When he took the stage in front of the 16,000 followers at Osteen's Houston megachurch on Sunday, West's own ego-stroking was inevitable: "The greatest artist God has ever created is now working for him," West claimed, about... himself, of course. But the statements that followed were next level galaxy brain, even for West's standards; as far back as 2014, the rapper has been known to wax on about the Illuminati, despite opposing theories that suggest West is part of said shadowy celebrity power cult.

"'Closed on Sunday' is the hardest record ever made; it's as hard as an N.W.A. record, because it's talking about protecting your kids from the indoctrination of the media," West said, around the 9:00 mark of a YouTube upload of his Lakewood Church appearance, "the thousands and thousands of images that are fed to children by the age of six or seven." (The song he references includes lines like "When you got daughters, always keep 'em safe / Watch out for vipers, don't let them indoctrinate.")

"Within those images, there are images mixed in that we don't know about as parents—that are purposely mixed in to lower the kids' superpower and esteem so that they can be more susceptible to consumption and feel that they need to consume and become a part of the robotic, numeric system that controls so much of the media. I just had to say it, and you can rewind it, and then do research on what I'm talking about."

Given the audience of r/conspiracy, it's more sympathetic to West than other parts of the internet. On Twitter, the consensus seems to be that West has simply watched far too many conspiracy videos on YouTube. His religious journey is "the same 'voyage of discovery' that many of us have gone through," wrote a moderator of r/conspiracy and r/AlternativeHistory in one of the post's top comments.

But even in the conspiracy-friendly echo chamber of Reddit, people are poking holes in West's statements, pointing out his ties to "people who have blatantly used Illuminati symbolism" and his own, not-too-distant use of Illuminati-ish symbols in the music video for "Power." Others questioned the rapper's mental health status, a topic he's been open about since an involuntary psychiatric hold in 2016.