Read Introduction Here

Read Chapter 1 – What Is Truth? Here

Chapter 2

For a brief period of time, I found myself inadvertently involved in a now defunct pyramid scheme called Scentura. I was desperate for a job and was promised a lavish life as a manager and eventual owner of my own business. When I described my new job opportunity to my friends and family they said it sounded like a scam. My trainer, we’ll call him Kyle, would assure me that there was no scam. My new business venture was much different from a pyramid scheme because I did not need to buy the product, it was provided for me. Kyle convinced me that I had the opportunity of a lifetime and should be grateful for such a blessing. He would discourage any critical opinions on the products or founder of this amazing opportunity. I actually enjoyed going to my recruiter’s office. We would listen to positive and uplifting music to get us hyped up for the day. The group of other lower-level members and I would play “team building” games that were more like rituals than actual games. The actual work came when we wandered the streets attempting to convince people that we had name brand cologne and perfume but in larger quantity and at a fraction of the price.

Of course my friends and family would ask me critical questions about the products I was selling and why I had to sell them in such an unofficial manner. Kyle had an answer for everything. When I asked him why our product couldn’t be sold in a store he would we were blocked by the big chains because we were selling the same thing but at the wholesale price. He would demonize any institution that would refer to Scentura as a scam, such as the Better Business Bureau. He would discredit anyone who had previously joined, left, and spoke out negatively as either not having enough will to see the process through or as a hater. Kyle would subtly encourage me to block out any negativity from my loved ones so that I could focus on proving them all wrong. There was a positive spin to all of these seemingly harsh responses – we were providing a service to people by circumventing big corporations and overbearing institutions and my relationships with my loved ones would come through stronger once they saw I had built a business from a “scam.”

Scentura, Avon, Mary Kay, Herbalife, doTerra, LuLaRoe and other Multi-Level Marketing systems use cult methods, at times unwittingly, to keep their schemes moving. They will refer to themselves as direct sales, network marketing, or party planners in order to avoid the negative notions associated with “pyramid” or “multi-level” scams. Only 1% of multi-level marketing (MLM) members make a reasonable income. The rest make minimal or no income and most will lose money. Obviously this means there’s a high turnover rate, some estimate between 50-90% per year. These schemes rely on the sales of “lower-level” members so they have to keep the bottom of the pyramid consistently filled in order to keep making money. Recruiters will often not realize they are being manipulated to manipulate their friends, family, and eventually targeted strangers to become apart of their “down-line”. People are drawn into MLMs by something basic, such as the product or a desire to make a respectable income. If they stay long enough they will spend more time being trained to recruit rather than selling the product. They are trained to give scripted positive responses to common negative objectives. These responses can contradict each other, but that does not matter since they are tailored to different situations and different people. New recruits are generally targeted types of people such as college students, military wives, stay-at-home or single mothers, and the chronically ill. Outgoing and ambitious personality types are more vulnerable to MLMs than others. Creative types are more vulnerable to falling for cult techniques due to their open minded nature. People pleasers are also more likely to follow someone into a cult-like situation in support of a friend or even a motivating stranger.

Steven Hassan, a cult specialist and counselor, defines cult control tactics into a simple acronym: BITE – Behavior, Information, Thought, Emotions. By giving up control of these four aspects, a person becomes susceptible to mind control. Behavior control is about regulating an individual’s physical reality. This can include simple things like imposing rituals, regulating diet, restricting leisure time, but can escalate into financial exploitation, demanding permission for major life decisions, or even threatening and enforcing corporal punishment to instill obedience. Information control can involve deception by withholding crucial information, discouraging access to materials outside of the group’s own material, encourage spying on fellow members, or constantly flooding members with group’s material. Thought control is mostly accomplished by turning a simple thought into a catchy song or chant. This simple thought can be unpacked into a much more complex series of thoughts that involve denying criticisms and promote wishful thinking. Emotional control is perhaps the most imperative and yet damning of them all. Manipulating a range of feelings as being selfish, wrong, and ultimately evil is one example of emotional control. Others include teaching techniques to block emotions, promoting guilt for not living up to potential and letting down loved ones, instilling fear of independent thought or others outside of the group or disappointing members of the group or questioning the leader’s authority.

