The Roshiyana; Behold a Pale Horse: pp. 78-80

 In the past, conspiracy theories and the surrounding culture were much more honest. If you thought the system was corrupted by powerful interests--it didn't matter if there was a Democrat or Republican in charge. They were all bad. Now, it's such bullshit. If "they" control the elections then it is impossible that any president would not either be a dupe or in on it. Cooper brings that kind of energy to this work. He doesn't care that Clinton is president, or that Bush was president before (and after him); they're all bad. I mentioned this in an earlier post, but just reading how he brings Bush Sr. into his conspiracy is kind of refreshing in an age where anti-government conspiracy theorists support Donald Trump.

"According to the January 3, 1989 edition of the Arizona Daily Star, 'President-elect Bush is spending the New Year's holiday at Camp David, Maryland, but in 10 years he may be in Egypt. Organizers of the Millennium Society say he's already committed to ushering in the next century at the Great Pyramid of Cheops in Giza." 

This one had me going. At first, I dismissed the entire thing thinking that the Daily Star was the New York Post of Arizona, but no, it's a real newspaper. So I was a bit confused, I thought maybe that the reporter who "broke" the Bob Lazar story, George Knapp, was also writing articles in Arizona. However, that's just careless reading on my part, because the article is really about the Millennium Society. I attempted to find the article itself but I kept hitting paywalls. 

The other refreshing thing about Cooper is the millennium fear. Nostalgia for the 1990s is big right now and what the kids listening to Nirvana, Pearl Jam, and the Cranberries (no love for the Cardigans) are missing is the year 2000. The impending end of the world scenarios brought to us by--the same old bullshit that brings it to us today. In some cases it's the exact same people: Pat Robertson and Jim Bakker. It was also the time of Cooper, the NRA was starting to become the extremist organization it is now, Alex Jones was just getting started, the X-Files, the show Millenium, and Y2K; all of that was geared towards the great let down which was the 2000 year change. Why would Bush be there? It would be impossible that he could have been president as his last legal term would have been in 1996 if Clinton hadn't defeated him in 1992. 

I know, from the last section we covered they've got some kind of link between the Pyramid, Jupiter, and the Jason society; and this is the time when Galileo is going to perform its miracle of creating a start out of the planet. The, then-former president, is there to do something I guess. I found the web page of the Millenium Society, but it's a dead end. 

Cooper does something in the next paragraph that I cannot stomach--he forgets to close a quotation. He follows that up with a new quote from a source he never explains. This is just chicken shit writing. We know from the first chapter that he's pretending he's getting this information from other sources, but he's got to commit harder to the bit and at least provide names. Just make it up like my friend Robert J. Bomen says to do. [see, it's very easy]

As long as you are making things up though, you also need to tell a coherent story. Where Cooper perpetually loses the story is when he attempts to describe who is in charge. This entire section is supposed to be about Secret Societies and usually, a conspiracy theorist will pick one and say that they're in charge. It's an easy fix for the problem that Cooper keeps running into. Last section we had the Jason Society. Now we have the ancient Afghani Roshaniya society. I had never heard of this group before, which was a delight, and they were real, unlike the Order of the Rosy Cross. Ancient, is a bit too generous though, they existed in the 15th century, and were a millenarian cult believing in a coming judgment day. They were extinct by the early 17th century. Cooper tries to give them some kind of grand importance claiming that the word itself means "Illuminated Ones" of course he's wrong it means "Enlightened" but that's me being pedantic. His claims are that they are referenced in ancient Cairo, but they aren't. The idea that they wanted to abolish all religions is absurd because they were a mystical religion operating in opposition to the Islamic theocracies of the region. They may have wanted to abolish other religions, but that would be to prepare for their domination. 

It's so unimportant and confusing. I'm assuming that Cooper read about this in a book on mysticism and since conspiracy theorists think that nothing they have ever read can go to waste--he just dropped it here. Their oath, "I bind myself to perpetual silence and unshaken loyalty and submission to the Order...All humanity which cannot identify itself by our secret sign is our lawful prey."

Where does this come from, we don't know. I think Cooper is making it up. Maybe he isn't, and maybe you are curious about the "secret sign." Luckily Cooper's source describes it, "The secret sign was to pass a hand over the forehead palm inward; the countersign, to hold the ear with the fingers and support the elbow in the cupped other hand. Does that sound familiar? The order is the Order of the Quest."

Here is why I know he's making this up: he doesn't specify which hand. I was a boy scout, I know which hand you salute with; I know which hand the Romans saluted with (curiously though, no one really knows if this is true): the right. I know the direction the hand moves after a salute. There is no way a secret society of this ilk (the real version or the imagined one) would not specify this information. Salutes and gestures like this have meaning and while someone back in the past did just invent these gestures but they did so with the belief that the gesture meant something important. In fact, it's weird that Cooper just doesn't fill in the gap himself.

He ends that quote by asking if that 'sounds familiar?' To which our answer is "no." The first gesture could just be a salute albeit the hand facing the wrong direction. However, the response sign is goofy (and if you read that and didn't try it you are dead to me). Why would this be familiar? Of course, given the scattershot writing of this book, there is the possibility he is asking if the next paragraph sounds familiar. 

If this is the case, then does the "Order of the Quest" sound familiar? No. Of course not. It's not anything. The Roshiyana though are also the Assassin Brotherhood (from history not the video games), the Illuminati, and of course the Knights Templar (again, from history, not the Assassin's Creed games). This would make the Roshiyana time travelers since the Templar Knights were founded in the 12th century around 400 years prior to the Afghani group. Cooper is going weave a tale about the Templar Knights, Christian mythology, and the magical artifacts that you either know because of medieval literature or Indiana Jones' movies. Or, you know these because you spent a considerable amount of time as a teenager reading about their magic qualities like they were a magic artifact in Dungeons and Dragons. I'll answer which one I was next week.