New World Order (conspiracy) - AbsoluteAstronomy.com

Conspiracy theory

A conspiracy theory explains an event as being the result of an alleged plot by a covert group or organization or, more broadly, the idea that important political, social or economic events are the products of secret plots that are largely unknown to the general public.-Usage:The term "conspiracy...

, the term New World Order or NWO refers to the emergence of a totalitarian

Totalitarianism

Totalitarianism is a political system where the state recognizes no limits to its authority and strives to regulate every aspect of public and private life wherever feasible...

one-world government

World government

World government is the notion of a single common political authority for all of humanity. Its modern conception is rooted in European history, particularly in the philosophy of ancient Greece, in the political formation of the Roman Empire, and in the subsequent struggle between secular authority,...

.

The common theme in conspiracy theories about a New World Order is that a secretive power elite

Power elite

A power elite or The Grand Elite, in political and sociological theory, is a small group of people who control a disproportionate amount of wealth, privilege, and access to decision-making of global consequence. The term was coined by C...

with a globalist

Globalism

Globalism can have at least two different and opposing meanings. One meaning is the attitude or policy of placing the interests of the entire world above those of individual nations...

agenda is conspiring to eventually rule the world through an authoritarian

Authoritarianism

Authoritarianism is a form of social organization characterized by submission to authority. It is usually opposed to individualism and democracy...

world government—which replaces sovereign

Sovereignty

Sovereignty is the quality of having supreme, independent authority over a geographic area, such as a territory. It can be found in a power to rule and make law that rests on a political fact for which no purely legal explanation can be provided...

nation-states—and an all-encompassing propaganda

Propaganda

Propaganda is a form of communication that is aimed at influencing the attitude of a community toward some cause or position so as to benefit oneself or one's group....

that ideologizes

Ideology

An ideology is a set of ideas that constitutes one's goals, expectations, and actions. An ideology can be thought of as a comprehensive vision, as a way of looking at things , as in common sense and several philosophical tendencies , or a set of ideas proposed by the dominant class of a society to...

its establishment as the culmination of history's progress. Significant occurrences in politics

Politics

Politics is a process by which groups of people make collective decisions. The term is generally applied to the art or science of running governmental or state affairs, including behavior within civil governments, but also applies to institutions, fields, and special interest groups such as the...

and finance

Financial capitalism

Financial capitalism is a form of capitalism where the intermediation of savings to investment becomes a dominant function in the economy, with implications for the political process and social evolution...

are speculated to be orchestrated by an unduly influential cabal

Cabal

A cabal is a group of people united in some close design together, usually to promote their private views and/or interests in a church, state, or other community, often by intrigue...

operating through many front organization

Front organization

A front organization is any entity set up by and controlled by another organization, such as intelligence agencies, organized crime groups, banned organizations, religious or political groups, advocacy groups, or corporations...

s. Numerous historical and current events are seen as steps in an on-going plot to achieve world domination through secret political gatherings

Smoke-filled room

In U.S. political slang, a smoke-filled room is a term for a secret political gathering or round table style decision-making process. The phrase is generally used to suggest a cabal of powerful or well-connected, cigar-smoking men such as the Bilderberg group meeting privately to nominate a dark...

and decision-making processes.

Prior to the early 1990s, New World Order conspiracism was limited to two American countercultures, primarily the militantly anti-government right

Patriot movement

The Patriot Movement is a loose collection of independent minarchist social movements in the United States beginning in the latter half of the 20th century...

, and secondarily fundamentalist Christians

Fundamentalist Christianity

Christian fundamentalism, also known as Fundamentalist Christianity, or Fundamentalism, arose out of British and American Protestantism in the late 19th century and early 20th century among evangelical Christians...

concerned with end-time emergence of the Antichrist

Antichrist

The term or title antichrist, in Christian theology, refers to a leader who fulfills Biblical prophecies concerning an adversary of Christ, while resembling him in a deceptive manner...

. Skeptics, such as Michael Barkun

Michael Barkun

Michael Barkun is professor emeritus of political science at the Maxwell School of Citizenship and Public Affairs, Syracuse University, specializing in political extremism and the relationship between religion and violence...

and Chip Berlet

Chip Berlet

John Foster "Chip" Berlet is an American investigative journalist, and photojournalist activist specializing in the study of right-wing movements in the United States, particularly the religious right, white supremacists, homophobic groups, and paramilitary organizations...

, have observed that right-wing populist

Right-wing populism

Right-wing populism is a political ideology that rejects existing political consensus and combines laissez-faire liberalism and anti-elitism. It is considered "right-wing" because of its rejection of social equality and government programs to achieve it, its opposition to social integration, and...

conspiracy theories about a New World Order have now not only been embraced by many seekers of stigmatized knowledge but have seeped into popular culture

Popular culture

Popular culture is the totality of ideas, perspectives, attitudes, memes, images and other phenomena that are deemed preferred per an informal consensus within the mainstream of a given culture, especially Western culture of the early to mid 20th century and the emerging global mainstream of the...

, thereby inaugurating an unrivaled period of people actively preparing for apocalyptic

Apocalypticism

Apocalypticism is the religious belief that there will be an apocalypse, a term which originally referred to a revelation of God's will, but now usually refers to belief that the world will come to an end time very soon, even within one's own lifetime...

millenarian

Millenarianism

Millenarianism is the belief by a religious, social, or political group or movement in a coming major transformation of society, after which all things will be changed, based on a one-thousand-year cycle. The term is more generically used to refer to any belief centered around 1000 year intervals...

scenarios in the United States

United States

The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...

of the late 20th and early 21st centuries. These political scientists are concerned that this mass hysteria could have what they judge to be devastating effects on American political life, ranging from widespread political alienation

Political alienation

Political alienation refers to an individual citizen's relatively enduring sense of estrangement from or rejection of the prevailing political system....

to escalating lone-wolf terrorism.

History of the term

During the 20th century, many statesmen, such as Woodrow Wilson

Woodrow Wilson

Thomas Woodrow Wilson was the 28th President of the United States, from 1913 to 1921. A leader of the Progressive Movement, he served as President of Princeton University from 1902 to 1910, and then as the Governor of New Jersey from 1911 to 1913...

and Winston Churchill

Winston Churchill

Sir Winston Leonard Spencer-Churchill, was a predominantly Conservative British politician and statesman known for his leadership of the United Kingdom during the Second World War. He is widely regarded as one of the greatest wartime leaders of the century and served as Prime Minister twice...

, used the term "new world order" to refer to a new period of history evidencing a dramatic change in world political thought and the balance of power

Balance of power in international relations

In international relations, a balance of power exists when there is parity or stability between competing forces. The concept describes a state of affairs in the international system and explains the behavior of states in that system...

after World War I

World War I

World War I , which was predominantly called the World War or the Great War from its occurrence until 1939, and the First World War or World War I thereafter, was a major war centred in Europe that began on 28 July 1914 and lasted until 11 November 1918...

and World War II

World War II

World War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...

. They all saw these periods as opportunities to implement idealistic

Idealism (international relations)

In the American study of international relations, idealism usually refers to the school of thought personified in American diplomatic history by Woodrow Wilson, such that it is sometimes referred to as Wilsonianism, or Wilsonian Idealism. Idealism holds that a state should make its internal...

proposals for global governance

Global governance

Global governance or world governance is the political interaction of transnational actors aimed at solving problems that affect more than one state or region when there is no power of enforcing compliance. The modern question of world governance exists in the context of globalization...

in the sense of new collective efforts to address worldwide problems that go beyond the capacity of individual nation-states to solve, while always respecting the right of nations to self-determination

Self-determination

Self-determination is the principle in international law that nations have the right to freely choose their sovereignty and international political status with no external compulsion or external interference...

. These proposals led to the creation of international organizations, such as the United Nations

United Nations

The United Nations is an international organization whose stated aims are facilitating cooperation in international law, international security, economic development, social progress, human rights, and achievement of world peace...

and NATO, and international regimes, such as the Bretton Woods system

Bretton Woods system

The Bretton Woods system of monetary management established the rules for commercial and financial relations among the world's major industrial states in the mid 20th century...

and the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade

General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade

The General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade was negotiated during the UN Conference on Trade and Employment and was the outcome of the failure of negotiating governments to create the International Trade Organization . GATT was signed in 1947 and lasted until 1993, when it was replaced by the World...

, which were calculated both to maintain a balance of power in favor of the United States

United States

The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...

as well as regularize cooperation between nations, in order to achieve a peaceful phase of capitalism

Ultra-imperialism

Ultra-imperialism, or occasionally hyperimperialism and formerly super-imperialism, is a potential, comparatively peaceful phase of capitalism, meaning "after" or "beyond" imperialism. It was described mainly by Karl Kautsky...

. These creations in particular and liberal internationalism in general, however, would always be criticized and opposed by American ultraconservative business nationalists

Business nationalism

Business nationalism is a right-wing economic nationalist ideology held by a sector of the political right in the United States.Business nationalists are ultraconservative business and industrial leaders who favor a protectionist trade policy and an isolationist foreign policy...

from the 1930s on.

In the aftermath of the two World Wars, progressives

Progressivism

Progressivism is an umbrella term for a political ideology advocating or favoring social, political, and economic reform or changes. Progressivism is often viewed by some conservatives, constitutionalists, and libertarians to be in opposition to conservative or reactionary ideologies.The...

welcomed these new international organizations and regimes but argued they suffered from a democratic deficit

Democratic deficit

A democratic deficit is considered to be occurring when ostensibly democratic organizations or institutions are seen to be falling short of fulfilling the principles of the parliamentary democracy in their practices or operation where representative and linked parliamentary integrity becomes...

and therefore were inadequate to not only prevent another global war but also foster global justice

Global justice

Global justice is an issue in political philosophy arising from the concern that the world at large is unjust.-Context:The broader philosophical context of the global justice debate, in both its contemporary and historical forms, is the issue of impartiality...

. The United Nations was designed in 1945 by U.S. bankers and State Department

United States Department of State

The United States Department of State , is the United States federal executive department responsible for international relations of the United States, equivalent to the foreign ministries of other countries...

planners, and was always intended to remain a free association of sovereign nation-states, not a transition to democratic world government. Thus, activists around the globe formed a world federalist movement

World Federalist Movement

The World Federalist Movement is a global citizens movement with member and associate organizations around the world. The WFM International Secretariat is based in New York City across from the United Nations headquarters...

hoping in vain to create a "real" new world order.

In the 1940s, British writer and futurist H. G. Wells

H. G. Wells

Herbert George Wells was an English author, now best known for his work in the science fiction genre. He was also a prolific writer in many other genres, including contemporary novels, history, politics and social commentary, even writing text books and rules for war games...

would go further than progressives by appropriating and redefining the term "new world order" as a synonym for the establishment of a technocratic world state and planned economy

Planned economy

A planned economy is an economic system in which decisions regarding production and investment are embodied in a plan formulated by a central authority, usually by a government agency...

. Despite the popularity of his ideas in some state socialist

State socialism

State socialism is an economic system with limited socialist characteristics, such as public ownership of major industries, remedial measures to benefit the working class, and a gradual process of developing socialism through government policy...

circles, Wells failed to exert a deeper and more lasting influence because he was unable to concentrate his energies on a direct appeal to intelligentsia

Intelligentsia

The intelligentsia is a social class of people engaged in complex, mental and creative labor directed to the development and dissemination of culture, encompassing intellectuals and social groups close to them...

s who would, ultimately, have to coordinate a Wellsian new world order.

During the Red Scare of 1947–1957, agitators of the American secular and Christian right

Christian right

Christian right is a term used predominantly in the United States to describe "right-wing" Christian political groups that are characterized by their strong support of socially conservative policies...

, influenced by the work of Canadian conspiracy theorist William Guy Carr

William Guy Carr

William James Guy Carr was a Canadian naval officer and an author. Though his accounts of wartime naval experiences found a general audience, he is best remembered today as a conspiracy theorist, "the most influential source in creating the American Illuminati demonology", according to the...

, increasingly embraced and spread unfounded fears of Freemasons, Illuminati

Illuminati

The Illuminati is a name given to several groups, both real and fictitious. Historically the name refers to the Bavarian Illuminati, an Enlightenment-era secret society founded on May 1, 1776...

, and Jews

Jewish Bolshevism

Jewish Bolshevism, Judeo-Bolshevism, and known as Żydokomuna in Poland, is an antisemitic stereotype based on the claim that Jews have been the driving force behind or are disproportionately involved in the modern Communist movement, or sometimes more specifically Russian Bolshevism.The expression...

being the driving force behind an "international communist

Comintern

The Communist International, abbreviated as Comintern, also known as the Third International, was an international communist organization initiated in Moscow during March 1919...

conspiracy". The threat of "Godless communism" in the form of a state atheistic

State atheism

State atheism is the official "promotion of atheism" by a government, sometimes combined with active suppression of religious freedom and practice...

and bureaucratic collectivist

Bureaucratic collectivism

Bureaucratic collectivism is a theory of class society. It is used by some Trotskyists to describe the nature of the Soviet Union under Joseph Stalin, and other similar states in Central and Eastern Europe and elsewhere .- Theory :...

world government, demonized

Demonization

Demonization is the reinterpretation of polytheistic deities as evil, lying demons by other religions, generally monotheistic and henotheistic ones...

as a "Red Menace", therefore became the main focus of apocalyptic

Apocalypticism

millenarian

Millenarianism

conspiracism. The Red Scare would shape one of the core ideas of the political right in the United States which is that liberals

Liberalism in the United States

Liberalism in the United States is a broad political philosophy centered on the unalienable rights of the individual. The fundamental liberal ideals of freedom of speech, freedom of the press, freedom of religion for all belief systems, and the separation of church and state, right to due process...

and progressives

Progressivism in the United States

Progressivism in the United States is a broadly based reform movement that reached its height early in the 20th century and is generally considered to be middle class and reformist in nature. It arose as a response to the vast changes brought by modernization, such as the growth of large...

with their welfare-state

Welfare state

A welfare state is a "concept of government in which the state plays a key role in the protection and promotion of the economic and social well-being of its citizens. It is based on the principles of equality of opportunity, equitable distribution of wealth, and public responsibility for those...

policies and international cooperation programs such as foreign aid supposedly contribute to a gradual process of collectivism

Collectivism

Collectivism is any philosophic, political, economic, mystical or social outlook that emphasizes the interdependence of every human in some collective group and the priority of group goals over individual goals. Collectivists usually focus on community, society, or nation...

that will inevitably lead to nations being replaced with a communist one-world government

World communism

World communism, also known as international communism or global communism, is the terminal stage of development of the history of communism in Marxist theory. It has also usually been equated to the Comintern . This is the meaning that typically and historically has been meant by opponents of...

.

In the 1960s, right-wing populist

Right-wing populism

individuals and groups with a producerist

Producerism

Producerism, sometimes referred to as "producer radicalism," is a right-wing populist ideology which holds that the productive members of society are being exploited by parasitic elements at both the top and bottom of the social and economic structure....

worldview, such as members of the John Birch Society

John Birch Society

The John Birch Society is an American political advocacy group that supports anti-communism, limited government, a Constitutional Republic and personal freedom. It has been described as radical right-wing....

, disseminated a great deal of conspiracy theories claiming that the governments of both the United States and the Soviet Union

Soviet Union

The Soviet Union , officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics , was a constitutionally socialist state that existed in Eurasia between 1922 and 1991....

were controlled by a cabal

Cabal

A cabal is a group of people united in some close design together, usually to promote their private views and/or interests in a church, state, or other community, often by intrigue...

of corporate internationalists

Neoliberalism

Neoliberalism is a market-driven approach to economic and social policy based on neoclassical theories of economics that emphasizes the efficiency of private enterprise, liberalized trade and relatively open markets, and therefore seeks to maximize the role of the private sector in determining the...

, greedy bankers and corrupt politicians intent on using the United Nations

United Nations

as the vehicle to create the "One World Government". This right-wing anti-globalist

Anti-globalization movement

The anti-globalization movement, or counter-globalisation movement, is critical of the globalization of corporate capitalism. The movement is also commonly referred to as the global justice movement, alter-globalization movement, anti-globalist movement, anti-corporate globalization movement, or...

conspiracism would fuel the Bircher campaign for U.S. withdrawal from the U.N.

United States withdrawal from the United Nations

The United States of America has been a member-state of the United Nations since its inception as a supranational entity in 1945. Since the 1990s, amidst the high unpopularity of the UN within the United States, there has been a growing movement for United States withdrawal from the United Nations....

. American writer Mary M. Davison, in her 1966 booklet The Profound Revolution, traced the alleged New World Order conspiracy to the creation of the U.S. Federal Reserve System

Federal Reserve System

The Federal Reserve System is the central banking system of the United States. It was created on December 23, 1913 with the enactment of the Federal Reserve Act, largely in response to a series of financial panics, particularly a severe panic in 1907...

in 1913 by international bankers, who she claimed later formed the Council on Foreign Relations

Council on Foreign Relations

The Council on Foreign Relations is an American nonprofit nonpartisan membership organization, publisher, and think tank specializing in U.S. foreign policy and international affairs...

in 1921 as the shadow government

Shadow government (conspiracy)

The term shadow government besides its party political meaning can also refer to what is sometimes called "the secret government" or "the invisible government" , an idea based on the notion that real and actual political power does not reside with publicly elected representatives but with private...

. At the time the booklet was published, "international bankers" would have been interpreted by many readers as a reference to a postulated "international Jewish banking conspiracy" masterminded by the Rothschilds

Rothschild family

The Rothschild family , known as The House of Rothschild, or more simply as the Rothschilds, is a Jewish-German family that established European banking and finance houses starting in the late 18th century...

.

Claiming that the term "New World Order" is used by a secretive elite dedicated to the destruction of all national sovereignties, American writer Gary Allen

Gary Allen

Gary Allen was an American conservative journalist.-Background:As a student, Allen was majoring in history at Stanford University and studied at California State University, Long Beach. He was a prominent member of the John Birch Society, of which he was a spokesman...

, in his 1971 book None Dare Call It Conspiracy, 1974 book Rockefeller: Campaigning for the New World Order and 1987 book Say "No!" to the New World Order, articulated the anti-globalist theme of much current right-wing populist conspiracism in the U.S.. Thus, after the fall of communism

Revolutions of 1989

The Revolutions of 1989 were the revolutions which overthrew the communist regimes in various Central and Eastern European countries.The events began in Poland in 1989, and continued in Hungary, East Germany, Bulgaria, Czechoslovakia and...

in the early 1990s, the main demonized scapegoat

Scapegoat

Scapegoating is the practice of singling out any party for unmerited negative treatment or blame. Scapegoating may be conducted by individuals against individuals , individuals against groups , groups against individuals , and groups against groups Scapegoating is the practice of singling out any...

of the American far right

Far right

Far-right, extreme right, hard right, radical right, and ultra-right are terms used to discuss the qualitative or quantitative position a group or person occupies within right-wing politics. Far-right politics may involve anti-immigration and anti-integration stances towards groups that are...

shifted seamlessly from crypto-communists

Crypto-communism

Crypto-communism is a pejorative term implying a secret support for, or admiration of, communism. The term is used to imply that an individual or group keeps this support or admiration hidden to avoid political persecution or political suicide.- See also :...

who plotted on behalf of the Red Menace to globalists who plot on behalf of the New World Order. The relatively painless nature of the shift was due to growing right-wing populist opposition to corporate internationalism

Business nationalism

but also in part to the basic underlying apocalyptic millenarian paradigm, which fed the Cold War

Cold War

The Cold War was the continuing state from roughly 1946 to 1991 of political conflict, military tension, proxy wars, and economic competition between the Communist World—primarily the Soviet Union and its satellite states and allies—and the powers of the Western world, primarily the United States...

and the witch-hunts

Witch-hunts

-Track listing:#"Without Ceremony and Bell Toll" – 5:59#"Inside the Circle of Stones" – 6:38#"The Crow and the Warrior" – 4:21#"Dying to Meet you" – 6:14#"The Preacher Came to Town" – 7:16#"Burn, Witches, Burn" – 5:39#"Witch Hunters" – 5:31...

of the McCarthy period

McCarthyism

McCarthyism is the practice of making accusations of disloyalty, subversion, or treason without proper regard for evidence. The term has its origins in the period in the United States known as the Second Red Scare, lasting roughly from the late 1940s to the late 1950s and characterized by...

.

In his 11 September 1990 Toward a New World Order speech to a joint session of the U.S. Congress

United States Congress

The United States Congress is the bicameral legislature of the federal government of the United States, consisting of the Senate and the House of Representatives. The Congress meets in the United States Capitol in Washington, D.C....

, President George H. W. Bush

George H. W. Bush

George Herbert Walker Bush is an American politician who served as the 41st President of the United States . He had previously served as the 43rd Vice President of the United States , a congressman, an ambassador, and Director of Central Intelligence.Bush was born in Milton, Massachusetts, to...

described his objectives for post-Cold-War global governance in cooperation with post-Soviet states

Post-Soviet states

The post-Soviet states, also commonly known as the Former Soviet Union or former Soviet republics, are the 15 independent states that split off from the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics in its dissolution in December 1991...

:
The New York Times
The New York Times
The New York Times is an American daily newspaper founded and continuously published in New York City since 1851. The New York Times has won 106 Pulitzer Prizes, the most of any news organization...

observed that progressives were denouncing this new world order as a rationalization for American imperial ambitions in the Middle East

Middle East

The Middle East is a region that encompasses Western Asia and Northern Africa. It is often used as a synonym for Near East, in opposition to Far East...