Salesmen, con-artists and others alike will use the tactics of cult leaders to gather a following of their own. They are usually charlatans; they claim to have a superior knowledge of an issue that plagues the vast majority of people and an item that will solve it. During my time in sales, which included a year working for a small electronics chain, I was impressed by the amount of falsehoods I was told about the products I was selling. At the time, I was clueless that what I was told was false. I would repeat this information to customers, believing it to be true and make my money with a clean conscious. I would find out later on that I had been unwittingly lying to people. After researching further, the products I sold did not do many of the things I was led to believe they would. In the MLM structure, I learned a little more about this business model each time I moved up a level. When Kyle would tell me and the other new people that the office would cover our expenses they actually meant they would provide us with the product to sell which would pay for those expenses. After several weeks, I realized that I had spent more money than I made. All of the money I received for selling the product had to pay for my at-work expenses which never fully covered it all. Once I realized this is what they meant when they said they would pay for an office space one day, it became clear that this was a lot like a cult – a mystery cult to be exact.

A mystery cult is one that gives you more knowledge about the inner workings as you move up. Scientology is a good example of a mystery cult. When you start out, you are told very little about what is going on except that you need to become apart of this group in order to be happy. The group will love and accept you in a way that your loved ones and society never could. This will tap into your vulnerabilities. If you already feel, like many do, that people just don’t understand you then you might think you’ve found a new support system. You’ll be convinced that if anyone outside tries to pull you away then they clearly don’t have your best interests in mind. After some time, you will be shown how to convince others the same so more will join. You’ll learn that some of what they told you initially was a little misleading, but since the leaders are the ones telling you this you can still trust them. As you continue to move up in “rankings,” you’ll learn out about more falsehoods, but each one is small and you find them out over long periods of time. They’ll gaslight you into believing you’re being entrusted with secrets that others are not which will make you feel special and more accepted. If at some point you realize that you didn’t need to feel special or accepted until you were told all these lies to begin with then that would be a good time to make your exit. However if you don’t, then by the end you will find out that the whole thing is a scam designed to dupe people into abandoning their lives and handing over all of their money to those at the top position with nothing to show for it (unless you’re willing to exploit other’s vulnerability). When “Kyle” told me about all the ways they lied in the job description for the newspaper ad, I thought, “that’s a smart way to bring people in,” at the time. In retrospect, I should’ve been thinking, “the whole reason I’m here is based on a bunch of lies!”

Throughout history there are multiple examples of people using the tactics of cults. They use human’s innate desire to be apart of something that is beyond the reach of any one person. From politicians to salesmen to sports franchise owners; pastors, musicians, con artists, corporations, advertisers, they all use this psychological ploy to gain traction and followers (and of course money!) for their ideology or products. When I told “Kyle” I was leaving Scentura, he made it clear I was making a big mistake. I told him that sales just wasn’t for me. His parting words to me were, “everything is sales!” He maybe right to an extent. We sell our peers on our appearance, our likability, our reasonings, our beliefs. We want to be with other like minded people to reaffirm any position we hold dear. If you’re like me and you’re not good at drawing people to you, then stumbling upon a group of people with common interests or beliefs can almost feel like divine intervention. In the case of religion, groups of people will form traditions. Rituals that are passed down generationally for centuries. This creates a sense of authenticity – if this ritual worked for my forefathers, it should work for me. If you’re new to the group, being asked to take part in the tradition will make you feel accepted (which feels pretty good). As mankind has found a better understanding of our surroundings, the traditions of the past have evolved to fit that understanding. This is how religions continue to flourish despite being met with resistance.

As within any group we could refer to in the broadest of definitions of a cult, much good can come from collaboration. When people come together under a common cause or for a common goal, a lot can be accomplished. In any case, this should be the priority. However, the goal of common good, or at least the definition of “common good,” is not always shared. For this reason, an authority figure can be necessary. If the authority is invisible then there would need to be some sort of persuasion of truth to assert the authenticity. This is why it is important to understand the significance of truth and how to determine it. If you can be easily persuaded of the authenticity of an authority of which there is no actual evidence of, that can determine your actions throughout your life, perhaps without necessity. Having been born with the belief of god instilled in me, I never really thought to question the evidence of his existence when I was a child. Everyone I knew believed whole-heartedly that god was real, so it just made sense that he was. Even though I grew apart from my faith, I was still easily persuaded to believe in whatever anyone said with certainty.

