The Conmen: Behold a Pale Horse pp. 81-85

There is almost too much to cover here because Cooper has found his zone. He's jumping between regions, people, and theories; but to his credit, he seems to be confining himself to one time period. I'll do a quick debunking rundown and then into the deep dive. 

We left off last week with a discussion of 1776. The Declaration, the Illuminati, and the Wealth of Nations were all created. It's a coincidence, so let's move on with our lives. 

He then claims the usual symbolism of the Great Seal of the United States. Symbol hunts are for conspiracy theorists what egg hunts are for children, only that the latter don't lose their ability to reason once they've found their egg. Lots of conspiracy theorists talk about the eye of providence on the dollar bill as being proof of the Illuminati; it's not, the eye is a Masonic symbol. The Illuminati's symbol was the owl of Athena. 

Cooper dips a second toe into the Jesus Bloodline conspiracy theory, but this time names the source: Baigent, Leigh, and Lincoln's "The Holy Blood, the Holy Grail." This book serves as the inspiration for Dan Brown's "Da Vinci Code" and the fiction book definitely works better. As a historical work, it's pseudo-history. The basis for the claim is that Jesus survived execution, not by resurrection but by simply...er, that part is never clear. Then, he and Mary Magdalene, his secret wife fled from the Middle East to Southern France where they were the progenitors of the Merovingian Dynasty. None of this can be substantiated. The three authors took literally anything that confirmed what they were saying and used that. This led them to the "Prior of Sion" and a man named Pierre Plantard who claimed that he was the guardian of the grail. The problem is that the Baigent et al book was written in 1982. There was an episode about it on Leonard Nimoy's "In Search of..." Plantard is the source of the secret society that includes Da Vinci and Newton. Now 1982 is important because, in 1993, Plantard admitted to a French court he fabricated the whole thing.  As far as I know, Baigent et al. have never addressed this crucial problem for their conspiracy theory. Cooper is not in on this lie. He's merely repeating what he read in that book. Pierre Plantard is nothing more than a conman, but he's not the conman that is the focus this post. 

Cooper then clears up the misconception that Freemasons were infiltrated by the Illuminati. He calls this claim "hogwash," but we know, because we read Robison that Cooper read Robison too. Cooper writes, "The Freemasons have always contained the core of Illuminati within their ranks, and that is why they so freely and so willingly took in and hid the members of Weishaupt's group."

His observation there is simply what Robison said. When the sovereign of Bavaria outlawed Weishaupt's group, the members just went back to being Masons. They weren't fleeing anything, they just needed a new club for a beer night. Since most of them were Masons at one point they just went back to it. 

About fifty years later, we come to our second con artist. This would be William Morgan. Cooper tells Morgan's tale the way that Morgan would have liked it: without all of the details. The legend of Morgan is that he was a bricklayer in Batavia, NY. He told people he served as a captain in the War of 1812 and then moved to Canada where he operated a Brewery and was a Master Mason. In Batavia, he tried to join one of the local lodges but was turned down. In response, he approached a publisher with an idea of a book that would expose the secrets of the Freemasons. In response, the Masons kidnapped Morgan and he was never seen again, having been murdered by the Masons and his body dumped in Lake Ontario. 

The story lacks some key details. For one, there is no evidence that William Morgan served in the War of 1812 with the rank of Captain, in fact, there is no Captain William Morgan anywhere in the War of 1812. There was also no evidence that he was a Master Mason in Canada. In fact, the evidence runs counter to this because the rules on Masonry in the 19th century forbid people that were brewers from joining the order. His brewery in Canada burned down for reasons that were unexplained. He settled in Rochester NY, but then moved to Batavia. Morgan spends a couple stints in prison for unpaid debts: one debt was a tavern tab while the other was for the theft of a shirt. He's described as a drunk and a gambler.  

Was Morgan a Mason at all? I do not know. I can't hazard a guess, but what I can say is that he cannot be telling the truth. If he was a Mason he was never a brewer. Morgan did approach a publisher with the book, and he did disappear. What's curious is that Morgan claimed he was paid an advance on the book prior to his disappearance. So what is the skeptic's take on the disappearance? 

Anything would be speculation, but I doubt the mythology. My view, which is definitely colored by being the son of a cop, is that he just left town with the money. He was a drunken gambler, who got a payday and then left town to escape his debts. Every other part of the myth is colored by the anti-Masonic sentiment that permeated American culture at the time. Morgan's disappearance kicked off the creation of the Anti-Masonic Party in the US. This political party was the first viable third party in our fledgling nation's history. That big princess coronation the Democrats and Republicans do to nominate their presidential candidate was created by this party. President Millard Fillmore began is political career as an Anti-Mason. When we remove moral panic from the equation, my hypothesis makes the most sense. Cooper reports that the "newspapers of the time state without reservation that he was murdered by Masons." 

Of course they would, they were caught up in the swell. Yet, not only can no one legitimately point to the Masons as being responsible, no one can legitimately say Morgan was murdered. There was never a body. The party petered out with the membership eventually joining the Whig party. Unlike the Illuminati, this one died out because being "against the Masons" was the only plank in their party. One might want to liken them to today's Q-Anon/MAGA movement to which there are parallels but the Anti-Masons had to fight against a rival populist movement headed by Andrew Jackson who was a Freemason. 

The anti-Masonic stuff is just boilerplate secret society conspiracy theorizing. It's interesting to me because of the local tie-in (I drive through Batavia on my to work and it is not near Lake Ontario). What I do agree with is this line, "I hope to show that most modern secret societies and especially those that practice degrees of initiation -- and that is the key -- are really one society with one purpose...[Cooper then spends ten lines listing them all]...they are all the same and all work toward the same ultimate goal, a New World Order." 

I've been saying this throughout the book. The difference between them is only in the name for these people. Explaining who is JASON, Mason, or Illuminati; is trivium. What matters is that works like Cooper's have real effects. You can read the Morgan book, it's boring and I'll wager of the copies that it sold: no one finished it; but people went to jail over his disappearance all swept up in the 19th century version of the Satanic Panic, because people like Cooper sowed fear of a fraternal organization that men joined so that they had something to do outside of the house.