Conspiracy Theories, Skepticism, and Critical Thinking

Last week we left off with Robison's take on the French Revolution and its cause. To repeat he said, in plain Scotch English,  "That the Illuminati and other hidden Cosmo-political societies had some influence in bringing about the French Revolution , or at least accelerating it, can hardly be doubted.--in reading the secret correspondences, I was always surprised at not finding any reports from France, and something like a hesitation about establishing a mission there; nor am I yet able thoroughly to account for it."   This week we are going to discuss these two sentences as well as a brief overview on the nature and causes of the French Revolution. Perhaps no single greater event is pivotal in the history of conspiracism than the French Revolution. If one were to accept that time is real (remember in conspiracy theorizing this is not a given, and that historical occurrences are real (again not a given), the revolution of France is a Dr. Who-style fixed point in history.

  "The fragments and Horus are books which aim directly, and without any concealment, to destroy the authority of our scriptures, either as historical narrations or the revelations of the intentions of providence and of the future prospects of man. " Here we are presented with a strong temptation to find the books that he is talking about and explain whether or not he's wrong. In front of that temptation are two things: A) the first is that the books themselves are not proofs of anything but in his own description are merely attacks on Christianity. I am going to assume that these attacks on Christianity are not attacks on the whole of Christianity but rather on Robison's preferred brand of Christianity. Perhaps they discount the authority of the Pope, or perhaps they augment the authority of the Pope. More importantly though is B) Neither result matters.  Attacking the majority religion of the European continent has nothing to do with the point of the book itself. Ye

This should be more interesting than it is, Robison is giving us the minute details of the alleged global secret society, and to be honest...I think this is all filler. It just reads like filler, Robison is trying to pad out his word count as if no one would publish this book unless it reached 200 pages. As I said last week, this should be very interesting. In fact, if it were true, it should be all the conspiracy theorists ever discuss because the management and maintenance of the conspiracy would have to be such a vast undertaking that the question would not be: who is in the conspiracy but who is not.  Let's just examine what Robison is telling us starting on page 142 (for the PDF). The central money will be collected and then held as a managing fund. This fund will be directed to each individual lodge according to need, and this will set the machine of the German Union in motion. This is important stuff as it shows how the conspiracy is going to be paid for. Remember that the c

Last week had a dental appointment, and couldn't get the time in to update. Today, we're right back to it.  We've been discussing what seems to be after so many pages of teasing, the actual conspiracy that Robison is so afraid is going to topple the governments and religions of Europe. Well...continental Europe at least. There is no evidence from this book that Robison is worried about Scotland, England, or the UK in general. Let us remember that the conspiracy is being conducted by something known as the German Union and their evil nefarious plan is to--create a system of interconnected libraries so that the population of the German-speaking states would be literate.  As Robison writes, summarizing plan XXII (or document XXII, it's unclear), " The great aim of the German Union, is the good of mankind, which is to be attained only by means of mental Illumination (Auffklarung) and the dethroning of fanaticism and moral despotism. " There's a few things  to