, while conservatives rejected new security arrangements altogether and fulminated about any possibility of U.N. revival. However, Chip Berlet

Chip Berlet

, an American investigative reporter specializing in the study of right-wing

Right-wing politics

In politics, Right, right-wing and rightist generally refer to support for a hierarchical society justified on the basis of an appeal to natural law or tradition. To varying degrees, the Right rejects the egalitarian objectives of left-wing politics, claiming that the imposition of equality is...

movements in the U.S., writes:
American televangelist Pat Robertson

Pat Robertson

Marion Gordon "Pat" Robertson is a media mogul, television evangelist, ex-Baptist minister and businessman who is politically aligned with the Christian Right in the United States....

with his 1991 best-selling book The New World Order
The New World Order (Robertson)
The New World Order is a book written, published in 1991, by American televangelist Pat Robertson.- The work :*Library of Congress catalog card:...

became the most prominent Christian popularizer of conspiracy theories about recent American history as a theater in which Wall Street

Wall Street

Wall Street refers to the financial district of New York City, named after and centered on the eight-block-long street running from Broadway to South Street on the East River in Lower Manhattan. Over time, the term has become a metonym for the financial markets of the United States as a whole, or...

, the Federal Reserve System, Council on Foreign Relations, Bilderberg Group

Bilderberg Group

The Bilderberg Group, Bilderberg conference, or Bilderberg Club is an annual, unofficial, invitation-only conference of approximately 120 to 140 guests from North America and Western Europe, most of whom are people of influence. About one-third are from government and politics, and two-thirds from...

, and Trilateral Commission

Trilateral Commission

The Trilateral Commission is a non-governmental, non-partisan discussion group founded by David Rockefeller in July 1973 to foster closer cooperation among the United States, Europe and Japan.-History:...

control the flow of events from behind the scenes, nudging us constantly and covertly in the direction of world government for the Antichrist

Antichrist

The term or title antichrist, in Christian theology, refers to a leader who fulfills Biblical prophecies concerning an adversary of Christ, while resembling him in a deceptive manner...

.

Observers note that the galvanization of right-wing populist conspiracy theorists, such as Linda Thompson

Linda Thompson (attorney)

Linda Thompson is an American attorney, filmmaker, and the founder of the American Justice Federation. In 1993, she quit her job as a lawyer in Indianapolis, Indiana to start the American Justice Federation, according to Snopes.com...

, Mark Koernke

Mark Koernke

Mark Gregory Koernke , known as "Mark from Michigan," is a prominent militia activist and shortwave radio broadcaster. As an early proponent of the black helicopters, he was largely responsible for popularizing it in appearances on Tom Valentine's radio show and in public speeches which were widely...

and Robert K. Spear, into militancy led to the rise of the militia movement, which spread its anti-government ideology through speeches at rallies and meetings, through books and videotapes sold at gun show

Gun show

A gun show is a temporary exhibition or gathering in the United States where firearms, firearm accessories, ammunition, literature, knives, jerky, militaria, and miscellaneous collectibles are displayed, bought, sold, traded, and discussed. Gun shows also often include exhibitions related to...

s, through shortwave and satellite radio, and through fax networks and computer bulletin boards. However, overnight AM radio shows and viral propaganda

Viral marketing

Viral marketing, viral advertising, or marketing buzz are buzzwords referring to marketing techniques that use pre-existing social networks to produce increases in brand awareness or to achieve other marketing objectives through self-replicating viral processes, analogous to the spread of viruses...

on the Internet is what most effectively contributed to their extremist

Extremism

Extremism is any ideology or political act far outside the perceived political center of a society; or otherwise claimed to violate common moral standards...

political ideas about the New World Order finding their way into the previously apolitical literature of many Kennedy assassinologists, ufologists, lost land theorists

Lost lands

Lost lands can be continents, islands or other regions supposedly existing during prehistory, having since disappeared as a result of catastrophic geological phenomena or slowly rising sea levels since the end of the last Ice Age. Lost lands, where they existed, are supposed to have subsided into...

, and, most recently, occultists. The worldwide appeal of these subcultures then transmitted New World Order conspiracism like a "mind virus

Viruses of the Mind

"Viruses of the Mind" is an article by Richard Dawkins using memetics and analogies with biological and computer viruses, and with disease and epidemiology, to analyse the propagation of ideas and behaviours. Its particular focus is on religious beliefs and activities...

" to a large new audience of seekers of stigmatized knowledge from the mid-1990s on. Hollywood conspiracy-thriller

Conspiracy fiction

The conspiracy thriller is a subgenre of thriller fiction. The protagonists of conspiracy thrillers are often journalists or amateur investigators who find themselves pulling on a small thread which unravels a vast conspiracy that ultimately goes "all the way to the top"...

televisions shows and films also played a role in introducing a vast popular audience to various fringe theories

Fringe theory

A fringe theory is an idea or a collection of ideas that departs significantly from the prevailing or mainstream view in its particular field of study. Examples include ideas that purport to be scientific theories but have little or no scientific support, conspiracy theories, unproven esoteric...

related to New World Order conspiracism (black helicopter

Black Helicopter

Black Helicopter is a United States Boston, Massachusetts based hard rock band on Thurston Moore's Ecstatic Peace! independent record label. The band performed at North East Sticks Together in 2005 and 2006....

, FEMA

Federal Emergency Management Agency

The Federal Emergency Management Agency is an agency of the United States Department of Homeland Security, initially created by Presidential Reorganization Plan No. 1 of 1978 and implemented by two Executive Orders...

“concentration camps”, etc.), which were previously confined to radical right-wing

Radical Right

Radical Right is a generally pejorative term used to describe various political movements on the right that are conspiracist, attuned to anti-American or anti-Christian agents of foreign powers, and "politically radical." The term was first used by social scientists in the 1950s regarding small...

subcultures for decades. The 1993-2002 television series X-Files, the 1997 film Conspiracy Theory
Conspiracy Theory (film)
Conspiracy Theory is a 1997 American action thriller film directed by Richard Donner.The original screenplay by Brian Helgeland centers on an eccentric taxi driver who believes many world events are triggered by government conspiracies, and the U.S...

and the 1998 film The X-Files: Fight the Future
The X-Files (film)
The X-Files is a 1998 American science fiction-thriller film written by Chris Carter and Frank Spotnitz, and directed by Rob Bowman. It is the first feature film based on The X-Files series created by Carter that revolves around a fictional FBI paranormal investigation unit called the X-Files...

are often cited as notable examples.

After the turn of the century

Turn of the century

Turn of the century, in its broadest sense, refers to the transition from one century to another. The term is most often used to indicate a non-specific time period either before or after the beginning of a century....

, specifically during the late-2000s financial crisis

Late-2000s financial crisis

The late-2000s financial crisis is considered by many economists to be the worst financial crisis since the Great Depression of the 1930s...

, many politicians and pundits, such as Gordon Brown

Gordon Brown

James Gordon Brown is a British Labour Party politician who was the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom and Leader of the Labour Party from 2007 until 2010. He previously served as Chancellor of the Exchequer in the Labour Government from 1997 to 2007...

, and Henry Kissinger

Henry Kissinger

Heinz Alfred "Henry" Kissinger is a German-born American academic, political scientist, diplomat, and businessman. He is a recipient of the Nobel Peace Prize. He served as National Security Advisor and later concurrently as Secretary of State in the administrations of Presidents Richard Nixon and...

, used the term "new world order" in their advocacy for a comprehensive reform of the global financial system

Global financial system

The global financial system is the financial system consisting of institutions and regulators that act on the international level, as opposed to those that act on a national or regional level...

and their calls for a "New Bretton Woods", which takes into account emerging markets

Emerging markets

Emerging markets are nations with social or business activity in the process of rapid growth and industrialization. Based on data from 2006, there are around 28 emerging markets in the world . The economies of China and India are considered to be the largest...

such as China

People's Republic of China

China , officially the People's Republic of China , is the most populous country in the world, with over 1.3 billion citizens. Located in East Asia, the country covers approximately 9.6 million square kilometres...

and India

India

India , officially the Republic of India , is a country in South Asia. It is the seventh-largest country by geographical area, the second-most populous country with over 1.2 billion people, and the most populous democracy in the world...

. These declarations had the unintended consequence of providing fresh fodder for New World Order conspiracism, and culminated in talk show host Sean Hannity

Sean Hannity

Sean Hannity is an American radio and television host, author, and conservative political commentator. He is the host of The Sean Hannity Show, a nationally syndicated talk radio show that airs throughout the United States on Premiere Radio Networks. Hannity also hosts a cable news show, Hannity,...

stating on his Fox News Channel

Fox News Channel

Fox News Channel , often called Fox News, is a cable and satellite television news channel owned by the Fox Entertainment Group, a subsidiary of News Corporation...

program Hannity
Hannity
Hannity is a television show on the Fox News network, a replacement to the long-running show Hannity & Colmes. It is hosted by conservative political pundit Sean Hannity....

that "conspiracy theorists were right". Fox News in general, and its opinion show Glenn Beck
Glenn Beck (TV program)
Glenn Beck is a United States cable news show hosted by Glenn Beck that aired weekdays on Fox News Channel. The program, originally on CNN Headline News , premiered on FNC on January 19, 2009 and aired weekdays at 5:00 PM EST...

in particular, have been repeatedly criticized by progressive media watchdog groups for not only mainstreaming the New World Order conspiracy theories of the radical right

Radical Right

but possibly agitating its lone wolves into action.

In 2009, American film directors Luke Meyer and Andrew Neel

Andrew Neel

Andrew Neel is an American filmmaker. He was born in Vermont in 1978.Neel co-founded SeeThink Productions together with Ethan Palmer, Luke Meyer and Tom Davis in 2001 after graduating from Columbia College with a BA in film studies...

released New World Order
New World Order (film)
New World Order is a 2009 American documentary film directed by Luke Meyer and Andrew Neel. It explores activists who are committed to vigorously opposing what they perceive to be an emerging "New World Order".-Subject Matter:...

, a critically acclaimed documentary film which explores the world of conspiracy theorists, such as American radio host Alex Jones, who are committed to exposing and vigorously opposing what they perceive to be an emerging New World Order. The growing dissemination and popularity of conspiracy theories has created an alliance between right-wing populist agitators, such as Alex Jones, and hip hop music

Hip hop music

Hip hop music, also called hip-hop, rap music or hip-hop music, is a musical genre consisting of a stylized rhythmic music that commonly accompanies rapping, a rhythmic and rhyming speech that is chanted...

’s left-wing populist rappers, such as KRS-One

KRS-One

Lawrence Krisna Parker , better known by his stage names KRS-One , and Teacha, is an American rapper...

, Professor Griff

Professor Griff

Professor Griff is an American rapper and spoken word artist. He is a member of the hip hop group Public Enemy and head of the Security of the First World.-Early years in Public Enemy:...

of Public Enemy, and Immortal Technique

Immortal Technique

Felipe Andres Coronel , better known by the stage name Immortal Technique, is an American rapper of Afro-Peruvian descent as well as an urban activist. He was born in Lima, Peru and raised in Harlem, New York. Most of his lyrics focus on controversial issues in global politics...

, which illustrates how anti-elitist conspiracism creates unlikely political allies in efforts to oppose the political system.

Conspiracy theories

There are numerous systemic conspiracy theories through which the concept of a New World Order is viewed. The following is a list of the major ones in relatively chronological order:

End Time

Since the 19th century, many apocalyptic

Apocalypticism

millennial

Millennialism

Millennialism , or chiliasm in Greek, is a belief held by some Christian denominations that there will be a Golden Age or Paradise on Earth in which "Christ will reign" for 1000 years prior to the final judgment and future eternal state...

Christian eschatologists

Christian eschatology

Christian eschatology is a major branch of study within Christian theology. Eschatology, from two Greek words meaning last and study , is the study of the end of things, whether the end of an individual life, the end of the age, or the end of the world...

, starting with John Nelson Darby

John Nelson Darby

John Nelson Darby was an Anglo-Irish evangelist, and an influential figure among the original Plymouth Brethren. He is considered to be the father of modern Dispensationalism. He produced a translation of the Bible based on the Hebrew and Greek texts called The Holy Scriptures: A New Translation...

, have feared a globalist conspiracy to impose a tyrannical New World Order as the fulfillment of prophecies about the "end time" in the Bible

Bible

The Bible refers to any one of the collections of the primary religious texts of Judaism and Christianity. There is no common version of the Bible, as the individual books , their contents and their order vary among denominations...

, specifically in the Book of Ezekiel

Book of Ezekiel

The Book of Ezekiel is the third of the Latter Prophets in the Hebrew Bible, following the books of Isaiah and Jeremiah and preceding the Book of the Twelve....

, the Book of Daniel

Book of Daniel

The Book of Daniel is a book in the Hebrew Bible. The book tells of how Daniel, and his Judean companions, were inducted into Babylon during Jewish exile, and how their positions elevated in the court of Nebuchadnezzar. The court tales span events that occur during the reigns of Nebuchadnezzar,...

, the Olivet discourse

Olivet discourse

The Olivet discourse or Olivet prophecy is a biblical passage found in the Synoptic Gospels of Mark 13, Matthew 24, Luke 21. It is known as the "Little Apocalypse" because it includes Jesus' descriptions of the end times, the use of apocalyptic language, and Jesus' warning to his followers that...

found in the Synoptic Gospels

Synoptic Gospels

The gospels of Matthew, Mark, and Luke are known as the Synoptic Gospels because they include many of the same stories, often in the same sequence, and sometimes exactly the same wording. This degree of parallelism in content, narrative arrangement, language, and sentence structures can only be...

, and the Book of Revelation

Book of Revelation

The Book of Revelation is the final book of the New Testament. The title came into usage from the first word of the book in Koine Greek: apokalupsis, meaning "unveiling" or "revelation"...

. They assert that people who have made a deal with the Devil

Deal with the Devil

Deal With The Devil is the fifth studio album by the American heavy metal band Lizzy Borden released in 2000 .A return to form, featuring a cover by Todd McFarlane.2 covers were recorded...

to gain wealth and power have become pawns in a supernatural chess game to move humanity into accepting an utopia

Utopia

Utopia is an ideal community or society possessing a perfect socio-politico-legal system. The word was imported from Greek by Sir Thomas More for his 1516 book Utopia, describing a fictional island in the Atlantic Ocean. The term has been used to describe both intentional communities that attempt...

n world government, which rests on the spiritual foundations of a syncretic

Syncretism

Syncretism is the combining of different beliefs, often while melding practices of various schools of thought. The term means "combining", but see below for the origin of the word...

-messianic

Messianism

Messianism is the belief in a messiah, a savior or redeemer. Many religions have a messiah concept, including the Jewish Messiah, the Christian Christ, the Muslim Mahdi and Isa , the Buddhist Maitreya, the Hindu Kalki and the Zoroastrian Saoshyant...

world religion, that will later reveal itself to be a dystopia

Dystopia

A dystopia is the idea of a society in a repressive and controlled state, often under the guise of being utopian, as characterized in books like Brave New World and Nineteen Eighty-Four...

n world empire, which imposes the imperial cult

Imperial cult

An imperial cult is a form of state religion in which an emperor, or a dynasty of emperors , are worshipped as messiahs, demigods or deities. "Cult" here is used to mean "worship", not in the modern pejorative sense...

of an “Unholy Trinity” — Satan

Satan

Satan , "the opposer", is the title of various entities, both human and divine, who challenge the faith of humans in the Hebrew Bible...

, the Antichrist

Antichrist

The term or title antichrist, in Christian theology, refers to a leader who fulfills Biblical prophecies concerning an adversary of Christ, while resembling him in a deceptive manner...

and the False Prophet

False prophet

In religion, a false prophet is one who falsely claims the gift of prophecy, or who uses that gift for evil ends. Often, someone who is considered a "true prophet" by some people is simultaneously considered a "false prophet" by others....

. In many contemporary Christian conspiracy theories, the False Prophet will either be the last pope

Pope

The Pope is the Bishop of Rome, a position that makes him the leader of the worldwide Catholic Church . In the Catholic Church, the Pope is regarded as the successor of Saint Peter, the Apostle...

of the Catholic Church (groomed and installed by an Alta Vendita

Alta Vendita

The Permanent Instruction of the Alta Vendita is a document, originally published in Italian in the 19th century, purportedly produced by the highest lodge of the Italian Carbonari....

or Jesuit conspiracy) or a guru

Guru

A guru is one who is regarded as having great knowledge, wisdom, and authority in a certain area, and who uses it to guide others . Other forms of manifestation of this principle can include parents, school teachers, non-human objects and even one's own intellectual discipline, if the...

from the New Age movement or even the leader of an elite fundamentalist Christian organization like the Fellowship, while the Antichrist will either be the president of the European Union

President of the European Union

President of the European Union could be a reference to any of:* President of the European Council * President of the European Commission...

or the secretary-general of the United Nations or even the caliph

Caliph

The Caliph is the head of state in a Caliphate, and the title for the ruler of the Islamic Ummah, an Islamic community ruled by the Shari'ah. It is a transcribed version of the Arabic word which means "successor" or "representative"...

of a pan-Islamic

Pan-Islamism

Pan-Islamism is a political movement advocating the unity of Muslims under one Islamic state — often a Caliphate. As a form of religious nationalism, Pan-Islamism differentiates itself from other pan-nationalistic ideologies, for example Pan-Arabism, by excluding culture and ethnicity as primary...

state.

Some of the most vocal critics of end-time conspiracy theories come from within Christianity. In 1993, historian Bruce Barron wrote a stern rebuke of apocalyptic Christian conspiracism in the Christian Research Journal, when reviewing Robertson

Pat Robertson

Marion Gordon "Pat" Robertson is a media mogul, television evangelist, ex-Baptist minister and businessman who is politically aligned with the Christian Right in the United States....

's 1991 book The New World Order
The New World Order (Robertson)
The New World Order is a book written, published in 1991, by American televangelist Pat Robertson.- The work :*Library of Congress catalog card:...

. Another critique can be found in historian Gregory S. Camp's 1997 book Selling Fear: Conspiracy Theories and End-Times Paranoia. Religious studies scholar Richard T. Hughes argues that "New World Order" rhetoric libels the Christian faith since the "New World Order", as defined by Christian conspiracy theorists, has no basis in the Bible whatsoever and that, in fact, this idea is not only unbiblical; it is anti-biblical and fundamentally anti-Christian because, by misinterpreting key passages in the Book of Revelations, it turns a comforting message about the coming kingdom of God

Kingdom of God

The Kingdom of God or Kingdom of Heaven is a foundational concept in the Abrahamic religions: Judaism, Christianity and Islam.The term "Kingdom of God" is found in all four canonical gospels and in the Pauline epistles...

into one of fear, panic and despair in the face of an allegedly approaching one-world government. Progressive Christians

Progressive Christianity

Progressive Christianity is the name given to a movement within contemporary Christianity characterized by willingness to question tradition, acceptance of human diversity with a strong emphasis on social justice or care for the poor and the oppressed and environmental stewardship of the Earth...

, such as preacher-theologian Peter J. Gomes

Peter J. Gomes

Peter John Gomes was an American preacher and theologian,the Plummer Professor of Christian Morals at Harvard Divinity School and Pusey Minister at Harvard's Memorial Church—in the words of Harvard's president "one of the great preachers of our generation, and a living symbol of courage and...

, caution conservative Christians

Conservative Christianity

Conservative Christianity is a term applied to a number of groups or movements seen as giving priority to traditional Christian beliefs and practices...

that a "spirit of fear

Unclean spirit

In English translations of the Bible, unclean spirit is a common rendering of Greek pneuma akatharton , which in its single occurrence in the Septuagint translates Hebrew ....

" can distort scripture and history by dangerously combining biblical literalism

Biblical literalism

Biblical literalism is the interpretation or translation of the explicit and primary sense of words in the Bible. A literal Biblical interpretation is associated with the fundamentalist and evangelical hermeneutical approach to Scripture, and is used almost exclusively by conservative Christians...

, apocalyptic timetables

Dispensation (period)

In certain religions, a dispensation is a distinctive arrangement or period in history that forms the framework through which God relates to mankind.-Protestant dispensations:...

, demonization

Demonization

Demonization is the reinterpretation of polytheistic deities as evil, lying demons by other religions, generally monotheistic and henotheistic ones...

, and oppressive prejudices; while Camp warns of the "very real danger that Christians could pick up some extra spiritual baggage" by credulously embracing conspiracy theories. They therefore call on Christians who indulge in conspiracism to repent

Repentance

Repentance is a change of thought to correct a wrong and gain forgiveness from a person who is wronged. In religious contexts it usually refers to confession to God, ceasing sin against God, and resolving to live according to religious law...

Freemasonry

Freemasonry is a fraternal organisation that arose from obscure origins in the late 16th to early 17th century. Freemasonry now exists in various forms all over the world, with a membership estimated at around six million, including approximately 150,000 under the jurisdictions of the Grand Lodge...

is one of the world's oldest secular fraternal organization

Fraternity

A fraternity is a brotherhood, though the term usually connotes a distinct or formal organization. An organization referred to as a fraternity may be a:*Secret society*Chivalric order*Benefit society*Friendly society*Social club*Trade union...

s, which arose in late 16th- to early 17th-century Britain. Over the years a number of allegations and conspiracy theories have been directed towards Freemasonry, including the allegation that Freemasons have a hidden political agenda and are conspiring to bring about a New World Order, a world government organized according to Masonic principles and/or governed only by Freemasons.

