Conspiracy Theory vs. Coincidence Theory
This entry is part of a series on “Applied Cratology”: Part 1. Understanding Power Empowers. Part 2. The Status–Power Gap. Part 3. The Sociopath Problem. Part 4. Conspiracy Theory vs. Coincidence Theory.
I fondly recall Friday nights watching The X-Files with my family, one of my father’s favourite shows.
Each episode followed FBI agents Fox Mulder and Dana Scully as they investigated unsolved cases that were paranormal in nature, known as the “X-Files.” The show, partly episodic, featured “monster-of-the-week” standalones in which the agents encountered supernatural phenomena.
Then there was the serialized storyline: an unfolding conspiracy that the agents gradually uncovered, known to fans as the “Mytharc.” It centered on a secret government plot involving a shadowy group called the Syndicate, which collaborated with aliens planning to colonize Earth by releasing a Black Oil virus that turned humans into hosts. A vaccine (!!!) was developed to protect select individuals, alongside the creation of human–alien hybrids who were immune.
Mulder wanted to believe in the paranormal and in the conspiratorial cover-up, while Scully sought to disprove such claims, maintaining integrity to the scientific process and applying Occam’s razor (the simplest explanation requiring the fewest assumptions), supported by a worldview grounded in materialism and scientific skepticism.
In essence, Mulder was the believer; Scully, the skeptic. Or rather, he was the “conspiracy theorist,” and she was the “coincidence theorist,” a term used to describe someone who rejects any conspiratorial thinking, views strange patterns as coincidences, and places blind trust in expert explanations.
In the series, Mulder wins out and turns out to be more right than Scully. You could say that, given the prevalence of conspiracy theories today, the conspiracy theorists have now won out over the coincidence theorists.
This was not always the case. The coincidence theorists were once dominant, especially during the COVID moment, when anyone who disagreed with governmental response measures or the experts who supported them was labeled a conspiracy theorist and subsequently censored.
Now, in 2025, everyone is a conspiracy theorist.
We will find out why, but first we will embrace our inner Scully, go full coincidence theorist, and look at the various theories about why conspiracy theories exist.
Theories of Conspiracy Theories
Conspiracy theories.
They are inescapable.
After a major cultural event, you will see a wave of conspiratorial speculation countering what governmental authorities claim to be true.
For example, the leading theory about the recent assassination of Charlie Kirk is that it was carried out by a professional hitman, allegedly a Mossad operation intended to stop Kirk from becoming publicly critical of Israel, something he was reportedly beginning to do in private.
Why is it that whenever a shocking event occurs, many people disbelieve what is known as the “official narrative”?
The official narrative, a term used in conspiracy studies, refers to the version of events put out by “the establishment” (that is, governmental bodies and their truth claims as reported by mainstream news). Examples include the Warren Commission Report, the 9/11 Commission Report, and the claim about Saddam’s weapons of mass destruction. These have been, respectively, heavily disputed, broadly accepted (at least in the mainstream), and fully discredited.
Given the prevalence of conspiratorial thinking and its influence on how people make sense of the world, it is important to understand why such theories exist. There is no shortage of perspectives in the academic literature, ranging across philosophy, psychology, and anthropology.
I will provide a robust overview of the major theories on conspiracy theories, the ones most respected within what might be called “institutional knowledge,” which we will address shortly.
First, to give us a clear understanding of the contours of the various theories, here is a framework and two taxonomies:
Epistemic Framework (Keeley, 1999)
Scope Taxonomy (Barkun, 2003)
Motive Taxonomy (Douglas, Sutton & Cichocka, 2017)
Epistemic Framework
In “Of Conspiracy Theories” (1999), philosopher Brian Keely defines conspiracy theory as:
A proposed explanation of some historical event (or events) in terms of the significant causal agency of a relatively small group of persons, the conspirators acting in secret.
He makes the following distinction:
Warranted Conspiracy Theories: have credible evidence, display epistemic openness (beliefs are open to change), and are scope-limited, meaning they guard against conspiratorial scope creep (the idea that everything is part of the conspiracy).
Unwarranted Conspiracy Theories: lack credible evidence, exhibit epistemic closeness (being guarded against all refutation), and show ever-expanding skepticism that undermines trust in all truth-validating institutions.
