Paranoia and Pareidolia: the Visual Rhetoric of Conspiracy Theories

Massimo Leone, Department of Philosophy, University of Turin

massimo.leone@unito.it

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There are many definitions of communication. The most precise one is that which opposes it to signification (Volli 2010): there is no communication without intentionality. Whereas a sunset signifies something, a painting communicates something because culture recognizes it as product of signifying intentionality. On the other hand, such imputation of intentionality changes across cultures: for instance, a religion may see in sunset a sign of divine will to communicate.

The central theme of my paper is the following: studying, through cultural semiotics, the way in which different historical epochs and sociocultural contexts have the stress of intentionality fall in defining visual communication.

On the one hand, there are contexts that adopt a strong model of artistic intentionality: there is visual communication if and only if a human creative intentionality plans to communicate with a spectator through an artifact.

On the other hand, this strong model can be affected by inflexions of different kinds:

1) Acheiropoietai images; 2) natural images; 3) casual images; 4) pareidolia

In all these cases, visual communication is conceived without human intentionality, by anthropomorphizing various agents: 1) transcendence; 2) nature; 3) casuality; 4) an imaginary agent

Hybrids of these different instances are particularly interesting.

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The agency of images is a key-theme in art theory, visual anthropology, and visual semiotics. Here follow some classics:

Freedberg, David. 1989. The Power of Images: Studies in the History and Theory of Response. Chicago : University of Chicago Press, 1989.

Mitchell, William John Thomas. 1994. Picture Theory: Essays on Verbal and Visual Representation. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.

Gell, Alfred. 1998. Art and Agency: an Anthropological Theory. Oxford and New York: Clarendon Press.

Belting, Hans. 2001. Bild-Anthropologie: Entwürfe für eine Bildwissenschaft. München : W. Fink.

Contributions on the topic are also contained in

Leone, Massimo, ed. 2014. Efficacious Images. Special issue of Lexia, 17-18. Rome: Aracne, 788 pp.

How does culture think of the agency of images?

The leading hypothesis here is that the “power of images” is not a given, but a range that varies through history and cultures. In other words, distinction can be made among cultures that emphasize the intentionality of artists and image creators, other cultures that accentuate the intentionality of spectators, and other cultures yet that underline the intentionality of visual artworks and artifacts themselves. Cultural causes and effects of these three models are very different.

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The paper will now quote and comment on some influential texts, which have shaped the western attitude toward the intentionality of images. As it will be shown, the western culture often dreams of images that are produced by non-human intentionality and in which, as a consequence, a sort of revelation is beheld.

One the one hand, this attitude is mold by culture: as it was said earlier, some hermeneutic communities ardently want images to “be meaningful for themselves”.

On the other hand, this attitude might originate by cross-cultural features of human vision and cognition. Humans seem to be compelled to find meaning in images, and to attribute this meaning to agentive intentionality.

However, there is a risk in not controlling this cognitive impulse through cultural grids. The paper will exemplify the risk with reference to the way in which present-day conspiracy theories often “read” images. Like many influential authors of the past, conspiracy thinkers too believe that mysterious and usually noxious intentionality stays behind the fabrication of some images, which therefore must be debunked in order for the “real meaning” to be grasped.

Images are seen, observed, and analyzed as products of non-evident intentionalities. They therefore turn into visual evidence for alternative, heterodox readings of (especially historical, political, and social) reality.

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Pliny the Elder (Como, 23 – Stabiae, 25 August 79)

Dipoeni quidem Ambracia, Argos, Cleonae operibus refertae fuere. Omnes autem candido tantum marmore usi sunt e Paro insula, quem lapidem coepere lychniten appellare, quoniam ad lucernas in cuniculis caederetur, ut auctor est Varro, multis postea candidioribus repertis, nuper vero etiam in Lunensium lapicidinis. sed in Pariorum mirabile proditur, glaeba lapidis unius cuneis dividentium soluta, imaginem Sileni intus extitisse.

