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Disinformation abounds in the wellness community. How one anti-vax influencer broke free | PBS News

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Leah Nagy

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Some influencers in wellness communities are using their platform to promote conspiracy theories. We examine the social media phenomenon that's having a real-world impact. Stephanie Sy takes a closer look at how one mother was pulled into this world of disinformation and how she got out.

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Tonight, we examine a social media phenomenon that's having a real-world impact. Some influencers in wellness communities are using their platform to promote conspiracy theories.

Stephanie Sy takes a closer look at how one mother was pulled into this world of disinformation and how she got out.

In her home yoga studio in Topanga Canyon, west of Los Angeles, Seane Corn can breathe deeply and tune out the noise.

But when she logs on to her Instagram, it's impossible to avoid it. A yoga instructor for nearly 30 years, Corn has more than 100,000 Instagram followers. but,a few years ago, she began noticing a dark change in tone on her social media.

I started to receive a lot of information from my friends just via text, online, sending me all this propaganda, Pizzagate and their talk of drinking the blood of children.

The look of the posts blended in with the other content on her feed.

They'd be beautifully curated, the font, the colors, the layout, the photography.

Corn saw that those carefully curated facades were being used to peddle conspiracy theories about the COVID vaccine and QAnon, the belief that child sex traffickers and pedophiles have infiltrated the government and that President Trump was sent to stop them.

What's more, QAnon's online recruiters were specifically co-opting yoga language.

You bring up this yogic idea of, I can't be free unless my community is free.

Yes.

QAnon's motto is, where we go one, we go all.

Mm-hmm. And when I first heard that statement, it caught me in my throat. They also talk about the Great Awakening and the Great Reset. Language like this is also very much in alignment with spiritual principles. We are here to wake up.

And this was other yoga teachers and wellness influencers?

Yes. Yes. Yes.

Was it the majority of them?

If I was just to look at my tight-knit group of colleagues, 50/50.

Fifty percent of your inner circle of wellness teachers and influencers believe that Donald Trump was sent here for cosmic good?

Yes, I would have to say.

Derek Beres, Co-Host, "Conspirituality": OK, let me hit record.

Derek Beres is a co-host of the podcast "Conspirituality," which examines why the wellness industry is such fertile ground for counternarratives.

The intersection between the New Age and the right-wing conspiratorial thinking, I believe, is rooted in individualism. America is an individualist culture. Everything we produce and promote is all about the sovereignty of the self, and sovereignty is one of those words that crosses over between those two communities.

And it intensified during the pandemic.

So you start looking on Instagram, and then there's your favorite yoga instructor talking about child sex trafficking, and 5G causing cancer, and the vaccine that's coming is going to give you cancer or is going to kill you.

And some people looked in horror, but some people were like, wait a second, I'm going to go this route and explore this and do my research.

That phrase, "Do your own research," is rampant on anti-vaccine forums, as well as QAnon spaces. The research often leads people to what the Center for Countering Digital Hate calls the Disinformation Dozen, responsible for some 65 percent of all vaccine disinformation spread online.

They have reached tens of millions of users.

Hi. This is Dr. Mercola, helping you take control of your health.

They include Dr. Joseph Mercola, who peddles dietary supplements to his 3.6 million followers, and has claimed that hydrogen peroxide can cure COVID-19, Sherri Tenpenny, an osteopath physician who claims that wearing a mask has negative health effects, and Sayer Ji, who runs a popular alternative health Web site and shares false claims, like that the Pfizer vaccine has killed more elderly people than COVID-19.

Heather Simpson spent years under the influence of the Disinformation Dozen. She recalls how she was drawn in.

It all started when I kind of looked into the wellness community when I was trying to get pregnant, and it was like ads started popping up for anti-vaccine issues. It was like one and the same. Like, look up wellness stuff, anti-vax stuff pops up.

Simpson soon found herself watching videos about the dangers of vaccines and approached her doctor.

He was like: "You're not one of those crazy anti-vaxxers, are you?" and like conversation dead.

All of the, I feel, gaslighting by the medical community and then them just brushing me away, like, was completely opposite from what I would find on the Internet with the holistic world. They welcomed me.

