Abstract

Contemporary society is undergoing an epistemic rupture: a systemic collapse in shared trust, institutional credibility, and consensus reality. This report introduces the framework of interconnected realities to examine the psychological, cultural, and digital infrastructures that enable the convergence of conspiracy theories, pseudoscientific belief systems, and cultic ideologies. These realities are understood as overlapping meaning-making structures sustained by cognitive biases, emotional contagion, and charismatic authority. Core traits contributing to their formation include schizotypy; defined as a latent personality dimension associated with unusual beliefs and perceptual experiences (Brugger & Mohr, 2008; Brandenstein, 2022); as well as magical thinking (Vyse, 2018), and pseudoscientific mimicry (Blancke et al., 2015; Fasce & Picó, 2019).

Drawing on over sixty academic and community sources, including detailed ethnographic case studies from Australia’s Central Coast, the report maps how pseudoscience operates as a form of sacred infrastructure within settler conspirituality: a fusion of New Age spiritualism and anti-government conspiracy (Ward & Voas, 2011; Halafoff et al., 2022). Within this context, settler colonial dynamics of possession (Moreton-Robinson, 2015) and cultural fraud: such as Pretendianism, the appropriation of Indigenous identity by non-Indigenous individuals (Leroux, 2021; Carlson & Day, 2023)—are sustained through practices of charismatic fraud, identity mimicry, and the amplification of affect within digital environments (Renner et al., 2023; Bruns et al., 2020).

Rather than framing these phenomena solely as fringe irrationalities, this report offers an interdisciplinary structural analysis that situates them within broader crises of knowledge, belonging, and cultural authority. It proposes multiple pathways for epistemic repair: fostering public trust, strengthening cognitive and emotional resilience, and re-establishing relational accountability through Indigenous knowledges, critical pedagogy, trauma-informed recovery, and collective truth-honoring practices (Langone et al., 2021; Piejka, 2020; Schmid & Betsch, 2022). Ultimately, Interconnected Realities argues for a reclamation of truth grounded in justice, psychological renewal, and sovereign knowledge systems.

Section 1: Mapping the Landscape of Extreme Beliefs and Collective Phenomena

Contemporary society is experiencing what many scholars describe as an epistemic rupture: a widespread breakdown in trust, shared knowledge, and belief in institutional truth (Kalpokas, 2018; Farias et al., 2023). This crisis is marked by a convergence of spiritual seeking, political alienation, and digital misinformation. The concept of interconnected realities introduced in this report refers to overlapping systems of meaning sustained through cognitive biases, affective contagion, and charismatic authority. These realities often reject empirical accountability in favor of emotionally resonant beliefs that are insulated from disconfirmation (Wood, 2016).

These belief systems are not anomalies but emergent features of broader socio-political and psychological trends. For example, the anti-vaccination protests that surged globally during the COVID-19 pandemic evolved from specific public health grievances into platforms for broader anti-government sentiment, scientific distrust, and sovereign identity narratives (Bruns et al., 2020; Uscinski & Enders, 2020). Similarly, sovereign citizen disruptions in courtrooms and government offices; often based on pseudolegal documents and misinterpretations of common law; undermine public institutions and have been linked to escalating extremist threats (Gillespie, 2025; Taplin, 2023).

One of the most consequential outcomes of this epistemic fragmentation is the phenomenon of Pretendianism, in which non-Indigenous individuals falsely claim Aboriginal identity. This practice weaponizes public ignorance and exploits institutional failures in verifying cultural affiliation (Leroux, 2021; Carlson & Day, 2023). It also forms part of a broader dynamic this report identifies as settler conspirituality: a fusion of New Age spiritualism and anti-government conspiracy (Ward & Voas, 2011; Halafoff et al., 2022). In these frameworks, pseudoscience operates not merely as misinformation but as sacred infrastructure, a source of ritualized meaning and cultural authority that mimics scientific credibility while rejecting its epistemic norms (Blancke et al., 2015; Fasce & Picó, 2019).

Conspirituality is best understood as part of the cultic milieu, a concept from sociological literature referring to an environment of competing but overlapping alternative belief systems that flourish in contexts of social dislocation and institutional mistrust (Clarke, 2002; Barkun, 2003). These milieus often coalesce around monological belief systems, worldviews in which all events are interpreted through a singular conspiratorial framework (Wood, 2016). They are increasingly mediated through algorithmically-curated digital ecosystems that amplify emotional content, visual aesthetics, and confirmation bias, leading to affective radicalization (Renner et al., 2023; Forberg, 2022).