(Pliny the Elder, Naturalis Historia, 36, iv, 14) Ambracia too, Argos, and Cleonæ, were filled with productions of the sculptor Dipœnus.All these artists, however, used nothing but the white marble of the Isle of Paros, a stone which was known as “lychnites” at first, because, according to Varro, it was cut in the quarries by lamplight. Since their time, many other whiter marbles have been discovered, and very recently that of the quarries of Luna. With reference to the marble of Paros, there is one very marvellous circumstance related; in a single block that was split with wedges, a figure of Silenus made its appearance.

(English translation by John Bostock and H. T. Riley, 1855)

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Post hunc anulum regis alterius in fama est gemma, Pyrrhi illius, qui adversus Romanos bellum gessit. namque habuisse dicitur achaten, in qua novem Musae et Apollo citharam tenens spectarentur, non arte, sed naturae sponte ita discurrentibus maculis, ut Musis quoque singulis sua redderentur insignia.

(Pliny the Elder, Naturalis Historia, 37, iii, 5) Next in note after this ring, is the jewel that belonged to another king, Pyrrhus, who was so long at war with the Romans. It is said that there was in his possession an agate, upon which were to be seen the Nine Muses and Apollo holding a lyre; not a work of art, but the spontaneous produce of Nature, the veins in it being so arranged that each of the Muses had her own peculiar attribute.

(English translation by John Bostock and H. T. Riley, 1855)

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Baltrušaitis, Jurgis. 1957. “Pierres imagées”. In Id. Aberrations. Parigi: Flammarion, 1957 (Paris: Flammarion, 1983) Caillois, Roger. 1970. L’Écriture des pierres. Ginevra: Skira, 1970 (Paris: Flammarion, 1981).

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Simul, ut dictum est, et Protogenes floruit. patris ei Caunus, gentis Rhodis subiectae. summa paupertas initio artisque summa intentio et ideo minor fertilitas. quis eum docuerit, non putant constare; quidam et naves pinxisse usque ad quinquagensimum annum […] palmam habet tabularum eius Ialysus, qui est Romae dicatus in templo Pacis. cum pingeret eum, traditur madidis lupinis vixisse, quoniam sic simul et famem sustineret et sitim nec sensus nimia dulcedine obstrueret. huic picturae quater colorem induxit ceu tria subsidia iniuriae et vetustatis, ut decedente superiore inferior succederet. est in ea canis mire factus, ut quem pariter et casus pinxerit. non iudicabat se in eo exprimere spumam anhelantis, cum in reliqua parte omni, quod difficillimum erat, sibi ipse satisfecisset. displicebat autem ars ipsa: nec minuit poterat et videbatur nimia ac longius a veritate discedere, spumaque pingi, non ex ore nasci. anxio animi cruciatu, cum in pictura verum esse, non verisimile vellet, absterserat saepius mutaveratque penicillum, nullo modo sibi adprobans. postremo iratus arti, quod intellegeretur, spongeam inpegit inviso loco tabulae. et illa reposuit ablatos colores qualiter cura optaverat, fecitque in pictura fortuna naturam. hoc exemplo eius similis et Nealcen successus spumae equi similiter spongea inpacta secutus dicitur, cum pingeret poppyzonta retinentem eum. ita Protogenes monstravit et fortunam. propter hunc Ialysum, ne cremaret tabulam, Demetrius rex, cum ab ea parte sola posset Rhodum capere, non incendit, parcentemque picturae fugit occasio victoriae.

