Left Behind: Proofs of a Conspiracy...pp. 174-180

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 Grand Orient, which are apparently 266 of the 289 lodges in France, but never one that you know someone to be a member of. What happens at these lodges? The typical stuff unless you join the higher orders. Again, this is another one of those claims that becomes un-verifiable. Oh, she's a lingerie model, what magazine is she in? to which the reply is: they don't sell it in the states. 

Even if, you could find someone in the Lodges of the Orient, they are unlikely to be of the highest order. Even if they are of the higher orders, it will never be high enough to verify what is being claimed here. Robison claims that upon entry into the highest orders the applicant is walked past several dead bodies and then a bound brother (it's unclear whether it is the applicant's brother or just a masonic brother). The bound man, it is explained, has betrayed the secrets of the order and if the applicant is truly serious about membership, he will execute the judgment. The applicant is blindfolded, and he's handed a dagger in his right hand while his left hand is placed on the beating heart of the body, "and he was then ordered to strike. He instantly obeyed; and when the bandage was taken from his eyes, he saw that it was a lamb that he had stabbed. Surely such trials and such wanton cruelty are only fit for training conspirators."

We hear about these kinds of crimes and rituals in the secret societies as ways of binding the intiate to the group. Sure, it's a trick, but it is a trick that they all suffered. Once in, they are bound with their brethren. We consider this to be effective for all who proceed through the ritual--but what about those that do not? 

One major overlooked problem in all of the conspiracy theorizing is not who did it, but who didn't do it. Imagine it is 1963, and you are a trained rifleman. A person approaches you and asks you about travelling to Dallas in November to kill someone--a citizen, a war hero, and not a criminal or enemy agent. Of course, I'm talking about President Kennedy. According to the conspiracy theories there were at least three different groups in on that assassination--so did everyone who was asked just agree to it? More importantly, what happened to the people that said "no"? This is always the part left out of the conspiracy theory and it's the part that I find the most interesting.

Let's take a look at what Robison is claiming. In order to be admitted to the highest positions in these Grand Lodges of the Orient within Freemasonry: the individual is asked to execute a traitor. Now, more than just that you have to do it. This is like Abraham and Isaac, Abraham is going to kill Isaac and, most importantly, attempts to do so (which gets us into the whole problem that it is immoral for God to ask in the first place). The applicant has thrust the dagger into the chest of what he assumed was the traitor only to realize that he had stabbed a lamb. So, for the briefest of moments in his mind he's killed someone. 

Ok, but what if the applicant says, "I'm not doing this"?

Robison is reporting that the applicant has already seen murdered bodies, and now he's being asked to contribute. Everyone else in the room, provided this is a true story (which is doubtful), knows that this is all a ruse. The way this is presented is that if the applicant refuses, he can't just be told to leave because of the dead bodies. In much the same way that a demolition expert who said "no" to blowing up the World Trade Center (according to the 9/11 "truthers") cannot just be allowed to tell people about the offer. The moment they are walked into that room they are dead. It is only if they stab "the traitor" that they can save their life, because this secret Orient Lodge cannot have people walking around telling the gendarmes about the time a bunch of people asked them to murder someone. 

This simple fact is why this is all unsupportable bullshit. It's not the people that said yes that the conspiracy theory needs to explain, it needs to explain the people that said "no." It is never just the execution of the conspiracy that creates the bodies it is also the recruitment stage as well. 

Robison is correct in that anyone that stabs the lamb, is now a conspirator; but that assume that everyone will stab the lamb. Up until this point, the only thing that the grand conspiracy has had to do was disseminate and agree with certain literature. Now, we have a concrete crime and that's a much higher bar to clear.