To understand the potency and appeal of these movements, this report also introduces the concept of pseudoscientific mimicry, the use of rhetorical and aesthetic strategies to simulate scientific authority. This includes using lab coats, charts, scientific jargon, and references to decontextualized academic studies, often presented without peer review or falsifiability (Fasce et al., 2020; Schmid & Betsch, 2022). Such strategies obscure the boundary between science and pseudoscience, especially in environments of low scientific literacy and high moral urgency (Piejka, 2020).

Far from irrational in the colloquial sense, these belief systems draw upon psychological traits such as schizotypy; characterized by heightened pattern recognition and magical thinking (Brugger & Mohr, 2008; Brandenstein, 2022); as well as social dominance orientation, cognitive dissonance, and narcissistic epistemology (Jasinskaja-Lahti et al., 2019; Breslin & Lewis, 2015). Their emotional, aesthetic, and cognitive appeal makes them resilient to refutation and often resistant to dialogue.

Ultimately, this section argues that the proliferation of interconnected realities reflects more than mere misinformation; it signals a profound transformation in how truth, identity, and belonging are negotiated. By mapping these belief ecologies, we create a foundation for the subsequent chapters’ deeper exploration of cultic structures, charismatic authority, digital architectures, and strategies for epistemic repair.

Section 2: The Architecture of Fractured Realities: Psychology, Charisma, and Digital Control

The architecture of fractured realities is sustained through the interaction of individual psychological traits, charismatic authority, and digitally mediated belief systems. Research in cognitive psychology and political science indicates that susceptibility to conspiracy theories and pseudoscientific belief correlates with traits such as schizotypy, defined as a multidimensional personality trait involving unusual perceptual experiences, magical thinking, and paranoia (Brugger & Mohr, 2008; Brandenstein, 2022); authoritarianism, a psychological orientation favoring submission to authority and conventional norms (Altemeyer, 1996); and social dominance orientation (SDO), a preference for hierarchy and group-based inequality, often correlated with right-wing authoritarianism and rejection of egalitarian values (Sidanius & Pratto, 2001).

These traits align with hierarchical conspiracy worldviews that divide the world into superior in-groups and malevolent out-groups. They are exacerbated by epistemic mistrust, a pervasive doubt in the reliability of information sources and institutions (Fasce et al., 2020), and by reliance on intuitive rather than analytical cognition. Dual-process theory suggests that intuitive thinkers are more prone to accepting epistemically suspect beliefs without critical scrutiny (Fazio et al., 2022).

Brandenstein (2022) identifies how high schizotypy and intuitive thinking styles interact with digital media to promote monological belief systems: self-sealing worldviews resistant to disconfirmation. These systems are not irrational in a chaotic sense but structured around emotional logic, group loyalty, and identity affirmation. In this context, digital ecologies do not merely spread misinformation; they cultivate epistemic closure by creating immersive affective environments that reward confirmation bias and narrative coherence over empirical validity. These feedback loops are intensified by algorithmic architectures that privilege emotional salience, virality, and engagement (Bruns et al., 2020; Vyse, 2018).

Platforms like YouTube, Facebook, TikTok, Telegram, and BitChute exemplify this dynamic. Recommendation engines and group algorithms prioritize emotionally charged, controversial, or conspiratorial content to maximize user attention and advertising revenue. Ribeiro et al. (2020) document how YouTube’s algorithm actively steers users toward increasingly extreme ideological content. TikTok and Facebook groups have played critical roles in spreading COVID-19 misinformation, anti-vaccine narratives, and sovereign citizen ideology, while platforms like Rumble and Telegram have become central hubs for conspiratorial mobilization and pseudolegal content.

Charisma plays a central role in this process. Weber (1947) described charisma as a form of authority rooted in perceived spiritual or moral superiority. In digitally mediated spaces, this charisma is amplified by the emotional resonance of leaders who portray themselves as visionaries or truth-tellers. Figures like David Icke, Alex Jones, and Mark McMurtrie have cultivated large followings by invoking narratives of spiritual awakening and persecution. On the opposite end of the ideological spectrum, wellness influencers such as Christiane Northrup and JP Sears promote anti-institutional cosmologies under the guise of holistic empowerment. Charisma here is not about factual accuracy but emotional clarity and perceived moral truth (Lalich & McLaren, 2018).