(Pliny the Elder, Naturalis Historia, 35, xvi, 101-4)

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At the same period flourished Protogenes […]. Of all his compositions […] the palm has been awarded to his Ialysus, now at Rome, consecrated in the Temple of Peace there. […] There is in this picture the figure of a dog, which was completed in a very remarkable manner, inasmuch as accident had an equal share with design in the execution of it. The painter was of opinion that he had not given the proper expression to the foam at the mouth of the animal, panting for breath, as it was represented; while, with all other parts of the picture, a thing extremely difficult with him, he was perfectly satisfied. The thing that displeased him was, the evident traces of art in the execution of it, touches which did not admit of any diminution, and yet had all the appearance of being too laboured, the effect produced being far removed from his conception of the reality: the foam, in fact, bore the marks of being painted, and not of being the natural secretion of the animal's mouth. Vexed and tormented by this dilemma, it being his wish to depict truth itself, and not something that only bore a semblance of truth, he effaced it again and again, changed his pencil for another, and yet by no possibility could satisfy himself. At last, quite out of temper with an art, which, in spite of him, would still obtrude itself, he dashed his sponge against the vexatious spot; when behold: the sponge replaced the colours that it had just removed, exactly in accordance with his utmost wishes, and thus did chance represent Nature in a painting.Following his example, Nealces, it is said, succeeded in representing the foam at a horse's mouth; for on one occasion, when engaged in painting a man holding in a pair of horses and soothing them with his voice, he also dashed his sponge against the picture, with the view of producing a like effect.

(English translation by John Bostock and H. T. Riley, 1855)

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Dio Chrysostom, (Prusa, 40-120 circa)

4 Ὁρᾶν δὲ χρὴ καὶ τὸ εὐμήχανον αὐτῆς. ἤδη γοῦν τις ἐκπεσὼν νεὼς ἐν πελάγει εὐπόρησε τοῦ ζῆν, ἐλθούσης τύχης. ἄξιον δὲ εἰπεῖν καὶ τὸ συμβὰν ἀπὸ τῆς τύχης Ἀπελλῇ τῷ ζωγράφῳ. ὡς γὰρ λόγος, ἵππον οὐχὶ ἐξ ἐργασίας ἀλλὰ ἐκ πολέμου ἐποίει· ὑψηλὸς ἦν τῷ αὐχένι καὶ ἐπανεστὼς καὶ τὰ ὦτα ὄρθιος καὶ δριμὺς τὰς ὄψεις, ὡς ἐκ πολέμου παρών, τὸν ἐκ τοῦ δρόμου θυμὸν ἐν ταῖς ὄψεσιν ἔχων, οἱ δὲ πόδες ὑπεφέροντο15 ἐν τῷ ἀέρι, μικρὰ p38ψαύοντες ἀνὰ μέρος τῆς γῆς. καὶ ὁ ἡνίοχος ἐκράτει τοῦ χαλινοῦ, τὸ πολεμικὸν σάλευμα τοῦ ἵππου ἀπὸ ῥυτῆρος ἄγχων. 5 ἅπαντα δὲ ἐχούσης τῆς εἰκόνος ἐοικότα ἔλειπεν ἀφροῦ χρῶμα, οἷον ἂν γένοιτο μιγέντος αἵματος καὶ ὑγροῦ κατὰ συνεχῆ μῖξιν, διώκοντος μὲν τοῦ ἄσθματος τὸ ὑγρὸν τῶν στομάτων, ἀφρίζοντος δὲ τῇ κοπῇ τοῦ πνεύματος, αἷμα δὲ ἐπιρραινούσης τῷ ἀφρῷ τῆς ἐκ τοῦ χαλινοῦ ὕβρεως. οὐ δὴ εὐπόρει γράφειν ἵππου ἀφρὸν κεκμηκότος ἐν ἀγῶνι. ἀπορῶν δὲ ἐπὶ πλέον, τέλος ἀπαλγήσας ἐνέσεισε περὶ τοῦς χαλινοὺς τῇ γραφῇ τὴν σπογγιάν. πολλὰ δὲ αὕτη ἔχουσα χρώματα ἐοικότα ἀφρῷ ᾑμαγμένῳ ἐφήρμοσε τῇ γραφῇ16 τὸ χρῶμα. Ἀπελλῆς δὲ ἰδὼν ἐχάρη τῷ ἐν ἀπογνώσει τύχης ἔργῳ καὶ ἐτέλεσεν οὐ διὰ τῆς τέχνης, ἀλλὰ διὰ τῆς τύχης τὴν γραφήν.