Keely sees conspiracy theories as existing on a spectrum, with one’s epistemic stance determining where a theory is situated.
Scope Taxonomy
In A Culture of Conspiracy (2003), political scientist Michael Barkun offers the following taxonomy based on the scope creep Keely referred to:
Event Conspiracies: These explain well-defined events, such as the assassination of JFK, 9/11, or the moon landing.
Systemic Conspiracies: These involve deep conspiracies in which a cabal infiltrates existing institutions for its own ends, such as ZOG, the Deep State, or Big Pharma.
Superconspiracies: These weave multiple plots into a full-spectrum domination narrative driven by an ultimate evil force, such as the Jews, Reptilian Overlords, or the demiurge.
Another helpful distinction from Barkun is between “stigmatized knowledge” and institutional knowledge. The former refers to knowledge claims not accepted by institutions traditionally relied upon for truth validation (for example, universities). This category includes most conspiracy narratives and all forms of “woo,” such as alternative medicine, parapsychology, and ufology.
Motive Taxonomy
In their paper “The Psychology of Conspiracy Theories” (2017), psychologists Karen Douglas, Robbie Sutton, and Aleksandra Cichocka identify three psychological motives that explain why people believe in conspiracy theories:
Epistemic motive: The need for certainty in uncertain or complex situations.
Existential motive: The need for safety and a sense of control when feeling powerless.
Social motive: The need to belong within a group that shares similar beliefs.
According to the authors, all of these motives offer a sense of stability in a world that feels increasingly unstable.
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There are a range of theories that expand upon the above taxonomies and seek to explain why people engage in conspiratorial thinking. They include:
Conspiracy Society (Popper, 1945): The tendency to falsely attribute intentional conspiracies to major social events rather than recognizing the unintended consequences that arise from the complexity of human behaviour and social systems.
Paranoid Style (Hofstadter, 1964): A recurring mode of political thinking that emerges during periods of social upheaval and status anxiety, characterized by totalizing suspicion and apocalyptic overtones.
Social Contagion (Sunstein & Vermeule, 2009): The spread of “informational cascades” through closed epistemic networks (“echo chambers”) is based not on solid evidence, but on social trust.
Cognitive Biases (Brotherton, 2015): Cognitive biases such as agency detection (assuming intent where there is none) and proportionality bias (assuming that large events must have “large causes”) evolved to help humans navigate complexity.
Secular Theodicy (Lepselter, 2016): In a secular and disenchanted world, modern myths, such as conspiracy narratives, serve to provide meaning amid collective suffering or social disenfranchisement.
Epistemic Pathologies (Cassam, 2019): A breakdown in how people evaluate knowledge leads to epistemic pathologies that are exploited by “conspiracy entrepreneurs” who capitalize on these vulnerabilities.
The Conspiracy Money Machine (Imperati, 2023): A lucrative online industry has emerged in which conspiratorial beliefs are monetized and perpetuated.
There are more, many more, but you get the idea: the core of all these theories is that belief in conspiracy theories arises not because they are true, but because of some alternative, often unconscious, reason.
I recommend engaging with all of the above theories, as they each contain signal. However, I will offer another theory, one that might shock our inner coincidence theorist.
Conspiracy theories are true in spirit.
Before unpacking this, let us turn our critical eye to coincidence theories.
The Coincidence Theory
I see the problems with the academic theories above as threefold:
The presupposition that conspiracy theories are wrong.
The weaponization of the phrase “conspiracy theory.”
The implication that those who believe in conspiracies are inherently ignorant.
Many of the works mentioned above are presented with the underlying presupposition that conspiracy theories are false. Furthermore, their adherents are often portrayed as being motivated by something other than sound psychology or epistemology. This risks committing the appeal-to-motive fallacy: assuming that if someone’s motives are corrupt or misguided, their truth claims must also be false, which, of course, is not necessarily the case.
Hence, the academics flirt with being doubly wrong: first, in assuming that conspiracy theories possess an a priori falsity, and second, in committing the fallacy of assuming that people who operate with unconscious motives must therefore hold false beliefs.
