Reflections on the Truth Movement Going on 25 Years

Many of us have been awake to corruption, lies and deception in high places for a long time. Conditions for spreading truth have changed and we need to adapt.

I recently attended a gathering that aimed to bring many threads of unofficial narratives and radical truths together into a more coherent vision of the state of the world and the crossroads humanity faces today. I was struck by how many of us have been working in the fields of the Truth movement— studying, researching, writing, speaking, exposing, sometimes even within the system, inside the belly of the beast.

But, also I was struck by how different things are now than they were when we began. We all began at different moments, of course, but 2001 seems a good arbitrary point of reference when many started to fully realize just how far official narratives had drifted from the truth as 9/11 unfolded and the Disclosure Project shook up folks’ perceptions of the world.

It’s a cluster of many related thoughts and questions for which I don’t have answers and which are not easily organized into a sequential narrative, so this column is a basic catch-all for ideas about ways to do this “Truth Biz” thing better and how and why the nature of these endeavors has changed over the past couple of decades.

I hope this column leads to deeper, wider conversations that help us become more effective in our truth-seeking and truth-telling roles.

Without further ado:

1. Censorship on the web and in social media has become more pervasive and sophisticated. E-mails are labeled as spam. Web pages are de-ranked or black-listed on Google and other search engines. Deniable AI algorithm replacements for explicit censorship heuristics only speed up the moving target that is censorship.

2. The public has been more heavily inoculated against “conspiracy theories” (aka “Poisoning the Well” fallacy) and are more resistant to looking at information that contradicts official narratives. “Fact-checking” organizations have short-circuited many away from doing their own research in more meaningful ways.

3. It might be advantageous to structure messaging as social-media-bites with short issue summaries that can be dropped into social media conversations, by all members of the Truth movement community, with a catchy title/graphic/video, concise explanation of the best available info and links to the most solid sources. Working title: “Distrusted News Initiative” (not final title though!) Such “truth bombs” could help those of us “in the trenches” of social media to cover more ground more authoritatively. Social media may be the last best avenue to get information “out there”

4. The community of passionate truth tellers has grown larger and more specialized so that there is less of a role for omni-issue truth telling and more energy for investigators focusing on specific issues.

5. The community of new truth seekers are motivated by painful departures of their lived experience from the official narratives— some form of crisis— be it current events, personal health journeys, mid-life crises, graduating from college (what now!!!???), getting sucked into corruption at work in any number of industries, witnessing political corruption or lawsuits, etc. We want to look at these lived milestones as teachable moments when people are more receptive to and may benefit most from alternative info.

6. Monetary support for truth-seeking and truth-telling work is less than it once was during the dot-com bubble and Obama years.

7. People have less time and money generally to explore and support issues, even when the issues might directly impact their own lives.

8. The big opportunity is to offer people ways to not only KNOW the truth, but to LIVE the truth. Information is the “difference that makes a difference”— delta knowledge AND delta actions! If truth-telling and joining a truth community can be linked to personal life improvements such as access to better health care/knowledge, better financial advice, better career guidance, better family coherence and so on, THEN expansion of the Truth movement is unlimited.

9. The reward for truth investigation, up until now, has often been professional de-licensing, firing and loss of income, loss of business associates and contracts, alienation from friends, family and colleagues. Why would anyone want more of that? What positive reinforcements can we offer for people making an effort to see the world more accurately as it really is?

10. Truth-seeking is not quite as lonely an endeavor as it used to be. There is more possibility for community building within the awakened community.

