With a PhD in comparative literature from the University of Southern California, he is an associate professor of creative writing at National University.

Reviews

[Sean Gibson · Rating 4 out of 5]

You need to drink a little Kool-Aid, but there is some legitimately thought-provoking material here.

[Greekchoir · Rating 4 out of 5]

Book 2 of moving across the country TBR DONE!!!

I've mentioned before how Colin Dickey is my favorite nonfiction author. He chooses topics which easily lend themselves to sensationalism, and breaks them down in heavily-researched chunks. In a book about the history of conspiracy theories in America, this is exactly what I wanted.

Dickey argues - successfully, I think - that the conspiracy theory microcultures we typically consider fringe and anomalous should instead be both taken seriously as a threat and recognized as part of a long-standing history of paranoia within the US. I feel like I have a greater appreciation for Dickey's skill in nonfiction writing after reading books that don't accomplish the same; his writing leans a little into the dry side, but remains concise and engaging through relevant anecdotes and examples. He might go off on a tangent that feels unrelated until he ties it back into the central point, or uses it to connect to the next topic. And while his cryptid book felt a little more cynical, this is closer to the spirit of Ghostland. His voice is stern, but leaves you with a something hopeful to think on.

[laurel [the suspected bibliophile] · Rating 4 out of 5]

Some chapters were great, some chapters were blah, but overall it was pretty good.

Basically the moral of the story is this: conspiracy theories and paranoia (along with white supremacy) are a feature of American society, not a bug.

It's only that most moral panics and conspiracies are quickly forgotten that leaves the Big Panics (Salem and the Red Scare) to be seen as outliers instead of spikes in the latest fear. These panics serve to prevent social progress, to ensure that those with privilege retain their privilege, that nothing is ceded or shared to those deemed "lesser." And what is lesser, and what is worthy? That's an ever-shifting goalpost that changes panic to panic, but tends to prefer Protestant white people.

And a healthy reminder that the latest moral panic (one of several, tbh) is that of LGTBQ+, particularly trans and nonbinary, people and their right to exist without fear in society.

[Jesse · Rating 4 out of 5]

Colin Dickey has absolutely cultivated the best beat as a writer--he's done ghosts, cryptids, and now conspiracy theories. I've read, whew, Hofstadter and Kathryn Olmsted and two books on QAnon and one on flat-earthers and the gonzo one on William Milton Cooper and Norman Cohn's on The Protocols, and Dickey's cryptid book kind of talks about this tangentially as well. (Probably at least 5-6 more I can't think of right now.) Anyway, I still learned a lot of stuff--there were letters claiming Lincoln was using the Civil War as a pretext for his real goal (secretly trying to kill the Catholic church), as well as a whole bunch of enslavers' conspiracy theories circulating well before 1860; Henry Ford, just after being challenged on his publicizing of the Protocols, got mysteriously run off the road by...you know, someone who was clearly part of a nefarious plot. Oh, and that McGuffey readers were teaching 19th-c school kids anti-Semitic tropes, and that John Buchan's original version of The 39 Steps ascribes the evil plot our stalwart British hero defeats to a cabal of...you'll never guess who. As Dickey astutely points out, the fact that this passage could be excised in later editions (would love to know how fast, and whether there were protests, which is especially interesting because it's one of the earliest spy novels in most accounts, yet I've never seen this mentioned before) without materially affecting the novel points up the vaporous narrative function of anti-Semitism. His big thesis is that conspiracy theories are not just not a sporadic distraction from American democratic functioning (he points out that they're constantly springing up and just as constantly being forgotten) but actually a constituent and recurring phenomenon of its existence created by, among other things, the Enlightenment's elevation of humanity as the prime mover, the shocks of capitalism, and the inexorable contradictions of living among diverse people--as he emphasizes, one of their functions is to pathologize and resist cultural advancement. He's at his best collating theories and showing, for instance, the recurrence of abused-child tropes from 19th-c convent exposés through the Satanic Panic through QAnon, or how David Icke recycles and repurposes various aspects of the, uh, ideas sold by multiple previous cranks. He's also strong on the very real conspiracies that did exist, highlighting the midcentury malfeasance of the CIA and FBI and even giving me new material on the Birchers, who I was pretty sure I'd never need to read another word about. The argument gets repeated a bit too often for my taste, often using essentially the same phrasing, and wow, the copyediting could have been a whole lot sharper. But this is both entertaining and disturbing.

