Introduction

Abstract

The above passages, written at different times over the past 250 years, reflect the beliefs of four individuals of dissimilar social, cultural and political backgrounds, citizens of different countries across three continents. The quoted observations have been made in response to diverse historical and political events, ranging from the French Revolution to the 11 September 2001 attacks on New York and Washington. And yet, despite these and other differences, the remarks of a French Jesuit priest, a British Conservative politician and future Prime Minister, an American Republican Senator and the former head of the Malaysian government share an important similarity. All contain within them the view that a historical or political event (or a series of events) occurred as a consequence of a carefully worked out plan, plotted in secret by a small group of powerful individuals. The passages invoke different conspiratorial bodies — the Illuminati, Jews, Communists or a shadowy elite within the American establishment — but they are permeated by the same fundamental claim of the conspiracy theory: that there is ‘an occult force operating behind the seemingly real, outward forms of political life’ (Roberts, 1974: 29–30), and that visible reality is no more than an illusion, a smokescreen that conceals the sinister machinations of some powerful, secretive and menacing cabal. Karl Popper referred to this worldview as the ‘conspiracy theory of society’ according to which the ‘explanation of a social phenomenon consists of a discovery of the men [sic] or groups who are interested in the occurrence of this phenomenon […] and who have planned and conspired to bring it about’ (1966: 95).

[…] even the most horrid deeds perpetrated during the French Revolution, every thing was foreseen and resolved on, was combined and premeditated: they were the offspring of deep-thought villany, since they had been prepared and were produced by men, who alone held the clue of those plots and conspiracies, lurking in the secret meetings where they had been conceived, and only watching the favourable moment of bursting forth.

—Augustin Barruel

Memoirs, Illustrating the History of Jacobinism

1799: xii

This movement among the Jews is not new. From the days of Spartacus-Weishaupt to those of Karl Marx, and down to Trotsky (Russia), Bela Kun (Hungary), Rosa Luxembourg (Germany), and Emma Goldman (United States), this worldwide conspiracy for the overthrow of civilization and for the reconstitution of society on the basis of arrested development, of envious malevolence, and impossible equality, has been steadily growing.

—Winston Churchill in Illustrated Sunday Herald

8 February 1920: 5

How can we account for our present situation unless we believe that men high in this government are concerting to deliver us to disaster? This must be the product of a great conspiracy, a conspiracy on a scale so immense as to dwarf any previous such venture in the history of man. A conspiracy of infamy so black that, when it is finally exposed, its principals shall be forever deserving of the maledictions of all honest men.

—Senator Joseph McCarthy

addressing the United States Congress, 14 June 1951

cited in Hofstadter (1967: 7)

In September 2001, the World Trade Centre was attacked alleg- edly by terrorists. I am not sure now that Muslim terrorists car- ried out these attacks. There is strong evidence that the attacks were staged. If they can make Avatar, they can make anything.

—Former Malaysian Prime Minister Mahathir

Mohammad, addressing the Conference

for the Support of Al-Quds (Jerusalem)

Kuala Lumpur, 20 January 2010