Conspiracy Theory and Conspiracism in Postwar Literature a Dissertation

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Conspiracy Theory and Conspiracism in Postwar Literature

A dissertation submitted to Kent State University in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy

by Abdulrahman F. Abu Shal

Dissertation written by Abdulrahman F. Abu Shal B.A., King Saud University, 2009 M.A., The University of Akron, 2014 Ph.D., Kent State University, 2020

Approved by

______, Chair, Doctoral Dissertation Committee Tammy Clewell ______, Members, Doctoral Dissertation Committee Babacar M’Baye ______Christopher Roman ______Rekha Sharma ______Patrick Gallagher

Accepted by

______, Chair, Department of English Babacar M’Baye ______, Interim Dean, College of Arts and Sciences Mandy Munro-Stasiuk

TABLE OF CONTENTS ------iii

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS ------v

CHAPTERS

I. INTRODUCTION ------1

A Brief Analysis of Conspiracy Theory and Conspiracism ------7

Defining Conspiracy Theory ------10

Defining Conspiracism ------13

The Problem with ‘the Paranoid Style’ ------19

Trust and Distrust in Relation to Conspiracy Theory and Conspiracism ------25

II. THE LIMITS OF CONSPIRACY THEORY IN PYNCHON’S THE CRYING OF

LOT 49 AND GRAVITY’S RAINBOW ------30

“Revelation in progress”: Oedipa’s Paranoia and Conspiracy Theory ------37

Clues to the Conspiracy ------40

Correlations between Clues ------47

The Accumulation of Clues and Correlations ------50

Considerable Conclusions to Counter Conspiracism ------55

“Operational paranoia”: Slothrop’s Experience ------59

An Onion-Layered Conspiracy ------61

The Discovery of Convoluted Conspiracies ------64

Slothrop’s Proverbs for Paranoids ------67

The Compulsive Intuition to Discover Clues ------68

Confrontations, Confessions, and Confirmations ------72

Documents and Conspiracies ------77

iii

The “Plot” to Escape the Plot ------80

Anti-Paranoia as a Possible Response to Paranoia ------84

The Limitations of Conspiracy Theory ------87

III. THE LIMITS OF CONSPIRACISM AND SECRECY IN REED’S MUMBO

JUMBO ------91

Secrecy, Secret Societies, and the Conspiracy ------99

Secrecy and Political Control ------106

Secrecy vs. Conspiracism: Misinformation and Misbelief ------110

Conspiracism and the Bias towards Secrecy ------117

IV. THE DILEMMA OF CONSPIRACISM IN ECO’S FOUCAULT’S PENDULUM 126

Critiquing Conspiracism and its Flawed Reasoning ------135

Debunking the Evidence: The Templars’ Coded Message ------136

The Plan: A Fabrication that Challenges the Truth Claim ------143

The Risks of Conspiracism and Believing Invented Meanings ------148

WORKS CITED ------157

Acknowledgements

﷽

Bismillah Ar-Rahman Ar-Rahim

“In the name of Allah, the Most Gracious, the Most Merciful.”

First and foremost, I would like to thank my advisor, Tammy Clewell, for her assistance and guidance, which made my journey as a doctoral student possible since day one. I would also like to thank Babacar M’Baye for his steadfast support throughout this journey. You both have left your lasting marks on my personality. Secondly, I would like to extend my thanks to

Christopher Roman, Rekha Sharma, and Patrick Gallagher for your approval to be part of the dissertation committee and for dedicating your personal time and effort. I am truly indebted to each and every one of you. I am grateful to King Saud University for providing me with the opportunity and the scholarship to further my education and do this research. I am also thankful to Kent State University for being my home for years. I would like to extend my sincere gratitude to whoever did the disturbing The Arrivals series in 2008, my first genuine encounter with conspiracism.

For my mother, Maimoonah, and my father, Faisal, who raised me to be who I am now but sadly passed away before they see this moment. I miss you so much. For my wife, Anhar, without your endless love and support, none of this would be possible. For my family and friends, whose encouragement helped me through the hardest moments in the United States.

I. Introduction

In postwar literature, conspiracy theory manifests differently from one writer to another.

The representation of conspiracy theory in literary works forms a spectrum on which writers can be viewed as either participating in its formation, ridiculing it, or positioning their works somewhere in between as they explore much more complex figurations of it. There are writers whose works show neither participation in nor a complete rejection of the conspiratorial narrative by taking a position that views conspiracy theory as a potential yet problematic tool of investigating conspiracies.

Conspiracy theories occupy a significant portion of our daily lives. They constitute a multifaceted phenomenon, but they are often reduced to a particular aspect without considering the multiplicity of factors contributing to their existence. Sometimes they are rational; but most of the time, they may emerge from a stubborn worldview or a set of beliefs insinuating that history only unveils through conspiracies. There are distinctions between the two cases. In the first case, conspiracy theories can result from epistemological investigations that attempt to discover actual conspiracies. In the other case, they are connotative of the extreme socio-political view that conspiracies explain everything that happens. This is the distinction between conspiracy theory as an epistemological approach and what shall be called ‘conspiracism.’ The distinction between the two is necessary so that we may understand more about conspiracy theory as a useful tool in isolation from the perilous political worldview of conspiracism.

The intricate and interconnected relations between conspiracy theory and conspiracism often result in confusion and misconception. To clarify the terminology from which to proceed, I

use the term ‘conspiracy theory’ in the singular form with no definite article to refer to an abstract epistemological approach that allows for the presumption that a particular event resulted from a conspiracy. The term ‘conspiracy theories’ in the plural form refers to actual existing theorized accounts (either rational or irrational) about the presence of conspiracies, whether contemporary or historical, such as the 9/11 conspiracy theories or the assassination of John F.

Kennedy. Conspiracism refers to the pathological worldview or belief that everything can be explained and understood as resulting from a conspiracy. The two terms, conspiracy theory and conspiracism, are often conflated because they are both described as resulting from paranoia, a cultural condition. These terms require a more elaborate analysis to understand how they affect each other.

The associations between conspiracy theory and conspiracism with paranoia are problematic in many aspects. First of all, there is the issue of paranoia as a concept. It is a clinical term that has entered the colloquial sphere of language to characterize someone’s irrational fear and suspicion that someone else secretly intends to harm them. It refers to a cultural condition explored in both fiction and academic works. Moreover, paranoia is very often used to describe the unjustified fear of conspiracies. This leads to the second issue this dissertation will address, which is the notion of belief in conspiracy theories as a form of paranoia. Whether conspiratorial claims are justified or not, they are often dismissed because they are perceived as paranoid. However, that perception to a certain extent is justified because irrational and unjustified belief in conspiracy theories may be the result of conspiracism, which leads to its conflation with rational conspiracy theories. Therefore, the third issue to be addressed is the lack of distinction between the rational use of conspiracy theory and the culture of conspiracism. By nuancing conspiracy theory as an epistemological method and conspiracism as

a worldview, it will be possible to perceive the former as a rational method and the latter as extremely irrational.

The following discussions highlight the issues of conflating conspiracy theory with conspiracism while regarding both as paranoid. This conflation may have negative and uncalculated consequences. Conspiratorial claims are not necessarily conspiracist. Dismissing them as paranoid may not be the wisest move, especially when what one thinks of as unjustified and unwarranted suspicion and fear may have plausible reasons. Therefore, it is necessary to understand when conspiracy theory may be the best approach to explain certain events. It is also necessary to distinguish conspiracy theory from conspiracism. After all, paranoia may not be an irrational response if it is justified. There are reasons why paranoia emerges, and it is necessary to address them.

This dissertation offers a literary study of texts that employ conspiracy theory in many different ways. It will contribute to the debate about conspiracy theory by exploring what literary works provide to the study of conspiracy theory. The majority of research on conspiracy theory emerges from fields other than literary studies. Therefore, literature can be approached as a field that allows us to observe the distinction between conspiracy theory and conspiracism. This dissertation will explore the different ways conspiracy theory manifests in the works of Thomas

Pynchon, Ishmael Reed, and Umberto Eco. Pynchon’s The Crying of Lot 49 and Gravity’s

Rainbow neither totally accept nor reject conspiracy theory, but instead offer it as an epistemological tool by which the protagonists attempt to uncover certain truths. Reed’s Mumbo

Jumbo uses conspiracy theory as an epistemological device by which power relations between social groups can be defined. Reed shows how conspiratorial thinking helps us understand the resistance to black culture in the novel set in the 1920s. Finally, Eco’s Foucault’s Pendulum

portrays the fatal consequences of conspiracy thinking since one of the protagonists is sacrificed as a result of a false conspiracy theory regarding a fictional secret society he and his partners created. Eco is critical and satirical of the employment of conspiracy theory by the culture of conspiracism.

All of these novels are good sites for studying conspiracy theory and conspiracism. They are cultural artifacts that deal with complex issues, and each novelist has enriched his work with a variety of examples of the use of conspiracy theory and the impact of conspiracism on individual and collective social struggles. The first chapter will address the conspiracies in

Pynchon’s The Crying of Lot 49 and Gravity’s Rainbow. In these two novels, we deal with the issues of conspiracy theories on the individual level. Pynchon’s protagonists are on epistemological quests mostly dealing with conspiracies that affect their lives. In Lot 49, Oedipa

Maas tries to execute a will in which her dead ex-lover, Pierce Inverarity, named her a co- executor alongside his Lawyer, Metzger. She ends up on a quest to discover a secret mail organization called the Tristero. The novel does not reveal whether the Tristero is real or not.

Their existence is possible, and Oedipa decides to investigate the theory that the secret organization may exist rationally. Oedipa neither accepts the claim that the Tristero exists as true nor dismiss as irrational on the basis that it is a conspiracy theory. She instead traces the evidence that proves that the Tristero exists or not. Throughout her quest, she refuses to believe that the conspiracy is real simply because the clues she finds show that the Tristero may be real.

If she immediately believes the conspiracy exists, then she may be a conspiracist, which she refuses to be.

The case is different in GR, which reveals that a conspiracy exists. Tyrone Slothrop, the protagonist of the novel, becomes suspicious that a conspiracy against him exists. Slothrop, like

Oedipa, chooses to investigate the existence of the conspiracy rationally by searching for the evidence that proves it exists. He succeeds in proving the conspiracy is real, but he fails to discover the conspirators and the goal of their conspiracy. Slothrop constantly struggles against becoming a conspiracist himself. The events that occur in the novel makes it difficult to arrive at the truth about the conspiracy, especially since Slothrop intuitively feels that his life is in danger.

Many of the characters who help him disappear or end up dead. As a result, his quest to find out everything about the conspiracy against him fails. Despite all the challenges he faces, he constantly insists on learning the truth from the evidence he gathers. Rather than becoming a conspiracist, Slothrop slips into madness, putting an end to his investigation. Pynchon’s novels offer the most rational use of conspiracy theory compared to the other novels in this dissertation, despite the failure of the protagonists to prove the existence of the conspiracies they investigate.

Reed’s Mumbo Jumbo is concerned about broader issues of conspiracy theory and conspiracism. Papa LaBas, the protagonist, is in a struggle against a conspiracy against a black cultural movement, which the novel refers to as Jes Grew, in 1920s United States. He accurately discovers the conspiracy, but he is wrong to go beyond the epistemological limitation of the conspiracy theory. Despite his accurate conspiracy theory, he is, to a degree, blind to the shortcomings of his conspiracism. His struggle ends up failing to protect the black cultural movement. Therefore, Mumbo Jumbo offers an example of a rational conspiracy theory that is failed by the conspiracism that employs it. The novel portrays a common form of conspiracy theories involving secret societies. MJ, like Pynchon’s GR, reveals the conspiracy against Jes

Grew. The conspirators are individuals who are members of a fictional secret society called the

Wallflower Order. Some members of the Knights Templar, an obsolete secret society that MJ resurrects for fictional purposes, becomes in charge of the conspiracy against Jes Grew. The goal

of the conspiracy is to undermine Jes Grew, which represents a challenge to the dominant white ideology of Western civilization. LaBas tries to prevent the success of the conspiracy against Jes

Grew. Due to his conspiracism, he fails to produce the evidence that proves the conspiracy exists when he tries to arrest the characters who are involved in the conspiracy. In the end, he ends up participating in a conspiracy himself. Conspiracism is LaBas’s character flaw, which MJ depicts in order to challenge it, even when the conspiracy he claims is real.

Lastly, in Eco’s Foucault Pendulum, conspiracism is ridiculed by a fabricated conspiracy theory. There is no rational conspiracy theory in this novel. Instead, there is a full-blown conspiracism that is consequentially harmful and fatal. The three central characters, Casaubon,

Belbo, and Diotallevi, work as editors in a publishing house. They receive a large number of manuscripts about secret societies and occult knowledge. One of the characters they meet claims that he has discovered a Knights Templars’ secret plan. He claims that he has found a coded message that reveals that plan is real. He claims that the location in which the message was found is the place where the Knights Templars secretly gathered in after Pope Clemente disbanded them in 1312. Later in the novel, Casaubon learns that the message is nothing more than a laundry list and that the place in which it was found is an old market. They fabricate a conspiracy theory they call the Plan. They put it together using a word processor in which they inserted random sentences from the pile of manuscripts they have in the publishing house. Belbo presents the Plan to someone who claims to be an expert in the history of secret societies and the occult. The novel reveals that there is a secret society called the Tres that become interested in the Plan. The Tres kidnap Belbo and try to force him to reveal the source of the Plan. Eventually, they kill Belbo, who refuses to reveal to them that the Plan is a fabrication. Eco’s novel focuses

on conspiracism and shows that it is not necessarily a truth-seeking worldview, even though conspiracists claim that they seek the truth behind everything that occurs.

By exploring these novels, implementing conspiracy theory rationally as well as the impact of conspiracism become clear. Pynchon’s novels show that conspiracy theory is a rational approach, but it still has epistemological limitations. The claim that a conspiracy exists is not enough to prove that it does. Moreover, even when someone investigates the existence of a conspiracy, the evidence may not be enough to prove beyond doubt that it is real. In this case, there is still a possibility that one may become a conspiracist, especially when the evidence is not strong enough to support the claim that a conspiracy exists. Reed’s novel shows that conspiracism may lead the investigation of a conspiracy astray. Because of conspiracism, people may desperately come up with their own explanations to try to prove the existence of a conspiracy. It merely proves they are desperate to prove the existence of a conspiracy without rational evidence that supports their claim. Finally, Eco’s novel shows that due to conspiracism, people may believe any claim that a conspiracy exists, even if conspiracy theories are fabricated.

They may even invent the evidence to support their claims and then believe their own invention, as the novel shows in several cases.

A Brief Analysis of Conspiracy Theory and Conspiracism

A year before novelist Ernest Hemingway ended his life with a shotgun, he was out with his friends Aaron E. Hotchner and Duke MacMullen and told that F.B.I. agents were “tailing” them as they were on their way to his house in Ketchum, Idaho. A few days later, Hotchner had dinner with Hemingway and his wife, Mary, in a local restaurant where they left halfway through dinner because Hemingway insisted they leave immediately. Mary was concerned and wanted to

know what was wrong, and Hemingway pointed to “[t]hose two F.B.I. agents at the bar, that’s what’s wrong” (Hotchner). On November 30, 1960, he was admitted, under an assumed name, to

St. Mary’s Hospital, also known as Mayo Clinic, in Rochester, Minnesota. He received eleven electroshock treatments throughout December of that year. His physical and mental conditions worsened. He tried to commit suicide twice using a gun from a vestibule rack. His wife and friends were very concerned about his deteriorating condition. Hemingway was arguably suffering from depression and seemed to have paranoid hallucination, which was puzzling to his family and friends. During his last year before his suicide, he insistently spoke about being under

F.B.I. surveillance as they followed him everywhere, bugged his room, and tapped the phones in the places where he stayed, including the phone outside of the hospital room where he received the shock treatments. He was even suspicious that one of his interns was a federal agent

(Hotchner). As Hotchner states, Hemingway “was afraid — afraid that the F.B.I. was after him, that his body was disintegrating, that his friends had turned on him, that living was no longer an option.” On June 2, 1961, he ended his life with a double-barreled shotgun in the mouth.

Hemingway’s family and friends have always dismissed his claims that F.B.I. agents were following him as paranoid delusions. His doctors even considered his claims of “hearing noises in his phone lines” as valid evidence for their diagnosis of clinical paranoia. Many factors contributed to their inability to find his claims truthful (since Hemingway was suffering from multiple illnesses), but this changed in 1983 when the F.B.I. released a 125-page file they collected beginning in World War II under J. Edgar Hoover’s direction. The records indicate that the F.B.I. monitored Hemingway’s activities in Cuba since 1942 when they opened his file. One of the documents reveals that the F.B.I. even bugged the phone outside his room during his stay in Mayo Clinic. He was right about the F.B.I. keeping track of his activities, but his claims

appeared problematic to his family and friends who thought that those conspiratorial claims resulted from his deteriorated health condition.

The release of the F.B.I. documents decades after Hemingway’s death made his family and friends reconsider their assessment of Hemingway’s suicide. They considered the surveillance activities of the F.B.I. as one of the factors of his death. They even regretted their inability to consider Hemingway’s “paranoid” claims possibly true at the time of his life. As

Hotchner states, “I have tried to reconcile Ernest’s fear of the F.B.I., which I regretfully misjudged, with the reality of the F.B.I. files. I now believe he truly sensed the surveillance, and that it substantially contributed to his anguish and his suicide” (Hotchner).

Hemingway’s unstable mental condition exaggerated his conspiratorial thoughts, which eventually had a real basis. He was right about the F.B.I.’s surveillance, but it is impossible to confirm that every person he suspected was a real agent. The release of the F.B.I. files on

Hemingway even casts doubts over the report of the psychiatric hospital that diagnosed him with paranoia. If they concluded that he was suffering from paranoia only because he made those claims about the F.B.I., and, on that basis recommended electroconvulsive therapy, then their diagnosis, to a certain extent, contributed to his suicide. However, it would have also been impossible to trust those claims since Hemingway’s deteriorating condition may have acted as a factor to support their diagnosis that he was, in fact, paranoid. So, the question is: How would

Hemingway’s doctors, and his family and friends too, be able to distinguish between thoughts that have a valid basis and those that were simply the exaggeration of an experience of fear and anxiety, i.e., paranoia? In Hemingway’s case, conspiratorial claims were considered a symptom of clinical paranoia that confirmed the diagnosis. Not knowing why the F.B.I. were surveilling him made his psychological condition even worse.

Hemingway’s case reflects many of those psychiatric practices which are viewed as oppressive due to the power relations between psychiatrists and the subjects diagnosed with certain mental and psychological illnesses. He was diagnosed with paranoia because he made conspiratorial claims. They even denied him his agency by prescribing more than ten electroconvulsive therapy sessions. Questioning the ethics of Hemingway’s situation in the psychiatric hospital is necessary. Similarly, we must examine the way we perceive paranoia and to what extent belief in conspiracy theory is paranoid.

One of the main reasons that lead to the perception of conspiracy theory as irrational is because conspiracism relies on the circulation of conspiracy theories. This presumption of irrationality led the majority of the critics to address issues of conspiracism as absolutely the same as the issues of conspiracy theories. For decades, the works of those who are skeptical of conspiracy theory cite examples of conspiracism to highlight the problems with conspiracy theory. However, some critics counter this conflation of conspiracism with conspiracy theory.

The works of authors such as Brian L. Keely (2007), David Coady (2012), and Matthew Dentith

(2016) argue for the plausibility of conspiracy theory as an epistemological method. These authors present the argument in response to decades of works on the notion that belief in conspiracy theories is irrational and unscientific. So, how should conspiracy theory be defined?

Moreover, what counts as a rational conspiracy theory?

Defining Conspiracy Theory

When reduced to its essential components, conspiracy theory is simply a theory that investigates the possibility of the presence of a conspiracy to achieve suspicious goals. Matthew

Dentith’s The Philosophy of Conspiracy Theories offers an extensive analysis of the

epistemology of conspiracy theories. Dentith defines conspiracy theory as “any explanation of an event that cites the existence of a conspiracy as a salient cause” (30). He identifies three conditions that must be present for an event to count as a conspiracy: 1) the conspirators condition, by which we can identify the agents who are involved in a conspiracy; 2) the secrecy condition, which necessitates that the agents of a conspiracy conduct their plot without the awareness of the public of what they are up to; and, 3) the goal condition which specifies the outcome or results that the agents desire (23). When there is a particular narrative that satisfies these three conditions, then it is what we call a conspiracy theory. Dentith’s account of conspiracy theory describes it as an epistemological method, which does not necessarily mean that the conspiracy is real but indicates that there might be a conspiracy behind a particular incident. There is nothing significantly worrisome about this perception of conspiracy theory, but it must be taken seriously in any case. However, when conspiracy theory becomes a rhetorical device for political parties and ideologies, more than just an epistemological concern is involved.

It may reflect a conspiracist tendency that has nothing to do with discovering the truth about its claims.

The evidence that the conspiracy theory offers must confirm that there is no better way to explain the suspicious activity of individuals involved in a distrustful event. When we consider using conspiracy theory to investigate questionable situations, we must ask, “[i]s the conspiracy the best explanation for some event?” (Dentith 171). Depending on the answer, we may then look at the evidence that supports the conspiracy theory and see if the theory is best explained in terms of a conspiracy. “If the answer is no, then the conspiracy theory is unwarranted. If the answer is yes, then we have a conspiracy theory that is warranted and thus is rational to believe”

(Dentith 171). As Dentith argues, “[w]arranting a claim that a conspiracy exists only means that

the evidence shows there is a conspiracy in existence” (161). It remains a theory until the existence of the alleged conspiracy is proven real.

Conspiracy theories may not be the correct approach to explain distrust in specific organizations and institutions. They are, however, a sign that something in the political and social system is not operating at a trustworthy level. For instance, skepticism toward the F.B.I or the C.I.A. may be an indication that the level of secrecy by which they are operating is not assuring. So, some of the conspiracy theories that portray these government institutions as conspirators, as if they are not working fully for the best interest of the American people, are indications that there must be a higher level of scrutiny to make sure they are not taking advantage of the greater public. In other words, it is a call for more transparency into the performance of these institutions. It is a matter of questioning the authority of such institutions while keeping them under scrutiny. Dentith states:

Our trust in authority is – at least in part – predicated on our beliefs about just how

conspired or unconspired the world is. From the Moscow Trials to the NSA material

leaked by Edward Snowden, it looks as though conspiracy theorists have been right to

worry about that trust. We do not necessarily need to endorse their conspiracy theories to

recognise that our trust in influential institutions is much more conditional than many of

us like to think. (174)

The level of secrecy, primarily when information floods daily into the internet, makes it susceptible to conspiracy theories. Conspiracism thrives because of the level of confidentiality many institutions, locally and globally, require to operate.

Dentith argues that we should not even dismiss those narratives simply because they are conspiracy theories (6). The dismissal of a conspiracy theory instead must be “because we have

grounds for thinking either that the alleged conspiracy does not exist or that, even if a conspiracy does exist, it is not the best explanation” (6). Even though a small number of conspiracy theories are valid, the majority of theories about the presence of conspiracies are a reflection of problems beyond the claims that the conspiracy theories claim.

There is no specific political or ideological goal behind conspiracy theory in its abstract form other than discovering the truth about claims. It is a method to investigate particular political and social concerns. Conversely, conspiracism employs conspiracy theory as a rhetorical method that is extremely political. Conspiracism stretches out the methodology of conspiracy theory beyond its limitations to form a worldview. Everything becomes a conspiracy.

This view is extremist in the sense that it calls for an extreme distrust of all opposing views. It results in a phenomenon of “us versus them” that offers no middle ground for negotiation or even cooperation between different groups or parties.

Defining Conspiracism

The term ‘conspiracism’ first appeared in Frank Mintz’s The Liberty Lobby and the

American Right. His book describes the use of conspiracy theories to promote extreme Right- wing ideology and politics in the postwar era. He used and popularized the term “conspiracism” to refer to the conspiratorial worldview of the American Right, which “identifies elites, blames them for economic and social catastrophes, and assumes that things will be better once popular action can remove them from positions of power” (199). Mintz’s book looks into how the postwar American Right employed racism, conspiracism, and culturalism to voice “a monistic ideal in which white and often Protestant people would retake command, subdue alien dissent, and reassert the proper relationship of ethnic group to ethnic group” (12). He is more interested

in how the use of anti-Semitic and racist conspiracy theories have shaped the politics of the Right than in discussing what conspiracy theory is. It is not a study of the concept of “conspiracy theory,” which requires conceptualization on its own.

In modern times, conspiracism spurts out conspiracy theories for political gain.

Conspiracism is not a feature of a specific political ideology and not exclusive to Right-wing movements, even though they contributed primarily to its widespread dissemination during the second half of the twentieth century. It may appear on all sides of the political spectrum.

Sometimes it turns conspiracy theories into an oppressive fear-mongering political tool to call for taking command and suppressing opposition. According to Joseph Uscinski, “[r]ecent displays of populism, nationalism, xenophobia, and racism are all accompanied by conspiracy narratives”

(1). For instance, the conspiracy theories that circulated in Nazi Germany about global Jewish domination were exploited to justify the Nazi Party’s rise to power and the installment of its fascist rule. When examining these politicized and anti-Semitic conspiracy theories, we rarely ask: did they find the conspiracies they claimed existed? Since Nazism’s concern was not to discover the claimed conspiracies, they gained the power they needed. However, their accusations of the Jews continued, and the conspiracy theories about them later led to the justification of the Holocaust. As a result of the series of dreadful incidents, conspiracy theory has become associated with the extremely political form of conspiracism such as that of the Nazi

Party. Since then, it has become challenging to perceive conspiracy theory outside of the framework of conspiracism.

In contrast to conspiracism, conspiracy theory is neither positive nor negative on its own.

Conspiracies do happen, and conspiracy theories are rational when there is a plausible assumption that a conspiracy exists and must be investigated. It is an expression of suspicion and

skepticism which places the alleged subjects it calls ‘conspirators’ under scrutiny. When the plot of the alleged conspirators is exposed, then those claims of conspiratorial activity are no longer just theories. This use of conspiracy theory is rational since it is grounded in reality and corresponds to actual conspiratorial events. However, what if the conspiracy claimed in the theory does not exist? What if thinking about the presence of a conspiracy is purely fictional?

Even more, what if a conspiracy theory is an exaggerated claim about a random political incident? In these cases, belief in such conspiracy theories leans more toward conspiracism.

There are many cases in which conspiracy theories persist and continue to circulate even after they are debunked, and this is mainly an issue of conspiracism. Belief in conspiracy theories in this manner often results in fatal consequences. For instance, some individuals believe anti-vaccine conspiracy theories, or ‘Anti-Vaxxers,’ who argue that vaccines cause autism and that the pharmaceutical companies that manufacture vaccines are hiding this information from the public to make a profit from mandatory vaccination. Several studies have proven that there is no link between vaccines and autism (Taylor et al. 2014; Institute of Medicine 2004; Ball et al.

2001). However, despite the effort to debunk the myths of anti-vaccination conspiracy theories, they, unfortunately, continue to circulate and affect lives. Daniel Jolley and Karen M. Douglas’s study of the impact of belief in such conspiracy theories on society shows that the results of believing such conspiracy theories are detrimental and fatal since it pushes its believers to disregard the necessity and effectiveness of vaccines on child growth and health. Jolley and

Douglas, as well as a large number of scholars who look into the impact of belief in conspiracy theories on society, have not studied conspiracy theory as an abstract epistemological method.

They all have examined the effects of ‘conspiracism’ which exists at the core of unwarranted belief in conspiracy theories.

In cases like the anti-Vaxxer conspiracy theories, we may argue that belief in such conspiracy theories is irrational yet politicized predominantly because of conspiracism. They are irrational and unbelievable because their claims have been investigated and proven false, and yet there is the tendency to hold on to them because of the culture of conspiracism. Examples of those theories include the naming of secret societies as orchestrating a global domination conspiracy even though some of them do not really exist, the claim that forms of extraterrestrial entities (i.e., shape-shifting reptilians) exist but the United States government is hiding the evidence, or the idea that scientists fabricated global warming theories to gain ideological and financial support. Even though these narratives have been disproved, they continue to circulate because conspiracism promotes a very simplistic and appealing view that everything happens as a result of conspiracies. Such belief in a conspiratorial world is symptomatic of social and political issues that require attention equal to the need for disputing the conspiratorial claims.

Perhaps the political and social environment that fosters such a simplistic view would be more concerning than whether such conspiracy theories are true or not.

Pathological belief in conspiracy theories offers conspiracists a sense of security, at least for ‘knowing the truth’ presumably. Jovan Byford describes such belief in conspiracy theories as

“a ubiquitous feature of contemporary political and popular culture – an ‘everyday epistemological quick fix to often intractably complex problems’ of the modern age” (Byford 3).

Conspiracism obstructs one’s perception of a very complex reality, which may be perceived as threatening and intimidating. It preconceives contemporary social and political conditions within a historical framework that often portrays powerful elites as carrying out a conspiracy for global domination. Conspiracists blame those elites for the development of the political and economic systems that are globally dominant. This view is often exclusive to the culture of conspiracism—

very much existing within some populist movements—that insists that current global conditions are the result of an enormous secret plan formed centuries ago.

As conspiracists insist that they are ‘telling the truth,’ they are met with suspicion from parties with different worldviews. Because conspiracist conspiracy theories moved from the fringe to the center of politics, many thinkers and critics began to investigate what makes individuals susceptible to belief in conspiracy theories, i.e., conspiracists. They have studied conspiracy theories in a manner that makes them ideological markers while not necessarily discussing how conspiracy theory can be a useful tool to investigate actual conspiracies. They intended to study conspiracism, or belief in conspiracy theories, as part of a general worldview.

Still, since they referred to it as ‘conspiracy theory,’ they resulted in the conflation of both terms.

The early studies that attempted to address some of the issues associated with conspiracism were mainly focused on the factors that lead to the blind belief in conspiracy theories. Because there is no distinction between conspiracy theory and conspiracism, both are generally discussed under the term ‘conspiracy theory.’ Michael Butter and Peter Knight identify three early strands from which studies on belief in conspiracy theories emerged. During the first half of the twentieth century, belief in conspiracy theories was associated with certain personality types, namely those that political psychologists Harold Lasswell and Theodor Adorno have identified as “the agitator” and “the authoritarian personality,” respectively. On other occasions, sociologists Leo Loewenthal and Norbert Guterman “related belief in conspiracy theories to the complexities of modernization and the emergence of mass societies” (Butter and Knight 34). The third strand was Karl Popper’s critique of “the conspiracy theory of society,” which popularized the term ‘conspiracy theory’ in the academic discussion of it. In all of these early strands, there is enough distinction made between conspiracy theory and conspiracism. However, it is plausible

that whatever issues they find with belief in conspiracy theories are attributable to conspiracism only.

The earliest most important account discussing belief in conspiracy theories is Popper’s

1945 Open Society and its Enemies which, on a single page, touches briefly on the idea of conspiracism (using the term ‘conspiracy theory’). The “conspiracy theory of society” according to Popper is the view that:

an explanation of a social phenomenon consists in the discovery of the men or groups

who are interested in the occurrence of this phenomenon (sometimes it is a hidden

interest which has first to be revealed), and who have planned and conspired to bring it

about. (96)

He bases his criticism of the conspiratorial worldview on his consideration that “large-scale, coordinated action imagined by conspiracy theorists was impossible because of the inevitability of unintended consequences in complex societies” (Butter and Knight 34). Popper finds belief in conspiracy theory as a worldview problematic, even though he admits that some conspiracies do happen, but not as frequently as conspiracists claim (Popper 96).

