I suppose it is only natural to dismiss documentaries such as Zeitgeist for being overly sensensionalistic, deceitful and for making the viewer feel powerless in the face of such potential truths. Most ‘official’ critiques that I have read regarding Zeitgeist speak only of fear-mongering and distortion of truth, but very few, if any at all, speak about the implications that are raised were any of what Zeitgeist discusses to be true. These implications are so far-reaching and mind boggling that it is indeed far easier and much more ‘rational’ to just dismiss them as conspiracy theory nonsense and to move on with one’s life.

Like the hamsters on a wheel portrayed in the documentary, we live our lives based on a set of assumptions that we accept as facts. These help us keep a certain stability and they allow us to make sense of the world. We are permitted some level of questioning and we can move the boundaries of these assumptions in various degrees, depending on one’s inclinations towards rebellion, anarchism and non-conformism. But questioning the foundations themselves upon which our definition of truth and reality is based, that is the stuff that most ‘normal’ people will usually associate with the delusional and less intelligent other.

Through my work and interests over the past 3 years, I have begun a process of questioning the reality in which I have been living most of my life. What if most of what I knew about health, agriculture, politics and finance was a lie, a mirage placed upon me to serve the purpose of a few with delusions of world domination and whose main interest it is to profit and to control?

With such thoughts regularly on my mind, it is no wonder that I found Zeitgeist fascinating and powerful enough to make me think: why not? Why isn’t it possible for example, that, for the past 100 years or so, a few very powerful people (Illuminati anyone?) have been trying to control world financial markets and foreign regimes and have even started wars and engaged in terrorist attacks on their own people, in order to obtain more power, control and money? Could it be that the financial system that regulates our planet is based on lies and fraud, a master plan to enslave and impoverish the large majority of the people of this world? Was Christianity created by the Emperor Constantin for the sole purpose of keeping social order, turning in the process what had been so far only recycled myths and traditions into the divisive doctrine that it is today? Are wars started with financial gain in mind? Is what we were led to believe about 9/11 really the truth?

Most of the content in Zeitgeist is not new. Bits and pieces can be found on the net and in various documentaries such as Loose Change, Why We Fight (2005), The War Profiteers (2006), The Corporation (2003), and America: From Freedom to Fascism (2006). What Zeitgeist does is bring all this content together in a way that is compelling and clear. I am not knowledgeable enough about these issues to determine how much the truth has been distorted and how one-sided some of the arguments in the documentary are. It is clear that Peter Jospeh, the filmmaker, is presenting us with his views of things and that in the process he is omitting a lot of valuable counter points. Yet, what is most important here i believe is to keep an open mind and to ask one’s self: what if? What if all of this or much of this content is true? What does it mean for the human race and what does it mean for you as a person? Will you just ignore these possibilities and continue as is or will you start to question and, for some, to act?