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In three parts, Zeitgeist (which has no credits) attempts to show that 1) Christianity is rehashed pagan sun-worship and is used by the rich and powerful to control people, 2) the 9/11 tragedies were part of an elite conspiracy, and 3) ever since World War I, the ultra-rich have been secretly manufacturing wars and financial collapses to control the populace and to get richer and more powerful.

I don't know enough about politics, history, or religion to have a valid opinion of Zeitgeist, but I was interested in getting a well-informed person's assessment of the documentary. I could think of no one better suited than Jay Kinney. He was the publisher of the late, great Gnosis Magazine, the author of several books on Western esoteric and occult traditions, and the author of The Masonic Enigma, "a journey of discovery into the real facts (and mysteries) of Masonry's history and symbols." He's also an amazingly talented cartoonist, and contributed to The Whole Earth Review which is how I first learned about him. (His 1987 article, "If Software Companies Ran the Country," where he compares Al Capp's Shmoos to infinitely-copyable software, remains as fresh and powerful today as it did 20 years ago).

At my request, Jay watched the movie, and kindly wrote the following review for Boing Boing:

Zeiting the Geist
The latest bit of guerrilla media to take the online universe by storm is “Zeitgeist, the Movie.” Clocking in at close to two hours’ length, and with over a million views on Google Video since its June 26th “official” release, Zeitgeist is a grabby, cranky, can’t-stop-watching-it documentary that purports to tell the real truth about Christianity, 9/11, and the International Bankers.

Exactly who is behind the video is unclear, although someone with the moniker of “Peter J.” has posted an online letter claiming credit and explaining Zeitgeist’s message to those who may have somehow failed to grasp the worldview that the video hammers home.

And what is that worldview, pray tell? Religions in general, and Christianity in particular, are primarily systems of social control. 9/11 was an inside job and the destruction of the WTC twin towers and building 7 were aided by controlled demolition. And finally, International Bankers, through the Federal Reserve and the Council on Foreign Relations (CFR), control our money and our future, leading to, ta da, the coming One World Government and the microchipping of everyone.

Exactly how all this fits together is left to the viewer’s imagination or, presumably, the film-maker’s hash pipe. Are those who manipulate Christianity for control purposes in cahoots with the Bankers, and were the Bankers in on the 9/11 caper? Zeitgeist sidesteps such logical questions through the use of the all-purpose term, “the elite,” a shadowy group of rich and powerful men who want nothing more than to enslave humanity and reap block-buster profits through the promotion of wars and financial crises.

For conspiracy buffs, this is all pretty standard fare, and, indeed, aficionados of the genre will find little new in “Zeitgeist.” The notions that most religions were originally a kind of solar worship, and that the Jesus Christ story recapitulated the mythos of numerous other “dying gods,” were floating around in the late 1700s. Fittingly, the video features a quote from Thomas Paine reducing Christianity to warmed-over sun worship, which was a daring bit of religion-baiting 200 years ago, albeit not so earth-shattering today.

The nefarious International Bankers meme has been propagating itself since at least the mid-1800s and has long been a mainstay of radical right-wing circles where it has often overlapped with mutterings about Jewish cabals.

The 9/11 truth segment of the video is, of course, of much more recent vintage, but, here too, it mostly repeats accusations that have gotten widespread play in the uber-skeptic milieu.

Breaking new factual ground is not what Zeitgeist is about, however. Rather, the video is a powerful and fast-acting dose of agitprop, hawking its conclusions as givens. Unfortunately, like most propaganda, it doesn’t play fair with its intended audience. At times, while watching it, I felt like I was getting Malcolm McDowell’s treatment in Clockwork Orange: eyes pried wide open while getting bombarded with quick-cut atrocity photos.

At other times, Zeitgeist engages in willful confusion by showing TV screen shots of network or cable news with voice-overs from unidentified people not associated with the news programs. If one weren’t paying close attention, the effect would be to confer the status and authority of TV news upon the words being spoken. Even when quotes or sound bites are attributed to a source, there’s no way to tell if they are quoted correctly or in context.

