Creation: Behold a Pale horse pg. 76

 In my course I offer the class a particular reason that conspiracy theorists are very difficult to argue with: the same rules that apply to us in arguing, i.e. facts, standards of evidence, and the rules of argumentation; do not apply to them. The most important rule that we have that they do not is: not to make things up. I call it argumenta ex ficta; an argument from fiction. Conspiracy theorists have two methods of doing this: the first is presenting known fictional works as fact. People like David Icke think The Matrix is a documentary, or The Truman Show, or any other work like that. Conspiracy theorists during the Covid Years talk about "med beds" from the movie Elysium. 

The second type of method is just to create the argument out of nothing. Fabricate the entire body of evidence and the skeptic will get bogged down trying to separate out the claims. In an online argument, they might even get a skeptic to waste a considerable amount of time trying to find the sources being discussed. Conspiracy theorists that cite a secret society will perform both arguments. They'll use the 2001 Joshua Jackson movie "The Skulls" to claim that "this is how it really works" and then they will just fabricate the rest. Why not? No one can disagree with them because no one really knows. 

All of that is a preamble to Cooper. Cooper has been, for the last two weeks of this blog, trying to describe the operation of secret societies in the ancient world. We have no reason to believe that anything he is claiming has a basis. By the very nature of the things he is claiming no one could know what they were doing. It's a secret. 

In the last book that we did, I mentioned that Robison's real motive was he didn't like the changes in the world around him: the average person was beginning to argue for representative democracy, literacy was spreading to not only the poors but also the womenfolk, and most scandalously the women were attending the opera baring their arms (not guns, but their uncovered appendages). Cooper's complaint is different. I cannot comment on his social stances, yet, but his problem is that the state is not interested in helping the people rather, "governmental bodies of every nation have been involved with maintaining the status quo to defend the establishment against minority groups that sought to function as states within states or to oust the constituted authority and take over the place."

I'm sympathetic to this claim though I do not agree that there is anything conspiratorial to it. Those in power protect themselves over the interest of justice. Unless you are on the top of the hierarchy, you know painfully that there are two legal systems in the US: one for the rich and one for the rest of us. I've seen too many people get into cars absolutely blasted drunk from a charity fundraiser, in front of police officials, and nothing happens to them. That's just a small thing but Cooper's claim here can be seen in where the laws are applied, where the police do most of their patrols, etc. It's objective at this point. The problem for Cooper, and people like him, is that they make this defensible claim and then claim the people responsible are the Illuminati/aliens/Jews. 

A guy like Cooper could have been a force of good if he just stopped short of naming the people responsible. So far, he's been kind of elusive about the groups, and his nebulous discussions of who they are and how they function do not give us any solid information that we can fact-check. We should be excited because this is the chapter where he is going to do that. And, we get disappointed pretty quickly.

"The most important of all of these groups is the Brotherhood of the Snake, or Dragon, and was simply known as the Mysteries."

He mentioned this two weeks ago, and I have to reiterate that outside of this book and the Conan stories I have read; the Brotherhood of the Snake is brand new to me. I must remind the reader, this subject is my academic profession. I'm sure Icke has it in his works because of the shapeshifting reptile aliens, but I only recall that they formed the Illuminati. There was no "Brotherhood of the Snake" as a proper noun. 

Cooper claims that "The snake and the dragon represent wisdom. The father of wisdom is Lucifer, the Light Bearer. 

This quote is what I am referring to in the beginning. In what culture does a snake represent wisdom? I get the metaphor Cooper is creating: the snake tempts Eve with the fruit of the tree of knowledge of good and evil, therefore the snake is a symbol of wisdom. I get that, but worshipping the snake is just something Cooper is creating his evidence. 

The part which argues the most for my position is the next sentence: "The focus of worship for the Mysteries was Osiris, another name of Lucifer. Osiris was the name of a bright star that the ancients believed had been cast down onto the earth."

By what source is Cooper equating Osiris and Lucifer? I know that through the history of Christian mythology; the religion has taken Pagan gods and recast them in their roles as demons. The word "demon" for example is derived from "daimon" which is a non-malevolent voice in the Greek world. Socrates blamed/credited his life's work on a daimon. Osiris, for those unfamiliar, is the Egyptian god of the underworld. Being the god of the afterlife doesn't make you evil, like Hades of the Greek world, it just means that this was the deity in charge. Yet, no text associates Osiris with being the god of wisdom in ancient Egypt. Osiris is also not a snake. 

The weird claims about Osiris are strange because they are so easily researched. Not just today on the internet but history sections in libraries would have a book on the Egyptian world with a list of gods. I am not referring to some academic tome either but something like a national geographic book on the Pyramids. Cooper is inventing this stuff, and it doesn't make sense: "The ancients saw the sun as the representation of Osiris, or more correctly Lucifer."

No, they did not. The ancients would have associated Ra with the sun because he was the sun god in the way that Apollo was the god of the sun for the Greeks. The evidence that Cooper provides is merely cherry-picking quotes. He begins with Confederate General, Klan member, and Mason Albert Pike, "Osiris was represented by the sun."

No, again, that was Ra, but if we put that disagreement aside this out-of-context quote doesn't prove or even argue for anything. It's just an incorrect claim about an ancient god.

The next line doesn't help Cooper either, "How art thou fallen from heaven, O Lucifer..."

Cooper correctly attributes this to Isaiah 14:12, which is the only place in the entire Bible that mentions the name "Lucifer." Lucifer means "light bringer" and while the common understanding now is that Lucifer, Satan, and the Devil are all the same, there is very little biblical justification for this position. Satan is a character, it references the Devil a few times, but independently of this Lucifer character. Again, the line doesn't do anything, and the full 14:12 continues, "...how art though cut down to the ground, which didst weaken nations."

Finally, Cooper ends with "...it is claimed that, after Lucifer fell from heaven, he brought with him the power of thinking as a gift of mankind."

The line here is attributed to "Frank Gittings" but Cooper means "Frank Gettings" who wrote a book Cooper reports as "Symbolism in Occult Art" but he means "Secret Symbolism in Occult Art." Misspellings aside the entire line is bunk because Gettings is qualifying it with the weasel phrase "it is claimed that..." 

Which, biblically, no one claims that. The tree held the power of thinking, and the snake convinced Eve to eat from the thinking tree. Assuming the snake was Lucifer still doesn't get us to Cooper's claim. Putting all of that to the side we are still bereft of a point. 

The last word here is that none of this makes any sense. Cooper is making things up. If he wants to tie Lucifer to Egypt just say Lucifer and Ra were the same thing. Cooper then moves on to Plato and that needs its own post.