Virtues: Your Conspiracy Armour
Even within the safe surrounds of a Wombat Hole, the conspiracy world is not one to be entered lightly. The light that is found here, and it certainly is here, is often far from in its purest form, tainted by the dust and dross of misinformation and ego — not to mention an often justified sense of despair emanating from people who have become so enveloped in darkness that they seem to have lost much of their faith in the existence of this light.
You need to protect yourself. But how, and with what?
A lot of people, namely Christians, speak about putting on their ‘armour of God’ in order to keep away the dark forces in the world as they embark in spiritual warfare. This phrase implies that some mysterious force will surround as and protect us if we are being true to ‘God’s Will’. Psalm 91 is an example of this, and you see many people saying the prayer for the protection of themselves and other people.
Ephesians 6 is even more descriptive, and is probably the OG Bible passage for Christian Conspirers due to the worldview of cosmic spiritual warfare it establishes:
“Put on the full armor of God, so that you can take your stand against the devil’s schemes. For our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the powers of this dark world and against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms.” (Ephesians 6: 11-12).
Attributes of the Armour of God from Ephesians 6 (Source)
Now, I have many thoughts on the entity we call God and what it actually stands for. But I am certain that God in the most holistic, divine creator of everything sense does exist, and so I think this concept is valid. And it is certainly not a strictly religious concept, as it can be found in more new-agey spiritual contexts as well. This article is a good example, although is packed with fairly inaccessible jargon and acronyms. This particular quote sums it up best:
“The Armor of God protects those that are heart based and spiritually devoted working for God’s divine plan and highest expression, seeking alignment with truth.”
There are few things I like about this quote. Firstly the idea of being in alignment with truth: that if we are consciously opening ourselves up to what is true, regardless of how uncomfortable it may be, we are receiving automatic protection as we embark on this search. And this is why, in the spirit of searching for truth, I will constantly advocate for people to take the plunge and look into these ‘taboo’ subjects themselves — and, while they are doing so, to constantly re-appraise the outlets from which we might find this truth. As long as we are doing this searching with love (i.e. heart-based), along with sincerity and dedication (i.e. devotion), we have nothing to fear.
But the point stands that ‘Armour of God’ isn’t for everyone. Luckily, I think there is more practical and universal way to understand this armour. That is, as the practice of virtues.
If I was going to isolate the most beneficial aspect about my involvement in religion, and there have been many, it would be my understanding of virtues. Taking children’s virtues classes has probably been the most personally rewarding and objectively good thing I have done in my life, or at least equal with disability support work. Talking about virtues with kids is both genuinely fun and genuinely challenging, because they love it and get it, and are pretty sharp on bringing to light how complex virtues can be.
Virtues are not straight forward. Many virtues have essentially been coopted, and even corrupted, to serve particular social agendas. Humility and loyalty can be employed to keep people subservient and oppressed; forgiveness and forbearance can be manipulated by abusers; kindness and compassion can even be weaponised to restrict uncomfortable opinions. It is easy to superficially or partially advocate for a virtue — let’s say something like justice — while ignoring the more holistic implications of its application. It is also easy to put all our eggs in only a few virtue baskets, while letting ignorance of others undermine our overall spirituality.
So while virtues might seem like kiddies stuff, they are most certainly not. We have to practice. We have to be conscious in how we practice virtues: conscious of virtues that might be relevant in specific situations, conscious of virtues that might be our spiritual weak spots and need extra attention. After all, armour has to maintained, repaired, polished, and then actually put on, before it is effective.
There are many ways to practice. For example, I have my pack of virtues cards (I actually have two sets, weird flex) strewn out in front of my computer as I type. Taking a card randomly can be a really nice spontaneous form of spiritual elevation, and possibly intervention. When doing so, it is worth keeping this advice in mind: the card is either a confirmation or an invitation, but never a condemnation.
But in the end, testing yourself is the best form of practice. Putting yourself in challenging and uncomfortable situations that make you draw on virtues that might be laying dormant and taken for granted. And the world of conspiracy is a true test of our virtues.
With that in mind, here are a few virtues that I think are especially important to have with you in your explorations, to be written about in more detail at a later date.