In addition, they offer no perspective on the unfair weaponization of the phrase “conspiracy theory,” which occurs frequently today and was on full display during the COVID moment. For example, if someone in good faith questioned any official narrative position on:
Lockdowns
Mask efficacy
School closures
Lab leak origins
Natural immunity
Erosion of civil liberties
Pharmaceutical profit motives
Vaccine efficacy and side effects
They were either labeled conspiracy theorists or censored outright. In hindsight, two and a half years after the end of the pandemic, many of these questions now seem reasonable to those who once thought them unreasonable. Yet during the COVID moment, stigmatization and censorial overreach were directed at anyone who held such views, leading to the conspiratorial blowback we see today.
Lastly, a latent claim within many academic theories is that conspiracy theorists are ignorant of their own motives. If they were not, the thinking goes, they might reason like the academics above and would not believe in such conspiracies.
Yet perhaps they would, because a deeper belief persists: that conspiracy theorists are ignorant not only because they lack education but because they are stupid.
To many, conspiracy theorists are perceived as low IQ and therefore low status. While none of the academic theories state this outright, it appears to be an unspoken assumption, one now made explicit by political commentators (see “The Rise of the Dale Gribble Voter”).
However, despite its weaponization and stigmatization, I see the “conspiracy theorist” label as a fair descriptor, especially when a person meets the following criteria:
Believes that most significant societal or political events, if not all, can be reduced to a conspiracy.
Exhibits epistemic closeness by rushing toward the first theory that comes to mind, one that is, of course, in opposition to the official narrative (Keely’s “unwarranted conspiracy theories”).
Conspiracy theorists, while not necessarily of low intelligence as often claimed, may feel a sense of inferiority about their intellect because they lack credentials or harbor resentment toward those with higher educational standing.
They can be quite frustrating to engage with and often display rigidity in their worldview. Likewise, coincidence theorists are equally difficult in their own way. I consider someone a coincidence theorist when they meet the following criteria:
Believes that most significant societal or political events, if not all, definitely contain no conspiracy.
Exhibits epistemic closeness by rushing toward the first theory that comes from perceived expert consensus, one that is, of course, supportive of the official narrative.
Coincidence theorists often have a sense of superiority about their intelligence because they hold the “right views” or are hubristically proud of their higher educational standing.
In essence, conspiracy theorists feel special for holding secret, renegade truths (“stigmatized knowledge”), while coincidence theorists feel special for holding smart, respected truths (“institutional knowledge”).
While much academic thought has focused on the motives of conspiracy theorists, as we have reviewed, far less attention has been given to coincidence theorists.
Psychologist Nicolas Vermeulen is changing this and offers an important insight with his Protective Conspiracy Framing. In his recent paper “Seeing conspiracy theorists everywhere as a conspiracy paradox” (2025), Vermeulen argues that believing false conspiracies (a Type 1 error) is well studied in academia, whereas the opposite error, dismissing all conspiracies (a Type 2 error), remains largely understudied.
Yet, possibly in response to the proliferation of Type 1 conspiracy theories, another epistemic error exists, using similar processes but operating in the opposite direction: a reflex to dismiss and to label uncomfortable or deviant ideas or hypotheses as conspiracy theories, even in the absence of clear evidence of irrationality or mistake. I call this Protective Conspiracy Framing or Type 2 conspiracy. Protective Conspiracy Framing aligns with Type 2 errors: rejecting untested or unfalsified hypotheses. Protective Conspiracy Framing can be understood as a cognitive and rhetorical overreaction, where labelling an argument as a “conspiracy theory” may function as a social signal, potentially serving to uphold dominant norms, ideological orthodoxy, or institutional trust.
The coincidence theorist wants to maintain the epistemic status quo, partly for status reasons. In other words, they seek to preserve their position within a prestige hierarchy and avoid considering dissenting views that are coded as low status.
They are not truth seekers but status seekers. Or, more charitably said, their pursuit of status narrows the truth they can seek.
Additionally, maintaining the status quo supports their psychological safety, since accepting one conspiracy as true can lead to accepting others. This risks further social ostracism or a cascade into seeming insanity if proper epistemic care is not taken.
The conspiracy theorist commits Type 1 errors, and the coincidence theorist commits Type 2 errors.
Both are fools, epistemically blind in their own way, and in need of one another.