(Dio Chrysostom, ΠΕΡΙ ΤΥΧΗΣ ΠΡΩΤΟΣ ΛΟΓΟΣ, 63, 4-5)

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4 But one should consider also the resourcefulness of the goddess. For example, there have been times when a man who had fallen overboard from a ship at sea was able to save his life because Fortune came to his aid. Moreover, what happened to Apelles the painter because of Fortune deserves recounting.2 For, as the story goes, he was painting a horse — not a work-horse but a war-horse. Its neck was high arched, its ears erect, its eyes fierce, like one come not from work but from war, with the spirit of the charge in their glance, and its feet were rising in the p39air, touching the ground lightly one after the other. Moreover, the driver had a firm grip on the reins, throttling the martial gallop of the horse in mid-career. 5 But though the picture had everything true to life, there was lacking a colour wherewith to depict froth such as there would be when blood and saliva have mixed in constant intermingling, the panting breath driving before it the moisture of the lips and forming froth because of laboured breathing, while the cruel bit spattered blood upon the froth. So, then, Apelles knew not how to represent froth of a horse wearied in action. But as he was more and more perplexed, finally in a fit of desperation he hurled his sponge at the painting, striking it near the bit. But the sponge, containing as it did many colours, which when taken together resembled bloody froth, fitted its colour to the painting. And at the sight Apelles was delighted by what Fortune had accomplished in his moment of despair and finished his painting, not through his art, but through the aid of Fortune.

(Dio Chrysostom, First Discourse on fortune, 63, 2-4; English translation by H. Lamar Crosby)

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Quid quaeris, Carneades, cur haec ita fiant aut qua arte perspici possint? Nescire me fateor, evenire autem ipsum dico videre. "Casu," inquis. Itane vero? Quicquam potest casu esse factum, quod omnes habet in se numeros veritatis? Quattuor tali iacti casu Venerium efficiunt; num etiam centum Venerios, si quadringentos talos ieceris, casu futuros putas? Adspersa temere pigmenta in tabula oris liniamenta efficere possunt; num etiam Veneris Coae pulchritudinem effici posse adspersione fortuita putas? Sus rostro si humi A litteram impresserit, num propterea suspicari poteris Andromacham Enni ab ea posse describi? Fingebat Carneades in Chiorum lapicidinis saxo diffisso caput exstitisse Panisci; credo, aliquam non dissimilem figuram, sed certe non talem, ut eam factam a Scopa diceres. Sic enim se profecto res habet, ut numquam perfecte veritatem casus imitetur.

(Cicerone, De Divinatione, I, 13, 23)

“But what? You ask, Carneades, do you, why these things so happen, or by what rules they may be understood? I confess that I do not know, but that they do so fall out I assert that you yourself see. ‘Mere accidents,’ you say. Now, really, is that so? Can anything be an ‘accident’ which bears upon itself every mark of truth? Four dice are cast and a Venus throw results — that is chance; but do you think it would be chance, too, if in one hundred casts you made one hundred Venus throws? It is possible for paints flung at random on a canvas to form the outlines of a face; but do you imagine that an accidental scattering of pigments could produce the beautiful portrait of Venus of Cos? Suppose that a hog should form the letter ‘A’ on the ground with its snout; is that a reason for believing that it would write out Ennius’s poem The Andromache? Carneades used to have a story that once in the Chian quarries when a stone was split open there appeared the head of the infant god Pan; I grant that the figure may have borne some resemblance to the god, but assuredly the resemblance was not such that you could ascribe the work to a Scopas. For it is undeniably true that no perfect imitation of a thing was ever made by chance.

