“You have no idea what they’re hiding from us in the Huw Edwards’ case. He’s part of an elite cabal, harvesting the blood of children.”

These were the words of a friend, an otherwise sensitive, intelligent constellation therapist with progressive values. I listened in disbelief. How could such wild, conspiracy textbook fabrications have taken root in my friend’s consciousness? Far from being a rare phenomenon, it was a shocking encounter nevertheless. I have seen others in my wider network, especially since Covid-19, exhibit what I call ‘conspiracy creep’, with an increasing alignment with the right.

Like many, I began researching this phenomenon to try to understand it from a consciousness perspective. This essay grew out of a combination of research and personal soul-searching as to what in our culture has led to this, given the world is already beleaguered by real-time crises.

One of my spiritual mentors, Vimala Thakar, once said to me that “the perception/understanding of bondage, is the first step to liberation”.

Covid-19: An Ideological Gamechanger

The starting point for many of these ‘conversions’ from the left to the right, often began with distrust of the Covid-19 vaccine. Not without reason. Vaccines urgently created during the pandemic were impossible to test for their long-term (or even short-term) impacts. Something that governments were loath to be transparent about. In the West we are accustomed to a certain freedom of personal choice. So sudden mandates for vaccination were seen by many as an affront. A sinister intrusion on our freedom, even our rights.

This distrust was amplified by common knowledge of the lucrative reciprocal relationship between the medical establishment and the pharmaceutical industry. In the US, $billions in profit are generated and distributed through a network of medical practitioners and ‘medical entrepreneurs’; too often purveyors of elite drugs to the rich and famous, or addictive opioids (pain killers) to the public.

I understand the misgivings around vaccines. Political lobbying and relentless PR campaigns conducted by drug companies and the chemical industrial complex, have proved a corrupting force in governments of all persuasions. These groups dangerously influence regulations in their favour. In addition, the establishment’s unwillingness to connect the ubiquity of poisonous toxins, chemicals and the plastics we ingest, with the spike in autoimmune diseases, cancer, autism, and neurological disease, is hardly credible.

So, understandably many people reacted adversely to mandatory calls for vaccination. What’s more, the existential fear generated by the pandemic itself, quickly became fertile soil for conspiracy theories to spread, germinating in new demographic hosts.

To the libertarian-drenched consciousness of America, the ‘infringement of rights’ invoked by the call for mask-wearing was worthy of ‘civil rebellion’. Online armies of largely white vaccine protestors appropriated the language and spirit of the civil rights era, portraying themselves as the new ‘freedom fighters’.

The pandemic certainly exposed the deep flaws and inequities within our system. And government responses were frequently mired in shadowy half-truths, dubious deals, and a defensive lack of transparency and open debate.

Covid-19 measures are still a fraught subject with strong arguments and raw emotions on both sides. At the height of the pandemic, when death claimed vulnerable lives at a terrifying rate, and the internet was awash with opposing ‘expert’ views on vaccines, combative lines were drawn dividing families and whole communities. Sadly, these have stayed with us.

My research led me to the strange alliance formed during this period between the political right, burgeoning conspiracists, the extreme left, and progressives from the Wellness sector. The latter, favouring natural or holistic medicine systems over symptom-suppressive allopathy, joined the rebellion over mandated vaccines. A slow-burning distrust of the establishment deepened this nexus.

Scepticism of Government

Scepticism of government reaches back through decades of controversial policies, broken promises, and dubious corporate alliances forged by governments of all stripes. Political parties traditionally viewed as the harbingers of liberal values are not exempt. Thus, what started as a shared vaccine antipathy, ballooned. Mingling with the disillusionment of disappointed leftists, alternative thinkers, spiritual and wellness practitioners i.e. those generally on the progressive side of culture.

For some, this disaffection would go on to find ideological affirmation in theories of a deep state cabal; an alleged clandestine network of political elites and government officials (including intelligence agencies) with occult leanings, working in conjunction with powerful financial and industrial interests to manipulate populations, and control a globalist agenda. The seeds of some conspiracy theories may hold some truth, but beliefs previously considered fringe rapidly became lodged in mainstream consciousness. And in the US, heavily politicised. Today, the self-assuredness of the progressive left and liberal centre (as the ‘good guys’) faces a daunting certainty from the populist right.

