Chakras, Crystals, & Conspiracy Theories

The Guardian takes on Conspirituality

This morning, The Guardian published this deep dive on conspiracy theories in the wellness industry. I was interviewed by the author, Sirin Kale, last month for this investigation.

While many of the topics will be familiar to those of you who’ve been following the phenomenon of conspirituality over the last year-and-a-half, Kale did an excellent job reporting on the pipeline that leads people who are simply trying to make health improvements down into the wellness influencer rabbit hole of anti-vax science denialism.

I also really appreciated that she included this sentiment that I’ve been trumpeting since the beginning of this project that Julian, Matthew, and I have been pursuing during this time: your anecdote is not applicable to everyone.

Before Conspirituality’s Beres worked in technology, he was a yoga instructor. “Even though I’ve been involved in the yoga and wellness world since the 90s, I’ve always been sceptical of a lot of the claims,” he says. “When you get into yoga, there are a lot of health claims that sound OK if you’re at a nice yoga studio in a major city, but don’t reflect reality.”

He sees people like Gabitan as the logical end point of 50 years of telling people that virtue is to be signalled with striated abs and a rippling musculature. “When you live in a country where even a relatively modest middle-class lifestyle is way above what the rest of the world can sustain, it’s very easy to get locked into anecdote and your circle of friends,” Beres says. “You think: I drink smoothies and go to yoga and work out seven days a week and eat organic food. Why can’t everyone else do it?”

I’ll be exploring my thoughts on this piece in more depth in Monday’s subscriber newsletter. I highly recommend Kale’s piece for a powerful overview of the wellness industry/conspiracy theory overlap.