Jesuit conspiracies

Up until recently I had not thought to look at the websites, blogs, YouTube videos and whatever that are meant to explain the "truth" about the Jesuits and their worldwide conspiracy. Now I am much better informed. The Society of Jesus, headed by the "Black Pope" who actually dictates to the "White Pope" in Rome, is a Masonic, Jewish, Nazi-linked, Communist militaristic organization dedicated to implementing something called the New World Order. Damn, and all those years I spent as a Jesuit no one thought to tell me. And, oddly enough, no one thought to tell the Masons, Jews, Nazis, and Communists. Now that is a conspiracy to end all conspiracies!

Well, to be honest, I had been told something of the sinister plans of the Society of Jesus even before I became a novice. I had been given a little Catholic pamphlet which recounted something of the portrayal of the Jesuits in literature that included a bit of the plot of one of the sequels to The Three Musketeers. In Twenty Years After Aramis is secretly appointed the new Father General, and in the novel there is this description of the "eleventh-year" Jesuit as "one of those men who had been initiated in all the secrets of the order, one of those for whom science has no more secrets, the society no further barriers to present." Of course, any of the youngsters attending a Jesuit high school might be expected to get a good giggle out of this, since the priests and scholastics they dealt with on a daily basis might be more or less admirable but they hardly came off as superspies with their fingers on the pulse of world events, just waiting for the moment to take over.

Naturally, the Jesuits wanted their students to think them just ordinary human beings with a special dedication to their church, and this was so that more callow youth could be lured into their ranks as part of their process to infiltrate American society. As time went on, those students who did become novices would learn the true mission of the order and eagerly assent to a role in which they would know who they really were but would conceal this from everyone else. Sure, but maybe it was because I had not gone to a Jesuit school that I was kept in the dark, since the Society already knew I would leave somewhere along the line but would use me as long they could.

Now the true conspiracy buff, like some of the bloggers I have read, would respond that I really do know the truth but had been assigned by my Jesuit superiors to be a double agent in ordinary society in order to spread disinformation. I claim to be a former Jesuit who was never let in on this great conspiracy, so it must be that my protestations are themselves part of the insidious plot and, if anything, proof that the conspiracy is as active as ever.

Now I realize where I've gone wrong in my own literary career. Several of my books, such as my study of Sinn Fein and the IRA some years back, do contain autobiographical references since my Jesuit past has shaped my interests in examining why people come to believe what they do. Whether I have been looking at the Irish rebels or at modern-day witches, I have attempted to understand what I have called an atmosphere of faith in the sense of how individuals are socialized to accept one or another interpretation of what is real. My contributions here have been modest with not that much notice and certainly not that much reward. Had I only opted to "tell the truth" like a California version of the supposed ex-Jesuit Alberto Rivera promoted by Jack Chick's comic books, I would have had much more attention and maybe much more opportunity to rake in the dough.

On a more serious note, I do wonder about the danger posed, not by a non-existent Jesuit conspiracy, but by the ease with which bigotry can be promulgated and reinforced. When I look at some of the more hateful blogs, I think of a character invented by mystery writer John D. McDonald, a solitary individual culling newspapers and magazines for the coded messages about a coming catastrophe and feeling himself privileged to be among the elite who saw beneath the surface. The philosopher Herbert Marcuse once commented that the problem with a marketplace of ideas is that the bigot has an edge--something I see whenever a well-meaning friend of mine forwards one of his alerts (most recently that Barack Obama is an agent of an Islamic conspiracy to infiltrate the American political scene). In uncertain times, there is something almost comforting about being able to see oneself as a victim of a deliberate plot.

The tragedy is how such an outlook can be manipulated for political benefit and innocent human beings--the Jews in Nazi Germany just being one example of this--can be destroyed. The isolated individual who indulges in vituperative blogging can be easily ignored, but what happens as a virtual community begins to build and calls for action are made? At what point does a crackpot idea take such hold that a real conspiracy takes form--one that grounds itself in a belief that only through direct action can another perceived conspiracy be thwarted?