Late in the video, there’s a supposed quote from David Rockefeller, which, if genuine, would be an astounding confession of complicity in mass manipulation. But, of course, the quote is not sourced or dated, which renders it useless. (The video’s website does feature a Sources page, but a hodge-podge list of books, with no page numbers cited, is of little value for source verification.)

The over-all temper of the video is rather like the John Birch Society on acid, with interludes by Harry Smith. Incongruously, after spending nearly two hours trying to scare the bejeezis out of its viewers, Zeitgeist ends on an oddly upbeat note, telling us that Love — not Fear — is the answer, We are all One, and featuring sound-bites from Ram Dass and Carl Sagan.

It’s a shame, really, that Zeitgeist is, ultimately, such a mess. There are plenty of legitimate questions about what transpired on 9/11, just as there are plenty of shady doings in international finance or puzzling aspects of religious history, for that matter. And what is coming down in the name of National Security is truly unnerving. Yet, bundling them all together in disjointed fashion does justice to none of them. Time and again, Zeitgeist maximizes emotional impact at the expense of a more reasoned weighing of evidence. But, perhaps that’s the intention.

I’ve often pondered about what it might take to snap everyone out of the walking dream we collectively entered on 9/11/01. Just as the fall of the Berlin Wall provided the emotional pivot for the end of the Cold War, only a collective experience of an intensity equal to that of 9/11 might jolt us awake as to what is really happening in the corridors of power and certain undisclosed locations.

It’s my hunch that Zeitgeist is one attempt to provide such a jolt, and it does indeed pack a certain punch. Too bad it also runs off in three directions at once, and is so indiscriminate in its sources and overly certain of its conclusions. Zeitgeist may be powerful, but its power is tainted with some simplistic and pernicious memes that have already received more propagation than they deserve. The video’s producer does inform us that “It is my hope that people will not take what is said in the film as the truth . . .”

Indeed.

Time and again, Zeitgeist maximizes emotional impact at the expense of a more reasoned weighing of evidence. But, perhaps that’s the intention.

When the same thing is being expressed by different authors, you have to consider it's accurate especially considering varying sources.

Anytime a "documentary" makes huge world changing claims you have to ask yourself some questions about the authenticity of its research.

Even without the religious overtones and anti-Christian aspect, the conspiracy angle (world bankers/elites etc.) is the same as other videos and different authors have expressed similar content. When the same thing is being expressed by different authors, you have to consider it's accurate especially considering varying sources.

Surely, you can take the most crucial content of the movie and notice how it is EXACTLY relevant and repeated in OTHER 911 conspiracy videos that are all over the internet (Alex Jones, Loose Change, 9/11 Truth and many MANY others).

OK. So far Zeitgeist is a wash. I was OK with the shit blowing up for the first half an hour, but it kept on going. The rest has been a testament to adequate editing and music, rather than content. I respect a good quote from George Carlin, but the rest so far has been poorly researched, and/or lies.

All the shit about Horus and Dionysus... yes, there are some parallels with some messianic figures, but Horus was NOT born of a virgin (his mother was the Goddess Isis) and he was not resurrected after 3 days. I can see no record (apart from this "documentary") of him EVER being referred to as "the lamb of god". Ditto Dionysus. NOT born of a virgin (his mother was... I can't remember her name but she was a woman who was having an affair with Zeus). Zeus killed her by accident and to save the baby had him stitched into his thigh. Yeah, weird. When "finished" he popped out of the cut in Zeus's leg. This "twice born" is what the word "Dionysus" refers to but it's hardly a parallel with the "rebirth of jesus".

The story of Attis and Cybele similarly bears NO resemblance to that of Jesus.

I'll keep watching.

Ok, so the next bit...

The "astrological" basis of the bible story of jesus. The "three kings that followed the star" were not stars. How do we know this? Herod had them brought to him and talked to them. They realised something was up and made sure they left by a different path to make sure they didn't lead him to Jesus. Sound like exploding balls of gas to you? No, I thought not.