It is essential for a cult’s survival to have some kind of support for an opinion’s accuracy. Therefore, a cult leader will establish a sense of authority that goes beyond what any evidence could counter. This relieves members from a desire to seek answers beyond their current understanding. Upon swearing strict allegiance to any idea or material item, you may end up forfeiting your ability to find other perspectives or even see clear tangible evidence. In my case of being born into a creationist culture, I never understood the options beyond what I was told to be an absolute truth. As we will see later, this hindered my ability to see the full beauty of our universe as well as my ability to ask the right questions and seek the answers that are quite visible. How many other kinds of superstitions are people born into believing keep people from seeing reality? How many other people have their education stunted because of a strict adherence to an outdated tradition?

Generally, when people think of cults, they think something like The Manson Family, a cult started by Charles Manson, or Fight Club, the fictional cult from the book and movie. By definition, however, all religions are a cult. Considering this, when a parent decides to dedicate a child into a religion and proclaim they will raise them within that religion, they are birthing them into a cult. People tend to find the term “cult” offensive when it’s used to refer to their religion. The word has a negative association thanks to the murderous and suicidal cults that have emerged over the years, but a cult is nonetheless defined as a group of people devoted to an idea, person, object, work, or movement. Considering this, Star Wars fans are also a cult. Fans of particular movies, books, games, etc. are often referred to as a “cult-following” because some things are not fully accepted into pop-culture but still have a large, strongly devoted fan base of their own. At this level, a cult could be better described as a fandom. While the observers, or fans, are well aware that the idea they are following is fictional, they enjoy the immersion into the mythology of the worlds created in their favorite narrative.

When a cult is devoted to a person, the followers tend excuse any shortcomings of their leader. They will behave as though the leader is god-like, although they won’t admit that phrasing. Cult leaders strengthen their followers by expanding on an idea which they already feel strongly about. In the same way, a cult devoted to a belief will dismiss any shortcomings or contradictions to that belief. No matter the evidence, no matter how strong the arguments against, we rationalize any way we can to uphold a strong belief. It’s like a defense mechanism. Our brains are hardwired to keep us informed on whatever will reinforce our own understandings. It’s pretty easy, then, to find an enigmatic figure who will say all the right things that will make our minds click and energize our beliefs.

Human beings have an innate desire for mental shortcuts and confirmation bias. This gives us a tendency to only focus on material that will reinforce a belief or feeling we are intensely devoted to. This has become much easier to do now with the internet and social media. To make things worse, companies exploit this tendency for advertising advantages. The internet has been set up so that we can create a cult within our own mind. Websites create content that will fall into certain interests, advertisers will pay these sites to promote their products which relate to the interests of the site, algorithms are created so that you will receive advertisements based on your online activity, and thus a feedback loop is created. To you it appears that all the world is interested in the same things you are. All the world believes as you do. If you let this consume your way of thinking it will be shocking to find out that people are unaware of the existence of some of your interests or beliefs.

Religious people tend to congregate with their own and did so long before the smart phone or internet. They further isolate themselves with in their own denominations. Most Christians accept that other Christians believe certain details differently, but their closest relationships tend to be with those who agree with them. Creationists will seek out other Creationists and will share with each other whatever information or opinions they have that will support their stance. This is actually encouraged within the leaderships of church. Pastors encourage their congregation to surround themselves with other Christians to strengthen their faith. Some will also encourage to branch out and seek friends who think differently, but some of the more extreme views of religions imply that having any kind of relationship with someone who is not of the same faith is harmful unless you are actively trying to convert them. This is exactly how cults work, they encourage one not to venture too far out (if at all) from the “in-group.” In other words, looking to anyone who may have a different view or any information that would dispute the leader or idea would be detrimental not only to your beliefs but also to your closest relationships (this falls into the “emotional behavior” control category if you recall).

In order to escape the cult-like mindset, one would need a strong desire for knowledge beyond faith. This is no easy task – it goes against our neurological programming according to a recent study published in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America. This study showed that people only wish to seek knowledge if they feel it may have a favorable outcome and will actively seek ignorance if it can keep us unaware of the possible negative outcomes. We can infer that people would consider an eternal life beyond our fragile bodies to be quite favorable. Therefore, it seems only natural that humans would develop a paradise beyond our own reality, one where we, our loved ones and those deemed worthy would be allowed to enter. Applying this study to that idea, it’s safe to assume that people would prefer to stay ignorant of any knowledge that could take away their belief in any particular afterlife.