The esoteric

Esotericism

Esotericism or Esoterism signifies the holding of esoteric opinions or beliefs, that is, ideas preserved or understood by a small group or those specially initiated, or of rare or unusual interest. The term derives from the Greek , a compound of : "within", thus "pertaining to the more inward",...

nature of Masonic symbolism and rites led to Freemasons being first accused of secretly practicing Satanism

Satanism

Satanism is a group of religions that is composed of a diverse number of ideological and philosophical beliefs and social phenomena. Their shared feature include symbolic association with, admiration for the character of, and even veneration of Satan or similar rebellious, promethean, and...

in the late 1700s. The original allegation of a conspiracy within Freemasonry to subvert religions and governments in order to take over the world traces back to Scottish author John Robison

John Robison (physicist)

John Robison FRSE was a Scottish physicist and mathematician. He was a professor of philosophy at the University of Edinburgh....

, whose reactionary

Reactionary

The term reactionary refers to viewpoints that seek to return to a previous state in a society. The term is meant to describe one end of a political spectrum whose opposite pole is "radical". While it has not been generally considered a term of praise it has been adopted as a self-description by...

conspiracy theories crossed the Atlantic, and during the 1800s influenced outbreaks of Protestant anti-Masonry

Anti-Masonry

Anti-Masonry is defined as "avowed opposition to Freemasonry". However, there is no homogeneous anti-Masonic movement...

in the United States. In the 1890s, French writer Léo Taxil

Léo Taxil

Léo Taxil, originally Marie Joseph Gabriel Antoine Jogand-Pagès , was a French writer and journalist who became known for his strong anti-Catholic and anti-clerical views....

wrote a series of pamphlets and books, denouncing Freemasonry, charging their lodges with worshiping Lucifer

Lucifer

Traditionally, Lucifer is a name that in English generally refers to the devil or Satan before being cast from Heaven, although this is not the original meaning of the term. In Latin, from which the English word is derived, Lucifer means "light-bearer"...

as the Supreme Being

Supreme Being

The term Supreme Being is often defined simply as "God", and it is used with this meaning by theologians of many religious faiths, including, but not limited to, Christianity, Islam, Hinduism, and Deism. However, the term can also refer to more complex or philosophical interpretations of the...

. Despite the fact that Taxil admitted that his claims were all a hoax

Taxil hoax

The Taxil hoax was an 1890s hoax of exposure by Léo Taxil intended to mock not only Freemasonry, but also the Roman Catholic Church's opposition to it.-Taxil and Freemasonry:...

, they were and are believed and repeated by numerous conspiracy theorists, and had a huge influence on subsequent anti-Masonic claims about Freemasonry.

Some conspiracy theorists would eventually speculate that some of the Founding Fathers of the United States

Founding Fathers of the United States

The Founding Fathers of the United States of America were political leaders and statesmen who participated in the American Revolution by signing the United States Declaration of Independence, taking part in the American Revolutionary War, establishing the United States Constitution, or by some...

, such as George Washington

George Washington

George Washington was the dominant military and political leader of the new United States of America from 1775 to 1799. He led the American victory over Great Britain in the American Revolutionary War as commander-in-chief of the Continental Army from 1775 to 1783, and presided over the writing of...

, Benjamin Franklin

Benjamin Franklin

Dr. Benjamin Franklin was one of the Founding Fathers of the United States. A noted polymath, Franklin was a leading author, printer, political theorist, politician, postmaster, scientist, musician, inventor, satirist, civic activist, statesman, and diplomat...

and Thomas Jefferson

Thomas Jefferson

Thomas Jefferson was the principal author of the United States Declaration of Independence and the Statute of Virginia for Religious Freedom , the third President of the United States and founder of the University of Virginia...

, of having Masonic sacred geometric

Sacred geometry

Sacred geometry is the geometry used in the planning and construction of religious structures such as churches, temples, mosques, religious monuments, altars, tabernacles; as well as for sacred spaces such as temenoi, sacred groves, village greens and holy wells, and the creation of religious art...

designs interwoven into American society, particularly in the Great Seal of the United States

Great Seal of the United States

The Great Seal of the United States is used to authenticate certain documents issued by the United States federal government. The phrase is used both for the physical seal itself , and more generally for the design impressed upon it...

, the United States one-dollar bill

United States one-dollar bill

The United States one-dollar bill is the most common denomination of US currency. The first president, George Washington, painted by Gilbert Stuart, is currently featured on the obverse, while the Great Seal of the United States is featured on the reverse. The one-dollar bill has the oldest...

, the architecture of National Mall landmarks, and the streets and highways of Washington, D.C.

Streets and highways of Washington, D.C.

The streets and highways of Washington, D.C. form the core of the city's surface transportation infrastructure. As a planned city, streets in the capital of the United States follow a distinctive layout and addressing scheme...

, as part of a master plan. Accordingly, colonial American Freemasons are portrayed as having embraced Bavarian Illuminism

Illuminati

The Illuminati is a name given to several groups, both real and fictitious. Historically the name refers to the Bavarian Illuminati, an Enlightenment-era secret society founded on May 1, 1776...

and used the power of the occult

Occult

The word occult comes from the Latin word occultus , referring to "knowledge of the hidden". In the medical sense it is used to refer to a structure or process that is hidden, e.g...

to bind their planning of a government in conformity with the plan of the "Masonic God" because of their belief that the "Great Architect of the Universe

Great Architect of the Universe

The Great Architect of the Universe is a conception of God discussed by many Christian theologians and apologists. As a designation it is used within Freemasonry to neutrally represent whatever Supreme Being to which each member individually holds in adherence...

" has tasked the United States with the eventual establishment of the "Kingdom of God on Earth

Immanentize the eschaton

In political theory and theology, to immanentize the eschaton means trying to bring about the eschaton in the immanent world. It has been used by conservative critics, foremost William F. Buckley, as a pejorative reference to certain utopian projects, such as socialism, communism and transhumanism...

" — a Masonic world theodemocracy

Theodemocracy

Theodemocracy is a political system that combines elements of theocracy and democracy.One concept of theodemocracy was theorized by Joseph Smith, Jr., founder of the Latter Day Saint movement...

with New Jerusalem

New Jerusalem

In the book of Ezekiel, the Prophecy of New Jerusalem is Ezekiel's prophetic vision of a city to be established to the south of the Temple Mount that will be inhabited by the twelve tribes of Israel in the...

as its capital city and the Third Temple as its holiest site — the initially utopian New World Order presided over by a Masonic Messiah

Messiah

A messiah is a redeemer figure expected or foretold in one form or another by a religion. Slightly more widely, a messiah is any redeemer figure. Messianic beliefs or theories generally relate to eschatological improvement of the state of humanity or the world, in other words the World to...

.
Freemasons rebut these claims of Masonic conspiracy. Freemasonry, which promotes rationalism

Rationalism

In epistemology and in its modern sense, rationalism is "any view appealing to reason as a source of knowledge or justification" . In more technical terms, it is a method or a theory "in which the criterion of the truth is not sensory but intellectual and deductive"...

, places no power in occult symbols themselves, and it is not a part of its principles to view the drawing of symbols, no matter how large, as an act of consolidating or controlling power. Furthermore, there is no published information establishing the Masonic membership of the men responsible for the design of the Great Seal. The Latin phrase "novus ordo seclorum
Novus Ordo Seclorum
The phrase Novus ordo seclorum appears on the reverse of the Great Seal of the United States, first designed in 1782 and printed on the back of the United States one-dollar bill since 1935. The phrase also appears on the coat of arms of the Yale School of Management, Yale University's business...

", appearing on the reverse side of the Great Seal since 1782 and on the back of the one-dollar bill since 1935, means "New Order of the Ages" and only alludes to the beginning of an era where the United States is an independent nation-state, but is often mistranslated by conspiracy theorists as "New World Order". Lastly, Freemasons argue that, despite the symbolic importance of the Temple of Solomon

Solomon's Temple

Solomon's Temple, also known as the First Temple, was the main temple in ancient Jerusalem, on the Temple Mount , before its destruction by Nebuchadnezzar II after the Siege of Jerusalem of 587 BCE....

in their mythology, they have no interest in rebuilding it, especially since "it is obvious that any attempt to interfere with the present condition of things [on the Temple Mount

Temple Mount

The Temple Mount, known in Hebrew as , and in Arabic as the Haram Ash-Sharif , is one of the most important religious sites in the Old City of Jerusalem. It has been used as a religious site for thousands of years...

] would in all probability bring about the greatest religious war

Religious war

A religious war; Latin: bellum sacrum; is a war caused by, or justified by, religious differences. It can involve one state with an established religion against another state with a different religion or a different sect within the same religion, or a religiously motivated group attempting to...

the world has ever known".

Although the European continental branch of Freemasonry

Continental Freemasonry

Continental Freemasonry refers to those Masonic lodges, mainly on the continent of Europe, that recognise the Grand Orient de France or belong to CLIPSAS or SIMPA.-The two branches of Freemasonry:Today, Freemasonry...

has organizations that allow political discussion within their Masonic Lodge

Masonic Lodge

This article is about the Masonic term for a membership group. For buildings named Masonic Lodge, see Masonic Lodge A Masonic Lodge, often termed a Private Lodge or Constituent Lodge, is the basic organisation of Freemasonry...

s and a few operate as active political lobbies for secularist

Secularism

Secularism is the principle of separation between government institutions and the persons mandated to represent the State from religious institutions and religious dignitaries...

causes, as exemplified by the Grand Orient of France

Grand Orient de France

The Grand Orient de France is the largest of several Masonic organizations in France and the oldest in Continental Europe, founded in 1733.-Foundation:...

, Masonic researcher Trevor W. McKeown argues:

Illuminati

The Order of the Illuminati

Illuminati

The Illuminati is a name given to several groups, both real and fictitious. Historically the name refers to the Bavarian Illuminati, an Enlightenment-era secret society founded on May 1, 1776...

was an Enlightenment-age

Age of Enlightenment

The Age of Enlightenment was an elite cultural movement of intellectuals in 18th century Europe that sought to mobilize the power of reason in order to reform society and advance knowledge. It promoted intellectual interchange and opposed intolerance and abuses in church and state...

secret society founded by university professor Adam Weishaupt

Adam Weishaupt

Johann Adam Weishaupt was a German philosopher and founder of the Order of Illuminati, a secret society with origins in Bavaria.-Early life:...

on 1 May 1776, in Upper Bavaria

Upper Bavaria

Upper Bavaria is one of the seven administrative regions of Bavaria, Germany.- Geography :Upper Bavaria is located in the southern portion of Bavaria, and is centered around the city of Munich. It is subdivided into four regions : Ingolstadt, Munich, Bayerisches Oberland , and Südostoberbayern...

, Germany. The movement consisted of advocates of freethought

Freethought

Freethought is a philosophical viewpoint that holds that opinions should be formed on the basis of science, logic, and reason, and should not be influenced by authority, tradition, or other dogmas...

, secularism

Secularism

Secularism is the principle of separation between government institutions and the persons mandated to represent the State from religious institutions and religious dignitaries...

, liberalism

Liberalism

Liberalism is the belief in the importance of liberty and equal rights. Liberals espouse a wide array of views depending on their understanding of these principles, but generally, liberals support ideas such as constitutionalism, liberal democracy, free and fair elections, human rights,...

, republicanism

Republicanism

Republicanism is the ideology of governing a nation as a republic, where the head of state is appointed by means other than heredity, often elections. The exact meaning of republicanism varies depending on the cultural and historical context...

and gender equality

Gender equality

Gender equality is the goal of the equality of the genders, stemming from a belief in the injustice of myriad forms of gender inequality.- Concept :...

, recruited in the German Masonic Lodge

Masonic Lodge

s, who sought to teach rationalism

Rationalism

through mystery schools. In 1785, the order was infiltrated, broken up and suppressed by the government agents of Charles Theodore, Elector of Bavaria

Charles Theodore, Elector of Bavaria

Charles Theodore, Prince-Elector, Count Palatine and Duke of Bavaria reigned as Prince-Elector and Count palatine from 1742, as Duke of Jülich and Berg from 1742 and also as Prince-Elector and Duke of Bavaria from 1777, until his death...

, in his preemptive campaign to neutralize the threat of secret societies ever becoming hotbeds of conspiracies to overthrow the Bavarian monarchy

Monarchy

A monarchy is a form of government in which the office of head of state is usually held until death or abdication and is often hereditary and includes a royal house. In some cases, the monarch is elected...

and its state religion

State religion

A state religion is a religious body or creed officially endorsed by the state...

, Roman Catholicism.

In the late 18th century, reactionary

Reactionary

conspiracy theorists, such as Scottish physicist John Robison

John Robison (physicist)

John Robison FRSE was a Scottish physicist and mathematician. He was a professor of philosophy at the University of Edinburgh....

and French Jesuit priest Augustin Barruel

Augustin Barruel

Abbé Augustin Barruel was a French Jesuit priest. He is now mostly known for setting forth the conspiracy theory involving the Bavarian Illuminati and the Jacobins in his book Memoirs Illustrating the History of Jacobinism published in 1797...

, began speculating that the Illuminati survived their suppression and became the masterminds behind the French Revolution

French Revolution

The French Revolution , sometimes distinguished as the 'Great French Revolution' , was a period of radical social and political upheaval in France and Europe. The absolute monarchy that had ruled France for centuries collapsed in three years...

and the Reign of Terror

Reign of Terror

The Reign of Terror , also known simply as The Terror , was a period of violence that occurred after the onset of the French Revolution, incited by conflict between rival political factions, the Girondins and the Jacobins, and marked by mass executions of "enemies of...

. The Illuminati were accused of being subversives

Subversion

Apache Subversion is a software versioning and a revision control system distributed under a free license. Developers use Subversion to maintain current and historical versions of files such as source code, web pages, and documentation...

who were attempting to secretly orchestrate a revolutionary wave

Revolutionary wave

A revolutionary wave is a series of revolutions occurring in various locations in a similar time period. In many cases, an initial revolution inspires other "affiliate revolutions" with similar aims....

in Europe

Europe

Europe is, by convention, one of the world's seven continents. Comprising the westernmost peninsula of Eurasia, Europe is generally 'divided' from Asia to its east by the watershed divides of the Ural and Caucasus Mountains, the Ural River, the Caspian and Black Seas, and the waterways connecting...

and the rest of the world in order to spread the most radical

Radicalism (historical)

The term Radical was used during the late 18th century for proponents of the Radical Movement. It later became a general pejorative term for those favoring or seeking political reforms which include dramatic changes to the social order...

ideas and movements of the Enlightenment — anti-clericalism

Anti-clericalism

Anti-clericalism is a historical movement that opposes religious institutional power and influence, real or alleged, in all aspects of public and political life, and the involvement of religion in the everyday life of the citizen...

, anti-monarchism, and anti-patriarchalism — and create a world noocracy

Noocracy

Noocracy, or "aristocracy of the wise", as defined by Plato, is a social and political system that is "based on the priority of human mind", according to Vladimir Vernadsky. It was also further developed in the writings of Pierre Teilhard de Chardin....

and cult of reason

Cult of Reason

The Cult of Reason was an atheistic belief system established in France and intended as a replacement for Christianity during the French Revolution.-Origins:...

. During the 19th century, fear of an Illuminati conspiracy was a real concern of European ruling class

Ruling class

The term ruling class refers to the social class of a given society that decides upon and sets that society's political policy - assuming there is one such particular class in the given society....

es, and their oppressive reactions to this unfounded fear provoked in 1848 the very revolutions they sought to prevent

Revolutions of 1848

The European Revolutions of 1848, known in some countries as the Spring of Nations, Springtime of the Peoples or the Year of Revolution, were a series of political upheavals throughout Europe in 1848. It was the first Europe-wide collapse of traditional authority, but within a year reactionary...

.

During the interwar period

Interwar period

Interwar period can refer to any period between two wars. The Interbellum is understood to be the period between the end of the Great War or First World War and the beginning of the Second World War in Europe....

of the 20th century, fascist

Fascism

Fascism is a radical authoritarian nationalist political ideology. Fascists seek to rejuvenate their nation based on commitment to the national community as an organic entity, in which individuals are bound together in national identity by suprapersonal connections of ancestry, culture, and blood...

propagandists, such as British revisionist historian Nesta Helen Webster and American socialite Edith Starr Miller

Edith Starr Miller

Edith Starr Miller, Lady Queenborough was a New York socialite, conspiracy theorist and anti-Mormon agitator who in 1921 became the second wife of Almeric Hugh Paget, 1st Baron Queenborough, the British Fascist.-Biography:...

, not only popularized the myth of an Illuminati conspiracy but claimed that it was a subversive secret society which serves the Jewish elites that supposedly propped up both finance capitalism

Finance capitalism

Finance capitalism is a term in Marxian political economics defined as the subordination of processes of production to the accumulation of money profits in a financial system. It is characterized by the pursuit of profit from the purchase and sale of, or investment in, currencies and financial...

and Soviet communism in order to divide and rule

Divide and rule

In politics and sociology, divide and rule is a combination of political, military and economic strategy of gaining and maintaining power by breaking up larger concentrations of power into chunks that individually have less power than the one implementing the strategy...

the world. American evangelist Gerald Burton Winrod and other conspiracy theorists within the fundamentalist Christian

Fundamentalist Christianity

movement in the United States — which emerged in the 1910s as a backlash against the principles of Enlightenment secular humanism

Secular humanism

Secular Humanism, alternatively known as Humanism , is a secular philosophy that embraces human reason, ethics, justice, and the search for human fulfillment...

, modernism

Modernism

Modernism, in its broadest definition, is modern thought, character, or practice. More specifically, the term describes the modernist movement, its set of cultural tendencies and array of associated cultural movements, originally arising from wide-scale and far-reaching changes to Western society...

, and liberalism — became the main channel of dissemination of Illuminati conspiracy theories in America. Right-wing populists

Right-wing populism

, such as members of the John Birch Society

John Birch Society

, subsequently began speculating that some collegiate fraternities (Skull and Bones

Skull and Bones

Skull and Bones is an undergraduate senior or secret society at Yale University, New Haven, Connecticut. It is a traditional peer society to Scroll and Key and Wolf's Head, as the three senior class 'landed societies' at Yale....

), gentlemen's clubs (Bohemian Club

Bohemian Club

The Bohemian Club is a private men's club in San Francisco, California, United States.Its clubhouse is located at 624 Taylor Street in San Francisco...

) and think tanks (Council on Foreign Relations

Council on Foreign Relations

The Council on Foreign Relations is an American nonprofit nonpartisan membership organization, publisher, and think tank specializing in U.S. foreign policy and international affairs...

, Trilateral Commission

Trilateral Commission

) of the American upper class

American upper class

See: millionaire for more details-Millionaires:See also: MillionairesHouseholds with net worths of $1 million or more may be identified as members of the upper-most socio-economic demographic, depending on the class model used...

are front organization

Front organization

s of the Illuminati, which they accuse of plotting to create a New World Order through a one-world government.

Skeptics argue that evidence would suggest that the Bavarian Illuminati was nothing more than a curious historical footnote since there is no evidence that the Illuminati survived its suppression in 1785.

Protocols of the Elders of Zion

The Protocols of the Elders of Zion
The Protocols of the Elders of Zion
The Protocols of the Elders of Zion is a fraudulent, antisemitic text purporting to describe a Jewish plan for achieving global domination. It was first published in Russia in 1903, translated into multiple languages, and disseminated internationally in the early part of the twentieth century...

is an antisemitic canard

Antisemitic canard

An antisemitic canard is a false story inciting antisemitism. Despite being thoroughly disproved, antisemitic canards are often part of broader theories of Jewish conspiracies. According to Kenneth S. Stern,Historically, Jews have not fared well around conspiracy theories. Such ideas fuel...

, originally published in Russian

Russian language

Russian is a Slavic language used primarily in Russia, Belarus, Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan, Tajikistan and Kyrgyzstan. It is an unofficial but widely spoken language in Ukraine, Moldova, Latvia, Turkmenistan and Estonia and, to a lesser extent, the other countries that were once constituent republics...

in 1903, alleging a Judeo-Masonic conspiracy to achieve world domination. The text purports to be the minutes of the secret meetings of a cabal

Cabal

A cabal is a group of people united in some close design together, usually to promote their private views and/or interests in a church, state, or other community, often by intrigue...

of Jewish masterminds, which has coopted Freemasonry

Freemasonry

and is plotting to rule the world on behalf of all Jews because they believe themselves to be the chosen people of God

Jews as a chosen people

In Judaism, "chosenness" is the belief that the Jews are the Chosen People, chosen to be in a covenant with God. This idea is first found in the Torah and is elaborated on in later books of the Hebrew Bible...