Similarly, when Fredric Jameson approaches conspiracism, he uses the term “conspiracy theory” to describe its inability to account for the totality of the reality as well as the historical development of our contemporary economic global structure. In Postmodernism, or the Cultural

Logic of Late Capitalism, he argues that regarding the growing network of transnational corporate power and our failure to perceive such a system, “conspiracy theory (and its garish narrative manifestations) must be seen as a degraded attempt––through the figuration of advanced technology––to think the impossible totality of the contemporary world system” (38).

By such totality, Jameson means the perception of the overall reality of the mode of production

of late capitalism, of which postmodernism is the cultural logic. He argues that one of the symptoms of the postmodernist cultural logic is that of the weakening or “loss of historicity” (x).

The weakening of hermeneutic models and instruments of understanding, in the cultural logic of late capitalism, results in what Jameson refers to as “historical deafness” which stands for “the effort to take the temperature of the age without instruments and in a situation in which we are not even sure there is so coherent a thing as ‘age,’ or zeitgeist or ‘system’ or ‘current situation’ any longer” (xi). In this context, conspiracism is ostensibly a reaction to the “historical deafness” that attempts to understand the temporality of the present through older narratives of conspiracy theories. In another context, Jameson rearticulates his argument:

Conspiracy, one is tempted to say, is the poor man’s cognitive mapping in the

postmodern age; it is the degraded figure of the total logic of late capital, a desperate

attempt to represent the latter’s system, whose failure is marked by its slippage into sheer

theme and content. (qtd. in Marasco 238)

“Conspiracy” is an attempt to arrive at a holistic view of how the economic structures of late capitalism functions. It is a “desperate attempt” to map out a view of a very complex incomprehensible global system. This statement is a clear indication that Jameson uses

“conspiracy” and “conspiracy theory” to refer to conspiracism. The early studies of and theories on “conspiracy theory” follow the same convention.

The Problem with ‘the Paranoid Style’

Of all the critics of conspiracism, it is Richard Hofstadter’s 1964 “The Paranoid Style in

American Politics” that has had the most impact on studies of conspiracism. Hofstadter’s work is concerned with the style of how conspiracists use conspiracy theories. His work presents a

paradigm, using ‘paranoia’ analogically as a feature, by which we may understand how conspiracism employs conspiracy theories. He describes the style as “the paranoid style” because

“no other word adequately evokes the qualities of heated exaggeration, suspiciousness, and conspiratorial fantasy that I have in mind” (4). He does not address the use of conspiracy theory as a rational epistemological tool. He writes, “[i]n the paranoid style, as I conceive it, the feeling of persecution is central, and it is indeed systematized in grandiose theories of conspiracy” (4).

Hofstadter further characterizes the paranoid style as follows:

there is a vital difference between the paranoid spokesman in politics and the clinical

paranoiac: although they both tend to be overheated, oversuspicious, overaggressive,

grandiose, and apocalyptic in expression, the clinical paranoid sees the hostile and

conspiratorial world in which he feels himself to be living as directed specifically against

him; the spokesman of the paranoid style finds it directed against a nation, a culture, a

way of life whose fate affects not himself alone but millions of others. Insofar as he does

not usually see himself singled out as the individual victim of a personal conspiracy, he is

somewhat more rational and much more disinterested. His sense that his political

passions are unselfish and patriotic, in fact, goes far to intensify his feeling of

righteousness and his moral indignation. (4)

In this statement, Hofstadter offers a diagnosis of the character of conspiracists. He describes them as paranoid individuals because their attitudes and worldview exhibit symptoms similar to clinical paranoia, but he does not consider conspiracists as clinical subjects.

The paranoid style is exclusively a study of the way by which conspiracists use conspiracy theories. Hofstadter describes it as “a way of seeing the world and of expressing oneself” (4). He identifies the historical perspective of conspiracists as that which views

conspiracies as the moving force in historical events. To conspiracists, “[h]istory is a conspiracy, set in motion by demonic forces of almost transcendent power” (29). Overall, the ‘paranoid style’ describes a conspiracist phenomenon, but somehow the majority of the scholarship on conspiracy theory that employs Hofstadter’s paradigm misses that point. The paradigm makes it difficult to perceive conspiracy theory as an epistemological method, although it is useful to understand the character of conspiracists.

Conspiracy theories themselves may be meaningless without considering what makes individuals or groups slightly “paranoid” in a colloquial sense. Hofstadter identifies a particular character that is vulnerable to conspiratorial thinking, as he states that “[t]he paranoid tendency is aroused by a confrontation of opposed interests which are (or are to be) totally irreconcilable, and thus by nature not susceptible to the normal political processes of bargain and compromise”

(Hofstadter 39). Because conspiracists are “[f]eeling that they have no access to political bargaining or the making of decisions, they find their original conception of the world of power as omnipotent, sinister, and malicious fully confirmed” (39). In a way, such a position is an expression of an extreme sense of unwarranted distrust in government institutions. As a result, instead of identifying and addressing the flaws within the system, conspiracists tend to short- circuit the complex democratic political processes by accusing the opposing institutions, parties, and individuals of carrying out a conspiracy against them.

Hofstadter’s work paved the way for later studies to investigate conspiracy theories in a range of fields of historical, sociological, psychological, and cultural studies. His essay not only made thinking of conspiracy theory as a “style” possible, but also provided a paradigm “for those that focus on the aesthetic and narrative dimensions of conspiracy theories, their rhetorical transmission, or their dramatization in films and novels” (Butter and Knight 35). For decades

following Hofstadter’s essay, however, the paranoid style contributed majorly to the perspective that conspiracy theory is paranoid and delusional.

Since the 1990s, many studies on conspiracy theory have challenged the pathologizing paradigm that climaxed in Hofstadter’s essay and continued since then. If there is something paranoid in conspiracy theory, then it should be attributed to the culture of conspiracism and not the concept of conspiracy theory. The distinction makes conceptualizing conspiracy theory as an epistemological method possible without the inherent paranoid issues and problems of conspiracism. It is for this reason, the lack of distinction between conspiracy theory and conspiracism, that there are calls for studying “conspiracy theory” far away from the constraints of the paradigm of the paranoid style.

The connotations of ‘paranoia’ have become descriptive of the nature of conspiracy theories, but it problematizes the usefulness of conspiracy theory as a method of investigation.

“If we consider paranoia to be irrational, then belief in conspiracy theories should be, by analogy, irrational as well” (Dentith 9). The analogy even extends to our perception of paranoid individuals as well in a circular manner. Because of Hofstadter’s essay, it has become difficult to separate conspiracy theory from paranoia. As a consequence, the inextricable relation between paranoia and conspiracy theory prevents us from understanding conspiracy theory on its terms because “[p]aranoid people believe conspiracy theories!’ ends up not explaining what is, if anything, wrong with conspiracy theories” (Dentith 10). Therefore, dismissing belief in conspiracy theory as paranoid is not a practical approach to understanding what is wrong with conspiracy theory at all. To describe conspiracy theory as a form of paranoia has a pejorative effect on our perception since paranoia would reduce claims of conspiracy theory to flawed epistemological attempts, mostly as a result of mental incapacity.

The inextricable relation between conspiracy theory and paranoia is the result of a very long cultural process. It is even challenging to form a conception of either one of them in isolation from the other. Once the relationship between the two becomes clear, only then does it become possible to perceive conspiracy theory as an objective approach. Paranoia, on the other hand, can be seen as a cognitive mechanism or method that is not necessarily a psychiatric condition. The relation between both has emerged during the second half of the twentieth century, and belief in conspiracy theory as a form of paranoia is a significant outcome of the postwar period.

Before then, conspiracy theory was approached differently. Bernard Bailyn argues that, in response to Hofstadter’s essay, conspiracy theory is not a contemporary phenomenon since it was also part of American politics preceding the American Revolution. He states that “the explosion of long-smoldering fears of ministerial conspiracy was by no means an exclusively

American phenomenon” (125), and that “the opponents of the Revolution -the administration itself - were as convinced as were the leaders of the Revolutionary movement that they were themselves the victims of conspiratorial designs” (150). Bailyn’s argument indicates that assuming a conspiracy exists is not necessarily conspiracist. The conspiracy theories that were part of the American Revolution reflect a politics of suspicion calling for vigilance and cautiousness. Thus, the ‘paranoid style’ must be studied as a critique of a particular kind of conspiracism in politics and not conspiracy theory as an epistemological phenomenon itself, which is useful to investigate genuine assumption about actual conspiracies.

As highlighted above, when Popper, Jameson, and Hofstadter address conspiracy theory, they discuss the worldview of conspiracism that takes conspiracy theory as its rhetorical expression. Skepticism toward conspiracy theory is often an extension of the dogmatic use of

conspiracy theories by conspiracists. Such skepticism aims at challenging the personhood of those with extreme belief in conspiracy theories. There are often calls for excluding them from participating in public affairs. As Ginna Husting and Martin Orr state, there is an assumption

“that those who believe conspiracy theorists have some personality flaw (an essential character weakness predisposing them to paranoia or gullibility) or are buffeted by forces not only beyond their control but beyond their ken” (140). These ways to perceive conspiracy theories have, for decades, led to the perception of belief in them as pathological without ever considering the claims made in specific conspiracy theories.

Furthermore, the concept of conspiracy theory has become stigmatized in the academic fields as well as in daily interactions. To be labeled ‘conspiracy theorist’ is to be accused of being delusional and irrational, but it is far more complicated than that. Husting and Orr argue that to accuse someone of being a conspiracy theorist is fallacious. They argue that the label has become a dangerous mechanism of exclusion. “The mechanism allows those who use it to sidestep sound scholarly and journalistic practice, avoiding the examination of evidence, often in favor of one of the most important errors in logic and rhetoric—the ad hominem attack” (147).

This exclusionary mechanism has often been used even to discourage engagement with many claims and arguments in academic fields. It is used to shun the probably authentic claims of researchers and journalists who investigate the possible presence of conspiracies, question the way by which specific political systems operate, and also discredit those who may attempt to take those claims and arguments seriously. By viewing conspiracy theory as an epistemological method, the focus will be on the presented argument instead of the personality of the individual who presents the claim that a conspiracy exists.

Trust and Distrust in Relation to Conspiracy Theory and Conspiracism

Suspicion and skepticism are ultimately at the core of all conspiracy theories. The idea of the presence of a conspiracy, or a secret plot, in any form, must be met with cautiousness. The responses to the possible existence of a conspiracy are not necessarily harmful, and in most cases, they are warranted by evidence indicating that there may be a malicious conspiracy behind a particular event. An example of that is when elected officials who are entrusted with the power to act in the best interest of the people in their country begin to act suspiciously regarding specific events. When they act as if they are hiding something nefarious from the public, distrust in them will increase to force them to ‘come clean’ in compliance with the requests of the public.

This situation aims to minimize threat and harm and restore trust in the political interplay between the people and their representatives.

Distrust is not the opposite of trust. It also does not indicate a lack of trust. Both trust and distrust are necessary to maintain most relations, especially those that are complex and involve positing individuals and parties in political power positions, such as in democratic societies and governments. The relation between trust and distrust in open democratic societies is paradoxical.

The absence of one does not necessarily mean the presence of the other. Trust is needed to assure

“the smooth functioning of the most basic democratic institutions, that trust is among the central public attitudes that must prevail in order for these institutions to maintain support over time”

(Lenard 54). Distrust, on the other hand, as Patti Tamara Lenard states, “is best interpreted as an attitude that reflects suspicion and cynicism about the action of others” (56). Distrust and suspicion, as Roderick Kramer elaborates, “are generally conceptualized as psychological states that are closely linked to individuals’ beliefs and expectations about other people” (136-137). In democratic societies, distrust allows citizens to be vigilant and watchful of those they choose as

their representatives. In general, trust and distrust are necessary factors in any relationship between individuals and groups.

Distrust is warranted by plausible observations and indications that there may be a conspiracy. Warranting distrust does not indicate that what the distrusting party suspects is real.

Further investigation into the situation that causes distrust is required. If there is no reason behind distrust, it may be considered irrational and unrealistic. “Irrational distrust reflects the exaggerated propensity toward distrust, which can arise even in the absence of specific experiences or interactional histories that justify or warrant it” (Kramer 138). Incessant irrational or unwarranted distrust leads to what Kramer refers to as “collective paranoia” between social groups. The term refers to “the response to collectively held beliefs, either false or exaggerated, that cluster around ideas of being harassed, threatened, harmed, subjugated, persecuted, accused, mistreated, wronged, tormented, disparaged, or vilified by a malevolent out-group or out-groups”

(141). Kramer focuses on the interplay between groups as they cooperate based on trust between them, which requires more transparency and confrontation to advance toward a common end.

Collective paranoia is the result of heightened self-consciousness, perceived evaluative scrutiny, and uncertainty about social standing. These issues reflect problems within the relationship between individuals and groups based on the degrees of trust and distrust on which the relationship is maintained. Kramer notes that collective paranoia may lead to “exaggerated perceptions of conspiracy” (148). In other words, amplified belief in conspiracy theories may be the result of excessive distrust that conspiracists feel.

Kramer’s conception of paranoia has degrees. His use of the concept of paranoia is in the light of studies that “focused on less extreme forms of paranoid cognition that arise in ordinary social and situational contexts” (140). He is careful to distinguish between the extreme form of

clinical paranoia and the “milder form” of paranoid cognitions that are “quite prevalent and are often observed among normal individuals, especially when people find themselves in what they perceive as awkward or threatening social situations” (140). It is in this manner that paranoia as a concept can also be understood as having degrees on a spectrum. The milder form of paranoia is an experience that very often results from everyday social interactions that are perceived to be threatening and suspicious. It only becomes a clinical condition in its extreme form, which, in

Kramer’s argument, is based on a form of distrust that is often irrational and unrealistic because it is not grounded on observations that justify it.

Collective paranoia, as Kramer refers to it, best describes conspiracism. The term

“paranoia” is not inappropriate to describe the conditions which govern the culture of conspiracism. It is possible to think of conspiracy theory in terms that have nothing to do whatsoever with conspiracism. Still, since it is the rhetorical tool employed by conspiracism, it has become problematic to discuss the former without the latter. So, early in the scholarly debate about conspiracy theory, the use of the term “conspiracy theory” was interchangeable with

“paranoia.” I argue that conspiracism should have been the term used instead of paranoia because it describes a unique culture that believes that everything is a conspiracy. Frank Mintz accurately used the term “conspiracism” to describe it.

The novels discussed in this dissertation explore paranoia in relation to conspiracy theory and conspiracism. Paranoia emerges as the overwhelming fear and suspicion of the unknown, which is not necessarily a conspiracy. In the second chapter, the protagonists of The Crying of

Lot 49 and Gravity’s Rainbow are in fear that what they perceive may not be trusted as real.

They suspect that there is an overarching reality beyond what they perceive as real. Pynchon’s protagonists go on a quest to investigate their reality. Although their condition may be described

as paranoia, they persist in finding the evidence to prove the existence of a reality beyond the one they perceive. In the third chapter, Mumbo Jumbo’s protagonist shows his distrust in secret societies due to their secrecy. However, he fails to realize that his main issue is with secrecy, which he persistently considers a conspiracy. His insistence that secrecy is a conspiracy is the result of his conspiracism, which is an extreme form of paranoid suspicion. Finally, in the last chapter, protagonists of Eco’s Foucault’s Pendulum refuse to believe the conspiracist claim that a Knights Templars’ plan exists. The novel provides the counterevidence for this claim in order to show that the characters who believe a plan exists are irrational. Eco’s novel even shows that the conspiracist characters do not trust the evidence that proves the invalidity of their claims.

They presuppose that a conspiracy must exist. Therefore, there must be evidence that proves it.

They are in a constant situation of distrust beyond any rational limit.

What distinguishes the rational investigation of conspiracies from the irrational and exaggerated belief in conspiracy theories is that the former maintains trust in the factual evidence that proves the conspiracy exists. In contrast, the latter refuses any evidence that proves otherwise. This dissertation will discuss each novel’s take on this issue. Conspiracy theory, as an epistemological approach, has its limits. It cannot go beyond the evidence the supports the claim that a conspiracy exists. The evidence should prove the validity of a conspiracy theory, therefore proving that the conspiracy is real. Otherwise, the evidence is dismissed as implausible. Also, the counterevidence should determine that what has taken place is not a conspiracy in order to refute a conspiracy theory. This case will be discussed in the second chapter, which explores Pynchon’s novels. The other two chapters will discuss the willingness of the conspiracists to go beyond reason to prove their cases. In the third chapter, conspiracism results in the protagonist’s conflation of secrecy with conspiracy. Instead of challenging the real cultural issues, he ends up

with a strawman case as he thinks that preventing a conspiracy without factual evidence would solve the issues he faces. In the last chapter, conspiracism results in the total disregard of the evidence that a presumed conspiracy does not exist. Overall, the novels discussed are instrumental in exploring the issues of conspiracy theory and conspiracism, mainly since they reflect the cultural issues resulting from the Cold War period in which they were published.

Although these novels mainly address central concerns within the historical context from which they emerged, the issues of conspiracy theory and conspiracism they address are still relevant today in the twenty-first century. Pynchon’s The Crying of Lot 49 and Gravity’s

Rainbow reflect the situation of individuals who are combatting conspiracism by grounding their conspiracy theories on factual evidence that support their claims. Investigating conspiracies is not necessarily conspiracist, and Pynchon’s protagonists represent this case. Reed’s Mumbo

Jumbo reflects the situation of genuine social struggles that are usually dismissed because they claim conspiracies exist. Even when conspiracies occur, Reed shows that conspiracism is not the appropriate way to move forward the cases for justice and equality. In general, the content of the novel still resonates with contemporary politics, especially when Right-wing groups argue that

Leftist movements, such as Black Lives Matter or Antifa, are a threat to Western civilization.

Finally, Eco’s Foucault’s Pendulum challenges the view that there are always conspiracies behind the events that occur. The novel shows how rational interpretation of facts and evidence is essential to build one’s case about the existence of conspiracies, which is relevant in today’s political discourse about systemic issues. The challenges of the present are not the same as those of the past, and it seems that the problems of conspiracy theory and conspiracism occur in cycles unless a serious commitment to solving these problems takes place.

II. The Limits of Conspiracy Theory in Pynchon’s The Crying of Lot 49 and Gravity’s Rainbow

Conspiracy theorizing, or the process of investigating the existence of a conspiracy, can be rational. When there are suspicions that a conspiracy may exist, then perhaps the best way to confirm whether it exists or not is to investigate it. Conspiracy theories are not prima facie irrational and unjustified simply because they are conspiracy theories. There are many ways to prove the existence of a conspiracy. Through any of these ways, if the evidence leads to the discovery of a conspiracy, then it exists. Otherwise, the evidence must prove the conspiracy does not exist in order to dismiss the theory as invalid. However, investigating conspiracy theories may be a risky challenge, because one may, in fact, be dealing with conspiracism, which is the fallacious belief that history only unveils through conspiracies.

Thomas Pynchon’s characters in The Crying of Lot 49 and Gravity’s Rainbow face the challenge of revealing conspiracies. In Lot 49, the protagonist, Oedipa Maas, is on a quest to discover the existence of a secret organization that has existed for more than a century. Tyrone

Slothrop, the central character in GR, is also on a quest to discover a potential conspiracy that would reveal to him details about himself and the reality of his childhood. Oedipa and Slothrop are reluctant to assume the existence of conspiracies even though their quests continue to be driven by the desire to know if they are absolutely true or not. They neither unwittingly believe that the conspiracies are real nor reject their claims solely because they are conspiracy theories.

Oedipa and Slothrop face an epistemological challenge that may reveal the presence of conspiracies. They may also find other explanations that would rule out the perception that conspiracies exist.

The conspiracies they are concerned about either exist or not. Otherwise, they would only remain with “possibilities” about the status of those conspiracies. These possibilities constitute the epistemological dilemma that the novels represent as “paranoia,” a state of perpetual uncertainty in which individuals become obsessed about the ultimate answer to their concerns.

Oedipa and Slothrop sense that they may be targets of conspiracies, but they are uncertain. They sense that there is something invisible. In other words, they are genuinely paranoid. However, one should not dismiss their conspiracy theories simply because they are prima facie paranoid, especially since Oedipa and Slothrop have objective reasons to consider the possibility that the conspiracies they investigate likely exist. Conspiracy theory, then, is the epistemological tool that guides Oedipa and Slothrop’s desire to discover the reality of their conspiracy theories, although, in some instances, they question their rationality and selfhood. Therefore, Oedipa and

Slothrop see the potential of conspiracy theories in guiding them toward knowledge about possible conspiracies, but they are afraid of being constrained by conspiracism.

Oedipa and Slothrop are paranoid but not in the sense that the clinical term “paranoia” describes. A clear definition of paranoia in a Pynchonesque sense appears in GR. It is defined as the “reflex of seeking other orders behind the visible” (219). In other words, it is “nothing less than the onset, the leading edge, of the discovery that everything is connected, everything in

Creation, a secondary illumination––not yet blindingly One, but at least connected, and perhaps a route In” (GR 703). It is instead a particular mindset that drives individuals to form connections between events that seem related, though they may not be, to arrive at a precise explanation. In

Pynchon’s works, paranoia is undoubtedly not a term that describes an extreme clinical mental condition that sometimes may require hospitalization.

Conspiracy theory and conspiracism in Pynchon’s novels operate by the same dynamics as the paranoia he represents, but with conspiracism taking those dynamics to the extreme. The distinction between the two is perhaps observable in how they begin and to what ends they proceed. On the one hand, conspiracy theory does not start with the conviction that a conspiracy absolutely exists. It begins with suspicion based on the indications that a conspiracy may exist.

Even more, the existence of a conspiracy remains a possibility. Conspiracy theory builds upon the rationally gathered evidence to either confirm or deny the presence of a conspiracy.

Conspiracism, on the other hand, is a reversed process that begins with the absolute conviction that conspiracies are real, and all that remains is to produce the evidence to prove their existence.

In other words, conspiracism considers any conspiracy theory as prima facie valid despite the evidence that there may be alternative explanations to the incident claimed to be a conspiracy.

Overall, conspiracy theory and conspiracism must be nuanced in relation to paranoia in Lot 49 and GR.

Considering paranoia as a spectrum would allow us to see the distinction between the two. When fear and suspicion are aroused by uncertain threats, any individual is more likely to experience paranoia. Paranoia is a logical response to uncertainty. It drives the individual to be vigilant so that he or she can protect themselves from the uncertainty of some circumstances.

Conspiracies are fundamentally secretive, and rational conspiracy theory is a method to discover whether the assumed conspiracy is real. In other words, if there are indications that there may be a conspiracy, then a rational investigation is required to combat its uncertainty and make things clear. Therefore, conspiracy theory is restricted to confirming or dismissing the existence of a conspiracy. In contrast, conspiracism does not maintain this restriction because it is not necessarily a truth-seeking attitude. On the spectrum of paranoia, conspiracism is at the very

extreme. It counterproductively rules out any explanation that the assumed conspiracy does not exist. The only answers conspiracism approves are those that prove its claims true.

In Pynchon’s novels, the characters represent different degrees of paranoia. These characters have different views on the idea of conspiracy. Some conspiracists definitely believe that they are victims of actual conspiracies, and some are indifferent toward the idea of a conspiracy targeting them. Perhaps it is only Pynchon’s protagonists who appear to be employing conspiracy theory as an epistemological method. His protagonists are looking for the truth about the possible conspiracies they investigate, but there remains the risk that their investigation may be perceived as a conspiracist. This risk results from the lack of nuances between conspiracy theory and conspiracism. Moreover, most of that conflation may have resulted from decades of scholarly works that view any conspiratorial thinking (either conspiracy theory or conspiracism) as paranoia, often in a derogatory sense.

Pynchon’s Lot 49 and GR provide many cases that represent conspiracy theory as a rational epistemological tool and conspiracism as an extremely delusional worldview, both of which are presented through the theme of paranoia. The best examples of rational conspiracy theorizing can be observed in Oedipa and Slothrop’s quests. Both of them, after a series of suspicious incidents, begin to consider the possibility of existing conspiracies. The discovery of these conspiracies would explain their paranoid suspicion and put an end to it.

Besides the case of Oedipa and Slothrop, there are many conspiracist narratives scattered throughout the texts of Lot 49 and GR. However, critics often discuss conspiratorial thinking, whether it is the use of conspiracy theory or the outcome of conspiracism, as paranoia. They dismiss that there are nuances between conspiracy theory as a method and conspiracism as a worldview. It is logical to think of them as the result of an experience of paranoia, except that

conspiracism is more on the extreme. Perhaps on this account, when critics discuss the delusional and irrational outcome of paranoia in regard to conspiratorial thinking, they are more likely addressing issues beyond the rational use of conspiracy theory as an investigative tool, i.e., issues of conspiracism. There is not much on the use of conspiracy theory in comparison to conspiracist attitudes in the critiques Lot 49 and GR have received.

These critiques are generally interested in paranoia as a theme in these novels. They allow for the perception of paranoia as a cultural phenomenon. Through this perception, paranoia is addressed not in the derogatory sense that the word itself conveys. Instead, it is a psychological response that can be rational. Therefore, once paranoia appears to be reasonable to a certain extent, then it is possible to consider that thinking about a conspiracy can be consistent as well. Patrick O’Donnell defines cultural paranoia as “a way of seeing the multiple stratifications of reality, virtual and material, as interconnected or networked” (182).

O’Donnell’s conception of paranoia as a method is not mainly the activity of conspiracy theorizing. Cultural paranoia is instead “a kind of logical desire: an attempt to make order out of chaos, to make or see connections, and then to resist mimetically the discourse of mastery”

(O’Donnell 204). However, a significant complication of this mimetic form of paranoid resistance is that it ends up replicating the system which it resists (O’Donnell 204). What

O’Donnell sees as a paranoia that replicates that which it resists actually applies, I argue, not to conspiracy theory but to conspiracism which is heavily inflicted with delusional misconceptions to justify its resistance. In contrast, conspiracy theory as an epistemological tool is strictly focused on discovering the reality of existing conspiracies. The challenge that remains is to prove the existence of a plot based on the evidence. Otherwise, if it cannot be proven, then there is no need to be “paranoid” in a conspiracist sense.

Leo Bersani’s analysis builds on an understanding similar to O’Donnell’s, but he offers a unique perception of thinking about the meaning of conspiracy. Bersani notes that “[t]he paranoid intuition is ... one of an invisible interconnectedness” (102). Conspiratorial (or, as he refers to it, “conspirational”) thinking deals with the creation of connections. For instance,

“[t]echnology can collect the information necessary to draw connecting lines among the most disparate data, and the very drawing of those lines depends on what might be called a conspirational interconnectedness among those interested in data collection” (Bersani 102).

Therefore, “[t]o put things into relation with one another is already a conspirational move, or at the very least a gesture of control” (Bersani 102). Bersani argues that “[p]aranoid thinking hesitates between the suspicion that the truth is wholly obscured by the visible, and the equally disturbing sense that the truth may be a sinister, invisible design in the visible” (102).

Paranoia in Pynchon’s works is often described in relation to postmodernity. It is perceived as the response of postmodern subjects who feel themselves threatened by the fluidity and instability of their reality, mainly as a result of the skepticism toward grand narratives.

Aaron Rosenfeld argues that “[a]s the sense of the subject constructed in and through an encounter with signs becomes pervasive, it is the modernist subject—patching signs into coherence, shoring fragments against the ruins—who is under siege, in need of rescue” (355).

Since postmodernity is a phenomenon that impacted many individuals, paranoia has become, as

Rosenfeld describes it, a “broad-based cultural pathology” (340). Rosenfeld adds that “paranoia registers the disruptions caused by the shifting grounds underneath the subject” (355). Robert

Lacey also argues that, according to Pynchon, “paranoia may be the unfortunate result of living in a disenchanted world” (Americana 6.2, 2010). Such a disillusioned world is marked by the absence of or skepticism toward grand narratives, and paranoia can be perceived as a response by

attempting to restore order. Lacey highlights that a careful reading of Pynchon’s works, most notably GR, “suggests that he sees paranoia as a misguided faith” which counterproductively

“helps sustain the system of power” (Americana 6.2, 2010). Furthermore, Jon Simons explains

Pynchon’s characterization of paranoia and states that “[t]he paranoid tendency to totalize by finding connections between everything is but an extreme version of the necessity to render the world intelligible by imposing some order, making some connections, by means of metaphorical connections” (217). Simons emphasizes that the insistence to totalize “is itself counterproductive and prevents the questing characters from orienting themselves in their worlds and adopting a perspective from which to act to change the world, rather than know it” (217). In this light,

Pynchon’s works make a case for eliminating any paranoid conspiracist tendencies from investigating actual conspiracies using conspiracy theory as an epistemological method. They also show that there are restrictions to epistemological tools since they are incapable of offering a totalizing theory of the world. This is the case of Oedipa and Slothrop who eventually fail to find totality in their quests. As a result, Oedipa remains with “possibilities” only, whereas

Slothrop becomes psychotic. In my argument, the paranoia of the protagonists of Pynchon’s novels does not necessarily indicate that the conspiracy theories they are investigating are invalid. Their paranoia can be described as a mental process that allows them to make rational connections. Both Oedipa and Slothrop wrestle with their paranoia so that they do not believe in the explanations they arrive at without the plausible evidence that supports them.

In general, the various analyses of paranoia in Pynchon’s work describe it as a force of making connections between the visible and invisible. To some extent, paranoia can be a logical and rational reaction when the suspicion and demand for awareness are justified and warranted.

The risk is then when such a state of paranoia is taken to the extreme. So, if one is suspicious that

a conspiracy may exist, then the paranoia they experience is rational. This case has occurred in many works of journalism that proved the existence of conspiracies, such as for instance, the

Watergate scandal during Nixon’s presidency. Because of the social stigma attached to conspiracy theory, such works are basically referred to as works of journalism even though they were initially rational conspiracy theories. Oedipa’s quest in Lot 49 can also be described as a work of journalism since she does not accept the Tristero conspiracy theory as prima facie valid.

The novel ends at the moment of revelation––but does not reveal––whether the existence of the

Tristero is real or not. As a result, Oedipa’s quest remains in progress without any foreseeable resolution.

“Revelation in progress”: Oedipa’s Paranoia and Conspiracy Theory

In Lot 49, Oedipa finds out that she is named co-executor of the will of her ex-lover

Pierce Inverarity, a real estate tycoon and investor. She goes to Roseman, her family’s lawyer, who explains to her the long process of executing a will. She asks if somebody can do it for her, and he replies, “Me .. some of it, sure. But aren’t you even interested?” (10). She then asks him,

“[i]n what?” to which he responds, “[i]n what you might find out?” (10). Oedipa then becomes introspective and ponders on her lack of control and agency over her life as if entrapped in a magical tower. She “soon realizes that her tower, its height and architecture, are like her ego only incidental: that what really keeps her where she is is magic, anonymous and malignant, visited on her from the outside and for no reason at all” (11-12). Oedipa then considers that going on a quest to “examine this formless magic, how to measure its field strength, count its lines of force, she may fall back on superstition, or take up a useful hobby like embroidery, or go mad, or marry a disk jokey” (12). This expression describes Oedipa’s paranoia as a means to regain control and

find her agency. She realizes that by escaping her magical tower, she will be overwhelmed by paranoia because the consequences are uncertain. However, paranoia is not a mental state that she prefers, but it is inescapable since she ventures into a reality she has not yet explored on her own.

Part of that reality consists of the possibility that a secret mail organization called the

Tristero exists. The Tristero conspiracy theory is a theory about the existence of a mail system that went underground after they were defeated by Thurn and Taxis, a real private mail company that existed in the eighteenth century. When she learns about the conspiracy theory of the

Tristero System, she neither immediately believes nor rejects the possibility it exists. Instant belief in the conspiracy theory is irrational and means she is conspiracist. Furthermore, immediate rejection of the possibility of the conspiracy theory is also unreasonable since it is not based on a logical conclusion.

