conspirituality

Screaming Through The Cracks

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I’ve previously speculated that some conspiracy theorists and spiritual grifters don’t so much have beliefs, but an internal narrative they’re trying to keep up. These people are constantly telling a story, and can’t really interact with people so much as constantly self-soothe by making their internal narrative external. I believe I’ve witnessed a case of someone transitioning to this stage.

Unfortunately, it’s Russell Brand. So this might get rough because he’s painful to deal with.

I had followed Brand with some interest because of his transition from weird actor to accused sex criminal to weird right-wing anti-science religious crank. There was something strange about the man, but the podcast/videocast On Brand helped me understand Brand better – though be warned, if you listen to On Brand, you’ll find Russel even more annoying in large doses.

They had been following Brand for some time, and analyzing him. This got into my sphere as it intersected with my interests in conspiracy theories, politics, religion, and medicine. Russell had been heading for crankdom for some time, but the accusations of committing sex crimes seems to have accelerated his decline – obviously crying “conspiracy” is a way to insulate himself.. Curious about what I might learn about him, I tuned in to On Brand, and faced the verbal firehose that is Brand.

Russell is a fast talker, what one wit once called his “Artful dodger” routine. He comes on fast, goes in loops, says the same things many times, asks and answers his own questions and keeps going. He also will talk to utterly objectionable people while still maintaining he’s all about Jesus, love, humanity, and so on – and of course he keeps going. There’s not a moment of self-relfection in there, and in fact it takes time to figure if he’s talking about anything.

(Often he isn’t).

But as I listened, while only occasionally regretting my choices, I could feel him trying to make leaps of logic to deal with his situation. Verbal diarrhea to try to not deal with what he’s talking about, throwing out questions as opposed to answers, and constantly not settling on any one thing. The man wasn’t just trying to do a narrative, it felt outright avoidant of reality or any form of solidity.

There was a painfulness to it, not just cringe, but it felt like part of him knew he was full of bullshit. Brand wasn’t to the stage where he was entirely lost in his narrative, he knew down deep he was bullshitting, or at least wasn’t good enough to cover up the fact he was. Somewhere in there was a person that knew he was full of it.

It was unsettling. Brand’s an objectionable person, probably outright sex criminal (if not yet tried), and is probably going to end up founding a cult before things degenerate. But he didn’t have the decades some would-be gurus had, didn’t quite have his story as smooth, and you could tell. There was a bit of cringe, a bit of fear, just enough that you knew he knew what he was.

An actor that knew he was acting while ignoring his own acts.

In time, I’m sure he’ll be lost in his narrative. But for now I could look at the man, listen to him, and see someone in transition to that constant narrative, that endless self-soothing. Much as my first experience with Knowledge Fight helped me see self-soothing behavior in conspiracy figures, On Brand helped me see the transition.

I saw an awful person who still had bits of humanity in the cracks, as he worked to seal them away. I see people like him and how they work to be awful, and see how much work goes into becoming such monstrous, devouring, living narratives. It’s uglier than I would have thought.

  • Xenofact

Understanding Addressing The Pain

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Writing this in 2024 it seems that conspiracy theories flourish in spiritual and mystical communities we’d not expect to see them in. To flip through Instagram or podcasts and hear some “crunchy” New Age yoga teacher swing from positions to WHO conspiracies and Hillary-Clinton-Is-A-Clone is disturbing. Worse, like the more standard conspiracy theories we’re used, to there’s a violent trend in these communities.

The Starseeds are buying guns, the Yoga enthusiasts want to hang doctors, and we’re wondering what the shit is going on.

Well first, if you’re surprised metaphysical communities have issues with conspiracies, fascism, and violent imagery, you’re not paying attention. This has always happened, from grifters to cultic spinoffs to political manipulation. We’re just a bit surprised by it since too many of us still, unconsciously, think of these as some fusion of hippies and peace-and-love New Agers.

But let us not forget that many people seek out magical and metaphysical practices out of pain.

That ache that won’t go away so you try yoga. The spiritual void from consumer culture that leads you to a Buddhist church. The bad year that leads you to magic in hope for understanding and influence. So many of us take to the mystical out of ennui or agony or need.

This is not always a bad thing of course. Those moments of waking up are vital for us to get what’s going on and realize what we have to do differently. But sometimes, the pain leads you down terrible paths, to grift, to fanaticism, to worse.

Conspiracy theories for many are an attempt to soothe pain as well. To explain problems you can’t explain easily. To seek assurance of meaning, even if the meaning is horrible. To give you some way to channel that rage inside you left from your bad job or bad family. Conspiracy theories, used by grifters and manipulators, are also something that can make people feel better for awhile.

So many of us turn to “The Big Picture” in a moment of pain. But it might not be waking up, just finding new ways to numb ourselves.

As much as the conspiracism and tilts towards revenge fantasies bother me in many communities of the metaphysical, keeping this in mind helps. It helps us understand how to handle people better, protect them from falling into traps, and maybe avoid the traps ourselves.

It also reminds us that these days, some of these folks might turn violent as we’ve seen, and we can keep an eye out.

– Xenofact

The Syndicate

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I was listening to the Nonsense Bazaar, one of my favorite podcasts on weird stuff, and one of the hosts discussed the connections between weird metaphysics grifters. He christened this The Syndicate, and I realized how absolutely appropriate it was. I’d like to go into something that is very obvious in the world of spiritual scams – so obvious it’s disturbingly easy to miss.

If you find any grifty religious/spiritual group and pursue it’s origins you often find others like them very quickly. Some online guru is just channeling beings dreamed up by another scam artist, while doing affiliate marketing with a fellow grifter. An exceedingly weird religious group directs you at courses taught by an only slightly less disturbing organization. If you pursue this for any amount of time, it starts to seem very connected.

The podcast Conspirituality noted a whole guru ecosystem, where some new internet influencer will suddenly hook up with other more well-heeled ones. Once you’re in the ecosystem you get to start exchanging audiences, expanding together, and so on. Plus you want to connect with new talent so they don’t steal your audience.

Now do I think this is some kind of conspiracy? No, it’s just networking by people of similar interests, its the influence of ideas, and of course it’s driven by people who see dollar signs and power. You don’t need a conspiracy, so though there may be some tiny conspiracies, good old greed explains plenty of it.

However I think there’s an issue here that The Syndicate also helps give the illusion of truth.

We humans decide things are true not in simple linear fashion – though it may look like it – but by a web of associations. People we trust, classes we took, experiences we had, techniques we learned, all come together to help us evaluate truth. Even something that comes as a revelation only seems so as it rests on a substrate of past experiences.

The Syndicate has people linking back to each other, to past teachings, and to various forms of content. It has people recommending and boosting each other. It is a web of associations that can give the appearance of truth. Even if this is not intentional, if it’s just people helping each other rip others off, it’s “close to truth.”

When it is intentional, it’s pretty damn effective. In the world of spiritual grift it’s also easy – a dash of Theosophy, some alternative medicine, and then some conspiracy theories and you’re good. Team up with a few others and you’re good.

I think this is important to remember. The network of people busily selling you fake spirituality for real money can seem true because of the network. Something that should set off someone’s alarms may, under the right conditions, do the opposite.

(Come to think of it, the way I recommend podcasts, some of which refer to each other, should make you suspicions . . .)

-Xenofact