CONSPIRACY RISING Chapter 3 From Conspiracy to Superconspiracy, from Europe to America: Nesta Webster and Modern Conspiracy Thinking Part 1

CONSPIRACY RISING

Chapter 3

From Conspiracy to

Superconspiracy, from

Europe to America: Nesta

Webster and Modern

Conspiracy Thinking

In the late 1700s, the political elite and the established Church were uncomfortable with the existence of secret societies to which they did not have access and over which they had no control. This was certainly true with respect to the Freemasons and the Illuminati. Both of these organizations embodied, in different ways, the major themes of modernity. As the previous chapter argues, the Masons’ doctrine was, in its time, revolutionary. It asserted equality. Its foundation was the idea that one’s station in life was not predetermined by birth; through hard work and education, individuals could transform their lives, and by extension, the world. To think in these terms is to imagine the possibility of democracy. Indeed, the foundation of the Masons’ political views lie in a place most academics would fi nd more acceptable than any Masonic publication:  the writings of John Locke, and most particularly, his Second Treatise on Government.

Locke writes that in the state of nature, all human beings are free and independent, and “that there cannot be supposed any such subordination among us, that may authorize us to destroy one another, as if we were made for one another’s uses, as the inferior ranks of creatures are for our’s.” In part for this reason, he contends:

Men being, as has been said, by nature, all free, equal, and independent, no one can be put out of this estate, and subjected to the political power of another, without his own consent. The only way whereby any one divests himself of his natural liberty, and puts on the bonds of civil society,is by agreeing with other men to join and unite into a community for their comfortable, safe, and peaceable living one amongst another, in a secure enjoyment of their properties, and a greater security against any, that are not of it. This any number of men may do, because it injures not the freedom of the rest; they are left as they were in the liberty of the state of nature.

Locke’s arguments were echoed by among others Adam Weishaupt and the Illuminati. They advanced the ideas of the French Enlightenment and likewise advocated democratic revolution.

Seen in this light, it is perhaps not surprising that Europe’s monarchies and the Church were concerned about secret societies. Indeed, Johnson goes so far as to suggest that in the years preceding the French Revolution, the elite’s fear of the commoners was so pronounced that its members concocted stories of conspiratorial plots that endangered the world. He writes,  “Many of the conservatives couldn’t understand what—besides a satanic conspiracy could be motivating the revolutionaries in their attacks on church and king.” Their fears were, of course, well-founded. In May of 1789, “absolute monarchy and aristocratic authority were overthrown forever in the most powerful kingdom in Christendom” the French Revolution brought about a new era in human political history.

The real history of groups such as the Freemasons and Illuminati contrasts markedly with the elaborate mythologies fabricated by the elites of the late 1700s. Both organizations embodied and promoted the ideals of the Enlightenment, and despite their secrecy, were harbingers of democracy. The entrenched powers of the day, however, used them to their political advantage, suggesting that rather than freedom, these groups were in fact plotting to take control of the state. Likewise, advocates for democracy used the reverse argument to bolster their position; they blamed supposed Jesuit infiltration of secret societies for any setbacks in the achievement of their political agenda. In this environment then, conspiracy language was a tool of rhetoric, aimed against one’s political enemies. How and why did such a simplistic political device become an explanation for all social, economic, and political events that so many people believe reasonable? Just as curiously, how did conspiracy thinking move from its home in Europe to America and find so many willing believers there? This chapter outlines the post–French Revolution path of conspiracy theory and examines in detail the pivotal role of the British author Nesta Webster in its development.

The European elites that dominated society and politics for centuries had rightly identified secret societies as a threat to their control and themselves used conspiracy theories as a means to shore up their power and forestall democracy. Their promotion of these theories was, however, sporadic, often contradictory, and rather ad hoc. As noted in chapter 2, over 50 books on the Illuminati a veritable cottage industry were published between 1784 and 1789. Weishaupt’s careful strategy to supplement his organization’s membership by engaging Freemasons also meant that Freemasonry was swept up in the controversy they created. Depending on whom you were speaking with, in both France and Prussia, these secret societies were accused of being both for and against the revolution, and of corrupting the revolutionary regime once it was in power. Indeed, publications such as the Marquis du Luchet’s Essai sur la secte des Illuminés clearly illustrated that fear of conspiracy had spread not just across the national borders of Europe but also across its political spectrum. Luchet’s work was interpreted by the French Enlightenment thinkers as providing evidence that the Illuminati and Freemasons were engaged in an anti-Enlightenment conspiracy.