. The Protocols incorporate many of the core conspiracist themes outlined in the Robison

John Robison (physicist)

John Robison FRSE was a Scottish physicist and mathematician. He was a professor of philosophy at the University of Edinburgh....

and Barruel

Augustin Barruel

attacks on the Freemasons, and overlay them with antisemitic allegations about anti-Tsarist

Tsarist autocracy

The Tsarist autocracy |transcr.]] tsarskoye samoderzhaviye) refers to a form of autocracy specific to the Grand Duchy of Muscovy . In a tsarist autocracy, all power and wealth is controlled by the tsar...

movements in Russia. The Protocols reflect themes similar to more general critiques of Enlightenment

Counter-Enlightenment

"Counter-Enlightenment" is a term used to refer to a movement that arose in the late-18th and early-19th centuries in opposition to the 18th century Enlightenment...

liberalism by conservative

Traditionalist Conservatism

Traditionalist conservatism, also known as "traditional conservatism," "traditionalism," "Burkean conservatism", "classical conservatism" and , "Toryism", describes a political philosophy emphasizing the need for the principles of natural law and transcendent moral order, tradition, hierarchy and...

aristocrats who support monarchies

Monarchy

and state religion

State religion

A state religion is a religious body or creed officially endorsed by the state...

s. The interpretation intended by the publication of The Protocols is that if one peels away the layers of the Masonic conspiracy, past the Illuminati

Illuminati

The Illuminati is a name given to several groups, both real and fictitious. Historically the name refers to the Bavarian Illuminati, an Enlightenment-era secret society founded on May 1, 1776...

, one finds the rotten Jewish core.

The Protocols has been proven by polemicists, such as Irish journalist Philip Graves

Philip Graves

Philip Perceval Graves was an Irish journalist and writer. While working as a foreign correspondent of The Times in Constantinople, he exposed The Protocols of the Elders of Zion as an antisemitic plagiarism, fraud, and hoax.-Life:Graves, eldest son of the writer Alfred Perceval Graves , was born...

in a 1921 The Times
The Times
The Times is a British daily national newspaper, first published in London in 1785 under the title The Daily Universal Register . The Times and its sister paper The Sunday Times are published by Times Newspapers Limited, a subsidiary since 1981 of News International...

article, and British academic Norman Cohn

Norman Cohn

Norman Rufus Colin Cohn FBA was a British academic, historian and writer who spent fourteen years as a professorial fellow and as Astor-Wolfson Professor at the University of Sussex.-Life:...

in his 1967 book Warrant for Genocide
Warrant for Genocide
Warrant for Genocide, by Norman Cohn, is a critical work about the Protocols of the Elders of Zion.This scholarly book explores the history, origin, and worldwide dissemination of this notorious, antisemitic plagiarism, literary forgery, and hoax....

, to be both a hoax

Hoax

A hoax is a deliberately fabricated falsehood made to masquerade as truth. It is distinguishable from errors in observation or judgment, or rumors, urban legends, pseudosciences or April Fools' Day events that are passed along in good faith by believers or as jokes.-Definition:The British...

and a clear case of plagiarism. There is general agreement that Russian-French writer and political activist Matvei Golovinski

Matvei Golovinski

Matvei Vasilyevich Golovinski was a Russian-French writer, journalist and political activist. Critics studying the Protocols of the Elders of Zion have argued that he was the author of the work...

fabricated the text for Okhrana, the secret police

Secret police

Secret police are a police agency which operates in secrecy and beyond the law to protect the political power of an individual dictator or an authoritarian political regime....

of the Russian Empire

Russian Empire

The Russian Empire was a state that existed from 1721 until the Russian Revolution of 1917. It was the successor to the Tsardom of Russia and the predecessor of the Soviet Union...

, as a work of counter-revolutionary propaganda

Propaganda

Propaganda is a form of communication that is aimed at influencing the attitude of a community toward some cause or position so as to benefit oneself or one's group....

prior to the 1905 Russian Revolution, by plagiarizing it, almost word for word in some passages, from The Dialogue in Hell Between Machiavelli and Montesquieu
The Dialogue in Hell Between Machiavelli and Montesquieu
The Dialogue in Hell Between Machiavelli and Montesquieu is a satirical book written by Maurice Joly, an attorney with political views that were conservative, monarchist, and legitimistic, which was first published in Geneva, Switzerland in 1864...

, a 19th century satire against Napoleon III of France

Napoleon III of France

Louis-Napoléon Bonaparte was the President of the French Second Republic and as Napoleon III, the ruler of the Second French Empire. He was the nephew and heir of Napoleon I, christened as Charles Louis Napoléon Bonaparte...

written by French political satirist and Legitimist militant Maurice Joly

Maurice Joly

Maurice Joly was a French satirist and lawyer known for his work titled The Dialogue in Hell Between Machiavelli and Montesquieu, later used as a basis for The Protocols of the Elders of Zion.-Life:...

.

Responsible for feeding many antisemitic and anti-Masonic

Anti-Masonry

Anti-Masonry is defined as "avowed opposition to Freemasonry". However, there is no homogeneous anti-Masonic movement...

mass hysterias of the 20th century, The Protocols is widely considered to be influential in the development of conspiracy theories in general and New World Order conspiracism in particular, and reappears repeatedly in contemporary conspiracy literature. For example, the authors of the 1982 controversial book The Holy Blood and the Holy Grail
The Holy Blood and the Holy Grail
The Holy Blood and the Holy Grail is a book by Michael Baigent, Richard Leigh, and Henry Lincoln....

concluded that The Protocols was the most persuasive piece of evidence for the existence and activities of the Priory of Sion

Priory of Sion

The Prieuré de Sion, translated from French as Priory of Sion, is a name given to multiple groups, both real and fictitious. The most notorious is a fringe fraternal organisation, founded and dissolved in France in 1956 by Pierre Plantard...

. They speculated that this secret society was working behind the scenes to establish a theocratic

Theocracy

Theocracy is a form of organization in which the official policy is to be governed by immediate divine guidance or by officials who are regarded as divinely guided, or simply pursuant to the doctrine of a particular religious sect or religion....

"United States of Europe

United States of Europe

Since the 1950s, European integration has seen the development of a supranational system of governance, as its institutions move further from the concept of simple intergovernmentalism. However, with the Maastricht Treaty of 1993, new intergovernmental elements have been introduced alongside the...

". Politically and religiously unified through the imperial cult

Imperial cult

of a Merovingian Great Monarch

Great Catholic Monarch

The Great Catholic Monarch, also referred to as the Great Monarch, is a concept that has or had a certain place in unofficial Roman Catholic eschatology, mainly as a French monarchist variant of the medieval theme of the Last Roman Emperor...

— supposedly descended from a Jesus bloodline

Jesus bloodline

A Jesus bloodline is a hypothetical sequence of lineal descendants of the historical Jesus and Mary Magdalene, or some other woman, usually portrayed as his alleged wife or a hierodule...

— who occupies both the throne of Europe and the Holy See

Holy See

The Holy See is the episcopal jurisdiction of the Catholic Church in Rome, in which its Bishop is commonly known as the Pope. It is the preeminent episcopal see of the Catholic Church, forming the central government of the Church. As such, diplomatically, and in other spheres the Holy See acts and...

, this "Holy European Empire" would become the hyperpower

Hyperpower

A hyperpower is a state that dominates all other states in every sphere of activity. A hyperpower is traditionally considered to be one step higher than a superpower. The definition and use of the term varies....

of the 21st century. Although the Priory of Sion, itself, has been exhaustively debunked

Debunker

A debunker is an individual who attempts to discredit and contradict claims as being false, exaggerated or pretentious. The term is closely associated with skeptical investigation of, or in some cases irrational resistance to, controversial topics such as U.F.O.s, claimed paranormal phenomena,...

by journalists and scholars as a hoax, some apocalyptic

Apocalypticism

millenarian

Millenarianism

Christian eschatologists

Christian eschatology

who believe The Protocols is authentic became convinced that the Priory of Sion was a fulfillment of prophecies found in the Book of Revelation

Book of Revelation

The Book of Revelation is the final book of the New Testament. The title came into usage from the first word of the book in Koine Greek: apokalupsis, meaning "unveiling" or "revelation"...

and further proof of an anti-Christian

Antichrist

The term or title antichrist, in Christian theology, refers to a leader who fulfills Biblical prophecies concerning an adversary of Christ, while resembling him in a deceptive manner...

conspiracy of epic proportions signaling the imminence of a New World Order.

Skeptics argue that the current gambit of contemporary conspiracy theorists who use The Protocols is to claim that they "really" come from some group other than the Jews such as fallen angel

Fallen angel

Fallen angel is a concept developed in Jewish mythology from interpretation of the Book of Enoch. The actual term fallen angel is not found in either the Hebrew Bible or the New Testament. Christians adopted the concept of fallen angels mainly based on their interpretations of the Book of...

s or alien invaders. Although it is hard to determine whether the conspiracy-minded actually believe this or are simply trying to sanitize a discredited text, skeptics argue that it doesn't make much difference, since they leave the actual, antisemitic text unchanged. The result is to give The Protocols credibility and circulation when it deserves neither.

Round Table

During the second half of Britain's "imperial century" between 1815 and 1914, English-born South African businessman, mining magnate, and politician Cecil Rhodes advocated the British Empire

British Empire

The British Empire comprised the dominions, colonies, protectorates, mandates and other territories ruled or administered by the United Kingdom. It originated with the overseas colonies and trading posts established by England in the late 16th and early 17th centuries. At its height, it was the...

reannexing the United States of America

United States

The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...

and reforming itself into an "Imperial Federation

Imperial Federation

Imperial Federation was a late-19th early-20th century proposal to create a federated union in place of the existing British Empire.-Motivators:...

" to bring about a hyperpower

Hyperpower

and lasting world peace

World peace

World Peace is an ideal of freedom, peace, and happiness among and within all nations and/or people. World peace is an idea of planetary non-violence by which nations willingly cooperate, either voluntarily or by virtue of a system of governance that prevents warfare. The term is sometimes used to...

. In his first will, of 1877, written at the age of 23, he expressed his wish to fund a secret society

Secret society

A secret society is a club or organization whose activities and inner functioning are concealed from non-members. The society may or may not attempt to conceal its existence. The term usually excludes covert groups, such as intelligence agencies or guerrilla insurgencies, which hide their...

(known as the Society of the Elect) that would advance this goal:
In his later wills, a more mature Rhodes abandoned the idea and instead concentrated on what became the Rhodes Scholarship

Rhodes Scholarship

The Rhodes Scholarship, named after Cecil Rhodes, is an international postgraduate award for study at the University of Oxford. It was the first large-scale programme of international scholarships, and is widely considered the "world's most prestigious scholarship" by many public sources such as...

, which had British statesman Alfred Milner

Alfred Milner, 1st Viscount Milner

Alfred Milner, 1st Viscount Milner KG, GCB, GCMG, PC was a British statesman and colonial administrator who played an influential leadership role in the formulation of foreign and domestic policy between the mid-1890s and early 1920s...

as one of its trustees. Established in 1902, the original goal of the trust fund was to foster peace among the great powers by creating a sense of fraternity and a shared world view among future British, American, and German leaders by having enabled them to study for free at the University of Oxford

University of Oxford

The University of Oxford is a university located in Oxford, United Kingdom. It is the second-oldest surviving university in the world and the oldest in the English-speaking world. Although its exact date of foundation is unclear, there is evidence of teaching as far back as 1096...

.

Milner and British official Lionel George Curtis were the architects of the Round Table movement, a network of organizations promoting closer union between Britain and its self-governing colonies

Self-governing colony

A self-governing colony is a colony with an elected legislature, in which politicians are able to make most decisions without reference to the colonial power with formal or nominal control of the colony...

. To this end, Curtis founded the Royal Institute of International Affairs in June 1919 and, with his 1938 book The Commonwealth of God, began advocating for the creation of an imperial federation that eventually reannexes the U.S., which would be presented to Protestant churches as being the work of the Christian God

God in Christianity

In Christianity, God is the eternal being that created and preserves the universe. God is believed by most Christians to be immanent , while others believe the plan of redemption show he will be immanent later...

to elicit their support. The Commonwealth of Nations

Commonwealth of Nations

The Commonwealth of Nations, normally referred to as the Commonwealth and formerly known as the British Commonwealth, is an intergovernmental organisation of fifty-four independent member states...

was created in 1949 but it would only be a free association of independent states rather than the powerful imperial federation imagined by Rhodes, Milner and Curtis.

The Council on Foreign Relations

Council on Foreign Relations

The Council on Foreign Relations is an American nonprofit nonpartisan membership organization, publisher, and think tank specializing in U.S. foreign policy and international affairs...

began in 1917 with a group of New York academics who were asked by President Woodrow Wilson

Woodrow Wilson

to offer options for the foreign policy of the United States in the interwar period

Interwar period

. Originally envisioned as a group of American and British scholars and diplomats, some of whom belonging to the Round Table movement, it was a subsequent group of 108 New York financiers, manufacturers and international lawyers organized in June 1918 by Nobel Peace Prize recipient and U.S. secretary of state, Elihu Root

Elihu Root

Elihu Root was an American lawyer and statesman and the 1912 recipient of the Nobel Peace Prize. He was the prototype of the 20th century "wise man", who shuttled between high-level government positions in Washington, D.C...

, that became the Council on Foreign Relations on 29 July 1921. The first of the council’s projects was a quarterly journal launched in September 1922, called Foreign Affairs
Foreign Affairs
Foreign Affairs is an American magazine and website on international relations and U.S. foreign policy published since 1922 by the Council on Foreign Relations six times annually...

. The Trilateral Commission

Trilateral Commission

was founded in July 1973, at the initiative of American banker David Rockefeller

David Rockefeller

David Rockefeller, Sr. is the current patriarch of the Rockefeller family. He is the youngest and only surviving child of John D. Rockefeller, Jr. and Abby Aldrich Rockefeller, and the only surviving grandchild of oil tycoon John D. Rockefeller, founder of Standard Oil. His five siblings were...

, who was chairman of the Council on Foreign Relations at that time. It is a private organization established to foster closer cooperation among the United States

United States

The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...

, Europe

European Union

The European Union is an economic and political union of 27 independent member states which are located primarily in Europe. The EU traces its origins from the European Coal and Steel Community and the European Economic Community , formed by six countries in 1958...

and Japan

Japan

Japan is an island nation in East Asia. Located in the Pacific Ocean, it lies to the east of the Sea of Japan, China, North Korea, South Korea and Russia, stretching from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north to the East China Sea and Taiwan in the south...

. The Trilateral Commission is widely seen as a counterpart to the Council on Foreign Relations.

In the 1960s, right-wing populist

Right-wing populism

individuals and groups with a producerist

Producerism

worldview, such as members of the John Birch Society

John Birch Society

, were the first to combine and spread an ultraconservative business nationalist

Business nationalism

critique of corporate internationalists

Neoliberalism

networked through think tanks such as the Council on Foreign Relations with a grand conspiracy theory casting them as front organization

Front organization

s for the Round Table of the "Anglo-American Establishment

The Establishment

The Establishment is a term used to refer to a visible dominant group or elite that holds power or authority in a nation. The term suggests a closed social group which selects its own members...

", which are financed by an "international banking cabal" that has supposedly been plotting from the late 19th century on to impose an oligarchic

Oligarchy

Oligarchy is a form of power structure in which power effectively rests with an elite class distinguished by royalty, wealth, family ties, commercial, and/or military legitimacy...

new world order through a global financial system

Global financial system

The global financial system is the financial system consisting of institutions and regulators that act on the international level, as opposed to those that act on a national or regional level...

. Anti-globalist

Globalism

Globalism can have at least two different and opposing meanings. One meaning is the attitude or policy of placing the interests of the entire world above those of individual nations...

conspiracy theorists therefore fear that international bankers are planning to eventually subvert the independence of the U.S. by subordinating national sovereignty

Sovereignty

to a strengthened Bank for International Settlements

Bank for International Settlements

The Bank for International Settlements is an intergovernmental organization of central banks which "fosters international monetary and financial cooperation and serves as a bank for central banks." It is not accountable to any national government...

.

The research findings of historian Carroll Quigley

Carroll Quigley

Carroll Quigley was an American historian and theorist of the evolution of civilizations. He is noted for his teaching work as a professor at Georgetown University, for his academic publications, and for his research on secret societies.- Biography :Quigley was born in Boston, and attended...

, author of the 1966 book Tragedy and Hope, are taken by both conspiracy theorists of the American Old Right

Old Right (United States)

The Old Right was a conservative faction in the United States that opposed both New Deal domestic programs and U.S. entry into World War II. Many members of this faction were associated with the Republicans of the interwar years led by Robert Taft, but some were Democrats...

(Cleon Skousen

Cleon Skousen

Willard Cleon Skousen was an American author, conservative American Constitutionalist and faith-based political theorist. He was also a prolific popularizer among Latter-day Saints of their theology...

) and New Left

New Left

The New Left was a term used mainly in the United Kingdom and United States in reference to activists, educators, agitators and others in the 1960s and 1970s who sought to implement a broad range of reforms, in contrast to earlier leftist or Marxist movements that had taken a more vanguardist...

(Carl Oglesby

Carl Oglesby

Carl Oglesby was an American writer, academic, and political activist. He was the President of the leftist student organization Students for a Democratic Society from 1965 to 1966.-Early years:...

) to substantiate this view, even though he argued that the Establishment is not involved in a plot to implement a one-world government but rather British and American benevolent imperialism driven by the mutual interests of economic elites in the United Kingdom and the United States. Quigley also argued that, although the Round Table still exists today, its position in influencing the policies of world leaders has been much reduced from its heyday during World War I

World War I

and slowly waned after the end of World War II

World War II

and the Suez Crisis

Suez Crisis

The Suez Crisis, also referred to as the Tripartite Aggression, Suez War was an offensive war fought by France, the United Kingdom, and Israel against Egypt beginning on 29 October 1956. Less than a day after Israel invaded Egypt, Britain and France issued a joint ultimatum to Egypt and Israel,...

. Today the Round Table is largely a ginger group

Ginger group

A ginger group is a formal or informal group within, for example, a political party seeking to inspire the rest with its own enthusiasm and activity....

, designed to consider and gradually influence the policies of the Commonwealth of Nations

Commonwealth of Nations

The Commonwealth of Nations, normally referred to as the Commonwealth and formerly known as the British Commonwealth, is an intergovernmental organisation of fifty-four independent member states...

, but faces strong opposition. Furthermore, in American society after 1965, the problem, according to Quigley, was that no elite was in charge and acting responsibly.

Larry McDonald

Larry McDonald

Lawrence Patton McDonald, M.D. was an American politician and a member of the United States House of Representatives, representing the seventh congressional district of Georgia as a Democrat...

, the 2nd president of the John Birch Society

John Birch Society

and a conservative Democrat

Conservative Democrat

In American politics, a conservative Democrat is a Democratic Party member with conservative political views, or with views relatively conservative with respect to those of the national party...

ic member of the United States House of Representatives

United States House of Representatives

The United States House of Representatives is one of the two Houses of the United States Congress, the bicameral legislature which also includes the Senate.The composition and powers of the House are established in Article One of the Constitution...

who represented the 7th congressional district of Georgia

Georgia (U.S. state)

Georgia is a state located in the southeastern United States. It was established in 1732, the last of the original Thirteen Colonies. The state is named after King George II of Great Britain. Georgia was the fourth state to ratify the United States Constitution, on January 2, 1788...

, wrote a forward for Allen

Gary Allen

's 1976 book The Rockefeller File, wherein he stated:
In his 2002 autobiography Memoirs, Rockefeller wrote:
Barkun argues that this statement is partly facetious (the claim of "conspiracy" and "treason

Treason

In law, treason is the crime that covers some of the more extreme acts against one's sovereign or nation. Historically, treason also covered the murder of specific social superiors, such as the murder of a husband by his wife. Treason against the king was known as high treason and treason against a...

") and partly serious — the desire to encourage trilateral cooperation among the U.S., Europe, and Japan, for example — an ideal that used to be a hallmark of the internationalist

Neoliberalism

wing of the Republican Party

Republican Party (United States)

The Republican Party is one of the two major contemporary political parties in the United States, along with the Democratic Party. Founded by anti-slavery expansion activists in 1854, it is often called the GOP . The party's platform generally reflects American conservatism in the U.S...

— known as "Rockefeller Republican

Rockefeller Republican

Rockefeller Republican refers to a faction of the United States Republican Party who held moderate to liberal views similar to those of Nelson Rockefeller...

s" in honor of Nelson Rockefeller

Nelson Rockefeller

Nelson Aldrich Rockefeller was the 41st Vice President of the United States , serving under President Gerald Ford, and the 49th Governor of New York , as well as serving the Roosevelt, Truman and Eisenhower administrations in a variety of positions...

— when there was an internationalist wing. The statement, however, is taken at face value and widely cited by conspiracy theorists as proof that the Council on Foreign Relations uses its role as the brain trust

Brain Trust

Brain trust began as a term for a group of close advisors to a political candidate or incumbent, prized for their expertise in particular fields. The term is most associated with the group of advisors to Franklin Roosevelt during his presidential administration...

of American presidents, senators and representatives to manipulate them into supporting a New World Order in the form of a one-world government.

In a 13 November 2007 interview with Canadian journalist Benjamin Fulford

Benjamin Fulford

Benjamin Fulford is a journalist living in Japan.He is the great-grandson of George Taylor Fulford.In the early 1980s he went to Japan to study at Sophia University. After receiving a B.A. from the University of British Columbia, he returned to Japan in the mid-1980s to pursue a career in...

, Rockefeller countered:
Some American social critics

Social criticism

The term social criticism locates the reasons for malicious conditions of the society in flawed social structures. People adhering to a social critics aim at practical solutions by specific measures, often consensual reform but sometimes also by powerful revolution.- European roots :Religious...

, such as Laurence H. Shoup, argue that the Council on Foreign Relations is an "imperial brain trust", which has, for decades, played a central behind-the-scenes role in shaping U.S. foreign policy choices for the post-WWII international order and the Cold War

Cold War

, by determining what options show up on the agenda

Political agenda

A political agenda is a set of issues and policies laid out by an executive or cabinet in government that tries to influence current and near-future political news and debate....

and what options do not even make it to the table; while others, such as G. William Domhoff

G. William Domhoff

George William Domhoff is a research professor in psychology and sociology at the University of California, Santa Cruz...