From small tribes to great empires, almost all cultures have tales of a paradise with a deity (or deities) ruling over it. The ruling deities of any particular paradise became a convenient source of explanation for the unexplainable events that occur throughout the course of time. In many cases, they became the source of authority for the seers who spoke for them. The seers would either become the ruling power of a community or they would vouch for their leader. If you follow the progress of knowledge, you will find a decline of adherence to these deities throughout all cultures as well as splits into multiple versions of the same deities. These sects would separate from their culture to assume a different way of interpreting the deity’s will or role in society.

Every religion started out as a small cult. The dominant religions today became reigning norms by process of popular selection. In the beginning of the first millennium CE, there were many sects of the Jewish religion along with many other cults in modern day Israel that worshiped other deities. The many Jewish sects were attempting to make sense of a Roman control over their “promised land.” They needed new interpretations of this sacred promise from their deity. Some chose not to find a new interpretation, but rather a new messiah. A new deliverer, like Moses, could create a new promise, a new covenant. Many men claimed to be this new messiah, preaching new teachings to add to or replace the holy scriptures and healing the afflicted. Christianity was one of many messiah cults along with many other sub-cults to Judaism. Eventually, this particular Messiah mystery cult began to separate itself from the Jewish traditions in order to expand to the Greco-Roman culture.

Christianity began at a time when mystery cults (or mystery religions as they are also called) were becoming popular in the Greco-Roman world. Historian Richard Carrier’s research shows Christianity to have been a Judeo-Hellenistic mystery religion in its earliest form; A mystery religion being defined as a Hellenistic (Greek culture) cult where participation in a series of rituals led to further knowledge that would guarantee eternal life. There are references to mysteries, “mature” and “immature” believers, and ritualistic initiations to obtain the secrets to an eternal life throughout the New Testament. These and other common NT phrases are commonly used in other mystery cults from the same time. All other mystery religions followed the same narrative as the gospels where a central savior deity delivers a son (sometimes a daughter) that suffers through some sort of trial to procure salvation for those who join the cult and to give them dominion over death. The trials and deaths in the other savior / mystery cults (such as Osiris) were also referred to as a “passion,” just like in Christianity. These cults had initiation ritual meals where the newcomers would become united with the other members and their god in communion. Some cults had an initiatory baptism where their sins would be “literally” washed away centuries before the birth of Christianity. This could be referred to as a form of syncretism, which in this case means a newer religion adopts parts from other more locally popular religions in order to draw in more people from the local population. There are other examples of this happening in the same area before Christianity: Mithraism joined its Persian roots with the Greco-Roman culture as well as a cult from Egypt dedicated to Isis and Osiris. We know less about these other cults though because, unlike Christianity, they were not eventually accepted by the monarch and were not as well preserved. But more on that another time.

In the Old Testament, salvation was procured through a blood sacrifice; And god really wanted that blood. In fact, in Genesis chapter 4 Cain kills his brother Abel because god accepted Abel’s sacrifice of a lamb but not Cain’s sacrifice of the crops he worked on. Such a sweet tale for children, don’t you think? But as the Jewish culture expanded, it needed to adapt to its surroundings. So it seems almost expected that as it was trying to expand to the Greco-Roman territory, god decided that baptism and communion, both of which were quite popular within many other cults in that particular geographical area in that particular time, could be the new ritual to procure salvation. But of course he would have to sacrifice his son to solidify this acceptance of the trend. Which works pretty well with the overall narrative of the Bible since sacrifice was the earlier ritual. Now god can just make one sacrifice for everyone willing to join in these two other popular trends.

When looking at this evidence it becomes clear that Christianity started out using the methods of the popular mystery cults of the time. Many of those rituals are now considered to be apart of the religion in a more open manner. Baptism in most denominations represents a rebirth into and commitment to Christianity. Communion is for anyone who believes in God and is done to demonstrate that belief and adherence to God himself.

Is any of this evidence that God does not exist? Not at all. I mention this to point out that at it’s inception, Christianity was a small cult like many others. As it grew and separated into hundreds of denominations, many of it’s cult-like attributes became normalized as it’s cult-like code became more relaxed. It became open to accepting more followers and spreading it’s message around a growing world. The rest of the world had their own versions of God, their own hero tales of saviors. Christianity had the advantage of coming around to the Greco-Roman culture after so many others so they were able to add the most popular elements of all the other religions. They seem to have hit all of the right notes and drew multitudes of people to join. They also had the distinct advantage of taking over the most powerful empire at a particular time. That empire used its power to slaughter those who did not believe. Therefore, more and more people were born into that religion and it’s growth became generational. Yet, at it’s core, Christianity is a cult.

