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Sunday, November 3, 2013

Groupname for Grapejuice on RAW's theories on conspiracies

Groupname for Grapejuice is a blog that covers the occult, James Joyce, conspiracies and other topics that might be of interest to RAW fans. It typically runs long, well-crafted, erudite essays with many illustrations. I would guess that sombunall RAW fans would enjoy it — probably many. PQ has called it his favorite blog. It is written by "znore," about whom I know nothing. The name of the blog comes from a passage in Finnegans Wake.

As I alluded to yesterday, the latest post takes a Robert Anton Wilson essay as its starting point, and is named "Retangling the Spaghetti Theory of Conspiracy 1," implying that the post might have a sequel. It argues against the proposition that there is a single conspiracy controlling everything and also argues against the idea that there aren't many conspiracies out there, instead arguing a middle way that there are many conspiracies hatched by the power elite.

znore draws from several books in discussing the Power Elite; I wondered if he had run across a book by Charles Murray, Coming Apart: The State of White America 1960-2010, which is purportedly about the working class but which also offers much information about what Murray terms the new elite, one that is based upon obtaining university educations at elite institutions. In Murray's telling, the elite are not so much about power, although that's part of it, but leading the good life apart from the hoi polloi.  Murray posits a small elite in American society; znore seems to be talking about an even smaller international elite.

The most interesting part of znore's essay, for me, was his theory that one motivation for the leaks of government secrets by Julian Assange and Edward Snowden is to accelerate the SNAFU effect — to make communication between functionaries in the elite's agencies of control even more difficult because paranoia over the leaks prompts a clampdown that impedes communication even further.

Hat tip, Manic Doodlings on Twitter.

Unconnected to the above, I really liked znore's piece on the Holy Grail.

Here's what PQ wrote about Groupname for Grapejuice: "I've got a new favorite blog and, as you can probably ascertain from reading this space, it's a weird one. Entitled Groupname for Grapejuice (a phrase from Finnegans Wake), this blog uses a mix of comparative mythology, occult knowledge, numerology, and some subjective free association to engage in what I can only call synchronicity detective work. The process might rankle the corduroys of the average skeptical rational materialists, but for me, having often indulged in this kind creative associative detective work myself, it's a delight to read. If you any interest in Finnegans Wake, synchronicity, numerology, Kabbalah, or conspiracy theories, then I can't recommend this blog highly enough. While the synchro-knots revealed can be a little scary sometimes, it's a good kind of scary, the kind that shakes up your world view, forcing you to reorganize your reality tunnel. Healthy mental exercise. Robert Anton Wilson would've loved it."





3 comments:

Ronald Pottol said...

The snafu effect was part of what Assange was up to, according to his earlier statements.

Cleveland Okie (Tom Jackson) said...

Ronald,

Citation?

znore said...

Thanks for the great review (also to PQ!) I have not read Coming Apart but I'll definitely look out for it. I also appreciate your tireless work here. One of the best stops around.