IT HAPPENED TO ME

I’VE BEEN INSIDE THE CONSPIRACY

THEORY ‘HIVE’, and found my way out. About five years ago I went through a tough time. I fell ill. I was unsatisfied with life. I started doing various courses, trying Tantra, then Buddhism, then New Age spirituality. And the more I explored, the more there was to explore: shamans, mystics, channels, seers, gurus, teachers, energy healers, reiki, witches…

I began to absorb the common narrative: we create our reality with our thoughts and beliefs, not just because our beliefs affect our actions but also because our beliefs, emotions and thoughts have a direct ‘vibrational’ effect on reality. Like magic. Well, once I had swallowed that, I became so open-minded that my brains fell out, and it was only a matter of time before I believed anything, more or less, that I encountered if it felt compelling. I believed I was ‘following my intuition’, and that I was having ‘an awakening’. Soon, I encountered the plethora of conspiracy theories that pervade the New Age world. Initially they were packaged very benignly, ‘fear’ being the biggest threat to the world’s ‘expanding consciousness’ and ‘ascension’. Then the theories became increasingly bizarre, and, I admit, I lapped them up. The Anunnaki. The reptilian Archons. The Illuminati. The New World Order. The other people who believe in these things seemed like regular folk. And they genuinely believed humanity was fighting an unseen enemy in the spiritual realm, which had manifested in the physical world as an evil controlling elite, and the only evidence that seemed to be necessary was ‘a sense of knowing’ and tenuously linked events. It was like living in a real-life fantasy novel. And perhaps that’s what I wanted, because I didn’t really want to face how unhappy I was. The New Age conspiracy world was a welcome distraction.

Eventually, I came back down to earth. I met a wonderfully grounded man, quit the job I hated and got on with making the changes I’d been too afraid to make until then. I admit that it still intrigues me, but more from an anthropological perspective now than as a spiritual seeker.