America's new religion

[Benjamin Frank]

QAnon is tied in with fundamentalist Christianity, not a replacement for it.  If you go back to the 1970s fundamentalist Christians have been waging an ongoing war with imaginary (and maybe a handful of real) Satanic cults, and the bizarre conspiracy theories of QAnon directly involve the notion of Satanic cults.

This was not just in the United States.  For instance:  

"And the Kellers’ case was not unique. Throughout the 1980s and 1990s, hundreds if not thousands of other innocent people would fall to varying degrees of similar fates.

British Prime Minister Edward Heath was falsely accused of being a member of an underground cult that murdered and ate 16 children.

A California daycare was shut down and its staff arrested after police received false reports that children had been forced to witness ritualistic killings of animals and babies."

https://nationalpost.com/news/canada/the-canadian-book-that-tricked-the-world-into-believing-they-were-overrun-with-satanist-murder-cults

The only thing I disagree with there is that this goes back to the 1970s (if not earlier for all that I know, and not the 1980s.)  It was at the end of the 1960s that a lot of 'new age' religions sprouted up and some of them called themselves Satanists or Luciferians (witches and Wiccans were also lumped in.)  Virtually all of the Satanists or Luciferians were otherwise ordinary people who generally believed that the Bible had been misinterpreted, because, history was written by the winner, God.

They believed, going back to the Garden of Eden, that God was trying to keep humans ignorant and, ultimately enslaved, and that it was Satan or Lucifer who opened the eyes of humans by having them eat the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.

However, obviously Fundamentalist Christians could not accept this alternate interpretation of the Bible and believed these Satanists or Luciferians were literally doing the work of Satan and tried to warn the world about them.  (I recently gave away several books written by fundamentalist Christians on 'the new cults' of the 1970s, including a book written by Bob Larson and a book called 'Satan Wants You.') 

The Bob Larson and at least one of the other books was published in the 1970s.  Satan Wants You was published in 1980.  I was actually surprised it wasn't published earlier.

[Benjamin Frank]

QAnon most resembles other widespread conspiracy theories when a society enters a period of crisis. Before the 1900s; reactionaries blamed hidden cabals of Freemasons and Jews for a host of societal ills—from a period of revolutionary waves to societal unrest. Instead of blaming, say, the current socioeconomic structures for the failures, it was easier for the people who most depended on the status quo to instead create conspiracy theories to explain away this crisis. Same with the more current cultural Marxist ploy or that reptilians/demons/satanists have infiltrated the highest echelons of society.

Because blaming capitalism is unacceptable to the people most dependent on it, they make up myths to cope with the problem. In this case, a lot of people could not understand the current structural problems caused by the fact of our settler-colonial capitalist foundations, nor could they appropriately defend the status quo and their beliefs against an onslaught of public backlash, so they blamed everything on liberal sex predators running a Child Trafficking ring.

Like other mass delirium events brought forth to cope and deflect from real structural problems, it will exist until the propagators no longer have a platform and are brought to the levels of the masses by taking away their special privileges in society. The solution is easier said than done, as the main propagators and descendants of these movements of old are still here and very much a presence today; the main Jewish libel smearer and hater of Freemasonry still exists in the Catholic Church, Fascism still exists and its national models are becoming more entrenched worldwide, the same pastors and churches making sh!t up about satanists still exist and are still structurally entrenched in our society, and David Icke is still railing about scaly representations on the Jewish people. The newest meme brought forth by a funnyman on 4chan will in no doubt continue on in a long line of cope for the same kind of people.

I don't care for David Icke, I think he's a wack job, but he is not antisemitic/Anti Jewish.  His conspiracy theories obviously till the same ground as the anti Jewish smears, but he personally goes to great pains to say Jewish people are not behind the 'cabal.'  He may even have said that the 'cabal' started the anti Jewish conspiracies themselves in order to deflect from them.

[Benjamin Frank]

To Frank: Oh yes, be very much is an antisemitic loon

I was unaware that Icke ever wrote that a small clique of Jews was in league with the 'reptilians.'  I've heard him interviewed several times on the loony talk shows and he's never mentioned such a thing.  I agree that is antisemitic and plays into the vile Jewish tropes.

However, the rest of that section can be read exactly the way I said it (which is what I thought I remembered he said) that the Reptilians are really behind the conspiracy but have told the world that the Jews are to blame to deflect attention from themselves.