Dickey, Colin. Under the Eye of Power: How Fear of Secret Societies Shapes American
Democracy. New York: Viking, 2023. ISBN: 9780593299456
Secret societies - the Illuminati, the Masons, the Lizard People, "slaveocracy," and the John Birch Society are all part of the American Historical landscape. But so are the Ku Klux Klan, witches, slave revolts, the Molly Maguires, Haymarket anarchists, the Satanic ritual scare, and the recovered memory movement. Each of these and others were involved in "moral panics" that swept across America. In Under the Eye of Power, Colin Dickey walks the reader through the conspiratorial-laden underbelly of America.
Colin Dicky begins his meanderings with the Freemasons and its offshoot - the Illuminati in the section As Above, So Below. He spends four chapters dealing with how the Freemasons developed, came to America, how its symbols are everywhere, yet its rituals are secret, so secret that some Masons have murdered a former member to halt their publication. Next stop - Deep-Laid Schemes - has six chapters filled with slave revolts, slave conspiracies, Underground railroads, ant-Catholicism, witchcraft trials in Salem and elsewhere, and in Texas, Abolitionist arsonists! In National Indigestion, Dickey has five chapters with anti-immigrationists, anarchists, bankers, Wall Street, antisemitism, and the (In)Visible Empire. In Wonders of the Invisible World, Dickey, in four chapters, explores subliminal messaging, the CIA and "truth drugs" plus LSD, ant-fluoridation societies (which includes anti-Communist groups such as the John Birch Society), and the FBI COINTELPRO on anti-war and leftist groups. Finally, Dickey, with six chapters in Behind the Hieroglyphic Streets, ventures into cultural wars, modern conspiracy theories, Satanic rituals, recovered memories, Q-Anon, the Lizard People, ritual sacrifices, and Citizen Commissions.
Under the Eye of Power is wonderful for readers interested in American history with all the warts and stains included or for the reader who longs for a primer on all the ways secret societies and conspiracies have played a role in U.S. history.
