CONSPIRACY RISING
Chapter 3
From Conspiracy to
Superconspiracy, from
Europe to America: Nesta
Webster and Modern
Conspiracy Thinking
Nesta Webster
Nesta Helen
Bevan was born on August 14, 1876, at Trent Park, her family’s estate in
Hertfordshire, England. Her father was Robert Cooper Lee Bevan, a
great-grandson of the founders of Barclay, Bevan, Tritton, and Co. (later Barclays
Bank), and her mother, Frances Shuttleworth, was the daughter of the bishop of
Chichester. The Bevans were therefore wealthy, but Webster wrote in her
autobiography that her father’s religious beliefs he had “devoted his life to
the service of God” did not allow for luxury. She expressed the feeling,
however, that her father, his religious faith, and his appreciation for the
community were never fully appreciated by his banking colleagues. She was
puzzled by this, for in her view, Barclays’ success “was made . . . by the
known integrity and good faith of the men who used the wealth it brought them
for the service of the community” [emphasis added]. While many conspiracy
theorists (including Queenborough) identify international finance as one
component of attempts at world domination, this connection is not immediately
apparent in Webster’s work. Instead, she emphasizes the importance of wealth as
a way to safeguard the British community. What one might take from this
connection, however, is her implicit recognition of the way in which economic
wealth was an essential component of that community’s well-being. It suggests,
too, that British Christianity is also somehow part of this equation.
When Nesta
was 13, her father died, and the family home passed to her eldest half-brother;
she therefore lived out the remainder of her youth in Europe, a period that she
later described with all the regret the term implies, as an “exile” from
Britain. At the age of 17, she returned to England to finish her education. Her
mother forbadeher to attend Cambridge or Oxford (believing both institutions to
be too liberal), and as a result, she attended Westfield College in Hampstead,
where she initially entered a degree program in Classics and Mental and Moral
Science. Frustrated by its required algebra courses, however, she eventually
chose to continue her studies as a nondegree student, attending lectures in
which she had an interest, primarily, as she records it, in English literature,
Greek, and Mental and Moral Science.
Nesta left
college in 1897 with only a partial degree. She turned 21 that year, and
inherited her share of Robert Bevan’s estate. Her reflection on that experience
left her frustrated and unsure of what do with her life. She wrote:
I had lived
long enough now amongst women working for a purpose to despise an idle life and
long to embark on some useful career. But what careers were open to women at
that date? I might train to become a High School teacher like most of my
college companions, but would it be right to take the bread out of the mouth of
someone who needed it?.
Instead of
immediately embarking on a career, she therefore opted instead to take an
extended tour around the world that included Africa, India, Ceylon, Japan and
Canada. In addition to the experience of world travel, Nesta recounts that this
journey also fostered within her a respect for the world’s many religion
faiths, and she concluded that “behind all great religions there lies a central
truth, which might be compared to a lamp with many coloured sides.” Her
open-mindedness on the subject of religion was also reflected in the fact that
she developed an ongoing interest in Buddhism, which led her to spend an
extended period of time in Burma, a place she was “heartbroken” to leave.
As a female
member of the “educated class,” Webster felt that she had only three career
options: nurse, school teacher, or district visitor, and none of these appealed
to her. In 1903, she was still uncertain as to which career to follow but
increasingly convinced that her true vocation was writing. In part to discover
herself and her vocation, she then embarked on a second trip to Egypt, and an
extended trip to Australia, Sri Lanka (then Ceylon), and India. During the latter part of this
trip she was introduced to Arthur Webster, a district superintendent of police.
They were engaged within three weeks, and married on May 14, 1904. Nesta
reports very few events between 1904 and 1914. As explanation, she comments
that it may well be true that a happy woman has no history, a remark that
suggests that she had a developing feminist consciousness. During those years
she gave birth to two daughters, Marjorie and Rosalind, and began her writing
career.
