All joking aside, Q-shaman (Jacob Anthony Chansley) fasting in jail because he is not being offered organic food underscores the biospiritual convictions of the conspirituality movement. /1
Every conspirituality action can be framed or rationalized as a sacred journey: whether dark night or apotheosis. Pilgrimmage is undertaken by the body, but also within the body. /2
Wellness beliefs shred the abs for optimal outer performance, while yoga/meditation turn the subtle body into a lightening rod for continual internal epiphanies. Pubic health could only ever disrupt this double process. It must be resisted. /3
The body of the conspiritualist is itself shamanic, straddling (pseudo)scientific and ethereal worlds. Chansley calls himself inter-dimensional. When he sits on the rostrum he’s also sitting under the Yggdrasil. /4
Jail time for the conspiritualist can allow for a mythic descent into the belly of the beast. There, the adept can purify their own digestive system and inner being. /5
Fasting can also be self protective. To eat prison food would be to digest and embody bondage. There’s also the problem of spiritual germophobia. Who is handling the food and with what belief and intention is paramount. /6
It’s likely that Chansley rationalizes Trump’s all-fast-food diet by fantasizing that Trump has perfected his inner body, or is protected by biospiritual forces, and is invulnerable to toxins. /7
Chansley may believe his presence is cleansing the demonic state. Odds are that he’s praying, chanting, and visualizing light emanating from his body that will dissolve all bonds. /8
Berserkers who smeared their shit on the Capitol walls were into humiliation. But conspiritualists may see themselves as forcibly vaccinating the state with light and love. /9
With enough devotion, conspiritualists cannot lose. If their demands to trance-dance unmasked in the commons are refused, they can still triumph in every moment through spiritual self-soothing. The jail cell can be monastic. /end
“Public” health, obviously lol
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A Course in Miracles, a root-text for conspiritualists — and the New Age scripture of influencers like @marwilliamson — asserts that "there is no world" and that all human activity is a dream — especially if it manifests conflict. This is key to the conspirituality grift. /1
The serene affect of yoga moms at the periphery of the Capitol riot comes from the faux-spiritual privilege of believing that all events unfold for the benefit of individual souls who somehow amalgamate into a “collective”. /2
When they show up at a riot, they believe they're not "participating". They are bearing witness, like battlefield chaplains or Florence Nightingales carrying Kangen water with lime and cilantro, conferring blessings and asserting that transformation is happening for everyone.../3
The conspiritualist can evade accountability because their product and method are psychically split. They can LARP with conspiracists to boost their messianism and anti-authoritarian brands, then retreat into their herbs, restorative postures, prayers, and trance states. /1
They activate trauma survivors and those harmed by institutions. They monetize the mess they make of indigenous rituals. Then they let more desperate people, who could never afford their boutique appointments, storm the barricades. /2
From the comfort of their retreat centres, they can offer distance reiki to insurgents weeping from mace. They can uplift the Cue-a-non martyr in golden light and commune with Jake Angeli on etheric planes. But they risk nothing. /3
"consciousbro" Jordan Bowditch got COVID, joked about it, and now is crowing about "surviving" it after acting like a super-spreader. I've done some analysis here: facebook.com/conspiritualit…. For those not on FB I'll do a wee thread: /1
@consciousbro trapped himself into this post. To his credit, he has just enough of a conscience to tell his 100 contacts he was infected. Once he did, it made sense for him to release his first disclosure before someone else leaked it: instagram.com/.../highlights…
/2
By the law of perpetual social media engagement, he’s really locked into a follow up, and that followup will likely attempt to save the brand of individual responsibility and triumph over adversity — in this case a pandemic that his network has already minimized. /3
Challenge: if you're going to continue to teach/practice/market yoga, yoga therapy, meditation, modern Buddhism, New Age healing, crystal bowls, and/or alternative medicine, I believe it's now an ethical requirement to show that your content... /1
...is not aiding and abetting the intensifying attacks on public health servants and the information they're struggling to communicate.
Here are some ways in which spiritual/wellness content might be thickening the fog of corona chaos: /2
1) Implicitly competing with and therefore degrading the credibility of public health professionals,
2) Failing to transparently present itself as a cultural or artistic product meant to aid in self-regulation (as opposed to aiding in public health), /3
The present iteration of conspirituality is defined by its online mediation. Frictionless space allows for unbounded charismatic reach and absolute, transcendent evasion of accountability. /1
Conspirituality themes of heroic individualism versus the cabal of control merge seamlessly with personal branding that pretends to outshine consensus reality. /2
Conspirituality and social media are now materially and economically parallel. In their first-order impacts, both monetize attention and emotional manipulation. But in the next ring out, both impact the material world in life-and-death ways. /3
What's the overlap between conspirituality and anti-trans politics?
Their worldview is socially conservative through gendered biomorality. Divine Feminine and Masculine have their perfect roles to play in the individualistic and heteronormative salvation of the world. /1
It seems impossible for them to imagine that bodies express along infinite spectrums of desire, pleasure, and ability. There is an irony here in the belief that they are fringe-y or unrepressed when in fact many express a kind of peak social conditioning into narrow roles. /2
Also: most conspiritualists communicate a relentless idealization of the nuclear family under assault by thought control and vaccines. /3