The Disinformation Company

The work of right-wing loud-mouth conspiracy celebrity Alex Jones, including a number of documentaries, like Endgame: Blueprint for Global Enslavement and New World Order, and his book The Answer to 1984 Is 1776, were distributed and or published by Satanist and Crowleyite Richard Metzger’s Disinformation Company, a company that connects technopagans and transhumanists. Metzger was the host of the TV show Disinformation, the Disinformation Company and its website Disinfo.com, featuring the tagline “everything you know is wrong,” that focuses on current affairs titles and seeks to expose alleged conspiracy theories, occultism, politics, news oddities and purported disinformation.

Metzger admits that from an early age he identified himself as a “warlock,” and that, “through a careful study of [Kenneth] Anger’s work and through this influence, in part, I continued to move towards combining my career ambitions of working in film, television and publishing with my private magical interests.”^[1] Anger, the notorious producer of Crowley-inspired underground films, was the key figure around which swirled the network of Laurel Canyon musicians, occultists, and members the Manson Family and the Church of Satan. Ultimately, Meztger considers the Disinformation Company to be a “magick business,” and explains:

Magick—defined by Aleister Crowley as the art and science of causing change in conformity with will—has always been the vital core of all of the projects we undertake at The Disinformation Company. Whether via our website, publishing activities or our TV series, the idea of being able to influence reality in some beneficial way is what drives our activities. I’ve always considered The Disinformation Company Ltd. and our various activities to constitute a very complex spell.^[2]

In addition to Alex Jones, the Disinformation Company has also been responsible for a number of apparently establishment-critical or conspiracy-inclined documentaries, such Outfoxed: Rupert Murdoch’s War on Journalism (2004), Uncovered: The Whole Truth About the Iraq War (2004), Bush Family Fortunes: The Best Democracy Money Can Buy (directed by Greg Palast), Wal-Mart: The High Cost of Low Price (2005), Iraq for Sale: The War Profiteers (2006), Slacker Uprising (a movie of Michael Moore’s tour of colleges in swing states during the 2004 election, as well as 9/11: Press for Truth (2006), 9/11 Mysteries (2006).

Disinformation, also known as Disinfo Nation, was a television show hosted by Metzger, which aired for two seasons on Channel 4’s late night “4Later” programming block in the UK. The sixteen 30-minute episodes produced for C4 were then cut down to four one-hour “specials,” intended for the Sci Fi Channel in America, but never aired due to their controversial content. Those four shows have subsequently been released on a DVD, with a second bonus disc presenting highlights of DisinfoCon, a twelve-hour event held in 2000, featuring Metzger, and a host of occult celebrities, including Marilyn Manson, Kenneth Anger, painter Joe Coleman, Douglas Rushkoff, Mark Pesce, Grant Morrison, Robert Anton Wilson, Todd Brendan Fahey and others.

The bizarre irony is that, Disinformation seems to produce just that: disinformation. A telling example is Metzger’s interview on Disinfo Nation of Ted Gunderson, a former FBI agent who is known for his investigations of a secret and widespread network of groups in the US who kidnap children and subject them to Satanic ritual abuse and human sacrifice. However, Metzger’s “documentary” is obviously a mockery, in the Discordian style of “humor,” and the playing of both sides typical of Robert Anton Wilson. Gunderson’s focus has been on abuse within the CIA and military establishment, and he mentions that southern California is a pivotal area of Satanic cult activity. However, although Meztger’s documentary claims to be a “deep and undercover look” at the “shadowy figures” in Satanism today, he juxtaposes Gunderson’s comments by reporting on a pitiful group of bumpkin Satanist wannabes.

Metzger’s video recalls a similar piece of disinformation produced by Britain’s Channel 4 in 1992, titled “Beyond Belief,” which purported to provide evidence of Satanic ritual abuse (SRA). The show was hosted by Andrew Boyd, an active opponent of SRA and author of Blasphemous Rumours, a book on the topic. “Beyond Belief” featured references to both law enforcement agencies and the opinions of medical experts, as well as an interview with the now debunked cult survivor “Jennifer” who claimed to have been part of the group which made the video.

Footage included obscene rituals involving a hooded man having ritual symbols carved into his flesh, a naked woman tied up and raped, and an apparent abortion on another restrained and possibly drugged woman. Another scene shows a young teenaged girl tied up and involved in a violent sexual act. These sequences are inter-posed with shots of explicit sex, human skulls and Satanic symbols.