11. Truth is not tribal. It is neither Red nor Blue, Conservative or Liberal, Republican or Democratic. And yet the “marketplace of ideas” seems to shift contrary to the current power structure. When Bush and Cheney were in the White House and apparently complicit in some of the orchestration of winners and losers for 9/11, the Truth movement seemed to be a little more liberal, progressive, compassionate or radical as a force opposed to the Bush-Cheney camp. During the Obama and Biden years, the Truth movement shifted more to the Red end of the political Spectrum and, as a result, more conservative, traditional, angry and dogmatic in flavor. Those able to make a living in the truth-telling “industry” seem to have aligned with this popular framing, but Trump is now out of step with his MAGA base, so there is a chance another shift of the pendulum is approaching. All that said, the best Truth organizing and Truth journalism should stay independent of such alliances and always pursue only Truth, regardless of political factions of the day.

12. The original “Conspirituality” paper by Ward and Voas in the Journal of Contemporary Religion¹ characterized a movement (which I identify with and call the “Truth movement”) that was a fusion of dark conspiratorial ideas and lighter “new age” spirituality ideas with the former characterizing men in the movement generally and the latter characterizing women in the movement, again very generally. I believe there is a third major category— alternative health— where both halves come together because the existing establishment medical industrial system is extremely corrupt AND alternative health ideas often speak to how thoughts, energy, more yogic diets (spiritual lifestyle) play an often decisive role in health. I believe the Truth movement needs to lead with health information and building community to support healthy lifestyle choices with food co-ops, yoga centers, potlucks, health and medical equipment libraries and more!

13. It may be that, although all three major categories of hidden truths are very important, it could be wise to focus primarily on health and secondarily on spiritual information in the public-facing, initial communications of Truth movement organizations while keeping some of the darker, conspiratorial, power and corruption information for group internal audiences, based on curiosity and progression from entry-level to more advanced topics. There’s also the factor of what people feel called to work on. This info can be difficult to bear and some practice of semi-informed consent makes sense so as not to unduly burden someone with information they can’t do anything about or don’t have the personal resources to deal with.

14. On the other hand, it could make more sense to make entry-level information the public face with more advanced info more private and internal.

15. It might be wise to look at the structures of knowledge within secret societies historically that sought to share information only with those who were ready for it and could use it to serve their cause constructively without doing damage to self. For example, does it make sense to educate someone who’s clinically depressed about reincarnation if it means they end up committing suicide to “start over”? Does it make sense to teach people there may be millions of advanced civilizations in the universe if it means they’ll no longer care about life on Earth as though life on Earth represented the one and only verdant oasis of biology in a vast cosmic wasteland? Some thought on structuring knowledge for newbies, initiates, novices and experts is warranted.

16. Since the “Conspirituality” paper originally appeared in the Journal of Contemporary Religion, I often wonder if, even though I consider my Truth-movement related views to be evidence-based it might make a lot of sense to adopt a conventional religious community structure such as a church or worship center as the container for these pursuits, in spite of the connotation of such organizations being “faith-based”. Religious organizations can start hospitals and universities, provide regular meeting spaces and other facilities, enable networking of like-minded people to solve personal challenges, support congregation members who are having difficulties of one kind or another. Religions can designate diets (Kosher, Halal, non-GMO Organic) that are often accommodated by large businesses and government organizations. Religions can also (maybe) still support exemptions to some medical interventions. Are not all of our investigations into dark conspiracies rooted in a religious/ethical/philosophical commitment to the commandment “Thou Shalt Not Lie”? Isn’t our dedication to better approaches to health and resistance to wars strongly linked to a commitment to the commandment “Thou Shalt Not Kill”? I don’t think it’s much of a stretch at all to look at the Truth Movement as a kind of religion if one isn’t too tied to the notions about Messiahs, the Trinity and so on, but rather the “spiritual” correlates of teachers, consciousness, compassion and such.

This seems a good stopping point for now. What do you think? Please let me know in the comments.

1. The Emergence of Conspirituality. Ward and Voas, The Journal of Contemporary Religion, January 2011 https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/The-Emergence-of-Conspirituality-Ward-Voas/f12ed3d806d52866f34cf1ea672deb0549ecc522 (2) https://www.researchgate.net/publication/232849625_The_Emergence_of_Conspirituality