Oedipa attempts to limit her paranoia within rational boundaries. Her paranoid thinking may allow her to investigate the existence of a conspiracy, but she constantly refuses to cross the rational limit and succumb to conspiracism. Her insistence on controlling her paranoia instead of allowing it to control her beyond rational boundaries is not clear the critiques of paranoia in Lot

49. D. C. Dougherty argues that “Pynchon treats paranoia as a ‘desperate rationality’ or an insistence that, if events themselves will not make sense, one can impose logic and consistency on them by transforming their randomness into the consequence of the will of some nemesis”

(72). Dougherty’s statement conflates two aspects of paranoid thinking. First, the process of

“making sense” by organizing details re-appear to be random can be perceived as a process that paranoia enables. Oedipa attempts to gather the evidence that establishes connections between random clues rationally. However, she consistently resists the conspiracist interpretation of these

clues that would have made her instantly believe that the Tristero is real. This is the second aspect of paranoia, but it is often formed as a result of an extremely irrepressible paranoid experience which signifies most cases of conspiracism. In contrast, Oedipa rather thoroughly and rationally researches the Tristero conspiracy theory as she tracks the resources of their history and observes how they may be operating secretly in the present.

The Tristero represents the utmost epistemological challenge in Oedipa’s quest. Although she experiences paranoia, the discovery of its existence may eventually resolve all of her problems and prove that she is not conspiracist. If it is real, then its discovery proves that she is not delusional about the signs she finds scattered around San Narciso. Otherwise, the conspiracy theory remains a theory that cannot be verified. Her quest initially is to execute Inverarity’s will, but she becomes engaged in investigating the existence of the Tristero as she learns about the history of the competition between private mail services. Because of this competition, the

Tristero allegedly may have gone underground in order to take down Thurn and Taxis effectively. The conspiracy theory indicates that the Tristero organization still exists and that its members often use a secret language of communication. They use mailboxes that appear as waste bins, often marked by W.A.S.T.E. (an acronym that stands for “We Are Silent Tristero’s

Empire”). The Tristero allegedly has the muted post horn as its symbol, which Oedipa begins to increasingly notice everywhere she looks when her curiosity intensifies later in the novel.

Her effort to discover the Tristero story comes from three types of resources. Firstly, most of what Oedipa learns about the Tristero comes from many verbal communications.

Secondly, she relies a lot on visual observations, especially the signs and symbols she finds around San Narciso, the fictional city in California where she lives. Thirdly, there is the textual resource, which is perhaps the most challenging type of resource. Oedipa attempts to rationalize

a narrative about the Tristero based on the information she receives from these three types of resources. Verbal communication is the least reliable resource since Oedipa seeks to confirm the authenticity of the stories she hears. She very often relies on the correlations she finds between the stories she is told and the observations she makes. The signs and symbols she finds scattered around San Narciso are obscure, and Oedipa is mostly puzzled by what they actually mean.

Eventually, the textual resources could have perhaps resolved some of the significant issues, but there is still the problem of not finding the texts she wants. As a result, the only hope to either confirm or dismiss the Tristero conspiracy theory is not provided in the novel. At the end of Lot

49, Oedipa places Inverarity’s stamp collection in an auction, and the expected bidder is assumed to be a Tristero member.

In general, Oedipa progresses from finding clues about Tristero, to correlations between multiple resources, to considerations about the possible scenarios about what possibly happened to the Tristero, and eventually to conflicting conclusions about herself and the conspiracy theory.

This novel ends, however, without revealing the buyer’s identity. All the evidence Oedipa gathers is not substantial enough to prove the conspiracy theory correct, and to conclude that the evidence is not strong enough to either confirm or deny the existence is a rational stance.

Therefore, even if Oedipa is paranoid, the investigation she conducts and the findings she arrives at are a proof that she is not conspiracist. She prefers to conduct rational research into the conspiracy theory instead of resorting to conspiracism by simply believing it is true.

Clues to the Conspiracy

Oedipa’s initial finding of clues results from her experience of paranoia that makes her generally believe that there is something beneath the surface level of those clues. The first time

she coincidentally encounters clues about the Tristero conspiracy theory is in the third chapter of

Lot 49 when she goes to a bar called The Scope. The name itself hints at Oedipa being introduced to the “scope” of the conspiracy theory that is being revealed. It begins when Mike

Fallopian, a member of the fictional right-wing Peter Pinguid Society, a parody of the John Birch

Society, and a scholar researching nineteenth-century American history, introduces her to the history of the US government crackdown on the private mail service. Oedipa and Metzger, the lawyer who is also named co-executor of Inverarity’s will, meet Fallopian who explains the name of the Peter Pinguid Society. He receives a letter through the inter-office mail system of the Yoyodyne Corporation. Since the message is delivered at night, Oedipa and Metzger find it suspicious. Fallopian explains that “[i]t’s not as rebellious as it looks. We use Yoyodyne’s inter- office delivery” (38). Fallopian describes the protocol as “each member has to send at least one letter a week through the Yoyodyne system. If you don’t, you get fired” (39). In other words, there is nothing to be paranoid about in this system. The note Fallopian receives reveals that he is working on a book that deals with “a history of private mail delivery in the U.S., attempting to link the Civil War to the postal reform movement that had begun around 1845” (39). Fallopian mentions briefly how the postal reform “Acts ‘45, ‘47’, 51, and ‘55” were “Acts all designed to drive any private competition into financial ruin” (39). This exchange with Fallopian is for

Oedipa the starting point of forming the conspiracy theory of the Tristero.

This history of government suppression of private mail services that Fallopian provides to

Oedipa is one of the significant clues that would play into the explanation of the Tristero becoming a secret organization. This backstory is so far a verbal account of what may have occurred to the Tristero mail system, but it is also backed by historical record since Fallopian is generally studying the US government’s involvement in the affairs of private mail systems.

Fallopian becomes one of the sources from which Oedipa learns about the history of what may happen to the Tristero. However, Fallopian is not particularly knowledgeable about the Tristero, and so it appears that whatever they did has become part of the unknown past. The uncertainty of the Tristero organization is what makes it subject to conspiracy theorization, but Oedipa at this point of Lot 49 is not yet aware of the scope of the Tristero conspiracy theory which haunts her for the rest of the story.

Oedipa’s paranoia does not force her to believe in conspiracist views immediately. It rather progresses slowly from observation of small clues that used to mean nothing toward a massive conspiracy theory about the Tristero existence. When Oedipa initially notices each of the clues on its own, she does not feel that they are significant but maintains that they may lead her somewhere. However, when they begin to correlate consistently in many situations, she becomes more inquisitive about their meanings and origins. She becomes puzzled by other clues when she uses the ladies’ room of The Scope. On the wall, she finds a message that says,

“[i]nterested in sophisticated fun? You, hubby, girl friends. The more the merrier. Get in touch with Kirby, through WASTE only, Box 7391, L.A.” (38). Oedipa reflects on how the word

“WASTE” is in all capital letters. It is revealed later in the novel that it possibly stands for the

Tristero slogan “We Await Silent Tristero’s Empire.” Below this message, the symbol that probably belongs to the Tristero is drawn. “Beneath the notice, faintly in pencil, was a symbol she’d never seen before, a loop, triangle and trapezoid” which represents the muted post horn

(38). The clues are ambiguous. They are not, at least at this point, indicative of the Tristero secret organization.

Another random situation in which she encounters the correlations between the muted horn symbol and the Tristero slogan W.A.S.T.E. occurs when she attends the Yoyodyne

stockholders’ meeting. She wanders around the cafeteria and finds Stanley Koteks, an engineer at Yoyodyne, doodling the muted horn symbol. She attempts to test the correlations by telling

Koteks “Kirby sent me” (67). She refers to the writings on the wall of the ladies’ room in The

Scope. The narrator reveals that the way Oedipa mentions the name “was supposed to sound conspiratorial, but came out silly” (67). This incident shows that Oedipa is suspicious that the muted horn symbol is part of secret code, but she knows that “blunt questions like, what does that symbol mean? would get her nowhere” (67). Her approach then is to find out about it indirectly. She does the same thing with the WASTE acronym. After a long conversation with

Koteks about the Nefastis Machine, which theoretically violates the Second Law of

Thermodynamics, Oedipa tries to write down the address of John Nefastis, the Berkley “mad” scientist who invented the machine. Koteks makes a mistake by giving Oedipa the wrong address first and then tries to fix it. Oedipa then attempts indirectly to test the word WASTE by noting that “the WASTE address isn’t good anymore” (69). However, she pronounces it as “waste,” and

Koteks replies with “[i]t’s W.A.S.T.E. … an acronym, not ‘waste,’ and we had best not go into it any further” (70). It becomes part of her quest to visit John Nefastis so that he may reveal to her anything related to the muted horn symbol and the W.A.S.T.E. acronym. Koteks’ dubious attitude implies that there is something behind these two clues that he cannot reveal.

Oedipa’s paranoia allows her to become cautious and careful, especially when she gathers information on the Tristero. She often relies on an indirect approach to solicit information later in the novel. She meets an anonymous character who is wearing “a pin in the shape of the Trystero post horn” (89). She attempts to know about what the pin means without looking suspicious. She assumes that since the Tristero maintains secrecy, then being obvious and blunt about her desire to know would prevent her from gathering any secret about it. She

introduces herself to this individual by telling him, “[w]hat if I told you .. that I was an agent of

Thurn and Taxis?” (89). This person appears to be puzzled by the information and replies with

“some theatrical agency?” (89). After a short conversation with him, he introduces her to an underground group called Inamorati Anonymous (AI) (91). The IA does not hold meetings.

Instead, they communicate with each other anonymously. As this person explains to Oedipa that

“[y]ou get a phone number, an answering service you can call. Nobody knows anybody else’s name; just the number in case it gets so bad you can’t handle it alone” (91). He explains that IA consists of “[a] whole underworld of suicides who failed. All keeping in touch through that secret delivery system” (94). However, this does not satisfy Oedipa’s curiosity since she wants to know more about how the muted post horn comes to represent IA. He tells her the story of the person who has founded this system of communication. The story states that the founding person was a Yoyodyne executive who attempted to commit suicide. This person was suffering from the lack of agency since “he could not make the decision without first hearing the ideas of a committee” (92). He posted an ad in the L.A. Times to ask if anyone else suffered the same. He began to receive letters, mostly “from suicides who had failed” (92). After soaking himself in gasoline while wearing a suit with all the letters he received in its pocket, he failed to light himself up. He took out the letters and saw that the stamps turned white. He peeled one of the stamps to see the symbol of the muted post horn on the back of it. He then decided to “found a society of isolates, dedicated to this purpose, and this sign, revealed by the same gasoline that almost destroyed me, will be its emblem” (94).

This story further complicates the Tristero conspiracy theory. There is a chance that the signs Oedipa sees distributed around San Narciso are done by IA members. However, it does not resolve the case because the founder of IA discovers the muted post horn symbol on the back of

one of the stamps on the letters he received. Oedipa, earlier in the novel, also finds out about this symbol in Inverarity’s collection of postage stamps. Inverarity’s stamp collection hints at the possibility that the Tristero may have been operating secretly for decades, and the incident of the founder of IA is an indication that they may still be working in the present. What is crucial for my purposes here is to understand that Oedipa does not find these pieces of evidence enough to prove the conspiracy. They instead enhance her theory when she adds them to other clues, but her investigation remains in progress.

Oedipa comes across significant clues she discovers in The Courier’s Tragedy, a fictional

Jacobean play by the fictional playwright Richard Wharfinger, involving the enmity between two mail delivery organization. The play narrates the story of Faggio and Squamuglia, two cities who are at war. A character named Gennaro from Faggio marches with an army toward Squamuglia.

Angelo, the Duke of Squamuglia, sends a message of peace to Gennaro with Niccolo. However,

Niccolo, the rightful heir of Faggio, flees to Squamuglia and poses as a Thurn and Taxis courier.

Angelo learns about Niccolo’s truth and sends someone after him to get him. However, this someone betrays Angelo and kills Niccolo, prompting Gennaro to destroy Squamuglia. During this scene, it appears that this someone is, in fact, three individuals. The assassins appear on stage as “long-limbed, effeminate, dressed in black tights, leotards and gloves, black silk over their faces … Their faces behind stockings are shadowy and deformed” (57). Later it will be revealed that they are possibly Tristero assassins. The way these assassins dress correlates with the notion that conspiracies are meant to be concealed from the public. When they show up in front of

Angelo on stage, he stutters “T-t-t-t-t …” (57). The play further conceals what Angelo realizes about his assassins, thus emphasizing the mysteriousness of Tristero. The play ends in a scene in which Gennaro mentions, “at last the name Angelo did not,” referring to the line mourning

Angelo “Who’s once been set his tryst with Trystero” (58). This scene captivates her, and she becomes more curious about what these actors represent. The scene refers to the competition between the private mail organization while tying the assassins to Tristero. This line will later constitute a considerable part of Oedipa’s research.

Oedipa further discovers other clues about the possibility of Tristero’s existence and also tries to find a reliable source to confirm it. She meets Dribelette, the director of the play, to ask him for the original text of the play, and he tells her someone else has borrowed it. She then asks him about a couple of the elements of the play, one of which is the “look he’s coached his cast to give each other whenever the subject of the Trystero assassins came up” (61). She wants to know if it is written in the stage direction, but Driblette informs her that it is his addition to the play and also “bringing the three assassins onstage in the fourth act. Wharfinger didn’t show them at all, you know” (61). Driblette’s statement does not reduce Oedipa’s curiosity as she attempts to find a reliable version of the play. Dribelette refers to the source of the text from which he has created the stage performance. “It’s an anthology, Jacobean Revenge Plays. There was a skull on the cover” (61). Finding a reliable version of the play becomes part of Oedipa’s quest from this point on.

The clues gradually build up the conspiracy theory of the Tristero. This gradual construction of the theory shows that Oedipa is slowly rationalizing the possibility that the conspiracy theory is correct, and much of the foundation of the Tristero conspiracy theory comes from the correlations she finds in various situations. Like Oedipa, we also begin to observe the clues and begin to study how they play a role in the structure of Lot 49. The story is narrated by a limited omniscient point of view since we are told about the Tristero conspiracy theory that will haunt Oedipa before she even realizes the extent to which it preoccupies her. The narrative itself

does not say much about the truth of the Tristero organization, and so we ourselves must examine these clues for meaning.

Correlations between Clues

Oedipa attends the performance of The Courier’s Tragedy to learn about a story other than the Tristero conflict with Thurn and Taxis. She initially wants to know about the use of human bones in the filters of Beaconsfield Cigarettes but finds herself diverting to the Tristero and Thurn and Taxis story. The story of the human bones goes back to the night Oedipa and

Metzger meet for the first time. They spend the night in Oedipa’s motel room watching a movie, and now and then the film is intercepted by advertisements. One of the ads introduces

Beaconsfield Cigarette’s use of “bone charcoal” (22). Metzger informs Oedipa that Inverarity

“owned 51% of the filter process” (22). A few days later, they meet an eccentric character named

Manny Di Presso, a lawyer and actor suing Inverarity’s estate for money Inverarity owed, who tells them a story about the smuggling of human bones to the US. When this event with Di

Presso occurs, Oedipa and Metzger are accompanied by the music group, The Paranoids, as well as their female fans. Di Presso’s story reminds one of the fans about The Courier’s Tragedy. Part of the play she recalls involves “[b]ones of lost battalion in lake, fished up, turned into charcoal”

(48). Oedipa attends to the play only to discover that it raises many more issues apart from those present in Di Presso’s story. She is no longer as interested in learning about the human bones than about the three assassins who appear on stage as part of the play.

The characteristics of the three assassins who appear on stage induce her paranoia, especially since they correlate with a story Oedipa is told days after the play. She meets Mr.

Thoth, an elderly man who lives in a home for senior citizens that Inverarity owned. Mr. Thoth

tells Oedipa a story about his grandfather, who worked for the Pony Express during the gold rush days, and his encounter with the “Indians who wore black feathers, the Indians who weren’t

Indians” (73). The reason they wore black feathers is so they would become invisible. In other words, there is a desire to remain unidentified and unrecognizable. Oedipa then inquires about their origin since they are not Indians, and Mr. Thoth replies with “a Mexican name,” hinting at

Tristero (74). Since he cannot recall the name, he remembers a ring his grandfather had cut off from the fingers of one of those people, and on the ring was “once again the WASTE symbol”

(74). She consults with Fallopian to see if he knows anything about those “dark adversaries” of the Pony Express (74). Fallopian remarks, “[m]arauders, nameless, faceless, dressed in black.

Probably hired by the Federal government. Those suppressions were brutal” (75). Fallopian refers to the federal government’s crackdown on private mail systems during the mid-nineteenth century through postal reform acts which his book addresses, but his remark does not identify these marauders as perhaps the Tristero. Overall, the correlation between the assassins on the stage of The Courier’s Tragedy and these Indians who are not Indians fuels her curiosity. The ring that Mr. Thoth presents to her even makes her further interested in tracing this correlation.

Mr. Thoth’s story is significant because his story provided Oedipa with verbal clues that are corroborated by visual evidence. The symbol on the ring itself could be one of the most important ties to the Tristero system.

The assassins on stage and the government suppression of private mail systems are not the only aspects Oedipa finds correlating with Mr. Thoth’s story. The narrator reveals that

“[m]uch of the revelation was to come through the stamp collection Pierce had left” (31). Around the middle of the novel, Metzger takes the stamp collection to Genghis Cohen, who, after a week of assessing the stamps, calls Oedipa and tells her “[t]here are some irregularities, Miz Maas …

Could you come over?” (74). Oedipa realizes that if anyone may know more about the history of the private mail system than Fallopian, then it is Cohen. The irregularities that Cohen points out to Oedipa relate to what he observes in the watermarks of the stamps. Cohen identifies that some of the stamps belong to the Thurn and Taxis private mail organization. These stamps are watermarked by the post horn symbol which Cohen states, “[i]t was in their coat of arms” (77).

However, the “irregularities” that puzzles Cohen are that some of them appear to be forged.

Some of the post horn symbols had “the extra little doojigger sort of coming out of the bell,” which Cohen anticipates is “a mute” (77). Oedipa then concludes that the purpose of placing the mute on the post horn, “was to mute the Thurn and Taxis post horn” (78), i.e., eliminate them from the competition. Cohen is as puzzled as Oedipa by the addition of the mute to the Thurn and Taxis symbol. Moreover, Cohen examines one of the stamps which a picture of “a Pony

Express rider galloping out of a western fort,” and in this same stamp, he also finds “a single, painstakingly engraved, black feather” (78). In Inverarity’s stamp collection, “mistakes” are deliberate according to Cohen. He says, “I’ve come so far with eight in all. Each one has an error like this, laboriously worked into the design, like a taunt” (78). These observations by Cohen, an expert in stamps, intensify Oedipa’s rationalization of the Tristero conspiracy theory. At the same time, they do not prove or disprove the theory at all. Oedipa considers Cohen’s remarks as part of the correlational evidence she accumulates as part of her investigation.

Another way to establish that Oedipa’s paranoia leads her to a refined investigation of the possibility of a conspiracy theory, as opposed to engaging in conspiracist thinking, is to examine her procedural process. In the Tristero conspiracy theory for instance, the Spanish name of

Tristero, the muted horn symbol, the black color (of either the clothes or the feathers) all appear together consistently in The Courier’s Tragedy, Mr. Thoth’s story, and Inverarity’s stamp

collection. These correlations are perhaps correlational evidence because the more one type of evidence appears, the more the others appear as well. Although they do not mainly confirm the conspiracy theory, tracing their origin is a tempting project. Moreover, they warrant the conspiracy theory and allow for the small possibility that it may be true, and Oedipa is tracing this possibility in spite of its narrowness. In addition to that, there is a possibility that correlations occur because of something other than a conspiracy. By juxtaposing the possibilities to which the correlations lead, Oedipa appears to be rational in her investigation of the Tristero conspiracy theory. She does not quickly jump to conclusions about what she finds in the clues or the correlations. She even considers the possibility that all of the Tristero conspiracy theory may, in fact, be a figment of her imagination. By taking into consideration multiple possibilities to solve the Tristero problem, Oedipa realizes that the issue itself may not be resolved at some point because none of the possibilities are conclusive. The readers of Lot 49 are also in the same position as Oedipa because the narrative itself neither confirms nor denies the Tristero conspiracy. Therefore, our judgment about the rationality of the conspiracy theory and assessment of Oedipa’s paranoia is put to the test, and precisely like Oedipa, we are left only with possibilities.

The Accumulation of Clues and Correlations

When correlations, which occur more often later in the novel, fails to add more to the

Tristero conspiracy theory, Oedipa takes a different task. To confine her paranoia within rational limits, her approach is to trace the resources to find out more about the Tristero. Her resources consist of the verbal narratives she receives from other characters and of textual materials. Her interest in these resources helps her trace the history of the Tristero. Oedipa gathers her evidence

from many resources, and the evidence accumulates to indicate that there are missing elements in the story about the conflict between the Tristero and Thurn and Taxis.

The day Oedipa goes to the play is the day she becomes interested in finding a textual resource. So far, all the clues she has gathered come from visual observations and verbal narratives, but she is intrigued by the play because it appears to present a historical depiction of what seems to be evidence that the Trystero exists as a shadowy organization. As the narrator reveals, Oedipa “wanted to find out where Richard Wharfinger had got his information about

Trystero” (80). While searching for the text of the play, Oedipa’s quest becomes a scholarly project to find out about the untold history of the Tristero. However, the challenge to find the text of The Courier’s Tragedy becomes very difficult, especially since she observes various copies with editorial changes from one version to another. She finds a copy of the play and begins her research on the origins of the text.

Paranoia may be a force to create connections between elements that appear loosely connected, but these connections are not necessarily delusional just because they result from a paranoid mental state. Oedipa chooses to establish the connections between various elements she finds in the Courier’s Tragedy by setting a rational goal, which is to investigate the historical references that informed Wharfinger’s depiction of the assassins. She opens the book and goes

“immediately to the single mention of the word Trystero” (71). She notes that next to this line appears “Cf. variant, 1687 ed.,” and she concludes that the note is perhaps written by “some student” (71). The preface of the book indicates the text is “taken from a folio edition” (72). The original version from which this paperback copy is taken is titled “Plays of Ford, Webster,

Tourneur and Wharfinger, published by The Lectern Press, Berkeley, California, back in 1957”

(71). She pays a visit to the publisher who refers her to a remote location that has a copy. She

becomes disappointed when she notes that this copy ends with “Who once has crossed the lusts of Angelo” instead of “Who’s once been set his tryst with Trystero” as she proclaims (81).

However, she investigates the footnote that states this ending is based on “the Quatro edition

(1687)” (81). The ending line is editorially contested. An earlier edition referred to as “the doubtful ‘Whitechapel’ version (c. 1670)” ends with “This tryst or odious awry, O Niccolo” (82).

Arguably, a critic named J.-K. Sale states that this line is perhaps “a pun on ‘This Trystero dies irae …’,” but the editor of Oedipa’s version claims that it “leaves the line as corrupt as before, owing to no clear meaning for the word Trystero, unless it be a pseudo-Italianate variant on triste

( = wretched, depraved)” (82). In general, this version leaves Oedipa even more puzzled about from where the paperback copy she bought gets the Trystero line. Nevertheless, she finds the name of the editor of this version, Professor Emory Bortz who formerly taught in UC at

Berkeley, now teaching in San Narciso.

Near the end of the novel, Oedipa meets Bortz and asks him about the “historical

Wharfinger. Not so much the verbal one” (124). Her question reflects her consistency in finding the truth instead of naively believing anything she is told without verifying it. She confidently asks about the last line of the play, which states, “Who’s once been set his tryst with Trystero”

(124). Bortz’s response further complicates the research. He asks Oedipa, “how did you get into the Vatican library?” (124). The problem is not only that it is difficult for her to get to the

Vatican library to find her answers, but she also learns that it is a “pornographic Courier’s

Tragedy” (125). When she asks why there is a pornographic version of the play, Bortz tells her that it is perhaps a version put together by a religious group called the Scurvhamite, who “were not fond of the theater,” and their aim was to condemn the play, “to damn it eternally” (128).

This information is problematic for Oedipa’s research since it is almost impossible to find an authoritative version of the play.

Oedipa gives up on the text of the play but becomes more engaged in learning the history of the Tristero. She eventually asks Bortz, “[w]hat was Trystero?” (129). He hands her a book titled An Account of the Singular Peregrinations of Dr. Diocletian Blobb among the Italians,

Illuminated with Exemplary Tales from the True History of That Outlandish And Fantastical

Race (129). In one of the book’s chapters, Oedipa finds a story about the author’s encounter with the Trystero assassins. She finally arrives at a text that confirms the correlations she sees between the play and Mr. Thoth’s story. The description confirms the characteristics she has found. Blobb’s story narrates that he was ambushed while riding “in a mail coach belonging to the “Torre and Tassis” system, which Oedipa figured must be Italian for Thurn and Taxis” (129).

The surprise attack was carried out by “a score of black-cloaked riders” who silently assassinated everyone in the coach except for Blobb and his servant (129). After they finished, the leader of the assassins took out Blobb from the coach and told him, “Messer, you have witnessed the wrath of Trystero. Know that we are not without mercy. Tell your king and Parliament what we have done. Tell them that we prevail. That neither the tempest, nor fierce beasts, nor the loneliness of the desert, not yet illegitimate usurpers of our rightful estate, can deter our couriers”

(130). This story confirms that the Tristero organization has existed in the past, and Blobb who was an eyewitness of their existence, wrote about his encounter in his book. Besides, it increases the possibility that the conspiracy theory may be correct, and what is left for Oedipa is to confirm their existence in the present.

She even comes across the original story from where the name of the Tristero comes. She learns about it in “a book of sermons by Blobb’s brother Augustine” that Bortz presents to her

(131). The historical narrative presents a Thurn and Taxis monopoly carried out by a group of influential individuals referred to as the Committee of Eighteen. “They controlled the police, dictated all decisions of the Estates-General, and threw out many holders of high positions in

Brussels” (131). An individual named Jan Hinckart becomes the Grand Master of Thurn and

Taxis. His appointment as Grand Master is contested by Hernando Joaquin de Tristero Calavera, who claimed to be the “rightful heir to everything Jan Hinckart possessed,” including his current position (131). At some point, because of the political turmoil in Europe, Thurn and Taxis were

“momentarily weakened and tottering,” which inspires Tristero to establish his own system

(132). He referred to himself as “El Desherdado, The Disinherited, and fashioned a livery of black for his followers, black to symbolize the only thing that truly belonged to them in their exile: the night” (132). He then “added to his iconography the muted post horn and a dead badger with its four feet in the air” (132). His campaign then began to sabotage all Thurn and Taxis operations in order to ruin them. Although it is fictional, given that it is Pynchon’s Lot 49, this historical account answers all her questions about the origins of the name and the symbol of the muted post horn, but why do they still show up in the present-day San Narciso?

After Oedipa finally learns everything about the history of the Tristero, Genghis Cohen, a stamp expert, asks her to visit him. He has received a letter from an old friend through the U.S.

Mail. “It turned out to be an old American stamp, bearing the device of the muted post horn, belly-up badger, and the motto: WE ARE SILENT TRISTERO’S EMPIRE” (139). Oedipa learns the meaning of this acronym for the first time in the novel from this stamp, unlike the readers of Lot 49, who are told early about what it actually means. However, a moment related to

W.A.S.T.E. precedes this one. At some point, she visits John Nefastis to test the Maxwell

Demon’s machine but leaves disappointed because the machine does not confirm she is a

“sensitive” (86). Nefastis’s place is essential in the incident related to the W.A.S.T.E. incident.

When Oedipa wanders around the city of San Narciso, she comes across a trash bin on which someone had “hand-painted the initials W.A.S.T.E.” (105). She decides to monitor any activity related to this presumed “mailbox,” and while observing from far away, she sees “a kid dropping a bundle of letters into the can” (105). She waits nearby until a person who seems to be a carrier appears and empties the letters from the trash bin into his bag. She follows him and sees that he exchanges bags with another carrier. She then remains, following the first carrier who leads her back to “a pseudo-Mexican apartment house” where Nefastis lives (106).

Aside from her observation of a supposedly W.A.S.T.E. operation, Oedipa is literally and figuratively “back where she’d started” (106). This incident neither proves nor denies that it is a

Tristero operation, at least not until she figures out what the acronym means by the end of the novel. This incident shows Oedipa’s determination to prove the existence of Tristero. She is consistent in her approach to investigate the case rationally rather than succumbing to paranoid conspiracism that would entail an immediate belief in the conspiracy theory despite the insufficiency of the evidence that proves it. Until this point, the mounting evidence is not enough to neither prove nor deny the existence of Tristero, but her paranoia forces her to continue the investigation in order to arrive at a final conclusion since there are still loose threads to follow.

Considerable Conclusions to Counter Conspiracism

Conspiracy theory, as an epistemological method, does not promise any totality. It is simply useful for tracing one particular thread of evidence that would reveal that a conspiracy is either real or not. In contrast, conspiracism entails a totality stating that everything that happens is the result of a conspiracy. Both concepts result from paranoia, but the latter is more the result

of an extremely paranoid state. Oedipa is combatting conspiracism by being always skeptical of the conspiracy theories she assumes unless there is factual evidence to support it.

Oedipa is tormented by the Tristero conspiracy theory, and the evidence she has gathered is full of loose ends. The conspiracy theory leads to two explanations. “Either Trystero did exist, in its own right, or it was being presumed, perhaps fantasied by Oedipa” (88). At one point,

Oedipa “wanted it all to be fantasy” but “also wanted to know why the chance of its being real should menace her” (107). The Tristero conspiracy theory remains inconclusive. The evidence points out that the conspiracy theory is possibly correct, but Oedipa maintains an equal chance that it is all a result of her descending into psychosis. However, there is also another possible explanation for the conspiracy theory. Near the end of the novel, Oedipa is disappointed that she cannot resolve the conspiracy theory definitively. Mike Fallopian offers her a third possible explanation. He says, “[h]as it ever occurred to you, Oedipa, that somebody’s putting you on?

That this is all a hoax, maybe something Inverarity set up before he died?” (138). As the narrator states, Oedipa has considered this possibility but she finds it foolishly unconvincing. Since all these three options are possible, Oedipa maintains a rational position to investigate and examine each one of them instead of becoming conspiracist herself.

The first explanation deals with the presumption that the Trsitero exists and that there is a chance to either confirm or dismiss the theory of their existence. The evidence that points towards the existence of the Tristero conspiracy is already discussed above, but what is left for

Oedipa is to attend the auction to identify the buyer of Inverarity’s stamp collection. The stamp collection, or as the narrative refers to it “the Tristero forgeries,” is going to be sold in lot 49 of the auction (145). A new bidder shows up on the scene whom, according to Genghis Cohen,

“neither I nor any of the firms in the area have heard of before” (145). The bidder prefers to be

unnamed, but according to an agent he hired named C. Morris Schrift, “he was an outsider”

(145). Cohen concludes that the bidder “may be from Tristero … And wants to keep evidence that Tristero exists out of unauthorized hands” (145). If the conspiracy theory may only be resolved when this bidder shows up, then the text does not allow us to reach a conclusion about it. The novel ends at the moment that Oedipa awaits “the crying of lot 49” (152).