Alongside this book were publications such as Ernst von Göchhausen’s Enthüllung des Systems der Weltbürger-Republik(1786), which contained stern warnings about the Enlightenment conspiracy that aimed to destroy the established religious and political order. Notably, Göchhausen’s book contains one of the first suggestions of what we know as the superconspiracies of today. In it, he argues that the Illuminati and Freemasons were in league to promote Enlightenment ideals, suggesting that the Illuminati were out to dominate Freemasonry as part of their larger plan to “emancipate all of mankind from religious and political slavery. Put specifically, to advance deism and cosmopolitanism.” In many ways then, the era that first generated the conspiracy theories so familiar to us today witnessed a situation similar to our own, albeit on a much smaller scale. Dozens of theories existed, and each one identifi ed villains and victims in its own idiosyncratic arrangement. If you were a monarchist, the Illuminati and/or Freemasons and /or Knights Templar were plotting to overthrow all that was good and eplace it with a secular dictatorship. If you were an advocate of democracy and the Enlightenment, then conservatives (frequently identified as the Jesuits) had infiltrated these same groups and were working to restore the monarchies of Europe and increase the power of the Church.

Then, as now, in a time of political upheaval and social uncertainty, conspiracy theories were a means to explain social change. They included sufficient references to reality to seem like reasonable explanations for what was happening, but they were by no means historical fact. Then, as now, they were a form of political argument, and the ongoing battle among them helped to ensure that the names of these organizations one effectively a social club for the emerging middle class (the Freemasons) and one a disbanded organization of advocates for science and democracy (the Illuminati)—became ever more closely associated with political intrigue.

In this form, conspiracy theories continued to swirl around Europe and occasionally made their way to the United States. Johnson recounts the 1798 Illuminati Scare in New England, an uproar that once again involved conflict between political elitism and democracy. In 1797, John Robison, a professor of natural philosophy at the University of Edinburgh, published Proofs of a Conspiracy against all the Religions and Governments of Europe, a book that became popular on both sides of the Atlantic. Robison, whose academic specialization was in the sciences and whose previous claim to fame was his participation in Thomas Wolfe’s expedition to Canada and the Battle of Quebec in 1759, argued in the book that the Illuminati had infiltrated European Freemasonry and that these organizations were engaged in a plot to overthrow a number of European governments. Robison’s book was an instant success. Within a year, it was in its fourth English edition, and swiftly following that, it was translated and published in French, German, and Dutch. Along with its French parallel, Abbé Barruel’s Memoirs of Jacobinism,the conspiracy bug then crossed the Atlantic.

In the strongly religious communities of New England, Robison’s and Barruel’s books found a receptive audience. No less a figure than President Adams expressed concern about the apparent conspiracy of Illuminati and Freemasons, and Timothy Dwight, then president of Yale University, declared his concern in a sermon:

[O]ur churches may become temples of reason . . . we may see the Bible cast into a bonfi re, the vessels of the sacramental supper borne by an ass in public procession, and our children, either wheedled or terrifi ed, uniting in the mob, chanting mockeries against God, and hailing in the sounds of Ca irathe ruin of their religion, and the loss of their souls? . . . Shall we, my brethren, become partakers of these sins? Shall we introduce them into our government, our schools, our families? Shall our sons become the disciples of Voltaire, and the dragoons of Marat; or our daughters the concubines of the Illuminati?

he language of conspiracy thus peppered the political debates that surrounded the Federalist debates. Much as it had been expressed in Europe, however, fears of conspiracy were not the weapon of just one side but were spread across the political spectrum. Both the Federalists and AntiFederalists (notably Thomas Jefferson), as well as their respective followers, accused one another of being conspiracy sympathizers. By the end of it, Stauffer notes, “the word ‘Illuminati’ had lost all serious and exact significance and had become a term for politicians to conjure with.” Much as in Europe, accusations of conspiracy were used as political weapons.

Talk of political conspiracy had dominated American political discourse since the time of the American Revolution, when rebel leaders and their British counterparts accused one another of engaging in various plots. This situation was perhaps unavoidable in an environment where political rebellion was on everyone’s mind. Strategy required secrecy. Scholars typically point to the revolutionary experience as a defining element of American political culture (in contrast to Canadian identity, which is linked to loyalty to the British crown.) David Brion Davis asks if it is possible “ that the circumstances of the Revolution conditioned Americans to think of resistance to a dark subversive force as the essential ingredient to their national identity.” His point is supported by Knight, who agrees that this ongoing discussion of conspiracy might have become a permanent part of American identity:

From the first encounters with the land and the people of the New World, the conspiratorial imagination of sinister forces has helped to constitute a sense of American national unity through a notion of racialidentity. Early colonial scare stories of Indian cannibals conformed to classical moral cartographies. . . . The typological radar of the Puritans likewise scanned their daily events and environment for clues to the deeper underlying plot of a Manichean struggle between savagery and civilization.