Nesta’s
first novel, The Sheep Track,appeared
in 1914 and chronicles the life of a young woman who leaves her sheltered home
in Nice to travel to London to come out in society. Loosely autobiographical,
it reflects her frustration at the limited opportunities open to women. The
central character determines, however, that London society is a “sheep track.”
It is a world wherein “girls married amidst the applause of their friends to men
they merely regarded as the inevitable accompaniment of substantial incomes . .
. [a] system of
pretended virtue.” In that world,
to live according to one’s own moral sense and convictions was tremendously
diffi cult. Webster’s heroine dabbles in “bohemian” society, eventually leaves
London, and travels to Burma, Siam, and Japan. She concludes that it is not on
the sheep track that the solutions to life’s problems are to be found. The
origins of Webster’s title reveal the moral of her story. It is drawn directly
from Seneca: “Let us not, therefore,
follow like sheep, but rather govern ourselves by reason than by other men’s
fashions” [emphasis in original].
The Sheep Track parallels Webster’s own life: her
sheltered existence in Cannes, her education and difficult experiences in
London, and her decision to embark on extended world travel. Despite its
popularity, the book is not particularly compelling reading for the modern
reader. It does, however, condemn the nature of women’s lives in early
20th-century society and forcefully argues that they should pursue meaningful
careers. The novel received generally favorable reviews (the New York
Timesreferred to it as “delightful”),and within six months it was in its fourth
printing. Webster clearly had a talent for writing.
In the
autumn of 1914 she published her first overtly political tract, Britain’s Call to Arms, An Appeal to our
Women.In it, she calls on British women to encourage men to join the war effort.
Webster argues that for every “one man who has answered the call to arms a
dozen women have responded . . . needlework and nursing remain so far almost
the only ways by which, at this critical hour, the great majority of women can
. . . serve their country. ”Britain’s
Call to Arms suggests that women are both more willing to serve their
country in the war effort than men and more capable of understanding the
implications of German victory, which would result in “an iron government such
as they have never dreamt of, . . . all personal liberty would be done away
with.” From her standpoint, it is therefore incumbent upon British women to
make British men aware of the gravity of the situation and to rally them to
action.
Webster’s
faith in women’s political capabilities is echoed in a later article “Women and Civilisation” (1920). There
she argues that men are wholly ignorant of women’s true nature; the only type
of women they know anything about, she writes, are “Primitive Women,” who live
to serve only the material needs of men and their offspring. Webster writes
that these women, whose horizons are “entirely bounded” by men, do not seek
their own individual development, and are therefore “inevitably the inferior”
of men. When women are left so “uneducated, uncultivated, unenlightened, [they are]
too often the foolish, futile creature[s]” that ignorant men believe all women
to be. Webster suggests that women are best served when they are “cultivated,”
well-educated, and refined. She writes that in her experience, women’s
education is so different and inferior to that of men, and their life
experiences so circumscribed, that it is impossible to know how great their
minds and abilities might truly be. When this situation is rectified, she implies,
women and men may well be true equals. Webster’s conclusion of this argument is
curious, and its significance appears in her later conspiracy writing. She
concludes that the golden era of women’s supremacy was prerevolutionary France,
when powerful women never attempted to compete directly with men but instead
drew strength from other areas where they excelled, in particular, “the power
of organisation and the power of inspiration.”
In this way,
they extended a powerful influence over their society. In a repetition of her
earlier argument in Britain’s Call to Arms,the article closes with what is
again a call forwomen’s political action. Women’s power, she writes, must be
exerted in order to preserve “civilisation” in the postwar era.
Webster’s
work concerning women’s rights reflects many of the themes and contradictions
of her age. Her pleas for the recognition of women are in part an argument for
women to exert a “civilizing infl uence” on society. At the same time, however,
she calls upon them to abandon the life of the “primitive woman” and demands
that all women receive a better education and greater opportunities. In her
later writings, however, these themes are absent. She does not abandon these
beliefs, but what is for her a greater cause takes precedence. An experience she
had four years before writingThe Sheep Trackcame to dominate her political
agenda. Indeed, it marked the remainder of her life.
