Conspirituality: How New Age Conspiracy Theories Became a Health Threat

by Derek Beres

Accusing Jews of crucifying young William of Norwich is a good way of obscuring the story of a Christian god who sacrifices his own child and distributes his pure blood to give his followers eternal life. The projection highlights a psychological need shared between the conspiracy theorist and the fascist: to find a scapegoat for all the things that fill us with horror and shame, and to make someone else responsible for the vulnerability of our children. In the conspirituality paradigm, children are not vulnerable because of inadequate health care access or horrible economic inequality. They’re not vulnerable because of ordinary family dysfunction and abuse, alcoholism, or repressive religious attitudes. They’re not vulnerable because of our tacit consent to engage in predatory capitalism, which bleeds all but the mega-wealthy dry, and is driving the human bus off the climate cliff. The enemy is not our habits and policies and confusion. It has to be someone else, someone impure who can infect us, someone we must resist.