The political philosopher George Grant characterized the Puritans’ primal encounter with the North American continent as the “meeting of the alien and yet conquerable land with English speaking Protestants.”

Knight’s analysis suggests, however, that the experience of revolution marks Grant’s outward looking conqueror with a clear need to define “us” and “them.” For him, conspiracy thinking is embedded in the forces that shape American identity, an influence that helps to explain the persistence of conspiracy theories in the modern era. Interestingly, Knight points out that globalization is likely a contributing factor in the current popularity of conspiracy theory. Americans must now define themselves and their community in the context of a globalized world, in which populations migrate quickly and diversity flourishes. This challenges their identity in a different way. Knight writes that the 21st century is “far more scary” because “we can no longer tell the difference between Them and Us.” Such a situation is ripe for a kind of free-floating anxiety about identity, and it might well help to explain the proliferation of modern conspiracy theories.

Although the roots of American conspiracy discourse are therefore deep, and some would say inescapable, their appearance in modern form is a relatively recent occurrence. For the Puritans and the 18th- and 19th-century Americans who followed them, real and imagined conspirators were limited in number and engaged in action with a limited and precise goal. Conspiracies might be identified as aimed at overthrowing a local council or plotting to steal from a neighbor. These kinds of illegal acts were small in scale, and the existence of conspirators and their conspiracies were usually empirically provable and dealt with by law enforcement agencies. This perception of conspiracy changed in the early years of the 20th century.

Lady Queenborough, an American socialite who is also known as Edith Starr Miller (1887–1933), was perhaps partly responsible for this change. Author of a rather disorganized book of household hints entitled Common Sense in the Kitchen, Starr also authored Occult Theocrasy,which was published in 1933, shortly after her death. In that book, she argues that Jews, leading a complex group of conspirators (including the Big Three and a wide-ranging variety of other organizations such as Sinn Fein and the American Civil Liberties Union), are attempting to control the world’s political systems. Queenborough’s work was popular, but it was only a compendium of ideas already circulating among the American right. The book relies heavily on other authors’ arguments and evidence. Its introduction, however, is particularly noteworthy, both in terms of its tone and content, which, save for some antiquated phrases, reads as if it could have been written today. Queenborough was concerned with what she viewed as rapid and unfortunate changes in society’s morality and social structure.

She writes, “Today, most of the goodpeople are afraid to be good! They strive to be broadminded and tolerant! It is fashionable to be tolerant but mostly tolerant of evil—and this new code has reached the proportions of demanding intolerance of good. The wall of resistance to evil has thus been broken down and no longer affords protection to those who, persecuted by evil doers, stand in need of it.” Like earlier authors who were concerned about more limited conspiracies, Queenborough is afraid of changing social mores. Unseen forces are transforming the world she once knew:

In these days when apparently vice triumphs and virtue must be penalized, it may be well for all of us to fi ght the undertow by which our children may be dragged under and must of necessity perish. Vice rings and secret societies form but one vortex into which youth is drawn and destroyed whilst the “good people”, because of their ignorance, look on helplessly in despair. . . . What must concern us all now is the protection of decency, or in other words Equal rights for such as are not vice adepts.

In this new world, those who once held power are losing their authority to set the terms of political and social life. For Queenborough, those forces are, by definition, evil.

Queenborough met and married her husband in the United States, but after their wedding in 1921, they moved to Hertfordshire, England. While in Britain, she participated in many of the far-right organizations of the day, including the British Fascisti and the British Union of Fascists. Her life therefore neatly intersected with that of the greatest conspiracy theorist of the 20th century, Nesta Helen Webster, and Queenborough studied Webster’s work closely. Indeed, she was among the very first writers to develop and popularize Webster’s ideas, which later were to be so popular in both the United Kingdom and the United States.