Pseudoscientific mimicry further entrenches belief. Fasce and Picó (2019) argue that pseudoscience succeeds by mimicking the language and structure of scientific communication, employing technical jargon, citation practices, charts, and appeals to rigor, while avoiding the methodological constraints of falsifiability, peer review, and reproducibility. Schmid and Betsch (2022) show how such mimicry enhances perceived credibility, particularly among audiences with moderate scientific literacy. This rhetorical strategy creates the illusion of rational discourse while shielding belief systems from critique.

Ambasciano (2016) extends this insight by showing how pseudoscientific narratives function like secularized religions, offering cosmologies, initiation rites, and redemptive eschatologies that provide believers with spiritual significance in a post-secular world. These formations encode a sacralized epistemology that mirrors traditional faith systems while claiming rationalism and empirical authority.

Public controversies around climate change, vaccination, or Indigenous sovereignty become epistemic battlegrounds where competing truths are advanced not solely on empirical grounds but through appeals to identity, morality, and loyalty. The 2023 Voice to Parliament referendum in Australia exemplified this, as sovereign citizen narratives and conspiratorial misinformation became entangled with mainstream political discourse (Taplin, 2023). These contests illustrate how epistemology has become a site of social and political struggle (Galbraith, 2022).

The rise of pseudoscientific identity claims, such as those seen in Pretendianism and settler sovereign citizen movements, reflects the emotional and ideological utility of belief systems that affirm belonging and agency. Carlson and Day (2023) and Taplin (2023) demonstrate how these movements appropriate Indigenous language and symbols to assert illegitimate claims to sovereignty and cultural authenticity. Their appeal lies not in factual legitimacy but in their ability to satisfy the psychological need for coherence, significance, and meaning in a destabilized world.

These systems stand in contrast to empirically driven epistemologies, which emphasize falsifiability, replicability, and accountability to data. While fractured realities prioritize emotional coherence and identity affirmation, scientific worldviews seek to minimize bias and maximize explanatory reliability. The persistence of pseudoscientific and conspiratorial belief reflects not ignorance alone but a broader epistemic drift: a cultural shift away from empirical modes of knowing toward affectively satisfying belief frameworks (Kalpokas, 2019).

Understanding these dynamics requires more than fact-checking. It demands insight into the psychological functions belief serves and the socio-digital infrastructures that sustain it. Section 3 turns to these lived manifestations, examining specific case studies of charismatic influence, conspiratorial mobilization, and the entrenchment of pseudoscientific ideology in the Australian context.

Section 3: Manifestations of a Fractured Reality: Case Studies in Cultic, Conspiratorial, and Pseudoscientific Practice

The theoretical architecture described in the previous section manifests in an array of real-world phenomena that blend cultic dynamics, conspiratorial thinking, and pseudoscientific belief. These manifestations reveal the operational mechanics of fractured realities and illustrate how ideological systems achieve coherence, legitimacy, and community through emotional engagement rather than empirical accountability.

Fractured realities, as defined here, are internally coherent belief systems that operate outside empirical validation yet serve powerful psychological and social functions. They are often underpinned by traits such as schizotypy, a personality dimension marked by cognitive-perceptual distortions, including magical thinking and paranoid ideation (Brandenstein, 2022); and social dominance orientation (SDO), which reflects a preference for hierarchy and power asymmetry in social structures (Sidanius & Pratto, 2001). These traits predispose individuals to adopt beliefs that reinforce in-group superiority and out-group threat perceptions, framing the world as a battleground of hidden enemies and cosmic truth.

Magical thinking, a key cognitive feature of many such systems, refers to the belief that thoughts, words, or rituals can influence events in ways that defy causal logic. It serves as a bridge between conspiratorial and spiritualized narratives, allowing pseudoscientific movements to craft cosmologies that appear intuitive and emotionally resonant while resisting empirical disconfirmation (Lindeman & Aarnio, 2007).

To contextualize the operational dimensions of these fractured realities, we now turn to illustrative case studies. The following examples demonstrate how digital architecture, psychological predisposition, and charismatic influence combine to produce and sustain belief systems that challenge institutional epistemologies.

One vivid example of fractured reality in action is the rise of QAnon, a conspiratorial movement that blends evangelical apocalypticism, sovereign citizen rhetoric, and digital cult formation. QAnon adherents believe in a hidden war between a satanic elite and a patriotic savior figure, often personified in political or messianic terms. This narrative employs eschatological framing: apocalyptic visions of salvation and destruction—to imbue followers with moral certainty and spiritual urgency. Eschatology, in this context, refers to belief systems focused on final events or ultimate destinies, which in QAnon take the form of “The Storm,” a coming reckoning where truth will be revealed and enemies vanquished (Forberg, 2022).

