The CIA just put a spotlight on a conspiracy theory classic that was found on the bookshelf of Osama bin Laden.

Let me explain: After the death of Osama bin Laden was announced the news was followed by revelations including dispatches about the volumes the world’s most wanted man kept on his bookshelf. Here’s the New York Times from 2015…

But it was the list of books found in Bin Laden’s compound that garnered the most interest Wednesday. The Office of the Director of National Intelligence, which managed the release, seized on Bin Laden’s reading list to promote it, titling the web page listing all the now-public material “Bin Laden’s Bookshelf.”

Some of the books would be familiar to anyone interested in global affairs, such as “Obama’s Wars,” by Bob Woodward; “The Rise and Fall of the Great Powers,” by Paul Kennedy; and “Imperial Hubris,” by Michael Scheuer, the former official who once ran the Central Intelligence Agency’s Bin Laden desk.

Other titles hinted at a paranoid worldview fostered by conspiracy theory classics such as “Bloodlines of the Illuminati,” by Fritz Springmeier, and “The Secrets of the Federal Reserve,” by Eustace Mullins, a Holocaust denier.

On July 30 the fringiest fringes of my alt news network started to buzz with the news that the CIA had actually uploaded Springmeier’s book which claims that the cultural elites in every powerful position in the world are blood relations, and that the age of monarchy never ended. We can’t ask OBL for a book review, but the conspirosphere is counting the upload as confirmation of the bloodlines theory by the agency.

Read Springmeier’s book or download it at the CIA site. Check out the rest of that NYT article here.

Stories like this fascinate me for a lot of reasons. Conspiracy theories are often proven true, and all expression that doesn’t harm or threaten anyone else should always be championed in a democracy. Conspiracy theories are also part of our cultural mythology and they often say a lot more about who we actually are than the commercially weaponized images reflected to us in the mainstream media.

Springmeier is as earnest as he is scattered and self righteous in this video from the Global Science Conference in Tampa, FL back in 1997. Springmeier’s lecture is entitled The Biggest Story – Undetectable Mind Control. Enjoy…

Please subscribe to my YouTube channel where I archive all of the videos I curate at Insomnia. Click here to check out more book posts.

This week: California’s mayor bullies bullies, That ain’t no Yeti. Uri Geller…sigh, German Cat slinging, HR Dieder…too soon?, Florida: the endless story machine, plus much more.

Personnel – Kim Monaghan, Frater Isla, and Joe Nolan

Links

• CA Mayor to Bullying Victims: “Grow a Pair” Link
• Is Yeti a Bear? – Link
• Uri Geller’s Spoon Gorilla Link
• German Cat-Weapons of the Middle Ages – Link
• Goodbye HR Giger – Link
• FLORIDA WATCH: Representative Says Common Core Program Makes Kids Gay Link
• McScary – LinkLink
• The Case of the Parisian Penis Rooster – Link
• Best Speech Ever – Link

Musick

Serge Gainsbourg

Apologies for the lateness of this show, I (The Ken) have been ill.

This week: The Big Dog is off the chain, yeah that’s right, Ken’s hosting again. That’s really all you need to know….no?…ok, this week we discuss The latest activistprank from the Yes Men, New moons and hipsters, Hack your face!, Kim’s analogue dream tape, Stuff, The weirdness of Mandella’s interpreter, Brazilian football is Smash TV, Nintendo gayness, and Florida’s cache of medieval weapons.

Personnel – Kim Monaghan, Frater Isla, and Ken Eakins

Links to your soul

• The Yes Men Prank Homeland Security Link
• New moon rising – Link
• URME Prosthetic Surveilance Hacking! – Link
• Cassette Tapes are Back! Link
• I would. – Link
• Mandella interpreter is a fucking oddball – Link
• Brazilian Futbol Fan Killed by Toilet Link
• Gaytendo – Link
• Cache of Medieval weapons discovered in a coffin in Florida – Link

Interlude:

These disturbed wannabes – Link

This week: Our glorious leader Ken is once again unable to reach the epic levels of fitness, and mental agility needed to traverse the rocky rhetoric that is CCN, however, the others are…so, that’s good I guess. Anyway, this week they discuss: Catzilla!, Red Spain, Protestaganda, Lots of stuff about books to look intelligent, authors capitalising on our fascination with Florida, Magickal Magicky Magick, and the death of a legend!