However, the footage turned out to have been that of an experimental film created slightly less than a decade earlier by Genesis P-Orridge’s, Thee Temple ov Psychick Youth (TOPY), founded by Genesis P-Orridge, who are the forefront of technopaganism that underlies the philosophy of transhumanism. TOPY are an offshoot of the Illuminates of Thanateros, a society devoted to the practice of chaos magic, to which belonged Robert Anton Wilson, Timothy Leary and William S. Burroughs, who was a friend of P-Orridge.

Additionally, the footage itself had been partially funded during the 1980s by Channel 4, used previously as part of a program on experimental British cinema, and as an element of various performances by associated bands including P-Orridge’s experimental band Psychick TV.^[3]

The Book of Lies

In 2003, Metzger put together The Book of Lies, named after Aleister Crowley’s book of the same name. Subtitled The Disinformation Guide to Magick and the Occult, the book is an anthology of occultism that features almost the entire pantheon of its modern-day exponents, from Discrodians, technopagans to transhumanists. They include Robert Anton Wilson, Terence McKenna, Hakim Bey, Gary Lachman, Mark Pesce, Genesis P-Orridge, Phil Hine, Erik Davis, Daniel Pinchbeck, Tracy Twyman, and T. Allen Greenfield. According to the book’s description:

Disinformation’s “wicked warlock” Richard Metzger gathers an unprecedented cabal of modern occultists, magicians, and forward thinkers in this large format Disinformation Guide. Just as Russ Kick’s Guides focusing on secrets and lies from the mainstream media, government, and other establishment institutions rethought what a political science book could look like and whom it would appeal to, Book of Lies redefines occult anthologies, packaging and presenting a huge array of magical essays for a pop culture audience.

The book features “Leary and Crowley,” an excerpt from Robert Anton Wilson’s Cosmic Trigger, and “Tryptamine Hallucinogens and Consciousness” by Terrence McKenna. Included is an article on Hitler and the occult, from an interview with Peter Levenda by Tracy Twyman. The book features several articles on Aleister Crowley, as well as the first ever biographical essay on Marjorie Cameron, and Richard Metzger’s “The Crying of Liber 49: Jack Parsons Antichrist Superstar.”

Peter Lamborn Wilson, aka Hakim Bey, the founder of the Moorish Orthodox Church, contributed an article titled “Secret of the Assassins.” Bey has also written on the alleged connections between Sufism and ancient Celtic culture, technology and Luddism, Amanita muscaria use in ancient Ireland, and sacred pederasty in the Sufi tradition.^[4] Hakim Bey has also received criticism for writing for the North American Man/Boy Love Association (NAMBLA), a pedophile advocacy organization in the US that works to abolish age of consent laws criminalizing adult sexual involvement with minors.^[5]

Bey was associated with fellow NAMBLA supporter, Harry Hay, who is considered the founder of the Gay Liberation Movement. Hay was a founder of the Mattachine Society, the first sustained gay rights group in the United States. Hay, who was a practitioner of Crowley’s sex magick, was a member of the Agape Lodge in Los Angeles under W.T. Smith, where he was hired to play the organ for the OTO’s Gnostic Mass.^[6]

The well-known author of chaos magic of the Illuminates of Thanateros, Phil Hine, contributed an article titled, “Are You Illuminated?” Hine was a founder and co-editor of Pagan News between 1988-1992, in partnership with Rodney Orpheus, and is a former editor and contributor to Ian Read’s magazine Chaos International. Ian Read is an English neofolk and traditional folk musician, and occultist active within chaos magic and Germanic mysticism circles, who became the leader of the English branch of the Illuminates of Thanateros (IOT) in the early 1990s, after founder Peter Carroll stepped down as leading Magus.^[7]

Before founding his own band Fire + Ice in 1991, Read had joined Sol Invictus, a band founded by Tony Wakeford, another member of the Illuminates of Thanateros.^[8] The name “Sol Invictus,” which is Latin for “the unconquered Sun,” derives from the Roman cult of the same name, which was closely associated with the cult of Mithras. The band’s imagery and lyrical content was influenced by the important occult tradition of Traditionalism. Wakeford admits to “shamelessly stealing from” the fascist philosophy of Julius Evola for song titles, and also admired Ezra Pound.^[9] Wakeford’s membership in the British National Front, a British neo-fascist and neo-Nazi party, and the association of his band Above The Ruins (a reference to Evola’s Men Among the Ruins) with the Nazi groups like Skrewdriver and Brutal Attack, has meant that Sol Invictus has been accused of neofascism.^[10]

