QAnon Shamanism: When Conspiracy Thinking and Spirituality Converge

A Conversation with Erik Davis, Jules Evans and Erica Magill

Among the violent extremists that stormed the Capitol on January 6th, one character really stood out: the “QAnon Shaman.” Bare-chested, face-painted, and wearing a horned fur cap, Jake Angeli attracted widespread attention. After years promoting himself as a New Age light-worker and minor psychedelic influencer, Angeli had become a vocal proponent of the right-wing QAnon conspiracy theory.

Angeli is just the tip of the iceberg. Our times have witnessed an extraordinary uptick in “conspirituality:” the blending of transformational culture and outlandish, dark, and sometimes highly manipulated conspiracy narratives. Countless “spiritual but not religious” communities — engaged in wellness, yoga, mindfulness, and psychedelic healing — have seen the virulent spread of paranoid plots, baseless conspiracy theories, and rumors of Satanic mind-control.

We are right to question mainstream media stories, to explore alternative modalities, and to commit to doing (real) research. But legitimate concerns about consensus reality do not explain why so many seekers and healers fell into a right-wing reality tunnel in which Donald Trump was waging holy war against a cabal of Satan-worshipping pedophiles.

How did this happen? Why did these narratives spread so rapidly? How did social media, the pandemic, political polarization, and flaws in contemporary transformational culture contribute?

As we go forward together into an ever-weirding world, how can we develop more spiritual discernment, epistemic health, and “nerd immunity”?

Join us and Erik Davis, Jules Evans, and Erica Magill as we explore this worrying trend and map some exit ramps from the rabbit hole.

Erik Davis is an author, podcaster, award-winning journalist, and independent scholar based in San Francisco. His wide-ranging work focuses on the intersection of alternative religion, media, and the popular imagination. He is the author, most recently, of High Weirdness: Drugs, Esoterica, and Visionary Experience in the Seventies (2019) and performed the audiobook as well. He also wrote Nomad Codes: Adventures in Modern Esoterica (2010), The Visionary State: A Journey through California’s Spiritual Landscape (2006), a short critical volume on Led Zeppelin (2005), and the cult classic TechGnosis: Myth, Magic, and Mysticism in the Age of Information (1998). Erik’s scholarly and popular essays on music, technoculture, and spirituality have appeared in scores of books, magazines, and journals, and his writing has been translated into a dozen languages. Davis been interviewed by CNN, the BBC, public radio, and the New York Times. He graduated magna cum laude from Yale University, and earned his PhD in religious studies at Rice University. Erik sits on the Advisory Board of the Chacruna Institute for Psychedelic Plant Medicines.

Jules Evans is research fellow at the Centre for the History of the Emotions at Queen Mary, University of London. He is the author of Philosophy for Life and Other Dangerous Situations (2013), The Art of Losing Control: A Philosopher’s Search for Ecstatic Experience (2017) and Holiday From the Self: An Accidental Ayahuasca Adventure (2019). He is co-editor of Breaking Open: Finding a Way Through Spiritual Emergency (2020).

Erica Morton Magill is a writer, yoga student and teacher. She trained as a social scientist in medical anthropology at UC Berkeley where she received her BA. For over ten years Erica worked with The Art of Yoga Project, a non-profit bringing yoga and meditation to incarcerated and at-risk teenage girls in the San Francisco Bay Area. She composed the organization’s guidebook on teaching trauma-informed yoga and crafted an extensive curriculum, designed to offer contemplative practices in prisons and schools. She’s a co-founder of The Social Imaginary, a non-profit dedicated to fostering the conditions for a more connected, equitable and interdependent social landscape through meaningful gatherings and experiences. Erica currently co-owns and operates Lost Angels Yoga Club (LAYC), a yoga school based in Los Angeles yet unbound by geographical borders. She co-authors the bi-weekly LAYC Almanac which explores rhythmic, vital living at the liminal, sometimes crusty edges where moon cycles, movement, tarot, psychedelics, science, breath, art and the occult meet. She is currently working towards her MA in Traditions of Yoga and Meditation at SOAS University of London. https://layoga.club/

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