As a history student in the sixties, and seventies I was often tempted to look for sinister combinations of like-minded individuals, bent on controlling future events.  My professors held that rational people, especially historians, never fell victim to such wayward and unconventional thinking.  However I couldn't resist because I could easily see the persistent collision course of ideas of the "City of God," versus the ideas of the "City of Man," played out in the pages of history.

      Conspiracy theorists have recognized this historical dichotomy as the ideas of the Enlightenment, liberalism, modernism, and neo-paganism, versus the forces of tradition, morality, and religion.  It is what Pat Buchanan called the "culture war" in 1992 at the Republican National Convention in Houston and or what Pope John Paul II called the "culture of death" vs. a "culture of life."  Irish priest, Father Denis Fahey's underscored this idea in his 1935 book, The Mystical Body of Christ in the Modern World, when he wrote that modern world history can be best understood as a cosmic struggle between forces of spiritual truth, and the forces of materialism and subversion.  Unfortunately these opposing forces are irreconcilable.

      I made this the theme of my book, The Scorpion and the Frog: A Natural Conspiracy because it underscores the fact that the conspiracy idea is as vital to the study of history as politics, economics or psychology.  Because of man's fallen human nature, I believe it is the engine that drives history.  A unified conspiracy idea, fueled by a curious mixture of greed, idealism, utopian arrogance, selfishness, and megalomania. is a natural phenomenon that serves as a "Rosette Stone" to explain the historical duality of good versus evil that has plagued mankind for millennia.   These are all human consequences of man's rejection of God in the Book of Genesis.  A true understanding of history is impossible without it.

      The idea of universal brotherhood lies at its core.  It strives to achieve its worldly goal of global unity, the so-called New World Order since the beginning of recorded time.  It strives not just to change the world, but change human nature as well.  It denies God, the fall of man, sin, Revelation, and the redemptive cross and the promise of eternal life with the Judeo-Christian God.

       The evolution of the conspiracy idea dates back to Gnosticism.  Since then it has evolved into other manifestations, preserved and advanced through its worthy gatekeepers, the ever-mysterious Knights Templar, the Illuminati, the Freemasons, Communists, Socialists, Progressives, and finally liberals, who are all involved in the New World Order.  No matter what they have called it, it is the same idea of man calling himself to his full divinity and suzerainty over the entire human race.  It is the same human failing that has motivated powerful men since the time of Alexander the Great, through the modern tyrants of Lenin, Hitler, Stalin, and Mao.  I call this "conspiracy," even though it has been called many other things. 

      The conspiracy idea of history contains all the elements that illuminate the deep-seated battle for the soul of mankind that has characterized history for millennia. "Conspiracy" is more than an idea.  It is a philosophy, a veritable way of life that permeates the very fibers of its advocates' being.  In this respect is a natural conspiracy that causes a knee-jerk reaction in its apostles to every issue of good and evil, just as any doctor's hammer would.  It is an inexorably part of the fabric of mankind that many have chosen to enslave their fellow human beings without even being conscious of their complicity.  It is truly as the allegorical scorpion said to the dazed frog just after he fatally stung him in the neck in the middle of the swollen river, "I did it because it's in me nature!"

      Bill Borst holds a Ph.D. in History from St. Louis University.  He is writer, a baseball historian, a teacher, radio host and more recently a playwright.  He is also the author of the 1999 book, Liberalism: Fatal Consequences.  Both are available @ bbprof@sbcglobal.net.