Such belief systems do not exist in isolation; they are amplified and distributed through platform-specific algorithmic architectures. For instance, YouTube has been documented to radicalize users toward extreme views through recommendation algorithms that prioritize watch time and engagement (Ribeiro et al., 2020). Facebook groups provide tight-knit digital enclaves that insulate users from outside critique, often creating self-reinforcing communities around topics like anti-vaccination, flat earth, or alternative medicine. TikTok, with its rapid-fire content and algorithmic profiling, is particularly effective at spreading conspiratorial or pseudoscientific content to younger audiences (eSafety Commissioner, 2023).

Charismatic figures function as anchoring agents within fractured realities, guiding belief consolidation, identity formation, and group cohesion across ideological divides. On the far right, David Icke exemplifies the blend of conspiracism and spiritualism, claiming that world leaders are shape-shifting reptiles orchestrating a global control agenda. Alex Jones, through Infowars, pioneered a form of emotional broadcasting that collapses entertainment, fear, and truth-seeking into a single spectacle. In Australia, Mark McMurtrie, also known as Gunham Badi Jakamarra, draws on pseudo-legal interpretations of Aboriginal sovereignty to promote sovereign citizen ideology under a veneer of Indigenous rights (Taplin, 2023). On the other side of the spectrum, figures such as Christiane Northrup, a former physician turned spiritual influencer, promote anti-vaccine rhetoric through the language of wellness, femininity, and bodily sovereignty. The inclusion of Russell Brand and Naomi Wolf further illustrates how figures with superficially progressive origins can become embedded in digital cult ecologies that reframe intuition, emotion, and personal revelation as legitimate epistemic grounds. This ideological diversity underscores that fractured realities are not confined to any one political alignment; rather, they emerge wherever systems of meaning and legitimacy are disrupted.

A particularly salient case study is the Voice to Parliament referendum in Australia, where false claims proliferated suggesting that the Voice would enable the United Nations to seize private land or dissolve parliamentary democracy. These narratives were often spread by sovereign citizen-affiliated groups using social media platforms to disseminate conspiratorial misinformation. As Taplin (2023) documents, such movements blend anti-government sentiment with appropriated Indigenous rhetoric to sow doubt, promote pseudolaw, and ultimately delegitimize Aboriginal political aspirations. This exemplifies what Day and Carlson (2023) describe as the weaponization of Indigenous identity, in which spiritualized settler conspiracies co-opt Indigenous terms, symbols, and sovereignties for reactionary purposes.

Across these manifestations, epistemology becomes a site of struggle. Competing worldviews vie for legitimacy not only in academic or policy domains but in public discourse, education, and media. The COVID-19 pandemic and ensuing vaccine debates made this struggle visible on a global scale. Governments, scientists, and public health officials found their authority contested by movements that claimed alternative epistemologies rooted in intuition, divine knowledge, or internet research. The result was not just disagreement over facts, but over the very criteria by which truth is determined. Contrasting these belief systems with empirically driven epistemologies, which rely on systematic observation, falsifiability, and methodological transparency, clarifies the extent of this epistemic divergence. Where the latter demand critical scrutiny and accountability, the former privilege narrative coherence, affective resonance, and social identity.

These case studies show that fractured realities are not accidental; they are produced, maintained, and defended through deliberate rhetorical, technological, and psychological strategies. Understanding how they operate is essential to confronting the broader social, political, and epistemic crises they both reflect and exacerbate.

The next section turns to these crises, exploring pathways toward epistemic repair and collective resilience in the face of deepening fragmentation.

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Section 4: Resisting the Spell: Toward Epistemic Repair and Cultic Recovery

The scale of epistemic breakdown explored in previous sections demands a robust and multidimensional response. This section articulates pathways to what is broadly termed epistemic repair, the active reconstruction of reliable, transparent, and just knowledge systems, and cultic recovery, or the psychosocial processes through which individuals and communities can exit high-control belief systems. As fractured realities continue to colonize public consciousness, this repair becomes both a civic and psychological imperative.