, argue that it is in fact a mere policy discussion forum, which provides the business input to U.S. foreign policy planning. The latter argue that it has nearly 3,000 members, far too many for secret plans to be kept within the group; all the council does is sponsor discussion groups, debates and speakers; and as far as being secretive, it issues annual reports and allows access to its historical archives. However, all these critics agree that historical studies of the council show that it has a very different role in the overall power structure than what is claimed by conspiracy theorists.

Open Conspiracy

In his 1928 book The Open Conspiracy
The Open Conspiracy
The Open Conspiracy is a book published in 1928 by H. G. Wells. In 1930 a revised and expanded version was published, and a further revised edition appeared in 1931 titled What are we to do with our Lives?. A final version appeared in 1933 under its original title.This is one of Wells's essays in...

British writer and futurist H. G. Wells

H. G. Wells

promoted cosmopolitanism

Cosmopolitanism

Cosmopolitanism is the ideology that all human ethnic groups belong to a single community based on a shared morality. This is contrasted with communitarian and particularistic theories, especially the ideas of patriotism and nationalism...

and offered blueprints for a world revolution

World revolution

World revolution is the Marxist concept of overthrowing capitalism in all countries through the conscious revolutionary action of the organized working class...

and world brain

World Brain

World Brain is a collection of essays and addresses the English science fiction pioneer, social reformer, evolutionary biologist and historian H. G. Wells written during the period 1936-38...

to establish a technocratic world state and planned economy

Planned economy

A planned economy is an economic system in which decisions regarding production and investment are embodied in a plan formulated by a central authority, usually by a government agency...

. Wells warned, however, in his 1940 book The New World Order
The New World Order (Wells)
The New World Order is a book written by H. G. Wells, originally published in January 1940. Wells expressed the idea that a 'new world order' should be formed to unite the nations of the world in order to bring peace and end war. It was republished in 2007 under ISBN 1599867273.-External links:*...

that:
Wells' books were influential in giving a second meaning to the term "new world order", which would only be used by both state socialist

State socialism

supporters and anti-communist

Anti-communism

Anti-communism is opposition to communism. Organized anti-communism developed in reaction to the rise of communism, especially after the 1917 October Revolution in Russia and the beginning of the Cold War in 1947.-Objections to communist theory:...

opponents for generations to come. However, despite the popularity and notoriety of his ideas, Wells failed to exert a deeper and more lasting influence because he was unable to concentrate his energies on a direct appeal to intelligentsia

Intelligentsia

s who would, ultimately, have to coordinate the Wellsian new world order.

New Age

British neo-Theosophical

Neo-Theosophy

The term Neo-Theosophy is a term, originally derogatory, used by the followers of Blavatsky to denominate the system of Theosophical ideas expounded by Annie Besant and Charles Webster Leadbeater following the death of Madame Blavatsky in 1891...

occultist Alice Bailey

Alice Bailey

Alice Ann Bailey , known as Alice A. Bailey or AAB to her followers, was an influential writer and theosophist in what she termed "Ageless Wisdom". This included occult teachings, "esoteric" psychology and healing, astrological and other philosophic and religious themes...

, one of the founders of the so-called New Age

New Age

The New Age movement is a Western spiritual movement that developed in the second half of the 20th century. Its central precepts have been described as "drawing on both Eastern and Western spiritual and metaphysical traditions and then infusing them with influences from self-help and motivational...

movement, prophesied in 1940 the eventual victory of the Allies of World War II

Allies of World War II

The Allies of World War II were the countries that opposed the Axis powers during the Second World War . Former Axis states contributing to the Allied victory are not considered Allied states...

over the Axis powers

Axis Powers

The Axis powers , also known as the Axis alliance, Axis nations, Axis countries, or just the Axis, was an alignment of great powers during the mid-20th century that fought World War II against the Allies. It began in 1936 with treaties of friendship between Germany and Italy and between Germany and...

(which occurred in 1945) and the establishment by the Allies of a political and religious New World Order. She saw a federal world government as the culmination of Wells' Open Conspiracy

The Open Conspiracy

The Open Conspiracy is a book published in 1928 by H. G. Wells. In 1930 a revised and expanded version was published, and a further revised edition appeared in 1931 titled What are we to do with our Lives?. A final version appeared in 1933 under its original title.This is one of Wells's essays in...

but favorably argued that it would be synarchist because it was guided by the Masters of the Ancient Wisdom

Masters of the Ancient Wisdom

The Masters of the Ancient Wisdom are reputed to be enlightened beings originally identified by the Theosophists Helena Blavatsky, Henry S. Olcott, Alfred P. Sinnett, and others. These Theosophists claimed to have met some of the so-called Masters during their lifetimes in different parts of the...

, intent on preparing humanity for the mystical second coming of Christ

Christ

Christ is the English term for the Greek meaning "the anointed one". It is a translation of the Hebrew , usually transliterated into English as Messiah or Mashiach...

, and the dawning of the Age of Aquarius

Age of Aquarius

The Age of Aquarius is either the current or new age in the cycle of astrological ages. Each astrological age is approximately 2,150 years long, on average, but there are various methods of calculating this length that may yield longer or shorter time spans depending upon the technique used...

. According to Bailey, a group of ascended masters called the Great White Brotherhood

Great White Brotherhood

The Great White Brotherhood, in belief systems akin to Theosophical and New Age, are said to be supernatural beings of great power who spread spiritual teachings through selected humans. The members of the Brotherhood may be known as the Masters of the Ancient Wisdom or the Ascended Masters...

works on the "inner plane

Plane (esotericism)

In esoteric cosmology, a plane, other than the physical plane is conceived as a subtle state of consciousness that transcends the known physical universe....

s" to oversee the transition to the New World Order but, for now, the members of this Spiritual Hierarchy

Spiritual Hierarchy

Spiritual Hierarchy is a term often used in Neo-Theosophy, and the Ascended Master Teachings, a group of religions based on Theosophy. It represents the concept of a group of self-realised Masters of the Ancient Wisdom, referred to by those adherent to the Ascended Master Teachings as Ascended...

are only known to a few occult scientists

Occult science

Occult science is the systematic research into or formulation of occult concepts in a manner that follows - in its method or presentation - the way natural science researches or describes phenomena of the physical world....

, with whom they communicate telepathically

Telepathy

Telepathy , is the induction of mental states from one mind to another. The term was coined in 1882 by the classical scholar Fredric W. H. Myers, a founder of the Society for Psychical Research, and has remained more popular than the more-correct expression thought-transference...

, but as the need for their personal involvement in the plan increases, there will be an "Externalization of the Hierarchy" and everyone will know of their presence on Earth.

Bailey's writings, along with American writer Marilyn Ferguson

Marilyn Ferguson

Marilyn Ferguson was an American author, editor and public speaker, best known for her 1980 book The Aquarian Conspiracy and its affiliation with the New Age Movement in popular culture....

's 1980 book The Aquarian Conspiracy, contributed to conspiracy theorists of the Christian right

Christian right

viewing the New Age movement as the "false religion

Pseudoreligion

Pseudoreligion, or pseudotheology, is a generally pejorative term applied to a non-mainstream belief system or philosophy which is functionally similar to a religious movement, typically having a founder, principal text, liturgy and faith-based beliefs....

" that would supersede

Supersessionism

Supersessionism is a term for the dominant Christian view of the Old Covenant, also called fulfillment theology and replacement theology, though the latter term is disputed...

Christianity in a New World Order. Skeptics argue that the term "New Age movement" is a misnomer, generally used by conspiracy theorists as a catch-all rubric for any new religious movement

New religious movement

A new religious movement is a religious community or ethical, spiritual, or philosophical group of modern origin, which has a peripheral place within the dominant religious culture. NRMs may be novel in origin or they may be part of a wider religion, such as Christianity, Hinduism or Buddhism, in...

that is not fundamentalist Christian. By their lights, anything that is not Christian is by definition actively and willfully anti-Christian.

Paradoxically, since the 2000s, New World Order conspiracism is increasingly being embraced and propagandized by New Age occultists, who are people bored by rationalism

Rationalism

and drawn to stigmatized knowledge — such as alternative medicine

Alternative medicine

Alternative medicine is any healing practice, "that does not fall within the realm of conventional medicine." It is based on historical or cultural traditions, rather than on scientific evidence....

, astrology

Astrology

Astrology consists of a number of belief systems which hold that there is a relationship between astronomical phenomena and events in the human world...

, quantum mysticism

Quantum mysticism

Quantum mysticism is a term that has been used to refer to a set of metaphysical beliefs and associated practices that seek to relate consciousness, intelligence or mystical world-views to the ideas of quantum mechanics and its interpretations...

, spiritualism

Spiritualism

Spiritualism is a belief system or religion, postulating the belief that spirits of the dead residing in the spirit world have both the ability and the inclination to communicate with the living...

, and Theosophy

Theosophy

Theosophy, in its modern presentation, is a spiritual philosophy developed since the late 19th century. Its major themes were originally described mainly by Helena Blavatsky , co-founder of the Theosophical Society...

. Thus, New Age conspiracy theorists, such as the makers of documentary films like Esoteric Agenda, claim that globalists who plot on behalf of the New World Order are simply misusing occultism for Machiavellian

Machiavellianism

Machiavellianism is, according to the Oxford English Dictionary, "the employment of cunning and duplicity in statecraft or in general conduct", deriving from the Italian Renaissance diplomat and writer Niccolò Machiavelli, who wrote Il Principe and other works...

ends, such as adopting 21 December 2012 as the exact date for the establishment of the New World Order in order to take advantage of the growing 2012 phenomenon

2012 phenomenon

The 2012 phenomenon comprises a range of eschatological beliefs that cataclysmic or transformative events will occur on December 21, 2012. This date is regarded as the end-date of a 5,125-year-long cycle in the Mesoamerican Long Count calendar...

, which has its origins in the fringe Mayanist

Mayanism

Mayanism is a non-codified eclectic collection of New Age beliefs, influenced in part by Pre-Columbian Maya mythology and some folk beliefs of the modern Maya peoples...

theories of New Age writers José Argüelles

Jose Arguelles

Joseph Anthony Arguelles , better known as José Argüelles, was a world-renowned author, artist, visionary and educator. He was the founder of Planet Art Network and the Foundation for the Law of Time. He held a Ph.D...

, Terence McKenna

Terence McKenna

Terence Kemp McKenna was an Irish-American philosopher, psychonaut, researcher, teacher, lecturer and writer on many subjects, such as human consciousness, language, psychedelic drugs, the evolution of civilizations, the origin and end of the universe, alchemy, and extraterrestrial beings.-Early...

, and Daniel Pinchbeck

Daniel Pinchbeck

Daniel Pinchbeck is an author living in New York’s East Village, where he is editorial director of Reality Sandwich, a blog website centered around New Age philosophy and activism. He is the author of Breaking Open the Head: A Psychedelic Journey into the Heart of Contemporary Shamanism and 2012:...

.

Skeptics argue that the connection of conspiracy theorists and occultists follows from their common fallacious premises. First, any widely accepted belief must necessarily be false. Second, stigmatized knowledge — what the Establishment

The Establishment

The Establishment is a term used to refer to a visible dominant group or elite that holds power or authority in a nation. The term suggests a closed social group which selects its own members...

spurns — must be true. The result is a large, self-referential network in which, for example, some UFO religion

UFO religion

UFO religion is an informal term used to describe a religion that equates UFO occupants with gods or other semi-divine beings. Typically, the UFO occupants are held to be extraterrestials and that humanity either currently is, or eventually will become, part of a preexisting extraterrestrial...

ists promote anti-Jewish phobias while some antisemites practice Peruvian shamanism

Shamanism

Shamanism is an anthropological term referencing a range of beliefs and practices regarding communication with the spiritual world. To quote Eliade: "A first definition of this complex phenomenon, and perhaps the least hazardous, will be: shamanism = technique of ecstasy." Shamanism encompasses the...

Fourth Reich

Conspiracy theorists often use the term "Fourth Reich

Fourth Reich

The Fourth Reich is a term used to describe a theoretical future successor of the Third Reich.-Neo-Nazism:In terms of neo-Nazism, the Fourth Reich is envisioned as featuring Aryan supremacy, anti-Semitism, Lebensraum, aggressive militarism and totalitarianism...

" simply as a pejorative synonym for the "New World Order" to imply that its state ideology and government will be similar to Germany's Third Reich. However, some conspiracy theorists use the research findings of American journalist Edwin Black

Edwin Black

Edwin Black is an American Jewish syndicated columnist, and journalist specializing in the historical interplay between economics and politics in the Middle East, petroleum policy, the abuses practiced by corporations, and the financial underpinnings of Nazi Germany, among other topics...

, author of the 2009 book Nazi Nexus, to claim that some American corporations and philanthropic foundations — whose complicity was pivotal to the Third Reich's war effort, Nazi eugenics

Nazi eugenics

Nazi eugenics were Nazi Germany's racially-based social policies that placed the improvement of the Aryan race through eugenics at the center of their concerns...

and the Holocaust

The Holocaust

The Holocaust , also known as the Shoah , was the genocide of approximately six million European Jews and millions of others during World War II, a programme of systematic state-sponsored murder by Nazi...

— are now conspiring to build a Fourth Reich.

Conspiracy theorists, such as American writer Jim Marrs

Jim Marrs

Jim Marrs is an American former newspaper journalist and New York Times best-selling author of books and articles on a wide range of alleged cover ups and conspiracies. Marrs is a prominent figure in the JFK conspiracy press and his book Crossfire was a source for Oliver Stone's film JFK...

, claim that some ex-Nazis, who survived the fall of the Greater German Reich

Nazi Germany

Nazi Germany , also known as the Third Reich , but officially called German Reich from 1933 to 1943 and Greater German Reich from 26 June 1943 onward, is the name commonly used to refer to the state of Germany from 1933 to 1945, when it was a totalitarian dictatorship ruled by...

, along with sympathizers in the United States and elsewhere, given safe haven by organizations like ODESSA

ODESSA

The ODESSA, from the German Organisation der ehemaligen SS-Angehörigen, meaning “Organization of Former SS Members,” is believed to have been an international Nazi network set up toward the end of World War II by a group of SS officers...

and Die Spinne

Die Spinne

Die Spinne, translated as The Spider, was the "leading post-war SS organization led by Otto Skorzeny" , Hitler's commando chief, as well as Nazi intelligence officer Reinhard Gehlen, who was later instrumental in the formation of the post-war German intelligence agency, the BND Die Spinne,...

, have been working behind the scenes since the end of World War II

World War II

to enact at least some of the principles of Nazism

Nazism

Nazism, the common short form name of National Socialism was the ideology and practice of the Nazi Party and of Nazi Germany...

(e.g., militarism

Militarism

Militarism is defined as: the belief or desire of a government or people that a country should maintain a strong military capability and be prepared to use it aggressively to defend or promote national interests....

, imperialism

Imperialism

Imperialism, as defined by Dictionary of Human Geography, is "the creation and/or maintenance of an unequal economic, cultural, and territorial relationships, usually between states and often in the form of an empire, based on domination and subordination." The imperialism of the last 500 years,...

, widespread spying on citizens

Surveillance abuse

Surveillance abuse is the use of surveillance methods or technology to monitor the activity of an individual or group of individuals in a way which violates the social norms or laws of a society. Mass surveillance by the state may constitute surveillance abuse if not appropriately regulated....

, corporatism

Corporatism

Corporatism, also known as corporativism, is a system of economic, political, or social organization that involves association of the people of society into corporate groups, such as agricultural, business, ethnic, labor, military, patronage, or scientific affiliations, on the basis of common...

, the use of propaganda to manufacture a national consensus

Propaganda model

The propaganda model is a conceptual model in political economy advanced by Edward S. Herman and Noam Chomsky that states how propaganda, including systemic biases, function in mass media...

) into culture, government, and business worldwide, but primarily in the U.S.. They cite the influence of ex-Nazi scientists brought in under Operation Paperclip

Operation Paperclip

Operation Paperclip was the Office of Strategic Services program used to recruit the scientists of Nazi Germany for employment by the United States in the aftermath of World War II...

to help advance aerospace manufacturing in the U.S. with technological principles from Nazi UFOs

Nazi UFOs

In science fiction, conspiracy theory, and underground comic books, stories or claims circulate linking UFOs to Nazi Germany. These German UFO theories describe supposedly successful attempts to develop advanced aircraft or spacecraft prior to and during World War II, and further claim the...

, and the acquisition and creation of conglomerate

Conglomerate (company)

A conglomerate is a combination of two or more corporations engaged in entirely different businesses that fall under one corporate structure , usually involving a parent company and several subsidiaries. Often, a conglomerate is a multi-industry company...

s by ex-Nazis and their sympathizers after the war, in both Europe

Europe

and the U.S.

This neo-Nazi conspiracy is said to be animated by an "Iron Dream" in which the American Empire, having thwarted the Judeo-Masonic conspiracy and overthrown its Zionist Occupation Government

Zionist Occupation Government

Zionist Occupation Government or Zionist Occupied Government is an antisemitic conspiracy theory which holds that Jews secretly control a given country, while the formal government is a puppet regime....

, gradually establishes a Fourth Reich formally known as the "Western Imperium" — a pan

Pan-nationalism

Pan-nationalism is a form of nationalism distinguished by the large-scale of the claimed national territory, and because it often defines the nation on the basis of a ‘’cluster’’ of cultures and ethnic groups. It shares the general nationalist ideology, that the nation is a fundamental unit of...

-Aryan

Aryan race

The Aryan race is a concept historically influential in Western culture in the period of the late 19th century and early 20th century. It derives from the idea that the original speakers of the Indo-European languages and their descendants up to the present day constitute a distinctive race or...

world empire modeled after Adolf Hitler

Adolf Hitler

Adolf Hitler was an Austrian-born German politician and the leader of the National Socialist German Workers Party , commonly referred to as the Nazi Party). He was Chancellor of Germany from 1933 to 1945, and head of state from 1934 to 1945...

's New Order — which reverses the "decline of the West

The Decline of the West

The Decline of the West , or The Downfall of the Occident, is a two-volume work by Oswald Spengler, the first volume of which was published in the summer of 1918...

" and ushers a golden age of white supremacy

White supremacy

White supremacy is the belief, and promotion of the belief, that white people are superior to people of other racial backgrounds. The term is sometimes used specifically to describe a political ideology that advocates the social and political dominance by whites.White supremacy, as with racial...

.

Skeptics argue that conspiracy theorists grossly overestimate the influence of ex-Nazis and neo-Nazis on American society, and point out that political repression

Political repression

Political repression is the persecution of an individual or group for political reasons, particularly for the purpose of restricting or preventing their ability to take political life of society....

at home and imperialism

Imperialism

abroad have a long history in the United States that predates the 20th century. Some political scientists, such as Sheldon Wolin

Sheldon Wolin

Sheldon S. Wolin is a political philosopher. He is professor emeritus of Princeton University and a writer on contemporary politics. He is married to Emily Purvis Wolin.-Early life:He attended Oberlin College as an undergraduate...

, have expressed concern that the twin forces of democratic deficit

Democratic deficit

and superpower

Superpower

A superpower is a state with a dominant position in the international system which has the ability to influence events and its own interests and project power on a worldwide scale to protect those interests...

status have paved the way in the U.S. for the emergence of an inverted totalitarianism

Inverted totalitarianism

Inverted totalitarianism is a term coined by political philosopher Sheldon Wolin to describe an "ideal type" government. Wolin uses the term to describe the government of the United States as it has evolved since World War II...

which contradicts many principles of Nazism.

Alien Invasion

Since the late 1970s, extraterrestrials from other habitable planets

Planetary habitability

Planetary habitability is the measure of a planet's or a natural satellite's potential to sustain life. Life may develop directly on a planet or satellite or be transferred to it from another body, a theoretical process known as panspermia...

or parallel dimensions

Interdimensional hypothesis

The interdimensional hypothesis , also called the extradimensional hypothesis , is an advanced theory by Jacques Vallée that says unidentified flying objects and related events involve visitations from other "realities" or "dimensions" that coexist separately alongside our own...

(such as "Greys") and intraterrestrials from Hollow Earth

Hollow Earth

The Hollow Earth hypothesis proposes that the planet Earth is either entirely hollow or otherwise contains a substantial interior space. The hypothesis has been shown to be wrong by observational evidence, as well as by the modern understanding of planet formation; the scientific community has...

(such as "Reptilians

Reptilians

Reptilians are purported reptilian humanoids that play a prominent role in modern ufology and conspiracy theories.-Alien abduction:...

") have been included in the New World Order conspiracy, in more or less dominant roles, as in the theories put forward by American writers Stan Deyo and Milton William Cooper

Milton William Cooper

Milton William Cooper was an American writer, shortwave broadcaster, conspiracy theorist, and political activist.-Biography:...

, and British writer David Icke

David Icke

David Vaughan Icke is an English writer and public speaker, best known for his views on what he calls "who and what is really controlling the world." Describing himself as the most controversial speaker in the world, he has written 18 books explaining his position, and has attracted a substantial...

.

The common theme in these conspiracy theories is that aliens have been among us for decades, centuries or millennia, but a government cover-up

Cover-up

A cover-up is an attempt, whether successful or not, to conceal evidence of wrong-doing, error, incompetence or other embarrassing information...

enforced by “Men in Black

Men in Black

Men in Black , in American popular culture and in UFO conspiracy theories, are men dressed in black suits who claim to be government agents who harass or threaten UFO witnesses to keep them quiet about what they have seen. It is sometimes implied that they may be aliens themselves...