Conspiracy theories gain traction when people lose trust in institutions. Alternative theories take root, espoused by authentic and relatable influencers masquerading as truth-tellers, says researcher Stephanie Baker.

Dr. Stephanie Alice Baker, University of London: Really, what's at play here, rather than social media being the cause of this kind of anti-vaccine sentiment, is that, actually, social media creates the conditions for these trust relationships and for intimacy to be fostered to a different degree.

We have got to move away from seeing misinformation as an information problem to really seeing it as a relationship problem.

Baker has examined how social media influencers may manipulate mothers like Simpson.

What we have found is that a lot of that content was dedicated towards actually specifically targeting mothers, and trying to encourage them to refuse vaccination, and really playing on this idea that a mother's intuition is superior to the abstract professional knowledge.

Mother Heather Simpson soon became an influencer herself.

Looking back, I feel like I got reported enough for misinformation that Facebook could have and perhaps should have taken that stuff down. But it was racking up so many comments and just user engagement that, why would they?

She had discovered the magic formula that makes so many wellness influencers rich. Social media algorithms are known to push more provocative content, because it increases engagement, great for the social media companies, and for people selling false promises.

Almost everyone in the wellness community that I knew was involved in a multilevel marketing company. A lot of them are stay-at-home moms or single moms. Some of them are making $20,000 a month at this point. Some are making $100,000. And so, naturally, I fell into that.

And so I sold a product that claimed basically to detox your body.

At the time, Simpson saw the scheme as a way to gain financial freedom from her husband, whom she's now separated from.

I was just doing anything I could just to get out, just be independent and be strong for my daughter and do everything I could to make an income and get out there and get out — out of there.

Simpson eventually grew disillusioned with the wellness community, a feeling that only increased during the pandemic, and led her to publicly denounce the persona she'd cultivated.

I realized, if you're not 100 percent brainwashed, you're not — yes, you are the enemy.

COVID hit the next month, and they changed their tune to: Don't mask me. I have freedom.

And I was like: Why not? Just wear a mask. Like, it could save an entire life.

She's now not only fully vaccinated. She runs a group encouraging others to get the COVID vaccine.

Seane Corn is also fighting against the tide of conspiracy theories that have gripped her yoga community, but it hasn't been easy to take a stand. When she posted a statement against QAnon, the backlash came quick.

The vitriol was intense. The messages that I received privately were definitely violent.

Her tactic for helping fellow yogis find their way back from the conspiracy brink goes back to a basic yogic principle, engaging the student in their own healing.

I want to ask questions. Like, tell me more. Why do you believe that? And then see if we can get to the root, because the root is always going to come down to fear.

It's a process, she says, and, like the practice of yoga, a slow one.

For the "PBS NewsHour," I'm Stephanie Sy.

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Two Arizona lawmakers and President Donald Trump’s nominee for a top Pentagon job spoke at a conspiracy theory convention over the weekend, appearing alongside a man who claims God is telling him to sell cryptocurrency.

Arizona lawmakers Sen. Mark Finchem, R-Prescott, and Rep. Leo Biasiucci, R-Lake Havasu, each spoke on multiple panels at the Quantum Summit 2 event, a convention for a fringe conspiracy theory that claims extraterrestrials are helping shape national and global policy.

During one presentation, Finchem was joined by retired Gen. Anthony Tata, Trump’s nominee for under secretary of defense for personnel and readiness at the Pentagon.

Tata had previously been nominated by Trump during his first presidency, but his past inflammatory remarks referring to President Barack Obama as a “terrorist” and a series of Islamaphobic tweets scuttled his appointment.

Tata has appeared at a Quantum Summit event before, speaking at the inaugural event in 2024; photographs of his participation were posted on the event website and in other promotional materials. The White House did not respond to a request for comment or answer questions if they were aware of Tata’s planned attendance.

In a program for the event posted to BlueSky by anonymous independent extremist researcher Arizona Right Watch, Tata was listed as speaking on a panel with Finchem and two individuals who frequently post videos with QAnon related themes. Both Biasucci and Finchem also held their own presentations separately, with Biasucci speaking about his legislation and Finchem about his work with a former Tennessee cop in which Finchem has pursued spurious fraud claims.

