#624: Mark Dice

A.k.a. John Conner

Mark Dice is an author, “media analyst”, political activist, founder of the group “The Resistance”, and radically attention seeking extreme, hardcore religious fundamentalist conspiracy theorist who tends to spew (a lot of) garbled nonsense about the New World Order and a vast and a largely incompatible array of (mostly Satanic) secret societies, including (but not limited to) the Illuminati, the Bilderberg Group, Skull and Bones, and Bohemian Grove. His favored technique for spreading the word is phone mobbing (“flood the airwaves of call-in radio and television shows”), which does not put him and his followers in a particularly favorable light even with his fellow conspiracy theorists, but Dice is so far removed from this world that he wouldn’t notice (a good example is his anger at Charlie Sheen for not promoting 9/11 conspiracy theories) (if you think Sheen is insane, you’re only proving to Dice that you’re part of the conspiracy and probably a Satanist).

Dice’s first and most well-known book was a 450-page and largely incoherent manifesto, “The Resistance Manifesto,” which consists mainly of unsupported claims, fallacies, rage, confirmation bias and hearsay – the latter being primarily things he has apparently heard himself say; since he trusts himself, this counts as testimony (and since he doesn’t seem to trust anyone else, such testimony is apparently better evidence than anything anyone else might say). The main point of the manifesto is that the Illuminati (“many would say that the illuminati were instrumental in insuring that the 9/11 attacks happened, [and] that they are behind the banking collapse,” which does not constitute evidence even if correct) manipulate political and financial arenas to erode the Constitution and push for a socialist New World (why a secret organization would want a socialist government is anyone’s guess, but you know; socialism is evil, the Illuminati is evil … and so forth. They also promote immorality (e.g. here), selfishness (socialism, you know), materialism, and they purposefully try to keep the population entertained with television to keep them away from politics. They also produce child porn and snuff films (Dice allegedly has evidence that Hunter S. Thompson was a big producer of such), since that’s what socialists do (keep your children away from them), and were behind Occupy Wall Street protests. His other book “The Illuminati: Facts & Fiction” consists primarily if not exclusively of the latter, though Dice does spend some time debunking competing Illuminati conspiracy theories. In particular, he dislikes Dan Brown’s “Angels and Demons” (calling for his followers to “disrupt” its premiere) since it makes the Illuminati idea look like a mere conspiracy theory. Indeed.

Dice is a regular guest on The Alex Jones Show, as well as Coast to Coast AM, and has appeared on various other shows hosted by various delusional conspiracy theorists, such the Sean Hannity Show, Glenn Beck, and Michael Savage. He is also featured in various 9/11 conspiracy documentaries as a reliable source, and his loudness, zeal, persistence and tirelessness in promoting his stuff – making a lot of noise, disrupting events, and pestering people – have managed to garner him some intermittent national attention also without the help of said talkshows – for instance when he attempted to ship DVDs to troops stationed in Iraq to convince them that 9/11 was an inside job (one wonders a little what he wanted them to do with the information). His calls for boycott of VeriChip, claiming that it is the “Mark of the Beast”, received some attention as well, as did his request to have the “Satanic” Georgia Guidestones removed and his call for a boycott of Starbucks because “the Starbucks logo has a naked woman on it with her legs spread like a prostitute.” The socialist Illuminati apparently works in mysterious ways to undermine our civil liberties, but I am sure Dice can connect the dots and get whatever he wants.

Diagnosis: Frothing, hyper-active nonsense factory who could conceivably have done some good if he’d devoted his energy to it (he does have a lot of energy). As it is, his zealous idealism seem to take him toward mindfuck and nowhere in particular. 

#599: Constance Cumbey

Constance Cumbey is a legend among conspiracy theorists, but most famous, perhaps, for having repeatedly accused Texe Marrs and Pat Robertson of stealing from her. In 1983 Cumbey, then a lawyer, published the classic The Hidden Dangers of the Rainbow: The New Age Movement and Our Coming Age of Barbarism, which pretty much launched the Taliban fundie scare of New Age bullshit, and simultaneously lost Cumbey all possible shreds of academic credibility due to its promotion of several marvelously incoherently insane conspiracy theories.

