Conspiracy theory deluxe

"Thrive" is an extremely curious movie, narrated by Foster Gamble, the founder of the Thrive Movement.

"Thrive" begins as a soft-core, New Age-inspired movie about free energy, crop circles, ancient astronauts and UFOs. Gamble talks about his spiritual experience of Wholeness and something he calls "the torus", which he believes is the fundamental pattern of the universe. Gamble speculates that "the torus" was known by ancient civilizations, which got the knowledge from highly evolved space aliens. The torus can be used to create unlimited amounts of free energy, which will solve our energy crisis once and for all, ushering in an era of unlimited prosperity and growth.

If you are a sceptic, things go rapidly downhill from there...

Gamble suddenly claims that many inventors of free energy have been harassed or even murdered.

After about 40 minutes, "Thrive" turns out to be a hard-line conspiracy theory production. It features both David Icke and D. Edward Griffin. The latter is a member of the John Birch Society. Gamble believes that the world is ruled by a powerful elite of banking families, most notably the Rockefellers and the Rotschilds. Their agenda is to set up a New World Order, an international military dictatorship based on mass surveillance technology, debt slavery and grinding poverty. The ultimate goal of the agenda is to kill off a vast portion of the human race through forced sterilization, man-made pandemics, and so on. Yes, really!

In contrast to many other conspiracists, Gamble ends on a positive note. He offers solutions to our predicament, solutions which turn out to be an eclectic blend of communitarianism, libertarianism and something that sounds like Green left-liberalism. A ten-point program is advanced, and people are called upon to take non-violent action against the conspiracy, in the traditions of Martin Luther King and Mahatma Gandhi. "Thrive" ends as it began, with a vague spiritual message, based on aikido and Buddhist meditation.

Although Foster Gamble, his lovely wife and their Thrive Movement isn't exactly my cup of tea, I admit that I was weirdly fascinated by this film. It presents a very extreme and controversial message in an incredibly laid back, soft and even slightly respectable manner. Gamble has convinced many reputable non-conspiracists to appear on his show, including Deepak Chopra and Vandana Shiva. "Thrive" is incredibly well produced, suggesting that someone with substantial means have contributed to the project. My guess is that it's Gamble himself, since he belongs to one of the families which owns Procter & Gamble. The narrator is at pains to distance himself from anti-Semitism and anti-Black racism (several of the people interviewed are Black, including Foster's aikido trainer). He takes the side of the American Indians against the settlers, while claiming to be an avid student of Ludwig von Mises. Not a bad job, certainly not for a person who is on a first-name basis with David Icke...

I will give "Thrive" five stars, not because I agree with its analysis or political program, but because it's so charismatic and intriguing. It's also available for free, both at the movement's website and at Youtube - in 20 different languages.

This is conspiracy theory deluxe.