The second explanation deals with the possibility that Oedipa may be acting out a fantasy, mainly a projection of her paranoid delusions. Early in the novel, she copied off the writings she finds on the Scope’s wall and the muted post horn in her memo book and wrote next to them, “Shall I project a world?” (66). Oedipa holds this possibility parallel to the Tristero conspiracy theory. However, this possible explanation is put to the test in two incidents. The first one occurs when Oedipa visits her psychiatrist, Dr. Hillarius who admits to having been a Nazi doctor at Buchenwald, while he is extremely paranoid. Hillarius becomes extremely conspiracist and tells Oedipa and his secretary that he is being followed by fanatic Israelis who are coming to his office to assassinate him. He locks himself inside his office while holding a rifle. Oedipa warns him that police officers are coming to arrest him and asks him to not “shoot at the cops”

(110). Hillarius replies, “[y]our Israeli has access to every uniform known. I can’t guarantee the safety of the ‘police.’ You couldn’t guarantee where they’d take me if I surrendered” (110). He even suspects that Oedipa is part of the conspiracy when he says, “[y]ou were supposed to deliver a message to me, I assume. From them. What were you supposed to say?” (110). Oedipa handles the situation wisely in a way that shows her ability to rationalize with Hillarius. She explains the situation to him as she says, “[f]ace up to your social responsibilities. Accept the reality principle. You’re outnumbered and they have superior firepower” (111). She even talks

Hillarius out of his situation and helps diffuse the moment of tension. Hillarius’s attitude toward

the conspiracy theory that Israelis are after him in contrast to Oedipa’s attitude toward the

Tristero conspiracy theory shows how extreme Hillarius is. Throughout the novel, Oedipa investigates her claims and searches for resources to solidify her case, while on the other hand,

Hillarius believes that he is being followed by Israelis. And while he had worked on a project under Hitler to induce insanity on people, his paranoia about an Israeli ambush stems from his own delusions and not rational thought.

The third option is less likely to be true. It is a conspiracy theory on its own. Throughout the novel, Oedipa randomly encounters other characters. Therefore, it is difficult to orchestrate this Inverarity conspiracy theory. It requires a vast amount of resourcefulness. If this whole affair about Tristero is a plan that Inverarity put together, then there is little evidence to support it.

Oedipa still neither believes nor denies that there is a slight possibility it is true. She studies this theory rationally by investigating the possible evidence that may warrant it. She traces the locations from which she has gathered evidence of Tristero’s existence. “Sure enough, the whole shopping center that housed Zapf’s Used Books and Termaine’s surplus place had been owned by Pierce [Inverarity]” (140). She concludes that “[e]very access route to the Tristero could be traced back to the Inverarity estate. Even Emory Bortz, with his copy of Blobb’s Peregrination

(bought, she had no doubt he’d tell her in the event she asked, also at Zapf’s), taught now at San

Narciso College, heavily endowed by the dead man” (140). This Inverarity conspiracy theory remains slightly possible, but it is challenging to confirm since it requires a confrontation with every character suspected of cooperating with Inverarity on his plan.

Oedipa is entrapped by this situation, which does not offer her resolutions. By taking into consideration all the possible outcomes of her quest, she is in a state of paranoia, always looking for evidence to support either of the possibilities. Overall, she is at the boundary between

rationality and madness, either investigate the conspiracy theory rational or succumb to conspiracism, and the only way to maintain her rationality is through investigating the evidence and tracing more information. She does not resort to conspiracism which would have happened if she just believes that either of the Tristero or Inverarity’s conspiracy theories is correct. The paranoia she experiences is paranoia in progress, one that maintains constant skepticism toward any total view of the world.

“Operational paranoia”: Slothrop’s Experience

In comparison to Lot 49, the plurality of narrative points of view in GR provides the reader the access to information the characters themselves do not know. In Lot 49, the reader’s role is limited since they do not know more than Oedipa. Debra Moddelmog states that as we follow the clues in Lot 49, “we arrive … at possibilities only” like Oedipa (310). This is a state of paranoia that Pynchon allows the readers to experience, a paranoia in process that is yet to find a resolution. Therefore, the conspiracy theory of the Tristero may perhaps be resolved if the narrative provided more information. In contrast, the readers of GR know more than any other character in the novel, but they stand helpless in guiding the protagonist. If only Slothrop knew what the readers know, the results might have been less tragic. Moreover, what the readers know allows them to have a broader understanding of the dynamics of paranoia. In Lot 49, the Tristero conspiracy theory may be likely true. In GR, however, the conspiracy Slothrop is investigating evidently exists, and therefore his paranoia is understandable as a psychological response to events that he finds suspicious.

Similar to Lot 49, paranoia is a theme in GR. The narrative even defines it as the “reflex of seeking other orders behind the visible” (219). Given the uncertainty of conspiracies, paranoia

is a rational mindset that gives Tyrone Slothrop the desire to find answers. Unlike Lot 49, GR is fraught with conspiracies, conspiracy theories, and conspiracist views, but the one that stands out as crucial in the novel is the conspiracy theory that haunts Slothrop. When the story begins, he does not know about the experiments Dr. Laszlo Jamf, a Swiss chemist and inventor of the plastic polymer called Imipolex G, performed on him as an infant. After a series of events,

Slothrop feels that he is being followed and monitored which apparently turns out to be true. He is followed by the agents of PISCES, a fictional psychological warfare agency stationed in an insane asylum called “the White Visitation.” Slothrop learns from two of the White Visitation operatives who follow him, Stephen Dodson-Truck and Katje Borgesius, that he is monitored because of his suspicious connection to the A4 rockets falling in London. However, he is uncertain about who is after him and why he is being followed, and the agents do not know everything about the operation itself except that they are following orders. His suspicion and anxiety increase gradually. The uncertainty of the situation he is involved in forces him to escape and go on a quest to find answers about the rocket and its connection to himself. Overall, he remains rational in his approach to find answers and attempt to discover the truth.

GR is set in a war zone in Europe near the end of World War II. The setting itself justifies the state of paranoia-induced hyper-vigilance. The war has taken a toll on Slothrop: “Ruins he goes daily to look in are each a sermon on vanity. That he finds, as weeks on, no least fragment of any rocket, preaches how indivisible is the act of death” (25). In the narrator’s description of

“Slothrop’s Progress,” “London the secular city instructs him: turn any corner and he can find himself inside a parable” (25). This instance shows Slothrop’s earliest observation of himself experiencing paranoia. “He has become obsessed with the idea of a rocket with his name written on it––if they’re really set on getting him (“They” embracing possibilities far beyond Nazi

Germany) that’s the surest way, doesn’t cost them a thing to paint his name on every one, right?”

(25). Slothrop’s friend who works with him, Tantivy Mucker-Maffick, assures him that this paranoid feeling “can be useful … can’t it, especially in combat to, you know, pretend something like that. Jolly useful. Call it ‘operational paranoia’ or something” (25). Tantivy’s response shows that paranoia is a logical defense mechanism that allows one to be cautious and vigilant.

This conversation, however, becomes ironic when the primary conspiracy theory in GR reveals that Slothrop’s relation to rockets is much more complicated than having his name written on any of them.

An Onion-Layered Conspiracy

The conspiracies in GR are scaffolded. There are conspiracies behind each conspiracy

Slothrop discovers. The first of these conspiracies is the conspiracy of the war. The novel begins in the setting of World War II, and Slothrop participating in it as an American soldier with the

Allied forces. The scheme of the war positions Slothrop as an enemy to the German troops.

Therefore, he is always a target. Although the war affects the nations involved in it, Slothrop feels targeted more than anyone because of the rocket that hits the locations where he has sexual intercourse. The war is a conspiracy because enemies are always conspiring against each other.

In any war, therefore, there are conspirators with secrets plans to achieve a particular goal, which means that becoming paranoid is absolutely justified and warranted. Slothrop becomes paranoid in the sense that he has to be constantly vigilant and aware of how the German forces may target him. However, his paranoia intensifies because German rockets always fall on the location of his sexual “scores.” The map he keeps to mark the locations of his sexual conquests is the first thread of the greater conspiracy that Slothrop reveals. The map establishes

his relation to the rocket, a phenomenon about which Edward Pointsman, a Pavlovian scientist and the head of the operation to monitor Slothrop, and his agents of the White Visitation, an intelligence agency that would give the Allied forces an advantage in the war again German forces, are interested in learning. In conclusion, Slothrop’s map of sexual conquests is the first layer of the major conspiracy which offers us the explanation for why the rockets and Slothrop’s conquests coincide.

The map implicates Slothrop in another conspiracy, one that involves the White

Visitation and Pointsman’s agents. The White Visitation’s operation to monitor Slothrop is intended to discover the A4 rocket, which is presented as the most technologically advanced weapon in the war. Slothrop is presented as a valuable asset because of his mysterious connection with the rocket. The map of conquests and the other map that the White Visitation has for the locations where rockets have hit establishes, at least superficially, Slothrop’s relation to the rocket. As a result, they begin a vast operation to monitor Slothrop without him knowing about it. The reason they want to hide it from him is to eliminate Slothrop’s attempt to sabotage the plan. The operation carried out by the White Visitation is a conspiracy on its own because there are conspirators, Pointsman’s agents, with a plan, to monitor Slothrop and gather intelligence, in total secrecy. GR confirms this conspiracy by narrating the story from the perspective of the conspirators too, but Slothrop never finds out that it is Pointsman and the

White Visitation who are after him. Because of a lack of knowledge on his part––but not the reader’s, he refers to them as “Them” in his conspiracy theories. Therefore, it is more than plausible for Slothrop to believe that there is a conspiracy against him, and as judges who know the events from an omniscient point of view, we can surely conclude that Slothrop’s conspiracy theory is accurate.

While the White Visitation conspiracy constitutes the second layer, the third layer of conspiracies deals with the rocket diagrams and manuals that the White Visitation agents give to

Slothrop in the Riviera casino. Slothrop knows how rockets look on the outside, but he does not know much about the elements used in their creation, even though he generally knows about some of the details. The agents give him manuals, and he begins to learn more about the science of rockets. The more he learns the more he discovers that some elements are not discussed in detail in the manuals. The secrecy and confidentiality of these elements constitute the conspiracy. Slothrop becomes inquisitive and asks more about these elements and the reasons why their documents are confidential. He learns about the relations between Imipolex G, the

00000 rockets, and the S-Gerät which reveal, after long research, the major conspiracy in the novel, which is Jamf’s experiment on Slothrop.

While Slothrop learns about Jamf’s experiment on him as an infant and that his father sold him to Lyle Bland, Slothrop’s uncle, who brought him to Jamf, Slothrop’s investigation does not go beyond the point of knowing that he was the subject of Jamf’s experiment. He does not know what precisely the experiment is, but as readers, we know early in the novel from

Pointsman’s analysis of Jamf’s documents what happened to Slothrop and why Pointsman, as the head of the operation in the White Visitation, is monitoring him. Neither Slothrop nor Pointsman know everything that took place in the experiment. In fact, because the story is revealed from a semi-omniscient point of view (since most of the narrative is told from the points of view of multiple characters), the readers must deduce the whole story. Slothrop does not know that he was conditioned to have sexual arousal when stimulated by a particular material made of plastic

(which we know is the Imipolex G also used in the creation of the direction unit in the rocket).

He knows that Jamf is involved in the production of the rocket but never realizes his abnormal

relation to it. Also, Pointsman does not know that Imipolex G used in the rocket is the plastic material that Jamf used to stimulate Slothrop’s arousal. For him, the relation between the location where the rockets hit and Slothrop’s sexual encounters remains a mystery. In the end, even though the details of the experiment are clear to readers, the events that take place in the novel, specifically Slothrop’s desire to escape and the shutdown of the White Visitation, prevent both Pointsman and Slothrop from realizing the whole scheme of conspiracies. None of them get to know that Imipolex G is the material used in the experiment.

The Discovery of Convoluted Conspiracies

These layers of conspiracies gradually unveil, while at the same time Slothrop’s paranoia intensifies as he reaches closer to the truth that he never gets to realize. Early in the novel,

Slothrop goes through strange sexual arousal that raises his suspicion. He experiences “a sneaky hardon” the moment there are rockets in London’s sky. This moment is the first time Slothrop becomes curious about the relation between the rocket and his sexual experience. He is not yet aware that he, as an infant (referred to in the novel as Infant Tyrone), was subject to psychological experimentation performed by Jamf. Broderick Slothrop, Infant Tyrone’s father, presumably “sold” him to Lyle Bland in return for money for Tyrone’s education. Bland brought him to Jamf for the psychological experiment. Infant Tyrone was conditioned to have an erection stimulated by the plastic material, Imipolex G. This part of the experiment was successful, but the ultimate challenge was for Jamf to prove that he could have Infant Tyrone’s reflex wholly deconditioned. In other words, the challenge was to bring the reflex to “silent extinction beyond the zero” (86). However, the process of deconditioning was not totally successful, and Infant

Tyrone remained under surveillance since then.

Jamf became a Nazi rocket scientist, and it is assumed that he has used the Imipolex G material in the creation of the German A4 (or V2) rocket (another name for the A4 rocket). The

Imipolex G is used in a rocket guidance part called the Schwarzgerät (S-Gerät), which translates into “the black device”). This presumably constitutes an awkward correlation between Slothrop’s sexual “scores” in London and the impact of the A4 rocket. The documents about Infant

Tyrone’s experiment do not name Imipolex G as the stimulus material. So, it remains confidential, and because very few people know about this information, who themselves remain anonymous as well, it remains forever out of reach for the questing Slothrop who wants to find out the truth. The mysteriousness of Jamf’s experiment involving the Imipolex G, solely the element around which all of the conspiracies revolve, causes most of the paranoia in GR.

The Imipolex G in both the S-Gerät and Slothrop’s experience of sexual arousal justifies the connection between the locations where the A4 rockets strike and Slothrop’s map of sexual conquests. Slothrop keeps a map marking the places where he had sexual intercourse, and usually from two to ten days after each encounter, a rocket strikes in the same area. Teddy Bloat,

Mucker-Maffick’s conniving false friend and an employee of ACHTUNG, the fictional intelligence unit where Slothrop worked, takes pictures of Slothrop’s map and sends them to statistician Roger Mexico and Pointsman in the White Visitation. These two agents investigate the relation between Slothrop’s sexual encounters and the rocket strikes. “They match up square for square. The slides that Teddy Bloat’s been taking of Slothrop’s map have been projected onto

Roger’s, and the two images, girl-stars and rocket-strike circles, demonstrated to coincide” (87).

What puzzles them is that the stimulus and response happen in reverse. The object used as stimulus in Jamf’s experiment is unnamed in the documents the White Visitation has, and

Pointsman supposes it is a loud sound. It means that Slothrop would have an erection any time he

hears a loud noise, but the current information gathered from intelligence states the opposite, that is, that Slothrop’s “hardon” precedes the strike of the rocket. Because this case is mysterious, the

White Visitation decides to follow Slothrop. He becomes a valuable asset, and the information they receive from his case would presumably give them an advantage in the war. Therefore, the purpose of monitoring Slothrop is part of the war effort that does not harm him in any way possible.

Pointsman, however, also wants to experiment on Slothrop. As a Pavlovian psychologist who does experiments on animals to understand the mechanism of stimulus and response,

Pointsman sees Slothrop as “a truly classical case … of some pathology, a perfect mechanism” that deserves to be studied (49). Pointsman is curious about Slothrop’s case because “he can feel them coming, days in advance … A reflex to something that’s in the air right now. Something we’re too coarsely put together to sense––but Slothrop can” (50). At one point, he declares that

“what I really need, is not a dog, not an octopus, but one of your fine Foxes. Damn it. One, little,

Fox!” referring to Slothrop (54). Pointsman’s desire reduces Slothrop to a subject of experimentation, which is ethically problematic since it denies Slothrop’s human agency.

Because of Pointsman’s stubborn insistence on experimenting on Slothrop, the operation carried out by the White Visitation agents is a double-layered conspiracy against Slothrop. Even though they are monitoring Slothrop to gather useful intelligence for the war against the Germans, this operation is contaminated by Pointsman’s desire to capture him despite the information the unit would discover about Slothrop’s relation to the A4 rocket.

Therefore, the White Visitation operation consists of a doubled conspiracy against

Slothrop in GR. This double conspiracy even intensifies Slothrop’s paranoia since he observes that there is much more to the conspiracy than monitoring him. The first conspiracy deals with

the experiment that Jamf has performed on Slothrop as an infant and how this experiment is presumably related to the A4 rockets. The second one involves the conspiracy orchestrated by

Pointsman and the agents of the White Visitation to monitor and capture Slothrop. Both of these conspiracies threaten Slothrop’s agency over his life. He senses their impact on his life, but he is not sure how. The uncertainty whether he was targeted by conspiracies is a valid reason to become paranoid to a certain extent. So, this experience of paranoia adds more to his

“operational paranoia” as a soldier. He is not only a target for enemy combatants or the Allied forces to which Slothrop belongs, but also for scientists who see him as a unique scientific case.

Slothrop’s Proverbs for Paranoids

GR presents five proverbs for paranoids. They are the result of Slothrop’s “operational paranoia,” his precautionary approach to protect himself from suspected conspiracies. These proverbs are 1) “You may never get to touch the Master, but you can tickle his creatures” (240);

2) “The innocence of the creatures is in inverse proportion to the immorality of the Master”

(244); 3) “If they can get you asking the wrong questions, they don’t have to worry about answers” (255); 4) “You hide, they seek” (265); and, 5) “Paranoids are not paranoids because they’re paranoid, but because they keep putting themselves, fucking idiots, deliberately into paranoid situations” (297). These proverbs basically summarize the paranoid plot in which

Slothrop is trapped as he attempts to discover the conspiracy against him.

Although these proverbs occur to Slothrop in different situations, they are markers of the development of his paranoia. The first proverb happens when he discovers that the conspiracy is vast and that many agents are involved in the operation to follow and monitor him. The proverb indicates that it may be difficult to pinpoint exactly who is orchestrating the whole operation, but

at least he knows the agents involved in it. He knows them because, at one point, they confess to him that they are part of the operation to monitor him. The second proverb occurs when he learns that the agents employed for the operation are innocently naïve and that they can be easily manipulated to withdraw information from them. The third proverb occurs while Slothrop is investigating documents about rockets that the agents hand to him. He realizes that the agents are not honest about what they need him to find out in the documents. Therefore, he decides to figure out what he thinks they need without giving it to them. The fourth proverb occurs when he attempts to escape from them. It indicates that it is a difficult decision, and the chance to succeed in hiding from them is minimal. The fifth and last proverb occurs when Slothrop realizes that he is paranoid because he put himself in a paranoid situation by insisting on finding out everything about the conspiracy.

These proverbs appear to be Slothrop’s attempt to make sense of his own paranoia. By constructing these proverbs, he would be able to distinguish between the paranoid reflexes resulting from presumed threats and the rational approach of realizing the extent of these threats.

For instance, instead of playing cat and mouse (proverb 4, which says “You hide, they seek”), there must be an end to the chase, and it occurs to him that one way to do so is by learning the truth about why he is being chased. He even chooses to confront some of the characters to learn whether they are monitoring him or not. By learning the truth, he will be able to realize that he is not conspiracist and that his experience of paranoia actually results from sensing a real threat against his own life.

The Compulsive Intuition to Discover Clues

Like Oedipa, Slothrop is maintaining his paranoia within rational limits by gathering facts. Slothrop relies on his intuition as a source of perceptible information. He was transferred from ACHTUNG, the unit in which he is assigned, to St. Veronica’s hospital, and was later discharged, for no known reasons. Slothrop suspiciously wonders, “[w]hy didn’t they keep him on at that nut ward for as long as they said they would––wasn’t it supposed to be a few weeks?

No explanations” (116). At this moment, Slothrop began to feel that he was being monitored, and in fact, he was by Pointsman’s operatives. The narrative reveals that “something’s different … something’s … been changed” and Slothrop “could almost swear he’s being followed” (116). He observes that there are activities that confirm his suspicion, such as the car he notices through the rearview mirror. He cannot “pin down” the color or model of that car, “but something always present inside the tiny frame” of the rearview mirror (116). He also notices that “[t]hings on his desk at ACHTUNG” do not seem “to be where they were” (116). Also, he observes that there are changes in the environment of the cinema theatre since “there’s always someone behind him being careful not to talk, rattle paper, laugh too loud: Slothrop’s been to enough movies that he can pick up an anomaly like that right away” (116).

In this episode, with elevated suspicion, he encounters Darlene, a nurse who works in St.

Veronica’s hospital. Although not clear enough, this encounter appears to be not as coincidental as it may seem. Slothrop and Darlene spend the night together and have sexual intercourse. The next day, a rocket hits nearby, and Slothrop becomes sexually aroused. He has sexual intercourse with Darlene again, and the narrative points out that they are being watched. “And who’s that, through the crack in the orange shade, breathing carefully? Watching? And where, keepers of maps, specialists at surveillance, would you say the next one will fall?” (122). This rocket, coincidentally, hits half of St. Veronica’s hospital, ending up in the death of Kevin Spectro, one

of the PISCES agents. “Spectro is dead, and Slothrop … was with his Darlene, only a few blocks from St. Veronica’s” (146). This event incentivizes Pointsman to insist on studying Slothrop.

“Even if the American’s not legally a murderer, he is sick. The etiology ought to be traced, the treatment found” (146). Pointsman fantasizes that the Slothrop case is his opportunity to win the

Nobel Prize. “He has to survive … to try for the Prize” (144). The narrative in Pointsman’s episode reveals his plan to send Slothrop to the Riviera casino. “Slothrop ought to be on the

Riviera by now” (146). The conspiracy that Pointsman is orchestrating aims at establishing a relationship between Slothrop and Katje Borgesius so that she may discover indirectly what

Slothrop knows about his psyche. The location chosen to execute the conspiracy is the Riviera casino, and Slothrop and his two friends Bloat and Mucker-Maffick are sent there. The reader knows that Pointsman has orchestrated a conspiracy against Slothrop by sending him to the

Riviera casino, but it is far from clear how Slothrop might discover it.

Slothrop’s suspicion climaxes in the episode on the beach of the Riviera casino in the second part of the novel. His paranoia captures a series of unusual events that make him more suspicious that he may be monitored and followed. In fact, he begins to suspect that everything is a scheme. “So it is here, grouped on the beach with strangers, that voices begin to take on a touch of metal, each word hard-edged clap, and the light, though as bright as before, is less able to illuminate” (190). After this incident, we learn the definition of paranoia, which is “a Puritan reflex of seeking other orders behind the visible … filtering in” (190).

In the Riviera casino, Tantivy and Bloat accompany Slothrop, and all three of them spend a night in the hotel. In the next morning, they have a sea-side breakfast, and Katje, whom

Slothrop has not met yet, gets attacked by a giant octopus trained by Pointsman’s unit. Slothrop observes several strange incidents as he tries to rescue Katje from the octopus. The first of these

incidents involves a large crab Bloat throws toward Slothrop who wonders, “[w]hat th’ fuck …”

(189). Out of all the options Slothrop has to attack the octopus, especially one that involves breaking “the bottle on the rock” and stabbing “the bastard between the eyes,” the large crab is very unusual in this risky situation. Bloat tells Slothrop, “[i]t’s hungry, it’ll go for the crab. Don’t kill it, Slothrop” (189). Slothrop observes the behavior of the octopus as it responds to the crab.

“Immediately … he can feel the reflex to food” (189). Slothrop even wonders about the behavior of the octopus. “In their brief time together Slothrop forms the impression that this octopus is not in good mental health, though where’s his basis for comparing?” (189). After the incident,

Slothrop confronts Bloat about the crab and asks him, “[y]ou had that crab. Saaay––where’d you get that crab?” and Bloat’s simple response is “[f]ound it!” with a straight face. Even more,

Slothrop becomes more skeptical about Bloat’s seemingly evasive attitude. “Slothrop stares at this bird but can’t get eye contact” (190).

Slothrop’s paranoia also registers observations of a passive attitude from Katje, whom he had just rescued. After a brief conversation, he notices “her pulse booming” (190). He then asks himself, “[d]oes she know him from someplace? strange. A mixture of recognition and sudden shrewdness in her face” (190). The incidents on the beach of the Riviera Casino are the starting point which leads Slothrop on his quest to discover whether the conspiracy is real or not.

“Structure and detail come later, but the conniving around him now he feels instantly, in his heart” (190). This is a reference to Slothrop's intuitive capability to observe his reality. To

Slothrop, intuition is a tool the enables him to capture clues of conspiracy in his environment, but he realizes that it is constrained. The clues he figures out are not reliable on their own. Therefore, they must be corroborated and warranted by further evidence. This process shows that Slothrop does not consider his theories valid until there is enough evidence to prove them. Because he is

constrained by the current situation, he decides to investigate the theory that he is being monitored, and that everything that has occurred in the Riviera casino, by deceptively withdrawing the confessions of the people he suspects are playing roles in the scheme against him. On their way back to the hotel rooms, Katje cunningly attempts to eliminate any suspicion that Slothrop may have figured out the scheme. She asks him, “[d]id you know all the time about the octopus? I thought so because it was like a dance––all of you” (191). Slothrop replies that he does not know. However, he hides his suspicion that the whole incident may be a conspiracy. By doing so, he maintains his advantage of observing any unusual events occurring in his environment.

Confrontations, Confessions, and Confirmations

Slothrop’s paranoia makes him intuitive about the things that events that occur in his environment, but in order to confirm the information he arrives at intuitively, he confronts some of the suspicious characters and relies on their confessions. Besides his reliance on intuition to perceive unusual behavior in his environment, Slothrop’s approach to discovering conspiracy involves confronting the people whom he suspects are participating in the conspiracy. Very often, he does not reveal that he is skeptical about the persons he assumes are conspiring against him, but as soon as he discovers the truth about them, they confess and confirm his suspicion.

In general, to be sure that his suspicions are not paranoid delusions, he continually builds on the evidence he gathers, whether it is verbal confessions or information he finds in documents. For instance, Slothrop confides in Tantivy about Bloat’s implication in a conspiracy.

Referring to the incident of the giant crab, Slothrop says, “Tantivy, it was no accident. Did you hear that Bloat? ‘Don’t kill it!’ He had a crab with him, m-maybe inside that musette bag, all set

to lure that critter away with” (194). Slothrop even rejects Tantivy’s attempt to dismiss the conspiracy theory. When Tantivy states, “God, Slothrop, I don’t know. I’m your friend too, but there’s always, you know, an element of Slothropian paranoia to contend with …” (195).

Slothrop replies, “[p]aranoia’s ass. Something’s up, a-and you know it!” (195). This conversation further intensifies Slothrop’s paranoia and yet confirms part of his suspicions. Tantivy tells him that Bloat is “receiving messages in code” (195). He explains that Bloat’s attitude has recently changed. Bloat has been acting evasively. According to Tantivy, Bloat “doesn’t talk politics any more” (195). Even more, when Tantivy mentioned that he is interested in Katje, Bloat told him,

“I’d stay clear of that one if I were you” (195). This statement implies that Bloat and Katje may be part of a conspiracy against Slothrop. Both Tantivy and Slothrop have noticed Bloat’s unusual behavior. Therefore, Tantivy confirms Slothrop’s suspicions, and the latter becomes even keener on discovering whether there is a conspiracy against him or not.

Slothrop goes back to his room and spends the night with Katje, but at night he wakes up to the sound of his clothes being stolen. He runs after the thief in the halls of the hotel while naked but wrapped in bedsheets. He ends up climbing a tree and falling on the ground. At this moment, he meets Bloat who offers him an additional uniform in his room, but they stop at

Slothrop’s room only to discover that it has been cleaned for another guest. “Groaning, he rummages in the desk. Empty. Closets empty. Leave papers, ID, everything, taken” (203).

However, this is not the only incident that makes Slothrop extremely suspicious. Tantivy disappeared with all his belongings as well which deepens Slothrop’s belief that there is, in fact, a conspiracy.

The mysteriousness and uncertainty that engulf the recent events in Slothrop’s life make him extremely paranoid to the point he begins to question his perception of reality. Back in his

room, Slothrop starts to suspect that there are two parallel orders in existence. “Shortly, unpleasantly so, it will come to him that everything in this room is really being used for something different. Meaning things to Them it has never meant to us. Never. Two orders of being, looking identical … but, but …” (205). What this statement indicates is that Slothrop knows his reality, but there is something behind it that he cannot figure out. Overwhelmed by the uncertainty of the situation, he whispers, “Fuck you” to Them (206). This moment shows how devastated he is by just how unusual these shady incidents are, and they are only occurring to him. Therefore, Slothrop considers that if he is being followed, then it is because of something personal about himself. This introspection motivates him to search for the reason he is being tracked and monitored. His contemplation allows him to discover ‘two orders of being’ which consist of an order that Slothrop knows and another order that is unknown to him. The reader of

GR knows already what Slothrop does not know, which is that he is being monitored because of

Jamf’s psychological experiment that presumably connects him to the A4 rocket.

The question Slothrop is concerned about now is why he is implicated in this conspiracy and not someone else. While he was reading in the hotel lobby about the “German circuit schematic” of a rocket, he meets Stephen Dodson-Truck who works in the White Visitation under Pointsman. After a brief conversation, Slothrop assumes that “something about the man, despite obvious membership in the plot, keeps him listening” (210). His conversation with Sir

Stephen makes him consider that he himself is perhaps being monitored because there is something peculiar about him. “Did they choose him because of all those word-smitten Puritans dangling off of Slothrop’s family tree? Were they trying to seduce his brain now, his reading eye too?” (210). This assumption mirrors an earlier moment in which Slothrop considered his Puritan family history. Early in the novel, when Slothrop experienced a “hard-on” when he saw the

rockets in London’s sky, he thought about the history of his Puritan ancestors. He assumes that his family history is not the best explanation since it is not significant. “He is almost sure that whatever They want, it won’t mean risking his life, or even too much of his comfort” (210). This conclusion comes from the observation that they did not kill him. They want him alive, and he senses that. It also indicates that they do not wish to annoy him, and, as a result, they remain secretive about their purpose and scheme.

Slothrop even begins to consider Katje’s role in the whole alleged scheme. “He doesn’t blame her: the real enemy’s somewhere back in London, and this is her job” (210). This assumption is based on his observation of Katje’s behavior. “But now and then … too insubstantial to get a fix on it, there’ll be in her face a look, something not in her control, that depresses him,” which insinuates that “she might have been conned too. As much a victim as he is––an unlucky, an unaccountably futureless look …” (210). In this “futureless look,” Slothrop

“found some link to his own past, something that connects them closely as lovers” (211). Katje and Sir Stephen are his gateways into the conspiracy in which they play a role, but he is afraid that he may not know why he is being followed if he confronts them. He even begins to assume that “other conspirators, like a chorus line, will show up off and on behind Katje and Sir Stephen, dancing in, all with identical Corporate Smiles, the multiplication of whose glittering choppers is to dazzle him, they think, distract him from what they’re taking away, his ID, his service dossier, his past” (212). His lack of certainty about why he is targeted by agents of the White Visitation overwhelms him to the point he will become psychotic by the end of his quest.

Slothrop’s “operational paranoia” allows him to guard himself against the hidden scheme orchestrated by Pointsman’s agents. He deals with his paranoid skepticism rationally. One way to do so is by ingeniously playing a drinking game with Sir Stephen called “the Prince of Wales”

(214). The opportunity offers itself when Sir Stephen asks Slothrop if he knows how to play chess, and Slothrop says he does not. Instead, Slothrop suggests the Prince of Wales. After he explains the game, Sir Stephen tells him, “I’m not quite sure I really see, you know, the point of it all. How does one win?” (214). Slothrop says, “[o]ne doesn’t win … one loses. One by one.

Whoever’s left is the winner” (215). Slothrop’s game is intended to get Sir Stephen drunk so that he learns what Sir Stephen knows. Both of them become drunk, but Sir Stephen confesses his role in the scheme. “My ‘function’ is to observe you. That’s my function … Your function … is, learn the rocket, inch by inch. I have … to send in a daily log of your progress. And that’s all I know” (219). Slothrop does not believe that this is all and suspects Sir Stephen is “holding something back, something deep” (219). Overall, Slothrop learns that the rocket is the first clue that will lead to the discovery of the conspiracies against him.

The next day, Sir Stephen leaves the hotel, and Katje confronts Slothrop. She tells him,

“[y]ou’ve sabotaged the whole thing, with your clever little collegiate drinking game” (224).