Webster
proves false the assumption that all conspiracy theorists are of lower
socioeconomic standing, poorly educated, and intolerant of difference (both
cultural and religious). She was a member of the British upper class, reasonably
well-educated and well-traveled, and open-minded with respect to her religious
faith. She even anticipated the late 20th-century Western fascination with
Buddhism. In broad terms, she was also what could loosely be described as
feminist in her outlook. At the same time, however, she was also increasingly
uncomfortable with the profound social, economic, and political changes
occurring in Britain, and she began to search for explanations as to why the
world around her was in such a state of upheaval. An experience she had earlier
in her life helped to answer that question.
In the
winter of 1910, while she was living in Switzerland, Webster came across Portraits de Grandes Dames, a volume of
essays by Imbert de SaintAmand. Its discovery was pure chance. On a snowy day,
she discovered it in the library of her hotel. The story of the Comtesse de
Sabran and her lover, the Chevalier de Bouffl ers, aristocrats whose lives were
entwined with the French Revolution, enthralled her. Upon her return to London,
she acquired a compilation of their letters,
Correspondance de la Comtesse de Sabran et du Chevalier de Boufflers (1875).
Webster immersed herself in their story and became convinced that much of it was
familiar to her. Eventually, she developed the sense that she had personally
lived through the French Revolution. In light of this realization, she reflected
on and reinterpreted much of her life. She wrote of the experience, “Now all
the memories of my childhood came flooding back to me, the sense of apartness
from the family circle in the old days at Trent, that first journey to Paris,
the arrival at the Gare du Nord. . . . Walking through the streets, especially
in the Rue Saint-HonorĂ©, I would say to myself, “I have seen these streets
running with blood.” Webster’s Buddhist leanings inclined her to believe that
she was the reincarnation of a French aristocrat, and possibly even Madame de
Sabran herself. This inclination, a result of Webster’s personal affection for Buddhism,
and her choice of reading on a winter afternoon, became the motivating force
for 20th-century conspiracy theory.
In 1916,
Webster published The Chevalier de
Boufflers,which recounted the Chevalier’s and Madame Sabran’s lengthy
romance. The book received reasonable reviews and was popular with the general
public: ultimately it was reprinted 15 times. Indeed, the scholar Richard
Thurlow suggests that the quality of Webster’s early books suggest that she
could have become “a fine popular historian,” for her work evidences strong
literary skills and a “meticulous attention to detail.” In researching this
book, however, Webster came to the conclusion that most histories of the French
Revolution were inaccurate. She therefore continued her study of the French
Revolution through the last two years of the First World War, driven by what
she characterized as an “impelling force” to present the truth to the world. The
result of that effort, The French Revolution, A Study in Democracy was published
in 1920. The work embodies the coming together of her personal interest in the
Revolution and her developing political ideology.
Nesta
Webster’s great empathy for the Chevalier de Boufflers and Madame Sabran
extended to the French aristocracy as a whole, and reviewers commented on what
they felt was her “unsympathetic attitude toward democracy,” as well as her
reliance on royalist and antirepublican sources. Webster believed that the
Revolution and democracy destroyed much of what was good in French society, and
by the conclusion of her research, she had determined that it was impossible that
the masses created such an upheaval themselves. It was therefore reasonable to
question “by whom was it made?”
