Conspiracy Theories, Skepticism, and Critical Thinking

Robison is getting desperate, and I think the reason is that the events he's talking about are closer in proximity to him. It's a bit different for him to claim events, persons, and documents from Germany; but France is different. France is "right-over-there" and the revolution just happened. There are people that his readers could ask, "hey who in charge of the revolution was an Illuminati." This is a difficult problem for any conspiracy theorist and Robison, in the very beginning of the Illuminati conspiracy theory has to deal with this. So far, we've seen him hide the Illuminati in Masonry and in the German Union. In each case there is shield between the people that the average person would know and the Illuminati.  This shield is important. It makes it harder to disprove Robison's claim even though Robison hasn't proven his claim yet. Sure, all of the Freemasons reading this work were probably a little confused because none of the Masons that...

Too much grading last week, but let's press on this week as it seems we are approaching the end of this book.  We are still in the throes of the French Revolution and Robison's attempt to prove that the Illuminati and their puppet Masons were behind it. I feel like a broken record to have to keep repeating this but the problem that Robison has with the German Union, the Illuminati, and those peculiar Masonic lodges was that they were spreading ideas about the enlightenment. I've talked about the French Revolution in the previous two posts, so I'll skip that.  What is more interesting to me are the increasingly odd portrayals of secret society rituals that Robison engages in. In every case the lodges that he speaks of are not the ones you would be familiar with; they are the other ones . Like the kid who brags about his lingerie model girlfriend in high school--she's from Canada you wouldn't know her. These aren't the regular lodges these are lodges of the Gr...

 In all of the conspiracy books that I've read...that were not compilations of different articles...I've noticed a pattern. The book begins with an introduction that is the author's own personal experience which is normal. The first chapter is decently written. When I say decently written do not get me wrong, it is not that the first chapter is correct but that it remains focused. The books inevitably get worse and worse. Each chapter loses a little bit more coherence than the one previous to it.  In this book we had the first chapter focused on European Masonry and since it based around a trend that Robison found in his experiences with Masonry it stayed pretty tight. One his story headed to the German states, he lost a bit of his thread. However, the rope stayed bound. The next chapter was concerning the Illuminati and he begins to lose more of the rope here, instead of proving that the Illuminati were seeking to subvert the religions and governments of Europe he merely p...

We are at the French Revolution and as I mentioned last week, this is the most important event for Illuminati conspiracy theorists. For them it is evidence of the first strike, the Illuminati created a bloody revolution. It's not plausible given the actual timeline but conspiracy theorists need to mention it. Robison is going to dedicate an entire chapter to the French Revolution, and it is here that we must remind ourselves that he's writing in the immediate wake of the actual revolution. He would have been reading newspapers printed about events in the revolution taking place the day after.  It's news, it's actual news to him, and it's taking place right now. It's hugely important, but a few years after the Revolution he's going to draw the wrong conclusion about how it started. It's kind of depressing because the kernel of the truth is there and he just doesn't grow it into anything.  We will begin with Robison's first broken clock of the book...