Slothrop becomes more focused on learning about the operation to monitor him and his relation to the rocket. Katje even confirms this connection between the agency that is following him and the rocket. They talk about Slothrop’s experience of the rockets in London. Knowing that he is being monitored because of his relation to the German rocket, Slothrop begins to study it.

The rocket constitutes the first evidence of the conspiracy of which he is a target. By studying the rocket, Slothrop’s attitude reflects a rational approach to learning about his relation to the rocket and the possible reasons why the agents of the White Visitation are monitoring him, even though he does not know who they are. He refers to the anonymous conspirators, the White

Visitation and Pointsman’s agents, as They/Them. Because of the uncertainty of the situation in which he is involved, he becomes paranoid. However, his paranoia is not excessive to the point

that he may be described as a conspiracist. His desire to learn about the conspiracy he perceives follows a logical approach. After he confronts Sir Stephen and Katje, the operation to monitor

Slothrop is no longer a secret. He learns that there is an intelligence agency that wants him to study rocket manuals. However, he remains suspicious that this is perhaps the only thing they want him to do.

At this point, Slothrop does not realize that the White Visitation conspiracy is an extension of the childhood conspiracy in which he was a subject of Jamf’s psychological experiment. His paranoia registers the connection between the rockets and Slothrop’s erections which he began to notice whenever he studies rocket manuals. “For some odd reason he finds himself with hardons right after study sessions” (213). This event and the confirmation from Sir

Stephen and Katje that Slothrop is monitored solidify the connection between the conspiracy against him concerning the rocket. He is no longer suspicious about the conspiracy. However,

Slothrop begins his quest to explore loose threads of the conspiracy theory further. Ironically, by pursuing the White Visitation conspiracy theory, Slothrop ends up learning about the other conspiracy involving Jamf’s experiment on him as an infant.

Documents and Conspiracies

Documents become the most important sources of information for Slothrop after he confronts Dodson-Truck and Katje. He is no longer suspicious that there is an intelligence agency monitoring him, but they remain secretive about who they are and what they, in fact, need from him. However, he suspects that it may have something to do with his ability to read rocket manuals and diagrams. He becomes focused on learning about the rocket since it seems to be their primary interest. Slothrop continues to meet other agents who provide him with

documents about German rockets since Sir Stephen disappeared. One of the documents he reads is “a blueprint of a German parts list” (245). He comes across an “insulation device” and becomes puzzled by it. He tries to understand what it is and his search leads him to “Document

SG-1” (245). He tells General Wivern that he would like to “get a hold of a copy of that

Document SG-1,” and the General responds with “[s]o would our chaps, I imagine” (245).

General Wivern then explains to him that “there are no ‘SG’ documents” (245), and Slothrop hides his suspicion by playing the fool. He says, “maybe I read it wrong … maybe it was a ‘56’ or something” (245). This document becomes necessary evidence that Slothrop continues to search for throughout the novel.

He then learns about the insulation device in one of the documents he has. He discovers that it made of “Imipolex G,” but he does not know yet that this is the material Jamf used in the psychological experiments on Infant Tyrone. Similar to Document SG-1, there is not much information about Imipolex G in the documents he has. It appears to Slothrop that the information regarding Document SG-1 and Imipolex G are incredibly confidential. As a result, these two pieces of information become significant in his quest. Because he suspects that the agents in his room are not trustworthy, he decides to hide his interest in learning about them to find out in a devious way.

Although he is ‘paranoid,’ he attempts to learn the truth rationally. Slothrop discovers that one of the agents assigned to monitor him, named Hillary Bounce, has a private teletype in his room. Bounce works for Shell Oil Corporation, and he uses the teletype for communication with them in London. Slothrop decides to inquire about Document SG-1 and Imipolex G utilizing this device to communicate with Shell Oil in London. He knows that there is a high probability that they would not hide information from Bounce, and he uses that as an advantage

when he sneaks in Bounce’s room and uses the teletype. By doing so, he would more likely receive accurate information. He learns from the messages he receives through the teletype that

“Imipolex G has proved to be nothing more––or less––sinister than a new plastic, an aromatic polymer, developed in 1939, years before its time, by one L. Jamf for IG Farben” (252). IG, as J.

Paul Narkunas states, “represents a cartel-like system of organization: a monopoly of vertically and horizontally integrated industries that are to be self-sufficient and self-regulating corporate entities incorporated into a transnational network” (648). IG Farben is a historical company,

“most famous for developing Zyklon B gas for the Nazi death camps,” which “had its own banks, research institutions, and patent offices in global business centers, and functioned as a transnational network of variegated statist and economic organizations within several different nation-states that created populations of workers and consumers of its products and services”

(Narkunas 648). Pynchon uses IG Farben as a model for “complex integrative forces that transcend the nation-state” (Narkunas 648). This historical information that Pynchon alludes to in GR allows us to perceive the challenge that Slothrop faces. He has become aware that he is not only a target to the German forces that unleashed his paranoia early in the novel, but also to a transnational corporation that may be monitoring him since his childhood. Also, this is the first time Slothrop learns about Laszlo Jamf and decides to locate him for more information about the

Imipolex G.

Since there is no information on Document SG-1, Slothrop returns to the parts list documents and finds out about “S-Gerät, 11/00000” (255). In this document, he learns that the

Imipolex G is used in the S-Gerät, a part used explicitly in the creation of a rocket with the serial number 00000. “If this number is the serial number of a rocket, as its form indicates, it must be a special model––Slothrop hasn’t even heard of any with four zeroes, let alone five … nor an S-

Gerät either, there’s an I- and a J-Gerät, they’re in the guidance … well, Document SG-1, which isn’t supposed to exist, must cover that …” (255). These two elements become the main focus of

Slothrop’s quest. The rocket in the documents given to him is exceptional, and he decides to find out more about it. Slothrop realizes that the conspiracy against him occurs mainly because of the

00000 rocket, the S-Gerät and the function of Imipolex G in the construction of both. He is intrigued by the mystery of the 00000 rocket and the S-Gerät and decides to search for them.

Since the documents do not reveal much, the alternative option is to trace the location of the A4 rocket, perhaps in the black market.

The “Plot” to Escape the Plot

Sir Stephen and Katje confessions sabotage Pointman’s plan to have Slothrop lead him to the rocket. As Menahem Paz states, “Slothrop follows the trail of the rocket mainly because it is the only lead he has, and perhaps also because subconsciously he feels that this might prove personally rewarding (Indeed, this tracking of the rocket helps Slothrop find out significant events of his childhood, an important step in his ‘transformation’)” (200). Sir Stephen and Katje reveal part of the truth to Slothrop, and instead of keeping him close under the observation of the

White Visitation, he decides to escape. GR uses many metaphors based on science, and in this case, as Paz argues, Pynchon “stresses the big difference between people and particles: Dodson-

Truck and Katje, both of whom are expected to steer Slothrop onto a preordained path beyond his control, reveal to him enough of the truth to enable him to veer off the course planned for him” (201). Paz explains that “[w]hile the mutual impact of particles is measurable within the limits of the uncertainty principle, interpersonal relationships cause a major, incalculable

uncertainty” (201). Slothrop’s behavior becomes even more unpredictable, emphasizing his human agency over the situation he is in which he is involved.

Before Slothrop becomes interested in finding the actual rocket or the S-Gerät, he meets other characters who provide him with more documents that he reads while he is on his quest.

Slothrop’s journey begins when he receives help from Blodgett Waxwing who arranges his

“plot” to escape from the Riviera. Slothrop sneaks out at night, with the help of Waxwing and other characters. From this point on, he meets many characters, and it appears that each one of them has fragments of information about the 00000 rocket, the S-Gerät, Imipolex G, and also

Laszlo Jamf whom Slothrop learns from Mario Schweitar is dead. Jamf’s information becomes essential, and Schweitar manages to smuggle a file from Shell Oil containing information about

Jamf.

Slothrop learns from these documents about the conspiracy involving Jamf’s experiment on Infant Tyrone. The information he finds in these documents provides him with the initial traces of the conspiracy against as an infant, although some of the details are unknown. These documents “listed all [Jamf’s] assets” (288). Slothrop thoroughly investigates the documents and finds out about many transactions between Lyle Bland and Jamf, but what captures his attention is a transaction involving “a certain Massachusetts paper mill, on whose board Lyle Bland happened to sit” (289). The name of this mill is the Slothrop Paper Company (289). Slothrop finds out that he was sold as an infant to Jamf’s company, IG Farben, but does not seem to be shocked that his name is listed in Jamf’s file, as if he has anticipated it. However, he suddenly recalls a smell of plastic material, but he does not realize that it may be the smell of Imipolex G.

“A gasbag surrounds his head, rubbery, vast, pushing in from all sides, that feeling we know, yes, but … He is also getting a hardon, for no immediate reason” (289). The narrator describes

this smell as “the breath of the Forbidden Wing … essence of all the still figures waiting for him inside, daring him to enter and find a secret he cannot survive” (290). The Jamf experiment haunts Slothrop, but he does not yet know what happened to him. “Once something was done to him, in a room, while he lay helpless….” (290). He further investigates the document and finds out about the significant conspiracy involving his father Broderick Slothrop. Slothrop sarcastically remarks, “[n]ice way to find out your father made a deal 20 years ago with somebody to spring for your education” (290). These documents confirm that the conspiracy has happened and the goals of his father who gave him to Bland in exchange for money for

Slothrop’s education.

Although the documents do not state the details of the experiment on Infant Tyrone,

Slothrop relies on his intuition in an attempt to figure out what happened. At one point, he becomes almost confident that “what’s haunting him now will prove to be the smell of Imipolex

G” (291). Besides his assumption that the smell that haunts him may perhaps be the Imipolex G, he also assumes that he may be under surveillance because of what happened in the experiment.

In the documents, Slothrop finds that Jamf wrote “Schwindel” as a code name for Hugo Stinnes.

To get ahead of more information about the conspiracy theory, Slothrop thinks, “I’ve been sold to IG Farben like a side of beef. Surveillance? Stinnes, like every industrial emperor, had his own company spy system. So did the IG. Does this mean Slothrop has been under observation–– m-maybe since he was born? Yaahhh …” (291). His intuition narrows his focus on finding the

Imipolex G material. Strangely, however, during his quest, he meets individuals who happen to know fragments of information about the rocket and the S-Gerät. His epistemological pursuit happens coincidentally as random individuals lead him to other individuals who may be helpful for his quest.

Slothrop arrives at Nordhausen where he meets a girl named Geli Tripping. After he spends a night with her, he discovers that she knows about the 00000 rocket and the S-Gerät.

Geli is an “apprentice witch” working for the Soviet Officer Vaslav Tchitcherine. She read the information about the 00000 rocket and the S-Gerät in Tchitcherine mail. She tells him that a

“man in Swinemunde” can get him the S-Gerät for half a million Swiss francs. Acquiring the S-

Gerät becomes part of his quest. This point in the novel also marks Slothrop’s transition from the documents to his attempt to find the S-Gerät, and eventually, the 00000 rocket.

As he escaped the agents of the White Visitation, Slothrop ends up in the Zone, in which he meets Enzian, an individual who is with the Schwarzkommando, a fictional group of African rocket technicians. Enzian is also searching for the 00000 rocket. At one point, Slothrop contemplates his quest and thinks that the “Schwarzgerät is no Grail, Ace, that’s not what the G in Imipolex G stands for” (370). This statement foreshadows Slothrop’s inability to discover the whole truth of the onion-layered conspiracy in which he is the center. Because this information is forever lost, Slothrop remains entrapped by the ambiguity and the uncertainty of the situations in which he finds himself.

The readers know through the shifting of the narrative voice revealing the story from multiple perspectives that Jamf used the Imipolex G in the Infant Tyrone experiment, but this fact remains out of reach for Slothrop. His inability to arrive at this conclusion is because, first of all, it is not written in the documents he investigated. Second of all, none of the characters who provided with any piece of information know precisely what happened to him. This secret is forever lost with the death of Jamf. After all, Slothrop remains hopeful that he would find the S-

Gerät and continues his quest. By doing so, he would be able to put an end to his paranoia, a goal he eventually fails to achieve.

Anti-Paranoia as a Possible Response to Paranoia

The S-Gerät seems to be far away from Slothrop’s reach. The S-Gerät may offer him closure by presumably revealing his connection to the rocket and the exact reasons why he is being followed and monitored by the agents of the White Visitation. “Slothrop and the S-Gerät and the Jamf/Imipolex mystery have grown to be strangers” (441). At one point, he begins to consider the opposite of paranoia. “If there is something comforting––religious, if you want–– about paranoia, there is still also anti-paranoia, where nothing is connected to anything, a condition not many of us can bear for long” (441). This statement can be read as Slothrop’s attempt to consider that the information he has learned may not be as connected as he thinks.

“Either They have put him here for a reason, or he’s just here. He isn’t sure that he wouldn’t, actually, rather have that reason” (441).

Compared to Oedipa’s quest in Lot 49, Slothrop’s quest leads him to dead ends. He no longer discovers anything new about the S-Gerät, Imipolex G, or Jamf. His investigation is obstructed by the lack of new evidence that would allow him to realize the extent of the conspiracies he is investigating. Oedipa, on the other hand, continues to discover more evidence, and the more she learns, the more potential conclusions she has. The novel ends in a crucial moment in which she would possibly arrive at a final conclusion. Otherwise, she would return to live a normal life without being excessively paranoid about the conspiracy theory of the Tristero.

This is, in my view, what Oedipa would choose to do since she is consistent in her demand for evidence before jumping into conclusion, especially since there is no real threat on her life. In contrast, Slothrop is constantly threatened by Pointman’s agents. Had he known who Pointsman and the White Visitation are and what they want from him, he would have perceived his situation

differently, but throughout the novel, they remain secretive about their identity and their objectives. This phenomenon, the ultimate secrecy of the White Visitation in Slothrop’s perspective, pushes him close to the psychotic breakdown that eventually occurs toward the end of the novel.

Although Slothrop considers anti-paranoia briefly, his quest becomes more complicated with the revelation of more details. In general, the more he learns about the S-Gerät or

Jamf/Imipolex G, the more he finds out how convoluted the plots are. Slothrop comes closest to the S-Gerät is in the episode with Franz Pökler, who has worked with Jamf. Slothrop meets

Pökler coincidentally and realizes that he has come across his name in the documents Schweitar provided him earlier in his quest. Slothrop directly asks Pökler about the Imipolex G, and Pökler informs him that “[i]t’s an aromatic polyimide” and diverts his answer to another topic. Instead of explaining to Slothrop what the Imipolex G exactly is, he tells him a story about Jamf’s move to the United States and coming “under the sinister influence of Lyle Bland” (590). Pökler’s story appears to be a conspiracist historical account of Bland’s plot involving many people, including Masons and corporates.

As Bland’s story is told, we do not read about Slothrop’s reaction. In the section that follows this conspiracist story, Slothrop appears to be at the onset of psychosis. He is no longer interested in finding the truth. However, his one last hope resides in finding a character named

Der Springer. He meets Seaman Bodine, who introduces him to a masseuse named Solange. A conversation between these three takes place which reveals the end of Slothrop’s quest. As

Solange proposes to take Slothrop “down to the baths,” Bodine assures him and says, “I’ll be around all night .. I’ll tell you if Springer shows” (613). Slothrop is now too paranoid and skeptical. He suspects that Bodine and Solange are involved in “some kind of a plot” (613).

Bodine then says while laughing, “Everything is some kind of a plot, man” (613). Solange also adds that “the arrows are pointing all different ways” (613). This is the moment in which

Slothrop finally realizes “that the Zone can sustain many other plots besides those polarized upon himself” (614). It occurs to him that what he thought is a plot solely against him is, in fact, a

“network of all plots” that he finds impossible to navigate through (614). Although this may seem conspiracist, he is contemplating the possibility that the zone is more interconnected and convoluted than it may appear and that there might be more plot other than those that are against him.

Eventually, Slothrop’s quest ends without a resolution. By descending into psychosis, he gives up on searching for the truth about his conspiracy theory rationally. Bodine is the last character to encounter Slothrop in the novel. As the narrator explains, Bodine is one of the few individuals who are able to “hold him together, even as a concept” (755). Slothrop shows no reaction to any of Bodine’s attempts to interact with him. In his conversation, Bodine says, “[d]o you––please, are you listening?” (756). In his psychotic state, Slothrop does not only abandon his investigation but his paranoia as well. He is completely detached from reality. As Antonio

Márquez states, “Slothrop's transcendence can be interpreted as his refusal to die for them and his election to live. Slothrop is free from history, free from the Slothrop past, free from America, and free from the neurosis of his race. Perhaps he has also achieved some form of salvation. At the least, he has extricated himself from the nightmare of history” (61). Márquez’s reads

Slothrop’s psychosis as an achievement since his task was “to move away from his historical as well as his Pavlovian conditioning” (58). However, Slothrop does not now the details of Lazlo’s experiments on him. He only know that something has happened, but he never finds out that he was subjected to Pavlovian conditioning. Therefore, his descendence into psychosis, although

Márquez perceives it as ‘transcendence,’ is best understood entirely as his inability to reconcile his history with his present. He knows something has happened in the past but never realizes how it still has an impact on his present.

Overall, it was not his investigation of the conspiracy theory that caused his psychosis. In my view, it was the extremely overwhelming experience of paranoid fear and the sense that whoever is following him is trying to kill him. He discovered that there might be real conspiracies against him during his attempt to make sense of his experience in paranoia. He knows that those conspiracies are real, but he does not understand their full extents. Were he in a stable environment where there is no actual threat against his life, I presume, he would have abandoned the investigation of his conspiracy theories and remained a sane individual.

The Limitations of Conspiracy Theory

Pynchon’s works show that there are limitations to rational conspiracy theories. First of all, there is the challenge of finding credible and reliable resources that confirms the existence of conspiracies. In Lot 49, Oedipa finds it challenging to find strong evidence that confirms the existence of the Tristero. Neither verbal nor textual resources can absolutely verify the existence of the underground order. In GR, it is difficult for Slothrop to find the Imipolex G material itself or someone to reveal the truth about what actually happened to him as an infant. However, that does not mean that it is impossible to confirm the existence of conspiracies. In Lot 49, we do not know more than Oedipa herself. The narrative obscures the existence of the conspiracy if it actually exists beyond what is revealed in the novel. In GR, however, the shifting of the narrative voice allows us to see the story from different perspectives and eventually understand the conspiracies taking place, but the challenge is difficult for Slothrop to see what we see.

Second of all, there is the risk of expansive research in rational conspiracy theories. In other words, logical conspiracy theories may intrigue us into searching for conspiracies broader than the conspiracy we have at hand. In Lot 49, Oedipa goes from doubting the existence of the

Tristero itself to the consideration that her quest may itself be orchestrated by Inverarity himself.

So, instead of confirming or dismissing the conspiracy theory of the Tristero, she considers that they may be the result of a scheme that Inverarity has created. By doing so, she may neglect the whole question about the Tristero. In GR, Slothrop ends up with the notion that he is researching a “network of all plot” (614). Instead of learning about the A4 rocket, the S-Gerät, the Imipolex, and Jamf’s involvement in all of it, he ends up considering a larger plot of corporations and Lyle

Bland’s participation with the Masons, as well as the history of Freemason’s in the history of

America and Europe. Instead of searching for conspiracies beyond conspiracies, rational conspiracy theories focus on particular events. Rather than considering that everything is a conspiracy, conspiracy theory allows us to investigate a specific incident to prove or dismiss the claims that it resulted from a conspiracy.

Finally, expanding conspiracy theories to include other conspiracy theories indefinitely establishes the ground for conspiracism. In Pynchon’s works, we observe Oedipa and Slothrop combatting the urge to submit to conspiracism. None of them simply believes what other characters tell them without conducting their own personal research, but because they are not able to reach any conclusive explanation, they are at risk of becoming conspiracists. Lot 49 ends with several possibilities. Neither of these possibilities shows Oedipa as following a conspiracist explanation as if she is sure the Tristero exists and that she needs evidence. The novel ends moments before she reaches a conclusion. At the same time, she maintains the possibility of abandoning her research and returning home. In GR, Slothrop, unfortunately, descends into

psychosis. He is no longer interested in learning about any of the topics he is concerned about. It was not his exhaustive research that caused his psychosis, but instead being constantly followed and threatened by Pointsman’s agents. The conspiracy theory Slothrop is investigating may have offered him an explanation for why he is being followed, but at one point, he considers the possibility to abandon it as he flirts with the idea of anti-paranoia. This idea, as he assumes, is challenging to achieve as long as he remains in the Zone because it is heavily networked. So, some of the conspiracies in GR are supported by the evidence the narrative voice provides, but we observe the limitations and challenges Slothrop faces on his quest to discover the details about the conspiracies he is concerned about. Overall, neither Oedipa nor Slothrop succumbs to the belief that everything is a conspiracy.

Although they are overwhelmed by their experience of paranoia, they instead isolate their investigation of the conspiracies from their paranoid tendency to become conspiracists. They go as far as their research carries them, but they stumble upon dead ends, realizing that they can neither rely on the information they gathered as unequivocal evidence for the existence of conspiracies nor find out the smoking gun. The people, especially Inverarity or Jamf, who would either confirm or deny the events are dead. The documents that would absolutely prove any of the conspiracy theories in Pynchon’s works are obscured, and as a result, neither Oedipa nor

Slothrop can reach them. As individuals, they are powerless, and because of that, they become overwhelmingly paranoid. However, because of their psychological struggle, it is difficult to dismiss their claims that conspiracies may exist basically because they are not in their best mental condition. Their quest to find the truth is best described as unfortunate since their research remains inconclusive. If Slothrop continued his quest and discovered the truth about the conspiracy, he may have been redeemed. Overall, Oedipa’s name apparently alludes to the Greek

play Oedipus Rex, but her quest does not suffer a tragic ending, unlike Slothrop whose quest ends with a Sophoclean tragedy.

III. The Limits of Conspiracism and Secrecy in Reed’s Mumbo Jumbo

In Thomas Pynchon’s Gravity’s Rainbow, Franz Pökler narrates the story of Lyle Bland’s involvement in the presumed conspiracist story of “a gigantic Masonic plot under the ultimate control of the group known as the Illuminati” (597). The story, from Pökler’s perspective, is long. At one point, “Masonic Mysteries” is mentioned, followed by Pynchon’s allusion to

Ishmael Reed’s works, which states, “[c]heck out Ishmael Reed. He knows more about it than you’ll ever find here” (598). Pynchon’s work alludes to the conspiracy theories about secret societies, but do not discuss them in detail as Reed’s works. They mainly focus on the conspiracies that target the central characters. Reed’s works feature many secret societies, both real and fictional, and explore the conspiracy theories about them. In Mumbo Jumbo (MJ), the outbreak of a virus called Jes Grew causes disruptions in the 1920s United States. Its symptoms are singing and dancing to ragtime and jazz music. Jes Grew becomes the concern of the

Wallflower Order, a secret society whose followers act as guardians of the Eurocentric Western ideals representing a religion called Atonism. They put together a conspiracy to suppress Jes

Grew. Soon after they begin to carry out the first steps of their conspiracy, the Knights Templar, another secret society, takes charge of the conspiracy against Jes Grew. Conspiracist theories would assume that secret societies carry out a global and historical conspiracy, the success of which relies on their ability to conceal it for centuries. Therefore, secret societies are easy targets due to their secrecy. However, in MJ, not all secret societies are involved in the conspiracy against Jes Grew. In fact, some of them support Jes Grew’s cause. MJ challenges the belief that

secret societies always act out conspiracies. Such a belief is conspiracist, and it exists primarily because of the secrecy of these societies. The novel challenges such a conspiracist belief, but this does not mean that the existence of secret societies is not problematic. MJ shows that conspiracism is a worldview that cannot appropriately address the issues of conspiracy theories and the secrecy of secret societies in democratic states.

MJ presents several issues concerning conspiracism and secret societies. Conspiracism, as a worldview, claims that everything occurs as a result of a conspiracy. In other words, based on the conspiracist worldview, to understand why an event happens or fails, one must find out the conspiracy behind it. The conspiracy either forces an event to happen or prevents it from happening. Conspiracism considers any conspiracy theory to be prima facie correct, despite the lack of evidence to support it. This way of thinking presumes the existence of a conspiracy in a general sense, but it considers this presumption to be undoubtedly true. Therefore, for the desired event to succeed, one must identify the conspiracy and prevent it from intervening with its course.

Conspiracists easily accuse secret societies of conspiracies for one primary reason, which is their secrecy. They conflate secrecy with conspiracy. Secrecy is not necessarily a conspiracy, but the opposite is true since all conspiracies are secret. For more than two centuries, secret societies have been at the center of conspiracy theories claiming that they carry out a global conspiracy. These conspiracy theories formulate a collection or a data corpus that conspiracists refer to in order to justify their belief that a global and historical conspiracy exists. The problem with these conspiracy theories is that they were refuted since no secret society can control the course of history. MJ explores this problem with conspiracism, as presented in the attitude of

certain characters, such as the protagonist, Papa LaBas and his assistant, Black Herman, who are investigating the possible conspiracy against Jes Grew.

A general definition of a secret society is that it is an order or an organization that operates through exclusive membership and conceals its content, activities, and events from non- members. They are societies that exist within larger civil societies. The secret society does not necessarily conceal its existence from the public, but its secrecy lies in what it conceals from non-members. In some cases, most of the secrets remain concealed to the new initiates unless they prove their loyalty to the secret society and swear an oath to maintain the secrecy. The secret society has a hierarchy in order to maintain concealment. The hierarchical organization may sometimes be hidden from the members themselves. The members may not even know their fellow members unless they reveal themselves to each other. When individuals become new initiates, they must prove their loyalty in order to move up in the ranks of the secret society.

Higher ranks promise more secret and powerful knowledge, which is a form of rewarding loyal members. Because of secrecy, the secret society operates by exclusion. So, the individuals who join the secret society must be selected carefully. If everyone is allowed to join the secret society without swearing an oath of secrecy, then what is the point of the secret society after all? Before individuals officially become members, they may go through a process of initiation and perform rituals and oaths of secrecy. These new initiates swear not to disclose the secrets of their society to non-members. Overall, secrecy is crucial for the secret society. It distinguishes them from the organizations that require a large margin of privacy, especially those dedicated to public services, such as intelligence agencies in governments.

Many people may find the existence of secret societies problematic, but the conspiracists find them even more questionable. In other words, secret societies have been the subject of

research and investigations by historians and sociologists who, unlike conspiracists, do not necessarily think that the existence of secret societies indicates that there is a global conspiracy.

For instance, David V. Barret’s Secret Societies: From the Ancient and Arcane to the Modern and Clandestine discusses the origins and history of prominent secret societies. Barret attempts to present the truth of the societies he discusses and refutes the preposterous conspiracist allegation that they carry out a global conspiracy. Jasper Ridley, in The Freemasons: A History of the World’s Most Powerful Secret Society, investigates the history of Freemasonry and also refutes the outrageous conspiracist claims that Freemasons are carrying out a global conspiracy, even though Ridley finds several issues with Freemasons, particularly their secrecy. He states,

“[i]t is the secrecy which still today, as always, is the trouble” (290). Another issue Ridley finds is the exclusion of women and Jews from some Masonic lodges. He states that “the Freemasons not merely exclude from their own ranks but also refuse to have any dealings with any other society that accepts women” (292). Ridley also mentions that in some Masonic lodges in Britain and the United States, “they do insist that no Jew shall be admitted as a member” (290). Overall, despite these issues that Ridley identifies in Freemasons, he does not find the conspiracist claim that Freemasonry is a global conspiracy plausible or factual. Engaging in a discussion about the

Freemasons requires careful assessment since, as Ridley states, “[t]he critics have to be a little careful about whom they criticize” (295). Researching secret societies, in general, must not presuppose that they are part of a global conspiracy. To accuse a secret society of participating in a conspiracy must be based on the conclusive evidence that shows that a real conspiracy exists.

Surely there are problems with secrecy, which lead to exclusion and other concerns, but one must be careful not to interpret these problems as necessarily conspiratorial.

MJ explores several issues with secret societies, specifically with the Wallflower Order and the Knights Templars. These two secret societies act as the military arm of a broader religious order, the Atonist Path. Jes Grew is perceived as a threat to the established political and social order, which the Wallflower Order and the Knights Templars protect. Jes Grew symbolizes the joint effort of a subjugated group that seeks the public recognition of their own culture, and the Wallflower Order seeks to prevent it from spreading out in the United States. As

Richard Hardack states, “[t]he ‘plague’ of Jes Grew periodically erupts from beneath the surface of Western culture and tries to reclaim its denied heritage; the particular manifestation Reed focuses on concerns attempts during the Harlem Renaissance to reconstruct a text of Blackness”

(119). Atonists’ opposition to Jes Grew is clear and undeniable, leading to the Wallflower

Order’s conspiracy against it. The goal of the conspiracy is to preserve of hegemony of the

Eurocentric discourse, that Atonism represents, by eradicating Jes Grew.

The conspiracist worldview would assume that few influential individuals (mostly members of a cult or a secret society) have manipulated their followers for political gains. So, in order to restrict political dominance to these few individuals, other cultural and ideological movements, such as Jes Grew in MJ, must be eliminated. Conspiracists would claim that it is a historical conspiracy to exaggerate the extent of the power of the dominant few individuals.

Therefore, they justify the elimination of the powerful “conspirators” and their supporters. In MJ, the conflict between Atonism and Jes Grew cannot be reduced to the domination of secret societies over everything else. The conflict is instead an ideological conflict that conspiracism reduces to a conspiracy. In fact, MJ shows that this conflict can be resolved when one perceives the coexistence and overlap of Atonism and Jes Grew. Moreover, the claim that MJ promotes

secret society conspiracy theories is implausible since the novel itself critiques them on several occasions.

Reed shows that thinking of Atonism and Jes Grew as opposites is at the root of the conflict in MJ. This way of thinking applies to conspiracism, which insists on portraying reality in black vs. white, i.e., conspirators vs. victims of the conspiracy, thus preventing the chance for diversity and inclusion. This way of thinking would result in the exclusion of the groups whom they presume to be conspirators. In MJ, the Atonists who are not necessarily members of secret societies are also addressed as conspirators. So, conspiracism presents the case that people, based on their ideologies, are either with us or against us. Furthermore, MJ reveals that conspiracism stems from ethnocentrism, which frames Atonism exclusively as white and Jes Grew as black. At the end of the novel, Papa LaBas, the novel’s protagonist and Voodoo priest of the Mumbo

Jumbo Kathedral, highlights this dilemma in his description of the choice Americans had when

Jes Grew emerged in 1920. As Theodore Mason argues, “[b]y using the 1920s as a background for his story about the "Jes Grew" epidemic, Reed establishes the connections between past and present that provide the groundwork for a mythic representation of black history and its relation to Judeo-Christian culture” (100). The choice was to side with either the Atonist Path or Jes

Grew.

Overall, the main subject that MJ presents is ethnocentrism and the conspiracism which results from it. Both notions may result in actions that are extremist and fanatic. Ethnocentrism results in the view that one’s own culture is superior over those of others. Therefore, the standards and ideals of this culture become the measures to describe other cultures that are inferior. In MJ, Atonism views Western civilization as exclusively Eurocentric. As a result,

Atonists regard any other cultural view that does not subscribe to their perspectives and attitudes as inferior and worthy of remaining marginalized.

Jes Grew challenges the Eurocentrism of the United States in the 1920s, as well as the

Afrocentric views of Black culture. MJ denies African American cultures the authority to claim

Jes Grew belongs to them. Jes Grew instead represents a multicultural and pluralist expression, transcending all cultures, races, and religions. Even though Jes Grew surfaces from the artistic expression of African American artists and musicians, it belongs to a broader cultural experience that cannot be restricted to a particular culture or racial group.