Rodney Orpheus is a Northern Irish musician, record producer and a leading member of the OTO.^[11] Orpheus led one of Ireland’s first experimental punk bands, The Spare Mentals. He is known for his work with the musical group The Cassandra Complex, whose 1989 album was called Cyberpunx, and for his book on the magick of Aleister Crowley, Abrahadabra, published by Looking Glass Press in Sweden and later republished by Weiser Books, the most famous occult bookstore in the US.

Technopagan Mark Pesce, author of “The Playful World,” compares computer programming and spellcasting. According to Pesce, the universe is composed of code, which is language. A forthcoming theory of everything will be analogous to a computer program. Therefore, there is a convergence between the aims of the scientist and the magicians where, “The magician will utter his spells, the scientist will speak his codes, but both will be saying the same thing.” He goes on to explain, “The masters of linguistic intent in both magical and scientific forms (a false distinction) will be masters of word and world.”^[12]

The inclusion of The Occult War by Julius Evola is an indication of the contributors’ far-right inclinations, such as Michael Moynihan, who was frequently identified as a fascist or neo-fascist by some critics and fans. Moynihan is founder of the music group Blood Axis, the music label Storm Records and publishing company Dominion Press. Moynihan is author of Lords of Chaos: The Bloody Rise of the Satanic Metal Underground, a non-fiction account of the early Norwegian black metal scene, with a focus on the string of church burnings and murders that occurred in the country around 1993. Moynihan contributed an article to the Book of Lies titled, “Julius Evola’s Combat Manual for a Revolt Against the Modern World,” as well as an exclusive interview, “Anton LaVey: A Fireside Chat with the Black Pope.”

Erik Davis, author of Techgnosis, writes “Lovecraft’s Magick Realism.” Allen H. Greenfield, who contributed an article titled “The Secret History of Modern Witchcraft,” is an American occultist and writer, and bishop of the Ecclesia Gnostica Catholica (EGC), or the Gnostic Catholic Church, the ecclesiastical arm of the OTO. He is known for his books Secret Cipher of the UFOnauts and The Story of the Hermetic Brotherhood of Light.

Also contributing an article on witchcraft is Gary Lachman, a founding member of the New Wave band Blondie, who has written about Gurdjieff disciple P.D. Ouspensky, Rudolf Steiner, Emanuel Swedenborg and Carl Jung. He is the author of Turn Off Your Mind: The Mystic Sixties and the Dark Side of the Age of Aquarius and Politics and the Occult: The Right, the Left, and the Radically Unseen, which addresses the theme of fascism and the occult through the work of Julius Evola, synarchist Rene Schwaller de Lubicz, Traditionalist scholar Mircea Eliade and others.

Libertarianism

Alex Jones shares a belief with the Satanists: libertarianism, which is effectively, is founded on the Satanic tenet of “do what thou wilt.” Ultimately, however, the libertarian movement in the United States is a front for the CIA and World Bank, through its promotion of the economic theories of the Mont Pelerin Society, which is associated with the occult tradition of synarchy.^[13]

MK-Ultra agent Timothy Leary was also a libertarian and supported the candidacy of Ron Paul for president in 1988 as leader of the Libertarian Party. A floppy disk was sent out as an invitation to a Ron Paul fundraiser hosted by Timothy Leary at his home in Benedict Canyon, which included the following message from Leary:

Thank you for joining me today in support of Ron Paul and the Libertarian Party. As we enter these closing years of the Roaring Twentieth Century, we’re going to see personal computers enhance our lives in ways we can scarcely imagine. Fellow Cyberpunk Chuck Hammill has helped me assemble a collection of bits and bytes you may enjoy.

If you’re wise … digitize!^[14]

Alex Jones admires the theories of Rothbard, a student of one of the leading members of Mont Pelerin, Ludwig von Mises. Rothbard was also a co-founder of the Charles Koch Foundation in 1974, with one of the infamous Koch brother, Charles, chairman of the board and chief executive officer of the conglomerate Koch Industries. David Koch ran as a Libertarian Vice-Presidential candidate in 1980, and advocated the abolition of Social Security, the FBI, the CIA, and public schools.

