"Everything Is Connected": Networked Conspirituality in New Age Media

Abstract

Conspirituality refers to the confluence of New Age spirituality and conspiracism that frame reality through holistic thinking—connecting events and energies, the inner self to the outer world in unseen ways. Conspirituality has thrived online: between the pleasure of the weekly horoscope and the obsession with the QAnon drop is a mode of causal promiscuity in which, as Q puts it, “future proves past.” This panel traces forms of conspirituality from MAGA mystics to New Age influencers, from technolibertarian imageboards to Silicon Valley vision quests. While conspirituality marks an online psychographic segmentation, it also traces a formal quality that organizes ways of navigating, knowing, and critiquing the internet, which is undergirded by New Age spirituality’s perennialism: a belief that different spiritual traditions are equally valid, because they all essentially worship the same divine source that emanates throughout the cosmos and the human body. The internet supercharges perennialism, providing a connective medium for New Age ideology of manifesting: the belief that we create our own reality. As users trawl the internet for snippets and statistics to feed their confirmation bias and populate their vision boards, the connective medium of the internet manifests toxicity and misinformation at scale. The papers in this panel develop a line of research on the coevolution of spirituality and technology from organized to new religious movements. Instead of demystification, we use ethnographic, textual, and hermeneutic approaches—examining internet users, governance, genealogies, and internet studies itself—to politicize networked conspirituality as vernacular theories of power and powerlessness.

Downlining Disinformation: How MLM Distributors Use Gendered Strategies for Recruitment and Pastel QAnon Indoctrination

“…Hooking is not enough to fully indoctrinate others into QAnon and have recruits pass it on to others. Chia et al (2021) argue that the internet’s algorithmic searches and news feeds, along with massive amounts of information snippets and statistics online, can lead users into a confirmation bias loop of conspirituality that “feels” true but instead exchanges actual knowledge for “a personalized sense of control and comfort.” We add, however, that to initiate the loop, an agent must show others the way to the “correct” loop to effectively indoctrinate others and get them to share what they have learned. This is the essence of the Disinformation Downline , a gendered pipeline for radicalization that encourages the recruits to share what they “learned” with others.…”

“…The combination of the internet architecture, such as racist algorithms, search engines, problematic platform moderation, and connectivity speeds (Noble, 2018;Stern, 2021Stern, , 2022 along with the variety of human social interactions using compelling visuals, video, memes, and repositories of information allow people with extreme views and beliefs to connect and find community (Tufekci, 2018). Therefore, social media and the internet contribute to the dissemination of conspiracy theories and disinformation in physically situated spaces, such as the 6 January Capitol Riot (Dreisbach et al, 2022) and school board meetings (Collins, 2020), as well as digital ones, like the wellness community (Chia et al, 2021).…”

“…Some scholars argue that the internet’s infrastructure creates an ideal environment for conspirituality theories to flourish. Chia et al (2021) suggest the internet, as a network structured for personalized information transmission, provides a spectrum of statistics, selective information, and individualized appeal that perverts knowledge in exchange for “a personalized sense of control and comfort.” Algorithmic searches and newsfeeds coupled with the sheer amount of content provide the illusion that well-being is a matter of accessing the “correct” knowledge, which “feels” true. Therefore, conspirituality can masquerade as hidden truth.…”

“…Research has shown that the online wellness community has been closely connected with conspirituality beliefs contending that groups of nefarious elites are controlling the world and that a global shift toward an awakened worldview can overcome them (Baker, 2020(Baker, , 2022Ward & Voas, 2011). Since COVID-19, scholars have paid particular attention to social media's role in perpetuating QAnon disinformation (see Baker, 2022;Chia et al, 2021;Marwick & Partin, 2022). However, the connection between essential oil MLM recruitment and QAnon is undertheorized.…”

QAnon, authoritarianism, and conspiracy within American alternative spiritual spaces

“…These fields sell “eastern” mysticism to clients far and wide seeking to “re-enchant” their everyday lives, resolve problems that are the result of living in an alienated society under austerity and extreme wealth inequality, and give their lives meaning (Berman, 1981 ; Ward and Voas, 2011 ; Parmigiani, 2021 ; Peters, 2022 ). Researchers describe this as conspirituality, a word splice of conspiracism and spirituality (Asprem and Dyrendal, 2015 ; Chia et al, 2021 ; Beres et al, 2023 ). Outside of the context where these practices emerged, injected with Western ideology that saw them as tools to achieve success (financial or otherwise), and sold to consumers as products to fix their lives, these groups became re-oriented to facilitate the rise of right-wing ideas.…”