(Loeb Classical Library, Harvard University Press, vol. XX, 1923; Latin text with facing English translation by W. A. Falconer)

Marcus Tullius Cicero, Arpino, 3 gennaio 106 a.C. – Formia, 7 dicembre 43 a.C.

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Leaf-mask from the temple of Bacchus in Baalbek (current Lebanon), II century C.E.

14Upper part of a Greek funerary stele, end of the IV century

B.C.E. (Epigraphic Museum, Athens)

Ladendorf, Heinz. 1960. “Zur Frage der künstlerischen Phantasie”, 21-35. In Ladendorf, Heinz and Horst Vey, eds. 1960. Mouseion; Studien aus Kunst und Geschichte für Otto Förster. Colonia: M. DuMont Schanberg.Janson, Horst W. 1973. “Chance Images”, 1: 340-53. In Wiener, Philipp, ed. 1973. Dictionary of the History of Ideas, 4 vols. New York: Scribner.Guthrie, Stewart Elliott. 1993. Faces in the Clouds: a New Theory of Religion. New York: Oxford University Press. Elkins, James. 1999. Why Are Our Pictures Puzzles? On the Modern Origins of Pictorial Complexity. New York: Routledge.

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Varietates colorum figurarumque in nubibus cerni, prout admixtus ignis superet aut vincatur.

(Pliny the Elder, Naturalis Historia, II, xli, 152)

The clouds are varied in their colour and figure according as the fire which they contain is in excess or is absorbed by them.

(English translation by John Bostock and H. T. Riley, 1855)

ἀναλαβόντες οὖν τὰς ἐξ ἀρχῆς θέσεις καὶ τοὺς εἰρημένους πρότερον διορισμούς, λέγωμεν περί τε τῆς τοῦ γάλακτος φαντασίας καὶ περὶ κομητῶν καὶ τῶν ἄλλων ὅσα τυγχάνει τούτοις ὄντα συγγενῆ. φαμὲν δὴ πῦρ καὶ ἀέρα καὶ ὕδωρ καὶ γῆν γίγνεσθαι ἐξ ἀλλήλων, καὶ ἕκαστον ἐν ἑκάστῳ…

(Aristotle, Μετεωρολογικά, Βιβλίο Α‘, 339b)

Let us then recall our initial assumptions and the problem—what occupies the space between the earth and the farthest stars? — the definitions given earlier, and then proceed to discuss the milky way, comets, and other similar phenomena.

(English translation by H. D. P. Lee)

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Then why not rather know that imagesFlit hither and thither, many, in many modes,Bodiless and invisible?But lestHaply thou holdest that those imagesWhich come from objects are the sole that flit,Others indeed there be of own accordBegot, self-formed in earth’s aery skies,Which, moulded to innumerable shapes,Are borne aloft, and, fluid as they are,Cease not to change appearance and to turnInto new outlines of all sorts of forms;As we behold the clouds grow thick on highAnd smirch the serene vision of the world,Stroking the air with motions. For oft are seenThe giants’ faces flying far alongAnd trailing a spread of shadow; and at timesThe mighty mountains and mountain-sundered rocksGoing before and crossing on the sun,Whereafter a monstrous beast dragging amainAnd leading in the other thunderheads.Now [hear] how easy and how swift they beEngendered, and perpetually flow offFrom things and gliding pass away....(English translation by William Ellery Leonard)

Sed ne forte putes ea demum sola vagari,quae cumque ab rebus rerum simulacra recedunt,sunt etiam quae sponte sua gignuntur et ipsaconstituuntur in hoc caelo, qui dicitur aer,quae multis formata modis sublime feruntur,ut nubes facile inter dum concrescere in altocernimus et mundi speciem violare serenamaëra mulcentes motu; nam saepe Gigantumora volare videntur et umbram ducere late,inter dum magni montes avolsaque saxamontibus ante ire et solem succedere praeter,inde alios trahere atque inducere belua nimbos.nec speciem mutare suam liquentia cessantet cuiusque modi formarum vertere in oras.