Southern Cross. The Southern Cross isn't even visible in the northern hemisphere. BUT it was visible back then. In actual fact it was quite high, nowhere near the horizon as shown. Most damning? It wasn't a cross. It was considered part of another constellation, Centaurus.

All in all I'm finding this whole "son = sun, died for 3 days = not moving on the horizon, and rising = restarting its movement" thing an incredible stretch.

There is some justification for it, though. After all, the story of Jesus was quite probably influenced by earlier legends from earlier times, many of whom were very aware of the movement of the sun, etc.

The astrology stuff continues. Way too much "symbolism". The man carrying water was a man carrying water. It's a literal description of how to find the house. Nothing more.

More on the egypt stuff. Really nice job of fitting non-facts to his theory.

The Gilgamesh stuff is true. It's probable that the story of the Epic of Gilgamesh was the inspiration for the Noah story.

Hmm... the rest is old stuff. The concept that the christian/judaic religion is drawn from other earlier influences is neither new nor particularly hard to accept.

Oh god, now it't turned into a banking conspiracy.

The banking stuff is interesting. I don't know much about that so I'll have to look into it.

Part 1. Jesus wasn't real, he was an egyptian fairytale

There's nothing particularly new here, except, of course, for the stuff that the creator of the documentary simply made up. There was some interesting stuff if you weren't already familiar with it, but by and large it was either fabricated or well worn.

Some major issues - The repeated story of Jesus occurring through history. Some of this is mildly valid, though of the ones I looked up NOT ONE SINGLE THING HAD ANY CONNECTION TO JESUS. From Attis to Dionysus to Horus placed any reference that seemed in any way like the story of Jesus. Not one other died and was resurrected three days later. Not one other was born of a virgin. Not one other turned water to wine. Not one other was called any of the names Jesus was known by. The ONLY people who give any belief to such things is a belief known as "Osiris-Dionysus". These "coincidences" where explained by early Christian justifiers as the work of Satan, who put fake Jesuses in the past to make us doubt. Ahhh, that Satan, he so crazy!

One mistake people make is to confuse "inspiration" with corroboration. A good example is the Epic of Gilgamesh. It's the story of a great flood where the gods flooded the earth, except that they saved one good man who saved all the animals, etc. The comparison with Noah is obvious, but the story is an ancient Babylonian story. Many christians have used that as "proof" of the story of Noah's flood. But far more likely, it was in fact the original basis for Noah's flood story, simply appropriated by the writers of the bible. The relevance here is that many of the stories of Jesus could have been attributed to him because of earlier stories about "what a messiah should do".

There's way too much dependance on symbolism in this chapter. It assumes the entire story is allegorical. There are references to the "water bearer" meaning a reference to the Age of Aquarius, etc. But it was about a water bearer. You know... someone who bears water.

The "astrological" basis of the bible story of jesus makes little sense. The "three kings that followed the star" were not stars. How do we know this? Herod had them brought to him and talked to them. They realised something was up and made sure they left by a different path to make sure they didn't lead him to Jesus. Clearly NOT stars.

The Southern Cross isn't even visible in the northern hemisphere. BUT it was visible back then. In actual fact it was quite high, nowhere near the horizon as shown. Most damning? It wasn't a cross. It was considered part of another constellation, Centaurus.

All in all I'm finding this whole "son = sun, died for 3 days = not moving on the horizon, and rising = restarting its movement" thing an incredible stretch.

Speaking of symbolism, the maker needed to do some research. The "cross" in religious paintings is NOT to show the zodiac cross at all. It was a common practise to depict those who would later become saints with a halo. Jesus was drawn with a halo AND a cross to make it clear who the picture was of. Not St Peter, or St Theresa, or St Martin of the Holy Testicles or someone else.

