As a child in Jamaica, I was fascinated by “duppy stories.” Listening to these spine tingling tales, I imagined a world full of eerie possibilities, where the living and the dead frequently interacted. And when I was about 7 years old, I decided to explore this world for myself.
At the time, I was living on Molynes Road in Kingston with a family named Martin. My parents, who then lived in rural Manchester, had sent me to the city so I could go to “a good school.”
The house where I was staying was a short distance from Half Way Tree Parish Church, which had a very spooky graveyard. And late one night, I sneaked out of bed and walked to the graveyard in hopes of seeing a ghost. Standing among the tombstones, I looked up at the trees waving in the wind and casting dark shadows against the pale sky. I closed my eyes and prayed, “Dear God, if there’s such a thing as a ghost let me see one when I open my eyes.”
There was no ghost when I opened my eyes, just the trees and the shadows and the silent tombstones. Disappointed, I headed home.
To this day, I am still hoping for some occult manifestation to break the monotony of real life, but the closest I have come was one night at Munro College after the generator had shut down, when I saw a boy walking toward me as I went to the bathroom. The “boy” turned out to be my own image – apparently converted to a mirage by the moonlight, a window pane and the wet tiles.
I recalled these anticlimactic experiences this morning while reading an elaborate treatise on the web about “The Illuminati.” a secret power elite that has been supposedly running the world for generations. Obviously, I don’t know whether there’s any truth to the story, as I have no access to the circles in which these families are said to move. But on the face of it, the theory seems preposterous.
I am prepared to believe that some very rich people might conspire to control international events to their benefit, and I know that powerful statesmen sometimes meet in secret to set mutual goals. But my mind balks at the suggestion that the Freemasons are somehow involved in a conspiracy to conquer and enslave mankind.
In the treatise I found on the web, a writer named Wes Penre warns:
The top Masons on this planet are planning on terminating you together with most of the remaining population, until only about 500 million people remain.
Two granduncles and several other male relatives were Freemasons, and they were also devout Christians. In fact, one granduncle was an Anglican archdeacon, the other was the canon at Half Way Tree Parish Church. So I refuse to believe the Masons are planning anything so un-Christian.
Furthermore, I cannot conceive of educated and enlightened people, which the Illuminati are supposed to be, involving themselves in black magic and Satan worship. Yet, Wes claims:
The elite that controls the societies and the Illuminati are occultists and black magicians. They say their God is Lucifer, “The Light Bearer”, and by occult practices they manipulate and influence the masses….
From the occult, science, mind control and intelligence have developed. By taking over the movie industry, the record companies, and by their control of the fine arts, they know how to influence the teenagers to dance to their tune and accept their kind of reality…. If you doubt it, just look at what influence the modern music has on the kids; it’s not uplifting and doesn’t have love and compassion as its end product. It promotes darkness, not light.
I thought of the Illuminati when I opened the Huffington Post’s “daily briefing” this morning and read their review of a new book called “The Shadow Elite” by Janine Wedel. Arianna Huffington hails it as “a gripping book that explains why it’s been so hard to bring about any real change in America.”
“Fingers have been pointed at everything from gerrymandering to partisan polarization to the misuse of the filibuster,” Arianna says. “But, according to Wedel, the real problem is much deeper and more disturbing: a ‘transnational’ class of elites that has rigged the system so they can ‘institutionalize their subversion of it.’ ”
That sounds a lot like the Illuminati, but Ms. Wedel’s theory is disappointingly prosaic. The villains in her conspiracy are folks like Robert Rubin and retired General Barry McCaffrey. You probably recognize their names because the media rely on them for elucidation all the time despite – as Ms. Wedel points out – their blatant conflicts of interest.
What no Lucifer? No black magic? No secret meetings to plan the “depopulation” of the world? What kind of “shadow elite” is that? As conspiracy theories go, you might find it more entertaining to read Wes Penre’s piece at:
www.illuminati-news.com/moriah.htm
But, remember, it’s probably just another “duppy story.”