(Titus Lucretius Carus, De rerum natura, Liber IV)

Titus Lucretius Carus, Pompei or Ercolano, 94 b.C. – Rome, 15 October 50 b.C.

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Lucius Flavius Philostratus (Lemno, 172 circa – Athens, 247 circa)

ΤΑ ΕΣ ΤΟΝ ΤΥΑΝΕΑ ΑΠΟΛΛΩΝΙΟΝ, II, 22

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While he was waiting in the Temple -and it took a long time for the king to be informed that strangers had arrived- Apollonius said: “O Damis, is there such a thing as painting?” “Why yes,” he answered, “if there be any such thing as truth.” “And what does this art do?” “It mixes together,” replied Damis, “all the colors there are, blue with green, and white with black, and red with yellow.” “And for what reason,” said the other, “does it mix these? For it isn’t merely to get a color, like dyed wax.” “It is,” said Damis, “for the sake of imitation, and to get a likeness of a dog, or a horse, or a man, or a ship, or of anything else under the sun; and what is more, you see the sun himself represented, sometimes borne upon a four horse car, as he is said to be seen here, and sometimes again traversing the heaven with his torch, in case you are depicting the ether and the home of the gods.” “Then, O Damis, painting is imitation?” “And what else could it be?” said he: “for if it did not effect that, it would voted to be an idle playing with colors.” “And,” said the other, “the things which are seen in heaven, whenever the clouds are torn away from one another, I mean the centaurs and stag-antelopes, yes, and the wolves too, and the horses, what have you got to say about them? Are we not to regard them as works of imitation?” “It would seem so,” he replied. “Then, Damis, God is a painter, and has left his winged chariot, upon which he travels, as he disposes of affairs human and divine, and he sits down on these occasions to amuse himself by drawing these pictures, as children make figures in the sand.” Damis blushed, for he felt that his argument was reduced to such an absurdity. But Apollonius, on his side, had no wish to humiliate him, for he was not unfeeling in his refutations of people, and said: “But I am sure, Damis, you did not mean that; rather that these figures flit through the heaven not only without meaning, but, so far as providence is concerned, by mere chance; while we who by nature are prone to imitation rearrange and create them in these regular figures.” “We may, he said, “rather consider this to be the case, O Apollonius, for it is more probable, and a much sounder idea.” “Then, O Damis, the mimetic art is twofold, and we may regard the one kind as an employment of the hands and mind in producing imitations, and declare that this is painting, whereas the other kind consists in making likenesses with the mind alone.” “Not twofold,” replied Damis, “for we ought to regard the former as the more perfect and more complete kind, being anyhow painting and a faculty of making likenesses with the help both of mind and hand; but we must regard the other kind as a department that, since its possessor perceives and imitates with the mind, without having the delineative faculty, and would never use his hand in depicting its objects.”

Lucius Flavius Philostratus (Lemno, 172 circa – Athens, 247 circa)Life of Apollonius of Tyana, II, 22

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Anselm of Aosta (Aosta, 1033 o 1034 – Canterbury, 21 April 1109)

4. Bos. Omnia haec pulchra et quasi quaedam picturae suscipienda sunt; sed si non sit aliquid solidum super quod sedeant, non videntur infidelibus sufficere, cur Deum ea quae dicimus pati voluisse credere debeamus.        2Nam qui picturam vult facere, aliquid eligit solidum super quod pingat, ut maneat quod pingit. Nemo enim pingit in aqua vel in aere, quia ibi nulla manent picturae vestigia.        3Quapropter cum has convenientias quas dicis infidelibus quasi quasdam picturas rei gestae obtendimus, quoniam non rem gestam, sed figmentum arbitrantur esse, quod credimus quasi super nubem pingere nos existimant […].

