con?spir?a?cy??/k?n?sp?r?si/ [kuhn-spir-uh-see]
–noun, plural -cies.
1. the act of conspiring.
2. an evil, unlawful, treacherous, or surreptitious plan formulated in secret by two or more persons; plot.
3. a combination of persons for a secret, unlawful, or evil purpose: He joined the conspiracy to overthrow the government.
4. Law. an agreement by two or more persons to commit a crime, fraud, or other wrongful act.
5. any concurrence in action; combination in bringing about a given result.

Dictionary.com, “conspiracy,” in Dictionary.com Unabridged (v 1.1). Source location: Random House, Inc. http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/conspiracy. Available: http://dictionary.reference.com. Accessed: August 24, 2009.

Patternicity – The tendancy to find meaningful patterns in random noise.

Agenticity – The bent to believe the world is controlled bu invisible intentional agents.

Confirmation bias – which seeks and finds confirmatory evidence for what we already believe.

Hindsight bias – which tailors after-the-fact explainations to what we already know happened.

Scientific American, September 2009, “Paranoia Strikes Deep” by Michael Shermer, page 30