Conspiracy Theories, Skepticism, and Critical Thinking

We're back from grading, more grading; and then the murder storm that felled my city (Buffalo). We left off beginning Robison's conclusion. Way back in the beginning of this project I mentioned how refreshing it was to read Robison. This is because I had just come off of Gary Allen's book, and to remind old readers--reading conspiracy theories is my profession. Robison's work, I found at the time, to be surprisingly coherent. His work was focused, he began a chapter to discuss the Illuminati and that's what the chapter was about. His problem is that he relies on the reader to draw connections between the disparate groups that he mentions. The events, the people, the letters...so many letters; all dance around a subject because he doesn't have the information which connects these things. However, the writing quality itself isn't bad. For the most part, he's competent but then in other parts he's very good. It's a level of quality that we don't

 Again, no update this week. Grading week is upon me. We'll be back next week to hopefully wrap this book up. 

The final chapter begins, and it's going to be full of some navel gazing nonsense. The ultimate problem with this final chapter is that it is going to be conclusion and the conclusion should do a few things. In this book what it should do summarize the story that Robison thinks he's been telling. Before I dive into his conclusion let me summarize the story that he thinks he's communicated thus far:  Robison is claiming that in Europe there has been a group which has infiltrated all of Masonry. Their existence is so subtle that when you ask any Mason, they have no idea what you are talking about, but this group is twisting Masonry to its own end. That end is the destruction of Christian Europe. To accomplish this: they had to infiltrate Masonry in order to find a lodge that was amenable to this kind of plot. Once that was established this particular lodge gave birth to the Illuminati. Which was the same kind of thing only now it wasn't as secret. Once the Illuminati were