Newfolk: NDiF: Consider the Source New Directions in Folklore 2 (formerly the Impromptu Journal) January 1998 Newfolk :: NDiF :: Archive :: Issue 2 :: Page 1 :: Page 2 :: Page 3 :: Page 4 :: Page 5 :: Page 6 Consider the Source: Conspiracy Theories, Narrative, Belief Tyrone Yarbrough, Ph.D. I form light and create darkness, I make weal and create woe; Isaiah 45:7, NRSV I. Introduction Philadelphia, August 30, 1997-- Around 8:20p.m. Brian Williams breaks into the regularly scheduled network programming to announce that there had been reports that "Princess Diana and her companion Dodi Fayed" had been involved in a car accident in Paris. My first reaction: "They interrupted The Pretender for this"? August 31, 1997--Almost five hours later, Brian Williams reports that she has died. "I wonder how long it will take before the conspiracy theories surface", is my reaction now. The answer was, not long. It is a question that I've begun to ask automatically when any tragedy occurs and is broadcast through the ether. A celebrity dies in a car crash; a commuter plane explodes minutes after takeoff; another plane carrying businessmen and government officials crashes overseas; a member of the administration commits suicide; drugs flood the inner cities; a drugs for guns for hostages scheme conducted by the government is exposed; a fatal diseases ravages first one community, then progresses into others; political, religious and cultural leaders are assassinated; cults commit murder and suicide; mysterious sightings are made in the skies; mysterious objects are reportedly found at a crash site in a desert; an entire area is cordoned off by the government, while its very existence is denied. Official investigations are done by the proper authorities, official reports appear in the media, and official conclusions are drawn and presented. Many accept the official version; others do not. Questions remain. Those questions are raised and voiced, take hold with others, then spread and circulate, forming rumors, which become anecdotes. These anecdotes form the basis of more complex narratives which reflect long held and deeply felt beliefs. These narratives influence and shape the behaviors, actions and attitudes of those who come to believe them. These events seem to have nothing in common, except that they are public tragedies. However, they share another trait. All are actual events that have formed the bases of what are commonly called conspiracy theories. The word conspire comes from the Latin conspirare--com (with) + spirare (to breathe)--meaning to breathe together. Conspiracies are generally understood to be covert plots by groups scheming to accomplish a specific goal. The goal may be legal or illegal, but the word implies acts that are in their nature subversive. This connotation carries over to conspiracy theories Newfolk: NDiF: Consider the Source as well. Conspiracy theories, in part, are explanatory narratives. They account for the recurrent public traumas that seem to haunt society. Those who dare to suggest that political or historical events have been directly influenced by the clandestine actions of powerful elites, however, are often dismissed as delusional, superstitious, obsessed, hysterical, even paranoid. The pejorative "paranoid" is instinctively applied to anyone who even tells a conspiracy theory, much less believes one. The clinical definition of paranoia is a "mental disorder characterized by systematized delusions and the projection of personal conflicts. which are ascribed to the supposed hostility of others; chronic functional psychosis of insidious development, characterized by persistent, unalterable, logically reasoned delusions, commonly of persecution and grandeur". Unfortunately, most people know the simple connotation of the word (crazy) rather than the clinical definition. And because of this, the word is employed by people who can't spell DSM IV, much less consult it. As the response to the death of Diana Spencer demonstrates, the impulse to ascribe tragedies to the interference of outside agencies appears to be a widespread occurrence. Conspiracy theories demonstrate that conspiratorial thinking is a normal, if not normative, human response to traumatic events. Conspiracies are generated from all points of the ideological spectrum, and conspiratorial thought is found at all levels of society. Marginalized groups pass on stories of the hidden motives of small, powerful elites aligned against them. Politicians gather followers by disclosing them. Talk radio hosts speculate about them. Businessmen expound upon them. People discuss them everyday. Conspiracy theories provide narrative proof that conspiratorial thinking is a normative, if not normal, response to human events. However, the very idea of conspiracy conspires against open serious discussion of the phenomenon today, not to mention any type of objective scholarly inquiry. II. Narrative The speed with which the Diana conspiracies spread was astonishing, even