” has shielded the public from knowledge of a secret alien invasion

Alien invasion

The alien invasion is a common theme in science fiction stories and film, in which extraterrestrial life invades Earth either to exterminate and supplant human life, enslave it under a colonial system, harvest humans for food, steal the planet's resources, or destroy the planet altogether.The...

. Motivated by speciesism

Speciesism

Speciesism is the assigning of different values or rights to beings on the basis of their species membership. The term was created by British psychologist Richard D...

and imperialism

Imperialism

, these aliens have been and are secretly manipulating developments and changes in human

Human

Humans are the only living species in the Homo genus...

society in order to more efficiently control and exploit human beings. In some theories, alien infiltrators have shapeshifted

Shapeshifting

Shapeshifting is a common theme in mythology, folklore, and fairy tales. It is also found in epic poems, science fiction literature, fantasy literature, children's literature, Shakespearean comedy, ballet, film, television, comics, and video games...

into human form and move freely throughout human society

Cryptoterrestrial hypothesis

Cryptoterrestrial hypothesis is a theory by ufologist and futurologist Mac Tonnies explaining the extraterrestrial hypothesis in a new way along with Jacques Vallée. It concentrates on the idea, that so called extraterrestrial intelligence is not out of our planet, but living among us....

, even to the point of taking control of command positions in governmental, corporate, and religious institutions, and are now in the final stages of their plan to take over the world. A mythical covert government agency of the United States code-named Majestic 12

Majestic 12

Majestic 12 is the alleged code name of a secret committee of scientists, military leaders, and government officials, supposedly formed in 1947 by an executive order of U.S. President Harry S. Truman...

is often imagined to be the shadow government

Shadow government (conspiracy)

which collaborates

Collaborationism

Collaborationism is cooperation with enemy forces against one's country. Legally, it may be considered as a form of treason. Collaborationism may be associated with criminal deeds in the service of the occupying power, which may include complicity with the occupying power in murder, persecutions,...

with the alien occupation and permits alien abductions, in exchange for assistance in the development and testing of military "flying saucers" at Area 51

Area 51

Area 51 is a military base, and a remote detachment of Edwards Air Force Base. It is located in the southern portion of Nevada in the western United States, 83 miles north-northwest of downtown Las Vegas. Situated at its center, on the southern shore of Groom Lake, is a large military airfield...

, in order for U.S. armed forces

United States armed forces

The United States Armed Forces are the military forces of the United States. They consist of the Army, Navy, Marine Corps, Air Force, and Coast Guard.The United States has a strong tradition of civilian control of the military...

to achieve full-spectrum dominance

Full-spectrum dominance

Full-spectrum dominance is a military concept whereby a joint military structure achieves control over all elements of the battlespace using land, air, maritime and space based assets....

.

Skeptics, who adhere to the psychosocial hypothesis

Psychosocial Hypothesis

In ufology, the psychosocial or psychocultural hypothesis, colloquially abbreviated PSH or PCH, argues that at least some UFO reports are best explained by psychological or social means...

for unidentified flying objects, argue that the convergence of New World Order conspiracy theory and UFO conspiracy theory

UFO conspiracy theory

A UFO conspiracy theory is any one of many often overlapping conspiracy theories which argue that evidence of the reality of unidentified flying objects is being suppressed by various governments around the world...

is a product of not only the era's widespread mistrust of governments and the popularity of the extraterrestrial hypothesis

Extraterrestrial hypothesis

The extraterrestrial hypothesis is the hypothesis that some unidentified flying objects are best explained as being extraterrestrial life or non-human aliens from other planets occupying physical spacecraft visiting Earth.-Etymology:...

for UFOs but of the far right

Far right

and ufologists actually joining forces. Barkun notes that the only positive side to this development is that, if conspirators plotting to rule the world are believed to be aliens, traditional human scapegoats (Freemasons, Illuminati

Illuminati

The Illuminati is a name given to several groups, both real and fictitious. Historically the name refers to the Bavarian Illuminati, an Enlightenment-era secret society founded on May 1, 1776...

, Jews

Jews

The Jews , also known as the Jewish people, are a nation and ethnoreligious group originating in the Israelites or Hebrews of the Ancient Near East. The Jewish ethnicity, nationality, and religion are strongly interrelated, as Judaism is the traditional faith of the Jewish nation...

, etc.) are downgraded or exonerated.

Brave New World

Antiscience

Antiscience is a position that rejects science and the scientific method. People holding antiscientific views are generally skeptical that science is an objective method, as it purports to be, or that it generates universal knowledge. They also contend that scientific reductionism in particular is...

and neo-Luddite

Neo-luddism

Neo-Luddism is a personal world view opposing any modern technology. Its name is based on the historical legacy of the British Luddites which were active between 1811 and 1816...

conspiracy theorists emphasize technology forecasting

Technology forecasting

Technology forecasting attempts to predict the future characteristics of useful technological machines, procedures or techniques.-Important aspects:...

in their New World Order conspiracy theories. They speculate that the global power elite are reactionary modernists

Reactionary modernism

"Reactionary modernism" is a term coined by Jeffrey Herf in 1984 book, Reactionary Modernism: Technology, Culture and Politics in Weimar and the Third Reich, to describe the mixture of "great enthusiasm for modern technology with a rejection of the Enlightenment and the values and institutions of...

pursuing a transhumanist agenda to develop and use human enhancement technologies in order to become a "posthuman ruling caste

Caste

Caste is an elaborate and complex social system that combines elements of endogamy, occupation, culture, social class, tribal affiliation and political power. It should not be confused with race or social class, e.g. members of different castes in one society may belong to the same race, as in India...

", while change accelerates

Accelerating change

In futures studies and the history of technology, accelerating change is a perceived increase in the rate of technological progress throughout history, which may suggest faster and more profound change in the future...

toward a technological singularity

Technological singularity

Technological singularity refers to the hypothetical future emergence of greater-than-human intelligence through technological means. Since the capabilities of such an intelligence would be difficult for an unaided human mind to comprehend, the occurrence of a technological singularity is seen as...

— a theorized future point of discontinuity when events will accelerate at such a pace that normal unenhanced humans will be unable to predict or even understand the rapid changes occurring in the world around them. Conspiracy theorists fear the outcome will either be the emergence of a Brave New World
Brave New World
Brave New World is Aldous Huxley's fifth novel, written in 1931 and published in 1932. Set in London of AD 2540 , the novel anticipates developments in reproductive technology and sleep-learning that combine to change society. The future society is an embodiment of the ideals that form the basis of...

-like dystopia

Dystopia

A dystopia is the idea of a society in a repressive and controlled state, often under the guise of being utopian, as characterized in books like Brave New World and Nineteen Eighty-Four...

— a "Brave New World Order" — or the extinction of the human species

Human extinction

Human extinction is the end of the human species. Various scenarios have been discussed in science, popular culture, and religion . The scope of this article is existential risks. Humans are very widespread on the Earth, and live in communities which are capable of some kind of basic survival in...

.

Democratic transhumanists

Democratic transhumanism

Democratic transhumanism, a term coined by Dr. James Hughes in 2002, refers to the stance of transhumanists who espouse liberal, social and/or radical democratic political views....

, such as American sociologist James Hughes, counter that many influential members of the American Establishment are bioconservatives strongly opposed to human enhancement

Human enhancement

Human enhancement refers to any attempt to temporarily or permanently overcome the current limitations of the human body through natural or artificial means...

, as demonstrated by President Bush's Council on Bioethics

The President's Council on Bioethics

The President's Council on Bioethics was a group of individuals appointed by United States President George W. Bush to advise his administration on bioethics. Established on November 28, 2001, by Executive Order 13237, the Council was directed to "advise the President on bioethical issues that may...

's proposed international treaty prohibiting human cloning

Human cloning

Human cloning is the creation of a genetically identical copy of a human. It does not usually refer to monozygotic multiple births nor the reproduction of human cells or tissue. The ethics of cloning is an extremely controversial issue...

and germline engineering. Furthermore, he argues that conspiracy theorists underestimate how fringe the transhumanist movement really is.

Postulated implementations

Just as there are several overlapping or conflicting theories among conspiracists about the nature of the New World Order, so are there several beliefs about how its architects and planners will implement it:

Gradualism

Conspiracy theorists generally speculate that the New World Order is being implemented gradually, citing the formation of the U.S. Federal Reserve System

Federal Reserve System

in 1913; the League of Nations

League of Nations

The League of Nations was an intergovernmental organization founded as a result of the Paris Peace Conference that ended the First World War. It was the first permanent international organization whose principal mission was to maintain world peace...

in 1919; the International Monetary Fund

International Monetary Fund

The International Monetary Fund is an organization of 187 countries, working to foster global monetary cooperation, secure financial stability, facilitate international trade, promote high employment and sustainable economic growth, and reduce poverty around the world...

in 1944; the United Nations

United Nations

in 1945; the World Bank

World Bank

The World Bank is an international financial institution that provides loans to developing countries for capital programmes.The World Bank's official goal is the reduction of poverty...

in 1945; the World Health Organization

World Health Organization

The World Health Organization is a specialized agency of the United Nations that acts as a coordinating authority on international public health. Established on 7 April 1948, with headquarters in Geneva, Switzerland, the agency inherited the mandate and resources of its predecessor, the Health...

in 1948; the European Union

European Union

and the euro

Euro

The euro is the official currency of the eurozone: 17 of the 27 member states of the European Union. It is also the currency used by the Institutions of the European Union. The eurozone consists of Austria, Belgium, Cyprus, Estonia, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Ireland, Italy, Luxembourg,...

currency in 1993; the World Trade Organization

World Trade Organization

The World Trade Organization is an organization that intends to supervise and liberalize international trade. The organization officially commenced on January 1, 1995 under the Marrakech Agreement, replacing the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade , which commenced in 1948...

in 1998; the African Union

African Union

The African Union is a union consisting of 54 African states. The only all-African state not in the AU is Morocco. Established on 9 July 2002, the AU was formed as a successor to the Organisation of African Unity...

in 2002; and the Union of South American Nations in 2008 as major milestones.

An increasingly popular conspiracy theory among American right-wing populists

Right-wing populism

is that the hypothetical North American Union

North American Union

The North American Union is a theoretical economic union, in some instances also a political union, of Canada, Mexico, and the United States...

and the amero currency, proposed by the Council on Foreign Relations

Council on Foreign Relations

The Council on Foreign Relations is an American nonprofit nonpartisan membership organization, publisher, and think tank specializing in U.S. foreign policy and international affairs...

and its counterparts in Mexico

Mexico

The United Mexican States , commonly known as Mexico , is a federal constitutional republic in North America. It is bordered on the north by the United States; on the south and west by the Pacific Ocean; on the southeast by Guatemala, Belize, and the Caribbean Sea; and on the east by the Gulf of...

and Canada

Canada

Canada is a North American country consisting of ten provinces and three territories. Located in the northern part of the continent, it extends from the Atlantic Ocean in the east to the Pacific Ocean in the west, and northward into the Arctic Ocean...

, will be the next implementation of the New World Order. The theory holds that a group of shadowy and mostly nameless international elites are planning to replace the federal government of the United States

Federal government of the United States

The federal government of the United States is the national government of the constitutional republic of fifty states that is the United States of America. The federal government comprises three distinct branches of government: a legislative, an executive and a judiciary. These branches and...

with a transnational

Transnationality

Transnationality is a principle of carrying out an action across national borders, so as to have effects at a more general level. It is commonly referred to with reference to the actions of the European Union , in distinction to 'international' or 'supranational' Transnationality is a principle of...

government. Therefore, conspiracy theorists believe the borders between Mexico, Canada and the United States are in the process of being erased, covertly, by a group of globalists whose ultimate goal is to replace national governments in Washington, D.C., Ottawa and Mexico City with a European-style political union and a bloated E.U.-style bureaucracy.

Skeptics argue that the North American Union exists only as a proposal contained in one of a thousand academic and/or policy papers published each year that advocate all manner of idealistic but ultimately unrealistic approaches to social, economic and political problems. Most of these get passed around in their own circles and eventually filed away and forgotten by junior staffers in congressional offices. Some of these papers, however, become touchstones for the conspiracy-minded and form the basis of all kinds of unfounded xenophobic

Xenophobia

Xenophobia is defined as "an unreasonable fear of foreigners or strangers or of that which is foreign or strange". It comes from the Greek words ξένος , meaning "stranger," "foreigner" and φόβος , meaning "fear."...

fears especially during times of economic anxiety.

For example, in March 2009, as a result of the late-2000s financial crisis

Late-2000s financial crisis

The late-2000s financial crisis is considered by many economists to be the worst financial crisis since the Great Depression of the 1930s...

, the People's Republic of China

People's Republic of China

and the Russian Federation pressed for urgent consideration of a new international reserve currency

Reserve currency

A reserve currency, or anchor currency, is a currency that is held in significant quantities by many governments and institutions as part of their foreign exchange reserves...

and the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development

United Nations Conference on Trade and Development

The United Nations Conference on Trade and Development was established in 1964 as a permanent intergovernmental body. It is the principal organ of the United Nations General Assembly dealing with trade, investment, and development issues....

proposed greatly expanding the I.M.F.

International Monetary Fund

's Special Drawing Rights

Special Drawing Rights

Special Drawing Rights are supplementary foreign exchange reserve assets defined and maintained by the International Monetary Fund . Not a currency, SDRs instead represent a claim to currency held by IMF member countries for which they may be exchanged...

. Conspiracy theorists fear these proposals are a call for the U.S. to adopt a single global currency for a New World Order.

Judging that both national governments and global institutions have proven ineffective in addressing worldwide problems that go beyond the capacity of individual nation-state

Nation-state

The nation state is a state that self-identifies as deriving its political legitimacy from serving as a sovereign entity for a nation as a sovereign territorial unit. The state is a political and geopolitical entity; the nation is a cultural and/or ethnic entity...

s to solve, some political scientists critical of New World Order conspiracism, such as Mark C. Partridge, argue that regionalism will be the major force in the coming decades, pockets of power around regional centers: Western Europe

Western Europe

Western Europe is a loose term for the collection of countries in the western most region of the European continents, though this definition is context-dependent and carries cultural and political connotations. One definition describes Western Europe as a geographic entity—the region lying in the...

around Brussels

Brussels

Brussels , officially the Brussels Region or Brussels-Capital Region , is the capital of Belgium and the de facto capital of the European Union...

, the Western Hemisphere

Western Hemisphere

The Western Hemisphere or western hemisphere is mainly used as a geographical term for the half of the Earth that lies west of the Prime Meridian and east of the Antimeridian , the other half being called the Eastern Hemisphere.In this sense, the western hemisphere consists of the western portions...

around Washington, D.C.

Washington, D.C.

Washington, D.C., formally the District of Columbia and commonly referred to as Washington, "the District", or simply D.C., is the capital of the United States. On July 16, 1790, the United States Congress approved the creation of a permanent national capital as permitted by the U.S. Constitution....

, East Asia

East Asia

East Asia or Eastern Asia is a subregion of Asia that can be defined in either geographical or cultural terms...

around Beijing

Beijing

Beijing , also known as Peking , is the capital of the People's Republic of China and one of the most populous cities in the world, with a population of 19,612,368 as of 2010. The city is the country's political, cultural, and educational center, and home to the headquarters for most of China's...

, and Eastern Europe

Eastern Europe

Eastern Europe is the eastern part of Europe. The term has widely disparate geopolitical, geographical, cultural and socioeconomic readings, which makes it highly context-dependent and even volatile, and there are "almost as many definitions of Eastern Europe as there are scholars of the region"...

around Moscow

Moscow

Moscow is the capital, the most populous city, and the most populous federal subject of Russia. The city is a major political, economic, cultural, scientific, religious, financial, educational, and transportation centre of Russia and the continent...

. As such, the E.U., the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation, and the G-20

G-20 major economies

The Group of Twenty Finance Ministers and Central Bank Governors is a group of finance ministers and central bank governors from 20 major economies: 19 countries plus the European Union, which is represented by the President of the European Council and by the European Central Bank...

will likely become more influential as time progresses. The question then is not whether global governance

Global governance

is gradually emerging, but rather how will these regional powers interact with one another.

Coup d'état

American right-wing populist

Right-wing populism

conspiracy theorists, especially those who joined the militia movement in the United States, speculate that the New World Order will be implemented through a dramatic coup d'état

Coup d'état

A coup d'état state, literally: strike/blow of state)—also known as a coup, putsch, and overthrow—is the sudden, extrajudicial deposition of a government, usually by a small group of the existing state establishment—typically the military—to replace the deposed government with another body; either...

by a "secret team

Secret Team

The Secret Team, or ST, is a phrase coined by L. Fletcher Prouty in 1973, alleging a covert alliance between the United States' military, intelligence, and private sectors to influence political decisions.-Origins:...

", using black helicopter

Black Helicopter

s, in the U.S. and other nation-states to bring about a totalitarian world government controlled by the United Nations

United Nations

and enforced by troops of foreign U.N. peacekeepers

Department of Peacekeeping Operations

The Department of Peacekeeping Operations is a department of the United Nations which is charged with the planning, preparation, management and direction of UN peacekeeping operations.-History of the DPKO:...

. Following the Rex 84

Rex 84

Rex 84, short for Readiness Exercise 1984, was a secretive "scenario and drill" developed by the United States federal government to suspend the United States Constitution, declare martial law, place military commanders in charge of state and local governments, and detain large numbers of American...

and Operation Garden Plot

Operation Garden Plot

Operation Garden Plot is a general U.S. Army and National Guard plan to respond to major domestic civil disturbances within the United States. The plan was developed in response to the civil disorders of the 1960s and is now under the control of the U.S. Northern Command...

plans, this military coup would involve the suspension of the Constitution

United States Constitution

The Constitution of the United States is the supreme law of the United States of America. It is the framework for the organization of the United States government and for the relationship of the federal government with the states, citizens, and all people within the United States.The first three...

, the imposition of martial law

Martial law

Martial law is the imposition of military rule by military authorities over designated regions on an emergency basis— only temporary—when the civilian government or civilian authorities fail to function effectively , when there are extensive riots and protests, or when the disobedience of the law...

, and the appointment of military commanders to head state and local governments

Military dictatorship

A military dictatorship is a form of government where in the political power resides with the military. It is similar but not identical to a stratocracy, a state ruled directly by the military....

and to detain dissident

Dissident

A dissident, broadly defined, is a person who actively challenges an established doctrine, policy, or institution. When dissidents unite for a common cause they often effect a dissident movement....

s.

These conspiracy theorists, who are all strong believers in a right to keep and bear arms, are extremely fearful that the passing of any gun control

Gun control

Gun control is any law, policy, practice, or proposal designed to restrict or limit the possession, production, importation, shipment, sale, and/or use of guns or other firearms by private citizens...

legislation will be later followed by the abolishment of personal gun ownership and a campaign of gun confiscation, and that the refugee camp

Refugee camp

A refugee camp is a temporary settlement built to receive refugees. Hundreds of thousands of people may live in any one single camp. Usually they are built and run by a government, the United Nations, or international organizations, or NGOs.Refugee camps are generally set up in an impromptu...

s of emergency management agencies such as F.E.M.A.

Federal Emergency Management Agency

will be used for the internment

Internment

Internment is the imprisonment or confinement of people, commonly in large groups, without trial. The Oxford English Dictionary gives the meaning as: "The action of 'interning'; confinement within the limits of a country or place." Most modern usage is about individuals, and there is a distinction...

of suspected subversives, making little effort to distinguish true threats to the New World Order from pacifist dissidents.

Before year 2000 some survivalists wrongly believed this process would be set in motion by the predicted Y2K problem causing societal collapse

Societal collapse

Societal collapse broadly includes both quite abrupt societal failures typified by collapses , as well as more extended gradual declines of superpowers...

. Since many left-wing and right-wing conspiracy theorists believe that the September 11 attacks were a false flag operation

9/11 conspiracy theories

9/11 conspiracy theories are theories that disagree with the widely accepted account that the September 11 attacks were perpetrated solely by al-Qaeda. These theories arose because of what proponents of the conspiracy theories believe to be inconsistencies in the official conclusions or some...

carried out by the United States intelligence community

United States Intelligence Community

The United States Intelligence Community is a cooperative federation of 16 separate United States government agencies that work separately and together to conduct intelligence activities considered necessary for the conduct of foreign relations and the protection of the national security of the...

, as part of a strategy of tension

Strategy of tension

The strategy of tension is a theory that describes how to divide, manipulate, and control public opinion using fear, propaganda, disinformation, psychological warfare, agents provocateurs, and false flag terrorist actions....

to justify political repression

Political repression

Political repression is the persecution of an individual or group for political reasons, particularly for the purpose of restricting or preventing their ability to take political life of society....

at home and preemptive war

Preemptive war

A preemptive war is a war that is commenced in an attempt to repel or defeat a perceived inevitable offensive or invasion, or to gain a strategic advantage in an impending war before that threat materializes. It is a war which preemptively 'breaks the peace'. The term: 'preemptive war' is...

abroad, they have become convinced that a more catastrophic terrorist incident will be responsible for triggering Executive Directive 51 in order to complete the transition to a police state

Police state

A police state is one in which the government exercises rigid and repressive controls over the social, economic and political life of the population...

.