The main feature of the book is the attempt to blame the New Age movement on Benjamin Creme, theosophy, and Nazism, and attempting to portray said movement as an insidious (correct), highly organized (hardly) and unified conspiracy to overthrow the US and replace it with a Nazi regime. The New Age cult’s alleged tenets are ecumenism, holistic health, New Thought, humanistic psychology, Montessori schools, modernism, secular humanism, and zero population growth, and any advocate for any of these is obviously a member of a hierarchically organized cult. Unitarian churches and health food stores are the “New Age recruiting centers,” the Guardian Angels is the New Age movement’s paramilitary organization, and “the New Age Movement has complete identity with the programs of Hitler.” Indeed. (She has a blog where she expands on these issues, but I am not inclined to link to it.)

The prophets are Creme and Alice Bailey, who according to Cumbey founded New Age while awaiting the new “messiah” named Maitreya. Hence, all secular humanists are secretly awaiting Maitreya. According to Cumbey Maitreya is most likely the Antichrist. Others believe Maitreya is an imaginary piece of fluff nurtured in the largely incoherent minds of Benjamin Creme and others of his ilk, but Cumbey doesn’t really have the mental capacity to recognize that people can have false beliefs – New Age beliefs, for instance, aren’t really false on Cumbey’s view; instead they usher in Satan.

Some (random) examples of people who have been inspired by Cumbey and her identification of Maitreya and the Antichrist are

- one Harry Walther, who identifies the Antichrist/Maitreya here (not recommended; the color and font schemes are rather uncomfortable for eyes and mind).

- One Jeffrey K. Radt, who weighs in here.

 - Another one.

- Some people engaged in this rather … disturbing discussion (hey, it’s from Rense.com – what did you expect).

Cumbey has also claimed that the rainbow sticker (for gay rights) was a secret identifier used by New Agers to identify each other. Here’s Cumbey on other religions than her own:

“While there are certain superficial similarities among most religions, orthodox Judaism and Christianity stand in direct opposition to every other belief system. It is safe to say, however, that nearly all non-Judeo-Christian religions are extremely similar because, as the Bible indicates, they come from one source, the ‘god of this world’ – Satan himself.”

Diagnosis: Wailingly insane. She seems to have had a substantial impact on the reason-challenged parts of the fundie universe, though it is unclear whether her lasting influence is detrimental or actually sufficiently self-defeating to end up being overall positive.

#596: Donald Crosby

Donald Crosby (not the philosopher of religion) is a colorful local pastor in the town of Warner Robins, Georgia. He is most famous for getting himself arrested for protesting (disorderly conduct and “excessive noise”) the fact that the local school's mascot is the Demons (in honor of a WWII squadron), saying that the school's demon logo just encourages children to evil: “I don't scare easily. Lock me up as many times as you have to lock me up. Even kill me if you have to. I'm standing up for Jesus.” Now, in all fairness he was arrested on dubious grounds – but there is little doubt that he would benefit from a little help and friendly attention. Apparently he angrily criticized other Christians who, he says, are singing in church while their children are being taught to praise demons: “Demons aren't lazy, Christians are,” he howled, and asserted that the city of Warner Robins must repent for its praising of demons. More here. As for the WWII squadron thing, Crosby responded “A demon never has a good connotation. Never. If you look it up in Webster’s Dictionary, there’s nothing good about a demon.” So that settles it, then.

Diagnosis: Insofar as his immediate surroundings also perceive him as a loon his efforts may be described as harmless and charming; his potential harmful effects would be to draw attention away from the equally bizarre and insidious views held by less overly brash and noisy individuals in positions of more power.

#563: Morris Cerullo

Morris Cerullo is a Pentecostal Christian evangelist and a faith healer of the good old kind. He encourages people with serious illnesses and disabilities to attend his revival meetings so Jesus can heal them (and he can receive well-deserved financial compensation for letting the sick access his Jesus), and uses posters of people leaving wheelchairs and crutches to promote his efforts.