The French
Revolution, like many significant political events, was the result of a number
of economic and political forces that aligned at a particular moment to yield
change. In the case of the French Revolution, these forces included such
factors as a series of European wars, French debt, taxation, food shortages and
famine, and the emergence of ideology as an organizing force in political
organization and activity. Webster, however, concluded that a conspiracy of
secret societies had created it in order to further their plan to control the
world. While she acknowledged there were specific conditions that might make
the country ripe for a revolution, she argued that “kindling” the flame of
revolution required the action of interested conspirators. In order to
understand it, “we must examine the intrigues at work amongst the people; these
and these alone explain the gigantic misunderstanding that arose between the
King and his subjects, and that plunged the country on the brink of
regeneration into the black abyss of anarchy.” Indeed, she concluded that the
Illuminati’s “dark design” was behind a multipronged conspiracy operating
across many states that included four critical conspiracies, “the OrlĂ©aniste
intrigue for a change of dynasty, the Prussian scheme for breaking the
Franco-Austrian Alliance, the gradually evolved conception of a Republic,
finally of a Socialist State . . . working for world revolution and the
destruction of Christian civilization.”
The French Revolution was not entirely well received by
the mainstream press. By the time of its publication, Webster was an
established author, and her stature was such that her work was reviewed in both
the popular press and academic journals. Critics attacked her royalist
sympathies and her focus on conspiracies. In The American Historical
Review,Fred Fling wrote that the book could have been written by Marie
Antoinette had she “possessed the industry to accomplish the large amount of
reading,” and in the American Political Science Review,Sidney Fay commented
that it “reads like an anti-bolshevist account of the Russian Revolution.
By the time
of The French Revolution’s publication, Webster was convinced that from the
time of Baron Weishaupt, through the Illuminati and Freemasons, secret
societies had influenced the direction of human history. Their power was now
exerted through many agencies but particularly those in the political left.
Internationally, Webster identified the Soviet Union, and Bolsheviks, as
particular threats. This “alien conspiracy” had now invaded Britain, the
“greatest stronghold of Christian Civilisation.” Within the United Kingdom,
efforts to unionize workers, the British Communist Party, and Sinn Fein (an
organization she believed was directed by the “International Communist
Movement”) were working for revolution.
In World Revolution, The Plot Against
Civilization (1921), Webster continues this theme, writing that the world
is in crisis, as evidenced by the spread of socialism and anarchism, and that
her intent is to connect systematically secret societies’ activities to the
history of revolution. She writes, “The revolution through which we are now
passing is not local but universal, it is not political but social, and its
causes must be sought not in popular discontent, but in a deep-laid conspiracy
that uses the people to their own undoing.”
According to
Webster, the origins of this conspiracy are in the link between Grand Orient Freemasonry
with the Illuminati (recreated by Adam Weishaupt in 1776). Webster claims that
at meetings in 1782, the two organizations formed an association that undertook
a “definite revolutionary campaign” aimed at transforming human societies.
Their goals included the creation of general mayhem and the destruction of all
governments and religion. Through this, human beings could regain “primitive
liberty,” an idealized state of existence that existed before the chains of
civilization limited human behavior and potential. These organizations now work
in secret, according to Webster, and animate some of the most influential
political forces of the day, including “Bolshevism.”
For Webster,
the conspirators have the capacity to manipulate all those who are unaware of
their scheme, for their powers are “terrible, unchanging, relentless, and
wholly destructive . . . [they are] the greatest menace that has ever
confronted the human race.” In World Revolution,she therefore traces the
history of secret societies from the French Revolution through the Russian
Revolution; her aim is not just to educate British citizens but also to inspire
them to protect their state. She closes the book by linking these themes and
emphasizing Britain’s special role, suggesting that “this little island of ours
[may] fi nally stem the tide of World Revolution and save not only herself, but
Christian civilization.” Included in this book is her complex “Chart of the
World Revolution,” which provides a graphic representation of the complex links
that Webster argued existed (both secretly and in public) among secret societies and revolutionary movements
of her age (see Figure 1). The complex web of connections reflects the profound
change that Webster initiated in conspiracy thinking. Instead of individual agents
working to achieve limited goals, she understood conspirators as working
together to control the entire political world.