LaBas is a trickster figure, or as Babacar M’Baye refers to him, “a multifaceted prankster” (111). As M’Baye states, “tricksters appear as fanatic black and white characters whose frenetic voices and attitudes toward one another Reed mocks as the eccentricity of radical intellectuals and leaders who are blindly determined to wield control over African American people and culture” (115). LaBas’s tricksterism is part of the broader context of MJ, which

“definitely promotes multiculturalism over the blind adoration of singular traditions or experiences” (107). Jes Grew encompasses the multiculturalism of Harlem in the 1920s, but it does not belong to any particular culture or tradition, including LaBas’s VooDooism.

Critics have recognized that MJ invites readers to think of Jes Grew beyond LaBas’s worldview, which encapsulates it within a VooDooist perspective. W. Laurence Hogue argues, for instance, that Reed “offers the periphery as an alternative to a European-centered modernity”

(180). MJ rejects the black and white binary which portrays Jes Grew in opposition to Atonism.

It instead promotes multiculturalism “by showing how blacks and whites can be both Atonists and followers of Jes Grew” and insists “upon a ‘both/and’ oscillating movement” (Hogue 188).

He argues that “[i]n showing diversity, difference, and intermingling among the Atonists and the

followers of Jes Grew, Reed manages to undermine even the most essentialized constructions of racial boundaries and offers coexisting systems that include differences” (188).

In a similar fashion, Sharon Jessee discusses how Reed challenges the ethnocentrism of both Atonism and Jes Grew. Jessee states, “Reed signifies on the ethnocentric tendencies of any group, because ethnocentricity is another rigid form: an identity formulation which limits rather than liberates and which reduces rather than enriches” (129). She adds that “[a] real danger in ethnocentricity is its tendency to view all members of an ethnic group as homogenous and to ignore differences among members of the group” (Jessee 192). Throughout the novel, LaBas is preoccupied with the theory of a secret society conspiracy against Jes Grew. He sees it as a conspiracy of whites against nonwhites, even though some of the black characters are themselves against Jes Grew, such as Abdul Hamid, a militant activist and editor of a radical magazine.

Reed ridicules the ethnocentrism of LaBas’s worldview when he exaggerates the racist conspiracy in LaBas’s counter-narrative.

In a reading that informs my own argument, Anthony Zias suggests that we read MJ as a conspiracy parody. Throughout MJ, Reed shows that secret societies do not necessarily act out conspiracies. By doing so, Reed problematizes secret society conspiracy theories. Zias argues that “Reed’s Mumbo Jumbo is not necessarily attempting to convince us of a conspiracy but satirizes our need for conspiratorial explanations” (149). In what follows, I extend Zias’s argument by expanding on the idea that conspiracism is a worldview that limits our perception of reality. MJ shows that there are issues that result from secrecy and secret societies, and conspiracism does not allow us to perceive those issues ostensibly. Conspiracism insists on interpreting the issues of secrecy and secret societies as necessarily resulting from conspiracies.

Not only does MJ only warns us against conspiracist thinking about secrecy and secret societies, but it also reveals how the results of such thinking are counterintuitive.

Secrecy, Secret Societies, and the Conspiracy

LaBas, who is dedicated to the success of Jes Grew, believes that he has to deal with secret operations that would undermine Jes Grew. He relies on what he calls “Knockings,” his intuition, defined in the footnote as “ultra ultra high frequency electromagnetic wave propagation.” He concludes that Jes Grew “won’t stop until it cohabits with what it’s after” (25).

Jes Grew is after its Text, which is “the Book of Thoth, the 1st anthology written by the 1st choreographer” in hieroglyphs (164). He also believes that a secret society conspiracy against Jes

Grew will undermine its success. Earline, his assistant, challenges his “conspiratorial hypothesis about some secret society molding the consciousness of the West” (25). She argues that LaBas does not “have any empirical evidence for it” and that he “can’t prove” his claim (25). In response to Earline’s claims, LaBas defends his position and states, “Evidence? Woman, I dream about it, I feel it, I use my 2 heads. My Knockings. Don’t you children have your Knockings, or have you New Negroes lost your other senses, the senses we came over here with?” (25-26).

As Amy Elias states, LaBas “redefines the detective as a man in touch with nature, eschewing reason for ‘Knockings,’ factual evidence for The Work” (121-122). LaBas’s reliance on “intuition, ‘knockings’ and ritual to arrive at truth,” as Lizabeth Paravisini states, defines him as a detective of “the metaphysical” (118-119). LaBas’s approach is a significant part of theme of critiquing Eurocentrism. “Throughout the novel, Reed points to the West’s concern with rationality as the most salient characteristic separating Western and non-Western cultures”

(Paravisini 118). However, intuitive inferences alone are not strong enough to support conspiracy

theories. Intuition can be significant when one is suspicious that a conspiracy may exist. In

LaBas’s case, the novel shows that LaBas’s Knockings accurately predicted the conspiracy. In his defense, LaBas emphasizes the significance of intuitive inferences, but he does not present rational evidence to support his claim.

LaBas’s suspicion shows that he opposes the elitism of Eurocentric white ideals that frames Jes Grew as a threat. He warns against the possibility that someone from the African

American community may speak against Jes Grew while keeping his or her affiliation secret. He says, “Daughter, the man down on 125th St. and Lenox Ave. on the stand speaking might be mounting ideas which arose at a cocktail party or from a transcontinental call or –” (26).

Although this statement does not directly mention Jes Grew, but it is clear that LaBas is skeptical that someone may speak against Jes Grew. He is suspicious in a general sense, yet his statement indicates that he calls for more transparency. Although his suspicion accurately describes the conspiracy against Jes Grew, it is not rational to conclude that it exists. In other words, undoubtedly, the Wallflower Order is carrying out a conspiracy against Jes Grew, but LaBas’s statement is merely intuitive and not factual. Overall, investigating conspiracies requires a thorough effort to arrive at facts, especially since conspiracies happen in secret. Intuitive assumptions are not enough to conclude that certain conspiracies exist.

A successful conspiracy requires secrecy, yet it is always at the risk of becoming public.

MJ reveals this issue in the episode in which the Wallflower Order starts a ‘secret’ war on Haiti

“in hopes of allaying Jes Grew symptoms by attacking their miasmatic source” (MJ 64).

However, Von Vampton jeopardizes the covert operation when he places the news about the war in Haiti on the front page. Von Vampton works in the New York Sun, a magazine the Atonists use as a propaganda tool. His headline is a shrewd move that he uses in order to become in

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charge of the operation to suppress Jes Grew and restore the status of the Knights Templar as an official secret society. Von Vampton takes over the operation to suppress Jes Grew from the

Wallflower Order. He asks, in return for his success, that the Knights Templar Order is exonerated and that Pope clears the record of evidence against it. Von Vampton meets with a ranking member in the Wallflower Order, who succumbs to Von Vampton’s con job in the New

York Sun. Von Vampton calls his assistant, Gould, and tells him, “I was interviewed by the

Wallflower Order and we made a deal. We’re exonerated. The Order. They burned the evidence from the trial and we’re in charge of the epidemic” (73). This incident shows that both the

Wallflower Order and the Knights Templars are useful political tools. Both secret societies operate in clandestine ways to achieve a shared general goal, which is the preservation of dominant Eurocentric ideals in the West. These two secret societies believe in Atonism, and their conspiracy aims to maintain its dominance over other discourses. Despite their effort to keep their operation concealed, MJ shows that it is eventually revealed.

The Wallflower Order and the Knights Templars represent the issues of secrecy in secret societies. Secrecy is the primary reason LaBas is suspicious of secret societies. Secrecy is also the reason for the conspiracist accusation that secret societies are always accused of conspiracies, despite the lack of evidence. Understanding the impact of secrecy on secret societies justifies the suspicion of individuals who are skeptical about them in general. However, secrecy does not justify the conspiracist accusations that they are involved in a global conspiracy.

German sociologist Georg Simmel, in The Sociology of Secrecy and of Secret Societies published in 1906, discusses the sociological impact of secrecy on the public. He points out that secrets themselves are not morally good or evil, as secrecy “has nothing to do with the moral

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valuations of its contents” (463). However, he warns us against being “deceived by the manifold ethical negativeness of secrecy” (463). He further elaborates that,

On the one hand, secrecy may embrace the highest values: the refined shame of the lofty

spirit, which covers up precisely its best, that it may not seem to seek its reward in praise

or wage; for after such payment one retains the reward, but no longer the real value itself.

On the other hand, secrecy is not in immediate interdependence with evil, but evil with

secrecy. For obvious reasons, the immoral hides itself, even when its content encounters

no social penalty as, for example, many sexual faults. (463)

Simmel distinguishes between the sociological function of secrecy itself and its contents, which may or may not be immoral. In some cases, secrets may have no real value in themselves, as

Simmel describes in the implementation of concealment as a sociological technique in the formation of the secret society.

Simmel’s account of secrecy in secret societies states that the secret society uses it as a technique of exclusion. He describes their secrecy as being in contradiction with the notion of open societies. Democracies and open societies rely on informed individuals. So, for a democratic society to function, each individual “should be informed about all the relationships and occurrences with which he is concerned, since this is a condition of his doing his part with reference to them, and every community of knowledge contains also the psychological stimulation to community of action” (Simmel 469). This statement may be in contradiction with the necessity for an established public institution to have a degree of privacy to function. Since such an institution, like the intelligence agency, functions “beyond the individual interests, but nevertheless to their advantage,” Simmel argues that it “may very well, by virtue of its formal independence, have a rightful claim to carry on a certain amount of secret functioning without

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prejudice to its public character, so far as real consideration of the interests of all is concerned”

(469). Therefore, Simmel argues that it is not possible to satisfy the condition that everything must be public in open societies. He then reformulates the condition of publicity in open societies, stating that “the universal scheme of cultural differentiation puts in an appearance here: that which pertains to the public becomes more public, that which belongs to the individual becomes more private” (469).

In general, honesty is the primary factor in shaping social relationships in democratic and open societies. However, in secret societies, it is not. The secret society does not operate like the public institutions that require a margin of secrecy to function. In MJ, however, the Wallflower

Order and the Knights Templars do not work for the public interest. Their conspiracy against Jes

Grew preserves the interest of Atonists and their domination over other social groups, such as Jes

Grew’s followers. The Atonists attempt to maintain the hegemony of Eurocentric cultural ideals, and the Wallflower Order and the Knights Templars are utilized to secretly to suppress Jes Grew, which represents a marginalized group in the United States.

MJ’s Atonist secret societies harbor racist secrets, which means that Atonist members of the Wallflower Order and the Knights Templars are racist as well. As a result, they exclude all nonwhites from knowing their secrets that are based on racist beliefs. They even exclude nonwhite secret societies from knowing their secrets, as Buddy Jackson’s case reveals (MJ 194).

Jackson attempts to join Atonist secret societies, but they reject his request. He then forms several Black secret societies, which Atonists refuse to recognize as official secret societies. He ends up infiltrating Atonist secret societies to learn their secrets. As a result, he exposes their racist secrets. “We learned what we always suspected, that the Masonic mysteries were of a

Blacker origin than we thought and that this man [Hinckle Von Vampton] had in his possession a

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Black sacred Book and how they were worried that we would find out and wouldn’t learn that the reason they wanted us out of the mysteries was because they were mysteries!” (194). MJ emphasizes that members of secret societies reject being excluded from learning the mysteries of others. This exclusion results from other secret societies’ goals to preserve their secrets.

LaBas highlights two significant points. He opposes, firstly, the existence of secret societies and, secondly, their exclusion of the public, especially when they have political agendas. Ironically, the readers know that a conspiracy against Jes Grew exists from the very beginning of the novel. These two points may be the problems that LaBas fails to articulate when he criticizes secret societies. He instead interprets these two points, both of which result from secrecy, as a conspiracy. Without concealment, secret societies do not exist. As a result, the readers question LaBas’s certainty that a conspiracy exists. His certainty indicates that he may be conspiracist. In other words, he may believe that everything is a conspiracy, which is why he immediately accuses secret societies of conspiring against Jes Grew.

Secret societies establish rituals to maintain secrecy further and afford protection for members. Simmel argues that “the secret societies naturally seek means psychologically to promote that secretiveness which cannot be directly forced. The oath, and threats of penalties, are here in the foreground and need no discussion” (473). Due to its members’ dangerous temptation to disclose its concealed truths to the public, the secret society relies on socialization, often through rituals, to counter this impulse. Socialization would offer the members a sense of belonging to their secret society. “Socialization affords to each of these individuals a psychological recourse for strengthening him against temptations to divulge the secret” (Simmel

477). Through the process of socialization, the collective of the secret society becomes more

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significant and more critical than the individualism of its members. Therefore, loyalty to the secret society and fellow members becomes the value above everything else.

The secret society constructs a hierarchy to impose order and regulate the roles of the members as a means to maintain its form as a society. The hierarchy is necessary for the secret society to maintain its structure as a whole, especially since it virtually detaches from the structure of the public society within which it exists. The rituals that regulate the secret society and emphasize the value of higher ranks play a significant role. “With the ritual the secret society voluntarily imposes upon itself a formal constraint, which is demanded as a complement by its material detachment and self-sufficiency” (Simmel 483). Since the secret society isolates itself from the public, it acquires a higher margin of freedom. “The often essentially meaningless, schematic constraint of the ritual of the secret society is therefore by no means a contradiction of its freedom bordering on anarchy, its detachment from the norms of the circle which contains it”

(Simmel 483).

The rituals are intended to preserve secrecy and enforce the hierarchy. Even more, the secret society entrusts the members of higher ranks with more secrets. As a result, “[t]he secret society sets itself as a special society in antithesis with the wider association included within the greater society” (Simmel 484). As Simmel states, “[t]heir secret encircles them like a boundary, beyond which there is nothing but the materially, or at least formally, antithetic, which therefore shuts up the society within itself as a complete unity” (484). In comparison to the open and democratic society, which works through the inclusion of its individuals to act for the benefit of the public, the secret society works though exclusion to protect its secrets. The rituals, usually including oaths of secrecy, amplify the necessity to protect the secrets and solidify the initiates’ loyalty to the ranking members and the secret society itself. In MJ, when the Wallflower Order

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and the Knights Templars cooperate against Jes Grew, they perform a ritual that emphasizes the hierarchical position of some characters over the others. The members of both secret societies share the same goal, and the ritual can be described as emphasizing their unity.

In MJ, when Von Vampton succeeds in becoming in charge of the conspiracy against Jes

Grew, he states to Hierophant 1, the Wallflower Order member who negotiates with Von

Vampton, that “I wish to say out old Templars’ chant” (71). Hierophant 1 refuses and says,

“[n]ot here Hinckle, before my men; they won’t understand after all the vilification they’ve heard against your Order,” referring to the historical trial of the Knights Templars (71). Von Vampton then commands him to “SUMMON YOUR MEN!!!” (71). Hierophant 1’s men enter and gather around Hierophant 1’s “famous horseshoe-like desk” (71). The men then “raise their mugs and begin to shout Beascauh after the name of the Templars’ 1st piebald horse” (71). The ritual emphasizes Von Vampton’s position as the head of the conspiracy against Jes Grew. It also solidifies Hierophant 1’s oath to restore the status of the Knights Templar order as an official secret society.

Secrecy and Political Control

The Wallflower Order uses secrecy as a means of control. Their secret influence reaches a variety of media, such as newspapers and magazines. Their conspiratorial network extends secretly to the White House. They rely on the New York Sun as an Atonist propaganda magazine. As the narrator states, “[t]he managing editor has been meeting all day with ‘higher ups.’ They are deciding what their particular tab can do to crush the Jes Grew epidemic which has now reached Chicago” (57). The Wallflower Order has tried to control the news about a war they started in Haiti. The novel reveals many of the events that reflect the Wallflower Order’s

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effort to control the narrative about Jes Grew before Von Vampton takes charge of the conspiracy. Unbeknown to the people who run the magazine that Von Vampton is the Grand

Master of the Knights Templar Order, he jeopardizes their effort by putting the news about the war in “a full banner headline” (58).

Von Vampton orchestrates a plot against the Wallflower Order to achieve specific goals.

His first goal is to restore the status of the Knights Templar Order after it was disbanded in 1312 by Pope Clement V. His second goal is to prove his devotion to Atonism by becoming in charge of the conspiracy against Jes Grew. Von Vampton succeeds by putting the Wallflower Order’s secret operation in danger. The Wallflower Order succumbs to Von Vampton’s deceit and his ability to plot in secret. However, they become concerned about the story being public, which indicates that secrecy is significant for the success of their operations. In other words, if more people are concerned about the secret war, the conspiracy of Wallflower Order will become at risk. So, Von Vampton takes advantage of the Wallflower Order’s intention to keep the operation against Jes Grew secret. He even achieves his goal by concealing his true identity in the New

York Sun. When the managing editors investigates the incident about placing the news about the war on Haiti in the front page headline, one of the characters who work in the magazine blames

Von Vampton and calls him “that furriner” (57).

MJ shows how secrecy and control are part of the problems of misinformation.

According to the New York Sun representative who interviews Von Vampton about his headline,

“Americans will not tolerate wars that can’t be explained in simple terms of economics or the

White man’s destiny” (58). Haiti, in the 1920s, according to the interviewer, is only known for

“mangoes and coffee. With the prohibition there’s no need for coffee, and mangoes appeal only to a few people” (22). This is the public perception that the Sun representative refers to as

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“simple terms of economics” that Von Vampton’s headline problematizes. In this incident, MJ shows that the Atonists use mainstream media to mislead the public. Atonists control the media for the benefit of a particular group, as Von Vampton’s interviewer indicates in his reference to

“the White man’s destiny” (58). The Haiti headline threatens the status quo, and Von Vampton’s interviewer states that “mobs are checking out books from the 42nd Street Library on Haiti” (59).

Maintaining the privileges of the dominant group relies on keeping the public misinformed about political affairs. MJ shows that the New York Sun’s misinformation campaign is undemocratic since they know that people may hold them accountable for their actions.

The Wallflower Order starts the war against Haiti as part of their conspiracy against Jes

Grew. They attempt to maintain control by excluding the public from knowing the necessary information. In order to maintain the secrecy of their involvement in the war, the Wallflower

Order start a campaign of misinformation through the New York Sun. Their campaign is in opposition to the democratic ideals of the United States. The Wallflower Order and the Atonists of the New York Sun attempt to achieve their goals by hiding the necessary factual information that would require the participation of the public in their political affairs. The person who interrogates Von Vampton about his action states, “[w]e had orders from the Occupation Forces that no news about this war would be printed on the mainland” (58). This statement indicates that misinformation can be a useful political tool. The war on Haiti is intended to help suppress Jes

Grew, and if the public is aware of it, they may question the people in charge. James H.

Kuklinski and others argue that facts are the currency of democratic citizenship. This conception of facts as currency requires two conditions. Firstly, “citizens must have ready access to factual information that facilitates the evaluation of public policy” (Kuklinski et al. 791). Secondly,

“citizens must then use these facts to inform their preferences. They must absorb and apply the

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facts to overcome areas of ignorance or to correct mistaken conceptions” (Kuklinski et al. 791).

In the case of the secret war against Haiti, the Atonists aim to obstruct the involvement of the democratic and public citizens by keeping the distorting the facts.

In MJ, the New York Sun aims at keeping the public misinformed. As a consequence, conspiracism emerges as a form of resisting new information. In this instance, MJ portrays a prominent conspiratorial narrative, which is the ‘deep state’ conspiracy theory. It is a conspiracist narrative which claims that a hidden government exists within the legitimately elected government. In many conspiracy theories, conspiracists claim that the elites, often described as members of secret societies and shadowy organizations, control the mainstream media in order to influence the political situation. It reflects the McCarthyism, during the period known as the Second Red Scare in the 1950s when Senator Joseph McCarthy claimed that there are communists in the government and other institutions. In MJ, the deep state consists of the

Atonist secret societies who conspire against Jes Grew. The Atonists intentionally try to keep the public misinformed about the war on Haiti, especially since the purpose of this war is to suppress

Jes Grew. Joseph Darda states that the war on Haiti in MJ “suggests how war has functioned as an instrument of racialization through which the liberal state defines the boundaries of the universal as the right to execute legitimate violence. It is through the delegitimation and exclusion—the racialization—of some social formations that universal Western man becomes intelligible” (91).

An informed public poses a threat to Atonists who can only, as the novel shows, maintain their hegemony through secrecy and deception. As a result, conspiracism emerges to call for opposing the control of the elites who try to maintain their dominance. However, instead of addressing the issues of corruption and manipulation within the system that enables the few to

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control the fate of the public, conspiracists explain the systematic problems to the naive in terms of a conspiracy theory. For instance, many conspiracy theories claim that there is a conspiracy called “the New World Order” through members of a secret cult control the world today. One of the theories claims that shape-shifting reptilians control the world, and conspiracy theorists such as David Icke, whose book is The Biggest Secret, and Milton William Cooper, who wrote Behold a Pale Horse, promoted this theory. Both Icke and Cooper are examples of conspiracy theorists who assume that a few conspirators orchestrate global events to maintain control. In other words, rather than fixing the overall system of politics, conspiracists believe that it is a problem with a few individuals who conspire against everyone else. MJ shows that the secret war against Haiti has no impact on the course of Jes Grew. It continues to spread out in the United States.

Secrecy vs. Conspiracism: Misinformation and Misbelief

In a democracy, being informed is necessary. Secrecy is undesired, especially when it involves the social and political concerns of the public. There were many issues with the political order in the postwar era involving various degrees of information and secrecy. Conspiracist belief in conspiracy theories may be interpreted as a “means of articulating an opposition” to the lack of transparency in politics, the increasing power of surveillance and the threat to privacy, the rising transnational corporate establishments, and the weakening of a sense of personal agency––problems stemming from the challenges to perceive the reality of multinational capitalism, globalization, and American military and political sovereignty (Jovan Byford, 3).

Conspiracism fails to grasp the complex reality of the postwar era. As a result, it offers a limited worldview that reduces the intricacies of the social and political order to a conspiracy.

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The problem with misinformation is not that people are uninformed. They are instead, as

Kuklinski and others argue, misinformed (792). “People hold inaccurate factual beliefs, and do so confidently” (Kuklinski et al. 792). Conspiracism is a form of misinformation. Conspiracists refuse to stay uninformed, or be, as one may say, in the dark, and because of their belief that conspiracies behind everything that occurs, they become misinformed. Most conspiracy theories are based on facts; but these facts are misinterpreted. The belief that everything as a conspiracy prevents conspiracists from perceiving reality as otherwise. Therefore, conspiracists interpret all the facts they receive as warranting their conspiracy theories. To be precise, the facts that can be interpreted as evidence that a conspiracy exists is considered true, and the facts that may prove that a conspiracy does not exist is interpreted as irrational. They may even accuse the elites who control the media for trying to hide their conspiracies by spreading misinformation, which is what the elite Atonists in MJ did. Conspiracists believe that the elites are continually plotting in secret. As a result, they resist new information that does not conform to their worldview and only accept the information that does so without questioning it. Their attempt to challenge secrecy may lead to paranoia, which is the thought process causing suspicion and mistrust in others. This way of thinking makes conspiracists suspicious of the facts that nullify their beliefs.

Misinformation is evident in LaBas’s views about the conspiracy against Jes Grew. The conspiracy is real, and the reader cannot rule out LaBas’s concern that a plot against Jes Grew exists since MJ provides all the information about it. The readers, however, can assess LaBas’s ability to discover it. Although the conspiracy against Jes Grew is real, LaBas fails to support his claims with valid and factual evidence. Throughout most of the novel, LaBas cannot discover the conspiracy on his own. He remains suspicious that it exists. Based on his presumptions, he must find out what Jes Grew is after in order to help it succeed. LaBas and his assistant and ally, Black

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Herman, become committed to helping Jes Grew find its Text. They learn about an ancient

Egyptian anthology written in hieroglyphs from Abdul Hamid, who also translates it. Later on,

LaBas visits Abdul’s office and finds him murdered on his desk (94). He suspects that Abdul’s death may be because of the anthology. Until this point, LaBas never mentions anything about the conspiracy of Wallflower Order and Knights Templars. He remains suspicious of the Atonist despite his lack of evidence that the conspiracy certainly exists.

LaBas and Herman finally learn about the conspiracy against Jes Grew from Benoit

Battraville, a Haitian leader who confronts the American Marines at Port-au-Prince, the capital of Haiti. They agree to help Battraville who informs them that he needs to capture Von Vampton and put him on trial according to his Hoodoo tradition. Battraville’s goal is to present Von

Vampton “before the loa” so that “the loa will do with him what it desires” (137). The loa that he refers to “possesses a technological bent” (137). According to Shelley Ingram, “[l]oas are spirits or gods of Vodou, and they are neither good nor bad, neither always right nor always wrong.

Loas encompass the whole range of human experience, so that they may better understand the humanity of those who call on them for help. Above all, they are never static: there is no single, defining characteristic of loas, no fixed pantheon” (189). Madison Smartt Bell compares

“Atonism [which] has its one monotheistic milk bottle” to “Vodou [which] can produce a loa, spirit, angel, or deity precisely tailored to whatever the human condition, from moment to moment, may require” (95). In a way, Battraville may be seeking justice for the war against

Haiti, but in a sense which is applicable to Vodou tradition.

The readers do not know what Battraville says to LaBas regarding the history of the

Wallflower Order and Knights Templars. In general, we know that Battraville’s story offers the historical account of the conflict between Atonists and Jes Grew. It was a long story since

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Battraville, LaBas, and Herman “talked all night” (138). LaBas and Herman agree to help

Battraville, and they go on with their plan during a party that Von Vampton and Gould, attend.

LaBas tries to justify his citizen arrest of Von Vampton based on a conspiracist account of history, some of which he may have learned from Battravile.

The readers presume that LaBas learned this detailed history from Battraville, but the accuracy of the information he has learned is questionable. In other words, there is a possibility that LaBas may have fabricated or misinterpreted some of the details in his counter-historical narrative. For instance, according to his story, “Hinckle Von Vampton was the Templar librarian” since the establishment of the Knights Templar Order in 1118 (188). LaBas’s claim shows that he tends to believe in conspiracy theories without investigating them rationally. One of the attendees points out that “according to your [LaBas’s] story Hinckle Von Vampton and

Gould would be a 1000 years old” (191). LaBas defends his claim by arguing that Von Vampton and Gould “learned to cheat death. They never revealed this even to their leader; it’s an Arab formula they learned” (192). There were indeed many cults and religious sects who pursued esoteric and mystical knowledge, some of which claim to provide eternity. This type of knowledge is mostly associated with secret societies according to conspiracist narratives. It is true that in the past, many people believed that such knowledge existed, but this kind of belief is irrational since there is no factual evidence that proves it. However, the claim that this knowledge is real is part of the conspiracist discourse which argues that some secret societies possess and conceal it.

LaBas claims that Von Vampton possesses that knowledge. However, due to his conspiracism, he simply mentions that information to support his claim. LaBas statement insinuates that he is susceptible to belief in conspiracy theories despite the lack of evidence to

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support them. In other words, he is misinformed. The idea that there are ways that allow an individual to cheat death is only possible fictionally and does not apply to reality. LaBas considers something that is fictional to be real, which is the case with many conspiracists who believe in several irrational conspiracy theories without producing the evidence that proves they are real. LaBas’s incident indicates that Reed views conspiracism as an inappropriate worldview to investigate conspiracies and address the issues of secrecy with secret societies.

Another example of LaBas’s misinformation occurs when he learns that not all secret societies are against Jes Grew. When LaBas fails to produce evidence for Von Vampton and

Gould’s conspiracy against Jes Grew, one of the party attendees, Buddy Jackson, offers his help.

Jackson, an African American, presents himself as

the Grand Master of the Boyer Grand Lodge #1 … a representative of the United

Brothers of Friendship, Sisters of the Mysterious 10, Daughters of the Prairie of the

Benevolent Protective Herd of Buffaloes of the World, United Order to the Fisherman of

Galilee of the Eastern and Western Hemispheres … a delegate from the Eastern Star,

Grand Fountain Order of the True Reformers and a troubleshooter for the locals: Crystal

Fount, Rouse of Sharon, Lily of the Valley, Good Intent, Ark of Safety, Neversink, Hand

in Hand, Gassaway, Rising Star of the East and Mount Pisgah. (192)

Jackson states that there are enmities between secret societies, and in his case, they stem from racism. Jackson’s secret societies were not recognized by “Caucasian lodges” (193). He states,

“[t]he Caucasian lodges downtown didn’t want anything to do with us. They refused to recognize our lodges even though we had been chartered by Prince Hall who in turn was chartered by

England” (193). He even emphasizes the prejudice the secret societies of which he is a member faced as he states, “[w]e broke away from their National Compact, a document of questionable

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repute, and we changed our name from Grand Boyer Lodge named for a Haitian General to the

United Grand Lodge of Free and Accepted Masons. We still wondered why they kept up their assault even when we made it plain that we didn’t want anything to do with them” (193).

Jackson’s statement shows that even secret societies can be wary of peer organizations and refuse to stay misinformed.

MJ reflects through Jackson’s case that the antagonism between secret societies results from secrecy as a technique of exclusion to protect the secrets. Jackson reveals his scheme to find out why “the vicious campaign” of white secret societies “against us continued unmitigated”

(193). Jackson and his fellows put together a scheme to infiltrate other secret societies to understand the source of the hostile campaign against them. He explains that “we had the fair mulatto brothers infiltrate their Caucasian lodges and then we found out why they didn’t want us around and didn’t want us fooling with Masonry and naming our lodges Temple of Solomon so and so” (194). Jackson’s scheme reveals the issues with the knowledge that white secret societies conceal. The knowledge kept secret, if revealed, would subvert the domination of whites over nonwhites. Realizing the origins of the knowledge that white lodges keep as a secret is originally nonwhite would undermine the claims of white supremacy. It establishes the ground that all races are equal and that everyone deserves to participate in public decisions. The secret knowledge is only kept secret for political reasons. Those who bear secret knowledge claim power over those who are excluded from knowing it. According to Simmel, “subjective possessions of the most various sorts acquire a decisive accentuation of value through the form of secrecy, in which the substantial significance of the facts concealed often enough falls into a significance entirely subordinate to the fact that others are excluded from knowing them” (464).

Hostility would emerge gradually between those who possess the secret knowledge and those

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who do not. Therefore, the secrecy of knowledge produces a hierarchy in which those who possess it dominate over the others. Simmel offers an example of this power-relation dynamic of secrecy. “Among children a pride and self-glory often bases itself on the fact that the one can say to the others: ‘I know something that you don't know.’ This is carried to such a degree that it becomes a formal means of swaggering on the one hand, and of de-classing on the other” (464).

This power-relation dynamic of secret knowledge results in the conspiracist belief that the secrets and mysteries of secret societies entail conspiracies that are required in order to maintain their domination on a global scale. MJ ridicules this conspiracist claim by showing that white secret societies cannot even maintain the secrecy of their knowledge, which is simply ethnocentric and racist. Furthermore, MJ shows how secret societies were easily infiltrated. One incident is Jackson’s scheme in revealing the racism of the white secret societies. Another incident is Von Vampton’s discovery of the Wallflower Order conspiracy against Jes Grew. The most significant incident is Battraville’s discovery of the conspiracy. He learns about it from Ti

Bouton, a Haitian Vodou priest and sorcerer, who informs Battraville that he must “find this

White Host he said had been dispatched here on a mission for the Wallflower Order. A Knights

Templar” (137). MJ does not reveal where Ti Bouton discovered that information. He even identifies precisely the names of the secret societies involved in the conspiracy against Jes Grew.

However, he does not identify Von Vampton as the target Battraville needs to capture. Von

Vampton was not involved in this war.