There are multiple theories about the rise of Christianity from a small cult to a worldwide religious phenomenon. Obviously, anyone apart of the religion will take the New Testament as an accurate historical account. There are others who believe Jesus was real man whose supernatural abilities and resurrection was attributed to him long after he died and became apart of the canon by his cult following. Other historians, such as Richard Carrier, view the most likely scenario is that Paul had visions, hallucinations, possibly psychotic episodes, of a figure who represented the Jewish God. It is part of the human genome to be able to hallucinate. For some, a hallucinatory drug can bring this about, for others it can manifest through some kind of mental stress or disability. There have been studies that reveal many prophets, holy men, and shamans throughout history were placed in high authority within a religion because of their ability to hallucinate. Early Christians could have induced these hallucinatory states by fasting, sleep deprivation, or rhythmic prayer.

In all of what Paul said, nothing expressly says that Jesus was a true physical being. When speaking of the resurrection, he was possibly referring to a spiritual resurrection in a believed physical realm called the ether. In Chapter 1, we discussed Copernicus and how he was one of the first to heretically claim that the earth was not the center of the universe. Commonly, we talk about how it was once believed that the world was flat and all of space moved around us, but what is less discussed is what most people believed about the “heavens” at that time. In short, the common belief was that the the sky was divided into seven layers. Some of these layers contained certain celestial bodies, while others were so far away they were not visible where the angels and gods resided. Most religions we’re formed around the idea that the beings within these physical places would make decisions that affected every human and even battle each other for control. The ideas of the multiple levels of heaven physically existing in the literal sky goes back as far as Plato.

While various aspects of this information was taught to me, I never considered that the Jewish religion and early Christians were based on the same ideas of the universe. That may seem odd, but as a child I was taught that heaven was not a physical place, but a spiritual realm where all Christian’s spirits would join together after death. When I would listen to the teachings of Jesus, Paul, David, or Moses referencing heaven I would picture it from that understanding and assumed that they understood it the same way. The other religions (or what we call pagans now) had the wrong idea about heaven, but the Jews and Christians had it right from the start. That was the way I saw it because that’s what I was told everyday of my young life. It wasn’t until my adult life when I decided to re-examine my faith and learn about the history of my religion of birth that I realized Paul was speaking about the same heavens that all the other non-Jewish cults (and non cult members) believed in. From this context, early Christianity didn’t really stand out from other religious cults. So then how did early Christians break through the noise? It wasn’t easy.

Paul spoke about his visions to anyone who would listen (and even those who wouldn’t). He spread his message all over the middle east and in Rome as the Bible describes. Decades after his death, Romans used his message to create a narrative. It was common place in the Roman culture at that time to take a historical figure and embellish their life around a popular “heroes tale” narrative. It was also commonplace for Roman authors to take a popular ideal and create a figure-head character to be a champion for that cause. There are many examples of this which we will explore more in the next chapter. It’s entirely possible (if not likely) that many different authors took Paul’s teachings and added characters and supernatural elements that gave it a sense of authority. They used some of the most popular narrative features and happened to include all the right ones and presto! They had a hit!

The book of Mark was the first we know of, followed by Matthew, John, then Luke. There is much debate on when exactly these books were written since there are no surviving original transcripts, but it is generally accepted by historians that they were each written at different points between 66 and 110 CE. The canon that we know of today (Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John) came together at the Council of Nicaea in 325 CE. It took almost 3 full centuries for the Christian cult to fully organize its writings. Although, this is not much of a surprise. As was mentioned before, there were many sub-sect cults of the Jewish faith, and many religious cults in the area of the Roman Empire. What really caused the organization of Christian and Jewish writings was the apparent conversion of Roman Emperor Constantine 1. It was Constantine who ordered the Council be convened for the purpose of deciding what should and should not be apart of the Bible. They established the general order of the 66 books that make up the Bible as we know it today. There are other books have been discovered over time. We have fragments of them now which gives us the ability to see what other pieces of the puzzle exists. That puzzle being the birth of a new religion, Christianity.