[Ronda · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book was interesting, and definitely made me think about things differently, even when I didn't completely agree with or even understand the authors viewpoint. I realized as I read that this author basically defines everything as a conspiracy theory, even things that I had always considered well-established facts. His view of history was interesting because he calls into question many things that I was taught in history class. It's always interesting to see things from a different perspective.

As the book went on, he began talking about bits of history that I had never heard before, some which apparently have a lot of documentation (*not* conspiracy theories) and some which he called out as ridiculous. It brings out quite a few little-known stories, events that occurred as a result of conspiracy theories, that were sometimes shocking and disturbing.

He had a few serious disconnects in his own reasoning, I thought. The most obvious of these, in my opinion, was that, after detailing at great length the CIA operation which experimented with LSD and many other drugs on unconsenting citizens (a quest to find "mind control" drugs which has been well-substantiated) the author went on to ridicule those who questioned the efficacy and safety of the COVID-19 vaccine. I found that curious, because after reading about the CIA's shenanigans, I felt more inclined to question the government's judgment than ever before!

Toward the end, I began to see a pattern that made the whole book take on a different tenor. The author believes that "conspiracies and moral panics are the great unseen engines of democracy." He believes that a governmental system such as ours was founded by, and can only endure through, a series of conspiratorial beliefs. Through the years, the players have changed; where once we feared foreign powers, now our fears are traced more to our own government. But overall, he sees conspiracy as a necessary ingredient for democracy.

Which begs the question: what does he think of our governmental system as a whole? I found it interesting that in his summary, he paraphrases Karl Marx by saying " The point is not just to describe the world, but to change it." Another quote that gave me pause was this: "For decades, the right has pushed a mantra of individual liberty and personal freedom, one that is often at odds with the successful functioning of democracy." I was always taught that individual liberty and personal freedom were actually the BASIS of democracy, so this was a little unsettling.

By far my favorite quote from the book was one that is particularly meaningful for Christians. "The conspiracy theory of society is just a version of (ancient Greek) polytheism, of a belief in gods whose whims and wills rule everything. It comes from abandoning God and then asking, 'Who is in His place?' His place is then filled by various powerful men and groups." A very good reminder that getting caught up in conspiracy stories can show a lack of faith in a sovereign God who has ultimate power over our lives and works all things together for good to those that love Him.

[Ryan Mishap · Rating 5 out of 5]

An excellent overview of his main thesis: irrational belief in conspiracies isn't a recent development of our current political and social media driven narratives on the fringes of U. S. society, but a concomitant feature of our country from the beginning. These irrational beliefs are driven by many factors and flare up for various reasons, as Dickey deftly outlines.

This book does a lot to explain our current situation as the 2024 election nears.

[Sam Wescott · Rating 5 out of 5]

This was so good, which I should have expected given how much I liked Unidentified and Ghostland. Dickey has such a deft touch when piling up his examples in a string of historical and cultural moments and then when they finally come to a crescendo by the end of the book, it knocks you off your feet with the enormity of the human condition and our collective psyche.

I’ve been too interested in moral panics of the last few decades to have had much resistance to his assertion that our current grappling with conspiracy theory is actually a defining feature of American identity instead of a sudden crumbling of our values. But still, I was surprised by how deep the roots of blame, suspicion, and self-soothing with storytelling really go in our American history. He was able to boil down a lot of vague unease of mine into incisive thoughts on our national identity and poisoned thought patterns that really punched me in the gut. And just when I was feeling the most despondent, he signed off with an epilogue that felt genuinely hopefully, even though it still made me cry.

But the main takeaway is that conspiracy theories and moral panics are a core part of American identity and part of why we keep falling for them is our collective amnesia after each one ends. And with that thesis, this book does help solve the problem it sets out to define. Highly recommend for Americans who are really feeling the dejavú and for non-Americans who want to know what the heck is wrong with us.

[Chris Boutté · Rating 5 out of 5]

I always say that I dislike history books, but I’m learning that I just need to be insanely interested in the topic for it to hold my attention. Colin Dickey is an excellent writer, and the subject matter managed to keep me engaged throughout the book. I was unfamiliar with Dickey’s work but the book looked interesting because I’m always fascinated by people who believe in conspiracy theories.

This book takes you through the entire history of conspiracy theories and shady groups throughout history. If nothing else, books like this are insanely depressing. Colin covers conspiracy theories around the Freemasons and Illuminati and then goes through history to current times with the Satanic Panic in the late 20th century and QAnon. What’s a bummer is seeing how history just repeats, and this is an issue we’ve been dealing with for years, so I don’t think it’s going anywhere.

