Curious about what is currently No. 1 in the collective unconscious, my very smart friend Googled the word “is.” The first and second responses: “Is Lady Gaga a man?” and “Is Lady Gaga a hermaphrodite?”

A more urgent mystery—more compelling than whether the Lady tucks or had her Adam’s apple shaved—is how this pop chimera managed to achieve top-of-mind status in such a compressed time frame. Without a popular vote or violent coup, we are suddenly one nation under Gaga.

The easy answer is sheer omnipresence. There was no avoiding her this year: Gaga banging a flaming piano at the Video Music Awards. Gaga goofing with Madonna on Saturday Night Live and with Beyoncé in videos. Gaga out-fabulousing Adam Lambert, Sarah Palin and even Brett Favre on Barbara Walters’ Most Fascinating People special. Gaga on Gossip Girl, playing a command-appearance concert for Blair Waldorf and her teenage minions.

Web kooks have been sifting through the proliferation of macabre art-Gaga imagery for esoteric symbolism, finding significance in how she consistently obscures one of her eyes —usually the left—in photos and videos. This goes way back in occult orders, and refers to the All-Seeing Eye central to Freemasonry and the Illuminati.

My pet theory is mind control, on a Men Who Stare at Goats-level. Neurolinguistic commands are encoded in Gaga’s satanically unshakable, nano-engineered pop hooks. Think about it: Rah-rah-ah-ah-ah/Ro-mah-ro-ma-mah/Ga-ga-oo-la-la…

Clearly some sort of mesmeric incantatory invocation. Sing it three times while looking in a mirror. Then try to get it out of your head.