Well, that's a really big task, as there are dozens of places in his writing where I've observed inconsistencies and dubious claims, but I'll try to provide a few. Here's Charles writing about Trump in 2016:
"I am willing to suspend my judgement of Trump and (very skeptically) hold the possibility that he will disrupt the elite policy con…
Well, that's a really big task, as there are dozens of places in his writing where I've observed inconsistencies and dubious claims, but I'll try to provide a few. Here's Charles writing about Trump in 2016:
"I am willing to suspend my judgement of Trump and (very skeptically) hold the possibility that he will disrupt the elite policy consensus of free trade and military confrontation – major themes of his campaign. One might always hope for miracles. However, because he apparently lacks any robust political ideology of his own, it is more likely that he will fill his cabinet with neocon war hawks, Wall Street insiders, and corporate reavers, trampling the wellbeing of the working class whites who elected him while providing them their own sugar-coating of social conservatism.
The social and environmental horrors likely to be committed under President Trump are likely to incite massive civil disobedience and possibly disorder. For Clinton supporters, many of whom were halfhearted to begin with, the Trump administration could mark the end of their loyalty to our present institutions of government. For Trump supporters, the initial celebration will collide with gritty reality when Trump proves as unable or unwilling as his predecessors to challenge the entrenched systems that continually degrade their lives: global finance capital, the deep state, and their programming ideologies. Add to this the likelihood of a major economic crisis, and the public’s frayed loyalty to the existing system could snap."
It is true he does use the phrase "deep state" in this excerpt, but I'll come to that. The important thing to note is that Charles' dark, apocalyptic and pessimistic tone about Trump continued on in all his subsequent writings till RFK endorsed Trump. Only then did the tone drastically shift. Here's Charles writing about Trump now:
"Few people today have been more caricaturized than Donald Trump. I hate to disappoint any of my readers who demonize or lionize the man, but, having at this point something of a backstage pass, I can tell you that neither pole stands anywhere near the truth. It is almost impossible to see the real man through the fog of today’s information war.
He is not a strategic genius out-maneuvering the deep state in a match of 4D chess. Nor is he a Mussolini figure, a bigoted fascist marshaling resurgent far-right forces to elevate him into dictatorial power. He is not even particularly right-wing."
In his essay "The Conspiracy Myth" published in 2020, he writes:
".... the conspiracy myth gives narrative form to an authentic intuition that an inhuman power governs the world. What could that power be? The conspiracy myth locates that power in a group of malevolent human beings (who take commands, in some versions, from extraterrestrial or demonic entities). Therein lies a certain psychological comfort, because now there is someone to blame in a familiar us-versus-them narrative and victim-perpetrator-rescuer psychology. Alternatively, we could locate the “inhuman power” in systems or ideologies, not a group of conspirators. That is less psychologically rewarding, because we can no longer easily identify as good fighting evil; after all, we ourselves participate in these systems, which pervade our entire society. Systems like the debt-based money system, patriarchy, white supremacy, or capitalism cannot be removed by fighting their administrators. They create roles for evildoers to fill, but the evildoers are functionaries; puppets, not puppet masters. The basic intuition of conspiracy theories then is true: that those we think hold power are but puppets of the real power in the world."
It is clear from this paragraph that he does not think there is a "deep state" or Establishment in any meaningful sense of the word. Except, of course, when there is: he now tells us that the deep state will attempt to block Trump's every move and that "The Establishment" is engaged in "information warfare and various forms of cheating." Except that, when Trump lost the last election, he dismissed out of hand Trump's vehement claim that there was electoral malfeasance:
"The political defeat of Donald Trump in the 2020 election is a crossroads for the quasi-political movement grouped loosely around the QAnon conspiracy myth and, more broadly, around Trump himself. Because the man and the movement were a dark mirror for the whole of society, it is also a crossroads for society....
"At the present writing (late November, 2020) it would seem that the QAnons would have no choice but to abandon the faith. Not so. In various corners of the right wing alternative media, one may still read desperate theories about how Trump’s apparent defeat is a ploy to set up his master stroke. Even after he is deposed, even if he goes to prison, the myth will only change shape, since it is merely an outcropping of a much larger, long-established mythos, driven by repressed social and psychological forces. The same holds for Trumpism generally. It is thus important to gaze into this dark mirror and see what has been hidden..."
