The adoption of QAnon views and vaccine skepticism by influential alternative medicine practitioners and spirituality influencers is viewed with alarm by many in the wellness and spirituality communities. Last spring, Lorie Ladd posted a surprising revelation from her ascended guides: that Donald Trump is a massive and powerful lightworker here to assist humans in an evolution of consciousness. Yes, that Donald J. Trump.
When asked if she thought Trump was a lightworker, Marianne Williamson said, “I think it’s insane.”
Dr. Christiane Northrup, the author of a 1994 mega-best seller on women’s health, was well-regarded in the alternative medicine/wellness world. Now she appears onstage at the (so-called) Health and Freedom Conference with such medical notables as presidentially pardoned Gen. Michael Flynn and judicially sanctioned lawyer Lin Wood. Last April, Instagram blocked Northrup for “spreading misinformation about COVID-19 and vaccines.”
Pushback against the incursion of provably false assertions and right-wing conspiracism into the warm-and-fuzzy counter-culture has been weak. So far, the only resistance to QAnon’s infiltration of the wellness and spirituality communities is taking place online. A notable collective of yoga teachers in California posted a group message calling out the extremism and veiled anti-semitism of QAnon. More typically, we see the informal sorting of the wellness and spirituality folk into two camps. Vaccine resisters are more likely to be open to conspiracist themes and vaccine supporters are more likely to allow empirical understandings to co-exist with spiritual ones. Consequently, the predominantly progressive world of alternative medicine and spirituality is fragmenting, like the rest of American society.
British researchers Charlotte Ward and David Voas argue that a new hybrid of conspiracy theory and alternative spirituality is being nurtured through social media. They call this emergent movement “conspirituality.”
Notes:
Travis Andersen, Celebrity Doctor in Maine Blocked from Instagram.
Nathan Bernard and Andy O’Brien, Dr. No: The deadly grift of women’s health guru Christiane Northrop.
Nicole Carlis, Why Some New Age Influencers Believe Trump is a “Lightworker.”
E J Dickson, Wellness Influencers are calling out QAnon Conspiracy Theorists for Spreading Lies.
Melissa Meltzer, QAnon’s unexpected roots in New Age Spirituality.
Terry Nguyen, The Wellness World’s Conspiracy Problem is Linked to Orientalism.
Charlotte Ward and David Voas. “The Emergence of Conspirituality.” Journal of contemporary religion 26.1 (2011): 103–121. DOI: 10.1080/13537903.2011.539846
Eva Wiseman, The Dark Side of Wellness: the overlap between spiritual thinking and far-right conspiracies.
Colin Woodard, Meet Christiane Northrup, Doctor of Disinformation.