By the way, I'm not being pro-Jesus here. I think it's POSSIBLE that he did live. I am pretty sure he wasn't the son of God, but I think it's possible he lived. If you're into questioning your beliefs, look up Jesus Pantera. That will make you ask a lot of questions. While you're at it, look up Zoroastrianism, since that's pretty much the core of Theism anyway. Might as well know what you believe.

Part 2 - September 11 Conspiracy Bullshit

I'm not touching this nonsense with a 40 foot pole. I've already covered it and will talk about it if you have specifics that aren't covered already but I already think http://www.loosechangeguide.com/LooseChangeGuide.html covers it.

Occam's Razor is one of the most important concepts we have in critical thinking. It's often misunderstood as "The simplest explanation that fits the facts is most often the truth". It kind of is that, but technically it's the explanation that requires "the creation of the least agents". IE, it's easier to assume that your flatmate stole your new shirt than that some burglars came in. Not because why would burglars steal a shirt, but because there seems to be no reason to construct this burglar in the first place. Occam's Razor is powerful and slices and dices conspiracy theories purely at their use of the concept of "conspiracies".

What's easiest to accept, the US government deliberately killed 3000 people in a faked attack that would have been known to hundreds of people of dubious loyalty, and not a single one of them have come forward? Or that audacious religious fanatics hijacked a plane and in an act of atrocity crashed it into some buildings?

Noam Chomsky made the point about the attacks, that if deliberate the risk to the administration was catastrophic. Had they been caught in their dastardly plot, had they failed or been foiled in any way they would have been impeached, and possibly executed for treason. Why would they do that? Even someone as bat-shit stupid as Bush wouldn't go for that.

Now going onto another matter, I DO believe they seized on the attacks to persue an established agenda, namely the invasion of Afghanistan and Iraq. But actually causing it? Bullshit.

I also don't dispute that mistakes were made by the CIA and other agencies before this event, but I think a lot of the "conspiracy" evidence we see is actually people who ****ed up and failed to prevent a tragedy trying to cover their own ass. "We had no possible way of knowing planes could be flown into the building" was one way of saying "We simulated it, but **** me we never thought of the 1000 things we simulated someone would actually DO it. Better not admit that." Beside, what response is there to that? What do you do when you've simulated that? Stop allowing.... planes?

And the warnings they were given before September 11? Just more unspecified warnings among thousands of others. "A potential unspecified threat".

In addition to Occam's Razor, there's a whole other razor to play with here. There's a quote that's appropriate here. Hanlon's Razor - '"Never blame on malice what can be adequately explained by stupidity." It should actually be called Heinlen's Razor, as it's a misspelling of his name from a paraphrasing of something from a book he wrote: "You have attributed conditions to villainy that simply result from stupidity". (Robert J Heinlen, writer of Stranger In A Strange Land, and if you haven't read it, ZOMG, READ IT NOW!)

This razor is an important one, and one that many conspiracy theories could do with taking into account. There's a british version of it too, by Sir Bernard Ingham. "Cock-up before conspiracy". That's so appropriate it gives me wood.

Part 3 - The Great Banking War And Military Industrial Complex

Events such as the Depression were largely made worse by the Federal Reserve, but only because they didn't know what they were doing and made MISTAKES. Not because they were trying to make things worse to enslave the population of the US. That's a big ****ing stretch even for someone who believes that the Son of God popped out of a virginal twat in a food trough.

There are a lot of myths about the US federal reserve, so I'll cover the main ones here.

1. The US does NOT pay interest on currency from the federal reserve. The Fed actually rebates its earnings back to the Treasury, so there is NO net interest on the currency.

2. The Federal Reserve BANKS are privately owned, but they're completely controlled by the Federal Reserve BOARD, which is publically elected.

3. The national debt is NOT a result of debt to the banks. That actually only makes up about 7% of national debt, so only a small percentage of the INTEREST on national debt. Not to mention that interest is rebated, so...

4. Decisions on currency circulation and budget are not made by the bank. They're made by congress. The banks merely enact them.

