I should’ve expected it, the guy assaulting my feed with suggestions that the Capitol attack was a false-flag operation set up as a media shoot. I should’ve—he’s been sharing anti-vax propaganda since the pandemic began—yet it’s always disarming, the lengths people are forced to go in order to continually double down on conspiratorial thinking.
We call it a rabbit hole, but really, it’s a sewage system. At the moment, we don’t have the ability to treat the swill. Sharing what we know and steeling ourselves against disinformation is one of the only mechanisms at our disposal.
That’s in large part due to our current media environment, and so this week on Conspirituality 34 we look at how wellness influencers have responded to recent events. So far, not one (that we’ve found) has pulled back from their conspiratorial rhetoric. They too have doubled down.
The intention of Conspirituality has always been to track and decode the messages wellness influencers espouse. Following the first attack on our nation’s Capitol in over two centuries, we feel it important to understand how these figures, all of whom have hundreds of thousands (and even millions) of followers, are spinning (and sometimes monetizing) an insurrection attempt.
It’s not pretty.
There was an unmasked Mikki Willis, creator of the pseudoscience documentary, Plandemic, who was involved in the Capitol siege as a “journalist.” Shortly after being part of the group attempting to break into the building, Willis gave an impassioned anti-vax, pro-liberty speech at a MAGA sideshow in which he called the ransack “beautiful.” A few days later Willis came onto our Facebook feed to double down on these sentiments; he has since either deleted his account or was deplatformed, but we captured his reply here.
Then there’s obstetrician-turned-anti-mask-activist Christiane Northrup, who cheered on the alt-health berserkers during the end of her water fast, somehow expressing solidarity with the insurrectionists by denying herself sustenance.
Terrain theory advocate Zach Bush took to Instagram to wax poetic about the riots, writing, “Just as viruses do not take down healthy humans, revolutions do not take down healthy governance.” Add political ignorance to his list of profound misunderstandings (alongside biology).
Channeler Lori Ladd spoke in radiant non-sequiturs, claiming to have channeled Prince after she was finished chatting with aliens, which is even more infuriating to listen to than her normal “Galactic Federation downloads.”
Amber Sears announced she was “preparing for civil war” while her husband JP whined about free speech as his Parler downline went offline. He then released a 10-minute post-insurrection video that could easily double as an autocratic propaganda film. The video includes a two-minute pitch at the end to join his newsletter or how else will he sell you blue-light glasses?
Finally, Kelly Brogan said nothing publicly about the Capitol siege that we could find, but cashed in on the vibes with a bloated essay on “spiritual warfare.” We close the main part of the episode discussing her essay, in which Brogan somehow parallels refusing to treat her flea-ridden cats with “chemicals”—opining instead about the benefits of shamanic energy healing while one cat bleeds from scratching itself—with genital-touching child abusers. It’s a doozy.
It’s going to be a difficult week ahead, but more importantly, as R.P. Eddy told me during our interview, it’s going to be a tough year ahead. He’s not as concerned with the upcoming week as he is with small groups creating regional havoc in the coming months as the reality of the Biden administration—and therefore, the dissolution of the QAnon prophecy—sets in.
Stay safe.