Colin does an excellent job discussing the racist, antisemitic and xenophobic roots of many conspiracy theories and showcases how people stir up moral panics. He also writes about how many of the conspiracy theorists end up planning their own real conspiracies. It’s an overall excellent book, and I definitely recommend it.

[Ed Erwin · Rating 4 out of 5]

It seems that conspiracy theories have always been a big part of the culture of the USA, and not just in the lunatic fringe. George Washington and Abe Lincoln were both fearful of active conspiracies. Some conspiracies are real, of course, and can be proven with facts. However, facts will never make some people stop believing in a false theory. Logic is irrelevant, and any facts can be taken as proof you are right, when you believe something as a matter of faith.

The fact that such ideas have always been with us doesn't bring me any comfort. And I fear that modern technology is making them spread further and faster; a point not much addressed in this book.

[Sara Allen · Rating 2 out of 5]

This nonfiction account of conspiracy theories in America didn’t do much for me. It really never made its point and didn’t seem to come from an unbiased perspective.

[Bookshire Cat · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was an important but incredibly depressing read.

[John · Rating 5 out of 5]

Amazing! I feel that every American should read this book.

[Linnea Dalvi · Rating 4 out of 5]

Loved the second half. The first half was a little slow to get through but I think this is just because I enjoyed more reading about things I had at least vaguely heard about before (e.g. Red Scare) and got less excited about 13 chapters of things I had never heard of. But those chapters were important background for the second half, which I really enjoyed. A thoroughly researched book with a lot of interesting points about the psychology of conspiracy theorists.

[Rachel · Rating 4 out of 5]

An important book! The author starts out with a really interesting idea: that QAnon is just the latest iteration of a long line of conspiracy theories and secret societies that have sought to repress American democracy in moments of political transition. He then sets out to prove this idea by exploring different conspiracy theories surrounding secret societies in American history. The anti-Catholic riot and burning of the Ursuline Convent in Somerville, MA, the Slave Power conspiracy, and the controversies surrounding the Freemasons in the 19th century were particularly powerful examples.

[Ron · Rating 5 out of 5]

Secret societies - the Illuminati, the Masons, the Lizard People, "slaveocracy," and the John Birch Society are all part of the American Historical landscape. But so are the Ku Klux Klan, witches, slave revolts, the Molly Maguires, Haymarket anarchists, the Satanic ritual scare, and the recovered memory movement. Each of these and others were involved in "moral panics" that swept across America. In Under the Eye of Power, Colin Dickey walks the reader through the conspiratorial-laden underbelly of America.

Colin Dicky begins his meanderings with the Freemasons and its offshoot - the Illuminati in the section As Above, So Below. He spends four chapters dealing with how the Freemasons developed, came to America, how its symbols are everywhere, yet its rituals are secret, so secret that some Masons have murdered a former member to halt their publication. Next stop - Deep-Laid Schemes - has six chapters filled with slave revolts, slave conspiracies, Underground railroads, ant-Catholicism, witchcraft trials in Salem and elsewhere, and in Texas, Abolitionist arsonists! In National Indigestion, Dickey has five chapters with anti-immigrationists, anarchists, bankers, Wall Street, antisemitism, and the (In)Visible Empire. In Wonders of the Invisible World, Dickey, in four chapters, explores subliminal messaging, the CIA and "truth drugs" plus LSD, ant-fluoridation societies (which includes anti-Communist groups such as the John Birch Society), and the FBI COINTELPRO on anti-war and leftist groups. Finally, Dickey, with six chapters in Behind the Hieroglyphic Streets, ventures into cultural wars, modern conspiracy theories, Satanic rituals, recovered memories, Q-Anon, the Lizard People, ritual sacrifices, and Citizen Commissions.

Under the Eye of Power is wonderful for readers interested in American history with all the warts and stains included or for the reader who longs for a primer on all the ways secret societies and conspiracies have played a role in U.S. history.

Thanks Netgalley for the chance to read this title!

[Alison Fulmer · Rating 2 out of 5]

The book subtitle is How Fear of Secret Societies Shapes American Democracy and I guess that was some of the focus if you think that the Klan or QAnon are secret. Or that Skull and Bones is important. It seemed more to be focussed on conspiracy theories and I don't understand the allure or impact of Pizzagate or QAnon now any better than I did before. Rarely do I regret the time I spent reading but this was not worth it

[Dan Burt · Rating 5 out of 5]

4.75 stars.