“We are a very small team,” Finchem said, alluding to a nonprofit he created that has spread debunked election fraud claims and whose “head researcher,” a former Tennessee cop named Shawn Taylor, was also present at the event. Finchem suggested that those in attendance should donate to help fund his nonprofit’s work.

Quantum Summit 2 was put on in Cape Canaveral, Florida, by believers in the NESARA/GESARA conspiracy theory. In its most basic form, NESARA/GESARA is a conspiracy theory that revolves around a proposed piece of economic reforms from the 1990s called the National Economic Security and Recovery Act that conspiracy theorists believe was enacted in secret by President Bill Clinton but was covered up by the U.S. Supreme Court via a gag order and suppressed by the 9/11 attacks, which were orchestrated by President George W. Bush.

GESARA refers to a supposed global version of the economic reforms that adherents similarly believe were instituted and then hidden.

In the early 2000s, the conspiracy theory gained popularity in the early internet days as Shaini Goodwin, calling herself the “Dove of Oneness,” made bold predictions about NESARA and world events with dubious claims of “insider knowledge.”

Goodwin is a “graduate” of a New-Age school whose leader often goes on homophobic and antisemitic rants and has teamed up with QAnon. It is also tied to the NXIVM cult that was investigated for sex crimes and much more.

The conspiracy theory has regained traction in recent years, as QAnon adherents have flocked to it due to its many similarities.

NESARA/GESARA has often also been called the “grandfather” of the QAnon conspiracy movement. Goodwin initially promoted it as part of a larger scam that defrauded investors of millions of dollars, with promises of the erasure of all debts and the eventual abolishment of the Internal Revenue Services.

Believers often claim that extraterrestrials have been in communication with them or leaders within the movement and are working to promote the NESARA/GESARA agenda. A promotional video for the Cape Canaveral event that Finchem and Biasiucci spoke at mentions discussions around encouraging the U.S. Space Force to work with the “Galactic Federation.” The idea of a Galactic Federation is often discussed in the context of UFO religions and New Age movements.

The event was the brainchild of a man named Mel Carmine, who believes that Trump, using the newly created Department of Government Efficiency, or DOGE, is ushering in the NESARA/GESARA plan.

Carmine also has violent beliefs as to what the government should be doing to Trump’s perceived enemies.

“Everything you buy, everything you touch, has a tax,” Carmine said in aFeb. 11 interview with Finchem and Biasucci. “People are tired of the thievery…I believe I’m speaking for the American people. I’m pissed off and I know the American people are pissed off. I know I wanna see guillotines and I’m very sure the American people want to see the guillotines and people hanging from ropes. Are we going to see these people perp walked? Are we going to see these people taken care of?”

Neither Arizona lawmaker responded to the statement, and instead spoke about legislation they’re running about taxes in Arizona.

In that same interview, Finchem claimed that Attorney General Kris Mayes had sent a “threatening” letter to lawmakers regarding cryptocurrency. A spokesperson for Mayes said they were unaware of any letter and noted they were working with Republican lawmaker Rep. Jeff Weninger, R-Chandler, on a cryptocurrency bill.

Neither Biasucci nor Finchem responded to repeated requests for comment.

In an opening video for the event, Carmine also claimed that God showed him the logo of a cryptocurrency in the sky that he is now pushing as the currency that will be backed by NESARA/GESARA. That cryptocurrency was featured prominently throughout the event and is pushed heavily on Carmine’s social media.

The event included a litany of speakers with conspiratorial ties and beliefs ranging from UFOs to a man who claimed that he was the original author of The Matrix movie, a claim that was rejected in court.

On Telegram during the conference, Carmine interviewed a person who claimed the Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting, which left 20 children and 6 adults dead, was faked by the government and claimed “anti-gravity tech” and the scam technology known as “med beds” would be forthcoming.

Biasiucci and Finchem are not strangers to conspiracy conventions. In 2021, both spoke at a QAnon convention full of conspiracy theories and antisemitic propaganda.

Finchem has also fundraised with QAnon adherents and had major support from the QAnon community during his failed bid for statewide office in 2022. One of those major supporters, Juan O. Savin, was also a speaker at Quantum Summit 2.

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Arizona Mirror is part of States Newsroom, a nonprofit news network supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Arizona Mirror maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor Jim Small for questions: info@azmirror.com.