In July 1976, Charles Koch Foundation changed its name to the Cato Institute, which serves as a libertarian think tank headquartered in Washington, DC. According to the 2011 Global Go To Think Tank Index Report (Think Tanks and Civil Societies Program, University of Pennsylvania), Cato is number 14 in the “Top Thirty Worldwide Think Tanks” and number 6 in the “Top Fifty United States Think Tanks.” Cato also operates Libertarianism.org which features, among others, the writings of Rothbard and Robert Anton Wilson.^[15] In 1986, Wilson and Shae’s The Illuminatus! Trilogy won the Prometheus Hall of Fame Award, designed to honor classic libertarian fiction.

Todd Brendan Fahey, who was a guest at DisinfoCon, has been featured in the pages of right-wing conspiracy sites like Ron Paul’s associate’s LewRockwell.com, as well as Patriotist.com, and LibertyForum.org. A longtime writer for EtherZone.com. In or about 1989, Fahey was introduced to LSD and ended up infiltrating a group surrounding “Captain” Al Hubbard, the so-called “Johnny Appleseed of LSD,” who worked closely with Aldous Huxley in MK-Ultra.^[16]

Fahey became best known for Wisdom’s Maw: The Acid Novel, a “factionalization” of the CIA’s MK-Ultra acid-tests and their influence on the sixties counterculture. The book got rave reviews in the Village Voice, High Times, and a number of underground magazines, and gained the attention of cyperpunk personalities like Grateful Dead lyricist John Perry Barlow and R.U. Sirius, who is associated with Metzger. Fahey boasts of having read Gary Allen’s None Dare Call it a Conspiracy under the influence of LSD, and then joined the John Birch Society (JBS), though he continued to use psychedelic drugs.

Fahey had worked as a spy for the Defense Intelligence Agency chief Lt. General Daniel O. Graham, and served as aide to CIA agent Theodore L. “Ted” Humes, Division of Slavic Languages, who had worked with William F. Buckley in Japan against North Korea and China.^[17] Fahey also worked with Major General John K. Singlaub, an ex-OSS officer and head of the notorious “Phoenix Program” in Vietnam. Fahey worked for Singlaub within the World Anti-Communist League (WACL), a CIA front with ties to the John Birch Society through the Western Goals Foundation.^[18]

Western Goals was a private intelligence dissemination network active on the right-wing in the US. Western Goals was also associated with Reinhard Gehlen, with whom they shared a connection with the Order of the Knights of Malta (SMOM). The chairman of the Knights of Malta in the United States was Peter Grace, a key figure in Operation Paperclip.^[19] Grace’s company, W.R. Grace & Company, was founded by Peter’s grandfather, William Grace, who was a close associate of George de Mohrenschildty. Western Goals was finally wound up in 1986 when the Tower Commission revealed it had been part of the Iran-Contra funding network. Oliver North identified Western Goals founder John Singlaub as his liaison to the White House.^[20]

Singlaub, along with John Birch society members like J. Peter Grace, were also members of the Council for National Policy (CNP), wiich has been endorsed by Alex Jones. It was mainly through the backing of the CNP that the JBS’s rabid opposition to the so-called “communist” conspiracy assisted in the rise of the popularity of Ron Paul and the Tea Party, who spearheaded the cause of libertarian ideals. However, although the JBS attributed the root of such a conspiracy to  the CFR, the early leadership of the CNP was comprised of members of the CFR, including Peter Grace.^[21] The CNP was described by The New York Times as a “little-known group of a few hundred of the most powerful conservatives in the country,” who meet three times yearly behind closed doors at undisclosed locations for a confidential conference.^[22]

CFR member Jesse Helms was also a key figure in founding the CNP. A 33º Mason, Helms played a leading role in the development of the Christian right, and was a founding member of the Moral Majority in 1979.^[23] Helms was close to Billy Graham, as well as Pat Robertson and Jerry Falwell, who also were members of the CNP. Among CNP’s founding members were also Senator Trent Lott, former US Attorneys General Ed Meese, John Ashcroft, Col. Oliver North and philanthropist Else Prince, mother of Erik Prince, the founder of Blackwater USA.