[Steve · Rating 4 out of 5]

Seems appropriate that I had watched "One Battle After Another" as I was finishing this book--P.T. Anderson's depiction of clandestine revolutionary cells, the secret presence of powerful Illuminati-esque organizations, and a prevailing sensation of paranoia captures the social moment we appear to be living in at the moment. But for those who believe that the spirit of distrust and increasing number of acquaintances and relatives that are getting sucked in to online conspiracy theories is a rare/unprecedented phenomenon, Dickey reveals that conspiratorial thinking has always been present since the founding of the republic. As he relates early in the text, "What if paranoia, a paranoia of secret, subversive societies, is not just peripheral to the functioning of democracy, but at its very heart?" (4).

One of the formative essays Dickey references to demonstrate how paranoia has functioned in politics throughout American history (and whose thesis Dickey basically rejects) is Richard Hofstadter's 1964 essay "The Paranoid Style in American Politics," which argues that fringe movements have always existed throughout American history, but only on the margins. Therefore, we occasionally see eruptions of paranoia from nativist groups that seek to disrupt dominant power relations, but they are always kept in check and moderated by a sensible middle. Two historical periods that are often referenced are the Salem Witch Trials and the McCarthyism of the 1950s. But they are often seen as outliers, fundamentally out of step with the worldview of the rational and "sensible middle." Dickey's argument contests this view. As he puts it, "These panics have been with us all along. Their prevalence and success depends on our willingness to treat each moral panic as an isolated, exceptional incident, an embarrassing bit of xenophobic exuberance that flares up briefly and then fades away, best forgotten entirely." In other words, a kind of determined historical amnesia causes Americans to be surprised every time their democracy is threatened by these kinds of attitudes, as if each new eruption is entirely unprecedented.

A second key through-line present throughout the book is why people continue to be gripped by conspiracy theories in the first place, particularly in the post-Enlightenment era with the challenges posed by modernity. One fascinating point Dickey makes is that since the 20th century, science has increasingly announced that "events are as much governed by chaos, accident, unconscious forces, systematic structures that operate almost without our direct knowledge" (260). Conspiracy theories that posit all-powerful, unseen hands which control and determine events are actually fundamentally consolatory because "conspiracy theories offer a straightforward explanation...They suture all available facts together and do the work of organizing the chaos of history into an explainable, overarching theory...They replace uncertainty and coincidence with motive and agency" (300). As Dickey puts it in an early chapter, "In a real sense, during the Enlightenment, conspiracy theories took the place of God" (36).

[Alexis · Rating 4 out of 5]

Reframing conspiracy theories not as fringe but ubiquitous in American history. This book helped me wrap my head around the topic, making it far less mysterious and intimidating. (And don't worry, there's still plenty of mystery in our world.) Looking forward to reading Colin's other books.

[Reggie · Rating 4 out of 5]

An informative and far-reaching overview of different conspiracies that shaped US and to the ongoing topic of QAnon. Some of it was more eye-opening than others but it’s safe to say that these things repeat themselves over the years.

[Dave · Rating 5 out of 5]

Probably 4.5 stars, but I'm an easy grader.

[Liz · Rating 3 out of 5]

This was an interesting concept, but a bit dry in places. I found myself it over.

[James Huskinson · Rating 4 out of 5]

Very interesting history of paranoia and conspiracies.

[J.C. Pillard · Rating 4 out of 5]

A compelling look at the history of conspiracy theories and conspiratorial thinking in the United States. This book is both enlightening, hopefully, and a little nerve-wracking. Worth a read if you're interested in a different angle on US history.

[Ian Holden]

I’ve read a few recaps of the covid conspiracy boom, but I feel like this one understood the problem better than all others

[Diogenes Grief · Rating 5 out of 5]

This past summer, LitHub listed this title in its “25 Nonfiction Books You Need to Read This Summer” with the choice subtitle “Because Novels Are Just Made-Up”.

Here’s their simple plug, which was enough of an enticement for me—Christian apostate, heavy-metal heathen, Iraq Vet, woke Progressive—to purchase it on Barnes & Noble:

”We can think of no better writer than Colin Dickey—who has written beautifully for this site—to examine America’s foundational obsession with conspiracy. From Salem to John Birch to Pizzagate, the “paranoid style” has been a part of this country’s identity long before it was given name by Richard Hofstadter in 1964. But what are we to do when people would rather ascribe their ill fortune to shadowy cabals of powerful puppet-masters than the randomness of the universe? For Dickey, the first step is admitting we have a problem.  –JD”

As well, David Smith covered it for The Guardian (https://www.theguardian.com/books/202...).

