All The Caveats

It has been thus for centuries, not just the last few years - that people claiming to be 'Satanists' form either secret groups, or less secret ones though still inclined to be secretive.

Now their clear-cut direction is to counter often hide-bound institutionalized doctrine and dogma in a society, basically by deliberate transgression of all the taboos of those hide-bound doctrinal systems. If such groups have written manifestos, they usually even outright announce this is what they are doing: 'God doesn't exist,' 'let's have a black mass and do everything backwards and upside down,' 'let's have a lot of sex...' 'Let's break the rules...' Whatever...

Alex Jones outside of the Bilderberger's one time. He's
a big strong man. Some people say he's 'controlled opposition.'
He's not. He's one big strong tough guy.

In modern popular conspiracy theory therefore, you have the symbolism of the 'all-seeing eye,' '666,' and various other presumed or proclaimed 'Lucifer/Satan' symbolism - and regardless of what actual real technical definitions learned people can find for the words and the terms themselves, we all have a rough enough idea of what people generally intend to mean - and these symbols are seen everywhere especially anywhere that someone is being marketed as 'successful.' 

I know - as do you - a number of self-identifying atheists, and those I know for the most part are among the least underhanded people I know!

When you get up into the circles of the big money successful people, the whole scene is littered with fairy tales of one side accusing the other of 'being in league with the Devil,' or maybe even being the Devil himself - as in the case for example, of the LA music producer Dr Luke. Of course, these identities do nothing to dissuade people from thinking along these lines anyway; it's good for the profile, good for business, and serves to scare enough of the credulous away so that they can indeed dominate the scene like a demon!

There were FBI uncovered cases of fraud and blackmail and drugging, going on many years ago, by the family of the late Baby Doc Duvalier extorting money from the wives of prominent New York people. So you have different types of 'sinister' themes in upper levels of society - there is the manipulative that is more to do with marketing, and then there is the extortionate much more actively aggressive type of thing too.

Neither of them are activities necessarily pursued by people who actually believe in anything 'unseen but yet preternaturally powerful.'

James Sherwood bespoke tailoring

There are atheists who have rational skepticism and thus 'don't believe things they cannot self-demonstrate adequately.'

With our modern scientific knowledge we can consider things like Palinopsia (lingering optical after-image), and certain disorders of the fusiform gyrus some of which provoke dysfunctional perceptions about people and objects, others of which make the sufferer actually feel what the other person they are looking at appears to be feeling. There are studies clearly demonstrating placebo and nocebo effects.

Scientifically one is able to make many discriminating assessments about observed cause and effect.

We don't need to ascribe all that many unusual things to 'Jinns' or 'demons!' Anymore...

Well, though alas I suppose, because this has severely cut our opportunities to find employment as 'exorcists.' lol 

But while I am going to tell you that Katy Perry is not 'in the Illuminati' - at least not any kind of Illuminati you need to be all that worried about - there are nonetheless people who self-declare one thing on the surface (for instance, that they are atheists; don't believe in god), and behind a veil they absolutely do believe in unseen powers, powers that they intend to exploit for their own benefit and advantage over you. The FBI has such things on file, and so do many other agencies that gather quiet intelligence on what people do behind closed doors.

Just recently the senior judges in the UK raised a lot of objection when it was proposed that their robes and regalia should be updated. If you want to find a real 'Illuminati' secret cadre doing weird bizarre things, you need look not much further than say Ede & Ravenscroft in London, where they make judges' robes and regalia. It's all a bit like Milich's shop in EWS, really.

New designs for UK judges' robes

Do any of those people actually believe they can engage with hidden, unseen, and quite sinister forces and powers by doing strange peculiar rituals, using special magical words, and chanting? I mean they actually do those things, but do they seriously believe in some kind of unseen realm that genuinely exists?

Now.... If I had been listening to and transcribing - because you know, machines can't do it, especially not things like interpreting English idiom and accent - endless 'tapes' of intercepted behind-closed-doors talk for hours and hours on end, well I would tell you things you simply would not believe. And even we have to sit back and consult top line psychologists who, despite all their advice about how ritual, especially religious ritual, engages exactly those parts of the fusiform gyrus where neural disorders and dysfunctions are to be located that involve hallucinatory experiences - well we have to consult these guys just to check ourselves that we haven't all run away with the plate into the forest ourselves sometimes! 'Taking a run in the forest' is a phrase in some Eastern European places which means you have taken leave of your senses.

Later tonight, here, something more fun, and less dour and dismal in outlook.