Cerullo was an early champion of the Satanism scare, to the extent that he put up a traveling exhibit dubbed the ”Witchmobile,” in which horrified spectators and frightened children would see on display various occult artifacts used for Satanic rituals, such as astrology items, Ouija boards, and Tarot cards, in order to recognize and combat these nefarious enemies in their ordinary lives. As late as 1999 Cerullo ran an ad in the UK, claiming that ”Satanic hordes” occupy ”principal palaces of power in Europe” (and that homosexuality is an abomination). The campaign was not an unqualified success, particularly since Cerullo’s faith healing campaigns in the UK had previously left a trail of death. Cerullo was subsequently challenged to produce his three best examples of claimed miraculous healings for scrutiny by a panel of doctors. They were not particularly impressed. Cerullo has also been expelled from India after his inability to actually heal people caused a riot (30 000 people apparently showed up to Cerullo’s event, including several disabled people, and Cerullo rather audaciously just declared that they had all been healed, something many of them rather obviously felt was inaccurate).

His evangelical campaigns targeted at the Jewish community have been met with some criticisms as well (Rev Dr Chris Wright, principal of All Nations Christian College, denounced Cerullo's methods as ”spiritually perverted and pastorally disastrous”).

He may be most famous, however, for his stint as an amusement park owner, having got his hands on the PTL Club and Heritage USA amusement park that Jerry Falwell appropriated from Jim Bakker after the latter’s fall from grace. He later lost the park but retained the PTL television network (currently named ”Inspiration” and run by his son David).

Diagnosis: Raving mad, of course, and sufficiently insane to jeopardize his own influence. That, of course, doesn’t scare away the most gullible of the gullible, and he still seems to enjoy a modicum of influence.

#535: Rebecca Brown

A.k.a Ruth Irene Baily (real name)

A legend among fundie conspiracy theorists and a major contributor to the spread of the Satanic panic and the myth of Satanic ritual abuse in the 80s, Rebecca Brown was the author of He Came to Set the Captives Free and Prepare For War, two books – both shown to be entirely fictitious – about a person called Elaine (Edna Elaine Moses) who Brown claimed to have rescued from Satanism. Both books were published by Chick Publications, and Jack Chick’s tracts have made heavy use of them as background sources (Brown and Chick appear to have fallen out somewhat later on).

According to the books Elaine was allegedly a top member of “The Brotherhood” (which has also been covered in the barely coherent writings of Mike Warnke, who will be covered later), who actually got married to Satan himself. To color out her books, Brown argued that Christian churches all over the US was infiltrated by witches, that the Catholic mass and rosary are witchcraft, that she had an encounter with a werewolf, as well as plenty of graphic details of sex orgies. Elaine was, in her role of Satanic high priestess, also involved with rock musicians, and had even met with the pope himself to discuss Satanist strategies. Mildly interesting is also Brown’s warnings against being hypnotized by homosexuals who implant demons in you so that they can astrally project themselves into your bedroom to sodomize you in your sleep. More here.

Brown was of course immediately exposed as a fraud. Edna Elaine Moses was Brown’s roommate the whole time, and Brown, originally an MD, had had her medical license revoked because she had a tendency to misdiagnose patients as “demoniclly possessed”.

But Brown had already acquired her readership, and her later books have continued to sell pretty well. They are mostly concerned with demons and with giving spiritual warfare advice, explaining how that Native American reservations are cursed ground, children's toys are actually statues of demons, most graffiti is made by occultists to evoke demons, citizenship papers of immigrants act as gateways through which hordes of demons from the immigrant’s old country can continue to enter the US, and with her husband Daniel Michael Yoder, who was allegedly born into a “wealthy Jewish family of international bankers” and subjected to Satanic ritual abuse by a cabal of rabbis. Currently Brown and Yoder lead a group called Harvest Warriors, which appears to be a Deliverance Ministry.

Here’s one Steven Arizmendi, a former school teacher, making a fool of himself in the vein of Rebecca Brown.

Diagnosis: Clinically incoherently insane; needs immediate help and has needed it for a long time. She nevertheless manage to sell her incoherent rants to a substantial number of people, some of whom evidently believe her.