Did you know? • Freemasonry's first American lodge included a young Benjamin Franklin among its members. • The Knights Templar began as impoverished warrior monks then evolved into bankers. • Groom Lake, Dreamland, Homey Airport, Paradise Ranch, The Farm, Watertown Strip, Red Square, “The Box,” are all names for Area 51. An indispensable guide, Cults, Conspiracies, and Secret Societies connects the dots and sets the record straight on a host of greedy gurus and murderous messiahs, crepuscular cabals and suspicious coincidences. Some topics are familiar—the Kennedy assassinations, the Bilderberg Group, the Illuminati, the People's Temple and Heaven's Gate—and some surprising, like Oulipo, a select group of intellectuals who created wild formulas for creating literary masterpieces, and the Chauffeurs, an eighteenth-century society of French home invaders, who set fire to their victims' feet.

Startling allegations. Suppressed evidence. Missing witnesses. Assassinations. Cover-ups and threats. Documented connections to even deeper intrigue. Allusions to the New World Order. Coincidences? Too many to be mere coincidence? American history is replete with warnings of hidden plots by the Illuminati, the Freemasons, the Zionists, the Roman Catholics, the Communists, World Bankers, the Secret Government, and Extra-Terrestrial Invaders, to name a few. Separating fact from fiction, this compelling work provides gripping details and presents the information without bias, including hundreds of individuals, organizations, and events where official claims and standard explanations of actions and events remain shrouded in mystery. Conspiracies and Secret Societies: The Complete Dossier examines the most common subjects among conspiracy theorists, from historical topics such as the true relationship between Jesus and Mary Magdalene, the Roswell UFO crash, and the assassinations of John F. Kennedy and Martin Luther King Jr. to more current issues such as the death of Princess Diana, FEMA’s response following hurricane Katrina, and the recent earthquake and tsunami in Japan.

Entering the world of conspiracy theories and secret societies is like stepping into a distant, parallel universe where the laws of physics have completely changed: black means white, up is down, and if you want to understand what’s really going on, you need a good reference book. That’s where Conspiracy Theories & Secret Societies For Dummies comes in. Whether you’re a skeptic or a true believer, this fascinating guide, packed with the latest information, walks you through some of the most infamous conspiracy theories — such as Area 51 and the assassination of JFK — and introduces you to such mysterious organizations as the Freemasons, the Ninjas, the Mafia, and Rosicrucians. This behind-the-curtain guide helps you separate fact from fiction and helps you the global impact of these mysterious events and groups on our modern world. Discover how to: Test a conspiracy theory Spot a sinister secret society Assess the Internet’s role in fueling conspiracy theories Explore world domination schemes Evaluate 9/11 conspiracy theories Figure out who “they” are Grasp the model on which conspiracy theories are built Figure out whether what “everybody knows” is true Distinguish on assassination brotherhood from another Understand why there’s no such thing as a “lone assassin” Why do hot dogs come in packages of ten, while buns come in eight-packs? Everybody knows its a conspiracy, right? Find out in Conspiracy Theories & Secret Societies For Dummies.

Provides a behind-the-scenes glimpse into the world's most notorious secret societies, chronicling their origins, history, initiations, rituals, beliefs, activities, secret signs, members, and influence.

After much investigation, Ziolkowski reinforces Umberto Eco's notion that the most powerful secret, the magnetic center of conspiracy fiction, is in fact "a secret without content."

From “Birthers” who claim that Barack Obama was not born in the United States to counter-jihadists who believe that the Constitution is in imminent danger of being replaced with Sharia law, conspiratorial beliefs have become an increasingly common feature of our public discourse. In this deeply researched, fascinating exploration of the ideas and rhetoric that have animated extreme, mostly right-wing movements throughout American history, Arthur Goldwag reveals the disturbing pattern of fear-mongering and demagoguery that runs through the American grain. The New Hate takes readers on a surprising, often shocking, sometimes bizarrely amusing tour through the swamps of nativism, racism, and paranoid speculations about money that have long thrived on the American fringe. Goldwag shows us the parallels between the hysteria about the Illuminati that wracked the new American Republic in the 1790s and the McCarthyism that roiled the 1950s, and he discusses the similarities between the anti–New Deal forces of the 1930s and the Tea Party movement today. He traces Henry Ford’s anti-Semitism and the John Birch Society’s “Insiders” back to the notorious Protocols of the Elders of Zion, and he relates white supremacist nightmares about racial pollution to nineteenth-century fears of papal plots. “The most salient feature of what I have come to call the New Hate,” Goldwag writes, “is its sameness across time and space. The most depressing thing about the demagogues who tirelessly exploit it—in pamphlets and books and partisan newspapers two centuries ago, on Web sites, electronic social networks, and twenty-four-hour cable news today—is how much alike they all turn out to be.”

With his recent best-selling books and hundreds of articles, as well as radio and TV appearances, Philip Gardiner has started a crusade for uncovering the truth, and nothing could be more indicative of that search than his latest foray into the dark and often sinister world of secret societies. Yet again, Gardiner finds himself on a journey across the world to uncover the ancient secrets of the world’s most powerful men. In one dramatic episode he finds himself driven out of Berlin in a black Mercedes by a secret organization that was believed to have disappeared after the second World War and eventually arrives in a modern Nazi watering hole. Gardiner, however, survives this incredible journey and brings us the secrets of the Order held sacred for so long. Gardiner delves into a world that is often hidden from our eyes and finds himself in situations that seem to mirror the fictional world of the Da Vinci Code. Throughout Secret Societies, Gardiner: —Uncovers an ancient secret society thought to have died out many years ago. —Gets to the core of the secret societies’ belief systems. —Explores the secret origins of Freemasonry and the links to secret Serpent Cults. —Investigates the secret hidden meaning of King Arthur and Robin Hood. —Examines the claimants to the name of Illuminati, and analyzes the history of the group in Europe and America. —Reveals the secret links within the Vatican and the Nazi Party. —Looks in-depth at the white-powdered gold theory supposedly kept secret by orders throughout time and radically re-appraises it. —Shows the link between the so-called enlightenment experience and the control of our minds. Nobody in the genre involves themselves in the tale in the same way that Gardiner does, and here he shows that the search for ultimate truth can often be a terrifying one.