It is a lot like Star Wars if you know the history of that movie. When George Lucas first began writing Star Wars, there was already a large market of science fiction movies. These were popular among a small group of people, but they were far from pop culture phenomenon’s. Lucas used pieces of other popular narratives from other genres of movies like westerns and fantasies and formed them into his sci-fi movie. The result was a massive cultural phenomenon that no other sci-fi movie had ever experienced. (Have you ever seen Logan’s Run? If not, your not missing much.) Lucas didn’t know what he had though. He made a bet with Stephen Spielberg that Close Encounters of the Third Kind would out-perform Star Wars. Spielberg earned himself 2.5% of the Star Wars box office money.

For me, it was important to look at the historical context of my beliefs from an outsider’s perspective. It’s hard to see from within because, in the view of the believer, the true history is the actual myth which created the belief. Once I understood that multiple cultures believed in multiple gods (including the gods they did not worship) and even believed them to be friendly with or enemies of each other, then a new picture emerged. I saw that it was in human evolutionary nature to the believe in deities. Humans are a curious species and are able to find reasons and patterns to explain any circumstance. In the ancient past, before the scientific revolution, a spiritual entity was the most common explanation for any kind of pattern, whether imagined or not. We’ll explore more about the human ability to find patterns out of chaos in a later chapter.

As I was taking the time to read about all of these lessons from religious history, I was reminded of another cult-like experience from my early twenties. One that, in retrospect, was a seamless transition after leaving the surroundings of the church. I became enthralled in a system of beliefs that required no god to worship, it required no mantra, no ritual, the only thing required was a desire to question everything about my reality. For several years I was obsessed with learning all I could from the World Wide Web of conspiracy theories.

Shortly after I decided to stop going to church at the age of 18 I was shown my first conspiracy video on YouTube. This was more like a documentary movie though. My roommate came into our dorm one night freaking out about how mind blowing this movie he had just seen was. It was the Zeitgeist video explaining the 9/11 conspiracy theory in extensive detail for over an hour. My reaction was mostly dismissive which is actually pretty similar to most people who first come across conspiracy YouTube videos, even those who eventually become believers. It would take several years for me to circle back to this theory.

My real journey into conspiracies began with the History Channel show, Ancient Aliens. When the show premiered as a mini-series in 2009, I was really excited to watch it. I’ve always had an affinity for extraterrestrials which probably came from my love of sci-fi stories. Once again, I was mostly dismissive. I thought some of the theories they presented in the first 90 minute special were interesting, and could mean that extraterrestrials had actually visited us, but they didn’t seem to have the concrete evidence the commercials claimed. I kept watching the show as new seasons would come out and would occasionally check out YouTube videos about modern “visitations.” I couldn’t tell you an exact moment I decided that I was a firm believer in the Ancient Astronaut Theory because it was a gradual change. I know by 2012 I was pretty set in that belief as well as other conspiracy theories.

In summary, the ancient astronaut theory is that beings who existed long before humans came to earth, messed with the DNA of a hominoid species so that humans would evolve. For a period of time, these beings continued to visit us, call themselves gods, and maybe enslaved us or just provided various forms of assistance for various reasons. Either way, at some point around 2,000 years ago, they stopped coming around. This, in essence, can explain the different religious cults and mythical tales across the world throughout antiquity. Why were the pyramids built? Because aliens. Stonehenge? Aliens. Hercules? Totally an alien. Dragons? Khaleesi, right? Nope! Alien space ship!

The thing is, there are actual true conspiracy theories that are known to have happened. For instance, there is the MKUltra conspiracy where the CIA used psychoactive drugs, like LSD, to experiment on citizens to learn about some new possible interrogation techniques. A more modern example would be the NSA’s global surveillance programs scandal that was exposed by Edward Snowden in 2013. But when we talk about the 9/11 conspiracy theory or the ancient alien theory, those fall under what is also called a “grand conspiracy.” So what is the difference?

A “grand conspiracy” theory, as it’s name suggests, would have to involve thousands of people across multiple organizations, big and small, as well as different governments and span generations. This is how I became engulfed in so many other theories. For the Ancient Astronaut Theory (or AAT for short) to be true, it would have to be such a grand conspiracy that it would have to involve cooperation and massive coordination from all governments across the world, almost all branches of science such as cosmology, geology, biology, chemistry, and physics to name a few as well as ancient historians, archeologists, and art history majors. I realized this fact the more I learned about the AAT, which ultimately led me to find the answer to the nagging question, “why?” Why would all these governments and minds of science and history go through so much trouble to fool the whole world of something that would seem to neutralize a lot of confusion and problems we all face? Well for that, we have the Illuminati. See? If a conspiracy comes against a wall, you just make it more grand!