The bottomline is this: the republic of the United States, wrought from lands stolen from the indigenous (happy Indigenous Peoples’ Day!) and almost exclusively built on indentured servitude and institutionalized slavery, has been mired in conspiratorial thinking since its inception:

“Political conspiracies, of course, were nothing new. But in classical and medieval periods, they mostly referred to the machinations of an elect group of people in power: palace intrigues, coup attempts, Machiavellian maneuvering. But something was changing in the eighteenth century, leading to a new tendency to conspiracies everywhere—no longer just the work of the powerful against the powerless but part of the social fabric of society itself. There was a new sense that all historical events were the work of hidden hands, that conspiracies pervaded the work of humanity at nearly all levels and could explain any number of otherwise inexplicable phenomena” (p. 38, Nook).

Caucasians, persecuted by the powers-that-be in Europe and forced westward across a perilous ocean rife with disease and death, saw nothing but fear in the forests. Their first settlements were routed. Facts turned into legends, legends into myths, myths into existential dreads. Demons between the tress, the nights brought horrors. Essentially, we have a long history of suspicion, fear, and magical thinking used to fuel fantasies of all stripes. This book was enjoyable and validating. From the Freemasons and Illuminati, all the the devil-worshipping heathens and witches of yesteryear, to the anti-Catholicism and anti-Semitism tropes doled out across the eras, to the chronically raging xenophobia of everything that portends to usurp one’s fragile little idealism (Dickey highlights all too well the obvious, with so much of this still with us today, recycled through the centuries to feed those renewed suspicions, fears, and magical thinking that are always at the fringe, until they are brought back into the forefront, often as weapons against points of cultural transformation). “For all our contemporary problems resulting from demagogues pushing apocalyptic conspiracies in the political sphere, it’s important to remember that these will accusations have been with us since the start” (p. 46). Awareness of this is the first step in combating its repetition; however, this book is also humbling, with me realizing maybe this is an unstoppable cycle within the human condition for those who are susceptible to such machinations.

“Conspiracy theories, after all, feed on historical amnesia. They depend on your belief that what is happening now has never happened before. They present repetition as novelty. When a moral panic dissipates, its traces are forgotten in a forceful act of collective amnesia. If you are going to make sense of the history, you have to stick with the sense of déjà vu; you have to run in circles if you’re going to get anywhere” (p. 130).

Dickey gives empathy to those who fall down the rabbit holes of online echo chambers, which is nice. I know I too often just boil things down to “rednecks” or “the GOP cult” or “the billionaires”, because Goodreads only allows so many words and taking the time to delineate the complexity of every single person, and every single situation, is time- and word-consuming. We humans require simple narratives to make sense of the complexity and chaos of the real world, and this is fertile ground for conspiracy theorists who manufacture their hooks for those who see “truth is of secondary importance to emotional impact”, where the complexity of the world is boiled down into simple, medieval Marvel narratives of good versus evil, and the more shocking is the better to entice. Satanic, blood-drinking Democrats hiding in subterranean pizza joints are far more compelling than the fondling priest down the street, or Uncle Touchy, but child abuse is a serious problem in the United States of Hypocrisy. Secret cabals of drooling money-grubbing Jewish folks are grist for the historical mill of dehumanization and scapegoating, while the Panama Papers, annual Davos meetings, and the loopholes of the filthy rich are ignored by far too many. Too many people, from all demographics of society, are susceptible to these delusional narratives because of the complexity of their personal lives, and the need to cope with difficult emotions, unanswerable questions, and problematic histories. Upbringing and education play their roles, but they do not always ameliorate the symptoms of gullibility. Conspiracy theorists find comfort in such communities that soothe fears and liberate thoughts; they feel validation for their hunches and proclivities; and, they seemingly find some defiance in the flagrant hypocrisies and contradictions presented to them within their own home-baked theories. (One has to wonder if this age of aberrant narcissism makes clowns of so many for their own selfish agendas.)

In 2015 (which seems like a lifetime ago), political scientists Eric Oliver and Thomas Wood did their best to synthesize the factors that make some most prone to conspiracy theories, and unsurprisingly, “the biggest predictor of whether someone believes in conspiracy theories is whether they also hold other magical beliefs—conspiracy theories are much more likely to believe in the supernatural and paranormal or believe in Biblical prophecy” (p. 258, Nook; the article published in the American Journal of Political Science is behind a paywall, but a Washington Post review of it is here: https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/m...). So if one believes in impotent gods hiding beyond the firmament for two-thousand years, ghosts and vampires, astrology and glyphs, lizard people and space aliens hiding amongst us, that is the ripest mind to reap for such tinfoil-hat folks clutching ancient books and Disney-themed tarot cards. But far more fall into the well of such conspiracies, and this too is complex. Welcome to America, idiocracy in motion.

