The film Zeitgeist has received millions of hits on Youtube and spawned two other films and an entire movement. It has become the object of much controversy with its conspiratorial views of religion, politics, economics, and the 9/11 attacks. It presented crackpot ideas under an attractive facade and produced a “shockumentary” that mobilized a new generation of conspiracy theorists. So where did this stuff come from anyway?
Peter Joseph Merola was a filmmaker and marimba player who, like many young artsy types, adopted some really off the wall theories of the world. Within that subculture, conspiracy theories about the evil world of commercial enterprise as well as other aspects of mainstream life are not an unusual thing. For his part, Merola had somehow come across the crackpot conspiracy theorist and con artist Jordan Maxwell and was apparently hooked to his particular brand of snake oil.
Jordan Maxwell was born Russell Pine prior to deriving his new name from the “Jordanus Maximus” mentioned in occultist Madame Blavatsky’s Isis Unveiled. He went on to prove himself an adept publicist of various crackpot religious ideas from a century ago by the likes of Blavatsky, Gerald Massey, Godfrey Higgins, and others. He weaved these occult ideas with politico-religious conspiracy theories and combined them with etymologies of his own invention to form an overarching view of the world ruled by a joint cabal that included the Freemasons, the Rosicrucians, the Catholic Church, every major corporation, the CIA, and the United Nations among others. I’m not sure if he ever implicated the Girl Scouts but who knows what he thought they might put into those cookies.
When Merola, then going under the name “Peter J” (and later under “Peter Joseph”) released the initial version of Zeitgeist, he stated in an interview with Jeff Rense that Jordan Maxwell was the lifeblood of the film and that it was basically a walk through his work – particularly parts 1 and 3. What young Peter didn’t know was that Maxwell’s ideas were basically nuts – many were culled from nineteenth century occultists and his etymologies were often based on modern English rather than the languages used at the time such as Hebrew, Greek, and Egyptian. Did he really think “horizon” came from “Horus is risen.”? Certainly, the film became an early laughfest for those familiar with ancient religions but still many with their own reasons for disliking Christianity made it their own.
Maxwell was himself a rather odd bird. He had a business for awhile that sold videos of his lectures and his fakery certainly seemed to con some Hollywood types. He appeared on a few senstationalistic television programs as an “expert” and had many fooled. He also, along with his tapes, sold instructions on how to avoid paying income taxes legally and international driver’s permits. Suffice to say, he never took his own advice on the taxes and was promoting ideas then common among conspiracy theorists; as for the permits, he was indicted by the Federal Trade Commission and a judgment against him issued. Yet this guy was the lifeblood of Zeitgeist and someone Peter Joseph Merola admired. So much for discernment with this guy.
Of course, little of this mattered for those who would be his core audience. A generation raised on Oliver Stone films were ripe for this sort of nonsense and Zeitgeist became an overnight internet sensation. For those with any real background in the topics covered in the film, the whole effort was bogus from start to finish. Soon enough, as the film gained more and more exposure, the critiques began and the result wasn’t pretty. The first part in particular, dealing with religion, was quite laughable and soon Merola was faced with the task of revising his film to avoid the most dunderheaded errors.
It appears that for this end he called in D. M. Murdock (aka “Acharya S”), another conspiracy theorist, to assist in certain aspects of Part 1 of the final cut version. Of course, her work was little better than Maxwell’s and she relied on similar crackpot sources as well as scholars a century or more out of date. She, like Maxwell, seemed oblivious to the rather late development of zodiacal astrology which made the entire astrotheological framework untenable. Similarly, the supposed parallels were far less than met the eye and many were manufactured out of whole cloth.
More recently, Merola and Murdock have revised their thesis yet again in their newer source guide by merely redefining certain words such as “crucifixion” to have a broader meaning than before. Now they claim any deity pictured with its hands in the air was “crucified.” Of course, all of this is nonsense since 1) their original sources never understood it this way and 2) their whole theory has the crucifixion as part of a death and resurrection sequence. Since raising the roof hardly qualifes as fatal (was Richard Nixon a crucfied sun god?), so flaccid a defininiton of “crucified” falls apart on its own.
Meanwhile, Merola had found a new hero to stand behind in the person of Buckminster Fuller wannabe Jacques Fresco and his ideas about a resource based economy. I will save the details on this schema for another date but let us just say it is more of the same utopian collectivist nonsense theorized by those who do not understand human nature. It’s vision of technocracy appeals mostly to former Trekkies since it rather resembles the vision of the Federation. Of course, history tells us these schemas always end up like something closer to the Borg.
Merola loved Fresco’s ideas – at least those that could generate good soundbites – and used it as a basis for his film Zeitgeist: Addendum. He founded The Zeitgeist Movment as an advocacy group for Fresco’s plans as outlined in The Venus Project. He generated more attention for Fresco in a few months than Fresco could in his entire lifetime. He also made a followup film Zeitgeist: Moving Forward and chapters of the movement were founded in many cities. Jordan Maxwell was never mentioned again.
Recently, there has been a falling out between the two. Fresco attempted to finance his own film through his new followers and Merola appeared to take umbrage at being upstaged. Fresco then went on to show his appreciation for all of Merola’s hard work by stating Merola didn’t know anything and from there the catfight ensued. The two movements are no longer on speaking terms but Merola’s half is left as an advocacy group for nothing in particular. Furthermore, the excitement he was once able to generate for events has all but evaportated and it appears his following is dwindling to a hardcore group.
So what will happen next? Merola has announced a new film by the end of next year but by then who will be left to care? His first film, an embarassment of conspiracy theory crackpottery, is still by far his most popular product. Yet the problems go deeper than the direction to the man himself. Peter Joseph Merola is certainly an articulate fellow with a good speaking voice who can be quite engaging. However, when challenged he has a history of rather immature outbursts as he retreats within a coccoon of those who take his every word as gospel. He has jumped on the bandwagon of some questionable figures and touted their work as “the answer.” Jordan Maxwell certainly was not and Jacques Fresco doesn’t want to be Merola’s answer. Perhaps he will hitch his wagon to someone new or maybe become the answer himself. But by then, will anyone care?
For further information on the details of the soap opera that calls itself the Zeitgeist Movement, see the following blogs devoted to critiquing Peter Joseph Merola’s utopian dream: