The author and her little brother are in 1969 with their family. Sue Muncaster provided the photo.
My brother is a conspiracy theorist.
On his TikTok account, he calls himself an Evolutionary Linguist-Spiritual Warrior Fighting for Human Free Will on Earth. He uses a number of phrases like #zombe, #apocolypse, and #weare. As far as I can tell, the latter is a symbol that often represents interconnectedness and synchronicity, and that encourages individuals to attempt to manifest their intentions and take action to turn their visions into reality. On the surface, it sounds like a good idea, especially as we come out of COVID isolation. We don't want to go back to normal because normal didn't serve us.
In April of last year, my sister-in-law sent me a text to warn me that my brother was going to Idaho to visit my father. I knew he believed that everyone on the planet who received the vaccine would be dead in a few years, but I had no idea of the depth of his beliefs.
Our evening began with him talking about why cryptocurrencies are our only hope and how he had the idea for Amazon before Jeff Bezos did and how he would be the richest man in the world if not for some bad breaks along the way. He referred to the rioters as "we" even though he wasn't at the Capitol.
My brother said that he came to warn you that a lot of shit is going to come out about what has been going on for the past 50 years. You are going to be shocked. All the conspiracy theories, from politics to Big Oil to wars in Afghanistan to Biden not being president, are pulled together. I put the Voice Memos app on my phone and went to the bathroom, but I didn't want him to tell anyone about his plans for violence. The main points he knows with certainty are that the media won't tell us about.
He said that the banking system in the U.S. has already collapsed. They are trying to figure that out. We have been used as food by the elites for 4,000 years. It is about to end. They got rid of the race that was using us. There is a tunnel from Washington, D.C. to LA that takes half an hour on a bullet train. There is a society that lives underground. There is a tunnel all the way around Australia that is being used for human traffickers and organ harvesting. 50 years ago, JFK found out about it, and it took 888-349-8884 888-349-8884 888-349-8884 888-349-8884 888-349-8884 888-349-8884 888-349-8884 888-349-8884 888-349-8884 888-349-8884 888-349-8884 888-349-8884 888-349-8884 888-349-8884 888-349-8884 888-349-8884 888-349-8884 888-349-8884 888-349-8884 888-349-8884 888-349-8884 888-349-8884 888-349-8884 888-349-8884 888-349-8884 888-349-8884 888-349-8884 888-349-8884 888-349-8884 888-349-8884 888-349-8884 888-349-8884 888-349-8884 888-349-8884 888-349-8884 888-349-8884 888-349-8884 888-349-8884 888-349-8884 888-349-8884 888-349-8884 888-349-8884 888-349-8884 888-349-8884 888-349-8884 It is over. The Catholic Church, the military industrial complex and Wall Street have messed with us for the last 200 years.
For the past eight months, I have tried to understand how my little brother, who I think of as highly intelligent, gentle and conscientious, has come to embrace the rest of what he told me and make it his life. I have found myself wondering if I should keep interacting with him.
It is tempting to write my brother's and my neighbors' many conspiracies off as not worthy of taking the time to study. It is likely a fatal mistake to not try to understand.
I have questioned my own beliefs in the process of studying his ideas. I have tried to figure out how big of a threat these conspiracy theories are and where we should focus our efforts to combat them. It is tempting to write my brother and my neighbors off as being too foolish to take the time to study. It is likely a fatal mistake to not try to understand.
I pride myself on finding balance. I am committed to listening to a variety of perspectives and seeking common ground in pursuit of the best solutions as a local politician. As a student of Taoist and Tibetan Buddhism, dealing with my brother has challenged the core principles of compassion, inaction and harmony. He texts me because he loves me and wants to help me wake up before it's too late, but other family members refuse to engage. These videos are taken off the internet before I have time to watch them a second time. I often find myself texting to him, but never to another family member, friend or neighbor. When you snap out of it, you are overcome with shame and sadness for what you have said.
I turned to my knowledge to help me understand the situation, as I was trying to come to grips with the deep division within my family. I have lost my balance between my core values of affection and kindness. My older sister said that I was acting like a viking warrior queen and that I was trying to kill the enemy with words. I was told to turn the mirror on myself and think about the idea that I am the stupid one, the toddler, and who am I to be critical?
I suppose by words is better than the alternative, but to her point, I have agonized over how to write about my experience without violating the core Buddhist commitments to "do no harm" and "take care of one another." I want to save him, but I also want to laugh it off, and I want to slam the door in his face. I want to throw up my hands and not write anything out of fear that I will fuel the national crisis over truth and division.
There is a video of a health care worker begging for people to get vaccinations. The violence that took place on January 6 was re-watched by me. I celebrate Hanukkah with my brother-in-law, whose father was one of 10,000 children on the train from Germany to England, without his parents, in the middle of World War II. If I have learned anything in the past 20 years as a conscientious parent, it is that not addressing possible issues by hiding family secrets can be traumatic and lead to the most dangerous consequences. These incontrovertible truths compel me to speak out now and attempt to use intelligence to cultivate wisdom while expanding my compassion. I hope to use my pain in the eye to create change.
I want to save him, but I also want to laugh it off, and I want to slam the door in his face. I want to throw up my hands and not write anything out of fear that I will fuel the national crisis over truth and division.
Roger Cohen wrote in the New York Times that captive minds resort to conspiracy theories because they are the ultimate refuge of the powerless. If you can't change your life, it's because there's a greater force controlling the world. A basic concept from "The 15 Commitments of Conscious Leadership" by Jim Dethmer, Diana Chapman and Kaley Warner Klemp, who believe humans have three core needs approval, security and control and when a human, has held up throughout my exploration.