It takes some deep knowledge of psychology, and social psychology, to see how multifactorial forces play upon any single individual. While “brainwashing” isn’t truly possible, every one of us is “programmed” in so many powerful ways, from childhood to young adulthood, through systems of education and religions and politics, as well as the millions of various identities we can latch onto, through military service (and paramilitary service) and professional affiliations, to our social network (in the classical sense of the phrase) to our digital addictions and tribal affiliations, we are psycho-emotionally constructed and reinforced on a daily basis by our own free will. “[I]t seems important to recognize that one of the fundamental jobs of conspiracy theories is the flattening of specific historical problems and threats dismissal of their remedies, creating an all-purpose mechanism for explaining the world’s evils without regard to history or fact” (p. 229). Context, facts, and thorough historical wisdom help to nullify conspiracy theories, even if the adherents of them fail to acknowledge such things.

What has dynamically changed is the ubiquity of the internet to pervade our lives so thoroughly, and the banality of facts and fiction fighting for eyeballs, what we now call “context collapse”—how certain information, fully understandable and clear-headed in one context, can be twisted into strange, bizarre, and unsettling context in the grey-matter of others. Weaponized disinformation doesn’t help, and we truly live in a PSYOPed world where vetting one’s resources is paramount to understanding the truth of things. “The creation of a shadow elite outstrips the need to understand the actual elite before us. After all, powerful politicians and billionaires are working to shape world events in plain sight. They do it every day, usually, by means to power of the wealthy is both transparent and banal” (pp. 294-5). No endorphin-bumping clickbait there, just the bare-butt structures of power all too readily apparent. Big Tobacco, Monsanto, Big Food, Big Pharma, Big Oil all have been proven to conspire against the will and safety of the people and planet for the boring, rote desires of greed and power. Dickey specifies “conspiracist” from “conspiracy theory” for obvious and necessary reasons, because just in my lifetime we have had incredible revelations of true conspiracies, from MKUltra to COINTELPRO, from Watergate to the Pentagon Papers, from Iran-Contra to WMDs in Iraq to the Snowden files. We have valid reasons to be suspicious, and we have valid reasons to want dynamic, systemic changes from those who wield the power to make those changes.

But we also have a long record of film and television, books and comic books, video games, radio and TV televangelists constantly pushing such age-old themes for entertainment, profit, and—as we know from those who are addicted to FOX News, NewsMax, and One America News—for political gain as much as ad dollars. From the commie-hunting 50s to the Cultural Revolution of the 60s to the serial-killer 70s to the Satanic Panic of the 80s, from The Manchurian Candidate to the X-Files to The Americans, from the paranoid politics of McCarthy to Goldwater to Trump, from the fever-dream dog-whistlers Art Bell to Rush Limbaugh to Alex Jones to Tucker Carlson, from the unfounded fears of fluoridated water to subliminal messaging to vaccine nanochips, from the fervently prejudicial John Birch Society to Constitutional Originalists to Moms for Liberty, from Evangelicalism to Mormonism to Scientology, the US is painfully complicit in fueling greater doubt and fear in its citizenry from all levels of society, and an unregulated internet compelled by monetary clickbait algorithms certainly fan the flames. Now, artificial intelligence is out of the box, which will most likely make things significantly worse. “Fears about secret societies that boil over into moral panics, as we’ve already seen, often create an epistemological rift where it becomes impossible to trust evidence or reconstruct a historical certainty after the fact” (p. 220). Is Pandora’s Box, to use an apt metaphor, utterly destroyed? We have existential crises at stake with eroding democracies and global warming. Gaia couldn’t care less about humanity. Your gods are worthless placebos.

Dickey traces the trend from eighteenth-century pamphlets to checkout tabloids to daytime talk shows in the 80s to YouTube provocateurs today—with Q-fools and MAGAteers perhaps being the apex of a “clearinghouse” approach to conspiracy theories, having thrown everything in but the kitchen sink. Reading this book shows you the repetition of conjured boogeymen to feed fears of those unwilling to accept the dynamics of an evolving society, their fragile little nuclear-family fantasylands under threat with Black emancipation, female empowerment, indigenous sovereignty, LGBTQ+ acceptance to be who they wish to be and love whom they wish to love, and the striving for true equality, accountability, and uplift throughout every fiber of an advancing society. Perhaps, then, this book can be empowering as we strive to fight disinformation, old-world bigotry, racism, sexism, misogyny, xenophobia, toxic masculinity, book-banning, and arrogant ignorance. As Dickey writes at the end, “despair is easy”. We need to embrace radical hope and act upon it at every possible moment.

