Now You See Me

is really about the Illuminati causing the Global Financial Crisis of 2008 in order to subjugate the masses and create a police state

*****SPOILER ALERT*****

This article will contain spoilers, so if you haven’t seen the film, you may want to watch it before reading. However, if you’re more interested in how this film trumpets a triumphal declaration of the sleight-of-hand inherent in the Global Financial Crisis and ongoing chaos and suffering since then, by all means read on.

First off, let’s begin by dispelling any concerns over conspiracy nuttery. I use the term Illuminati because the iconography in the film deliberately adopted symbols associated with the so-called Illuminati, most strikingly the All-Seeing Eye, or to those of you with a dollar bill to hand, the eye in the capstone of the pyramid on the back. This read of the film is not in any way a suggestion that the Illuminati exists in the explicit way that a lot of conspiracy theorists suggest; it is however an interesting glimpse of how ideas and in fact whole narratives can be present within a text even if the authors themselves did not consciously insert them.

So, to the plot of the film. Four magicians are summoned to a clandestine meeting by a mysterious calling card emblazoned with the aforementioned All-Seeing Eye. The secret society represented by the card is called The Eye, just in case the symbolism was lost on you. After being given the blueprints for an amazing show, we next see these four when they perform under the name The Four Horsemen. Just in case the apocalyptic subtext wasn’t hammered home fully enough by the Illuminati symbolism of the secret society inducing them to do its bidding in exchange for the possibility of membership.

The show involves a bank robbery and also introduces two other very important characters, Arthur Tressler and Thaddeus Bradley. Arthur Tressler has an insurance company which has made him very rich. Thaddeus Bradley is an ex-magician now making a living by revealing the tricks of magicians.

Finally, FBI agent Dylan Rhodes is put onto the case and charged with tracking down these bank robbers. He is partnered with Alma Dray, an Interpol agent.

Let’s pause there. The Four Horsemen are summoned and given a task to complete which will ensure their membership in a secret society, The Eye. They get the funding for the task from a wealthy investor. Opposed to them are a man sworn to reveal their secrets and the secrets of The Eye and also, apparently, a representative of the State, an FBI agent.

What happens? Well, as it turns out, the bank robbery was really just a taster for the coup de grace, which involves completely bankrupting the wealthy man who previously thought that the Four Horsemen were on his side. The whistleblower is set up as the villain, a selfish prick who just wants to make a living ruining the illusion, and in the end is framed for the very robbery he was working with the FBI to solve. The FBI, as it turns out, in the personage of Dylan Rhodes, is really a member of The Eye, and it was he who set the wheels in motion all along. The Interpol agent, representing in effect the international community or at the very least Europe, finds out the truth but does nothing, choosing instead to cover it up.

So what’s the read and how the hell does any of this relate to the Illuminati or the Global Financial Crisis of 2008?

*deep breath, Ace Ventura-style*

The Four Horsemen represent the four estates of clergy, nobility, commoners and media. In modern society, one can transpose the financial industry for the clergy. Each character is given a different Major Arcana card from the Tarot deck, neatly symbolising their respective roles: The High Priestess, The Hermit, The Lovers and Death.

The four estates are convened by a hidden society of watchers and rulers to perform a function. The function involves creating an initial disturbance (the Global Financial Crisis) which will in reality be followed by an even bigger power play, the result of which will be the destruction of wealth (Michael Caine) and dissent (Morgan Freeman) through force from the State (Mark Ruffalo). The authorities trusted with preventing or at least catching the perpetrators of the initial disturbance make a show of investigating but in reality are actually working for the same hidden society in order to protect them and the perpetrators during the crucial period between the initial disturbance and the actual event, the coup de grace in which the wealthy are destroyed and those seeking to expose the secret society are implicated falsely in the crime.

Michael Caine’s character, Arthur Tressler, neatly sums up the average one-percenter - wealthy beyond calculation, conceited, comfortable and complacent. He even funds the very people that will eventually destroy him - hubris personified. Morgan Freeman’s character, Thaddeus Bradley, is trying to reveal the crime being perpetrated and even ends up working with Tressler in order to stop The Eye. The weird consonance of certain voices in the conspiracy community and certain hardcore think tanks funded by the super-wealthy are a reflection of this type of bedfellowship. In the end, the wealthy are laid waste with their riches gone and the whistleblower/dissenter is imprisoned for the very crime he sought to uncover. Bradley Manning, recently sentenced to 35 years in prison for attempting to shine a light on the machinery of the State, can probably attest to the way in which whistleblowers have been accused of the exact perfidy being carried out by those they seek to drag into the spotlight.

The Four Horsemen gain their entry into The Eye, which in effect is an extension of the State, even though for a short time it didn’t seem that way. The European State (Melissa Laurent) is implicit in the coverup although not active in the secret society. The whistleblower languishes in prison, the wealthy in penury. The shadow society remains unrevealed and unknown to the public. In this context, the actions of the State in service of The Eye represent the rise of the police state, of technocratic tyranny.

In the end, the heists are not about money so much as they are about revenge, or in the language of the subtext of the film, exerting power over others. The Eye or, as it would carry over, the Illuminati, are proud of what they did during the Global Financial Crisis, and their work isn’t done yet. There’s more coming down the pipe. First the bank, robbed but with depositors insured. Then the insurance company and with it the wealthy one-percenter at its helm. The recent garnishing of bank accounts in Cyprus to pay for the bailout there (a so-called ‘bail-in) is a good example of the taxpayer paying first and the wealthy paying second. After that? A final explosion of showering free money onto the people (quantitative easing much?). In fact, the very milieu of magic lends itself to an underlying comment on the illusion or trick inherent in money creation, which is tapped into existence on a keyboard 97% of the time. The crowd goes wild for the fluttering bank notes raining down on them, but the euphoria of money-for-nothing will prove hollow in the end. It will really be a tool for crushing the remaining shreds of resistance and dissent, so that the State can reign supreme in service of its secret masters. The State, supposedly working for the people, overtly working for the wealthy as a buffer between them and the people, will in the end subjugate both rich and poor alike, because The Eye is calling the shots.

And that’s the movie you didn’t see.