Secret knowledge, like any information in general, is subject to the interpretation of the individual who possesses it. Von Vampton discovered the Wallflower Order’s conspiracy against

Jes Grew and saw an opportunity to re-establish the Knights Templar as an official secret society and clear its history. When Battraville learned about the conspiracy, he saw it as an opportunity

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to bring justice against those who are involved in the war against Haiti. LaBas’s goal is to help

Jes Grew succeed. When he learned about the conspiracy from Battraville, he considered that by capturing Von Vampton, Jes Grew would eventually succeed, especially since they learned that

Von Vampton possesses the Book of Thoth, the text that Jes Grew is after. Von Vampton distributed the book among fourteen individuals. According to him, “[o]nly I can call it in and anthologize it” (69). However, Abdul discovers the book and translates it, which ruins Von

Vampton’s scheme to prevent Jes Grew from spreading all over the United States. In general, the discovery of secret knowledge and information does not necessarily mean anything without the methodology to interpret it. In some cases, the biases of an individual may prevent him or her from realizing the broader extent. Conspiracism is one of these cases since it insists that any information can prove a conspiracy exists, even if it is fictional or unreliable.

Conspiracism and the Bias towards Secrecy

Early in the novel, LaBas rejects the secrecy of secret societies as he mentions Marx’s converting the Workers Outlaw League into a public cause. However, he remains silent when he learns about Battraville’s Petro Order. This is one of the instances that reveal LaBas’s bias toward secret societies. Throughout the novel, LaBas contradicts himself regarding other issues as well. LaBas does not object to the existence of the secret societies that conform to his worldview, such as Battraville’s Petro Order, which is devoted to reviving “the ancient ways if they are to remain effective” (138). Battraville tells him about Charlemagne Peralte, a Haitian nationalist leader, who opposed the involvement of “the American Marines” in Haiti on “July 28,

1915” (132). Battraville states that “[t]hey came on their ships without an Act of your Kongress or consent of the American people” (132). Ti Bouton suggested that they “would need a Great

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White Host in order to force the American Marines, who were rampaging the countryside machine-gunning 1000s of people, to withdraw” (136). Charlemagne dismissed this option.

According to Battraville, “[h]e was a VooDooist but refused to practice the old ways” (136).

LaBas later asks him, “[w]hy if Charlemagne was repulsed by the practice of the Petro Way weren’t you?” (137). Battraville states that Charlemagne “was of the elites, I am a Blacksmith.

Besides Petro is my Order” (137).

LaBas also does not object to participating in a Battraville’s conspiracy against Von

Vampton. LaBas and Herman learn about Von Vampton’s affiliation with the Knights Templars and the conspiracy against Jes Grew through Battraville. Battraville asks LaBas and Herman for their help to capture Von Vampton. Battraville seeks justice for the war against Haiti. According to his story, Ti Bouton informs Battraville that they “must find this White Host whom he said had been dispatched here on a mission for the Wallflower Order. A Knights Templar” (137).

Battraville’s justification for capturing Von Vampton conforms to LaBas’s worldview, who does not object to achieving the goal through a conspiracy. The black and white perception of reality is inherent in LaBas’s conspiracism, which means that he refuses the conspiracy against Jes

Grew but approves of it against Von Vampton.

LaBas and Herman’s scheme to kidnap Von Vampton and Gould, who becomes the

Talking Android, begins when they learn that their targets are attending a party. Von Vampton presents Gould, who pretends to be an African American with black mud of his face. Von

Vampton introduces him as “1 of the most exciting young poets to come on the scene, a man who is the dominant figure in Negro letters today, a man who like no 1 else captures the complexity of Negro Thought” (157). LaBas and Herman interrupt the event and state, “[w]e have come to arrest this man and his sponsor Hinckle Von Vampton” (160). To justify the arrest,

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LaBas begins with “it all began 1000s of years ago in Egypt according to a high up member in the Haitian aristocracy” (160). He then narrates a long counter-narrative of history.

The conspiracist history begins with Osiris and his brother Set. Both Osiris and Set, in

LaBas’s story, represent two different political poles. Osiris stands for the unity of the people through dancing and singing, and Jes Grew is the manifestation of what Osiris stands for. Set, on the other hand, represents the power of the ruling class through his subjugation and oppression of the people he ruled. Among the people of Egypt, “Set can’t dance became the cry. Even Hully

Gullying children on the street would point out Set as the man who can’t shake it ‘til he breaks it” (163). Because of this incident, Set became envious of Osiris and the people under his rule.

As a result, Set began devising an alternative politics. “He spent most of his time “out with the boys”; legislators, an unpopular group of poets who went about Egypt telling Egyptians that they could do better that they weren’t ready and that they ought to try to make something out of themselves” (164). LaBas’s narrative equates Set’s political project with that of the Atonists (i.e., the dominant political system of the United States and Europe). Set’s political campaign was not well-received among the Egyptians. “Make ready for what? 1 man asked at one of their whistle stops. Ready for progress? Invading foreign countries and killing?” (164).

LaBas’s story relates the search of Jes Grew for its text, which is the Book of Thoth that

Von Vampton possesses, to this origin. LaBas’s narrative even criticizes Set’s political system and his supporters as elitist since the Egyptians “didn’t go for it and sarcastically called them

“The First Poets” because in Egypt at the time of Osiris every man was an artist and every artist a priest; it wasn’t until later that Art became attached to the State to do with it what it pleased”

(164). However, the Egyptians “began to do the dance of Osiris and it would interrupt their tilling of the soil” (164). This was the incident from which it became necessary to document

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Osiris’s dance in a book. As a result, the man who suggested this idea believed that “outbreaks occurred because the mysteries had no text to turn to. No litany to feed the spirits that were seizing the people, and that if Osiris would execute these dance steps for Thoth he would illustrate them and then Osirian priests could determine what god or spirit possessed them as well as learn how to make these gods and spirits depart” (164). As Jonathan P. Lewis states,

“[l]ike jazz, rock, and the blues, Osiris’s songs and dances take on local mutations; Osiris and his modern manifestation as Jes Grew are therefore highly successful as well as beneficial social viruses of free expression; the people hear the songs, dance the steps, and make them their own—they don’t need a leader or priest or rules keeper. Instead, everyone can make their art— do their thang be it a dance, a song, a poem, a novel—and be free” (80).

LaBas’s story continues forward to reveal a history of monotheism as the religion of the oppressive and hegemonic class that is in constant struggle with polytheistic religions, which represents the general populations. The site of the struggle between monotheism and polytheism is art, represented by dancing and singing. LaBas’s story uses the elements of Osiris and Set’s story as keys to understanding the long history of religious and racial conflicts. His conspiracist bias portrays these conflicts in black and white, mostly depicting those who follow Set’s steps in suppressing popular art while reducing the power of artistic expression to a few individuals in every age as conspirators. LaBas even suggests that these few individuals are part of secret societies to protect the origins and the spiritual knowledge of art from the public. LaBas quotes

H. P. Blavatsky, who states that “[t]he Fraternity of Free Masons was founded in Egypt and

Moses communicated the secret teaching to Israelites, Jesus to the Apostles and thence it found its way to the Knights Templar” (186). LaBas conspiracism reduces history to struggle between a powerful minority against the majority of people. According to his narrative, secret societies

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generally are dedicated to preserving the power of the ruling class by harboring and harnessing the power of knowledge which they conceal from the public. Reed consistently, throughout

LaBas’ story, exaggerates specific details in a manner ridiculing his conspiracist narrative, especially the details of Von Vampton’s role in the Knights Templar Order.

LaBas’ story continues to reveal the origins of the Knights Templars and the establishment of their headquarters in 1118. It seems that LaBas is relying on his Knockings to justify his citizen’s arrest of Von Vampton and his assistant in front of a large audience. He tries to achieve two things. Firstly, he tries to establish Von Vampton’s involvement in the conspiracy against Jes Grew. Secondly, he tries to justify Von Vampton’s possession of the Book of Thoth.

According to his story, when Saladin drove the Templars from the Holy Land, “Hinckle Von

Vampton fled with the sacred Book” (188). LaBas and Herman fail to produce the Book of

Thoth, which they, later on, realize that Abdul Hamid actually burned it before he was murdered.

Overall, their conspiracism distracts them from basing their accusation on substantial evidence.

LaBas and Herman are, in fact, carrying out a conspiracy themselves. Their “citizen’s arrest” is actually part of a secret operation to kidnap Von Vampton and his assistant to deliver them to

Battraville.

LaBas’s use of counter-history to justify the arrest of Von Vampton and Gould reveals his black and white attitude toward reality. He is convinced that the story he learned from

Battraville is enough to justify his arrest of Von Vampton and Gould. However, in one of the early incidents in the novel, Gould harasses children in a park. The mothers of these children interrupt the party and point out Gould for their harassing their children, and LaBas and Herman consider that their justification of the citizen’s arrest and leave hastily. They take Von Vampton and Gould directly to Battraville. They completely disregard the charges of harassment.

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MJ prevents LaBas from his attempt to control the interpretation of Jes Grew from his

VooDooist perspective. LaBas accurately describes some of the aspects of Jes Grew, but his traditional perspective limits his understanding of it. For instance, he initially believes that Jes

Grew is after its Text, but his view changes after he learns that it has ended. It presumably ended because Abdul Hamid has burned the book after he lost the translated copy. To be precise, this is

LaBas’s interpretation of why Jes Grew ended, and MJ does not identify the particular reasons why Jes Grew actually ceased to spread out. In his letter to LaBas, Abdul reveals the reason for burning the Text. “I have decided that black people could never have been involved in such a lewd, nasty, decadent thing as is depicted here. This material is obviously a falsification by the infernal fiend himself!!” (202). LaBas declares, “[w]e will make our own future Text, A future generation of young artists will accomplish this” (204). LaBas’s views on Jes Grew has changed.

MJ shows that there are alternatives for Jes Grew to succeed if it re-emerges again in the future.

Jes Grew is not merely a historical tradition as he used to believe. The novel challenges LaBas’s bias several times. Therefore, it invites the readers to theorize about Jes Grew beyond LaBas’s limited perspective. After LaBas realizes that Abdul Hamid has burned the Book of Thoth, his perspective of Jes Grew changes. As Alondra Nelson states, “[r]ather than despair when he finds out that the Text has been destroyed, LaBas believes that the next generation will be successful in creating a text that can codify black culture: past, present, and future” (8). LaBas’s new perspective indicates that Jes Grew is more than just a cultural movement defined by tradition that would limit it. It is rather more innovative.

In the epilogue, LaBas delivers a lecture in a university, thirty years after the events of

Jes Grew, and he talks about Wallflower Order and Knights Templars more reasonably. After all, he has learned about them from Battraville as well as other characters who have infiltrated

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Atonist secret societies and discovered the conspiracy against Jes Grew. He even mentions his naivety while investigating the Jes Grew conspiracy. LaBas states, “I was a jacklegged detective of the metaphysical who was on the case; and in 1920 there was a crucial case” (212). LaBas then mentions the major problem that Americans faced when Jes Grew emerged. “In 1920 Jes

Grew swept through this country and whether they liked it or not Americans were confronted with the choices of whether to Eagle Rock or Buzzard Swoop, whether to join the contagion or quarantine it, whether to go with Jes Grew or remain loyal to the Atonist Path protected by the

Wallflower Order, its administrative backbone, composed of grumblers and sourpusses to whom no 1 ever asked: ‘May I Have This 1?’” (212). Darwin T. Turner argues that “Reed in Mumbo-

Jumbo insists that the Harlem Renaissance should be attributed to the power of "Jes Grew," the survival of an African religion whose teachings have been suppressed and concealed by

Europeans for more than two thousand years” (125). By focusing on the lack of choice, LaBas’s statement highlights one of the significant themes in the novel, which is the hegemony of the

Eurocentric narrative exemplified in Atonism. Jes Grew is a cultural movement that transcends

LaBas’s bias. It does not necessarily have to be grounded in history to exist in the present.

MJ represents several issues with the secrecy in secret societies, as well as issues with the conspiracist perspectives that portray such secrecy as a means to maintain the concealment of global conspiracies. Most of the conspiracy theories that accuse secret societies of participating in conspiracies fail to provide evidence that a global conspiracy exists and that secret societies are part of it. MJ exploits the narrative of these conspiracy theories and represents it in the form of the conspiracy of Wallflower Order and Knight Templar against Jes Grew. Secrecy is at the heart of the conflict between the Atonist and Jes Grew followers. On the one hand, the

Wallflower Order and the Knights Templars attempt to suppress Jes Grew through secrecy.

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On the other hand, the Jes Grew supporters attempt to help Jes Grew succeed by resisting the secrecy of those who oppose it. Ironically, Jes Grew followers end up exploiting secrecy to support their cause. For instance, there is the group called the Mu’tafikah who steal African art from museums and return them to their original lands. The novel mostly centers around the protagonist, Papa LaBas, who investigates the conspiracy against Jes Grew. The narrative voice reveals most of the details from an omniscient point of view. However, much of the details about

Jes Grew is revealed through LaBas’s voice. The readers are aware of LaBas’s bias in many instances, and his conspiracism stands out among other issues with his character.

Conspiracism limits the investigation of issues of secrecy and secret societies. LaBas does not hesitate to claim that secret societies put together a conspiracy against Jes Grew. His conspiracism makes him an unreliable character, and his view on the conspiracy against Jes

Grew is questionable. Although he represents a good cause in the story, MJ denies him the authority to explain either Jes Grew or the conspiracy against it ultimately. In a way, the novel prevents readers from arriving at a total understanding of many of the significant events. Jes

Grew can be defined in general terms, but the reasons why it ends remain a mystery. The same applies to certain characters who learn about the conspiracy against Jes Grew. They discover the conspiracy, but the readers cannot identify the particular resources of the knowledge of these characters.

What MJ shows about the conspiracies of secret societies is another problem. MJ challenges secret society conspiracy theories. By featuring the conspiracy against Jes Grew, MJ does not condone the conspiracist belief in conspiracy theories. The novel shows that much of the concerns of the characters with secret societies is due to their secrecy, which results in exclusion and antagonism. Conspiracists fail to grasp the complex power-relations that result

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from secrecy. Conspiracy theories offer them relief from the burden of investigating and solving the problems resulting from secrecy. In other words, it is easier to accuse others of engaging in conspiracies rather than confronting the causes of distrust and anxiety.

Nevertheless, in a general sense, the misconceptions that result from conspiracism should not prevent others from addressing the actual problems. MJ offers a story through which one can perceive that conspiracies do occur, but conspiracism is not the appropriate view to investigate them. LaBas may luckily be accurate, but he fails to prove the conspiracy exists. Part of his failure is due to his attempt to portray secrecy, particularly maintaining the secrecy of specific knowledge, as necessarily a conspiracy. The irony is that Jes Grew remains not totally definable.

Much of it remains a mystery. LaBas considers Von Vampton’s hiding of the Book of Thoth a conspiracy. After it was burned, LaBas comes to realize eventually that “Jes Grew has no end and no beginning … We will miss it for a while but it will come back, and when it returns we will see that it never left” (204). Reed thus liberates Jes Grew from the biased views that attempted to categorize or even destroy it. It remains beyond the capacity of the characters and readers to explain it, yet its characteristics can be identified.

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IV. The Dilemma of Conspiracism in Eco’s Foucault’s Pendulum

Umberto Eco’s Foucault’s Pendulum is a novel that explores the conspiracist narrative that a secret society is orchestrating a conspiracy to take over the world. The story features several characters who believe that members of the Knights Templar secret society have maintained the secrecy of their global conspiracy for about seven centuries. These characters establish a secret society called the Tres, short for Templi Resurgentes Equites Synarchici, which translates to “the Risen again Synarchic Knights of the Temple.” They are dedicated to discovering the secret plan of the Knights Templars, which they claim was interrupted after six centuries by a global event in 1944. The goal of the Tres secret society is to replace the Templars as the Master of the World. They remain anonymous throughout most of FP, but they reveal their existence later in the novel’s climax. Casaubon, whose research thesis focuses on the trial of the Knights Templars, Jacopo Belbo, the senior editor in a publishing house, and Diotallevi, a kabbalist and Belbo’s friend and coworker, find the idea that a Templars’ plan exists ridiculous.

At one point, they fabricate a conspiratorial narrative they call the Plan, inspired by the idea of the Templars’ plan, which they ridicule. They create the Plan as part of a language game, basically mocking absurd conspiracy theories and the ambiguous connections that conspiracists find persuasive. The Tres learn about it and convince themselves that it is true. They kidnap

Belbo to question him, but he refuses to reveal what he knows. The Tres eventually hang him by the string of Foucault’s pendulum, an actual pendulum invented by scientist Leon Foucault which has a symbolic meaning in FP. Eco criticizes the worldview of the Tres, whose claim that a secret plan exists falls apart because they fail to support it by rational evidence. Their

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worldview is conspiracism, which appears as an insatiable desire for discovering conspiracies, even if the evidence indicates that they are not real.

The novel can be perceived as a dialogue between two distinct perceptions regarding the claim that the Templars’ secret plan exists. On the one hand, the Tres constitutes the conspiracist perspective, which argues that a plan which the surviving Templars put together was created in order to dominate the world. FP introduces each of these members singularly but reveals their connection as the Tres in a late chapter. On the other hand, Casaubon, Belbo, and Diotallevi constitute the group that argues the contrary point of view. They work as editors in Garamond

Press, a publishing house that publishes works on the occult and secret societies. The narrative reveals that they examine the validity of the claim that the Templars’ plan exists. They find no valid evidence to support the claims put forward by the characters whom they do not know as

Tres yet, especially Agliè, who offers them extensive accounts of mystical knowledge and claims to know things about secret societies that other people do not know. The three friends find the claim that the conspiracy exists implausible and end up creating the Plan, which consists of fragments of the information that they accumulated throughout FP. They used the word processor on Belbo’s computer, which he calls Abulafia, to rearrange and rewrite the sentences from the manuscripts in Garamond Press.

The two groups, in general, are searching for some form of absolute truth, but conspiracism distinguishes the quest of the Tres from the three friends. The Tres’s epistemological quest is finding the truth about a conspiracy that does not exist in reality. They believe that there are secrets that, when discovered, the Tres’ existence would become meaningful. Their perception that a conspiracy exists is based on older texts that claim that there are secrets and hidden knowledge that must be revealed. They believe that their discovery of

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secrets will empower them. A member of the Tres who stands out throughout the text is Agliè, who always talks about esoteric knowledge and historical characters who pursued it. Another

Tres is Ardenti, who claims to have discovered the Templars secret plan that they put together more than six centuries ago. The Tres pursue mystical and esoteric knowledge, hoping that their discovery would allow them to understand the world. They believe that the Templars were able to hide the Holy Grail, which they claim that whoever finds it will possess a source of enormous power, as Ardenti explains when he claims the Templars’ secret plan exists. So, by discovering the plan and the Grail, the Tres will take over the place of the Templars as “the Masters of the

World” (FP 578).

In comparison, Casaubon and his friends, most importantly Belbo, are overwhelmed by their search for absolute meaning and certainty but not through the discovery of a conspiracy.

Casaubon is incredulous throughout the novel. He recalls a childhood incident about subscribing to a magazine, the purpose of which he thought “is to educate the reader in an entertaining way”

(49). His father replied, “[t]he purpose of your magazine … is the purpose of every magazine: to sell as many copies as it can” (49). Since that day, Casaubon states, “I began to be incredulous”

(49). His incredulity makes him skeptical of everything other people would claim to be historically factual while insisting on finding evidence to support each claim. Belbo appears to be cynical, but as Casaubon states, “[h]is intellectual disrespect concealed a desperate thirst for the Absolute” (55). Diotallevi is the only traditionalist of three friends. He is an expert in the

Kabbalah Jewish tradition, and Belbo sarcastically questions Diotallevi’s Jewishness. Belbo tells

Casaubon that “[o]ur Diotallevi thinks he’s Jewish” (75). After a lengthy exchange, Diotallevi tries to end the conversation when he says, “[t]he blood in me says that my thoughts are exquisitely Talmudic, and it would be racist for you to claim that a gentile can be as exquisitely

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Talmudic as I am” (76). Belbo then states, “[w]e have this argument every day. The fact is this,

Diotallevi is a devotee of the cabala. But there were also Christian cabalists. Anyway, if

Diotallevi wants to be Jewish, why should I object?” (76). This conversation implies that

Diotallevi is not absolutely sure about his claim to Jewish, and his devotion to Kabbalah is not enough to sustain his identity, even though his knowledge of it is significant in FP.

Throughout the novel, Casaubon and Belbo are receptive, listening to other characters’ presumptions and justifications in their attempt to prove a conspiracy exists. Casaubon, whose doctorate thesis establishes his background on the Knights Templars, is consistently inquisitive.

He is interested in learning from Agliè. Sometimes Agliè narrates a story persuasively, but

Casaubon remains incredulous. FP shows that Agliè’s stories intrigue Casaubon, who compares what Agliè claims to be genuine with accounts that offer different perspectives. Overall,

Casaubon hesitantly dismisses Agliè’s stories as irrational, and to a certain extent, he is amused by them. Part of what Agliè claims is historically accurate, especially references to actual events about the Knight Templar and other secret societies. However, many of his claims are evidently exaggerated, such as his implication to be the Comte de Saint-Germain and that he is a thousand years old (FP 171).

Agliè and other characters reveal two significant issues with conspiracist claims. The first of these issues is that some of the knowledge one claims to possess may refer directly to texts that are not grounded on events in reality. Usually, these texts refer to a seemingly endless sequence of other texts, none of which provides evidence that the claimed conspiracy exists. The problem with this type of knowledge is that it forms an infinite regress. It means that the support of one’s claim refers to a text which also requires the support of another text, and so on ad infinitum. This fallacy is evident in the conspiracist claims which try to justify conspiracies by

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referring to texts that cannot conclusively prove that those conspiracies exist without relying on other texts that claim they exist without real evidence. To challenge this fallacy, FP shows

Casaubon’s role in tracing the textual resources from which comes the knowledge of the conspiracist characters. On several occasions, Casaubon states that many of the claims that Agliè and other characters make have no foundation in reality. Therefore, they are unreliable.

Casaubon and his friends apply this fallacy to the Plan, the content of which comes from fragments and sentences taken from the collection of manuscripts that self-financed authors, referred to as the Diabolicals, submitted to Manutius, a vanity press that Garamond, the owner of

Garamond Press, established for the self-financed books. As a result, the Plan appears convincing to the members of the Tres who think it is truthful.

The second issue is circular reasoning, which stems from the type of claims that regress infinitely. Circular reasoning appears as a solution to the problem of regress in the conspiracist arguments by claiming that everything is connected to everything else when one believes that a conspiracy exists. For instance, when a conspiracist claims that a conspiracy exists, he or she may refer to a second conspiracy theory that also claims it exists. The conspiracist then asks, what is the evidence that warrants the second conspiracy theory? The result may be a third conspiracy theory. Unsurprisingly, the third conspiracy theory may not present valid evidence to support its claim. The sequence of conspiratorial claims continues indefinitely. The conspiracist would think that since several conspiracy theories claim that a conspiracy exists, then it would be implausible to dismiss them. Therefore, the conspiracist would conclude that his conspiracy theory is valid because many conspiracy theories present claims similar to his.

Throughout FP, the search for evidence for the Templars’ secret plan is the case that drives the plot. Casaubon, Belbo, and Diotallevi do not believe that the secret plan exists because

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there is no rational evidence to support it. They meet other characters, such as Ardenti and Agliè, who present a challenge to their incredulity. To a certain extent, they try to figure out what

Ardenti and Agliè misunderstand. They succeed in many cases but fail in proving the invalidity of some of the clues presented to them. To challenge the conspiracists, they fabricate the Plan, as part of an intellectual game, and Belbo presents it to Agliè, who begins to consider it as evidence that the Templars’ plan is real. The three friends realize, through the Plan, that Agliè and the others tend to believe any account that claims a secret plan exists, even though some of the lines they inserted in the Plan reveal that it is absurd, such as “Minnie Mouse is Mickey’s fiancée”

(71).

Only Casaubon and his friends know that the Plan is a fabrication, yet the members of the

Tres consider it a text that will eventually reveal everything they believe exists. When they question Belbo about the source of the Plan, he refuses to disclose that it is invented. As a result, they hang him by the string of Foucault’s pendulum. Casaubon explains that “the more Belbo refused to reveal it, the bigger They believed the secret to be; the more he vowed he didn’t possess it, the more convinced They were that he did possess it, and that it was a true secret, because if it were false, he would have revealed it” (605). The dilemma the members of the Tres face is that whether Belbo reveals that the Plan is a fabrication or not, there would be no meaning for the Tres’s life-long pursuit for the secret plan of the Templars. “Through the centuries the search for this secret had been the glue holding Them all together, despite excommunications, internecine fighting, coups de main. Now They were on the verge of knowing it. But They were assailed by two fears: that the secret would be a disappointment, and that once it was known to all, there would be no secret left. Which would be the end of them” (605).

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Conspiracists may dismiss any claim that presents a counterargument to their case, regardless of the lack of evidence to support their claim. As a result, the conspiracists would consider the counterargument suspicious. They would regard it as an attempt to conceal the truth about the conspiracy they claim is real. It is a case of endless suspicion, which, according to Eco, is an illness he calls the “[s]yndrome of suspicion” (Noble 145). As Cinzia D. Noble argues,

“Eco calls the syndrome of suspicion an illness because its rule is secrecy and it keeps renewing itself forever” (145). Noble explains that the scientific term behind this condition is called dietrologia, “literally ‘the science of looking backwards,’ which implies that behind a fact there is always another fact, and behind the previous fact there is yet another and more complex fact, and so on, in an infinite chain of analogies” (145). She adds that dietrologia “explains life as a continuous conspiracy” (145). Dietrologia can be perceived as the Italian word synonymous with conspiracism. Noble argues that Eco presents semiotics, “the science of interpretating [sic] signs

… as a healthy substitute for dietrologia because it discovers hidden meaning, but it is not made secret” (145). The science of semiotics differs from dietrologia since the former allows the text to be open to multiple interpretations. Semiotics, as Noble argues, is “content with its work and stops the chain of analogies” (145). In other words, semiotics identifies the constraints of the text and allows the readers to interpret the text based on what it presents. Eco presents three rules for a good reading of the text. As Noble states,

First of all, as readers we can accept a clue that can be explained economically, without

having to rely on exaggerated or unrealistic circumstances; easy, linear logic is most

reliable. Next, the clue must lead to only one cause, or a very few causes, coherently with

the text. Finally, all collected clues must fit together as part of the whole system

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established by the text itself (I limiti 86). Then we must stick to the written page, and in

the end respect its authority. (146)

Eco’s rules highlight the significance of being aware of the contexts of the text.

Alicia Juarrero summarizes Eco’s viewpoint regarding the interpretation of a text. Eco argues that there two ways to interpret a text. The first one is “the semantic and semiosic interpretation” (Juarrero 895). Eco defines this way of interpretation as “the result of the process by which an addressee, facing Linear Text Manifestation, fills it up with a given meaning” (Eco qtd in Juarrero 895). The second way of interpreting a text is “the critical and semiotic interpretation” (Juarrero 895). According to Eco, this is “a metalinguistic activity … which aims at describing and explaining for which formal reason a given text produces a given response”

(Eco qtd in Juarrero 895). Juarrero then explains that “Eco insists that critical readers look first for a text’s ‘literal’ meaning, given by the historical period in which the work is written (not the intention of the author), as well as by the context of within the fictional ‘small world’ of the work itself” (Juarrero 895). Reading FP according to the first way, which is the semantic and semiosic, is impossible because the novel is, as Juarrero describes it, “self-voiding” (895).

Juarrero states that FP’s message “is that there is no message” (895). The novel does not provide closure. Instead, the reader ends up with “a world whose secret is that there is no secret” (896).

In the end, this paradox forces the readers to interpret the text semiotically. “At this point, the reader is forced to resort to ‘invention’ (in Eco’s sense of the term), that is, a mode of sign production that redraws the system of signification and therefore its code” (Juarrero 898). The invention of meaning may result in the Hermetic drift, through which everything relates to everything and any meaning becomes possible. Juarrero argues that this Hermetic drift is “the inventive evolutionary strategy to use. But not Diabolically; playfully” (898). The Diabolicals

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are the self-financed authors who have an interest in the occult. In other words, Juarrero suggests we interpret FP semiotically without resorting to the belief that there is something occult about it.

In what follows, I discuss how Eco’s FP portrays the fallacies of conspiracism. The novel presents the issues of the arguments that conspiracists make and then reveals what these arguments truly miss. After that, FP shows that the problem is with conspiracism is more than epistemological. In other words, conspiracism is not genuinely a truth-seeking worldview.

Conspiracist arguments may appear to be searching for the truth. They may even rely on facts, but generally, they present an ontological issue when they believe that a global conspiracy is real. The answers to the epistemological concerns of these arguments are not enough to dissuade the conspiracists from believing that a global conspiracy exists. FP reflects the issues of conspiracism and presents the central characters, especially Casaubon, as offering the counterarguments to the irrational conspiratorial claims. The novel shows that the evidence to prove a conspiracy exists must be valid in order to support the conspiracy theory. Otherwise, the person investigating the existence of a conspiracy must not insist that the evidence proves it.

Instead, the explanation that a conspiracy is real should lead from the collected evidence. The problem with conspiracists is that they first assume that the conspiracy exists and then search for the evidence to prove their presumption. This is precisely what the conspiracist characters in FP did. The novel offers a diagnosis of the conspiracist dilemma at the end. The novel also presents rational characters who refute the evidence presented by the conspiracists. Their refutation eventually shows the conspiracists’ unwillingness to accept any evidence that proves they are wrong.

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Critiquing Conspiracism and its Flawed Reasoning

FP proposes solutions to the fallacies of the conspiracist argument. FP is open to multiple interpretations. Interpreting the novel as critiquing conspiracism is plausible since several characters believe that a Templar global conspiracy exists. FP reveals that the primary goal of these conspiracist characters is to take over the Templars’ plan as the Masters of the

World. Their belief that a conspiracy exists is among a set of beliefs in the mythical and the occult. FP even reveals that the clues that these conspiracist characters consider evidence are not, in fact, proof that the conspiracy exists. These clues indicate that these characters are searching for conclusive evidence to prove their claims true. However, since they cannot find conclusive evidence to solidify their claims, they resort to establishing connections that produce infinite regress, which is one of the flaws in their reasoning to justify the conspiracy exists.

Another flaw is circular reasoning, which results from the insistence that everything is connected to everything. When conspiracist thinking fails to present the evidence to prove a conspiracy theory true conclusively, circular reasoning provides the justification that the conspiracy is real. Since many claims point toward one thing, which is the existence of a conspiracy, then circular reasoning gives the impression that all of the claims are true and justify each other. Circular reasoning results from the preconceived notion that everything is connected.

In FP, one particular idea unifies all the claims that a conspiracy exists, and that is the idea of secrecy. The conspiracists in FP are preoccupied with the secret plan of the Knights Templar, which is a secret society. They are also preoccupied with the Templars’ pursuit of secret knowledge. The conspiracists also practice rituals of secrecy. They even believe that the

Templars used secret messages to carry out their secret plan. Since everything they are interested in is secret, then everything must be connected to one thing, which is a global conspiracy. Their

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flawed reasoning is founded on their presumption that the Templars’ global conspiracy exists. To justify their presumption, they focus exclusively on the revelation of secrets, which do not necessarily indicate the conspiracy is real.

Debunking the Evidence: The Templars’ Coded Message

Belbo meets Casaubon in a local bar and invites him to Garamond Press to review a manuscript on the history of the Templars and their involvement in a global conspiracy. They later meet Ardenti, who claims that the documented events regarding the trial of the Templars are questionable. He claims to have discovered where the Templars who survived the trial have moved. According to him, the Templars moved to Provins in France. The reason he chose

Provins is that it has a “network of tunnels––real catacombs––[that] extends beneath the hill”

(121). Ardenti has visited Provins, in which he saw a Gothic building, “the Grange-aux-Dîmes, or tithe granary” (122). He made a connection to the Templars, whose one of the sources of their

“strength was that they collected tithes directly and didn’t have to pay anything to the state”

(122). He then states that he had gone “through the archives in Provins” and came “across a local newspaper from 1894” (123). One of the articles mentions Chevalier Camille Laforge of Tours and Chevalier Edouard Ingolf of Petersburg, who visited the Grange and discovered a secret chamber in one of the tunnels underneath the building.

