Both the New Age and the far right are drawn to conspiracy theories. Last week’s rallies in London, Berlin, and Los Angeles against lockdown measures attracted both New Agers and far-right groups. We’ve seen before this overlap between the spiritual movement and the fast-spreading conspiracy theory, QAnon, which insists that an evil cabal of Hollywood celebs and liberal politicians (led by Tom Hanks and Hillary Clinton) are child-eating Satanists who control the world. Luckily, the theory holds, a secret government source called Q (who leaves cryptic comments on the website 8chan) is gathering together a patriot army to fight back and support President Donald Trump, who is a genius sent by God to defeat the evil cabal and usher in a new Age of Love. This conspiracy theory, which would be a terrible movie plot, is surprisingly popular around the world and is beginning to influence American politics, to the extent that Congress is now debating a bipartisan bill to condemn it. And the QAnon cult has proved popular with both the far right and New Age influencers. Some people are astounded that New Age hippies could have any overlap with extremist conspiracy politics. But it happens. (…) It’s not clear who is behind the Q posts. A good theory is it’s Jim Watkins, the owner of 8chan, where Q posts. (If you were a deep state mole, would you post on a chat board mainly used for Japanese porn?) Whoever is it, Trump allies like disgraced general Michael Flynn have openly supported it, and Trump — when asked about it last week — said QAnoners were patriots. This is a movement condemned by the FBI for fostering domestic terrorism. It is a fascist delusional fantasy, eagerly spread by Russian state trolls, that threatens Western democracy. Any sane Republicans should condemn it, and if a friend posts Q stuff on social media, let them know where the path leads. They might not go all the way down that path but they might unwittingly help others to do so. However, we shouldn’t kid ourselves that this sort of toxic magical thinking only happens on the far right. You can also find aspects of it on the far left, in totalizing us versus them narratives like the idea all white people are racist, or all men hate women, or conspiracy theories that a secret cabal of Big Money (that is, Jews) is destroying the planet. Black Lives Matter has at its heart an eminently fair and reasonable demand — the American police should be less trigger-happy in its policing, particularly of Black communities. But it also occasionally turns into cultish thinking and witch hunts, particularly among white liberals, where unless you adopt the right terminology, read the right books, make the right ritualistic confession of your latent racism, you are evil.
via medium. Nazi Hippies: When the New Age and Far Right Overlap