Craig DiLouie is the author of Paranoia, a psychological thriller based on conspiracy theories and published in trade paperback by Salvo Press--available nationwide in bookstores, BarnesandNoble.com, Amazon.com and direct from the publisher. For more information, visit the Paranoia Web site. ©2001, Craig DiLouie. Permission to publish this article as a whole or in excerpts is granted on a non-exclusive, probono basis to all printed and electronic media, so long as it is not edited to substantially change its content and/or meaning.

While I was writing Paranoia, many of my friends wondered why I was interested in conspiracy theories. They are fringe territory in American culture. Strangely, while "conspiracy theories" are for "crazy people," many of my friends also believe that various conspiracy theories are true. While I'm not a conspiracy theorist, I have always been fascinated by them--introduced to alternative histories by a friend living in Santa Fe; Robert Anton Wilson and Robert Shea's Illuminatus trilogy; and Umberto Eco's Foucault's Pendulum. Conspiracy theories contain a certain power, and those who treat them as a casual belief, hobby or lifestyle collectively function a bit like a secret society themselves, with various degrees of initiation into the deeper mysteries. After some exploration my imagination, "Okay, what if all of this were true? And what if an average Joe, a non-believer, suddenly got proof that the biggest conspiracy theory of all were true?"

In researching Paranoia, I learned a lot not only about conspiracy theories, but also the culture surrounding them, a culture that has seeped into the mainstream culture in the past few decades, including the paranoid '60s and the conspiracy theory-rich '90s, which probably had more conspiracies per capita than any previous decade. Interestingly, this has led to "conspiracy theories," which mainstream people think are craziness, and individual conspiracy theories, which many mainstream people believe are true. And while I still do not believe conspiracy theories (although a good amount are plausible), I found a new respect for conspiracy theorists. These are people with their eyes wide open. They may see too much or imagine seeing things at times, but they are vigilant about civil liberties and challenge complacent Americans to question their media-framed beliefs about government and the world. The result in Paranoia is an attempt to introduce this culture, illustrate the seductive power that conspiracy theories have, and frame the debate over whether they are credible or craziness—all packaged within a taught thriller with plenty of revelations, twists and surprises. In this article, we will examine these same issues fairly.

Both conspiracies and conspiracy theories have always existed in history. Benjamin Disraeli, the Prime Minister of England, said to Parliament in 1856:

It is useless to deny, because it is impossible to conceal, that a great part of Europe--the whole of Italy and France and a great portion of Germany, to say nothing of other countries--is covered with a network of … secret societies . . . They do not want constitutional government . . . They want to change the tenure of land, to drive out the present owners of the soil and to put an end to ecclesiastical establishments.

President Woodrow Wilson wrote in 1913:

Some of the biggest men in the United States, in the field of commerce and manufacture, are afraid of somebody, are afraid of something. They know there is a power somewhere so organized, so subtle, so watchful, so interlocked, so complete, so pervasive that they had better not speak above their breath when they speak in condemnation of it.

At all times in human history, people have gathered in secret societies and conspired to commit crimes and acts of evil, going back to Adam and Eve, who decided to eat the apple and keep it from God. The American Revolution was the result of conspiracy to rebel against the British Crown. Watergate, Iran-Contra, abortion clinic bombings, the Lincoln assassination and major terrorists attacks in the past few years were all the product of conspiracies. Conspiracies are so common, in fact, that there should be wacko theorists making Web sites that reveal "rare coincidences that just plain happen." Meanwhile, at all times in human history, other people have theorized that secret societies and conspiracies were the root cause of calamities and other current events. The most ambitious linked different theories into a Plan passed down from one generation of secret society members to the next--a Plan that will be culminated in their control of the world.

Today, in the communication age, people have much greater access to information, particularly via the Internet, the world's greatest public access channel. Therefore it is much easier to discover, share and promote conspiracy theories and expand them to include more current events. Like everything else in our society, conspiracy theories have become hyper-accelerated--every time a major figure dies, or a major event happens, conspiracy theorists are there to point out the connections and explain what happened in sinister terms. Although the Internet is free speech at its best, what we have gained in quantity, perhaps we have lost in quality--anybody with anything to say can build a web site and say it, and it carries some credibility precisely because it is published.

The result is noise. One could argue that with so much noise, with so many theories, conspiracy theory itself loses more credibility even while real conspiracies may actually be happening. Conspiracy theories have become so accelerated that the theorists are the boy who cried wolf. Investigative journalists, once considered something of conspiracy theorists themselves, are continuously taking themselves more seriously and conspiracy theories less seriously, and now deride them in print. Stories about alleged connections between the CIA and the crack epidemic are met with open hostility and ridicule by the media (although the Director of the CIA took them seriously enough to hold a televised town meeting with LA residents). Plots to take over the government are met with laughter.