Humanity is ruled by a hidden elite of ‘invisible masters.’ They’re members of a cult which he variously calls the Illuminati, the Babylonian blood-cult, the Luciferians, and especially the Sabbateans.
In other words…The Pentaverate!!
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Previous to Trump, I wasn’t expecting New Age wellness gurus to go completely fascist, but here we are. In retrospect, I shouldn’t have been surprised - the elements connecting them were out in the open and even remarked upon (e.g. I recollect a JG Ballard story in that vein, explicitly talking about fitness culture and fascism).
I also wasn’t expecting Tucker Carlson to go full, “Killing your political opponents is a sign of leadership, actually,” but the signs were there for that, too.
Ecco on Ur-Fascism: “…the enemies are at the same time too strong and too weak.”
Myths and fairytales are potentially useful and/or nice, and often have roots in the truth, unlike this garbage.
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NewAge rhymes with sewage, and it’s the same pipeline of crap.
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Ultimately it’s all part of the same epistemic crisis - once you decide truth/knowledge isn’t tied to reality and you can just Make Shit Up For Shits, Giggles and Bucks, the gates are open to fascism and woo in equal measure.
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I’m fairly sure the punks had this critique of new age ‘sprituality’ back in the 70s and 80s. I know my few years living immersed in new age culture has given me a strong anaphylactic reaction to woo. It has cost us some friends.
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I think I’ll start a new conspiracy theory: Anything that ends with the letter “i” can’t be trusted.
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That explains prog-rock band Genesis’ transformation to pop.
“…here’s a little more context about Sacha Stone.” Even the name is fake: Simon Jean Paul Sasha Adams
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It still blows my mind how quickly and thoroughly the new age crunchy crystal-healing crowd swerved to the alt-right. I’d always thought of them as misguided and gullible yet compassionate leftists, but all it took was right-wing support of anti-vaxxing and unregulated nutritional supplements to make them completely drop any sense of morality and fully embrace fascism.
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It’s all just a big misunderstanding. It’s Immanentize the Eschaton, not I Monetize the Eschaton.
Rookie mistake.
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The dirtbag is a fraudster, is all you need to know. A fraudster who realised that solipsistic entitled New Age trustafarians were the best suckers for his range of solipsistic frauds (Zero-Point Free Energy, anti-radiation memory sticks, Praesidium anti-radiation supplement, Sovereign Citizen flimflam, etc).
IIRC, Sacha (né Mr. Simon Jean Paul Sacha Adams) is a white refugee from what used to be Rhodesia, and he’s naturally concerned about White Replacement and the rising threat of the mud-people. Family $$$ bought him a career in rock music a while ago, but his absolute lack of talent forced him to seek a less salubrious occupation.
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In the backstory behind the ‘International Tribunal of Natural Justice’ Cosplay-Court / lynch-mob, it began as the project of some other libertarian dipsticks. They were sincerely deluded rather than larcenous, though they had the idea that once their empanelled Citizen’s Grand Jury had a legal basis by saying so, they could finance it by selling legally-binding arbitration to conflicting parties who valued their common sense over their nonexistent legal experience. But Stone and his gombeens sniffed the potential for grifting, and suddenly with all the noses in the trough, there was no room left for the original Big-Brained Sov-Citizens.
Stone and co eventually worked out (after some trial-and-error and focus-group work) that “Rescuing Children from the Clutches of the Illuminati” was the best scam for extracting donations from fucksticks. By then, though, QAnon had already secured most of the money-stream. Too late, Mr Stone.
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That swerve may have been inevitable.
There’s said crowd’s unusually strong draw to de-bunked ‘new age’ self-healing, self-improvement substances and techniques. Then we have said group’s generally unsupported suspicion that Big Government is holding back real cures from the People because of some nebulous string-pulling cabal out there. Then there’s the group’s unusual focus (perhaps obsessive, even if in good health?) on hyper-finetuning or fixing themselves with every “forbidden… so it must actually work!!” thing being pushed by nice-looking people with great smiles. So… gullibility, mistrust of government, and a certain singular focus on themselves, their bodies, their inner beings… and not what’s happening outside. If I’m right on that last bit, then their seeming loss of morality and seeming embracement of fascism (mmm… perhaps more like alt-right-leaning libertarianism?) is less some loss or embracement and more like a not altogether intentional relegation of the outer world to some file where ear-candling and coffee colonic irrigation just don’t fit in.
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I would say that there are plenty of things right-wing new agers and MAGA types have in common, like the mistrust and gullibility you mentioned, the rejection of experts and evidence, and a slight narcissism that manifests as either self-absorbed inner consciousness striving or belligerent, overconfident machismo. But I thought their values were distinct enough to keep the groups from bleeding together. I’m sure there are plenty of antifascist new agers left, but when you look at the big gatherings and events like Conscious Life Expo, there’s a huge trend toward right wing views that I never would have thought possible before Trump. I guess for the majority of people involved with these beliefs, putting their faith in something unconventional turned out to be more important than what that something actually entailed.
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This is what ignorant people think Smart™ sounds like.
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Q-nuts will never understand that all their roads lead to putin.
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One thing these people are right about is that the state is monitoring them. At least I hope so.
If there are any competent people in the security services of democratic nations I hope that they monitor the fuck out of these people. They are preaching hate, mass murder and destruction of democracy and are probably directly or indirectly supported by Putins goons.
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This seems to be an increasing thing where someone who is wealthy or connected takes up an interest in the environment and/or human rights, has no idea how to get the most bang for their $ but definitely wants to be running the whole thing, spends a LOT on appearing like they’re doing stuff and meanwhile the people who do know what they’re doing have never heard of this person or their organization, diplomacy is lacking and even with the $ they are not welcome as agents of change where the change needs to happen, except by corrupt officials who also have something to gain by looking like they’re doing something.
Not to say there aren’t also effective new organizations. Those nearly always have some kind of connect to and rapport with the groups most people are already familiar with, discovered a niche and a need, and started the new organization to fill it.
An NGO is a non governmental organization. By definition, it cannot function as a “Judicial Commission.” Are they building scaffolds to punish the wrongdoers? I definitely don’t want to go down this rabbit hole. The names of the organizations tell me all I need to know.
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