Skeptics argue that unfounded fears about an imminent or eventual gun ban, military coup, internment, or U.N. invasion and occupation are rooted in the siege mentality

Siege mentality

Siege mentality is a shared feeling of victimization and defensiveness. It is a state of mind whereby one believes that one is being constantly attacked, oppressed, or isolated and makes one frightened of surrounding people...

of the American militia movement but also an apocalyptic millenarianism

Millenarianism

which provides a basic narrative within the political right in the U.S., claiming that the idealized society (i.e., constitutional republic

Constitutional republic

A constitutional republic is a state in which the head of state and other officials are representatives of the people and must govern according to existing constitutional law that limits the government's power over all of its citizens...

, Jeffersonian democracy

Jeffersonian democracy

Jeffersonian Democracy, so named after its leading advocate Thomas Jefferson, is a term used to describe one of two dominant political outlooks and movements in the United States from the 1790s to the 1820s. The term was commonly used to refer to the Democratic-Republican Party which Jefferson...

, "Christian nation", "white nation

White nationalism

White nationalism is a political ideology which advocates a racial definition of national identity for white people. White separatism and white supremacism are subgroups within white nationalism. The former seek a separate white nation state, while the latter add ideas from social Darwinism and...

") is thwarted by subversive conspiracies of liberal

Liberalism in the United States

secular humanists

Secular humanism

Secular Humanism, alternatively known as Humanism , is a secular philosophy that embraces human reason, ethics, justice, and the search for human fulfillment...

who want "Big Government

Big government

Big government is a term generally used by political conservatives, laissez-faire advocates, or libertarians to describe a government or public sector which they consider to be excessively large, corrupt and inefficient, or inappropriately involved in certain areas of public policy or the private...

" and globalists who plot on behalf of the New World Order.

Mass surveillance

Conspiracy theorists concerned with surveillance abuse

Surveillance abuse

believe that the New World Order is being implemented by the cult of intelligence at the core of the surveillance-industrial complex through mass surveillance

Mass surveillance

Mass surveillance is the pervasive surveillance of an entire population, or a substantial fraction thereof.Modern governments today commonly perform mass surveillance of their citizens, explaining that they believe that it is necessary to protect them from dangerous groups such as terrorists,...

and the use of Social Security number

Social Security number

In the United States, a Social Security number is a nine-digit number issued to U.S. citizens, permanent residents, and temporary residents under section 205 of the Social Security Act, codified as . The number is issued to an individual by the Social Security Administration, an independent...

s, the bar-coding

Barcode

A barcode is an optical machine-readable representation of data, which shows data about the object to which it attaches. Originally barcodes represented data by varying the widths and spacings of parallel lines, and may be referred to as linear or 1 dimensional . Later they evolved into rectangles,...

of retail goods with Universal Product Code

Universal Product Code

The Universal Product Code is a barcode symbology , that is widely used in North America, and in countries including the UK, Australia, and New Zealand for tracking trade items in stores. Its most common form, the UPC-A, consists of 12 numerical digits, which are uniquely assigned to each trade item...

markings, and, most recently, RFID tagging via microchip implants

Microchip implant (human)

A human microchip implant is an integrated circuit device or RFID transponder encased in silicate glass and implanted in the body of a human being...

Claiming that corporations and government are planning to track every move of consumers and citizens with RFID as the latest step toward a 1984
Nineteen Eighty-Four
Nineteen Eighty-Four by George Orwell is a dystopian novel about Oceania, a society ruled by the oligarchical dictatorship of the Party...

-like surveillance state

Surveillance state

The surveillance state is a government's surveillance of large numbers of citizens and visitors. Such widespread surveillance is most usually justified as being necessary to prevent crime or terrorism....

, consumer privacy advocates, such as Katherine Albrecht

Katherine Albrecht

Katherine Albrecht, EdD is the founder of CASPIAN , a national consumer organization created in 1999 to educate consumer-citizens about shopper surveillance. She is a consumer privacy advocate and anti-RFID spokesperson...

and Liz McIntyre, have become Christian conspiracy theorists who believe spychips

Spychips

Spychips is a term privacy advocates use to refer to radio-frequency identification microchips because it conveys what they see as the potential downsides of the technology.- Origin :...

must be resisted because they argue that modern database

Database

A database is an organized collection of data for one or more purposes, usually in digital form. The data are typically organized to model relevant aspects of reality , in a way that supports processes requiring this information...

and communications technologies

Information and communication technologies

Information and communications technology or information and communication technology, usually abbreviated as ICT, is often used as an extended synonym for information technology , but is usually a more general term that stresses the role of unified communications and the integration of...

, coupled with point of sale

Point of sale

Point of sale or checkout is the location where a transaction occurs...

data-capture equipment and sophisticated ID and authentication

Authentication

Authentication is the act of confirming the truth of an attribute of a datum or entity...

systems, now make it possible to require a biometrically

Biometrics

Biometrics As Jain & Ross point out, "the term biometric authentication is perhaps more appropriate than biometrics since the latter has been historically used in the field of statistics to refer to the analysis of biological data [36]" . consists of methods...

associated number or mark to make purchases. They fear that the ability to implement such a system closely resembles the Number of the Beast

Number of the Beast

The Number of the Beast is a term in the Book of Revelation, of the New Testament, that is associated with the first Beast of Revelation chapter 13, the Beast of the sea. In most manuscripts of the New Testament and in English translations of the Bible, the number of the Beast is...

prophesied in the Book of Revelation

Book of Revelation

The Book of Revelation is the final book of the New Testament. The title came into usage from the first word of the book in Koine Greek: apokalupsis, meaning "unveiling" or "revelation"...

.

In January 2002, the Information Awareness Office

Information Awareness Office

The Information Awareness Office was established by the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency in January 2002 to bring together several DARPA projects focused on applying surveillance and information technology to track and monitor terrorists and other asymmetric threats to national security,...

(IAO) was established by the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency

Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency

The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency is an agency of the United States Department of Defense responsible for the development of new technology for use by the military...

(DARPA) to bring together several DARPA projects focused on applying information technology to counter asymmetric threats

Asymmetric warfare

Asymmetric warfare is war between belligerents whose relative military power differs significantly, or whose strategy or tactics differ significantly....

to national security

National security

National security is the requirement to maintain the survival of the state through the use of economic, diplomacy, power projection and political power. The concept developed mostly in the United States of America after World War II...

. Following public criticism that the development and deployment of these technologies could potentially lead to a mass surveillance system, the IAO was defunded by the United States Congress in 2003. The second source of controversy involved IAO’s original logo, which depicted the "all-seeing" Eye of Providence

Eye of Providence

The Eye of Providence is a symbol showing an eye often surrounded by rays of light or a glory and usually enclosed by a triangle...

atop of a pyramid looking down over the globe, accompanied by the Latin phrase scientia est potentia (knowledge is power). Although DARPA eventually removed the logo from its website, it left a lasting impression on privacy advocates. It also inflamed conspiracy theorists, who misinterpret the "eye and pyramid" as the Masonic

Freemasonry

symbol of the Illuminati

Illuminati

The Illuminati is a name given to several groups, both real and fictitious. Historically the name refers to the Bavarian Illuminati, an Enlightenment-era secret society founded on May 1, 1776...

, an 18th-century secret society they speculate continues to exist and is plotting on behalf of a New World Order.

American historian Richard Landes

Richard Landes

Richard Allen Landes is an American historian and author, specializing in Millennialism. He currently serves as an Associate Professor in the Department of History at Boston University...

, who specializes in the history of apocalypticism

Apocalypticism

and was co-founder and director of the Center for Millennial Studies

Center for Millennial Studies

The Center for Millennial Studies is a scholarly institute at Boston University devoted to studying millennial, millenarian, and apocalyptic movements, groups, and individuals throughout history and on the contemporary scene....

at Boston University, argues that new and emerging technologies often trigger alarmism

Alarmism

Alarmism is excessive or exaggerated alarm about a real or imagined threat e.g. the increases in deaths from infectious disease.-See also:* 2009 flu pandemic* European sovereign debt crisis* 2012 phenomenon* Climate change alarmism...

among millenarian

Millenarianism

s and even the introduction of Gutenberg's printing press

Printing press

A printing press is a device for applying pressure to an inked surface resting upon a print medium , thereby transferring the ink...

in 1436 caused waves of apocalyptic thinking. The Year 2000 problem

Year 2000 problem

The Year 2000 problem was a problem for both digital and non-digital documentation and data storage situations which resulted from the practice of abbreviating a four-digit year to two digits.In computer programs, the practice of representing the year with two...

, bar codes and Social Security numbers all triggered end-time warnings which either proved to be false or simply were no longer taken seriously once the public became accustomed to these technological changes. Civil libertarians argue that the privatization of surveillance and the rise of the surveillance-industrial complex in the United States does raise legitimate concerns about the erosion of privacy

Privacy

Privacy is the ability of an individual or group to seclude themselves or information about themselves and thereby reveal themselves selectively...

. However, skeptics of mass surveillance conspiracism caution that such concerns should be disentangled from secular paranoia about Big Brother or religious hysteria about the Antichrist

Antichrist

The term or title antichrist, in Christian theology, refers to a leader who fulfills Biblical prophecies concerning an adversary of Christ, while resembling him in a deceptive manner...

Occultism

Conspiracy theorists of the Christian right

Christian right

, starting with British revisionist historian Nesta Helen Webster, believe there is an ancient occult

Occult

The word occult comes from the Latin word occultus , referring to "knowledge of the hidden". In the medical sense it is used to refer to a structure or process that is hidden, e.g...

conspiracy — started by the first mystagogue

Mystagogue

A mystagogue is a person who initiates others into mystic beliefs, an educator or person who has knowledge of the Sacred Mysteries. Another word is Hierophant....

s of Gnosticism

Gnosticism

Gnosticism is a scholarly term for a set of religious beliefs and spiritual practices common to early Christianity, Hellenistic Judaism, Greco-Roman mystery religions, Zoroastrianism , and Neoplatonism.A common characteristic of some of these groups was the teaching that the realisation of Gnosis...

and perpetuated by their alleged esoteric

Esotericism

successors, such as the Kabbalists

Kabbalah

Kabbalah/Kabala is a discipline and school of thought concerned with the esoteric aspect of Rabbinic Judaism. It was systematized in 11th-13th century Hachmei Provence and Spain, and again after the Expulsion from Spain, in 16th century Ottoman Palestine...

, Cathars, Knights Templar

Knights Templar

The Poor Fellow-Soldiers of Christ and of the Temple of Solomon , commonly known as the Knights Templar, the Order of the Temple or simply as Templars, were among the most famous of the Western Christian military orders...

, Hermeticists

Hermeticism

Hermeticism or the Western Hermetic Tradition is a set of philosophical and religious beliefs based primarily upon the pseudepigraphical writings attributed to Hermes Trismegistus...

, Rosicrucians, Freemasons

Freemasonry

, and, ultimately, the Illuminati

Illuminati

The Illuminati is a name given to several groups, both real and fictitious. Historically the name refers to the Bavarian Illuminati, an Enlightenment-era secret society founded on May 1, 1776...

— which seeks to subvert the Judeo-Christian

Judeo-Christian

Judeo-Christian is a term used in the United States since the 1940s to refer to standards of ethics said to be held in common by Judaism and Christianity, for example the Ten Commandments...

foundations of the Western world

Western world

The Western world, also known as the West and the Occident , is a term referring to the countries of Western Europe , the countries of the Americas, as well all countries of Northern and Central Europe, Australia and New Zealand...

and implement the New World Order through a one-world religion that prepares the masses to embrace the imperial cult

Imperial cult

of the Antichrist

Antichrist

The term or title antichrist, in Christian theology, refers to a leader who fulfills Biblical prophecies concerning an adversary of Christ, while resembling him in a deceptive manner...

. More broadly, they speculate that globalists who plot on behalf of a New World Order are directed by occult agencies of some sort: unknown superiors

Rite of Strict Observance

The Rite of Strict Observance was a Rite of Freemasonry, a series of progressive degrees that were conferred by the Order of Strict Observance, a Masonic body of the 18th century....

, spiritual hierarchies

Spiritual Hierarchy

, demon

Demon

call - 1347 531 7769 for more infoIn Ancient Near Eastern religions as well as in the Abrahamic traditions, including ancient and medieval Christian demonology, a demon is considered an "unclean spirit" which may cause demonic possession, to be addressed with an act of exorcism...

s, fallen angel

Fallen angel

s and/or Lucifer. They believe that these conspirators use the power of occult science

Occult science

s (numerology

Numerology

Numerology is any study of the purported mystical relationship between a count or measurement and life. It has many systems and traditions and beliefs...

), symbols (Eye of Providence

Eye of Providence

The Eye of Providence is a symbol showing an eye often surrounded by rays of light or a glory and usually enclosed by a triangle...

), rituals (Masonic degrees), monuments (National Mall landmarks), buildings (Manitoba Legislative Building

Manitoba Legislative Building

The Manitoba Legislative Building is the meeting place of the Legislative Assembly of Manitoba, in central Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada. It was originally named the Manitoba Parliament Building, not Legislative. The neoclassical building was completed in 1920 and stands seventy-seven meters tall...

) and facilities (Denver International Airport

Denver International Airport

Denver International Airport , often referred to as DIA, is an airport in Denver, Colorado. By land size, at , it is the largest international airport in the United States, and the third largest international airport in the world after King Fahd International Airport and Montréal-Mirabel...

) to advance their plot to rule the world.

For example, in June 1979, an unknown benefactor under the pseudonym "R. C. Christian

Christian Rosenkreuz

Christian Rosenkreuz is the legendary, perhaps allegorical, founder of the Rosicrucian Order , presented in the three Manifestos published in the early 17th century...

" had a huge granite megalith

Megalith

A megalith is a large stone that has been used to construct a structure or monument, either alone or together with other stones. Megalithic describes structures made of such large stones, utilizing an interlocking system without the use of mortar or cement.The word 'megalith' comes from the Ancient...

built in the U.S. state of Georgia

Georgia (U.S. state)

, which acts like a compass, calendar, and clock. A message comprising ten guides is inscribed on the occult structure in many languages to serve as instructions for survivors of a doomsday event

Doomsday event

A doomsday event is a specific, plausibly verifiable or hypothetical occurrence which has an exceptionally destructive effect on the human race...

to establish a more enlightened and sustainable civilization than the one which was destroyed. The "Georgia Guidestones

Georgia Guidestones

The Georgia Guidestones is a large granite monument in Elbert County, Georgia, USA. A message comprising ten guides is inscribed on the structure in eight modern languages, and a shorter message is inscribed at the top of the structure in four ancient languages' scripts: Babylonian, Classical...

" have subsequently become a spiritual and political Rorschach test

Rorschach test

The Rorschach test is a psychological test in which subjects' perceptions of inkblots are recorded and then analyzed using psychological interpretation, complex algorithms, or both. Some psychologists use this test to examine a person's personality characteristics and emotional functioning...

onto which any number of ideas can be imposed. Some New Agers and neo-pagans revere it as a ley-line

Ley line

Ley lines are alleged alignments of a number of places of geographical and historical interest, such as ancient monuments and megaliths, natural ridge-tops and water-fords...

power nexus while a few conspiracy theorists are convinced that they are engraved with the New World Order's anti-Christian "Ten Commandments

Ten Commandments

The Ten Commandments, also known as the Decalogue , are a set of biblical principles relating to ethics and worship, which play a fundamental role in Judaism and most forms of Christianity. They include instructions to worship only God and to keep the Sabbath, and prohibitions against idolatry,...

". Should the Guidestones survive for centuries as their creators intended, many more meanings could arise, equally unrelated to the designer’s original intention.

Skeptics argue that the demonization

Demonization

Demonization is the reinterpretation of polytheistic deities as evil, lying demons by other religions, generally monotheistic and henotheistic ones...

of Western esotericism by conspiracy theorists is rooted in religious intolerance

Religious intolerance

Religious intolerance is intolerance against another's religious beliefs or practices.-Definition:The mere statement on the part of a religion that its own beliefs and practices are correct and any contrary beliefs incorrect does not in itself constitute intolerance...

but also in the same moral panic

Moral panic

A moral panic is the intensity of feeling expressed in a population about an issue that appears to threaten the social order. According to Stanley Cohen, author of Folk Devils and Moral Panics and credited creator of the term, a moral panic occurs when "[a] condition, episode, person or group of...

s that have fueled witch trials in the Early Modern period, and satanic ritual abuse

Satanic ritual abuse

Satanic ritual abuse refers to the abuse of a person or animal in a ritual setting or manner...

allegations in the United States.

Population control

Conspiracy theorists believe that the New World Order will also be implemented through the use of human population control in order to more easily monitor and control the movement of individuals. The means range from stopping the growth of human societies through reproductive health

Reproductive health

Within the framework of the World Health Organization's definition of health as a state of complete physical, mental and social well-being, and not merely the absence of disease or infirmity, reproductive health, or sexual health/hygiene, addresses the reproductive processes, functions and system...

and family planning

Family planning

Family planning is the planning of when to have children, and the use of birth control and other techniques to implement such plans. Other techniques commonly used include sexuality education, prevention and management of sexually transmitted infections, pre-conception counseling and...

programs, which promote abstinence

Abstinence

Abstinence is a voluntary restraint from indulging in bodily activities that are widely experienced as giving pleasure. Most frequently, the term refers to sexual abstinence, or abstention from alcohol or food. The practice can arise from religious prohibitions or practical...

, contraception

Contraception

Contraception is the prevention of the fusion of gametes during or after sexual activity. The term contraception is a contraction of contra, which means against, and the word conception, meaning fertilization...

and abortion

Abortion

Abortion is defined as the termination of pregnancy by the removal or expulsion from the uterus of a fetus or embryo prior to viability. An abortion can occur spontaneously, in which case it is usually called a miscarriage, or it can be purposely induced...

, or intentionally reducing the bulk of the world population

World population

The world population is the total number of living humans on the planet Earth. As of today, it is estimated to be billion by the United States Census Bureau...

through genocides by mongering unnecessary wars, through plagues by engineering emergent viruses and tainting vaccine

Vaccine

A vaccine is a biological preparation that improves immunity to a particular disease. A vaccine typically contains an agent that resembles a disease-causing microorganism, and is often made from weakened or killed forms of the microbe or its toxins...

s, and through environmental disasters by controlling the weather

Weather control

Weather control is the act of manipulating or altering certain aspects of the environment to produce desirable changes in weather. Weather control can have the goal of preventing damaging weather, such as hurricanes or tornadoes, from occurring; of causing beneficial weather, such as rainfall in...

(HAARP

High Frequency Active Auroral Research Program

The High Frequency Active Auroral Research Program is an ionospheric research program jointly funded by the U.S. Air Force, the U.S. Navy, the University of Alaska, and the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency ....

, chemtrails), etc. Conspiracy theorists argue that globalists plotting on behalf of a New World Order are neo-Malthusians who engage in overpopulation

Overpopulation

Overpopulation is a condition where an organism's numbers exceed the carrying capacity of its habitat. The term often refers to the relationship between the human population and its environment, the Earth...

and climate change

Climate change

Climate change is a significant and lasting change in the statistical distribution of weather patterns over periods ranging from decades to millions of years. It may be a change in average weather conditions or the distribution of events around that average...

alarmism in order to create public support for coercive population control and ultimately world government.

Skeptics argue that fears of population control can be traced back to the traumatic legacy of the eugenics

Eugenics

Eugenics is the "applied science or the bio-social movement which advocates the use of practices aimed at improving the genetic composition of a population", usually referring to human populations. The origins of the concept of eugenics began with certain interpretations of Mendelian inheritance,...

movement's "war against the weak" in the United States during the first decades of the 20th century but also the Second Red Scare in the U.S. during the late 1940s and 1950s, and to a lesser extent in the 1960s, when activists on the far right

Far right

of American politics routinely opposed public health

Public health

Public health is "the science and art of preventing disease, prolonging life and promoting health through the organized efforts and informed choices of society, organizations, public and private, communities and individuals" . It is concerned with threats to health based on population health...

programs, notably water fluoridation

Water fluoridation

Water fluoridation is the controlled addition of fluoride to a public water supply to reduce tooth decay. Fluoridated water has fluoride at a level that is effective for preventing cavities; this can occur naturally or by adding fluoride...

, mass vaccination

Vaccination

Vaccination is the administration of antigenic material to stimulate the immune system of an individual to develop adaptive immunity to a disease. Vaccines can prevent or ameliorate the effects of infection by many pathogens...

and mental health

Mental health

Mental health describes either a level of cognitive or emotional well-being or an absence of a mental disorder. From perspectives of the discipline of positive psychology or holism mental health may include an individual's ability to enjoy life and procure a balance between life activities and...

services, by asserting they were all part of a far-reaching plot to impose a socialist or communist regime. Their views were influenced by opposition to a number of major social and political changes that had happened in recent years: the growth of internationalism

Internationalism (politics)

Internationalism is a political movement which advocates a greater economic and political cooperation among nations for the theoretical benefit of all...

, particularly the United Nations

United Nations

and its programs; the introduction of social welfare

Welfare

Welfare refers to a broad discourse which may hold certain implications regarding the provision of a minimal level of wellbeing and social support for all citizens without the stigma of charity. This is termed "social solidarity"...

provisions, particularly the various programs established by the New Deal

New Deal

The New Deal was a series of economic programs implemented in the United States between 1933 and 1936. They were passed by the U.S. Congress during the first term of President Franklin D. Roosevelt. The programs were Roosevelt's responses to the Great Depression, and focused on what historians call...

