The Dangerous Habit of Making Connections
When I was in college, I had my first real encounter with a conspiracy theorist. Now, I have a few conspiracy theories of my own on a variety of subjects, but this particular guy put me to shame. He had a book that he read as faithfully as - if not more so - the Bible. He let me borrow it and read it through. I won't tell you the name of it, because I can't remember it. It had something to do with the Four Horsemen and had a strange cover. It was a giant book that seemed to have been written with a typewriter that didn't have a correction button, as there were words that were misspelled and other grammatical errors. I will say that by the time I finished reading it, I went back through trying to find all the errors to see if I had missed a hidden code!
Anyway, the book made me a little paranoid for a while. I have now lived long enough to recognize that some of the theories just couldn't be true. Others, since they are only theories, could be true. Who knows?
But since then, I have found conspiracy theories to be rather compelling. It is what made the X-Files so intense and addictive, as was true with Lost and the grand shows the Fugitive and the Prisoner. It is also abundantly present in books about the New Testament book of Revelation.
I will get to that in a minute.
What I have found over the years is that as much as we might understand that nature abhors a vacuum, so does our desire for understanding. If we have gaps in our knowledge, we will almost inevitably create our own pathways to fill those gaps. It may be that conspiracy theories are inevitable because we seem to want to have things make sense, even if it seems illogical or implausible. Better a crazy idea than to admit we just don't know.
The movie Jacob's Ladder is a great example of this. [spoiler alert] Jacob is dying, so his mind is making up a story to make sense of what is happening to him. The events of the movie actually take place in a short amount of time in Jacob's real life, but he has to work out the problem in his mind by making up stories. Conspiracy theories are much like that. We might have a few pieces, a few facts, but we don't know how they connect - or even if they do. So we try to string them together and BANG! We create our own version of reality - absurd or plausible, with some basis in reality.
Perhaps the reason Revelation is such a fertile ground for conspiracy theorists is that it is so convoluted and symbolic that it doesn't make sense. At least not to us. And it could be that since we know particular parts, we have to work to make it make sense. For example, we know that the second coming of Jesus has not taken place (I would add that part of the discussion of the New Testament book of 2nd Peter is specifically written to address this issue). As such, reading a book, such as Revelation, that keeps stressing the idea that Jesus will return either shortly before or after the death of the author, we have to really stretch the meanings and interpretations of the text to make it not say that, since we know it isn't true.
Trying to make the text fit with a conflicting idea makes Revelation have to be something other than a cryptic, symbolic letter grounded (perhaps trapped) in its own context. Revelation suddenly has to be predicting the future, or otherwise we have to re-evaluate it. We don't want to re-evaluate it because we have been taught that it is true. But its truth doesn't match the facts.
Hence, we create theories to make it make sense.
Or so it seems.
It is ironic that a book called "Revelation" whose purpose is to reveal that which "must soon take place" does anything but reveal those events.
On the other hand, the book is trying to put into words that which cannot be placed neatly into words. So while it is a revelation to John, it may not be to us. Yet we certainly seem to want it to be, so we work very hard to connect the dots - even if it means drawing a strange picture that we wouldn't really want to view anyway.
As for the other conspiracy theories that I read in that great tome back in college - well, the truth is out there.
Maybe.
Anyway, the book made me a little paranoid for a while. I have now lived long enough to recognize that some of the theories just couldn't be true. Others, since they are only theories, could be true. Who knows?
But since then, I have found conspiracy theories to be rather compelling. It is what made the X-Files so intense and addictive, as was true with Lost and the grand shows the Fugitive and the Prisoner. It is also abundantly present in books about the New Testament book of Revelation.
I will get to that in a minute.
What I have found over the years is that as much as we might understand that nature abhors a vacuum, so does our desire for understanding. If we have gaps in our knowledge, we will almost inevitably create our own pathways to fill those gaps. It may be that conspiracy theories are inevitable because we seem to want to have things make sense, even if it seems illogical or implausible. Better a crazy idea than to admit we just don't know.
The movie Jacob's Ladder is a great example of this. [spoiler alert] Jacob is dying, so his mind is making up a story to make sense of what is happening to him. The events of the movie actually take place in a short amount of time in Jacob's real life, but he has to work out the problem in his mind by making up stories. Conspiracy theories are much like that. We might have a few pieces, a few facts, but we don't know how they connect - or even if they do. So we try to string them together and BANG! We create our own version of reality - absurd or plausible, with some basis in reality.
Perhaps the reason Revelation is such a fertile ground for conspiracy theorists is that it is so convoluted and symbolic that it doesn't make sense. At least not to us. And it could be that since we know particular parts, we have to work to make it make sense. For example, we know that the second coming of Jesus has not taken place (I would add that part of the discussion of the New Testament book of 2nd Peter is specifically written to address this issue). As such, reading a book, such as Revelation, that keeps stressing the idea that Jesus will return either shortly before or after the death of the author, we have to really stretch the meanings and interpretations of the text to make it not say that, since we know it isn't true.
Trying to make the text fit with a conflicting idea makes Revelation have to be something other than a cryptic, symbolic letter grounded (perhaps trapped) in its own context. Revelation suddenly has to be predicting the future, or otherwise we have to re-evaluate it. We don't want to re-evaluate it because we have been taught that it is true. But its truth doesn't match the facts.
Hence, we create theories to make it make sense.
Or so it seems.
It is ironic that a book called "Revelation" whose purpose is to reveal that which "must soon take place" does anything but reveal those events.
On the other hand, the book is trying to put into words that which cannot be placed neatly into words. So while it is a revelation to John, it may not be to us. Yet we certainly seem to want it to be, so we work very hard to connect the dots - even if it means drawing a strange picture that we wouldn't really want to view anyway.
As for the other conspiracy theories that I read in that great tome back in college - well, the truth is out there.
Maybe.
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