This is one clear example of a cross-over with New Age interest in science, expressing the
‘ubiquitous dictum ‘change your mind; change your reality’ that is the basis for so many New Age practices’.397 Truth-seekers move beyond models of Cartesian dualism in certain respects, notably the ‘fundamental opposition between spirit and matter, mind and body’.398 Like the New Age, however, they reproduce the dualistic distinction between the left/right brain hemispheres, but champion proclivities associated with the right-side such as intuitiveness, subjectivity, and creativity, over the supposedly analytical, objective, and rationalist left-side.399
I encountered the term ‘holism’ rarely in emic usage, but the idea of an interconnected
‘harmonious whole’ between the individual and the cosmos – and certainly the connectedness of mind-body-spirit as expressed in this chapter’s interview excerpts – is prevalent.400 Like in the
‘holistic healing’ that Steven Sutcliffe talks about in connection with ‘New Age’ seekers, the emphasis for healing concerns ‘a ‘whole’ person through her or his latent resources’, unlike the allopathic model where the symptoms of disease are treated and the ‘cure’ of the physical, medicalised body is the aim.401 There are also connections with scientific ideas associated with the New Age such as the ‘New Physics’ and the idea of a ‘holographic universe’.402 However, thinkers like Bohm who are associated with these ideas within New Age literature are absent by name from truth movement discourse.403
The truth movement might thus be conceptualised in a manner similar to Albanese’s approach to the New Age whereby ‘the discourse and related action promoted by the New Age have emerged
397 James R. Lewis, ‘Science and the New Age’, in Handbook of the New Age, ed. by Daren Kemp and James R. Lewis (Leiden: Brill, 2007), p. 225.
398 Scheper-Hughes and Locke, p. 8.
399 Scheper-Hughes and Lock, p. 11; cf. Chryssides, ‘Defining New Age’, p. 22.
400 Scheper-Hughes and Lock, p. 12.
401 Steven Sutcliffe, Children of the New Age: A History of Spiritual Practices (London: Routledge, 2003), p.175.
402 Hanegraaff, New Age Religion, pp. 62, 149-151.
403 Ibid., pp. 70-71.
154 as a new healing religion’.404 Within the truth movement, we witness the same ‘blurring of matter and energy at the subatomic level […] linked in principle to the occult romanticism of the mesmeric-Swedenborgian habit of mind’.405 The emphasis within the truth movement relative to the New Age, however, adds a third dimension and sees the potentiality of the quantum universe through the lens of conspiracy narratives. Many truth-seekers attest to the creative power of conscious will, frequently citing Doctor Emoto’s “water experiment” as scientific evidence – sometimes proof – of its efficacy. Popularised through David Icke, Emoto froze water samples with words like “love”, “peace”, “hate”, and “fear” attached; when he viewed the crystals under a microscope, the positive words bore complex patterns that were aesthetically beautiful, whereas the negative words seemed to produce relatively ugly crystals. This oft-quoted experiment lends scientific credibility to the notion of a holistic “frequency universe” where energetic signatures, based upon different states of mindfulness, affect physical matter. This notion has important implications for both positive healing and for negative manipulation; humankind have the power to create heaven and hell, here on earth, if they are manipulated to do so. This notion is referred to in the shorthand by the emic term “quantum”.406
With clear cross-overs with provisions labelled by some scholars as ‘New Age’, truth-seekers might engage in crystal healing, aromatherapy, reiki, kinesiology, homeopathy, etc. I would argue that they retain their ‘New Age’ flavour but truth-seekers arrive at them from within the ideational framework stipulating a conspiracy of sorts.
The therapies preferred by truth-seekers might be regarded as ‘complementary’ medicines – indeed, according to the NHS, ‘alternative’ medicines are ‘complementary’ if they are taken alongside orthodox medicines.407 However, from the perspective of truth-seekers, their preferred treatments remain ‘alternative’ and are contrasted against allopathic or biomedical or pharmaceutical treatments mentioned (and vilified) in the previous section. This is appropriate for self-defined ‘seekers’ who define conventional institutions – including establishment behaviours around health – as inadequate. Some such experiential vistas, at a phenomenological level, can be seen to act as an identity marker for those “sane” individuals who affiliate with the truth movement. To bring this chapter to its conclusion, and to link it with the arguments put forward in Chapters Four and Five, I will end with an excerpt from my interview with Richard Cumbers.
