September 11, 2013 9:00AM 

# *The United States of Paranoia*: An Illuminati False Flag? 

By [Caleb O. Brown](https://www.cato.org/people/caleb-o-brown) 

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In advance of today’s [book forum](https://www.cato.org/events/united-states-paranoia-conspiracy-theory) for Jesse Walker’s *[The United States of Paranoia: A Conspiracy Theory](http://www.amazon.com/The-United-States-Paranoia-Conspiracy/dp/0062135554)*, I [chatted with him a bit in Cato podcast form](https://www.cato.org/multimedia/daily-podcast/united-states-paranoia-conspiracy-theory) ([Subscribe](https://www.cato.org/multimedia/daily-podcast)!) about [Illuminatus!](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Illuminatus!_Trilogy), [Robert Anton Wilson](http://www.libertarianism.org/people/robert-anton-wilson) and the remarkable growth of conspiracy theories in popular culture.

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