Bruce Wayne, Clark Kent and Peter Parker: Superheroes Need Anonymity, Not Me

In which I drop the shield of my anonymous nom de plume and reclaim my authenticity.

What’s in a name? Why did I adopt “Martin Truther” as my nom de plume?

We sometimes call the universe “creation” and there can be little doubt that some form of a “creator” exists. Whether or not we ascribe anthropomorphized consciousness to the creative principle, it at least exists as what poet Dylan Thomas called “the force that through the green fuse drives the grass”. Some will insist on a capital-C Creator indicating a divine presence while others simply want to acknowledge whatever tickle of the cosmic sinuses gave rise to the inexplicably immense sneeze we’ve come to call the Big Bang. Capitalization of scientific theories is not currently settled grammar, but, perhaps a capitalized “Big Bang” is an appropriately ambiguous term that people anywhere on the agnostic spectrum can relate to.

Whatever we think about the creative principle or Creator, if you will, it can be argued that if it has consciousness, that consciousness is best revealed in its created works, aka reality. One definition of truth is “that which exists”. In my inquiries into spirituality, I’ve come to view the natural physical world, the universe, as the primary scripture of my faith and I revere the natural universe in a way I suppose has a great deal in common with how many presently and historically have revered the holy scriptures of the religious faiths. When I am alone in nature or when I look up into the night sky and contemplate the Milky Way, Andromeda, the Moon and planets, it tends to remind me of when I visited Trinity College in Dublin with my younger son and we viewed the Book of Kells, an illuminated manuscript of the Gospels from about the 9th century.

When, in 2009, I took the name of Martin Truther as my nom de plume, pen name or “screen name” (anything but “pseudonym”, please), it was, for me, an amusing twist on Martin Luther’s name and a nod to the 9/11 Truthers who represented the most prominent example of heretical inquiry at the time. I’d been reading widely about topics our culture tends to eschew and come up with a list of things that Mother Culture (to borrow Daniel Quinn’s term) tells us that, sad to say, ain’t necessarily so. I felt quite passionate about these topics— a mix of righteous indignation at being lied to by Mother Culture and a Promethean fervor to help correct the ills of the world by spreading truth. I imagined a modern-day Martin Luther would, instead of nailing his theses to the church door (I love that post!) would, instead, turn to social media and post his theses on Twitter or Facebook (as they were called then).

But Mother Culture has an immune system that attacks ideas that challenge its orthodoxy. If I take the name “Truther”, writer Thomas Kay comes out with a book “Among the Truthers” superficially ridiculing Truthers who questioned the official 9/11 story without ever examining the evidence or inconsistencies in the 9/11 commission’s report. When I became enamored of the metaphor from The Matrix and called my website the Red Pill Guide¹ in 2013, I had no idea right wingers would co-opt the term and make it synonymous with antisemitism, misogyny and other unsavory views. When I read Ward and Voas’s “The Emergence of Conspirituality”² and found that I identified with the combination of (some) ideas from new age spirituality and (some) from the realm of conspiracy theory, little did I know that a podcast by that name would later come along not to promote conspirituality but to malign it and anyone who shared views associated with it. There is much straw-manning of Conspirituality, by which I mean that detractors often ascribe views to it that aren’t actually shared by many of us who otherwise might want to call ourselves conspiritualists.

Names exist not so much in a settled tome like the Oxford English Dictionary, but rather in a battleground or a comic book war between good and evil where the meanings of names are contested and continuously shift away from their original intended meanings toward more cynical and conflicted connotations over time. Those of us who would chase truth are required to traverse a chasm of misunderstanding by jumping from one section of a crumbling bridge to another, then another and another like a character in the Marvel universe action movie.

Nonetheless, I am loathe to let people get away with stealing the meanings of some of my favorite terms. For me, “truther” will always mean one who is dedicated to seeking truth. For me, “red pill” will always mean the choice to pursue truth, in spite of hardships, instead of settling for comfortable mis-truths. For me, “conspirituality” will always mean the courageous, disciplined and persistent seeking of truth in all aspects of life (and afterlife) combined with the integrity to do the work needed to live according to the truths one has grasped, to the best of one’s ability. I am stalwart in all of that. In much the same vein, I refuse to concede the name of Christian to people who despise the poor for being lazy or the name of Patriot to people who would violate others’ constitutional rights to impose their sense of order on a world they don’t even understand.

Ultimately, “truth” is a journey, not a destination. If reality itself is our scripture, we cannot hope to ever finish reading it. I can buy a shipping container of books apparently thinking that as long as I own books I haven’t read yet, I cannot die, but the Faustian goal of knowing all there is to know is simply not attainable for us mortals.

My journey in truth will inevitably be different from your journey in truth. Sometimes we have to turn ourselves around in cul-de-sacs. Sometimes our ideological GPS virtually shouts “Rerouting!” or “Return to the route!” But as long as we keep moving, stay curious and pay attention to the universe as we encounter it, nothing is wasted. There is no “wrong turn in Albuquerque”.

My journey in truth has encompassed many topics that seem to defy all my attempts to herd them into a coherent whole. My articles range from the philosophical to the political, from inventions aimed at sustainability to events aimed at reconciliation of families and friends. I don’t expect anyone will want to read everything I’ve written, but I rather hope everyone might find something they’d like in the collection— some design that agrees with their aesthetics, some plan that seems worthy of execution, some dream that resonates with their own sojourns in the dreamtime or some prayer that aligns with their hopes for the world.

But today, at this particular switchback on the trail, my integrity demands that I drop the shield against Mother Culture’s immune system that having a nom de plume afforded me and just be myself, proudly owning my journey and my words in a way that everyone can see and letting people call me by my true name or my given name if they choose.

Why now? There is an African proverb that says, “If you want to go fast go alone. If you want to go far go together.” After many years of seeking, in which I valued going fast, and therefore alone, I am now wanting to go further. I am now wanting to go together with other kindred spirits and share journeys with others in my life.

Yours truly,

Marc Baber
Eugene Oregon
March 19, 2025

P.S. While we’re on the subject of superheros and anonymity (I swear I wrote this article before I saw this scene)

1. https://web.archive.org/web/20130906192950/http://redpillguide.com/

2. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conspirituality