How and Why?

A confluence of entangled forces and choices – personal, economic, political, and cultural – well beyond the scope of this essay, have coalesced since Covid. But it’s no secret that for decades, principles core to liberal democracies have foundered on the rocks of corporate lobbying, dubious foreign policy, and what’s perceived as the increasing abandonment of once liberal or moderate conservative values, including social and economic justice.

Governments’ unconditional embrace of neoliberalism has seen the forfeiture of human rights, workers’ rights, and environmental protections. And there’s been a political price. Similarly, Silicon Valley titans have lost the glow of beneficence. Whistleblowers and exposures like that of Cambridge Analytica, exploded the image of once liberal tech luminaries as cultural heroes, creating benign portals for greater community and connection. Tech magnates have accrued fortunes quietly harvesting and profiting from our personal data; data that can be used to influence political outcomes.

We’ve seen political elites increasingly distance themselves from ordinary people’s real concerns. Parties on both sides cosy up to Wall Street, Silicon Valley, and other corporate moguls. Principled priorities crumbling in the face of deep pockets and potential political advantage. Meanwhile, the flagrant influence of secretive organisations/foundations thrives unabated. These provide massive financial contributions to campaign coffers, successfully lobbying on behalf of corporate interests over those of ordinary citizens. Shadowy institutions (i.e. Heritage Foundation, 55 Tufton Street) affect our lives in hugely significant ways, advising on government policy, new laws, regulatory structures, and in some cases directly influencing the courts.

So, it’s not surprising that the last forty + years have undergone a thinning in the support of progressives for liberal centrist political parties. Specious wars, deregulation, an alarming climate and environmental crisis, along with bailouts in the corporate and banking sector and a revolving door between politics and corporate consultancies, have eroded trust and loyalty for politicians. But it is the progressive left for whom this is ideologically indefensible.

The shadow of complicity in geopolitical instability, atrocities committed against civilian populations, coupled with the ineffectiveness of Western liberal leaders to intervene and impress diplomacy, is further uprooting traditional loyalties. Nowhere is this phenomenon more on display than in the lead-up to the US presidential elections. Here the migration of influencers from the progressive liberal left is happening in plain sight – not to the centre, but to the far right. We are witnessing a ‘divorce’, an ideological conversion away from a party traditionally seen as representing liberal values, on a scale not previously seen. Four names encapsulate the magnitude of this transition from various positions and causes of the left, to the right.

A Curious Quartet

Robert F. Kennedy Jnr (RFK), an environmental rights lawyer (once a hero of mine), founded the Environmental Litigation Clinic at Pace University School of Law, in 1987. Winning a string of legal victories against polluting corporations in the 90’s, he became legendary within the environmental movement. In 1999, RFK founded the nonprofit Waterkeeper Alliance.

From 2005, Kennedy started advocating against government overreach in public health, particularly regarding vaccines. Fast forward 15 years found him prominent amongst the ranks of anti-vaxxers during Covid-19. Today, this one-time hero of the left and liberal establishment is now a mainstream exile, viewed as a conspiracy theorist and source of vaccine misrepresentation.

Despite a lifelong love of Nature and decades of commitment to environmental protection, RFK recently endorsed a Trump presidency. A stark demonstration of the ideological scrambling taking place in the formation of new political alliances.

Charles Eisenstein, influential new age thinker and author, is renowned for his vision (and book) on A More Beautiful World our Hearts Know is Possible, along with his exposition on Sacred Economics. In his books and essays, Charles lays out “what our relationship to nature might be, as we grow in our understanding that everything is alive, conscious, and sacred.” Today he stands by his friend, RFK, in his endorsement of Donald Trump for the US presidency.

 Russell Brand, original Hollywood ‘bad boy’, after a series of spiritual transformations went on to become an influential advocate for progressive thinkers, activists, and those taking on the neoliberal establishment. Facing allegations of sexual harassment from his Hollywood days, Brand temporarily withdrew from the public eye. He has since taken up residency on right wing conservative Christian forums, with a massive following on pro-conspiracy social media sites.