In context, it's clear that back then he gave no truck to Trump's charges of electoral fraud and meddling, nor did he support the Jan. 6 uprising: he presented it as delusional false belief and paranoia derived from the MAGA cult of Trump. Today, however, he takes it as a self-evident truth that the Dems regularly engage in electoral fraud. Oh, and he also said this in 2020:
"It is understandable why so many people have celebrated the defeat of Trump, a man who presided over the deliberate separation of immigrant children from their parents, who needlessly provoked Russia and China, who gave free pass to some of the worst of American’s racist tendencies, who green-lighted new levels of environmental destruction, who pushed regime-change operations in Venezuela and Bolivia, and so on."
I could go on and on, but I hope the point is clear that Charles presents claim after claim that clash with one another, and that this is a problem with his writing. It isn't that I'm not able to appreciate shades of gray or intellectual complexity, it's that he isn't willing to be clear when he changes his mind, or even to express lucid, clear and consistent positions, he wants to hold onto a kind of false profundity, a kind of enigmatic vatic quality that is more of a pose than a true reflection of profundity.
Thank you for being so detailed. I was already familiar with the passages you quote.
I'm going to respond in brief and may loop back later (or feel free to follow up w any questions or criticism).
I have tread a similar path to Charles and don't have any ties to RFK or Trump. I voted for Biden in 2020 and my whole adult life had canvassed for Dems. I'm also a female person of color by the by.
My essential response to you is that I was completely and totally propagandized. It took fully broadening my friendship circles, media sources, spiritual teachers and rallies I attended to arrive at a completely and totally different point of view regarding Trump, MAGA, deep state and how conspiracies are operating in the 3D plane of existence. Would be a book to detail all of this. Because of my own unfoldment, Charles's evolution of perspectives seems entirely natural to me and does not make me question his motives. Not that he might not be blinded -- of course it's possible and I continue to check my own biases. For me Trump is clearly a case of the lesser of two evils. Be that as it may, I will very enthusiastically vote for him (bc of my view of the alternative).
One last thing: at the time when I read Charles' Conspiracy Myth piece I did not interpret it as friends of mine did. To point out the psychological crutch that conspiratorial thinking may become does not in itself suggest that conspiracies aren't rampant. The nature of Charles' writing has been to point out pitfalls in typical frames of thinking, as every version of reality our minds conjure will inevitably entail potential blindspots. I'm not saying his own experience hasn't led him to review his attitude towards how much conspiracies are relevant to understanding reality -- my own experience the past five years certainly has prompted extensive review. I'm saying that even in the Conspiracy Myth he did not say anything that would preclude the existence of an aggregate of power (within alphabet agencies for example) that function as a "deep state" The paragraph you quoted that you regard as proof he didn't believe in a "deep state" does not come across that way to me. People at 3 letter agencies may comprise a "deep state" and ALSO be "puppets of the real power in the world." To understand/unpack that statement requires a spiritual lens which to my knowledge Charles has only touched on during calls, not in his writings
Thank your for your thoughtful reply. This is a valid point: "To point out the psychological crutch that conspiratorial thinking may become does not in itself suggest that conspiracies aren't rampant." I also agree with your further point, that, "I'm saying that even in the Conspiracy Myth he did not say anything that would preclude the existence of an aggregate of power (within alphabet agencies for example) that function as a "deep state" The paragraph you quoted that you regard as proof he didn't believe in a "deep state" does not come across that way to me. People at 3 letter agencies may comprise a "deep state" and ALSO be "puppets of the real power in the world."
However, this wasn't Charles' last word on the matter of conspiracies. Jack Adam Weber, who's recently popped up on these very comment threads, wrote a critique of Charles' Coronation essay, in which he accused Charles of indulging in conspiratorial thinking, and Charles' response was an immediate dismissal of Weber's accusation: "The other day I was amused to read a critique of The Coronation in which the author was absolutely certain that I am a closet conspiracy theorist. He was so persuasive that I myself almost believed it."