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body politic must be purged: 

lots of analysis 321 an; meme remix? prphet/profit grift for non xian?  ghost dance?

https://www.alternet.org/2021/03/trump/

salon

Lorie Laddgazes into the camera with glossy eyes, a look that mimics the long stare one gets after meditating. She's about to give one of her sermons, one of the "most challenging" ones she's ever had to make, she explains. Ladd says she's received a message that needs to be shared from "higher dimensional consciousnesses," what she refers to as the "Galactic Federation of Light." But before revealing the message, Ladd, a self-described "ascension teacher," advises her viewers to shed the stereotypes that have been "programmed" into them — "polarities," she calls them, like "Democrat" and "Republican" — and listen to her message: Donald Trump is a "massive and powerful lightworker."

"To say that I was shocked was an understatement," Ladd tells her nearly 139,000 YouTube followers of her revelation. "I have been digesting information from my guides about what this lightworker in human form looking like Donald Trump has been doing for the human collective; this man has more charge around him than any other human on the planet right now."

Ladd goes on to explain that her video isn't a "political one," but a "consciousness one," and that she's not talking about "voting," but "ascension." Trump, as she explains in the next half hour, is here to help assist humans in what many in the New Age and spiritual communities refer to as a great "awakening" of consciousness. The idea behind the awakening is that human consciousness is approaching a "fifth dimension," which will eventually bring humans closer to the "Source."

A lightworker, as defined by well-being magazine Happiness, is someone who feels "an enormous pull towards helping others." The term, they say, can be interchangeable with "crystal babies," "indigos," "Earth angels" and "star seeds"; "these spiritual beings volunteer to act as a beacon for the Earth, and commit to serving humanity," the story continues. The magazine states that the term was first coined by the New Age author Michael Mirdad.

This rhetoric might sound cultish, but these phrases don't belong to any one specific religious sect. Indeed, such belief systems are part of a larger, more diffuse New Age culture embraced by the ever-increasing number of Americans leaving organized religion in droves — or who were never religious in the first place — and turning to conspirituality by way of many self-described spiritual and wellness influencers online.

Conspirituality, the term that defines this movement, was coined by researcher Charlotte Ward. She describes conspirituality as "a rapidly growing web movement expressing an ideology fueled by political disillusionment and the popularity of alternative worldviews." There is no official indoctrination video, no book to read; the hundreds of thousands of people who embrace these New Age-like beliefs find them on YouTube vlogs like Ladd's, as well as Instagram and Facebook. Recently, conspiritualists have begun to overlap with the far-right conspiracy theory QAnon.

This notion that Trump is a lightworker shares obvious parallels with the belief, held by some evangelicals, that Trump is comparable to Jesus; similarly, some QAnon followers believe that Trump is the "world leader" whose mission is to "save the children."

Yet what makes the lightworker theory especially odd is that it has emerged from a demographic that would have previously been described as apolitical, or even far-left.

However, as the January 6 insurrection on the Capitol showed, QAnon and Trump adherents are no longer just middle-aged, conservative white men like the Republican Party of yore. Many of those who embrace right-wing fringe beliefs are yogis, and love-and-light types, too. Take Jake Angeli for example, the so-called "QAnon Shaman" who donned a horned hat and spear-tipped American flag as he stormed the Capitol building on January 6. The 33-year-old, who identifies as having "shamanistic" beliefs, was recently granted the right to be fed an all-organic diet in jail in line with his religious practice.

Ladd's declaration that Trump was a lightworker sent shockwaves through conspiritual and self-help communities. (Salon reached out to Ladd for comment, but did not receive a response.) Some spirituality and consciousness bloggers vehemently disagreed. But many influential figures in the community thought Ladd was onto something, including Christiane Northrup, a physician and best-selling author who has been spreading anti-vaccination rhetoric and has embraced QAnon.

Matthew Remski, a co-host of the Conspirituality podcast and a cult dynamics researcher, described Northrup as a "conspirituality aggregator" who feeds what she finds most interesting to her followers, of which she has many.

"What I think is really brilliant about this particular iteration of QAnon — or 'soft' or 'pastel Q,' you could call it — is that it's really effective at evading content moderation," Remski said. "To only really say something positive about the person who's at the head of QAnon mythology and sort of soft-pedal all of the aggression and triumph that is going to be involved in his mission is a really good way of brand-washing QAnon for the wellness set."