taking the considerable impact of the increasingly ubiquitous computer networks into account. This impact is primarily responsible for the myriad forms that the almost instantaneous responses to the events of her death took. Lamentations, shrines, rumors, reminiscences, jokes, even shrines arose immediately. So did conspiracy theories, a phenomenon that would have been inconceivable ten, even five years ago, when the diffusion of information was (relatively) slower and the open expression of conspiracy theories was (socially) prohibited. Compare the formation of Diana conspiracies with another recent tragedy; the crash of TWA Flight 800. It took about three months, from July 17 until October 15, 1996 before the various accounts of the crash broke onto the web as fully formed conspiracy theories. In the case of the Paris car crash, dozens of rumors began to appear within a matter of days. Long time conspiracy researchers Jonathan Vankin and John Whalen, authors of The Sixty Greatest Conspiracies of All Time observed on its companion website: (http://www.conspire.com/curren33.html)"We received our first e-mail on the subject -- suggesting that Di was killed by 'MI-5' (sic) -- within minutes (yeah, that's right, minutes) of the initial news bulletins."Between August 31st until her funeral on September 6th, speculations about how and why Diana Spencer died appeared and spread exponentially through cyberspace like a virus. On Tuesday, September 2, as the steady, incessant, universal coverage of Diana Spencer's death swells, a story in The Philadelphia Inquirer describes how rapidly groups dedicated to her formed on the worldwide web. The Newfolk: NDiF: Consider the Source account includes reports of conspiracy theories beginning to circulate through the internet. "Overnight, Diana's death was deemed mysterious enough to warrant its own conspiracy-theory newsgroup, alt.conspiracy.princess-diana putting her in the company of the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., John F. Kennedy and Area 51, all of which are dissected regularly on-line" (A15). My own research led me to Black-Ops, a proposed encyclopedia of conspiracy theories which solicits conspiracy theories from on-line contributors. The earliest posting of a message suggesting that Diana's death was part of a conspiracy is dated Tuesday, September 2nd, 07:29:01. By September 18th, there are a total of twenty-six references of varying lengths posted on this site alone. Discussions conducted on the New Directions in Folklore list could be found in the site's archives. Since I am not on-line, it gives me an opportunity to look in on what is being said by members of an on-going list. Diana Spencer's death is the topic under discussion here, as it has been on numerous other sites on the web. On September 8th and 9th Stephanie Hall, a folklorist and member of the NewFolk list, posts two separate conspiracies on the New Directions website. The September 9th text, taken from a discussion by an Islamic newsgroup, alt.religion.islam, is closest to the form I imagined the conspiracy would take: Many muslims here in the UK are discussing the sudden and somewhat mysterious death of Diana. The popular theory is that she was killed as the establishment (church of england) could not take in the fact that future king's father in law would be an Arab and more over a muslim - Diana did say that she was going to make a major announcement in a weeks time that would change her life. Some say Mosad would have also been involved for the same aforementioned reason. Now that facts are emerging that the driver was an ex- french special agent and he may have NOT been over the drink/drive limit these conspiracy theories are seeming to have more credibility. The September 8th version that Stephanie Hall received from fellow folklorist Lani Herrmann seems to have become the dominant conspiracy theory. I read the discussions and print out the texts versions from the NewFolk archives. When I get home I find a letter from another list member and folklorist, Amanda Banks. It includes the same conspiracy theory that Stephanie Hall had passed on, found on another website. In the following weeks I find this version on two other websites. It is commonly attributed to "Ru Mills", usually entitled and always capitalized "WHOEVER CONTROLS PRINCESS DIANA CONTROLS THE WORLD" [sic ]: Princess Diana and her soon-to-be husband, Dodi Fayed, were fatally injured in the Pont de l'Alma tunnel. The site is ancient, dating back to the time of the Merovingian kings (ca. 500 - 751 A.D.), and before. In pre-Christian times, the Pont de l'Alma was a pagan sacrificial site. Note that in the pagan connotation, at least, sacrifice is not to be confused with murder: the sacrificial victim had to be a willing participant. In the time of the Merovingian kings, Pont de l'Alma was an underground chamber. Founder of the Merovingian dynasty was Merovaeus, said to be descended from the union of a sea creature and a French queen.