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I think parent is talking about the mindset or way of thinking that leads to revisionist history/conspiracy theory/etc. And saying that this mindset doesn't hav

I think parent is talking about the mindset or way of thinking that leads to revisionist history/conspiracy theory/etc. And saying that this mindset doesn't have much actually to do with the specific details of any given object/plotline (e.g. the Nazca lines). It's more of a self-reinforcing worldview, that there is a Story, that everything is significant in the story, everything points to everything else, and nothing means what appears on the surface. The novel Foucault's Pendulum is a book about this mindset; the Illuminatus! trilogy is too in a way, though it's more experiential than descriptive. There are a few non-fiction books, though I'm blanking on the key author's name. For a very contemporary non-fiction (albeit opinionated) take see A Game Designer's Analysis of QAnon https://medium.com/curiouserinstitute/a-game-designers-analysis-of-qanon-580972548be5 https://medium.com/curiouserinstitute/a-game-designers-analy...

hackingthelema 5y ago
> There are a few non-fiction books, though I'm blanking on the key author's name. I don't know if he is who you had in mind, but Robert Anton Wilson -- who was one of the writers on the Illuminatus! trilogy -- has at least two non-fiction books on it. One is Prometheus Rising, the other is Quantum Psychology: How Brain Software Programs You and Your World. They are both a series of essays with exercises at the end of each chapter. If I remember correctly, Quantum Psychology was more about language and semantics, and Prometheus Rising was more about belief systems and viewpoints. Quantum Psychology is both written in and a guide to E-Prime, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/E-Prime https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/E-Prime (Edit, via wiki: 'E-Prime refers to a version of the English language that excludes all forms of the verb to be, including all conjugations, contractions and archaic forms. Some scholars advocate using E-Prime as a device to clarify thinking and strengthen writing.')
- b3morales 5y ago
  Thank you, not the person I was thinking of but that's an excellent point-out. I had two books in mind that I was completely misremembering as by the same author. In fact they are by two different journalists. The United States of Paranoia and Voodoo Histories: The Role of the Conspiracy Theory in Shaping Modern History.

hackingthelema 5y ago

> There are a few non-fiction books, though I'm blanking on the key author's name. I don't know if he is who you had in mind, but Robert Anton Wilson -- who was one of the writers on the Illuminatus! trilogy -- has at least two non-fiction books on it. One is Prometheus Rising, the other is Quantum Psychology: How Brain Software Programs You and Your World. They are both a series of essays with exercises at the end of each chapter. If I remember correctly, Quantum Psychology was more about language and semantics, and Prometheus Rising was more about belief systems and viewpoints. Quantum Psychology is both written in and a guide to E-Prime, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/E-Prime https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/E-Prime (Edit, via wiki: 'E-Prime refers to a version of the English language that excludes all forms of the verb to be, including all conjugations, contractions and archaic forms. Some scholars advocate using E-Prime as a device to clarify thinking and strengthen writing.')

b3morales 5y ago
Thank you, not the person I was thinking of but that's an excellent point-out. I had two books in mind that I was completely misremembering as by the same author. In fact they are by two different journalists. The United States of Paranoia and Voodoo Histories: The Role of the Conspiracy Theory in Shaping Modern History.