(Cur Deus Homo, I, 4)

THESE are all beautiful sayings, and to be accepted as pictured realisations: but if there be not something solid whereon they rest, they are not a sufficient reason to the incredulous why we ought to believe God to have willed to suffer as we assert He did. Now he who wishes to paint a picture chooses something solid whereon to work, that what he paints may last; but no one designs on the water or on air, since no trace of the picture would remain thereon. Wherefore when we display these logical harmonies which you enumerate, as it were in the guise of pictures of a past action, to unbelievers, they (considering what we believe to be not a real thing which happened, but only a fiction) think we do but paint pictures on the clouds. Therefore is to be shown, first, the reasonable solidity of the verity ; that is, the necessity which proves that God should or could descend to that which we predicate. Therefore in order that the actual truth should shine forth more brightly, these harmonies should be displayed as a picture of the solid reality.

(English translation by Edward S. Prout)

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Michael Psellos (Greek: Μιχαήλ Ψελλός; Latin: Michaël Psellus; Constantinople, 1018 - 1096)

ΠΕΡΙ ΕΝΕΡΓΕΙΑΣ ΔΑΙΜΟΝΩΝ ΔΙΑΛΟΓΟΣ (PG 122: 861, caput XVIII - “Qui fiat ut daemon modo virili, modo feminea forma appareat, ejusque ut aeris et

nubium colores sint varii”)

He [Marcus, a monk in Mesopotamia] said that no species of dæmon was naturally either male or female, but that their animal passions were the same with those of the creatures with which they were united; for that the simple dæmonic bodies, which are very ductile and flexible, are accommodative to the nature of every form; for as one may observe the clouds exhibiting the appearance one while of men, at another of bears, at another of serpents, or some other animal, thus also it is with the bodies of dæmons; but when the clouds are disturbed by external blasts, diversified appearances are presented; thus also it is with the dæmons, whose persons are transformed according to their pleasure into whatever appearance they please, and are one moment contracted into a less bulk, the next stretched out into a greater length.

(Engl. trans. Marcus Collisson, 1843)

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Albert the Great (Lauingen, 1206 – Cologne, 15 November 1280), Meteora, III, iii, 20 (Opera omnia, ed. Borgnet (Paris, 1890), volumen 4 (p.1-343: De caelo et mundo; p.345-476: De generatione et corruptione; p.477-832: Meteora), p. 663.

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Albert the Great, Mineralia, II, iii, 1 (Opera omnia, ed. Borgnet (Paris, 1890), volumen 5 (p.1-116: Mineralia; p.117-443: De anima), p. 48.

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Albert the Great, Mineralia, II, iii, 1 (Opera omnia, ed. Borgnet (Paris, 1890), volumen 5 (p.1-116: Mineralia; p.117-443: De anima), p. 48.

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Franciscus de Retza, OP (1343 circa – Vienna, 8 settembre 1427). 1484. Defensorium inviolatae virginitatis Mariae. Speyer: Johann und Conrad, 68 pp. (Die Bayerische Staatsbibliothek).

Ill. 39

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Ill. 42

26

Ill. 38

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To summarize:

Many foundational texts of western culture deal with the agency of images.

Some give credit to the idea that images that appear as created by human intentionality spontaneously emerge from nature, mainly in stones or clouds.

Pliny the Elder, characteristically unjudgmental, records the appearance of such images in stones and gems.He also points out that hazard can be used by artists in order to produce images that their human intentionality is not able to achieve, mainly when pictorially rendering seemingly chaotic objects, such as foam, for instance.

Dio Chrysostom admits the same possibility: chance completes the artist’s work.

Cicero is the first classical author to voice skepticism about chance-created “natural” images. Granted, chance can sometimes give rise to recognizable forms in nature, but cannot achieve complexity, which only results from human intentionality.

However, artists too are fascinated by such possibility. In countless, mainly decorative artworks, they seek to create images that appear as spontaneous outcome of natural agency, such as leaf-masks and steles, for instance).