The concept of apaltry harvest points to leaders who spread conspiracy theories to their followers. Frank Yeomans, a clinical associate professor of Psychiatry at Cornell University, explained in a series of videos that a person who takes pleasure in both self-aggrandizement and the destruction of others is called a "malignant narcissist". He argued that people like Hitler and Jim Jones appeal to people who feel powerless. Hope and faith are weaponized and vilified by these leaders as the cause of their problems. The bigger the lie, the more people would embrace it. Donald Trump fits this personality profile, terrifying half of us but also emboldening the other half, according to Yeoman.
Conspiracies lend themselves to nationalism and racism when a group is targeted for blame. One of the great attractions of patriotism is it's ability to fulfill our worst wishes. Our nation allows us to bully and cheat. Bully and cheat with a feeling of being profoundly virtuous.
The individuals, politicians, corporations and media celebrities who benefit from their proximity to the narcissist are the people who spread conspiracy theories. They will look past the despicable actions of the narcissist to retain their money, power and status as well as the approval, security and control that comes with it.
The National Rifle Association is an example of this. Ryan Busse spoke about the rise in sales of automatic weapons in his new book, "Gunfight: My Battle Against the Industry that Radicalized America." He said that the idea that fear and conspiracy could be used to drive and win political races, as well as drive record sales of unhealthy firearms was stumbled upon by the NRA. Busse said that after Sept. 11, everything was spun in a hate-filled way. He likened that time to a political pressure cooker where ideas were spread to keep Americans angry. Busse compared himself to a young kid who signed up for war without knowing what war was really about before his enlightenment.
The simplicity principle states that the mind tends to go back to simplicity when pondering the messy complexities of life. In order to make sense of what is happening around us, we rely on survival tactics to help us feel in control of the hand we have been dealt and of the world around us. Our brains see patterns where none exist. When groups are suffering from loss, weakness or disunity, it feels like top- secret knowledge arrived through critical thinking. The idea that we are responsible for our own circumstances, that there are many complex factors at work in any system or culture, or that shit just happens can be difficult to accept if you are a powerful actor behind the chaos.
There may be some truth in many conspiracy theories, and it is these flickers of reality that can keep the flames alive.
There may be some truth in many conspiracy theories, but it is these flickers of reality that can keep the flames alive. The seeds of vaccine resistance can be traced back to the false study published in The Lancet in 1998 by Andrew and his colleagues. His medical license was revoked after his work was later retracted. He is known as the doctor who fooled the world and caused the anti-vaccine movement. The fact that the paper and the medical license of the author of the report were later withdrawn is proof that the pharmaceutical industry was corrupt, and my brother believes that the rise in autism is the fault of the pharmaceutical industry.
In the episode "When You Need It To Be True", host Shankar Vedantam explains the theory of cognitive dissonance, which he says makes it possible for us to live happily in. Human beings will go to extraordinary lengths in order to function mentally when faced with opposing ideas.
Verdantam tells two stories. A group of people from the 1950s called The Seekers quit their jobs, distanced themselves from their loved ones and changed their lifestyles in order to believe they would be saved from worldwide destruction by aliens. The second is a modern-day account of a lonely divorcee who was deceived by an online scammer who promised her the love and acceptance she was craving, even though the deceit was obvious to her friends. The moral of both stories is that if we want something to be true so badly that we make it true, even if it means turning our lives inside out and destroying our families, then we should do that.
In trying to find reliable statistics on how prevalent and dangerous modern conspiracy theories are, I found this mind-blowing figure from Statista that is more frightening than comforting. The isolation brought on by the Pandemic over the last two years has given many people ample time to dig deep and try to make sense of the world, and it is no big news that a person can find proof of virtually anything on the internet. While I watch from afar, hoping my brother will see the light, he seems to double down on hoping I will eventually see the light, even after every zombie apocalypse prediction he makes.
Do we spend our energy in order to stop the spread of misinformation by the middleman? This seems to give them more power. Do we address the societal issues that provide fertile ground for conspiracy theories? When faced with the chaos of modern life and epidemics of depression, anxiety, substance use, political division, isolation and systemic inequalities, one can argue that security, approval and control can only come from within. Can we aspire to a society where there are fewerlosers if conspiracy theories are forlosers?
My brother will be sharing this piece with his TikTok followers as soon as it's published because it explains what many of us cannot understand, which is how so many supersmart people can seem to ignore what is going on.
My brother and I agree that we both want to take the country back from the ground up, even though we no longer operate on the same foundation of facts. He graciously gave me his blessing when I sent him a draft of the essay, and he will be sharing it with his TikTok followers as soon as it is published.
I know that every person has their own interpretations of reality. No matter how smart a person is, they don't see the world as it really is. Every time I speak to my brother or anyone else I disagree with, I remind myself that our views are shaped by our egos. As we emerge from the Pandemic, no one is exempt from having those they love end up believing they are being manipulated by the other. I suppose my New Year's resolution is to be civil and curious and have an open mind. Only with grace and a quest for understanding can we nourish the most basic human needs for approval and security in our families and communities.
Sue Muncaster is a writer. She explores the intentional mental, physical, social and spiritual practices that bring us alive and are characteristic of a values-driven outdoor lifestyle through her platform. She joined the Victor city council last week as a councilmember. She can be found on Facebook and Medium.
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