#1242: Jay Weidner

Some time after the death of legendary filmmaker Stanley Kubrick, people started, with the help of an array of well-known tools such as pareidolia, confirmation bias, selection bias and motivated reasoning, to find a variety of esoteric images (from circles to triangles) and connections in his films, and a variety of conspiracy theories, from the ridiculous to the unhinged, has predictably appeared.

Among the most prominent promoters of Stanley Kubrick-related conspiracies is Jay Weidner, called by Wired Magazine an “authority on the hermetic and alchemical traditions,” “erudite conspiracy hunter,” and “considered to be a ‘modern-day Indiana Jones’ for his ongoing worldwide quests to find clues to mankind’s spiritual destiny via ancient societies and artifacts.” At least Jesse Ventura and History Channel treat him as an authority, and the latter featured him as such in their “documentary” on The Lost Book of Nostradamus and as a producer in Nostradamus 2012. But he remains most famous for his Kubrick-related work. Notably, Weidner argues that Kubrick was hired to direct the fake Apollo moon landing and for some reason hid a coded confession in The Shining (featured in his documentaries here, and here - he actually takes endorsement by David Icke to be a selling point). The clues are, suffice to say, pretty weak (the Grady twins resemble the Gemini sign, the typewritten “All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy” should be read as “A-11” rather than “All”, and there is a scene where Danny wears an “Apollo-11 USA” shirt). Weidner did, however, make an appearance in the entertainingly stupid Room 237.

At the core of the Kubrick conspiracies is of course the idea that Kubrick was part of a Freemason-Illuminati conspiracy and devoted his film career to hide clues of its existence in his films (the purpose of that remains abundantly unclear). Eventually the Illuminati decided he had crossed the line with his final film Eyes Wide Shut (for apparently exploring trauma-based mind control) and went on to assassinate him (here, for instance).

Weidner is also the co-author of The Mysteries of the Great Cross of Hendaye (that would be this item); Alchemy and the End of Time, and A Monument to the End of Time (with Vincent Bridges), as well as a contributor to the book The Mystery of 2012 (Sounds True).

Diagnosis: Although a monstrously delusional conspiracy theorist, Weidner is a decent craftsman and is able to make even the most egregious bullshit sound plausible to the weak of mind. As such he has managed to garner quite a bit of an audience for his ridiculous claims. Worth keeping an eye on.