Believing in QAnon is an Example of Privilege in the Spiritual Space
I have experienced many strange - and beautiful - things in my life that no amount of research has ever been able to explain. So many “coincidences”, especially in the past few years. I may not have “found” the answers, but I have established community. I have found groups of people who have walked similar paths and I’ve been overjoyed to journey with them in my spiritual education.
“Coincidence is God's way of remaining anonymous.”
-Albert Einstein
I have also come across QAnon before, I worked at MIT in CSAIL in the teen aughts, where many technological ideals and theories were shared, including the evolution of 4chan and 8chan. The dark web has always been something I observed from a distance, intrigued by the nuances of humans and their beliefs. I have never judged any viewpoint, because I believe that all of these differences make life interesting.
Welcome to 2020, where the circumstances of COVID-19 across the globe has made many things that were broken come to light. For me, people I respected started to open up and share more about this QAnon Great Awakening theory. And I found I had a not-so-positive reaction.
I try to keep in mind that having a reaction is a clue. Not a reason to rage, but a breadcrumb to see what in me was triggered by another person’s actions, or in this case beliefs. To have found this article, reading this now, you probably already agree with me for the most part, that’s how our media trails work currently. To overcome cognitive bias requires the desire to understand the other side, to overcome one’s own prejudices. But I am writing this to help explain why, when I see the hashtags (#WWG1WGA ("Where we go one, we go all") or #TheGreatAwakening), the nods and secret, well-placed background items in images, I bow out from the content. Respectfully, quietly, and immediately. Even (especially) from “teachers” in the spiritual space that I may have agreed with before that point.
What if they, the “forces”, the “deep state”, what if they want the world to WIN, to unite? What if they want balance to be restored? If aliens are here and change can happen in dream states, maybe that exists because it can be used for good. It can be used to view all people equally - no matter their skin color or gender preference?
QAnon does not currently inhabit that line of thinking, no matter what they will have you think. For to be involved in QAnon involves privilege.
QAnon cannot exist without privilege.
What a privilege conspiracy theories are, or rather, what privilege those who believe in them have. Or at least those who believe in them enough to put them above human lives.
Privilege that you can believe in these theories and not get killed going to the store (#ElijahMcClain), or sleeping in your bed (#BreonnaTaylor). Privilege that you believe you will probably survive COVID-19, if you are under a certain age with no-preexisting conditions, even (especially) as it ravages Black and Latinos populations in the US disproportionately.
Listen, I’m all for woo-woo things. You’d be surprised who I pray to at night/in meditation. I do believe the world is going through massive paradigm shifts, a great awakening if you will. But whether a virus is human-made or mother nature made (and I’m team Gaia), it is here, and real people are dying. Real people are suffering.
I recognize that conspiracy theories are an easier thing to focus on than a pandemic. I’m all for alternative ways to numb out, again, believe me. But now is not the time for dividedness. Julie Wittes Schlack put it best in her article, Why You Should Care About QAnon:
“Not only are these beliefs vile, but they are precisely the kind of distraction that Trump and his cronies welcome. Notably absent from any of the QAnon theories is any fact-based analysis of capitalism — of who makes the money and the rules, or of how. Were they curious about the real ways that the deck is stacked against them, this group of conspiracy theorists would discover surprising agreement with those at the other end of the political spectrum.
But what QAnon followers and COVID-deniers believe is ultimately less important than why.”
We are all different and the same.
I believe Donald Trump is also here for a reason, but not to save us. Oh no. He is here to push us to save ourselves, together in unity. There are no conspiracy theories without an element of truth, just as there are no stereotypes without truth as well. A point of authenticity is what makes it stick.
Trump is our Hitler. Our Mussolini, our King George III, even our Napoleon. He is a man who is obsessed with power and his own value and will stop at nothing to get more. I do believe he is part of a great cosmic cycle we are in that is repeating over and over because we haven’t learned our lesson, not really. And, as technology exponentially expands, so does too the capacity for total destruction. To save one, we must save all (funny how that parallels the QAnon main message), but, in this meaning, we cannot be divided. Maybe that’s where the truth is buried. There can be no more secret clubs to house the “winners”, because we will all lose, and unlike other times in history, we have the possibility to lose it all in a major way.
The future is in the unity of our duality. It is Jesus and Mary Magdalene. It is Shiva and Shakti. It is Father Sky and Mother Earth, Yin & Yang, light & dark, sun & moon. It is Rachel and Leah, It is Michael and Lucifer, sister and brother, man & woman. It is the masculine and feminine in all of us. It is genderless. It is the hero’s journey AND the heroine’s journey that we all can choose to take.
Wellness Community Statement from Off the Mat
I didn’t know how to end this article, I wrote it in August of 2020 and have been sitting on it, hoping for inspiration for a closing paragraph. Then, on September 14, Seane Corn, an author & influencer in the yoga space posted an Anti-QAnon call to action on her own social media and on the social media of her aggregate page, Off the Mat
As it was picked up by more and more spiritual influencers, I started to breathe again.
In a New York Times article outlining Ms. Corn’s reasoning for posting at this time, she was quoted as stating:
“I’m afraid that well-meaning folks who don’t understand the complexity of this misinformation will be seduced” by QAnon, she said. “They’re rolling out the yoga mat right now, and it scares me.”
I could not agree more (as evidenced by my thoughts above), and I’m so grateful as more of my community step up and speak out against this. Education and research are key in so many of these polarizing issues right now, but also the ability to listen to your gut, your inner knowing. For that is the silver lining of the “work” of spirituality. To trust that you have access to something greater than yourself in your own body, your own soul.
I hope if and when you are faced with deciding whether this is real or not, you look inside and weigh what you feel vs what you are hearing (from both sides) and find the answer that is true to you.
Photo by Ashley Batz on Unsplash
Photo on blog page by Wesley Tingey on Unsplash
