By Nathaniel Allison
Editor’s note: The opinions expressed here are those of the authors. View more opinions on ScoonTV
The boundary between the mainstream and the fringe no longer exists. Prior to the 1990s, true believers in conspiracies used to be outcasts on the edge of society. Mainly located in anti-government, Christian fundamentalist, counter-cultural, and occultist groups. Not anymore; Conspiracy Culture is mainstream. Forbidden Knowledge became a commodity to be trademarked and sold.
America went through extreme changes in cultural sensibility over the 1960s-1970s. Esoterica became big business. Commercial forces saw this new revenue stream and began promoting occultism and parapsychology. A number of TV shows and films featuring occult powers began popping up. The media of the 1970s was saturated with the supernatural.
Conspiracies continued to grow. The popularity grew even more with the birth of the Internet. Many of these fringe elements started joining virtual communities centered around these topics. Audiences were hungry for content of all things UFOs, the New World Order and the apocalypse. You started seeing Mass Market paperbacks of conspiracies pop up at bookstores, and the rise of conspiracy-themed films and documentaries at your local video store. You grew up watching shows like X-Files, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Charmed, and Sabrina the Teenage Witch, etc.; and films like JFK, Conspiracy Theorist, and The Matrix.
The Internet became a place for a growing counter-cultural online community. Aside from being an informational space, the Internet became a communication tool that allows the user to experiment with constructing new identities. Online-role playing games have become another venue for the occult. The Internet is a place where you hire someone to read your Tarot, or have a personal exorcism over Zoom.
When an individual becomes interested in any one of these topics, they’re quickly introduced to the unified field that is stigmatized knowledge. You seek info on UFOs and you’re led down various other rabbit holes like free energy, anti-gravity, Atlantis, subterranean installations, etc. Conspiracism is embedded with a philosophy that teaches how to interpret the world. It’s a worldview geared toward locating and identifying the true sources of malevolent power in the world; illuminating the previously hidden. The Conspirators tend to be referred to as Masters of the Universe types; people who are often a part of a shadow government, some kind of deep state actor.
If you go deep enough Conspiracy Culture can drive you to the edge of despair. Many of these “rabbit holes” are mental dead ends. You enter a world of hidden machinations and endless deception. It fosters a growth of gloomy paranoia that will eventually lead to a hopeless pessimism. The conspiracy itself can ultimately become an invincible adversary. It’s the abyss that looks back into you. A New World Disorder.
Keep in mind the term “Conspiracy Theorist” was originally weaponized by the CIA to label critics of JFK’s assassination as irrational crackpots. The CIA’s Frank Wisner said they have a metaphorical instrument called the “Mighty Wurlitzer” that can be used to play any propaganda tune and the public will dance. If they tried discrediting a few individuals with conspiratorial thinking, they’d definitely inject the worldview into entire groups with actual grievances.
BEHOLD A DARK HORSE
“Illuminati want my mind, soul and my body / Secret society, tryna keep they eye on me / But I’m a stay incogni’ in places they can’t find me / Make my moves strategically” – Prodigy of Mobb Deep
The Hip-Hop community’s long-standing suspicion of power structures was ripe to manipulate with manufactured culture. The studio executives knew marketing conspiratorial themes would be highly lucrative. From Big L becoming the “Devil’s Son,” to Jay-Z and Kanye throwin’ up Roc Nation diamond hand signs, to the entire genre of horror-core – with groups like Three Six Mafia, Gravediggaz, and Insane Clown Posse – Hip-Hop was ready to embrace occultism. You’ll find dozens of YouTube videos just about decoding the occult symbolism in Kendrick Lamar’s Super Bowl performance. Doja Cat and Lil Nas X recently embraced this blood-drenched aesthetic.
Hip Hop’s favorite conspiracy salesman is Milton William “Bill” Cooper. The author of the infamous conspiracy gospel Behold A Pale Horse, a 500 page tome published in 1991. Rappers who’ve mentioned Cooper or his book include Public Enemy, Nas, Mobb Deep’s Prodigy, Wu-Tang Clan, Rakim, Goodie Mob, Everlast, Poor Righteous Teachers, Gang Starr, Tragedy Khadafi, Boogiemonsters, Ab-Soul, Killarmy, Killah Priest, Hell Razah, Ill Bill, Vinnie Paz, Rass Kass, Murs, Talib Kweli, etc. Even Louis Farrakhan was a fan.