In 1924,
Webster published what became her most influential work, Secret Societies and
Subversive Movements. She remarks in the preface that she would prefer to
return to her study of the French Revolution but implies that it is her duty to
further elucidate the origins of the current “revolutionary movement” that is
“gathering strength for an onslaught not only on Christianity, but on all
social and moral order.” The majority of this book focuses on the early history
of forces that Webster has identified elsewhere: Pan-Germanism, Freemasonry,
and Illuminism. In this work, however, she also develops her arguments
concerning the role of the Jewish people in this worldwide conspiracy.
Webster’s
assessment of the Jewish role in secret societies deserves particular
attention, as it is an important element of her popularity among modern far-right
political movements. Throughout the book, Webster discusses the role of Jews in
specifi c secret societies. In her concluding chapter, “The Jewish Peril,”
however, she draws these points together, stating that “the immense problem of
the Jewish Power [is] perhaps the most important problem with which the modern
world is confronted.” Webster argues that it is clear that the Cabala (a Jewish
mystical doctrine) and other sources clearly indicate that “the hope for world-domination”
is not an idea attributed to Jews by anti-Semites, “but a very real and
essential part of their traditions.”
Webster
maintains that this tradition has developed since the time of Jesus; at its
theological core, it is a desire to overthrow Christianity and Christian
civilization. Jews have been effective, Webster notes, at utilizing secret
societies for their own purposes. She writes, “The influence of the Jews in all
the five great powers at work in the world—Grand Orient Masonry, Theosophy,
Pan-Germanism, International Finance, and Social Revolution—is not a matter of
surmise but of fact.” Likewise, she argues, they play a role in the world’s
“minor subversive movements”: psychoanalysis, “degenerate art,” the cinema
world, and drug trafficking. According to Webster, their influence in British
politics is also clear. They promote Bolshevism through the Labour Party, and
although Conservatism (because of its patriotic traditions) has typically been
free of Jewish influence, it was “precisely at a moment when Conservative
organization had passed largely into Jewish hands that Conservatism met with
the most astounding disaster in the whole of its history.”Webster concludes
this chapter by noting that the real danger to Britain (and Christian
civilization) springs from the unity of the Jewish people, “Far more potent
than the sign of distress that summons Freemasons to each other’s aid at
moments of peril is the call of the blood that rallies the most divergent
elements in Jewry to the defence of the Jewish cause.”
Webster
argues that it is this solidarity that is the real cause of anti-Semitism. Even
if it might be true that the Jewish people are not the central force behind all
secret societies, their threat comes at a moment when Britain and “Christian
civilization” are being “systematically destroyed by the doctrines of
International Socialism.” Secret
Societies and Subversive Movements thus suggests that she believes that the
Jewish people are an integral part of the conspiratorial forces that threaten civilization.
Webster concludes that the only way to save Britain from this imminent
destruction is through a “great national movement,” much like Italian Fascism.
It triumphed, she claims, because it was democratic and progressive, and
appealed to the most noble human instincts, patriotism and self-sacrifice.
Webster’s
theories about Jews and their role in secret societies fell on willing ears. As
Holmes points out, while extremist anti-Semites were relatively rare, there
existed a generalized low level of anti-Semitic sentiment in post World War I
Britain. There is perhaps no better example of this than Winston Churchill’s
1920 speech, “Zionism and Bolshevism,” reprinted in the Illustrated Sunday
Herald.Churchill addresses the issue of Jewish loyalty to Britain and identifi
es a “sinister confederacy” of internationalist Jews that was behind every
subversive movement from the 19th century onward through the Russian
Revolution, “From the days of SpartacusWeishaupt to those of Karl Marx, and
down to Trotsky (Russia), Bela Kim (Hungary), Rosa Luxembourg (Germany), and
Emma Goldman (United States), this world-wide conspiracy for the overthrow of
civilisation and for the reconstitution of society on the basis of arrested
development, of envious malevolence, and impossible equality, has been steadily
growing.” The speech, a curious combination of anti-Semitism and praise for
Europe’s Jewish population, advocates a homeland for Europe’s Jewish population
in Palestine. Churchill’s source for this conspiratorial history and his
political plan is none other than Nesta Webster, evidence not only of the
widespread popularity of her ideas but also of her growing political influence.