Indeed, while social media companies like Twitter and Facebook have suspended many accounts sharing QAnon-related disinformation, the wellness influencers remain. Dr. Ronald Purser, a professor of management at San Francisco State University and the author of "McMindfulness," said that in uncertain times, societies see a rise of "occultures," meaning "groups of people who are attracted to strange occult and esoteric ideas, mixing them in unforeseen ways with political movements."

"A common theme in such movements is the need for purification, purifying and purging unwanted elements – toxins, impurities, or anything foreign or other," Purser said. "This is why we see so many New Age yoga practitioners seduced by QAnon."

Purser said there are parallels between the rise of "occultures" now and the role spirituality and mysticism played in Nazi Germany. Notably, the Third Reich appropriated the swastika, a symbol used by Hindus, Buddhists and Jains; the word means "well-being" in Sanskrit.

"Consider Hitler, who was obsessed with the occult, was a vegetarian, used astrologers [and] oracles," Purser said. "The Nazi Heinrich Himmler, head of SS, was enamored with Eastern mysticism, and he sent an expedition to Tibet in search of lost remnants of a secret and pure Aryan race; Hitler was seen as a 'light worker' [as in someone who's saving humanity] that would purge Germany of Jews."

Purser added that Trump and his enablers have "mastered the ability of weaponized mass delusion through social media."

"Many of the New Agers drawn to QAnon are probably suffering from unresolved trauma – like many in Trump's base as well," Purser said. "It's easier to look to a savior and to find scapegoats than to face one's own fears and pain."

When asked about the term lightworker, and where it derives from, Remski said he first heard it when he was in a "Course in Miracles cult" from 1999 to 2003. The name is a reference to a book, titled "A Course in Miracles," that was published by Helen Schucman in 1976; Schucman claimed the book had been spoken to her via "inner dictation" from Christ. Remski said the word "light" appears in the text frequently.

"Light is not only the sort of keynote of this Manichaean universe in which things are either light or shadow, they're either good or bad, it's also like schizotypal as a universe, it is given this materiality as well," Remski said of Schucman's book. "Light is said to be something that can fill a person up, it can blow a person apart, it can enter a person, and I think it probably overlaps with some pre-modern ideas like prana or ch'i —those kind of folk medicine ideas of vital force — but it's also associated with an absolute truth, an ontological transformation . . . like once once light enters into you, you are forever changed."

Remski believes the conspiritual rhetoric around "light" started after the book was published. While the book "A Course in Miracles" doesn't include the term "lightworker," the theme of light itself runs throughout. "The key is only the light that shines away the shapes and forms and fears of nothing," a typical passage reads.

One prominent figure who was deeply influenced by "A Course in Miracles" is former presidential candidate Marianne Williamson. In 1996, Williamson wrote a book, "A Return to Love: Reflections on the Principles of 'A Course in Miracles,'" that was structured as a reflection on the original text. Williamson, too, has used the term "lightworker" before; in a 2013 Facebook post, Williamson wrote, "A light-worker is not someone who ignores the darkness; it's someone who transforms the darkness."

Obviously, Williamson and Trump are political opposites; Williamson, a Democrat, came down hard and repeatedly on Trump's policies during her 2020 campaign. Salon asked Williamson what she thought about the term "lightworker" being used to describe Trump. She replied via email: "I think it's insane. . . . Like many others, I don't understand it but I find it deeply disturbing."

When asked why he believes people have been so eager to embrace this belief that Trump is a "lightworker," Remski said that it is because it can "offer all of the benefits of the conspiratorial mindset, without a lot of the drawbacks."

"Because you're saying something kind about him," Remski said, "as the social psychologists basically repeat over and over again."

Remski believes conspiracy theories are attractive because they "satisfy epistemic needs." "Like, 'I'm now I'm going to know something that nobody else knows,' or 'I'm going to meet my survival needs, meaning this information is going to help me tolerate what's happening, but also maybe even preserve me from danger,'" he said.

But as the social media spread of the "lightworker" theory illustrates, conspiracy theories also open up their adherents to communities of people that they can hang out with, Remski mused.

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