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Paranoia 32, Spring 2003.
Published by Paranoia, PO Box 1041, Providence, RI 02901, USA. 64pp.
A4ish. Available in the UK from good bookshops or Counter Productions,
cost about £3.50 / £4.00
To those who have never seen a copy of Paranoia, think Nexus without
the (pseudo-) science and health articles, think Lobster crossed with
von Daniken, think Conspiracy with a capital "C". You might then be in
the right sort of area.
Emanating from the USA Paranoia has been going for about 10 years and
is an entertaining mixture of the plausible with the risible, with an
emphasis, in this issue, on earth catastrophes, in particular those
which could have been caused by near misses with long-periodicity
asteroids / comets / planets. Boyd Rice discusses the connections
between the gods and water via the Book of Enoch and Rennes-le-Chateau;
William Patrick Bourne looks at accounts of the Chinese "Guest Star" of
1054AD and Andy Lloyd covers the Dead Sea Scrolls and the Planet
Nibiru. As one might expect the spectre of Zaccharia Sitchen is never
far from these discussions. How much credence one places on these
stories and the modern interpretations of them is up to the reader. A
more sceptical take on ancient legends is provided by Acharya S.'s
"Jesus the Globetrotter - The Myth of the Lost Years" which takes a
swipe at legends associating the character with places as diverse as
Japan, Tibet, India and Glastonbury - but which is still capable of
some daft comments such as the plausibility of Jewish tin miners in
Cornwall due to Israelite neighbours, the Phoenicians, having had some
apparent contact in pre-Roman times.
More contemporary issues tackled include Len Bracken's case for a
possible view of the 9-11 events as being a form of state terrorism.;
Michael A. Hoffman's look at the "Washington Snipers" case from 2002
with suggestions of mind control and occult imagery and James John
Bell's summary of the formation and plans for the USA Office of
Homeland Security. No magazine of Conspiracy would be complete without
an excerpt from Mary Bennett and David Percy's case for some (at least)
of the NASA Apollo Moon mission photos being faked up, and Scott
Corales deals with another old chestnut - Freemasonry - although this
is a more sober look at the role Freemasonry played in 19th century
Latin American and Spanish politics.
There's also a section of news snippets and that's about it. If you
enjoy exploring some of the wilder shores of Lake Conspiracy then this
is as good a way there is. A major criticism would be the tendency for
authors to uncritically use material from other "marginal" writers as
building blocks in their own arguments. So if at a future stage some
sources are shown to be worthless then whole swathes of
conspiratorial and revisionist writing will collapse with them. (Well
they should anyway!) As ever, check the facts and the arguments and the
logic throughout, if nothing else it's a good way of honing your
scepticism.
Richard Alexander