The Unseen Hand
by A. Ralph Epperson

I’m not one that needs to be convinced of a global New World Order conspiracy. I already know it exists. I see it and feel it creep into every aspect of our daily lives – into the corporate control of our political system, corporate control of the global food supply, the introduction of a menagerie of toxic chemicals into processed foods, the spraying of pesticides, the chemtrails, the mind control propaganda fed to us on television, and on and on. So I’m going into The Unseen Hand: An Introduction to the Conspiratorial View of History knowing full well that the Conspiracy already exists.

The Unseen Hand was not a book that was originally on my reading list. I had been ruing the demise of the local independent bookstores, and had been in a conversation with a business associate who shared my feelings. Although we both agreed that the Internet has brought us the ease of finding whatever books we choose, he made a point that without the local bookstore there is no more browsing the shelves. You have to know what you’re looking for, he contended, instead of stumbling upon some gem by chance because it shared the shelf of a particular choice topic. Although I didn’t agree one hundred percent with his sentiment, I did see his point. So it was with this background that I went into a local independent bookstore that I had only recently discovered existed. The bookstore is called Alias, and it is literally the last of its kind in my area.

Inside of Alias, I found they had a thickly stocked section of esoteric books – most of which I couldn’t afford. But I had to buy something. I had to support the local bookstore. And at 400+ pages, The Unseen Hand seemed like a pretty interesting trove of information.

An Introduction
Author A. Ralph Epperson makes it clear in the subtitle that this book is an “introduction.” It is rife with information, but it is an overview of his research into the research of others. And the important point there is that few of his sources are primary sources. So although the footnotes are 30 pages long, the pages are filled with non-primary sources – often American Opinion and The Review of the News (two publications published by the John Birch Society.) Nevertheless, the timeline in Unseen Hand spans from the founding of America to the 1980s (this edition was published in 1994). So, understandably, it’s a lot of conspiracy to cover.

The Point of View
Another important point to consider (when reading any book) is the point of view from which the author’s voice originates. It soon became clear to me that Epperson is a religious man, a Christian, whose views are shaped by what he sees as the Conspiracy’s goal to snuff out God and religion.

The Conspiracy
Epperson sees the Conspiracy as a communist/socialist plot to destroy individuality, property ownership, God and our republican form of government and replace it with a totalitarian form rule. He begins the book by explaining the freedom that this nation’s founding fathers wrote into the founding documents and then continues to examine how the “money power” has stealthily infiltrated the system, using its influence to control economic booms and busts, foment wars and create problems to which it then offers solutions that ultimately result in further consolidation of the Conspiracy’s power.

And he’s right.

From the American Revolution to the Civil War to the Federal Reserve, World Wars 1 & 2, the sweep of communism through Cuba and South America, the atomic bomb and the infiltration of our political system by groups such as the Council on Foreign Relations and the Trilateral Commission, Epperson details how the money power has undermined us, curtailed us and has kept us fighting amongst ourselves all the while crushing us under an oppressive system of ever-increasing debt.

World War II
I think among the more interesting points in the book are the events following World War II. America and its allies had just given everything they had to fight the good fight and keep fascist totalitarianism from sweeping through Europe. And then following the war, the Allies freely gave Russia the green light to sweep communist totalitarianism through Eastern Europe.

Assessment
Some may view the Conspiracy as simply the invention of the paranoid. I don’t. I’ve investigated it enough to know that not only is it real, but it infects every aspects of the average sleepwalker’s life. And if you don’t have your eye on the Conspiracy, then you are a sleepwalker.

And when I say “every aspect” I mean every aspect. I don’t believe, as Epperson contends, that the Conspiracy means to destroy God and religion. Rather, it aims to control it, just as it aims to control everything else. The Conspiracy funds both sides of every war. It funds both sides of every issue. It most likely funded and had a back-door involvement in the recent Occupy movement – along with the Anonymous Hacker phenomenon. Since the Conspiracy prints our money and puts us in debt for its creation, it has a limitless supply of funds. And it uses them.

I do not believe, as Epperson contends, that the Conspiracy meant to supplant American democracy with communism. Rather, it meant to create and foment communism as the enemy of capitalism so we would be in a state of never-ending conflict. And as communism faded, the Conspiracy brought us terrorism.

Because we must always have an enemy to fight if they are to control us.