He then goes on to write: "What is a conspiracy theory anyway? Sometimes the term is deployed against anyone who questions authority, dissents from dominant paradigms, or thinks that hidden interests influence our leading institutions. As such, it is a way to quash dissent and bully those trying to stand up to abuses of power. One needn’t abandon critical thinking to believe that powerful institutions sometimes collude, conspire, cover up, and are corrupt. If that is what is meant by a conspiracy theory, obviously some of those theories are true. Does anyone remember Enron? Iran-Contra? COINTELPRO? Vioxx? Iraqi weapons of mass destruction?"
However, in the context of Covid, he seems to suggest that this isn't relevant, and what is going on in something else, not a conspiracy but merely the appearance of a conspiracy: "During the time of Covid-19, another level of conspiracy theory has risen to prominence that goes way beyond specific stories of collusion and corruption to posit conspiracy as a core explanatory principle for how the world works. Fuelled by the authoritarian response to the pandemic (justifiable or not, lockdown, quarantine, surveillance and tracking, censorship of misinformation, suspension of freedom of assembly and other civil liberties, and so on are indeed authoritarian), this arch-conspiracy theory holds that an evil, power-hungry cabal of insiders deliberately created the pandemic or is at least ruthlessly exploiting it to frighten the public into accepting a totalitarian world government under permanent medical martial law, a New World Order (NWO). Furthermore, this evil group, this illuminati, pulls the strings of all major governments, corporations, the United Nations, the WHO, the CDC, the media, the intelligence services, the banks, and the NGOs. In other words, they say, everything we are told is a lie, and the world is in the grip of evil."
And to make it clear that he himself doesn't subscribe to this notion (i.e. Weber's charge is invalid), he states: "So what do I think about that theory? I think it is a myth. And what is a myth? A myth is not the same thing as a fantasy or a delusion. Myths are vehicles of truth, and that truth needn’t be literal."
Personally, I don't find it helpful to label an Illuminati conspiracy theory a myth, an archetypical myth rather than a manifestation of paranoia. But whatever. Still, there's a problem here, the same problem I see again and again with Charles. Weber never accused him of believing in the most extreme, outlandish Illuminati conspiracy. So why bring it up? It seems that Eisenstein is incapable of addressing what the other even said. We have a person who doesn't want to be pinned down, his inability to address the actual points made by the other isn't a consequence of the difficulty of the subject matter, but it's some kind of character flaw. The first thing I noted about Charles' response to Weber is that he never addresses himself to anything Weber actually complained about, which has nothing to do with Illuminati type craziness. But Weber also often doesn't take Eisenstein at his word, he quotes certain statements Eisenstein makes and has some strong arguments against Eisenstein's various truth claims, but he keeps claiming Eisenstein also has secret intentions: "Conspiracy theorists are usually easy to identify and easy to debunk. To his credit, Charles Eisenstein is an exception, which makes his rhetoric all the more insidious. He magically mesmerizes, couching his underlying agenda and beliefs (though repeatedly claiming to “not know” anything) in a panoply of pseudo-intellectual smoke and mirrors."
I don't think this is true, about a hidden "underlying agenda," but then again, Charles is so slippery and evasive, always, how do I know? And not evasive because his thought is so complex but because he doesn't like being pinned down and doesn't like to be held to any particular position. Another poster recently described Charles as having a "solipsistic" mind, and that seems true to me.
Charles seems to believe in conspiracy and hidden deception when it suits him. But it also seems to him that he can disown this perspective when it suits him. But if it is simply his own personal preference to believe a conspiracy occurred HERE but did not occur THERE, then surely he needs to start getting specific and stop beating around the bush all the time. He's always warning people against falling into the trap of conspiracy theorizing, even though he himself believes in conspiracies when he feels like it, but doesn't feel it's fair to demand solid and detailed evidence one way or the other, and he immediately issues a solid denial when someone like Weber accuses him of conspiracy theory. There is never any willingness to meet the reader half-way: at some point, he has to stop complaining if he's being misunderstood and start accepting that much of the fault for any confusion and misunderstanding of his views lies with himself and how he typically expresses himself. The lack of clarity, precision, and consistency is in him, not his readership.