Beyond the Conspiracy and Coincidence Theorists
In the series on “applied cratology,” the study of where power is actually held both locally and globally, I argue that aspiring cratologists need to understand that there is a status–power gap: one’s recognized social standing can be decoupled from the actual influence that such standing implies.
This gap lies at the heart of our ignorance about who truly holds power, and the cratologist’s job is to close it. There are two main problems with this. Below the Dunbar Number (approximately 150 people), we face what I call the “Sociopath Problem,” in which humanity’s intraspecies predators conceal their power through manipulation and deception, aiming to exercise power over others.
Above the Dunbar Number, understanding who holds power requires increasing levels of abstraction. This leads to the “Conspiracy Problem,” which refers to the difficulty of forming accurate theories about where power is located and how it is exercised. As a result, conspiracy theorists rush to fill this gap with uncalibrated perspectives, which are then dismissed by coincidence theorists.
The problem is that power is misunderstood, and both types of theorists help maintain the power status quo.
Conspiracy theorists display a form of theoretical impotence that reaffirms existing power structures by neutralizing their own agency. Even when they identify centers of power, they do so in a fatalistic way: the distant elites are so powerful, well resourced, and organized that they can orchestrate highly elaborate plots. In light of this, no genuine expressions of agency are made, because resistance is felt to be futile.
This relates to what author
calls the “Second Matrix.” The conspiracy theorist escapes the “First Matrix,” the official narratives that produce power blindness, yet constructs another system of ideas, the Second Matrix, that provides a sense of superior understanding while leading to a kind of agentic paralysis.Moreover, the dumbing down of conspiracy theories by the “conspiracy entrepreneurs” (Cassam) within the “conspiracy money machine” (Imperati) undermines their credibility among those who remain stuck within the First Matrix, as Horsley argues:
This has to do with the different standards and values of 1st vs 2nd Matrix. The 1st Matrix (the official, mainstream reality construct) is designed to hide the truth of these things. The 2nd Matrix (alternate, marginal reality construct) is designed to over-simplify, streamline, and propagate the truth of these things, in a way that lacks basic credibility within a 1st Matrix framework.
In turn, coincidence theorists play their part by reacting against conspiracy theorists and maintaining the epistemic status quo. In doing so, they inadvertently preserve the power status quo, ensuring that dissent is delegitimized and the very power structures being questioned remain hidden.
Both types of theorists are engaged in an implicit, unconscious dance that conceals and maintains power. Yet with a proper understanding of both, we have a chance to move beyond their limitations and grasp where real power is actually held.
To restate my earlier claim:
Conspiracy theories are true in spirit but often wrong in theory.
In other words, conspiracy theorists correctly intuit that a status–power gap exists, but they move too quickly to fill that gap with speculative theories. Despite their flaws, they attempt to close the gap and may even point toward the true locations of power. Given enough time, they sometimes turn out to be right.
Just as Mulder and Scully needed each other, the conspiracy theorist and the coincidence theorist also need one another. The former aims to close the gap and points toward power, creatively intuiting where it may be hidden.
The latter provides a skeptical, critical eye with empirical and logical rigour, questioning how unexamined motives and incentives can distort one’s thinking and how, at times, seeing events as emergent phenomena rather than with conspiratorial intent may offer the wiser framing.
However, this skepticism should be redirected away from knee-jerk dismissal and toward refining theories of power so that real power can finally be seen. In doing so, a subdiscipline of parapolitical (hidden politics) sensemaking can emerge as part of one’s cratological skill set.
The truth is that conspiracy theories are not a new phenomenon, nor are those attracted to them necessarily cranks who lack proper education or intelligence. They represent something integral to the human experience, an understandable response to the status–power gap that arises when people organize beyond the Dunbar number.
It is time to move beyond the stigma surrounding them.
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The best part of The X-Files was the sexual tension between Mulder and Scully. In fan terms, it belongs to the “Will They or Won’t They?” TV trope: the long, slow-burning love that finally finds release in later seasons when the protagonists get together.
I argue that this same dynamic is unfolding between the social archetypes we discussed today. The tension between the conspiracy theorist and the coincidence theorist is palpable, and it is only a matter of time before their union becomes impossible to resist.
When it happens, what a power couple they will be in the truest sense.
Together, the believer and the skeptic, intuition and science, the renegade and the respected, will join forces to focus on what prefers to remain hidden.
