During the first week of this September, American Anthony Chansley, known as "Shaman Keo Anon", pleaded guilty (1) in federal court to a charge of participating in riots during the storming of the US Capitol in January 2021, the incident Described as an incident of rebellion, exceptional strife and domestic terrorism, during this incident four people died, and political chaos was provoked to the point that some voices were raised to warn of civil war and the imminent end of American democracy.
Chansley drew the attention of the whole world, with his bare chest covered (2) with tattoos bearing religious symbols of Scandinavian heritage, some of which indicate the supremacy of the white race, with a headdress made of buffalo horns, and fur hanging over his shoulder.
After searching his record (3), it was found that he is the founder of a Facebook page that invites its members to reach a degree of awakening, sublimation, and awakening from the slumber in which the world plunges.
That brings us back to Chancely's famous nickname by which everyone is familiar: "Shaman Keo Anon".
Anthony Chansley, aka "Shaman Keo Anon"
The Great Awakening
Shamans (4) are religious magicians who believe they have the ability to achieve things by means of séances and astral projection, i.e. leaving the body and accomplishing whatever tasks, including rituals such as patterned drumming, special dances, and chanting ritual songs.
A shaman, then, is a person with special abilities and thus can possess a degree of power over his followers or disciples, they not only love him or want him to achieve their goals, but revere his actions.
Taking a deeper view, shamanism is a primitive form of religion, which includes a concept that assumes that the human being consists of a physical body and several invisible components that can leave it and remain alive separately. Final means death.
QAnone, on the other hand, is a conspiracy theory that appeared on the Internet in October 2017 when Mr. "Q" appeared. No one knows his name but they named him because of his claim that he had a "permit" Access Q”, which is the security permit required to access confidential classified data and US national security information, stressing that it is authorized by (former) US President Donald Trump, who is fighting an internal war to set up a satanic cult that runs the country from behind the scenes and wants to control the whole world.
In November of the same year, Keio launched the term "Great Awakening", which spread enormously after that, and means that we are close to a great event and a victory for good (Trump) over evil (the Satanic gang), at that exact point, Keiu Anon meets With religion, where "Great Awakening" (6) here means to evoke the famous historical Christian religious awakening from the early eighteenth century to the late twentieth century in the United States.
Kyu Anon supporters
According to Keio Anon's vocabulary, the battle between President Trump and the "Satanic Gang" has biblical dimensions, and represents a battle for land between good and evil.
That is why Kio Anon's supporters often say that "the day of reckoning is coming", and that "it is not only the end of the world as we know it, but a new beginning", and that after this final battle between good and evil takes place, good will triumph, and utopia on earth remains for the faithful survivors. Faithful.
This is related to the so-called Apocalypticism, which is the religious belief that the end of the world is imminent.
This belief is usually accompanied by the idea that civilization will soon come to a tumultuous end due to some sort of cataclysmic world event, so you can find other vocabulary of the followers of Keio Anon taken from Christian paradigms, such as "storm", taken from Genesis Flood or Judgment Day.
Can Qu Anon, then, be seen as more than a conspiracy theory, but rather a religious sect of interconnected followers, with a prophet, Q, who heralds the coming of a moment of “redemption” at the hands of another prophet, Trump?
Well, there are some indications that this is happening. Consider, for example, the main hashtag Que Anon during the period between 2017-2020, which is #WWG1WGA, which is an acronym: "Where We Go One, We Go All", which means "when someone decides something" What, everyone decides,” or “When one of us goes, we all go.” It is a kind of interdependence that we find in religious denominations as well.
History of the end of the world
Right-wing conspiracy theories have seeped into popular culture over the past century, as people thought they were preparing for apocalyptic scenarios, especially with the arrival of the year 2000.
In fact, from a historical point of view, it has roots that go back more than two centuries ago, where the so-called "New World Order" conspiracy theory was exclusive to two groups of American society, the anti-government right and fundamentalist Christianity that says the antichrist will eventually appear. The proponents of this theory believed that influential historical and contemporary figures are part of a gang that works to organize important political and economic events in order to achieve world domination.
But these right-wing conspiracy theories leaked into popular culture during the last century, and may have found their way in the late twentieth century to the beginning of the twenty-first century in the United States, where people increasingly thought that they were preparing for apocalyptic scenarios, especially with the arrival of the year 2000 and the spread of myths that say that The end of the world is already approaching.