Well now that you elaborated I cannot argue agst your overarching point that Charles is deliberately refusing to be pinned down. In style I appreciate a straight shooter like RFK who has put out his views for decades at grave personal cost. (On a personal note, I've been frustrated to be anon through Covid and TDS times but I'm a mother living in a progressive community and my teen daughter has begged me not to get her cancelled -- this is a real backdrop for some of us in these times) In contrast to RFK, Charles' function as a writer is akin to how he described Trump as "a vessel for projection." He's a provocateur, a helpful screen that people can use to launch into their own inquiry. That's how I view his role and why I haven't ultimately cared what his exact beliefs are. Reading his books and essays has prompted questions that fuel my own truth seeking...
Having said that, my guess is that he has been through a process, tumbling down multiple rabbit holes wrt to this quote you cited: "Fuelled by the authoritarian response to the pandemic (justifiable or not, lockdown, quarantine, surveillance and tracking, censorship of misinformation, suspension of freedom of assembly and other civil liberties, and so on are indeed authoritarian), this arch-conspiracy theory holds that an evil, power-hungry cabal of insiders deliberately created the pandemic or is at least ruthlessly exploiting it to frighten the public into accepting a totalitarian world government under permanent medical martial law, a New World Order (NWO). Furthermore, this evil group, this illuminati, pulls the strings of all major governments, corporations, the United Nations, the WHO, the CDC, the media, the intelligence services, the banks, and the NGOs. In other words, they say, everything we are told is a lie, and the world is in the grip of evil."
I am not friends with him (though have met though mutuals) so I do not know his process. But sometimes reality is stranger than we imagine. And to reiterate what I said earlier: there are psychological underpinnings and hazards on either side of this divide - assuming there are some grand-ish conspiracies involving evil intent towards humans but projecting that evil onto everything you see and esp *not holding a vision that transcends it* OR assuming we are living in the worst case of Hanlon's razor ever, staggering stupidity on every level of decision making, but no need to confront evil, either within or without.
Well, that's a really big task, as there are dozens of places in his writing where I've observed inconsistencies and dubious claims, but I'll try to provide a few. Here's Charles writing about Trump in 2016:
"I am willing to suspend my judgement of Trump and (very skeptically) hold the possibility that he will disrupt the elite policy consensus of free trade and military confrontation – major themes of his campaign. One might always hope for miracles. However, because he apparently lacks any robust political ideology of his own, it is more likely that he will fill his cabinet with neocon war hawks, Wall Street insiders, and corporate reavers, trampling the wellbeing of the working class whites who elected him while providing them their own sugar-coating of social conservatism.
The social and environmental horrors likely to be committed under President Trump are likely to incite massive civil disobedience and possibly disorder. For Clinton supporters, many of whom were halfhearted to begin with, the Trump administration could mark the end of their loyalty to our present institutions of government. For Trump supporters, the initial celebration will collide with gritty reality when Trump proves as unable or unwilling as his predecessors to challenge the entrenched systems that continually degrade their lives: global finance capital, the deep state, and their programming ideologies. Add to this the likelihood of a major economic crisis, and the public’s frayed loyalty to the existing system could snap."
It is true he does use the phrase "deep state" in this excerpt, but I'll come to that. The important thing to note is that Charles' dark, apocalyptic and pessimistic tone about Trump continued on in all his subsequent writings till RFK endorsed Trump. Only then did the tone drastically shift. Here's Charles writing about Trump now:
"Few people today have been more caricaturized than Donald Trump. I hate to disappoint any of my readers who demonize or lionize the man, but, having at this point something of a backstage pass, I can tell you that neither pole stands anywhere near the truth. It is almost impossible to see the real man through the fog of today’s information war.
He is not a strategic genius out-maneuvering the deep state in a match of 4D chess. Nor is he a Mussolini figure, a bigoted fascist marshaling resurgent far-right forces to elevate him into dictatorial power. He is not even particularly right-wing."