In the article, the reporter claimed that Ingolf was able to go into the secret chamber through a narrow tunnel. Ardenti then decided to find Ingolf after he suspected that he might have discovered something in the secret chamber. Ardenti says that he looked up the family name Ingolf in the directories of the country and “found only one, in Auxerre” (124). He sent a letter to the address introducing himself “as an amateur archaeologist” (124). After two weeks,

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he received a reply from Ingolf’s daughter, whom he refers to as “Mademoiselle Ingolf” (124).

He visited her and learned that her “father disappeared in 1935” (124). He went through Ingolf’s library, hoping to find clues about what Ingolf discovered in Provins. Ardenti picked up “an old volume with a heavy binding,” but it falls, and notebook paper fell out, on the margin of which he finds written, “Provins 1894” (126). He then realized that the book in his hand was a copy, and Ingolf sent the original parchment somewhere in Paris before he disappears. Ardenti treats this copy as “the original” as he tells Casaubon, “when originals no longer exist, the last copy is the original” (127). Casaubon responds, “Ingolf may have made errors in transcription” (127).

Ardenti defends his position and states, “[y]ou don’t know that he did. Whereas I know Ingolf’s transcription is true, because I see no way the truth could be otherwise. Therefore Ingolf’s copy in the original” (127).

Ardenti’s claim reveals one of the major issues of conspiracist thinking, which is the desire to believe that the evidence supports the claim that a conspiracy exists. Conspiracists may even attempt to explain that the evidence is valid, even when it is apparently not. Ardenti claims that in one of the pages in the book he has, there is a coded message that reveals the Templars’ secret plan. The page states,

a la . . . Saint Jean

36 p charrete de fein

6 . . . les blancs mantiax

r . . . s . . . chevaliers de Pruins pour la . . . j.n.c.

chascune foiz 20 a . . . 120 a . . .

iceste est l’ordonation

al donjon li premiers

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it li secunz joste iceus qui . . . pans

it al refuge

it a Nostre Dame de l’atre part de l’iau

it a l’ostel des popelicans

it a la pierre

3 foiz 6 avant la feste . . . la Grant Pute. (131)

Ardenti claims that he deciphered the secret message. He states, “the dots in Ingolf’s transcription stand for words that were illegible … I’ve restored to the text to its ancient splendor––as the saying goes” (131). Ardenti goes on to say that the message is as follows:

THE (NIGHT OF) SAINT JOHN

36 (YEARS) P(OST) HAY WAIN

6 (MESSAGES) INTACT WITH SEAL

F(OR THE KNIGHTS WITH) THE WHITE CLOAK [TEMPLARS]

R(ELAP)S(I) OF PROVINS FOR (VAIN)JANCE [REVENGE]

6 TIMES 6 IN SIX PLACES

EACH TIME 20 Y(EARS MAKES) 120 Y(EARS)

THIS IS THE PLAN

THE FIRST GO TO THE CASTLE

IT(ERUM) [AGAIN AFTER 120 YEARS] THE SECOND JOIN THOSE (OF THE)

BREAD

AGAIN TO THE REFUGE

AGAIN TO OUR LADY BEYOND THE RIVER

AGAIN TO THE HOSTEL OF THE POPELICANS

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AGAIN TO THE STONE

3 TIMES 6 [666] BEFORE THE FEAST (OF THE) GREAT WHORE. (131)

The message is ambiguous, but Ardenti continues to explain each of these lines in detail. An arbitrary connection Ardenti makes is clear in his answer when Belbo asks him, “what is this stone?” as he refers to the line before the last one (135). Ardenti goes on for a whole chapter

(chapter 20 of FP) explaining that it is a reference to the Grail. He claims that the Templars were in pursuit of the Holy Grail, which, if they find, they will possess secret power. He states, “[i]t’s obvious that there is a connection between the Grail, the philosopher’s stone, and the enormous power source that Hitler’s followers were seeking on the eve of the war and pursued to their last breath” (137).

Ardenti shows his ability to interpret the deciphered message and concludes the Templars have been carrying out the plan to control the world. It requires six individuals to keep the secret plan, and each group lives in one of the six places assigned in the plan. Therefore, in each generation, since the Templars moved underground after their disbandment, thirty-six individuals know the secret plan, which they pass along to the following generations. However, he claims that the events of 1944 have interrupted the Templars’ plan. “The groups of the thirty-six may have been broken up by some worldwide catastrophe. But some other group of men with spirit, men with the right information, could perhaps pick up the thread of the plot” (142). Ardenti assumes that there are people who have information that leads to the discovery of the secret plot.

As a result, he wants to publish his book in order “to encourage reactions” (142). Another reason to publish his book is to motivate like-minded people to search for information “in the labyrinth of traditional learning” (142). Garamond Press would provide Ardenti the opportunity to publish

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his work and become in contact with people who share his interest. Ardenti then gives Belbo the manuscript and leaves.

The problem with Ardenti’s interpretation is that he forces his assumptions on the text written in the paper and claims that it is the intended meaning. His only reference is his own belief that the text means what he claims it does. At one point, he claims that “everything depends on how you draw the lines” (142). Ardenti’s approach would mean that any interpretation is true depending on how one perceives it, especially since he does not follow a particular method. A warranted conspiracy theory requires one to make assumptions based on the clues one finds. Based on these clues, one may argue that a conspiracy possibly exists. However, the evidence may indicate something else other than the existence of a conspiracy. FP presents an example of this case when the actual meaning of the message that Ardenti claims to be a clue leading to the Templars’ secret plan.

FP presents an example, in Casaubon’s case, of a genuine epistemological examination of the evidence that conspiracists may claim that it proves a global conspiracy exists. At one point in the novel, Casaubon finds himself challenged by the clue that Ardenti presented as evidence that the secret plan is real. Lia, Casaubon’s girlfriend, provides him with the logical explanation of the note that Ardenti presents. Lia translates the message and explains to him that it is a “laundry list” (519). The message, as Lia shows, is as follows:

“In Rue Saint Jean:

36 sous for wagon of hay

Six new lengths of cloth with seal

to rue de Blancs-Manteaux.

Crusaders’ roses to make jonchée:

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six bunches of six in the six following places,

each 20 deniers, making 120 deniers in all.

Here is the order:

the first to the Fort

item the second to those in Porte-aux-Pains

item to the Church of Refuge

item to the Church of Notre Dame, across the river

item to the old building of the Cathars

item to rue de la Pierre-Ronde.

And three bunches of six before the feast, in the whores’ street. (521)

Lia’s interpretation is significant because she, first, identifies the historical context. She explains to Casaubon that if he were to “consult a tourist guide, a brief history of Provins,” he would have found out that “the Grange-aux-Dimes, where the message was found, was a gathering place for merchants” (519). The first line in the message is the location of the Grange, which is “on rue

St.-Jean” (519). The line about the Crusaders is about “red roses that the Crusaders had brought from Syria” (519). Casaubon asks Lia about the source of her information, and she says it is a

“little book of two hundred pages published by the Tourist Bureau of Provins” (520). Lia further explains the elements in the laundry list that confuses Casaubon. For instance, Casaubon asks about “the hundred and twenty years” (520). Lia explains that, on the laundry list, Ardenti claims that the ‘a’ in “120 a” stands for ‘y’ for years (520). In fact, Lia “checked a list of abbreviations used in those days and found that for denier or dinarium odd signs were used” (520). Lia argues that Ardenti may have read a story somewhere about the one hundred and twenty years, possibly

“in any history of the Rosicrucians” since “he wanted something resembling ‘post 120 annos

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patebo’” (520). In this part of the novel, Lia explains to Casaubon each part of the laundry list in detail, leaving no chance to argue that it could mean anything else. Perhaps if another explanation is possible, then it would not be an explanation that confirms a conspiracy existed.

Lia’s translation of the laundry list reveals the problem of Ardenti’s argument. The Tres members may have found Ardenti’s claim convincing because they, and Ardenti himself, are enthusiastic about the discovery of secret messages. When Ardenti tries to explain the laundry list as a hidden message, he ends up with an argument that generates a regress because it is not founded on the contextual reality in which it was written. He simply imposes his meaning unto it, whereas Lia’s translation puts an end to the regress of the argument and shows that it is invalid.

Lia’s translation shows that there is a specific context, a starting point, which justifies the note as a laundry list. The Grange was a place where merchants met, and the laundry list fits that context. Even if one may suspect Lia’s translation, the evidence she presents to support her explanation is much more substantial than Ardenti’s claim that it reveals the Templars’ secret plan.

Lia’s translation breaks the circular reasoning of Ardenti’s claim. Ardenti claims that a conspiracy exists. His belief that the Templars were not disbanded and that they concealed their existence precedes the discovery of the laundry, list which he insists is a coded message.

Because his belief is not found on actual evidence, then any clue that may confirm his belief is presented as valid evidence, even if the clue does not necessarily indicate that a conspiracy exists. Therefore, Ardenti considers his claim that the Templars’ plan exists because the note, which is the laundry list, confirms it exists. Also, Ardenti regards the note as valid evidence because he thinks his argument is valid. Lia’s translation establishes the context of the laundry

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list and shows that it is not at all the Templars’ secret plan. Because the laundry list does not confirm the argument that a conspiracy exists, Ardenti’s claim is rendered invalid.

The Plan: A Fabrication that Challenges the Truth Claim

Casaubon, Belbo, and Diotallevi come across the idea of the Plan coincidentally while they were working on the manuscripts on the occult and secret societies by the self-financed authors, whom they call the Diabolicals. Garamond establishes Mantius, a vanity press for self- financed authors who want to publish their books on the history of the occult. These manuscripts are full of conspiracy theories, and the three friends are indifferent about their content, even though the Diabolicals still inspire them to invent the Plan. When Belbo is looking for a particular text, for which Casaubon asks him, “he rummaged through the papers on his desk, where there was a heap of manuscripts perilously piled one on top of the other, with no concern for weight and size” (361). Belbo finds the text for which Casaubon is looking, and tries “to slip it out, thus causing others to spill to the floor” (361). Both talk about if Gudrun, an assistant in

Garamond, would be able to organize the pile again. Casaubon says that Gudrun “will put the wrong pages in the wrong folders,” and Belbo finds it humorous, “[a] way of producing different books, eclectic, random books. It’s part of the logic of the Diabolicals” (361). Casaubon then remarks, “[y]ou’re simply using Gudrun in place of the monkey that spends an eternity at the typewriter. As far as evolution goes, we’ve made no progress. Unless there’s some program in

Abulafia to do this work” (362). On this occasion, they find the idea to use Abulafia, Belbo’s computer, to sort out the text of the Plan. Diotallevi joins them the moment they begin their experiment.

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The three discuss how they can utilize Abulafia to make a persuasive narrative. Diotallevi suggests that if they feed Abulafia “the entire Torah” and ask it “to randomize, it would perform some authentic temurah, recombining the verses of the Book” (362). Belbo dismisses this idea because it “would take centuries” (362). Casaubon then suggests that if they “fed it a few dozen notions from the works of the Diabolicals––for example, the Templars fled to Scotland, or the

Corpus Hermeticum arrived in Florence in 1406––and threw in a few connective phrases like

‘It’s obvious that’ and ‘This proves that,’” they may create something that is “revelatory” (363).

After that, they would “fill in the gaps, call the repetitions prophecies, and––voilà––hitherto unpublished chapter of the history of magic, at the very least!” (363). The three friends immediately begin to experiment with Casaubon’s idea. Casaubon also suggests that they “feed in more statements that don’t come from the Diabolicals” (365). As he reminds himself later,

“the idea is not to discover the Templars’ secret, but to construct it” (371). Ardenti has constructed meaning out of the laundry list, based on the connections he makes, and Casaubon,

Belbo, and Diotallevi have created a text from which meaning can be constructed.

The Plan is similar to the laundry list in the manner that it seems to conceal the secret plan. The difference is that the individuals who invented the Plan have willingly made it appear to hide the truth about the Templars’ conspiracy. In contrast, the individual who wrote the laundry list is unknown, and its text does not contain secrets. The Plan is a long text, whereas the laundry list is very brief. Despite their similarities and differences, the members of the Tres believe that both hide the same secret. The mindset of the Diabolicals is enthusiastic about the discovery of a secret, hence their interest in secret societies, the occult, and conspiracy theories.

They insist that there are secrets behind the perceptible. Their condition is what Italians call dietrologia, which is defined as the “study of what lurks behind everything” (Haberman). Dietro

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literally means “behind” in Italian. Overall, the Diabolicals are excessively preoccupied with the hunt for what is behind the facts. They deal with any fact as if it is concealing something else.

What is concealed does not necessarily have to be a conspiracy. Use FP’s description, the

Diabolical approach cannot be satisfied by the given fact, and Casaubon’s response to the

Diabolical condition is that “the Provins message is a laundry list. There were never any

Templars’ meetings at the Grange-aux-Dimes. There was no Plan and there was no message”

(601). Casaubon comes to this conclusion after he has observed how the Diabolical mindset responds to both the laundry list and the Plan. The latter allows him to absolutely understand how the mind of the Diabolical (and the conspiracist) works since he has willfully contributed to its construction and knows its falsehood.

Although the Plan is a fabrication, but it is able to reveal the tendency of the conspiracists to interpret any clue they find as evidence that a global conspiracy exists. The Plan reveals the truth about the condition of conspiracist thinking. The truth which the Plan reveals is that, as Lia tells Casaubon, “[p]eople are starved for plans. If you offer them one, they fall on it like a pack of wolves. You invent, and they’ll believe. It’s wrong to add to the inventings that already exist”

(602). Casaubon further elaborates that he and his friends “invented a nonexistent Plan, and They not only believed it was real but convinced themselves that They had been part of it for ages, or, rather, They identified the fragments of their muddled mythology as moments of our Plan, moments joined in a logical, irrefutable web of analogy, semblance, suspicion” (603). The truth he arrives at when he observes the reaction to the Plan reveals that the mentality of the

Diabolicals presupposes that a secret exists, therefore they must reveal it. Ironically, the Plan conceals a secret, which is the fact that it is an absurd invention. Belbo refuses to reveal the secret that he and his friends invented the Plan. However, as Casaubon states, “[t]here is only an

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empty secret” (604). The Plan is “empty” because it is devoid of an actual unifying context to support what it states. So, the sentences included in the Plan are fragments that, when arranged in a certain way as the three friends did, would give the illusion that there is one unifying secret that serves as its context. Moreover, this statement must not be interpreted as a universal claim that applies to the world, whether it is the reality of the reader or that of FP. This must be read, I would argue, as a response to the conspiracism, which signifies the mentality of the Diabolicals.

Casaubon then analyzes the psychology of conspiracism that the Diabolicals represent.

The search for secrets and conspiracies is primarily the result of a psychological drive, which

Casaubon identifies as “a deep, private frustration” (603). He recalls an idea he learned from the last file he read on Belbo’s computer. “There can be no failure if there really is a Plan. Defeated you may be, but never through any fault of your own. To bow to a cosmic will is no shame. You are not a coward; you are a martyr” (603). This position entails the notion that “[i]f you feel guilty, you invent a plot, many plots. And to counter them, you have to organize your own plot.

But the more you invent enemy plots, to exonerate your lack of understanding, the more you fall in love with them, and you pattern your own on their model” (603). The Diabolicals constant desire to discover conspiracies shapes their identity. Colonel Ardenti, for instance, retires from the military in order to write a book on the Templars. As he states, “[t]he Templars … A passion of mine almost from my youth. They, too, were soldiers of fortune who crossed the

Mediterranean in search for glory” (116). Agliè, too, claims to be the Comte de Saint-Germain and that he has seen “the Isis cults of the Roman Empire” by his own eyes (170). He claims that the Comte de Saint-Germain “may not have been boasting when he claimed to have learned some of his chemical secrets from the ancient Egyptians,” referring to the discovery of a secret formula that slows “the aging process” (171). Overall, Ardenti and Agliè, along with the other

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members of the Tres, embody those whom they designate as enemies and desire to take their place. Since they perceive the Templars as the Masters of the World, they form the Tres in order to become the next Masters of the World themselves. The only thing they require to achieve this goal is to discover the secret of the Plan, which Belbo refuses to reveal.

As Casaubon explains, the problem with the Diabolical and conspiracist mindset is that their desire to discover secrets and conspiracies is not exclusively epistemological. It is rather ontological. Their conspiracism is not a means to find the truth. Instead, they already believe that the world consists of conspirators and victims. It is their ontological perspective, and as a result, they perceive themselves as either conspirators or victims. However, since they do not have a plot of their own, then they must be the victims. Because they refuse to be the victims, they aspire to become the conspirators who are the Masters of the World. Casaubon remarks, “[a] plot, if there is one, must be a secret. A secret that, if we only knew it, would dispel our frustration, lead us to salvation; or else the knowing of it in itself would be salvation” (604).

The novel shows that conspiracists may themselves put together a conspiracy in order to achieve their goal of finding out about another conspiracy. Ironically, FP reveals that Ardenti was part of the conspirators sometime in his past. When Ardenti disappears early in the novel,

De Angelis, the police inspector, informs Casaubon and Belbo that he is searching for Ardenti.

Casaubon and Belbo decide to withhold some of the details about Ardenti’s story and maintain that he “had told a hazy story about discovering evidence of a treasure in some documents he had found in France, but he hadn’t said much more about it” (149). De Angelis then tells Casaubon and Belbo that Ardenti “told the truth, though not the whole truth … First of all, Ardenti wasn’t his real name, but he had a legitimate French passport” (149). He told him that Ardenti visited

Italy several times and that he was “tentatively identified as a Captain Arcoveggi, sentenced to

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death in absentia in 1945. Collaboration with the SS. He sent some people to Dachau” (149). FP shows that Ardenti holds double-standards since he participated in the conspiracy against the

Jews, which is the Holocaust. De Angelis’s statement reveals the novel’s position on anti-

Semitism and the Holocaust, both of which are heavily fueled by conspiracism. Not only is

Ardenti a conspiracist, he is a criminal too. FP also establishes a connection between adopting conspiracist views and one’s tendency to commit conspiracies. The Holocaust itself was a conspiracy, and its investigation began with, so to say, a conspiracy theory. It was revealed after the end of WWII, and the investigation lead to the discovery of evidence that proved the conspiracy. The Nazis quietly coordinated the campaign to exterminate the Jews in Germany and the territories under their control. They even tried to hide their horrible act from the advancing

Allied Powers that occupied part of the German territories in which some of the death camps were built (Bartrop 14). The extent of the Nazis’ heinous operation was revealed after the end of

WWII when the Allied Powers seized documents that detailed almost everything about the

Holocaust. In FP, Ardenti is implicated in this conspiracy.

The Risks of Conspiracism and Believing Invented Meanings

The readers can find, in the Tres and the Diabolicals, a warning about inventing meanings that are irrelevant to the text. As Stephan Schaffrath states, FP “presents a very clever commentary on the semiotic difficulties that any discussion on history— especially one involving myths, legends, and the occult—entails” (78). He later adds, “Eco shows his readers how anyone may create the most fantastic and even completely unfounded of stories or histories by means of citing indiscriminately from existing sources, be it on purpose, as in the case of

Belbo and consorts, or inadvertently” (82). The problem with inventing meanings is that one may

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end up believing what they have invented, as in the case of Belbo who briefly the Templar plan is real (FP 21). As Schaffrath states, “Eco appears to caution us not to become disjointed from the world around us, not to seal ourselves into an intellectual bubble” (82).

Several critics have misinterpreted Eco’s satirical implementation of conspiracy theories similar to the Protocols of the Elders of Zion. According to Rocco Capozzi, several people accused Eco of “flirting with anti-Semitism” after his publication of The Prague Cemetery (PC) in Italy (620). One of those people is Rabbi Di Segni, to whom Eco replied, as Capozzi states,

“saying that far from playing with anti-Semitism, he wanted to debunk The Protocols and that his intention was to give the reader a punch in the stomach” (634). Capozzi argues that “it is essential to point out that in Italy through the 1970s and 1980s there grew a widespread cynical attitude called dietrologia—essentially a syndrome of suspicion and paranoia that asked what lurked in the background of terrorist killings, suicides, kidnappings and intricate chains of scandals involving business magnates, politicians and the Vatican Bank” (625). Svetlana Boym also defends Eco from that accusation. She argues that “Eco chooses not to play with the

Protocols. To avoid replicating them, he decentralizes them. The issue of the Jewish conspiracy appears as a minor and irrelevant incident in the history of the cross-cultural transmigration of conspiratorial plots (a history which actually is historically accurate)” (111-112). She then explains that Eco’s decision is “a witty ethical solution––not merely to parody the Protocols but to deny their originality and centrality” (112).

Overall, FP clearly, on a literal level, warns against engaging in conspiracy theorizing without rational evidence that warrants the claims that a conspiracy theory presents. The consequences can be fatal to individuals and groups who may be innocent. The Protocols, like the Plan in FP, is a fabrication. However, it contributed to the rise of anti-Semitism, which lead

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to the catastrophe of the Holocaust on WWII. In FP, the Plan resulted in Belbo’s death, and the novel ends in a moment of Casaubon is on a hill, waiting for his death on the hands of the Tres members.

To defend Eco against the accusation that he may have been “flirting with anti-Semitism”

(Capozzi 620), we may compare the position of the Tres with the anti-Semitic discourse of

Nazism. Before the rise of the Nazis to power in Germany, belief in conspiracy theories about the Jews controlling the state flourished. When the Nazis came to power, their invented enemies were not in fact controlling Germany, but their hate for Jews remained. As a consequence, they sought to retaliate against their invented enemies and secretly plotted the Holocaust, the results of which were catastrophic and inhumane. The same applies to the members of the Tres, who have been searching for evidence that their invented enemy exists. Since they cannot find their enemy themselves, they orchestrate a conspiracy to exploit Casaubon, Belbo, and Diotallevi so that these three friends help them discover it. During the Tres’s ritual in the museum, after they have captured Belbo, Casaubon sees Garamond, the owner of Garamond Press, among the members of the Tres. Throughout the novel, the three friends do not suspect Garamond as part of a secret order.

They formed the Tres to prepare themselves for becoming the Masters of the World. To achieve their goal, they must first realize the authenticity of the Plan. Secrecy may establish a power-relation dynamic, and the Diabolicals resist being on the side that does not know. They believe that knowing a secret that others do not know will grant them power over them.

Therefore, if someone knows a secret which they do not, he or she will have power over them.

Casaubon explains this power-relation dynamic in Belbo’s case. “Belbo had claimed to possess a secret, and because of this he had gained power over Them … And the more Belbo refused to

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reveal it, the bigger They believed the secret to be; the more he vowed that he didn’t possess it, the more convinced They were that he did possess it, and that it was a true secret, because if it were false, he would have revealed it” (605). They end up in an ironic situation. If Belbo reveals the secret of the Plan, it would not be a secret, and their existence would be meaningless since secrets are the reasons they find meaning in their reality. The situation they end up with can be compared to the Nazis in Germany. The Nazis gained power by promoting anti-Semitic conspiracy theories. Invalidating these conspiracy theories would instill distrust in the Nazi government. Therefore, to maintain their control, they had to preserve their anti-Semitic discourse by carrying out the plan to annihilate the Jews, who are in the discourse of Nazism are the invented enemy. The members of the Tres believe that the Templars’ plan exists, and whoever possesses the secret plan is a threat to them. Since they presume that Belbo possesses it, they designate him as the enemy. Therefore, they have to eliminate him because he is a threat to their existence.

FP shows that the epistemological counterarguments is not enough to dissuade conspiracists from believing that everything is a conspiracy. The conspiracists willingly believe in irrational conspiracy theories which confirms their worldview, despite the lack of rational evidence. So, the people who espouse conspiracist views must be willing to limit their belief in conspiracy theories within the epistemological constraints before they argue that conspiracy theories tell the truth. Rational conspiracy theories should be limited to the evidence that confirms that conspiracies exist. When a conspiracy occurs, it takes place in reality. There must be real individuals who plot together in secret to achieve a particular goal. A conspiracy occurs in a specific context. In other words, the conspirators meet in a certain place at a specific moment. The place and time constitute the context in which the conspiracy takes place. The

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conspirators may succeed in concealing their conspiracy and leave no evidence traceable to their conspiracy exists. In many cases, the conspirators may fail, and a thorough investigation will be able to reveal in detail how the conspiracy occurs.

The Diabolicals do not limit themselves by the epistemological constraints of rational conspiracy theories. Since they do not think within these limits, they resort to inventing stories that they present as evidence. To justify their invented stories, they invent other stories, which sometimes are based on real events that they misinterpret in order to suit their worldview. A rational epistemological approach does not constrain their desire to discover a conspiracy because the epistemological constraints are in contradiction with their perception of reality. The constraints would either confirm or disprove their claims, and they only want to confirm their belief that a conspiracy exists. Therefore, there must be a conspiracy, and it must be discovered.

Because they lack the epistemological constraints that limit their research to reality, they produce infinite regress arguments that fail to locate a specific conspiracy from which all the other conspiracies emerge.

Eventually, conspiracist thinking results in circular reasoning. If the conspiracist fails to produce conclusive evidence that proves a conspiracy exists beyond a reasonable doubt, the argument returns to the first premise, which is the belief that a conspiracy must exist. The novel ends with Casaubon waiting on a hill for the Tres to arrive and kill him. “In a little while, They’ll be here. I would have liked to write down everything I thought today. But if They were to read it,

They would only derive another dark theory and another eternity trying to decipher the secret message hidden behind my words” (623). What he says after that reveals the ontological worldview of the Diabolicals. “It’s impossible, They would say; he can’t only have been making

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fun of us. No. Perhaps, without realizing it, Being was sending us a message through its oblivion” (623).

By revealing the fallacies of the logic of conspiracism, one may be able to resolve the worldview that insists that everything happens results from a conspiracy. In reality, conspiracies do occur, and they occur in real time and place. This is the reason why we should not accept nor reject a conspiracy theory unless there is plausible evidence that warrants it. Casaubon and his friends attempted to find out if there is evidence that proves the Templars’ plan exists. They consider in some parts of FP that Ardenti and Agliè’s conspiracy theories could be correct, but after investigating them, they realize that the evidence does not confirm the theories. Casaubon remained suspicious that the laundry list might be a real secret message until Lia proved to him that it is only a laundry list that has nothing to do with the Templars’ secret plan. When Belbo revealed the Plan to Agliè, he almost believed that the Templars really exist and are after him.

He even thought that the Plan, which is invented, is real. Before he was captured, he called

Casaubon and told him, “[t]he Plan is real. I know, don’t say it. They’re after me” (21). At this moment, he knew that a secret cult is after him, supposing that they were the Templars.

However, he realized later that they were the Tres, and they want to question him about the Plan.

FP does not deny that conspiracies take place. In fact, when a conspiracy occurs, the victims may realize that they are being targeted by conspirators but may fail to identify them.

Belbo and Casaubon are victims of a fatal conspiracy. Belbo briefly thinks that the Knights

Templars exist, but he later learns that it is the Tres. He realizes who they are when they reveal themselves to him in the museum and confront him about the Plan. Casaubon knows that they are after him because the Plan leads them to him. They know that he is involved in its creation with Belbo. The Tres’ conspiracy against the inventors of the Plan is real, which means that FP

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can be read as arguing against the belief that conspiracies do not occur. Therefore, it is possible to consider that FP offers a balanced critique of conspiracy theories. Investigating a conspiracy may presuppose that it is taking place, but the conspiracy theory itself is not evidence that it is real. The speculation about a conspiracy may be wrong about some of the claims it makes, but only when the conspiracy is revealed the investigator will realize what he or she misconceived.

Belbo, unaware that the people who are after him are the Tres, thinks they are the Templars.

However, he realizes that among the Tres are Agliè, Garamond, as well as other characters whom he has met throughout FP. This discovery leads to another question about the events in

FP, and that is whether Belbo and his friends have been victims of a secret plan orchestrated by the members of the Tres since the beginning of the novel.

The first time the name “the Tres” is mentioned in FP is during a conversation between

Casaubon and De Angelis, the police inspector. Before they end the conversation, De Angelis asks Casaubon, “[a]mong your manuscripts … have you ever found any reference to the Tres?”

(309). Casaubon does not recognize the name. Later in the novel, while Casaubon is inventing ideas and connections for the Plan, he decides to include a line referring to the Tres. It is unclear whether the name which De Angelis mentions refers to the same cult that calls themselves the

Tres at the end of the novel. There is a possibility that the group called themselves the Tres after they read about it in the Plan. Still, I argue that the Tres more likely existed after Garamond establishes Mantius because during the ritual in the museum, all the characters that Casaubon identifies appear to be close to each other.

After Garamond establishes Mantius Press, he tasks the three friends to be in charge of a project he refers to as “Project Hermes,” the goal of which is to invite “the world of occultists” to submit their manuscripts to Mantius. These occultists who sent their manuscripts become known

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as the Diabolicals. According to Garamond, “[w]e disguise ourselves as a flower … and the bees will come swarming” (255). Casaubon, through his voice as a narrator, later reflects that “I was as much of a bee as the ones we wanted to attract; and, like them, I was being quickly lured to a flower, though I didn’t yet know what that flower was” (267). The three friends may have been targets of the Tres’ conspiracy, and they never suspect any of the characters who are revealed eventually as members of the Tres. The goal of the Tres’ conspiracy is to utilize the efforts of

Casaubon, Belbo, and Diotallevi to help them discover clues about the Templars’ plan among the manuscripts of the Diabolicals. Casaubon, Belbo, and Diotallevi may cleverly ridicule and debunk conspiracy theories, but they have not realized that a conspiracy may have exploited them.

By the end of the novel, Casaubon mentions three rules to think like a Diabolical. The first rule states that “[c]oncepts are connected by analogy. There is no way to decide at once whether an analogy is good or bad, because to some degree everything is connected to everything else” (602). The second rule states that “if tout se tient [everything fits] in the end, the connecting works” (602). Both of these rules point out the circular reasoning of the Diabolical, conspiracist thinking. The final rule is that the “connections must not be original. They must have been made before, and the more often the better, by others. Only then the crossings seem true, because they are obvious.” (602). This rule shows how the Diabolical logic operates by the fallacy of infinite regress, through which one theory points to a second one, which in turn leads to a third, and so on infinitely. Casaubon then highlights Garamond’s goal of establishing

Mantius. “This, after all, was Signor Garamond’s idea. The books of the Diabolicals must not innovate; they must repeat what has already been said. Otherwise what becomes of the authority

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of Tradition” (602). The last rule explains how conspiracism may be rooted in a conspiracist discourse that persisted for more than a century.

Conspiracy theories about secret societies possessing occult knowledge, which enables them to exert control over the world, have lasted for centuries. The effort of the historians, who have debunked the myth of secret societies and global domination like Casaubon has done in his doctoral thesis, is not enough to challenge conspiracism, even though their task is necessary to clarify the misconceptions of history as a conspiracy. Unless the people who insist on viewing history as conspiracy impose rational epistemological constraints on themselves, like Casaubon had done when he listened to Lia’s argument, conspiracism will prevent them from perceiving reality as otherwise. Eco’s FP may provide them with the epistemological tools by which they can assess the fallacies resulting from conspiracist thinking. A conspiracy theory cannot be justified by other conspiracy theories or one’s belief that the conspiracy must exist. Therefore, it is necessary to maintain the epistemological boundaries when investigating conspiracy theories.

Otherwise, crossing these boundaries will result in endless suspicion, leading to the irrational belief in a conspiracy that does not exist, as in the case of “the Diabolicals, seeking abysses where the secret of their madness lies hidden” (622).

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