Pretty much any Illuminati believer (or former believer) will tell you that once you start looking, you can find the Illuminati everywhere. Skeptics refer to this behavior as “anomaly hunting.” Every day, somewhere, someone witnesses some kind of strange event that may not have an immediate explanation. Most people will automatically jump to a conclusion that fits into their beliefs. It’s interesting how very few people convert to a religion because of a miraculous event. Many conspiracy theorist will tell you they became believers after watching videos and not being able to disprove the claims. This might seem odd, but the way conspiracists present their claims makes it difficult to argue against. They will take an unexplainable event or something that hasn’t yet been explained and provide an unprovable solution. While their explanations can’t be proved, they also cant be disproved. Any evidence that disproves any parts of their claims is either deflected with a “what-about-ism” or an attempt to discredit the source of the evidence. Once you can convince someone of a conspiracy, they’ll start seeing the world from that perspective and see any abnormal event as evidence to strengthen their new belief. Whether you believe a small group of insanely rich and powerful men control the basis of our reality or that a cosmic deity controls all matter in the universe, there is no shortage of anomalies that can be quickly explained by either belief.

An interesting example of a modern-day conspiracy cult is the flat-earth society. This society actually dates back to the 1950’s, but with some celebrity endorsements and countless YouTube videos providing “evidence” for this claim, the society has gained some new momentum in pop culture. “Flat-earthers” are a network of conspiracy theorists who believe that established history and science is a complete fraud. Many believers already had believed in other conspiracy theories and half say they are very religious. This is really important because already having an “Illuminati” belief system makes it really easy to believe that the thousands of photos and videos of a spherical earth are all fakes. Also being religious, specifically Christian, is important because the Bible has the foundation for flat earth in it. The Bible after all was written entirely by men who firmly believed the earth was flat. Not that they were dumb or anything like that, just ignorant.

As I went further and further down the rabbit hole of the AAT and Illuminati conspiracies, it made complete sense to me that established science and history were fraudulent since that was what I had already been taught throughout my adolescence. Looking back, this seems more like a continuation of the beliefs I was born into. Eventually I came out the other side of the rabbit hole and found myself right back where I started. The paranoia of conspiracists asserting misinformation leads to a tail chasing game where when two conspiracy theories contradict themselves they each claim the other is a obfuscatory faction created by “the man.”

The more I looked at the so-called evidence that conspiracy theorists claim to have, the more I began to see the similarities in the arguments the creationists use. When presented with tangible evidence to counter the theories, they deflect. When told that their evidence is not credible, they attempt to discredit those who establish the credibility. When asked about conflicting beliefs and denominations within the separate sects of the religion they will claim “the deceiver” (or the devil if you like) exists to sow confusion. Eventually, they argue that their belief is just like any other belief, adding that science and history are based on belief alone, thereby equating all opinions and facts. This is a dangerous way to raise a child. It creates a mindset that says there is no evident truth, only the opinions that individuals decide to be true.

Even though I did not grow up in a small camp of people, I was always surrounded by like-minded people. Even though I wasn’t technically discouraged from seeking answers outside of the Bible, I was repeatedly taught that it would be a futile endeavor. Even though I was taught to accept those who did not share my beliefs, I was told that too much association with them (and not enough association with my “church-family”) would lead me astray from God and his blessings. I was allowed to leave my religion freely, many people are not that lucky. Despite the openness that many cults and religions do not offer, there were still many mind control tactics used (in most cases inadvertently) on me to keep me in the fold.

As I learned about other religions, cults, and superstitions, I began to see a full picture of desired ignorance. I could see that despite their differences there were many similarities in style, appeal, leaderships, and most importantly, denialism. All superstitions start as unexplained phenomena. Many have persisted into our modern era despite the evidence that explain certain anomalies. Cults morph over time into religions but there are still many newer cults popping up everywhere, especially in the forum world of the internet. As I finally found all the flaws in the world of conspiracies I was left with a few questions: If all religions act similarly, began under similar circumstances, and all purport to be the absolute truth meaning all others are wrong, which one is right? How could anyone possibly know the answer beyond faith? Could any one of them be right?

Chapter 3 coming soon