In his essay "The Conspiracy Myth" published in 2020, he writes:
".... the conspiracy myth gives narrative form to an authentic intuition that an inhuman power governs the world. What could that power be? The conspiracy myth locates that power in a group of malevolent human beings (who take commands, in some versions, from extraterrestrial or demonic entities). Therein lies a certain psychological comfort, because now there is someone to blame in a familiar us-versus-them narrative and victim-perpetrator-rescuer psychology. Alternatively, we could locate the “inhuman power” in systems or ideologies, not a group of conspirators. That is less psychologically rewarding, because we can no longer easily identify as good fighting evil; after all, we ourselves participate in these systems, which pervade our entire society. Systems like the debt-based money system, patriarchy, white supremacy, or capitalism cannot be removed by fighting their administrators. They create roles for evildoers to fill, but the evildoers are functionaries; puppets, not puppet masters. The basic intuition of conspiracy theories then is true: that those we think hold power are but puppets of the real power in the world."
It is clear from this paragraph that he does not think there is a "deep state" or Establishment in any meaningful sense of the word. Except, of course, when there is: he now tells us that the deep state will attempt to block Trump's every move and that "The Establishment" is engaged in "information warfare and various forms of cheating." Except that, when Trump lost the last election, he dismissed out of hand Trump's vehement claim that there was electoral malfeasance:
"The political defeat of Donald Trump in the 2020 election is a crossroads for the quasi-political movement grouped loosely around the QAnon conspiracy myth and, more broadly, around Trump himself. Because the man and the movement were a dark mirror for the whole of society, it is also a crossroads for society....
"At the present writing (late November, 2020) it would seem that the QAnons would have no choice but to abandon the faith. Not so. In various corners of the right wing alternative media, one may still read desperate theories about how Trump’s apparent defeat is a ploy to set up his master stroke. Even after he is deposed, even if he goes to prison, the myth will only change shape, since it is merely an outcropping of a much larger, long-established mythos, driven by repressed social and psychological forces. The same holds for Trumpism generally. It is thus important to gaze into this dark mirror and see what has been hidden..."
In context, it's clear that back then he gave no truck to Trump's charges of electoral fraud and meddling, nor did he support the Jan. 6 uprising: he presented it as delusional false belief and paranoia derived from the MAGA cult of Trump. Today, however, he takes it as a self-evident truth that the Dems regularly engage in electoral fraud. Oh, and he also said this in 2020:
"It is understandable why so many people have celebrated the defeat of Trump, a man who presided over the deliberate separation of immigrant children from their parents, who needlessly provoked Russia and China, who gave free pass to some of the worst of American’s racist tendencies, who green-lighted new levels of environmental destruction, who pushed regime-change operations in Venezuela and Bolivia, and so on."
I could go on and on, but I hope the point is clear that Charles presents claim after claim that clash with one another, and that this is a problem with his writing. It isn't that I'm not able to appreciate shades of gray or intellectual complexity, it's that he isn't willing to be clear when he changes his mind, or even to express lucid, clear and consistent positions, he wants to hold onto a kind of false profundity, a kind of enigmatic vatic quality that is more of a pose than a true reflection of profundity.
Thank you for being so detailed. I was already familiar with the passages you quote.
I'm going to respond in brief and may loop back later (or feel free to follow up w any questions or criticism).
I have tread a similar path to Charles and don't have any ties to RFK or Trump. I voted for Biden in 2020 and my whole adult life had canvassed for Dems. I'm also a female person of color by the by.
My essential response to you is that I was completely and totally propagandized. It took fully broadening my friendship circles, media sources, spiritual teachers and rallies I attended to arrive at a completely and totally different point of view regarding Trump, MAGA, deep state and how conspiracies are operating in the 3D plane of existence. Would be a book to detail all of this. Because of my own unfoldment, Charles's evolution of perspectives seems entirely natural to me and does not make me question his motives. Not that he might not be blinded -- of course it's possible and I continue to check my own biases. For me Trump is clearly a case of the lesser of two evils. Be that as it may, I will very enthusiastically vote for him (bc of my view of the alternative).