I can’t wait to share this with my Satanic Temple peeps ;) \m/

Playlist:
Impending Doom’s “Satanic Panic” from 2022 (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yXsvc...).
Exodus’s “Clickbait” from 2021 (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A0Tuq...).
Motionless in White’s “Thoughts & Prayers” from 2021 (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yPe18...).
Coffins’ “Drown in Revelation” from 2015 (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kp31g...).
Traitors’ “The Hate Campaign” from 2015 (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nVo_2...).
Dee Snider’s “Lies Are a Business” from 2015 (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nVo_2...).
Shadows Fall’s “The Idiot Box” from 2009 (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w6hLU...).
Armagideon Time’s/BlackLiq’s “Foxed in the Head” from 2022 (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5uKHB...).
Ingested’s “Follow the Deceiver” from 2020 (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iEcwH...).
Flattened Earth’s “The Glorious LARP” from 2021 (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7oS4t...).
Siege of Power’s “Sinister Christians” from 2023 (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GnnF0...).
Terminal Nation’s “Church of the Gun” from 2019 (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3bdfu...).
Product of Hate’s “Where’s Your God?” from 2021 (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jq0BP...).
Toxic Holocaust’s “Nuke the Cross” from 2014 (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A4MK9...).
Anti-Flag’s “Red, White, and Brainwashed” from 2011 (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WudrO...).
Rise Against’s “Elective Amnesia” from 2013 (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V61Rg...).
Havok’s “Post-Truth Era” (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5Ihcw...) and “Betrayed by Technology” (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=li5-c...) from 2020.
Desecrator’s “Nothing Changes Anything” from 2015 (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RsHhL...).

[Travis · Rating 4 out of 5]

Listened to the audiobook on Spotify. Didn’t get as into this one as I did his previous two books, but I still think Dickey is a great storyteller and I’m into the exact same kind of weird history he’s into. Hope he has a dozen more books in him.

[Jon · Rating 5 out of 5]

A fantastic dive into the world of secrect societies. Time is a flat circle. While it isn't comforting to know we rinse and repeat our paranoia and conspiratorial thinking time and time again, a context for some famous examples is helpful. Conspiracy theories arising out of a need to describe a chaoic world makes a degree of sense, even if combating that tendency is difficult, if not impossible. While there is no treatment plan offered to resolve, I enjoyed the unpacking of why we tend to attribute the mystical, occult, or downright other-worldliness to our real concerns and discomforts.

[Richard · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is a simultaneously encouraging and disheartening book. Colin Dickey, who has already shown wonderful chops at sociological reads through ghost stories and an area's monster legends, now looks at the place of conspiracy theories in US politics. In short, Dickey shows us that conspiracy theories have pretty much ALWAYS been a part of US politics, and that this has led to a rather fishbowl-brained cycle of every iteration feeling like the end of US (Western) civilization, or the end of education, while Dickey tries to show us that this endless loop of thinking that a current conspiracy theory is the worst kind of thing ever, often ignoring or being ignorant of the revolving door of conspiracy theories that have changed targets and methods but often exhibit similar characteristics, is also a problem in their continued desseminiation. Dickey isn't arguing that the US is worse than any other country, but seems to take Trump's first election as a starting point to look at the long, LONG history of this kind of political gain.

I must admit how dismayed I was to see negative reviews that talked about this book feeling redundant. One, that seems to be part of th epoint of this book: to show how conspiracy theories may change targets and wanted outcomes, but that the methodology is often similar. But also, Dickey is clearly working against the cherry-picking methods of many conspiracy theories, which often use the lack of evidence or echo chambers of assertions without evidence for their evidence. Dickey's final product is enlightening, though also sad in seeing how long we've depended on such methods and have been sucked into them.

[Robert Stout · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is the story of paranoia in America and how secret societies shape American democracy. The earlest secret society in colonial America is the Freemasons. There are two different views of the masons. At the Valley Forge National Historical Park there is the United States Memorial Arch. Designed by Paul Cret, the sixty foot tall arch looms over the park. The arch was renovated by the Freemasons. The arch at the site is to remind people of the Masons power. Several hundred miles to the north of Valley Forge is a small cemetary in Batavia, New York, which contains a very different monument to the Freemasons. What sets apart the Batavia graveyard is nor a grave at all: it's a cenotaph, a memeorial without a body. It's top is a column some forty feet high, topped with a statue of a man named William Morgan. The inscription on the plinth reveals how, in 1826 Morgan was abducted and murdered by the Freemasons. Morgan was a Mason until he grew disllusioned with the secret society and threatened to tell all in a book. The Masons had him arrested and he was latter murdered, his body never recovered.

