The Protocols of Zion was passed around Pasadena by many of the hard-line followers of Armstrongism. Others bought into the "mark of the beast" as being "bar codes."
There were Jewish conspiracies. There were Catholic conspiracies. The Illuminati. Disciples of Gary North. Belief in the Spear of Destiny, Pyramidology, New World Order. The Jews were conspiring with the Jesuits to destroy Christianity.
Yet through all of this, these people thought they were the most loyal members of the church. They clung to the law and demanded that everyone else do the same things they were. They were the stalwart members of the Church who remain to make sure that the conspiracies of Satan to destroy the Church would never be forgotten.
Fringe groups always attract an odd sort of fringe believers. These people are looking for hidden secret truth that further enhances their worship experience. This hidden knowledge, known only to a select few sets them further apart from the Called Out believers as the true remnant. These are also the same people who believe that they, and they alone are the true holders of the "faith once delivered" by Herbert W Armstrong. They maintain the "pure truth" and use all their means to make sure that those coming up after them are brought to that truth. Many of these people still remain in Grace Communion because they feel that God had called them to the truth in that organization(WCG/RCG) and that they cannot leave. They remain to quietly and subversively continue to spread the teaching of Herbert Armstrong and the"restored true religion" to all they come into contact with - without rising the ire of GCI top brass.
On several COG related groups recently there have been all kinds of posts about the Vision of Fatima, there is one last pope to come, lots of articles on German Nazi mythology and paganism, articles on the secrets behind Masonic lodge architecture in Washington DC, and much, much more. Many of these people are followers of Art Bell, World News Daily and The Raiders News Network. They also buy into all of Dan Brown's books as legitimate sources of symbolism and history.
Why are people so fascinated with conspiracy theories? Scientific American has this to say about conspiracy theories:
Why do people believe in highly improbable conspiracies? In previous columns I have provided partial answers, citing patternicity (the tendency to find meaningful patterns in random noise) and agenticity (the bent to believe the world is controlled by invisible intentional agents). Conspiracy theories connect the dots of random events into meaningful patterns and then infuse those patterns with intentional agency. Add to those propensities the confirmation bias (which seeks and finds confirmatory evidence for what we already believe) and the hindsight bias (which tailors after-the-fact explanations to what we already know happened), and we have the foundation for conspiratorial cognition.
To see this amazing 'truth' that captivates so many Armstrongites check this out. The Raiders News Network