One last thing: at the time when I read Charles' Conspiracy Myth piece I did not interpret it as friends of mine did. To point out the psychological crutch that conspiratorial thinking may become does not in itself suggest that conspiracies aren't rampant. The nature of Charles' writing has been to point out pitfalls in typical frames of thinking, as every version of reality our minds conjure will inevitably entail potential blindspots. I'm not saying his own experience hasn't led him to review his attitude towards how much conspiracies are relevant to understanding reality -- my own experience the past five years certainly has prompted extensive review. I'm saying that even in the Conspiracy Myth he did not say anything that would preclude the existence of an aggregate of power (within alphabet agencies for example) that function as a "deep state" The paragraph you quoted that you regard as proof he didn't believe in a "deep state" does not come across that way to me. People at 3 letter agencies may comprise a "deep state" and ALSO be "puppets of the real power in the world." To understand/unpack that statement requires a spiritual lens which to my knowledge Charles has only touched on during calls, not in his writings
Thank your for your thoughtful reply. This is a valid point: "To point out the psychological crutch that conspiratorial thinking may become does not in itself suggest that conspiracies aren't rampant." I also agree with your further point, that, "I'm saying that even in the Conspiracy Myth he did not say anything that would preclude the existence of an aggregate of power (within alphabet agencies for example) that function as a "deep state" The paragraph you quoted that you regard as proof he didn't believe in a "deep state" does not come across that way to me. People at 3 letter agencies may comprise a "deep state" and ALSO be "puppets of the real power in the world."
However, this wasn't Charles' last word on the matter of conspiracies. Jack Adam Weber, who's recently popped up on these very comment threads, wrote a critique of Charles' Coronation essay, in which he accused Charles of indulging in conspiratorial thinking, and Charles' response was an immediate dismissal of Weber's accusation: "The other day I was amused to read a critique of The Coronation in which the author was absolutely certain that I am a closet conspiracy theorist. He was so persuasive that I myself almost believed it."
He then goes on to write: "What is a conspiracy theory anyway? Sometimes the term is deployed against anyone who questions authority, dissents from dominant paradigms, or thinks that hidden interests influence our leading institutions. As such, it is a way to quash dissent and bully those trying to stand up to abuses of power. One needn’t abandon critical thinking to believe that powerful institutions sometimes collude, conspire, cover up, and are corrupt. If that is what is meant by a conspiracy theory, obviously some of those theories are true. Does anyone remember Enron? Iran-Contra? COINTELPRO? Vioxx? Iraqi weapons of mass destruction?"
However, in the context of Covid, he seems to suggest that this isn't relevant, and what is going on in something else, not a conspiracy but merely the appearance of a conspiracy: "During the time of Covid-19, another level of conspiracy theory has risen to prominence that goes way beyond specific stories of collusion and corruption to posit conspiracy as a core explanatory principle for how the world works. Fuelled by the authoritarian response to the pandemic (justifiable or not, lockdown, quarantine, surveillance and tracking, censorship of misinformation, suspension of freedom of assembly and other civil liberties, and so on are indeed authoritarian), this arch-conspiracy theory holds that an evil, power-hungry cabal of insiders deliberately created the pandemic or is at least ruthlessly exploiting it to frighten the public into accepting a totalitarian world government under permanent medical martial law, a New World Order (NWO). Furthermore, this evil group, this illuminati, pulls the strings of all major governments, corporations, the United Nations, the WHO, the CDC, the media, the intelligence services, the banks, and the NGOs. In other words, they say, everything we are told is a lie, and the world is in the grip of evil."
And to make it clear that he himself doesn't subscribe to this notion (i.e. Weber's charge is invalid), he states: "So what do I think about that theory? I think it is a myth. And what is a myth? A myth is not the same thing as a fantasy or a delusion. Myths are vehicles of truth, and that truth needn’t be literal."