The
tremendous success of Webster’s Secret Societies therefore helped to determine
the future direction of the author’s life. First, her conclusions moved her to
become more directly politically active. Second, the book’s success determined
that despite her efforts to become a respectable historian of the French
Revolution (and she published two more lengthy books on the topic), her lasting
impact was to be as a conspiracy theorist. Indeed, the book’s success made her
a minor celebrity. She quickly became a recognized “authority” on secret
societies, and with that status, became a frequent contributor to the
right-wing newspaper The Patriot. She
published columns and engaged in debates relating to various conspiracy
theories, and the paper’s editors publicized her books and public appearances. Occasionally,
she also published long-running series on conspiracy-related topics (for
example, “Anti Revolutionary Organisation,” which ran in seven parts, through
January and early February of 1926). Her work was also frequently the subject
of articles and commentary within the paper.
During this
time, too, Webster also became politically active in the British Fascists Ltd.,
a movement that was not immediately concerned with Fascist ideology, but
instead, focused its political program on the fear of a Communist uprising, a
concern dear to Webster’s heart.In joining the Fascists, Webster was not
unusual. Recent analyses make clear that the movement and its ideology were
animated by women. Her role was different, however, because she was politically
prominent before she joined the movement. Indeed, some scholars speculate that
Webster was drawn to the Fascist movement more as “avehicle to disseminate her
opinions rather than as a philosophy to be embraced.” In 1927, she became a
member of its leadership, the Grand Council, and during her tenure spoke at their
public meetings and wrote articles for the group’s publications, the Fascist Bulletin and the British Lion.
The British Fascists afforded Webster increased political visibility, but she
abandoned the party in mid-1927 and instead embarked upon her own, related
political project, which she called “The Patriots’ Inquiry Centre.”
Webster
believed that Communism was making inroads in British society, and as evidence,
she cited the fact that the Labour Party appeared to be strengthening its hold
on the lower classes. Although it had officially repudiated Communism, Webster
believed this move was superficial and intended to placate concerned Britons.
She argued that the party admitted Communists through its support of Trade
Unionists. In an effort to counter their influence, she proposed a “bureau of
information” that would serve as a clearing house for all workers in the
“anti-Socialist cause,” and she offered her own collection of research as a starting
point for the Centre’s library. In October of 1927 she fi rst advertised the
Centre in The Patriot. Although she noted that the financial support of “a few
patriotic persons” had been obtained, and an office in central London secured,
she also asked for further financial contributions. The Centre would contribute
to the anti- Communist cause through coordinating the work of organizations and
individuals “in every part of the world.”
As Markku
Ruotsila points out, the Patriots Inquiry Centre was effectively an agency for
anti-Socialist and anti-Semitic speakers. In addition, its mission was shaped by an underlying
conviction that it was essential to defend and propagate Christianity. These
endeavors would sustain the battle against the conspirators. The Patriots’
Inquiry Centre was a viable operation for a number of years, but evidence of its
activities disappeared from the pages of The Patriot early in the 1930s. So too
did original articles by Webster (although she did contribute a four-part
series, “The Past History of World Revolution”) in 1932. It was not until the
late 1940s that she wrote for The Patriotagain (a seven-part series, “Where Are
We Going?,” which focused on socialism and the threat it posed to Great
Britain). Gauging by the number and variety of her publications, Webster
appears to have abandoned practical politics to once again pursue a full-time
writing career.