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To summarize:

Other authors do not confine themselves to record instances of natural images, extol the role of change in the fine arts, or criticize credulousness about it. They try to explain why humans see images in nature.

On the one hand, some authors seek to account for chance images as resulting from natural processes. In Lucretius’s poem The Nature of Things, theory reaches the peak of sophistication. In the framework of Atomism, objects release thin layers of particles; when these travel through transparent means, like the air of glass, we see them as projections; when they travel through gassy masses like clouds, instead, they sometimes imprint them with their shape.

A similar conception, stemming from Aristotle, is to be found in Pliny and, later on, Albert the Great. This author gives credit to Avicenna’s idea that animals might take shape in clouds and even records his eyewitness account of the image of the beautiful head of a king appearing on a cut stone.

However, the reputation of such chance images in Christianity is ambiguous. On the one hand, Renaissance authors like Franciscus de Retza refer to them, and even depict them, as metaphor of Divine creative agency in Incarnation. A manlike image of God spontaneously came about in the Virgin’s womb exactly like the image of a hand was once found inside a stone.

On the other hand, other authors refer to “images in clouds” as metaphor of untenable theological arguments (Anselm of Aosta) or even as simile of devilish behavior (Michael Psellos).

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To summarize:

Among ancient authors, only Lucius Flavius Philostratus, in recording the sayings of Apollonius of Tyana, proposes an explanation that reads as rational in present-day terms: humans are naturally endowed with a mimetic function, which is exerted at two levels: when we identify images in reality, and when we depict them. The latter depends on the former: we could not paint an image of something, and we could not admire such painting, if we weren’t endowed with the ability of recognizing the image in the world. We admire the picture of a dog because we can see a dog in nature. Not all can paint with their hands, but all can, so to speak, paint with their eyes, see images in the world.

Some visual contexts, such as clouds or stones, are so made that they prompt as to recognize images of objects in them. When we do not distinguish the two levels above, then, we believe that such images are actually created by a human-like agency. We therefore anthropomorphize this agency as a benign or malign god, as Nature, or as Chance (both with capitals since they become pictorial subjects).

As was indicated earlier, Cicero too adopts a rationalistic stance. Significantly, he deals with the question in his book on divination. The credulousness of those who see spontaneous artistic agency in nature is indeed akin to the gullibility of those who see signs in divination, in the flight of birds or the leaver of sacrificed animals.

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To summarize:

In a recent article (“Double Debunking: Modern Divination and the End of Semiotics”, forthcoming. Chinese Semiotic Studies, Berlin and Boston, Walter de Gruyter) I have pointed out that contemporary conspiracy theories semiotically resemble ancient divination. In both cases, indexical patterns of causation are assumed in phenomena that are merely symbolical. That is frequent in all epochs and contexts, but proliferates in situations of social or psychological distress. Humans yield to their natural attitude of visual pattern-recognition, but wrongly create and attribute agency, often in order to find a scapegoat to distress whose agency is not clear or difficult to identify.Paranoia therefore begets pareidolia, as psychology denominates the attitude to identify meaningful patterns in visual or acoustic noise, but also vice versa: recognizing pseudo-patterns reinforces social and mental paranoia.

An example:

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Conclusions:

There is a social demand of knowledge concerning conspiracy theories and their rhetorics. They have always existed, but become more influential in times of economic crisis and viral social networks.

Humans are naturally inclined to identify meaningful visual patterns in certain normally meaningless contexts, such as stones, clouds, trees, and the like. They are also naturally inclined to ascribe these patterns to human-like agencies.

However, they variously submit to such urge, depending on their mental and cultural state. Knowing how images are made, both in perception and in depiction, is one of the best antidotes to believing in pseudo-agencies.

Cultural history and semiotics of pareidolia jointly provide an effective toolbox for the rational debunking of visual paranoia.