Conspirituality
How New Age Conspiracy Theories Became a Health Threat
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3.5 • 2 Ratings
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- $18.99
Publisher Description
Conspirituality takes a deep dive into the troubling phenomenon of influencers who have curdled New Age spirituality and wellness with the politics of paranoia—peddling vaccine misinformation, tales of child trafficking, and wild conspiracy theories.
In the early days of the COVID-19 pandemic, a disturbing social media trend emerged: a large number of yoga instructors and alt-health influencers were posting stories about a secretive global cabal bent on controlling the world’s population with a genocidal vaccine. Instagram feeds that had been serving up green smoothie recipes and Mary Oliver poems became firehoses of Fox News links, memes from 4chan, and prophecies of global transformation.
Since May 2020, Derek Beres, Matthew Remski and Julian Walker have used their Conspirituality podcast to expose countless facets of the intersection of alt-health practitioners with far-right conspiracy trolls. Now this expansive and revelatory book unpacks the follies, frauds, cons and cults that dominate the New Age and wellness spheres and betray the trust of people who seek genuine relief in this uncertain age.
With analytical rigor and irreverent humor, Conspirituality offers an antidote to our times, helping readers recognize wellness grifts, engage with loved ones who've fallen under the influence, and counter lies and distortions with insight and empathy.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
The Covid-19 pandemic brought together New Age influencers, alt-health practitioners, and far-right conspiracy theorists in a campaign of fearmongering and antivaccine misinformation, according to this anguished and hard-hitting inquiry. Expanding on their podcast of the same name, the authors characterize "conspirituality" as a synthesis of the female-dominated New Age movement and the male-dominated realm of conspiracy theory, and draw provocative links between conspirituality and fascism, contending, for example, that conspiritualists draw "heavily on old fascist anxieties about sexual potency and deviancy." Elsewhere, the authors document modern yoga's "spiritual and shameful obsession with eugenics," noting the influence of 19th-century eugenicist and bodybuilder Eugen Sandow on the "upper-caste proto-nationalists of India," who sought to "sculpt a new national body, purged of foreign influences and colonial shame." Some of the book's most shocking revelations can be found in profiles of conspirituality influencers like Christiane Northrup, the "grandmother of alt-health gynecology," who advised her followers to withhold sex from partners who were considering getting the Covid-19 vaccine, and Robert F. Kennedy Jr., whose antivax nonprofit, the Children's Health Defense Fund, released a film falsely suggesting that "Black people are naturally immune" to Covid-19. Packed with surprising insights and no-holds-barred takedowns, this is a forceful exposé.