Behold a Pale Horse is a cornerstone of conspiracy culture, not just an exposé of hidden truths of a New World Order. The book fused occult intrigue with political rebellion. It was a compendium of alleged top-secret documents proving government manipulation. This includes extraterrestrial involvement, the Illuminati creating a one-world government, and the manipulation of society through events like the JFK assassination and AIDS epidemic. Cooper acted as Gnostic prophet figure revealing knowledge, putting the reader into a quasi-religious quest for enlightenment. He claimed to be giving the ignorant “Sheeple” eyes to see. The book’s title, drawn from Revelation 6:8 (“And I looked, and behold a pale horse: and his name that sat on him was Death”), throws you into the apocalyptic tradition. Cooper framed UFOs, Illuminati, and the like as an end-time struggle. The reader becomes an initiate in the cosmic battle of good vs evil.
Mark Jacobson, author of Pale Horse Rider, notes that the book was popular on street corners in Harlem and especially among black inmates in New York prisons like Attica and Sing Sing. This nexus of his popularity between prison culture and street culture influenced the artists that would further amplify his ideas.
Jacobson notes that Prodigy of Mobb Deep told him he read it six times; He also told him that “William Cooper wrote what everyone kind of knew. For many in the black community, it was common knowledge that the CIA was bringing dope into the ghetto to further enslave the people. What was the big surprise that, as Cooper claimed, AIDS had been whipped up in a test tube at Fort Detrick (home to MKUltra) as a plan to wipe out Africa? The fact that Cooper was a former naval intelligence officer, a big fat white guy who lived in Arizona, only made it all the more believable.”
Jacobson also talks about how Wu-Tang Clan’s Ol’ Dirty Bastard was famously spotted reading the book, and would weave its themes of secret societies and government control into the group. Rappers and producers began seeding Cooper’s ideas into their lyrics. Jay-Z blew it up even further adding the Prodigy “Illuminati wants my mind, soul, and my body” quote to his 1996 Reasonable Doubt album. Jacobson said Prodigy told him the first place he learned of the Illuminati was in Cooper’s book Behold A Pale Horse.
White Boy Cooper became a bit of a folk hero in the black community at that time. You had Steve Cokley, activist and political researcher-street speaker, holding up a copy of his book during presentations on CointelPro as validation for his suspicions. Subcultures of the disenfranchised are inherently drawn to conspiracy theories and anti-establishment ideas. It wasn’t just criminals and black radicals who were drawn to Cooper; It also spoke to right-wing white militia types.
It was Cooper’s obsession with the New World Order that really spoke to the fringe elements of the patriot movements. The Guardian described Cooper’s book as “the manifesto to the militia movement” just before the Terry Nichols’ 1997 Oklahoma City bombing trial. Timothy McVeigh, the other perpetrator of the Oklahoma City Bombing, was an avid listener of Cooper’s shortwave radio program – The Hour of the Time. He even ordered a cassette from Cooper that pushed a conspiracy theory about the 1993 Waco siege, which Cooper claimed was the start of a new civil war. In late 1994, just prior to the bombing, Cooper issued a “call to arms,” telling his listeners that militias should be ready to “fight a war” within six months. After the bombing, he urged his listeners to acquire “bullets and guns,” further intensifying his anti-government rhetoric. For a while Behold a Pale Horse was a sacred text for the white militia movement.
The author Mark Jacobson accurately calls Cooper the “P.T. Barnum of Dread.” Other’s have called him a “kook’s kook.” The author Jim Keith thought he was just another Mirage Man acting as an official disinformer to subvert legitimate discourse. This same shtick is utilized by Alex Jones. He mimics Cooper’s style of turning paranoia into performance – where persona matters more than proof. The weaponization of fear and insider credibility has turned into a profitable, attention-grabbing money machine. This influence persists in modern conspiracy circles like QAnon.
Behold The Pale Horse was a cultural catalyst. It didn’t just influence specific subcultures like Hip-Hop or militia movements, it bridged the gap between fringe beliefs and mainstream paranoia. It provided a template for how hidden truths could be packaged and sold to a mass audience. It played a pivotal role in shaping the intersection of occultism, conspiracy, and alternative spirituality.