Naomi Wolf, author of The Beauty Myth, iconic third wave feminist, former anti-authoritarian speaker and writer, and frequent contributor to liberal media, has now, incredulously, found celebrity and a home with the American alt right. Coming up through the ranks of anti-vaccine conspiracists, Wolf took this to new heights with declarations on X (Twitter) that vaccines were a “software platform that can receive uploads,” and Apple was plotting “to deliver vaccines [with] nanoparticles that let you travel back in time.” She is still a regular guest on Steve Bannon’s War Room and other far right platforms.

In April 2012, Wolf wrote an opinion essay for the Guardian, objecting to the use of military hardware in a music video by Kate Perry. Likening it to Leni Riefenstahl, “the same angled, heroising upward shots, the same fetishisation of physical power, of gleaming armaments…”. Wolfe queried if the US military complex was trying to “attract more women to the Marines”.  Fast forward to a video she posted on X in 2022, of Wolf training with a high calibre weapon in preparedness for potential ‘civil war’. This shows just how far along her journey to the right she has come. 

All four of the above were once luminaries within the progressive world. All now, to different degrees support, either directly or indirectly, a potential right-wing presidency. A man with openly neofascist leanings, a climate denier bent on heading the world’s most powerful democracy. 

Part 2:

Who Are We?

The personal stories and trajectories of the four individuals described above provide clues into the culture that has spawned and celebrates a chaotic, post-truth world; where celebrity, wealth, and narcissism are rewarded. Integrity, rationality, authentic care, and even sanity openly flouted.

The idiosyncratic flaws of cultural influencers reveal powerful nanoparticles in our cultural psyche. Drivers of our modern-day self. Scandal, lapses in integrity that would formerly incur public censure and loss of influence, are today mere bruises in the ascent to power. ‘Fallen’ protagonists bounce back. Usually unremorseful and, if necessary, shorn of inconvenient ideological, even spiritual, loyalties. Rebranding, no matter how perverse, is de rigueur.

Both Naomi Wolf and Russell Brand suffered serious falls from liberal stardom. Humiliation, loss of income, influence, and in the case of Brand, potential litigation, resulted in their seeking sanctuary in very different social media contexts, with very different audiences, often embracing anti-leftist values. Audiences eager to embrace fallen liberals.

Steve Bannon welcomed Naomi Wolf to the War Room without requiring in the least that she shed her liberal credentials. Strategically, he created a distorted mirror image of what was once the terrain of the left – free speech and open debate.

The allure of power or ‘clout’, the name of Naomi Wolf’s platform, is a potent drug. ‘Influence’ today can mean affecting the consciousness – hearts and minds – of thousands, if not millions, of people. And the ideological (or philosophical) vehicle used for this is often secondary. Hence the radical U-turns we are witnessing. But this fragility of self – of the values and worldview that sustain who we are – is not confined to celebrities.

The Art of ‘Looking Past’

‘Looking past’ has become an art, an ability embedded into our social media-soaked culture. We look past Trump’s environmental record, we look past Biden’s serial vetoing of a UN ceasefire, we look past the inconvenient truths and inequities our modern lives are built and sustained on. We fear guilt, we fear responsibility, we fear knowing too much. We fear facing into reality, disrupting our own fragile equilibrium…We fear overwhelm.

Indeed, the challenges we face today are unprecedented, deeply entangled. But fears, if ignored, tend to dull us intellectually, spiritually. They dull our emotional intelligence, our conscience, capacity for empathy and intuition. Engulfed by powerful forces of ‘normalisation’, we are in a fight, not one confined to the values or political views of the left or right, but for our souls and that of our culture. What one day is morally repugnant, the next becomes normal. “Sane-washing” is just the latest iteration of evidence that we are losing our ability to make distinctions, let alone nuanced distinctions.

We are not encouraged to think independently, but simply go with the powerful memes coursing through our social media sites. Some of us resist and lean toward abstract ideas of ‘complexity’ for explanation. But without facing reality, we risk losing the intelligence of our precious humanity which depends on listening, questioning, and engaged independent thinking.

