An Explanation for the Illuminati Conspiracy Theory

On YouTube thousands of video clips involving Lady Gaga, Michael Jackson, Britney Spears, Eminem and other notable pop icons seek to explain their fame and fortune with a super-narrative in which modern day celebrities, particularly music performers, are custodians of a secret elite known as The Illuminati.

Detecting and exposing traditional Illuminati symbolism in music videos and, occasionally, in Hollywood movies, has become a pastime or even a sport for thousands of young Internet users.

In most cases – despite many spoofs – you will actually find both conspicuous and secretive subliminal messaging that directly corresponds to Illuminati symbolism, most often the imperfect pyramid with the eye inside a triangle, called The All-Seing Eye or The Eye of Providence.

The same symbol is the reverse of The Great Seal of The United States and can be found on the back of every dollar-bill in circulation.

Originally it is a symbol that stems from Masonic rites.

The Illuminati conspiracy theory is a collective response to the long distance-to-power in large urban cultures and, to some extent, the globalized macro-cosmos. People feel disenfranchised and powerless. They feel cut off from the success prresented by the media, and the Illuminati conspiracy is the projection conveniently explaing why some people are vastly more succesful: They have sold their soul.

Why do we actually see overt or subliminal Illuminati Symbolism?

The obvious examples of Illuminati symbolism in pop culture are planted for various reasons:

• They are anti-Christian, expressing disdain for the Judeo-Christian morality system, but claim vastly more power than ascribed to Illuminati
  
• They are planted for effect, because Illuminati conspiracy has become cult fiction and as such secures for instance a music video many views on YouTube
  
•  They express, to some extent, a belief in the superiority of the American culture and enlightenment ideas, and the Illuminati has been adopted as a rebellious identity, distancing artists from the religious right 

Anthropologically, it is not too farfetched to perceive modern day celebrities and artists employed in the entertainment industries as semi-deities, or priesthood for a new secular world order with liberalism as its main value system.

From the video to Lady Gaga's Alejandro: Semi-pornographic tableau, with an inverted cross strategically positioned as a phallos symbol on the artist's body suit.

Economically, mainstreamed movie stars and music performers definitely belong to the elite. They enjoy massive amassment of wealth compared to the average salary worker, and they are cherished and celebrated much in the same way fictional deities and despotic rulers were worshipped in ancient cultures.

The celebrity structure with its hedonism expresses the value system of a new social and ideological system to take over from a waning Judeo-Christian order controlled by White Male Patriarchs. The liberal pantheon is, to some extent, intertwined with the White Male Patriarchal system through its business structure.

As such it does represent a new world order, even if it the Illuminati Conspiracy is not a reality-adequate description of it, and it isn’t a New World Order in the sense that it is occult, nearly omnipotent or uncontested by rivaling “cultural software.”

Why does The Illuminati Conspiracy have such massive following?

The Illuminati conspiracy proponents have various reasons for their suspicions:

• As pointed out in Michael Barkun’s Culture of Conspiracy: Apocalyptic Visions of Contemporary America the conspiracy theorists are often religiously motivated and belong to the Christian Right
  
• In some cases the approach has been adopted by Muslims who perceive the New World Order as a threat to their cultural paradigm
  
• Others are participants in a sub-culture that enables them to perform social criticism, venting perceived social grievances, most likely disappointment in the system that allows others than themselves to be the celebrated and privileged icons of a “new world order”

Jay-Z, one of the most succesful hip hop artists, doing the Eye of Providence pose. It's pop culture, powered by market mechanisms, not a tribute to demonic forces.

The followers perceive the world locked in a battle between good and evil, most often God and Satan, espousing a Manichaean world view in which the conclusion of history is the destruction of the forces of evil that now governs the world through nefarious means, centralized in a secret order known as Illuminati.

Illuminati conspiracies often overlap with other, even more preposterous conspiracy theories like David Icke’s “alien invasion conspiracy theory” in which a great many politicians and celebrities are supposedly custodians for a New World Order imposed on humanity by humanoid or shape-shifting aliens.

According to Michael Burkin’s Cult of Conspiracy: Apocalyptic Visions of Contemporary America the majority of conspiracy theories are “millennial” or associated with Millennialism, a modern Messianic cult based on a belief that Jesus will return and rule a global Kingdom that lasting 1000 years, but the Illuminati Conspiracy can exist isolated from these more fantastic claims.

Conclusion

Millennialism and anti-Millennialism, often represented by staunch liberalism, hedonism or strong atheism, are intertwined in a battle of symbols and representation, struggling to gain the upper hand of control over public sentiments.


The anti-Millennialism can be seen as partly rebellious against traditionalist views of Millennialists.


The application of anti-Christian or occult symbols, such as forming a triangle in front of the eye, or planting overturned crosses or references to Baphomet (Satan) in music videos, is a rebellious, liberal pose not dissimilar from the now popularized Satan sign, originally used in heavy metal circles (forming a head with two horns).

Before that Winston Churchill’s famous V sign was used, less controversially, to express the same idea of vigorous attachment to liberal concepts of freedom.

Millennialists perceive this as proof of a satanic conspiracy, or they exploit it to offer a false deconstruction of societal values and power structures that benefits the Manichaean paradigm.

At the heart of it, it is an ideological conflict between ultra-conservative and ultra-liberal value systems expressed through symbolism and deconstruction of symbolism.

It is a battle about what value system is to be dominant in Western society and thereby form the basis of social structures, government policies and the future development of civilization.

A succesfully mainstreamed "anti-Christian greeting" displayed by Jenna Bush to her father, and by Republican front figure and notable White Christian Traditionalist, Sarah Palin.