On the other hand, many Christian clergymen such as John Nelson Darby[8] have predicted a global conspiracy to impose a global tyrannical governance structure in fulfillment of the biblical “end-times” prophecies that some people made a deal with Satan to gain immense wealth and power But they have become pawns that move humanity into accepting a demonic world government.
During the Cold War, right-wing Christ agitators adopted and propagated fears9 of an "international communist conspiracy" that would emerge in the form of a bureaucratic atheist collective world government.
This idea helped shape one of the fundamental ideas of the political right in the United States that they used to attack their rivals, that liberals and progressives wish to replace the governments of countries with a communist one world government, especially with the prevalence of international cooperation programs such as foreign aid, which they saw as a step in the Great Transformation Program Towards a single globalized government.
The matter, then, is that the conspiracy theory, in general, has had religious roots, and therefore it is expected that it will eventually produce religious results, but for the sociologists Charlotte Ward and David Fauss (10), this is only insufficient to explain the wide popularity of conspiracy theories about The world, of course we understand that a great pandemic like “Covid-19” will do everything that major events do and push people towards the perception of the end of the world, and thus they will believe conspiracy theories based on the idea of the end of the world, but it is much deeper than that.
new spirituality
According to Ward and Fauss, the growth of industry, cities, and modern administrative structures led to the separation and intense specialization of social institutions, which with time caused the separation of religion from people's daily lives, and this in turn contributed to the emergence of a state of social fragmentation, and here alternative ideologies emerged that present cosmic visions of the world It contradicts political pragmatism, economic rationality, and scientific empiricism.
Ward and Fauss focus on two ideologies in particular, conspiracy theory and the New Age, the first being dominated by a masculine condition, often conservative and pessimistic and usually concerned with current affairs, and the second being feminine, liberal and optimistic, focusing on personal relationships.
It is not clear how these two currents might meet.
But Ward and Fauss argue that "conspirtuality" - a term that combines conspiracy with spirituality - is a spiritual political philosophy based on two basic convictions. The world of politics, and the second is rooted in the new era and says that humanity is undergoing a “paradigm shift” in consciousness or perception.
We find that the "New Age" trend has spread within many religions and cultures, and in a contemporary way it spreads within the worlds of horoscopes, fortune-telling, energy therapy, auras and precious stones (Wikipedia)
"The New Age" (11) is one of the western esoteric intellectual movements whose followers believe that there are hidden (esoteric) sciences or secrets that belong to the elite of scholars and thinkers who receive their knowledge through intuition and personal revelations, not revelation, and we find this trend widespread within many religions. And cultures, but in a contemporary way it spreads within the worlds of horoscopes, fortune-telling, energy therapy, auras and precious stones, and the matter moves to the types of the craft of “human development” in its contemporary image.
But among the many claims of the followers of that movement, whether those who know its existence or those who are ignorant of it but love these fantasy worlds and immerse themselves in them, there is what we know as the “Age of Aquarius”, a term that came out of the world of astrology saying that humanity is on a date with a new astronomical age that is blooming It contains spirits and consciousness rises, and thus people will be able to discover the conspiracies that have been hatched against them for centuries.
You can notice this clearly in the conversations of the current conspiracy theorists. Take, for example, an Arab example, which is the famous Egyptian doctor “Alia Gad”, who owned a YouTube channel during which she promoted conspiracies about “Covid-19” to reach the new world order and the end of the world and the necessity of preparing a fund Save yourself so that you can use it when the “storm” comes. It is worth noting here that these allegations coincided with a serious transition from working with medicine, in the sense we know it, to an unscientific practice that is one of the tools of the new age, which is Holistic medicine that uses scientific techniques sham for treatment.
In her talks about conspiracies, you will usually find that Gad refers to the age of Aquarius, and that humanity is heading towards an era of openness and self-awareness, where the sciences of energy, auras, fortune-tellers and astrologers will find their proper place after centuries of neglect, and science will fall by its experimental nature down the lows, and alternative spirituality liberated from Classical religion dominated by conspiring groups.
Beyond that, some proponents of conspiracy theories believe that what rules the world now is a government based on the spiritual foundations of an unholy trinity that brings together Satan, the Antichrist and the false prophet (and some believe that the latter is the Pope).
against the pope
In fact, the rejection of traditional religion is a distinctive feature of conspiracy theory in some of its forms, and Nancy Amerman, a professor of sociology from Boston University, believes that spirituality (12) in general is a more comprehensive definition than religion itself, and therefore you can now find people who define themselves as They are "spiritual, but not religious," and at this point Amerman's hypothesis can straighten the lines that began with Ward and Fauss to explain the very special case of conspiracy theories.