; and government efforts to reduce inequalities in the social structure of the U.S..

Mind control

Social critics accuse governments, corporations, and the mass media

Mass media

Mass media refers collectively to all media technologies which are intended to reach a large audience via mass communication. Broadcast media transmit their information electronically and comprise of television, film and radio, movies, CDs, DVDs and some other gadgets like cameras or video consoles...

of being involved in the manufacturing of a national consensus

Propaganda model

The propaganda model is a conceptual model in political economy advanced by Edward S. Herman and Noam Chomsky that states how propaganda, including systemic biases, function in mass media...

and, paradoxically, a culture of fear

Culture of fear

Culture of fear is a term used by certain scholars, writers, journalists and politicians who believe that some in society incite fear in the general public to achieve political goals, for example......

due to the potential for increased social control

Social control

Social control refers generally to societal and political mechanisms or processes that regulate individual and group behavior, leading to conformity and compliance to the rules of a given society, state, or social group. Many mechanisms of social control are cross-cultural, if only in the control...

that a mistrustful and mutually fearing population might offer to those in power. The worst fear of some conspiracy theorists, however, is that the New World Order will be implemented through the use of mind control

Mind control

Mind control refers to a process in which a group or individual "systematically uses unethically manipulative methods to persuade others to conform to the wishes of the manipulator, often to the detriment of the person being manipulated"...

—a broad range of tactics able to subvert an individual's control of his or her own thinking, behavior, emotions, or decisions. These tactics are said to include everything from Manchurian candidate

The Manchurian Candidate

The Manchurian Candidate , by Richard Condon, is a political thriller novel about the son of a prominent US political family who is brainwashed into being an unwitting assassin for the Communist Party....

-style brainwashing of sleeper agent

Sleeper agent

A sleeper agent is a spy who is placed in a target country or organization, not to undertake an immediate mission, but rather to act as a potential asset if activated...

s (Project MKULTRA

Project MKULTRA

Project MKULTRA, or MK-ULTRA, was the code name for a covert, illegal CIA human experimentation program, run by the CIA's Office of Scientific Intelligence. This official U.S. government program began in the early 1950s, continued at least through the late 1960s, and used U.S...

, "Project Monarch") to engineering psychological operations (water fluoridation

Water fluoridation

, subliminal advertising, "Silent Sound Spread Spectrum

Microwave auditory effect

The microwave auditory effect, also known as the microwave hearing effect or the Frey effect, consists of audible clicks induced by pulsed/modulated microwave frequencies. The clicks are generated directly inside the human head without the need of any receiving electronic device...

", MEDUSA

MEDUSA (weapon)

MEDUSA is a directional, non-lethal weapon designed for crowd control and exploiting the microwave auditory effect. It uses microwave pulses to generate uncomfortably high noise levels in human skulls, bypassing the ears and ear drums.MEDUSA is developed by the Sierra Nevada Corporation.-...

) and parapsychological

Parapsychology

The term parapsychology was coined in or around 1889 by philosopher Max Dessoir, and originates from para meaning "alongside", and psychology. The term was adopted by J.B. Rhine in the 1930s as a replacement for the term psychical research...

operations (Stargate Project

Stargate Project

The Stargate Project was the umbrella code name of one of several sub-projects established by the U.S. Federal Government to investigate claims of psychic phenomena with potential military and domestic applications, particularly "remote viewing": the purported ability to psychically "see" events,...

) to influence the masses. The concept of wearing a tin foil hat for protection from such threats has become a popular stereotype and term of derision; the phrase serves as a byword for paranoia

Paranoia

Paranoia [] is a thought process believed to be heavily influenced by anxiety or fear, often to the point of irrationality and delusion. Paranoid thinking typically includes persecutory beliefs, or beliefs of conspiracy concerning a perceived threat towards oneself...

and is associated with conspiracy theorists.

Skeptics argue that the paranoia

Paranoia

behind a conspiracy theorist's obsession with mind control

Mind control

, population control

Population control

Human population control is the practice of artificially altering the rate of growth of a human population.Historically, human population control has been implemented by limiting the population's birth rate, usually by government mandate, and has been undertaken as a response to factors including...

, occultism, surveillance abuse

Surveillance abuse

, Big Business

Big Business

Big business is a term used to describe large corporations, in either an individual or collective sense. The term first came into use in a symbolic sense subsequent to the American Civil War, particularly after 1880, in connection with the combination movement that began in American business at...

, Big Government

Big government

, and globalization

Globalization

Globalization refers to the increasingly global relationships of culture, people and economic activity. Most often, it refers to economics: the global distribution of the production of goods and services, through reduction of barriers to international trade such as tariffs, export fees, and import...

arises from a combination of two factors, when he or she: 1) holds strong individualist values and 2) lacks power. The first attribute refers to people who care deeply about an individual's right to make their own choices and direct their own lives without interference or obligations to a larger system (like the government), but combine this with a sense of powerlessness in one's own life, and one gets what some psychologists call "agency panic", intense anxiety about an apparent loss of autonomy to outside forces or regulators. When fervent individualists feel that they cannot exercise their independence, they experience a crisis and assume that larger forces are to blame for usurping this freedom.

Alleged conspirators

According to Domhoff, many people seem to believe that the United States is ruled from behind the scenes

Cryptocracy

Cryptocracy, from the ancient Greek κρυπτός and κραττείν , refers to a type of government where the real leaders are hidden, or merely unknown. A puppet government or figurehead, whether aware or not of their status as such, usually figures into this type of government in concept...

by a conspiratorial elite

Cabal

A cabal is a group of people united in some close design together, usually to promote their private views and/or interests in a church, state, or other community, often by intrigue...

with secret desires, i.e., by a small secretive group that wants to change the government system or put the country under the control of a world government

World government

. In the past the conspirators were usually said to be crypto-communists

Crypto-communism

who were intent upon bringing the United States

United States

The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...

under a common world government with the Soviet Union

Soviet Union

The Soviet Union , officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics , was a constitutionally socialist state that existed in Eurasia between 1922 and 1991....

, but the dissolution of the U.S.S.R. in 1991 undercut that theory. Domhoff notes that most conspiracy theorists changed their focus to the United Nations

United Nations

as the likely controlling force in a New World Order, an idea which is undermined by the powerlessness of the U.N. and the unwillingness of even moderates within the American Establishment

The Establishment

The Establishment is a term used to refer to a visible dominant group or elite that holds power or authority in a nation. The term suggests a closed social group which selects its own members...

to give it anything but a limited role.

Although skeptical of New World Order conspiracism, political scientist David Rothkopf

David Rothkopf

David J. Rothkopf is President and CEO of Garten Rothkopf, an international advisory firm specializing in transformational global trends, notably those associated with energy, security, and emerging markets....

argues, in the 2008 book Superclass: The Global Power Elite and the World They Are Making
Superclass (book)
Superclass - The Global Power Elite and the World They Are Making is a controversial book about global governance by US author David Rothkopf, released in March 2008 by publisher Farrar, Straus and Giroux. The book claims that the world population of 6 billion people is subject to the immense...

, that the world population of 6 billion people is governed by an elite of 6,000 individuals. Until the late 20th century, governments of the great power

Great power

A great power is a nation or state that has the ability to exert its influence on a global scale. Great powers characteristically possess military and economic strength and diplomatic and cultural influence which may cause small powers to consider the opinions of great powers before taking actions...

s provided most of the superclass, accompanied by a few heads of international movements (i.e., the Pope

Pope

The Pope is the Bishop of Rome, a position that makes him the leader of the worldwide Catholic Church . In the Catholic Church, the Pope is regarded as the successor of Saint Peter, the Apostle...

of the Catholic Church) and entrepreneurs (Rothschilds

Rothschild family

, Rockefellers

Rockefeller family

The Rockefeller family , the Cleveland family of John D. Rockefeller and his brother William Rockefeller , is an American industrial, banking, and political family of German origin that made one of the world's largest private fortunes in the oil business during the late 19th and early 20th...

). According to Rothkopf, in the early 21st century, economic clout—fueled by the explosive expansion of international trade, travel and communication—rules; the nation-state

Nation-state

's power has diminished shrinking politicians to minority power broker

Power broker (term)

A power broker is a person who can influence people to vote towards a particular client in exchange for political or financial benefits. Power brokers can also negotiate deals with other power brokers to meet their aims....

status; leaders in international business, finance and the defense industry not only dominate the superclass, they move freely into high positions in their nations' governments and back to private life largely beyond the notice of elected legislatures (including the U.S. Congress), which remain abysmally ignorant of affairs beyond their borders. He asserts that the superclass' disproportionate influence over national policy is constructive but always self-interested, and that across the world, few object to corruption and oppressive governments provided they can do business in these countries.

Viewing the history of the world as the history of warfare between secret societies

Secret society

, conspiracy theorists go further than Rothkopf, and other scholars who have studied the global power elite

Power elite

, by claiming that established upper-class families with "old money

Old Money

Old money is "the inherited wealth of established upper-class families " or "a person, family, or lineage possessing inherited wealth." The term typically describes a class of the super-rich, who have been able to maintain their wealth across multiple generations.- United States :American locations...

" who founded and finance the Bilderberg Group

Bilderberg Group

, Bohemian Club

Bohemian Club

The Bohemian Club is a private men's club in San Francisco, California, United States.Its clubhouse is located at 624 Taylor Street in San Francisco...

, Club of Rome

Club of Rome

The Club of Rome is a global think tank that deals with a variety of international political issues. Founded in 1968 at Accademia dei Lincei in Rome, Italy, the CoR describes itself as "a group of world citizens, sharing a common concern for the future of humanity." It consists of current and...

, Council on Foreign Relations

Council on Foreign Relations

The Council on Foreign Relations is an American nonprofit nonpartisan membership organization, publisher, and think tank specializing in U.S. foreign policy and international affairs...

, Rhodes Trust, Skull and Bones

Skull and Bones

, Trilateral Commission

Trilateral Commission

, and similar think tanks and private clubs, are illuminated

Illuminati

The Illuminati is a name given to several groups, both real and fictitious. Historically the name refers to the Bavarian Illuminati, an Enlightenment-era secret society founded on May 1, 1776...

conspirators plotting to impose a totalitarian

Totalitarianism

Totalitarianism is a political system where the state recognizes no limits to its authority and strives to regulate every aspect of public and private life wherever feasible...

New World Order — the implementation of an authoritarian

Authoritarianism

Authoritarianism is a form of social organization characterized by submission to authority. It is usually opposed to individualism and democracy...

world government controlled by the United Nations and a global central bank

Bank for International Settlements

, which maintains political power through the financialization of the economy

Finance capitalism

, regulation and restriction of speech

Freedom of speech

Freedom of speech is the freedom to speak freely without censorship. The term freedom of expression is sometimes used synonymously, but includes any act of seeking, receiving and imparting information or ideas, regardless of the medium used...

through the concentration of media ownership

Concentration of media ownership

Concentration of media ownership refers to a process whereby progressively fewer individuals or organizations control increasing shares of the mass media...

, mass surveillance

Mass surveillance

, widespread use of state terrorism

State terrorism

State terrorism may refer to acts of terrorism conducted by a state against a foreign state or people. It can also refer to acts of violence by a state against its own people.-Definition:...

, and an all-encompassing propaganda

Propaganda

Propaganda is a form of communication that is aimed at influencing the attitude of a community toward some cause or position so as to benefit oneself or one's group....

that creates a cult of personality

Cult of personality

A cult of personality arises when an individual uses mass media, propaganda, or other methods, to create an idealized and heroic public image, often through unquestioning flattery and praise. Cults of personality are usually associated with dictatorships...

around a puppet world leader and ideologizes

Ideology

world government as the culmination of history's progress.

Marxists

Marxism

Marxism is an economic and sociopolitical worldview and method of socioeconomic inquiry that centers upon a materialist interpretation of history, a dialectical view of social change, and an analysis and critique of the development of capitalism. Marxism was pioneered in the early to mid 19th...

, who are skeptical of right-wing populist

Right-wing populism

conspiracy theories, also accuse the global power elite of not having the best interests of all at heart, and many intergovernmental organizations of suffering from a democratic deficit

Democratic deficit

, but they argue that the superclass are plutocrats

Plutocracy

Plutocracy is rule by the wealthy, or power provided by wealth. The combination of both plutocracy and oligarchy is called plutarchy. The word plutocracy is derived from the Ancient Greek root ploutos, meaning wealth and kratos, meaning to rule or to govern.-Usage:The term plutocracy is generally...

only interested in brazenly imposing a neoliberal

Neoliberalism

or neoconservative

Neoconservatism

Neoconservatism in the United States is a branch of American conservatism. Since 2001, neoconservatism has been associated with democracy promotion, that is with assisting movements for democracy, in some cases by economic sanctions or military action....

new world order — the implementation of global capitalism through economic and military coercion

Hard power

Hard power is a term describing political power obtained from the use of military and/or economic coercion to influence the behavior or interests of other political bodies...

to protect the interests of transnational corporations — which systematically undermines the possibility of a socialist one-world government. Arguing that the world is in the middle of a transition from the American Empire to the rule of a global ruling class that has emerged from within the American Empire, they point out that right-wing populist conspiracy theorists, blinded by their anti-communism

Anti-communism

, fail to see is that what they demonize as the "New World Order" is, ironically, the highest stage of the very capitalist

Capitalism

Capitalism is an economic system that became dominant in the Western world following the demise of feudalism. There is no consensus on the precise definition nor on how the term should be used as a historical category...

economic system they defend.

American intellectual Noam Chomsky

Noam Chomsky

Avram Noam Chomsky is an American linguist, philosopher, cognitive scientist, and activist. He is an Institute Professor and Professor in the Department of Linguistics & Philosophy at MIT, where he has worked for over 50 years. Chomsky has been described as the "father of modern linguistics" and...

, author of the 1994 book World Orders Old and New
World Orders Old and New
World Orders Old and New is a book by Noam Chomsky, first published in 1994 and updated in 1996 by Columbia University Press. In this book, Chomsky takes on the international scene since 1945, devoting particular attention to events following the collapse of the Soviet Union...

, often describes the new world order as a post-Cold-War era in which "the New World

New World

The New World is one of the names used for the Western Hemisphere, specifically America and sometimes Oceania . The term originated in the late 15th century, when America had been recently discovered by European explorers, expanding the geographical horizon of the people of the European middle...

gives the orders". Commenting on the 1999 US-NATO bombing of Serbia

Kosovo War

The term Kosovo War or Kosovo conflict was two sequential, and at times parallel, armed conflicts in Kosovo province, then part of FR Yugoslav Republic of Serbia; from early 1998 to 1999, there was an armed conflict initiated by the ethnic Albanian "Kosovo Liberation Army" , who sought independence...

, he writes:

Criticisms

Skeptics of New World Order conspiracy theories accuse its proponents of indulging in the furtive fallacy

Furtive fallacy

The furtive fallacy is an informal fallacy of emphasis. Historian David Hackett Fischer identified it as the belief that significant facts of history are necessarily sinister, and that "history itself is a story of causes mostly insidious and results mostly invidious." It is more than a...

, a belief that significant facts of history are necessarily sinister; conspiracism, a world view that centrally places conspiracy theories in the unfolding of history, rather than social and economic forces; and fusion paranoia, a promiscuous absorption of fears from any source whatsoever.

Domhoff, a research professor in psychology and sociology who studies theories of power, writes in a March 2005 essay entitled There Are No Conspiracies:
Partridge, a contributing editor to the global affairs magazine Diplomatic Courier, writes in a December 2008 article entitled One World Government: Conspiracy Theory or Inevitable Future?:
Although some cultural critics see superconspiracy theories about a New World Order as "postmodern

Postmodernism

Postmodernism is a philosophical movement evolved in reaction to modernism, the tendency in contemporary culture to accept only objective truth and to be inherently suspicious towards a global cultural narrative or meta-narrative. Postmodernist thought is an intentional departure from the...

metanarrative

Metanarrative

A metanarrative , in critical theory and particularly postmodernism, is an abstract idea that is thought to be a comprehensive explanation of historical experience or knowledge. According to John Stephens, it "is a global or totalizing cultural narrative schema which orders and explains knowledge...

s" that may be politically empowering, a way of giving ordinary people a narrative structure with which to question what they see around them, skeptics argue that conspiracism leads people into cynicism, convoluted thinking, and a tendency to feel it is hopeless even as they denounce the alleged conspirators.

The activities of conspiracy theorists (talk radio shows, books, websites, documentary videos, conferences, etc.) unwittingly draw enormous amounts of energy and effort away from serious criticism and activism directed to real and ongoing crimes of state

State crime

In criminology, state crime is activity or failures to act that break the state's own criminal law or public international law. For these purposes, Ross defines a "state" as the elected and appointed officials, the bureaucracy, and the institutions, bodies and organisations comprising the...

, and their institutional background. That is why conspiracy-focused movements (JFK

John F. Kennedy assassination conspiracy theories

There has long been suspicion of a government cover-up of information about the assassination of John F. Kennedy on November 22, 1963. There are also numerous conspiracy theories regarding the assassination that arose soon after his death and continue to be promoted today...

, UFO

UFO conspiracy theory

, 9/11 Truth

9/11 Truth Movement

9/11 Truth movement is a collective name for loosely affiliated organizations and individuals who question the accepted account of the September 11, 2001, attacks....

) are treated far more tolerantly by centers of power than is the norm for serious critical and activist work of truly left-wing progressives who are marginalized from mainstream public discourse.

Marxists

Marxism

, such as the members of the U.S. Party for Socialism and Liberation

Party for Socialism and Liberation

The Party for Socialism and Liberation is a Marxist-Leninist political party in the United States. It was originally created as the result of a split within the ranks of Workers World Party , although their political line is nearly identical. The San Francisco branch as well as several other...

, reject conspiracy theories in general and New World Order conspiracism in particular because it produces false consciousness and cult

Cult

The word cult in current popular usage usually refers to a group whose beliefs or practices are considered abnormal or bizarre. The word originally denoted a system of ritual practices...

ism. They argue:
Marxists conclude that the real solution is something right-wing populist

Right-wing populism

conspiracy theorists would never advocate or contemplate: democratic socialism

Democratic socialism

Democratic socialism is a description used by various socialist movements and organizations to emphasize the democratic character of their political orientation...

.

Concerned that the improvisational millennialism of most conspiracy theories about a New World Order might motivate lone wolves to engage in leaderless resistance

Leaderless resistance

Leaderless resistance, or phantom cell structure, is a political resistance strategy in which small, independent groups , including individuals , challenge an established adversary such as a government. Leaderless resistance can encompass anything from non-violent disruption and civil disobedience...

leading to domestic terrorist incidents

Domestic terrorism in the United States

Domestic terrorism in the United States between 1980 and 2000 consisted of 250 of the 335 incidents confirmed as or suspected to be terrorist acts by the FBI. These 250 attacks are considered domestic by the FBI because they were carried out by U.S...

like the Oklahoma City bombing

Oklahoma City bombing

The Oklahoma City bombing was a terrorist bomb attack on the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building in downtown Oklahoma City on April 19, 1995. It was the most destructive act of terrorism on American soil until the September 11, 2001 attacks. The Oklahoma blast claimed 168 lives, including 19...

, Barkun writes:
Warning of the threat to American democracy posed by right-wing populist

Right-wing populism

movements led by demagogues

Demagogy

Demagogy or demagoguery is a strategy for gaining political power by appealing to the prejudices, emotions, fears, vanities and expectations of the public—typically via impassioned rhetoric and propaganda, and often using nationalist, populist or religious themes...

who mobilize support for mob rule

Ochlocracy

Ochlocracy or mob rule is government by mob or a mass of people, or the intimidation of legitimate authorities.As a pejorative for majoritarianism, it is akin to the Latin phrase mobile vulgus meaning "the fickle crowd", from which the English term "mob" was originally derived in the...

or even a fascist

Fascism

revolution by exploiting the fear of conspiracies, Berlet writes:
Hughes, a professor of religion, warns that no religious idea has greater potential for shaping global politics in profoundly negative ways than "the new world order". He writes in a February 2011 article entitled Revelation, Revolutions, and the Tyrannical New World Order:
Criticisms of New World Order conspiracy theorists also come from within their own community. Despite believing themselves to be "freedom fighters", many right-wing populist conspiracy theorists hold views that are incompatible with their professed libertarianism

Libertarianism

Libertarianism, in the strictest sense, is the political philosophy that holds individual liberty as the basic moral principle of society. In the broadest sense, it is any political philosophy which approximates this view...

, such as dominionism

Dominionism

Dominionism is a term used to describe politically active conservative Christians that are believed to conspire and seek influence or control over secular civil government through political action, especially in the United States, with the goal of either a nation governed by Christians, or a nation...

, white supremacism

White supremacy

, and even eliminationism

Eliminationism

Eliminationism is the belief that one's political opponents are "a cancer on the body politic that must be excised — either by separation from the public at large, through censorship or by outright extermination — in order to protect the purity of the nation"....

. This paradox has led Icke

David Icke

, who argues that Christian Patriots are the only Americans who understand the truth about the New World Order (which he believes is controlled by a race of reptilians

Reptilians

Reptilians are purported reptilian humanoids that play a prominent role in modern ufology and conspiracy theories.-Alien abduction:...

known as the "Babylonian Brotherhood"), to reportedly tell a Christian Patriot group:

Literature

The following is a list of notable published non-fiction books by New World Order conspiracy theorists:

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