THE CULTURE OF OCCULTURE
Occulture is when the magical, the esoteric, and the occult bleed out into mainstream popular culture. The Occult is usually defined as something being hidden or concealed, but is also referred to as something arcane; A restricted knowledge hidden from society. Worldviews like Hermeticism, Gnosticism, neo-Pythagoreanism, etc., are associated with this type of mystical Occultism.
This specific magical way of understanding the occult can be traced to the Renaissance – particularly from Henry Cornelius Agrippa to Giordano Bruno. It was around the nineteenth century that you can see the considerable impact these ideas had on contemporary culture. You began to see the emergence of a subculture of secret societies led by enlightened and illuminated teachers. They teach their disciples knowledge through secret initiations and rituals. These societies were oriented to deciphering concealed symbolism and acquiring salvific knowledge.
This Occulture movement began to gain foothold in the 20th century with the birth of many New Age spiritualities, goddess spirituality, eco-spirituality, esoteric Christianity, shamanism, and things like the human potential movement. Extreme right-wing politics and radical environmentalism are also examples of this. From ideas of lost civilizations to UFOs and alien intelligence; from practices like magick, channeling, astral projection, scrying, palm reading, tarot, numerology, etc., are all mainstream now. This was the emergence of an occultic milieu that now saturates our lives.
This is a type of system designed for the individual. It’s not a worldview specifically, but a pick-and-choose buffet where any ingredient can be integrated into your belief system willy-nilly. It’s a belief system that’s dictated by personal taste and desire. We now live in a world where a left-wing peace-loving Hippie can have much in common with a neo-Nazi Satanist. Occulture is supposed to offer an alternative to the sterility of the modern world. A way to overcome materialism and oppressive hierarchies. Personal transformation through forbidden insight.
In our secular age, Pop Culture morphed into a religious text. Look at a film like Star Wars. You have certain die-hard fans who’ll imitate religious devotees. They will have a strict adherence to the canon, reverence for the lore, an intense emotional fervor for its sacred relics and artifacts, pilgrimages to Star War conventions, the urge to proselytize and convert new people into the fandom, and most importantly it allows for the formation of a communal identity that mirrors real-world religious practices.
The narrative of Star Wars draws heavily from Joseph Campbell’s work on comparative mythology. Campbell also worked on the 1970 Stanford Research Institute report, The Changing Images of Man, providing a framework for how new, resonant mythologies can emerge and fulfill a spiritual need in a modern, secular world where traditional religious imagery might be losing its power. The report was concerned with how humans see themselves, and how that shapes their culture. The report said traditional religion was becoming less effective, and that we needed to create myths and narratives to provide individuals with a new sense of meaning, a new moral compass, and a new path for personal development – which in retrospect Star Wars seemed to accomplish.
A GLITCH IN THE MATRIX
“The simulacrum now hides, not the truth, but the fact that there is none, that is to say, the continuation of Nothingness.” – Jean Baudrillard
We live in what the philosopher Jean Baudrillard called the desert of the real, a void where true reality has been replaced. A place where reality gets replaced by a simulated copy, what he calls simulacrum. It’s when a fictional model of something fictional becomes reality. This is where the distinction between true and false disappears. As that distinction dissolves, so does meaning itself. Disney World is an example he uses of a simulacrum. America has also created its own version.
The simulacrum can become so detached from any original that it becomes its own reality. What Baudrillard calls hyperreal – it’s when simulation and reality become indistinguishable from each other. It gives the illusion of meaning but it replaces the real. This facade creates emptiness; It’s where meaning gets replaced by nothingness. This is an emptiness that becomes easily hidden by the spectacle of the hyperreal. We’re stuck in a system constructed as an exaggerated and curated version of life. It causes us to dissociate from the emptiness. Apathy reigns supreme. While we’re distracted and fooled, authenticity has eroded into a wasteland.
Curtis Scoon is the founder of ScoonTv.com Download the ScoonTv App to join our weekly livestream every Tuesday @ 8pm EST! Support true independent media. Become a VIP member www.scoontv.com/vip-signup/ and download the ScoonTv App from your App Store.