Personnel – Joe Nolan, Frater Isla, and Kim Monaghan

Links:

• Catzilla – Link
• Spanish Mayor’s Communist Utopia Link
• ABQ Mayor Bullshits About Protest Link
• Isla Beaten to the Punch: Author Writes Florida Book Link
• Ewok Sex Den Link
• This year’s Oddest Book Title of the Year Award Link
• Jack Parson’s and Marjorie Cameron’s New Book Link
• RIP Oderus Ungerus – Link

Musique

Sospetto – Agente D’oriente

This week: Isla promos the homo..wait, I fancy some human heads with my Ramen, Ken has that sinking feeling, The Bible: the gift that keeps giving, Isla’s Florida report, Crowd-sourcing the cure for cancer, and those crazy Aztecs and their manuscripts.

Personnel – Frater Isla, Kim Monaghan, Roejen Razorwire and Ken Eakins

Linkydinks

• 8 US States with “No Promo Homo” Policies Link
• Get some Human heads in your belly Link
• Fucking Sinkholes in the UK now! Link
• More Down Home Bible Based Madness – Link
• 55 Bodies Uncovered at Florida’s ‘School of Terror’ Link
• Another Zombie Attack in Florida Link
• Man Sets Apartment Fire after Being Told to Stop Masturbating Link
• Is There A Female Comms Expert ? – Link
• Voynich manuscript decoded Link

Stay Awake!

Please subscribe to my YouTube channel where I archive all of the videos I curate at Insomnia. Click here to check out more Podcasts.

One of the weirdest cult music movies of all time, Space is the Place (1974) is a fictional film written by Joshua Smith and composer, poet, keyboardist and cosmic philosopher Sun Ra.

Born Herman Poole Blount in Birmingham, Alabama in 1914, Ra’s music ultimately found him following his muse all over the country from Chicago to Florida to Philadelphia, New York and beyond. In 1937, in a deep state of prayer, Ra claimed that he even took a trip to Saturn. According to the Wiki:

… my whole body changed into something else. I could see through myself. And I went up … I wasn’t in human form … I landed on a planet that I identified as Saturn … they teleported me and I was down on [a] stage with them. They wanted to talk with me. They had one little antenna on each ear. A little antenna over each eye. They talked to me. They told me to stop [attending college] because there was going to be great trouble in schools … the world was going into complete chaos … I would speak [through music], and the world would listen. That’s what they told me.

Following his vision, Ra took to his music with a fanatical devotion. It was a commitment he shared with the various incarnations of his band the Arkestra. The group often lived together communally and grew to include as many as 30 musicians, singers and dancers.

In 1973, Ra was appointed Artist in Residence at the University of California, Berkeley where he taught a course entitled “The Black Man in the Cosmos.” The reading list for the class included the works of Madame Blavatsky and Henry Dumas, the Tibetan Book of the Dead and assorted titles exploring Egyptian hieroglyphs, African-American folklore, and other topics. It was during his time at Berkeley that Ra met film producer Jim Newman who approached Ra about making a film based on his lectures at the university.

Space is the Place is a musical of sorts that mixes sci-fi time travel tropes with a Seventh Seal-esque struggle for the fate of the black race, pitting Ra against the evil Overseer in a winner-take-all card game. Of course, Ra is also chased by hapless, white government agents who try to kill him.

Featuring vintage performances of Ra and band in their heyday, the film’s Afro-Utopian themes provide an entertaining primer to both Ra’s cosmic poetry and his intergalactic world view.

Please subscribe to my YouTube channel where I archive all of the videos I curate at Insomnia. Click here to check out more music posts.

Like something out of a Charles Fort compendium, a huge sinkhole opened under the bedroom of a Florida man just before midnight on February 28, effectively swallowing the entire room and everything – and everyone – in it. The family responded when it sounded like a car had crashed into the back of the house. Check out the video

Stay Awake!