A Scot named John Robinson stoked the fears of secret societies in a pamplet he'd publish in 1797, entitled "Proof of a conspracy against all the Religions and Governments of Europe, Carried on in the Secret Meetings of the Free Masons, Illuminati, and Reading Societies." In it Robinson alleged that the French Revolution had been engineered by the Illuminati cabal that had infiltrated the Freemasons and had worked behind the scenes to to bring about the Jacobins' reign of terror.

But who is the Illuminati? The Illuminati was founded by Adam Weishaupt a Bavarian Jesuit and a professor of cannon law at the University of Ingolstadt, who became disillusioned with the Catholic Church - while he became intrigued by the Freemasons who wanted a more just world. Weishaupt believed that only a secret society could spread secular, rationalist ideas in a religious environment. He recruited noblemen and the organization had a hierarchy: Novice, minerval and Illuminated Minerval. In 1784, the Duke of Bavaria, Karl Theodor banned all secret societies hoping to destroy the illuminati. There were raids on prominate Illuminati members and the the organization was allegedly disolved.

In the 1830's the Anti - Masonry party formed, and William Wirt ran for the White House but failed to win. The Anti - Masons ended the power of Freemasonary. Never again would the fraternity have the same level of acceptance. It would always be under the suspicion of being a secret society.

In 1741 New York suffered mysterious fires. Three burglars, Prince, Cuffee and Caesar and tavern owners John and Sarah Hughson it was believed conspired to burn down buildings within New York. Altogether 30 people were convicted, and the Black Freemasons were thought to be behind the arson.

On July 4, 1875 the Bowery Boys were a violent arm of the Know Nothing Party who fought against the Irish Dead Rabbits. The Know Nothings operated under the conviction that America had been infiltrated by a secret network of Catholics who allegiance was the Vatican and not the Constitution.
The Know Nothings got their name from their secrecy and instructed their members to say "I know nothing."

During the 1850's there were three conspiracy theories - that enslaved Americans were on the verge of overthrowing white America; that enslavers had infiltrated the government, and that Catholics were working to undermine democracy and the foundation of Protestantism - each consumed different parts of the American public leading to the Civil War. These conspiracies were a durable and omnipresent aspect of Southern culture during slavery. How typical the events that took place in Charleston, South Carolina, in 1822, when a freed black named Denmark Vesey was accused of masterminding a savage, murderous conspiracy that almost took place. On May 25, 1822 Peter Prioleau an enslaved person went to his friend a freed black man named William Pencil. Peter Prioleau was asked to join a secret society that would rebel against their white masters and free blacks from bondage. The conspirators had acquired a large store of weapons and incendiaries as well as white powdered wigs that they planned to disguise themselves as whites. Denmark Vesey was discovered to be behind the plot. IN a rushed secret trial Vesey was convicted with six others and hanged.

Around the time of the Civil War anti Catholic conspiracy theories took hold. On July 28, 1834 a women named Elizabeth Harrison fled the Uruline convent and a Protestant mob burnt down the covenant. The mob believed that priest have gotten the nuns pregnant and that the priest murdered and buried the babies. The mob found no evidence of this but that didn't stop them from burning down the covenant. The Know Nothing party ran on an anti - Catholic platform. They also had a desire for secrecy that put limits on their ability to seize power. The Know Nothings wanted two contradictive things. They wanted anarchic freedom that came with riots. But they also wanted political power to be part of the establishment, to be insiders, while retaining an outsider status.

There is simply too much information to complete the review. Dickey basically gives the left a pass when it comes to conspiracy theories. Dickey demonizes the right as being driven by fear. The far right on the fringe deserves to be condemned such as the Ku Klux Klan. He also condemns the John Birch Society for their paranoia concerning Communism in America. Finally left wing conspiracies are given a pass in the book. Dickey interviews a Truther who believes that 911 was an inside job and either Bush or the Jews are responsible.

The last secret society Dickey mentions is the Molly Maguires and he does not mention secret societies for the rest of the book. Dickey switches gears and talks about the FBI and Cointelpro. Back in the 60's as it is today, the FBI is out of control. The FBI persecuted Vietnam war protesters and civil rights leaders. Not mentioned by Dickey is how the FBI was weaponized against Trump and put pressure on Big Tech to supress the Hunter Biden laptop story. But here the author gets off topic because the FBI is not a secret society. Overall the book is good durning the first half but diverges off topic in the second half.