The great sociologist believes that what is happening is the formation of deep social movements, whose members are interconnected with each other, with distinct and exclusive beliefs, language and symbols. These movements call for a societal transformation, which Amirman calls "spiritual tribes", and it is one of the distinguishing phenomena of the followers of conspiracy theories.
In the 2018 documentary "Behind the Curve" from "Netflix" you can glimpse the life of Mark Kay Sargent, president of an association called "Flat Earth". It has one belief that rejects the interpretations offered by modern science, and believes, with a spiritual belief, that the Earth is a huge flat rock.
The followers of these groups publish fake research on the Internet about a mistake made by a scientist, or a picture that NASA is hiding, to prove that they are right, it is true that their numbers are still few, but they are increasing day by day.
You can also clearly notice this pattern in Q-Anon's followers on Internet forums like Reddit, 4chan or Facebook groups, everyone believes what Q says, and they track thousands of photos or emails to look for a "signal", "hiding message" or "code" Trump sent it to them in a spectacle of greeting or passing peace to his audience, and although the dozens of predictions Kew made between 2017-2020 were wrong, his supporters don't believe the evidence here, but the shaman, or the prophet!
Noah's ship
Well, let's take another example soon.
Amin Sabry is a young Egyptian who usually receives the attention of those interested in human development. He began his career through courses and books on this domain, and recently ended with a focus on conspiracy theories.
Sabri is the exemplary case that Ward, Fauss, and then Amirman talked about. His video is not without talking about a global system that controls electricity, energy, agriculture, and offspring, and promises that this system is preparing humanity for the massive process of shrinking its numbers.
But Amin, besides that, does not forget to talk about the only bright and attractive idea in the conspiracy theory, it is the end of time, and he is here cleverly distorting it so that the Antichrist becomes the new world order. Of the 630,000 subscribers on his YouTube channel of Noah's Ark, he teaches them how to prepare themselves when famine and the war of salvation come at the end of the world, and in the meantime you can buy his books or attend any of his courses for tens of dollars.
Amin is not a special case. Conspiracy theories and movements like New Age and New Thought have identified with the needs of the capitalist market.
Every day, books and therapeutic courses are issued and precious stones and healing waters are sold for hundreds of dollars as the appropriate solution to all your spiritual problems. In the Arab world, conspiracy books are sold on sidewalks and book fairs and they are in great demand that you cannot imagine. Everyone says that the moment of the Great Awakening has come, so subscribe with us only with ten Dollars a month or buy our book for two hundred Egyptian pounds to learn the steps of survival.
Has the conspiracy theory become, then, a contemporary religion that is liberated from some aspects of traditional religions, or say “a false religion” or a “quasi-religion” that takes one thing from traditional religions and leaves another?
This is possible, but perhaps also a revolution against the objective rational world we knew, after a great disappointment socially and politically, and another sign of the downfall of the great ideas in which we believed in politics, religion, science, economics and everything.
In one of his songs, the Canadian-American rock group Buffalo Springfield says, “If everyone is wrong, no one is right.” Or, as Protagoras pointed out more than 2,500 years before them when he said, “Man is the standard,” we are in The era of relative knowledge, and there is no fixed criterion for truth or right and wrong, and perhaps the Egyptians summed it up by saying in a famous popular proverb: “It all goes”!
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sources
1- Capitol riot: 'QAnon Shaman' pleads guilty in federal court
2- The history behind 'QAnon shaman' Jake Angeli's far-right tattoos
3- ?Jake Angeli: Who is the horned protester who stormed the Capitol
4- What Is a Shaman and Can Anyone Become One?
5-The QAnon Timeline: Four Years, 5,000 Drops and Countless Failed Prophecies
6- Great Awakening
7- Apocalypticism in American Culture
8- Apocalypticism Explained
9- A Culture of Conspiracy: Apocalyptic Visions in Contemporary America 2003 Michael Barkun
10- The Emergence of Conspirituality
11- The New Age movement and its social implications
12- Sacred Stories, Spiritual Tribes: Finding Religion in Everyday Life Nancy Tatom Ammerman