During the
1930s, she published four books. The Surrender
of an Empire continued her campaign to warn Britons of the various
conspiracies that threatened the state while The Secret of the Zodiac,written
under the pseudonym Julian Sterne, was a deliberate work of fiction. By now a
well-known conspiracy theorist, Webster perhaps chose this pseudonym to suggest
that the book was authored by a Jewish man who would have an insider’s
knowledge of the world conspiracy; the name Sterne is also a composite of the last
four letters of Webster and the fi rst two letters of Nesta. It told the story of
“sinister unseen forces” that aimed to undermine civilization. Indeed, it is
almost a summation of all the conspiracy theories she had suggested in her
nonfiction works, mixed with suggestions about the occult. One of the characters
in the book remarks, for example:
I do think
it possible that there have been and still are people who have in some way
mastered the art of projecting thought and floating ideas in a way unknown to
the rest of the world . . . the political side of the movement is run on the
same lines as the occult side, that is to say, on the old secret society
system. The Communist Party in each country is in reality a secret society few members
know who are the real heads or where the direction comes from . . . in the
secret communications of leading Communists . . . the phraseology used is absolutely
that of the secret conspirators known as the Illuminati.
To this mix,
Webster even manages to throw in the French Revolution and suggest that the
Communists intend to copy the French Republican calendar. Although entertaining
as a curiosity, the book is of dubious value as literature. Like her other
conspiracy-related works, however, it remains in print.
Webster’s
two other major publications of the decade in fact marked a return to her other
favorite topic, the French Revolution.
Louis XVI and Marie Antoinette, Before the Revolution,and Louis XVI and Marie
Antoinette, During the Revolutionwere lengthy tomes published within a year
of each other in 1936 and 1937, respectively. These works presented a
sympathetic picture of the French monarch and Marie Antoinette, combined with
Webster’s argument that the French Revolution was devised and carried out by
the Freemasons. The books were widely reviewed, and most commentators
criticized Webster’s argument but praised her skills as an historian.
Webster’s
final pre World War II political publication was a revised reprint of a series
of articles she wrote for The Patriot,“Germany and England” (1938). The lengthy
pamphlet criticized Britain’s response to events in Europe, and it argued that
Nazism was not as great a threat to Britain as “Bolshevism.” Webster argued
that Hitler’s emphasis on “the superiority of the German race” was “only
logical, since the essence of Fascismo and Nazi-ism is Nationalism, whilst that
of Bolshevism is Internationalism.”91Webster therefore argued that Britain should
not fear Hitler or Nazism. Indeed, she argues:
In his
strictures on pre-Nazi Germany, Hitler is undeniably justified; it was a matter
of common knowledge just before and after the War that Berlin became a centre
of iniquity, its night life worse in some respects than that of Paris; vice of
an unspeakable kind was flaunted with impunity, nude midnight orgies took place
in the West End of the city . . . Whether Hitler is right in attributing all this
to the Jews we cannot tell; there are
depraved elements of every nation which need no inciting to vice. The fact
remains, however, that since Hitler started to purge town life in Germany,
pornographic books and pictures have disappeared from the shops, the Youth
movements have become clean and healthy, the cult of nudity has been
suppressed. And all this has coincided with the expulsion or voluntary departure
of a number of Jews from Germany.
Webster does
argue that she is “no blind admirer of Hitler,” complaining that like most
Britons, she prefers a regime of greater freedom. In addition, she argues that
his policies have had a generally detrimental effect on Britain and have in
some ways expanded the power of the worldwide conspirators. She writes, Hitler
is:
driving out
the Communists and Jews into other countries in such a way to enlist sympathy
for them, instead of keeping them humanely under control in his own, he
disregards the fact that he is helping to spread Bolshevism abroad and actually
to strengthen the Jewish power.