5. There are a lot of quotes by Mc Fadden here. It turns out Mc Fadden was simply wrong. He later recanted a lot of his beliefs, and saw that while mistakes were made, there was no true malice. See above.

Income tax - what a bunch of ****heads. The law that says you have to pay tax is right there in Title 26 of the United States Code - The Internal Revenue Code. Section one. And 61. And 63.

There are enough myths about it that the IRS has a dedicated page about income tax bullshit - http://www.irs.gov/taxpros/article/0,,id=1...l#_Toc139431515 and this page is excellent on the same issue http://docs.law.gwu.edu/facweb/jsiegel/Per...l/taxes/F2F.htm.

This article covers the various nonsense about the Fed rather well http://www.geocities.com/CapitolHill/Senat...serveFacts.html

The US starting wars to make money for the Rothschilds, etc.

There's a lot in here that's true, and a lot that's not. That's how conspiracy theories work. They take facts and fit them to a conclusion. For a start, yes, there are a lot of bankers who have gone into public office. That's what public office means. It's amost entirely bankers and lawyers in the US. Plumbers don't go into parliament in the US. In Australia that's actually possible, but in the US, extremely difficult to be elected to high office as anything that's not wealthy - a lawyer, or a banker.

Eisenhower DID want to go to war with Japan. Not because he wanted to make money from the war, but because there was a strong alliance with Britain, and one that had gone on for many years. The US wanted to join the war at a political level, but not at a public level. Japan and Germany were seen as the aggressors, and Eisenhower's "provocation" of japan was largely as a result of not liking what she was doing, while his support of Britain was due to... well... supporting Britain.

Oh, for the record, I do think that the Japanese were permitted to bomb Pearl Harbour to give a justification to go to war. Is this the same as deliberately crashing planes into your own buildings? Hell no.

I do think that the US and other countries have gone too far with anti-terrorism laws that break boundaries of "real" laws, which should protect against false imprisonment, etc. Australia as much as the US has created terrible laws restricting freedom in return for some sort of false promise of protection from terrorism.

The North American Union stuff is old hat. It's simply NOT TRUE. There's no goverment plan to do any such thing. Why would there be? Why would the US government want to tie in Mexico? Link the USD to the Peso? That's a good idea. There's absolutely no basis for this claim, no evidence. There are some sample "amero" coins, but they were commissioned by an individual collector as a joke after the "story" broke. The truth is all of this is concept thought up by various think-tanks and commissions, suggestions or theories. A commission in 2005, for example, suggested greater communication and cooperation with Canada and Mexico. But hardly union. The Amero concept was brought up in an article and written speculatively as a response to the Euro.

One world government... Jesus, is there a conspiracy theory that's not covered here. I'm starting to lose patience.

Then it goes into RFID tags. I have to point out that RFID is an identification chip that can only be read within about 20cm, so it's useless for tracking. It contains identifying information, nothing more and has been suggested for use in body identification, or for storage of medical information, for example. One thing it cannot do is turn off your heartbeat. To do that you'd need some sort of full-on system connected to your heart (or possibly brain) with a big battery connected to your heart and a switch. This is not something you can sneak into people. "We're just attaching this car battery to your baby's heart. No reason."

RFID chips are used in passports. They're very easy to secure, and contain a lot of information for their space.

The clips from the movie ""Network"" are freaking awesome. I have to watch that movie. Copyright violation at all?

OK, I've finished it now.

So many conspiracy theories in one place, and as usual all nonsense, poorly researched, and presented to maintain a particular belief, regardless of the facts.

I would question what the connection is between "Jesus was an astrologer", "The Standard 9/11 Conspiracy Theory" and "The Banking Giants are trying to establish a one world government". But then I'd have to answer. Not a ****ing thing. The fact is this is just three different documentaries loosely tied together. They're not even NEW documentaries. It's "The God who wasn't there", " Loose Change" and "America: Freedom to Fascism". Three different "documentaries" bundled up together here. This makes them no more true. It even uses the same footage as them.