American writer, Daniel Pinchbeck puts this bluntly vis a vis the example of the US elections, “the idea, so popular among many people in my extended communities, that we must overcome polarities, conflicts, political arguments, to reach some ineffable unified consciousness where we float serenely above it all, is a wrong, lazy approach… they think the entire system is so corrupt that the best thing they can do is abstain from voting altogether. Or they don’t even care. It is something like a collective hypnosis. …Standardised or stereotyped refrains replay over and over, without the presence of an authentic conscience or curiosity to interrupt the hypnosis.”

When a culture succumbs to cynicism, we risk intellectual laziness and the weakening of our own innate (authentic) moral compass. We become ripe for powerful memes to take hold of our consciousness. But forfeiting our capacities for discrimination has wider repercussions. It risks opening up our subconscious, whereby the deep existential fears we all have, start feeding off illogical speculation, various xenophobia, even dark conspiracy theories. Hence the rootless ideological U-turns with no ontological basis. 

Ironically, the so called trans-binary worldview that Charles Eisenstein and others posit in their defence of a rightward swerve, does not necessarily represent a higher altitude of perspective. Instead, it more resembles responses from the soup of disillusionment from which new & strange alliances are emerging.

We don’t need to indulge in simplistic demonisation to see what a Trump presidency holds beneath the populist rhetoric, especially with regard to all that progressives cherish. According to Trump’s own words, it will mean the eradication of environmental safeguards, the boosting of fossil fuel energy, expanded powers of the executive, and the repopulating of Washington with right-wing neoliberals and hawks. The ‘swamp’ was never drained, simply replaced.

Populist rhetoric in the US does little for the common person in material terms. But it does speak to felt neglect. Just as it cheerleads US dominance, the subtext of a sloganized commitment to put ‘America First’. There is little sign of “the beautiful world our hearts know is possible” in a Trump agenda.

A New World Worth Fighting For

It seems beyond time to end the false divide between the political and the spiritual; just as 2^nd wave feminism collapsed the divide between the political and the personal. Our political leadership will never reflect our values or a higher level of consciousness, if we do not engage. Our attention, our intuition, our cognitive and emotive abilities, our selves, are critical in exploring what is ‘right’ in any one context, and supporting that in whatever ways we can. Neutrality and indifference create a void. And history has shown us that darkness fills a void.

There is a new world out there. It’s building beneath the radar of mainstream media. A parallel universe to the growing club of aficionados: shadowy right-wing think tanks, oil and tech magnates, billionaire oligarchs, autocrats, and wannabe dictators circling weakened liberal democracies.

Recently a friend (Manish Jain) hosted one of many global gatherings. A 4-day online event, it consisted of dialogues and exchange between diverse groups laying the inner and outer infrastructure of this new world. Through growing connectivity, a global movement is demonstrating increasing strength, capacity, and expertise. And unlike the fragmentation and despair of modern society, it’s united in a long-term vision, empowered by a sense of responsibility, care, and the radical trust and collaboration it’s generating. What it lacks in political power, it makes up for in substance – soul strength rooted in clarity, meaning, and a humanity that kindles optimism.

The aims of this movement are simple but radical: restoring the commons, reviving dialogue, learning and applying holistic regenerative principles rooted in respect, care for our planet, its citizens and living systems. From diverse ethnicities and contexts these activists, thinkers, writers, artists, academics, farmers, and community leaders represent the rebirth of the very values, intellectual and spiritual depth, the left mourns.

The future is calling us to respond, together. Today’s challenges are too great to face alone. Engagement dispels despair and impotence. It connects us to what we love and cherish, to what we are intimately part of. But what are we engaging together in? We cannot allow ourselves to be manipulated through our fears, rage, or cynicism. We cannot risk our deeper sensibilities becoming muted, our capacity to listen, to decipher the codes around us to become dulled. Ultimately we cannot afford to empower, either directly or indirectly, the forces that could crush the emerging movements that are actually creating the “beautiful world” Charles Eisenstein dreamt about. 

With thanks for the use of the painting S is difficult to Avoid Truth, by Seiichi Terazono, and for the cover illustration of Don’t let the Dark In by Kyoumeni