Interestingly, both Queenborough and Webster experienced the very particular conditions of life in interwar Britain from a similar place in society, and their lives were strikingly similar. Both were members of the upper classes; both were world travelers; and both were active in British far right groups. In addition, both women married late, had daughters, and for their era, led somewhat unconventional lives. More importantly, however, in addition to their international travels, both experienced the social, political, and economic conditions of interwar Britain. In these spheres, the country was in a process of deep and profound upheaval. Immigration was beginning to alter the fabric of British society; women were mobilizing to achieve political rights; and Britain’s empire and economic hegemony were beginning to dissolve.

In chapter 2, we considered how the beginnings of democracy and the emergence of scientific discourse moved those who were losing power and authority to explain that loss in conspiratorial terms. In the early 20th century, this process began again, first in the United Kingdom, and later, in America. Britain was once more at the center of a political change that in many ways can be considered the inevitable result of those fi rst 18thcentury steps toward democracy. While the 1700s brought democracy to male, property-owning Britons, the early to mid-20th century saw a more complete democratization of the nation. This process provoked debates concerning the rights of minority immigrants and minority religions, the political rights of women, and the rights of former colonies to selfgovernment. For the individuals and classes that until this time enjoyed the privilege of power, these debates and the resulting political change were not always understood as agents of positive transformation. Instead, they were experienced as a fundamental challenge to their position and Britain’s role in the world. Indeed, like those in the 18th century who believed they ruled by moral right, the early 20th-century British elite likewise believed their social position, right to rule, and duty to civilize the world were responsibilities incumbent upon them.

Lady Queenborough argues in Occult Theocrasy that all secret societies: (1) have aims unfamiliar to the majority of their members; (2) have real power that is international in scope; and (3), and aim to concentrate “ all political, economic and intellectual power into the hands of a small group of individuals, each of whom controls a branch of the International life, material and spiritual, of the world today.” Queenborough concludes that ultimately these secret societies are under the complete control of “Jewish financiers.” As Barkun notes, this assertion allowed her to link her theories to a wide range of anti-Semitic literature and filled in the many gaps in her argument and evidence.

Despite its apparent originality, Queenborough’s Occult Theocrasy was but a pale reflection of an earlier and more innovative text, and its impact in North America was limited. Nesta Helen Webster was the person most responsible for transforming conspiracy thinking and bringing modern conspiracy thinking to North America. In over a dozen books (including three novels), as well as hundreds of newspaper columns and political pamphlets, Webster set forth her innovative understanding of economics and politics, and her work remains influential especially among conspiracy believers today. Queenborough’s work was simply a further explication of the ideas that Webster had developed in the preceding decade. The skewed logic of conspiracy thinkers, however, often sees Queenborough’s Occult Theocrasy used as evidence that Webster’s ideas are correct representations of history, and conversely, that Webster’s writing is proof that Queenborough’s arguments are correct. They are treated as two independent sources, both providing separate and original evidence that a particular conspiracy exists.

Nesta Webster’s experience of a Britain in the process of significant social upheaval moved her to question why and how such change could occur. In answering this question, she concluded that someone was making that change and therefore directing history. Webster’s life and ideas are thus worth considering in detail, for they help to explain how particular social conditions might foster conspiracy thinking. Her role in the development and popularization of the superconspiracy theories so popular today also makes her a figure worthy of study. Her ideas are the foundation of modern conspiracy thinking, and today they are found in diverse places. Her analysis of world history is cited by conspiracy thinkers across the American right, for a multiplicity of purposes, and across the right-wing spectrum:  from Pat Robertson (in his bestselling book, The New World Order) to the blogs of Tea Party sympathizers to the Militia and Patriot movements. Conversely, the Islamic Party of Britain uses Webster’s ideas to explain Napoleon’s invasion of Egypt, the creation of Israel, and the fall of the Ottoman Empire, contending that the events of September 11, 2001, were part of a complex plan to destroy Islam, the last bulwark against Illuminism’s subjugation of humanity. Webster’s work therefore shapes many individuals’ understandings of politics, both in the United States and around the world.

From outside conspiracy discourse, the questions that emerge from these belief systems are not just puzzling, they are bizarre. Why do many Americans believe the Illuminati play a role in directing their nation’s foreign policy in the Middle East? Why do some conspiracy believers see the Freemasons supporting Jewish plans forworld domination, while others believe they are involved in an Islamic attempt to create one world government, and still others that they are aiming to destroy Islam? Bizarre as these questions are, even stranger is the fact that at least one part of the answer to them is found in Nesta Webster’s early fascination with the love story of two aristocrats in prerevolutionary France. It is to Webster’s life and ideas that we now turn.