404 Catherine L. Albanese, ‘The Magical Staff: Quantum Healing in the New Age’, in Perspectives on the New Age, ed. by James R. Lewis and Gordon Melton (Albany: State University of New York Press, 1992) 68-84
405 Ibid. p.73
406 The “quantum” nature of reality was regularly deployed as an explanatory framework for the efficacy of energetic phenomena, both positive (such as healing technologies) and negative (such as energy-sapping strategies of control as in 9/11).
407 NHS, Complementary and Alternative Medicine (2018)
<https://www.nhs.uk/conditions/complementary-and-alternative-medicine/> [accessed 20/01/18]
155 I think the “we” is just the people who finally, for whatever reason have actually woken up and have resonated with the truth because there is one truth. So if you look at something and are discerning enough, in other words you are not completely screwed up by GMO foods, micro-wave foods with a lack of minerals, phone masts bombarding you all over the place, low energy light bulbs full of mercury, [or] you fear all the time about the wars the government create all the time […] and then you realise there is no way you can keep quiet any longer.
156 Chapter Seven: ‘False-Flag’ “Conspiracy Theories” as Counter-Narratives
All of us have had to pause, reflect, and sometimes change our minds as we studied these problems and considered the views of others. We hope our report will encourage our fellow citizens to study, reflect – and act.
(Chair and Co-Chair of the 9/11 Commission Report: Final Report of the National Commission on Terrorist Attacks upon the United States) 408
7.1 Introduction
This chapter will address an important branch of alternative knowledge: “False-flag” counter-narratives. Firstly, I will discuss the specific type of “conspiracy theory” that form the basis of much of this chapter: “false-flag” attacks. These might also be referred to with emic terms including “false-flag terror’” “state-sponsored terror”, or simply as an “inside job”. As well as 9/11 and 7/7, other alleged examples of “false-flags” include Lee Rigby’s murder, the Gunpowder Plot, and the Reichstag fire. “False-flag” events are in the past and present; during my fieldwork, for example, the contemporaneous Charlie Hebdo attacks in Paris were widely interpreted as a false-flag.
These events in question are what truth-seekers understand as “false-flag” attacks. Academic commentators have often discussed 9/11 as a key example of a “conspiracy theory”.409 However, as discussed in the Introduction, this pejorative term is unhelpful. In the context of most terrorist attacks, the official narrative accepted by the mainstream is itself a (warranted) “conspiracy theory”.410 Instead, I prefer “false-flag” counter-narratives (FFCNs).411 I will set out the main characteristics of FFCNs which reflects my choice of terminology. Crucially, they define themselves against the official version, and they always narrate a tale of deception. The events surrounding 9/11 will serve as a case study to lay out the main characteristics of FFCNs.412 I will look at the logic behind “false-flag” theories. Rather than labelling them as ‘conspiracy theories’, they are best understood as ‘counter-narratives’ that, from the truth-seeker perspective, are engaged in conspiracy realism. The alternative interpretations of events can be seen to function like living myths, cohering the so-called “truth movement” according to a common interpretation
408 Thomas H. Kean, Lee H. Hamilton, et al., The 9/11 Commission Report: Final Report of the National Commission on Terrorist Attacks upon the United States (London: W. W. Norton & Company, 2004), p.
xviii.
409 For example, Barkun, Culture of Conspiracy; Mark Fenster included an additional chapter in his post-9/11 edition, Fenster, pp. 233-278; Kathryn Olmsted, Real Enemies (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2009), pp. 205-240.
410 To truth-seekers, the official narratives generally posits an unwarranted “conspiracy theory”.
411 See below.
412 My analysis is sensitive to the processes through which these ideas derive their legitimacy and plausibility despite them being disregarded as delegitimate fantasies – as distortive, dangerous, and disabling “conspiracy theories” (see the Introduction and Conclusion) by many voices from within the establishment.
157 of the world, in a narrative that makes important statements about humanity’s social, existential, and ontological, reality.