Personally, I don't find it helpful to label an Illuminati conspiracy theory a myth, an archetypical myth rather than a manifestation of paranoia. But whatever. Still, there's a problem here, the same problem I see again and again with Charles. Weber never accused him of believing in the most extreme, outlandish Illuminati conspiracy. So why bring it up? It seems that Eisenstein is incapable of addressing what the other even said. We have a person who doesn't want to be pinned down, his inability to address the actual points made by the other isn't a consequence of the difficulty of the subject matter, but it's some kind of character flaw. The first thing I noted about Charles' response to Weber is that he never addresses himself to anything Weber actually complained about, which has nothing to do with Illuminati type craziness. But Weber also often doesn't take Eisenstein at his word, he quotes certain statements Eisenstein makes and has some strong arguments against Eisenstein's various truth claims, but he keeps claiming Eisenstein also has secret intentions: "Conspiracy theorists are usually easy to identify and easy to debunk. To his credit, Charles Eisenstein is an exception, which makes his rhetoric all the more insidious. He magically mesmerizes, couching his underlying agenda and beliefs (though repeatedly claiming to “not know” anything) in a panoply of pseudo-intellectual smoke and mirrors."
I don't think this is true, about a hidden "underlying agenda," but then again, Charles is so slippery and evasive, always, how do I know? And not evasive because his thought is so complex but because he doesn't like being pinned down and doesn't like to be held to any particular position. Another poster recently described Charles as having a "solipsistic" mind, and that seems true to me.
Charles seems to believe in conspiracy and hidden deception when it suits him. But it also seems to him that he can disown this perspective when it suits him. But if it is simply his own personal preference to believe a conspiracy occurred HERE but did not occur THERE, then surely he needs to start getting specific and stop beating around the bush all the time. He's always warning people against falling into the trap of conspiracy theorizing, even though he himself believes in conspiracies when he feels like it, but doesn't feel it's fair to demand solid and detailed evidence one way or the other, and he immediately issues a solid denial when someone like Weber accuses him of conspiracy theory. There is never any willingness to meet the reader half-way: at some point, he has to stop complaining if he's being misunderstood and start accepting that much of the fault for any confusion and misunderstanding of his views lies with himself and how he typically expresses himself. The lack of clarity, precision, and consistency is in him, not his readership.
Well now that you elaborated I cannot argue agst your overarching point that Charles is deliberately refusing to be pinned down. In style I appreciate a straight shooter like RFK who has put out his views for decades at grave personal cost. (On a personal note, I've been frustrated to be anon through Covid and TDS times but I'm a mother living in a progressive community and my teen daughter has begged me not to get her cancelled -- this is a real backdrop for some of us in these times) In contrast to RFK, Charles' function as a writer is akin to how he described Trump as "a vessel for projection." He's a provocateur, a helpful screen that people can use to launch into their own inquiry. That's how I view his role and why I haven't ultimately cared what his exact beliefs are. Reading his books and essays has prompted questions that fuel my own truth seeking...
Having said that, my guess is that he has been through a process, tumbling down multiple rabbit holes wrt to this quote you cited: "Fuelled by the authoritarian response to the pandemic (justifiable or not, lockdown, quarantine, surveillance and tracking, censorship of misinformation, suspension of freedom of assembly and other civil liberties, and so on are indeed authoritarian), this arch-conspiracy theory holds that an evil, power-hungry cabal of insiders deliberately created the pandemic or is at least ruthlessly exploiting it to frighten the public into accepting a totalitarian world government under permanent medical martial law, a New World Order (NWO). Furthermore, this evil group, this illuminati, pulls the strings of all major governments, corporations, the United Nations, the WHO, the CDC, the media, the intelligence services, the banks, and the NGOs. In other words, they say, everything we are told is a lie, and the world is in the grip of evil."
I am not friends with him (though have met though mutuals) so I do not know his process. But sometimes reality is stranger than we imagine. And to reiterate what I said earlier: there are psychological underpinnings and hazards on either side of this divide - assuming there are some grand-ish conspiracies involving evil intent towards humans but projecting that evil onto everything you see and esp *not holding a vision that transcends it* OR assuming we are living in the worst case of Hanlon's razor ever, staggering stupidity on every level of decision making, but no need to confront evil, either within or without.
Anyway cheers to you in your seeking!
Thought provoking.