It is not
Hitler who threatens Britain but instead the grand conspiracy that poses the
most serious danger to Britain. Indeed, just as Churchill argued nearly 20
years earlier, Webster concludes that “the Jewish problem” could best be solved
by creating a homeland for the Jews in “the vast unpeopled spaces of Soviet
Russia,” and that the “fabulous wealth of rich Jews all over the world could be
used to settle them there.” For Webster, the cloud of war hanging over England
is one that can easily be lifted. It requires recognition that war might bring
about the end of civilization and that the real threat to Britain are the alien
forces of the conspiracy.
Webster
published much less frequently following the outbreak of World War II. Because
the details of the final two decades of her life are largely unknown, however,
it is diffi cult to assess whether personal reasons were responsible for this
decline in output (in the spring of 1942, her husband, Arthur Webster, died), or
whether Hitler’s role in World War II prompted her to revise her views on
Fascism. She wrote a limited number of articles for The Patriotuntil its demise
in 1950 and following that published only her final book, the autobiography
Spacious Days(1950). Nesta Webster died
in May of 1960.
Webster wrote
during a period of intense social and political change in Great Britain, and it
is these types of eras that most typically produce conspiracy theory.
Individuals are driven to explain the upheaval that surrounds them. As
Moscovici writes, conspiracy theories are an attempt to integrate “one’s image
of society in one cause.” They are one way of eliminating cognitive dissonance,
a situation where personal beliefs and reality conflict. A conspiracy theory
allows one’s own interpretation of the world to remain intact, and not require
fundamental shift, when all threats to it are explained by a single omnipresent
force.
Nesta
Webster was threatened by challenges to the British Empire and its social
hierarchy. Although her beliefs about the capabilities of women and her own
political activism were nontraditional and would have been appropriate for a
more modern Britain—she was primarily concerned about the preservation of
traditional society. As a result, she neglected her more feminist beliefs in order
to pursue what she believed was a greater cause: warning the world of the
conspiracy that threatened British civilization. Thus, like women of the left
who participate in activism for a larger cause (for example, nationalist
movements), Webster chose to put her feminism
second.
Three major
themes dominate Webster’s life and work: the desire to protect British
civilization (as she defined it), the fear of those who threatened British
civilization, and the conviction that forces beyond the control of average
citizens control politics and its outcomes. For Webster, these beliefs helped
provide an explanation for the political change that occurred during her
lifetime.
Webster’s
assessment of the 20th-century political landscape, however, moved her to
reconceptualize how people thought about conspiracy. It was evident to her that
the relevant political world extended far beyond the borders of the United
Kingdom. She realized, indeed celebrated, Britain’s colonization of Africa and
Asia; she believed that it was part of her country’s mission to bring Christian
civilization to the world. At the same time, however, that realization also
expanded the range of Britain’s enemies, and therefore the legion of conspirators
who were working against her country and its purposes.
In some
ways, Webster’s conceptualization was visionary. The scholarly discipline of
international relations did not begin in its modern form until the publication
of E. H. Carr’s The Twenty Years’ Crisis in
the mid-1930s. She realized the significance of a globalized world before many
scholars. For Webster, however, that international world was clearly divided
between the forces of good and the forces of evil, which were in conflict in a
multitude of ways and places around the globe. From this perspective, it no
longer made sense to talk about a single conspiracy. Taking a page from Adam Weishaupt,
she argued that there may be some evil force directing the plan but that its
will was expressed in diverse ways. She argued that there were therefore
invisible links between a multitude of different (and in her view sometimes
superficially opposed) organizations who were all working toward the same
purpose. In short, the conspiracy was everywhere.Webster’s reformulation of
conspiracy theory was revolutionary. In response to a globalizing political
environment, she transformed how conspiracy thinkers understood the world. In
some ways, her innovations were inevitable. In an era where events occurring on
the other side of the globe can affect our daily lives, conspiracy theory was
destined to likewise expand. It was Nesta Webster who first effected this
revolutionary change in conspiracy thinking. She created the fi rst
superconspiracy theory. It is small wonder that in the world of conspiracists,
her work remains so popular today.
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