> But my memory is that the confabulation they created was real — by accident, yet it was.

The confabulation was picked up by people who, for various reasons, wanted to believe it was true. But there was no truth, there was just people looking to control others, and people willing to be controlled.

I believe the conspiracy was real, but was itself an emergent manifestation of the conspiracy hunters' paranoia.

As the occultist Agliè explicitly champions, "in its loftiest sense syncretism is the acknowledgment that a single Tradition runs through and nurtures all religion, all learning, all philosophy". He asserts that "true esotericism does not fear contradiction".

None of what was published could falsify the syncretic paranoia-therefore whatever existed was the cult, since no tradition could be excluded.

my mis-intepretation is as good as yours, but IIRC their specific conspiracy wasn't real to begin with, but it _becomes_ real.

That was the genius bit of the book, IMVHO.