Humility
I have been faced with regular tests of my capacity for humility as I descended the wombat hole, as both conspiracies and their promoters who I once wrote off as ridiculous have turned out to at least partially represent the truth. I have learnt to adopt the mindset that every theory has the potential to at least be based in a truth, if not representing a more complete version of the truth. Even when it comes to ultimate pariahs of the conspiracy world like Flat Earth (spoiler: the Earth isn’t flat, but I don’t judge people who think it is anymore).
But we may find that the need for humility goes deeper than this. If various sources I consider to be credible are to be believed, we are soon to witness the public arrest and trial of numerous public figures on a range of awful crimes including human trafficking, sexual abuse and even torture, often involving children. We should have a good idea already about what is coming, given what has come out about the NXIVM cult and Jeffery Epstein’s shady shenanigans, with the broader context of the situation coming closer to the mainstream thanks to widely shared online documentaries such as this one.
These are extremely difficult subjects. We may have to deal with the fact that the people committing these crimes, or who were at the least aware of them and seemingly complicit, were at the same time grooming us to look up to them as moral leaders. What’s more — and this might be the real hurdle — the people who could be crucial in the arrest of these criminals may be some of those individuals who we have been conditioned to think of as the moral enemy.
If this does turn out to be true, it will require nothing less than complete humility to accept this truth — to accept that we have been wrong in the people we have placed on pedestals on one hand and demonised on the other — rather than continue to bury our heads in that comfortable, cosy sand. For those who have been claiming this to be true for a while, who have been laughed at and called crazy conspiracy theorists — well, if it does come true, they might have the biggest test of humility out of everyone to not rub our faces back in that sand.
Compassion
Compassion flows directly from humility. If you approach a conspiracy from a humble mindset, and you find that it is basically rubbish, you still have a test in how you view those that continue to subscribe to it. Do you automatically place yourself above them in an intellectual or moral sense, or do you maintain a compassionate mindset and seek to understand why they believe it.
If we go back again to Flat Earth, I can understand why people come to the conclusion that the world is flat. These people have had their worlds turned upside down by the lies and deceit that exists all around us, so who is to blame them for extending this to something fairly harmless like the the shape of the Earth. Plus, NASA was founded by Nazis (true story), so they aren’t an entirely trustworthy source.
And even if the world was flat (again, can I reiterate, I’m almost as certain as I can be about anything that it isn’t), does this really influence what our main focus should be in showing love to one another and making our world and whatever level of curvature it has a better place to live? In my opinion no, and so a person’s views on this issue are hardly relevant in a spiritual sense.
Discernment
Not the most sexy or feel-good virtue perhaps, but one of the most underrated, especially in this environment. There is information everywhere, and it comes in many, often unreliable forms. Your BS detector must be finely tuned.
Relying most on those who demonstrate virtuousness — including but not limited to humility and compassion — is a good starting point. You will be astonished to find just how many humble, big-hearted people there are putting forward conspiracies you once thought to be the product of unhinged lunacy. I’m not saying the presence of these virtues in a person means that they are always right, but the ones you can trust most are generally the ones who admit they may not be right.
On the other side, there are many people who less theorise and more assert their own worldview on you. They have a certainty and confidence that can be incredibly persuasive and convincing, admittedly because it often comes from being right on many unpopular things over a sustained period of time. But that doesn’t mean they have always been right, and will continue to be right, because truth submits to no ego, regardless of how well developed it might be. They are all playing the virtues test, just like you and I are.
Faith
If I had to choose one virtue that is the most essential to maintain throughout it all, it is faith. Faith that good will overcome evil, that a divine force is always present, even in the most dark of places.
Because logic can only get you so far in the conspiracy world. In the end, the amount of information out there and the simple impossibility of discerning the genuineness of every person and every theory means there are some things you just have to take on faith.
You have to choose to believe in things that align with your understanding of the world, of humanity, of the nature of existence. And whether or not you have developed your capacity for faith can determine whether you let the darkness consume you, or whether you let it amplify the light that is the belief in the existence of an underlying sense of order, of justice, of divinity, of virtuousness, that exists unconditionally everywhere and in everyone.