Epistemic repair refers to the cultivation of practices, values, and institutions that restore public trust in knowledge-generating processes. It draws on philosophical, psychological, and pedagogical frameworks to bridge the rift between factual accountability and affective resonance. Cultic recovery, meanwhile, describes the therapeutic and sociological journey away from epistemically closed communities, typically involving identity reconstruction, social reintegration, and often, trauma-informed healing (Langone et al., 2021; Lalich & McLaren, 2018).

4.1 Rebuilding Trust in Institutions

A foundational task of epistemic repair is rebuilding institutional trust. This entails not only transparency and accountability in science, media, and governance but also greater public engagement and epistemic humility. Fetterman et al. (2019) highlight that individuals high in social dominance orientation and conspiracy mentality are more likely to reject expert consensus when it threatens their identity or control. Therefore, institutions must become more participatory and dialogical to offset authoritarian tendencies and epistemic alienation.

4.2 Education and Critical Thinking

While enhancing scientific literacy remains critical, recent findings caution against overreliance on knowledge-based solutions alone. Piejka et al. (2020) found that moral commitment to truth-telling may play a larger role than factual recall in countering pseudoscience. This suggests that epistemic repair also depends on cultivating ethical sensibilities, empathy, and intellectual humility in public education. Educational curricula must therefore integrate critical thinking with moral reasoning, media literacy, and deliberative democratic practices.

4.3 Cultic Exit and Recovery Models

Cultic recovery requires specialized interventions that recognize the trauma and identity dislocation induced by high-control groups. As Langone et al. (2021) argue, recovery involves not only leaving a group but also rebuilding a coherent self outside the group’s epistemic framework. Recovery models emphasize narrative therapy, psychoeducation, and peer support. Exit counseling is recognized as a respectful, non-coercive strategy when informed by trauma-sensitive practice (Lalich & McLaren, 2018; ICSA, 2022).

4.4 Spiritual Pseudoscience and the Role of Affect

Ambasciano (2016) critiques the scientification of religion, noting that modern spiritual movements often appropriate the language of science to legitimize belief. This fusion produces epistemic confusion, where spiritual affect is mistaken for empirical authority. Repair must include discursive clarification: differentiating between metaphorical, spiritual knowledge and empirically falsifiable claims. Affectively rich discourse is not inherently dangerous, but it must be clearly distinguished from scientific evidence if public reasoning is to remain coherent.

4.5 Community-Driven Truth Practices

Epistemic resilience is often most effective when cultivated from within communities. Participatory models of knowledge production, such as community-led science, citizen journalism, or Indigenous knowledge systems, can play a vital role in restoring epistemic agency. Initiatives like the Aboriginal-led responses to climate denialism (Norman et al., 2025) demonstrate how situated knowledges can reclaim authority and repair trust through culturally grounded praxis.

4.6 Addressing the Structural Roots

Fractured realities do not emerge in a vacuum. Gillespie (2025) and Cohen (2025) argue that neoliberal conditions, precarity, inequality, and hollowed-out civic life, create fertile ground for pseudoscience and conspiracy belief. Thus, epistemic repair is inseparable from social repair. Policy responses must reinvest in public education, mental health, and local media to rebuild the conditions for shared truth.

4.7 Global Comparisons and Institutional Accountability

Germany’s deradicalization programs targeting QAnon followers, and Canada’s workshops on sovereign citizen legal myths, provide international examples of institutional responses that combine legal, psychological, and educational strategies. These efforts signal the importance of coordinated responses across sectors to repair the fractured epistemic landscape.

4.8 Conclusion to Section

Epistemic repair is not merely about correcting misinformation; it is about fostering conditions where truth-telling is valued, emotionally sustainable, and culturally meaningful. Cultic recovery is not just an individual journey but a societal one. As we confront an age of epistemic fragmentation, the imperative is not only to defend truth, but to make it livable again. The following section concludes this report by outlining a vision for a more accountable, resilient, and truthful future.

Section 5: Intersections, Invitations, and the Path Forward

This report has thus far mapped the rise of magical thinking, pseudoscience, and cultic belief within contemporary cultures of disinformation and social alienation. It has exposed the psychological, digital, epistemological, and colonial infrastructures that enable the flourishing of conspiratorial ecosystems, and it has offered strategies for epistemic repair grounded in care, complexity, and cultural specificity. Building on these foundations, the next step requires transitioning from diagnosis to transformation.

To truly reclaim the epistemic commons, we must move beyond critique and toward construction. This means cultivating epistemic and relational worlds where individuals are less vulnerable to radicalization, where institutions are democratically accountable, and where knowledge is understood not as a fixed dogma but as a dynamic and participatory process. Such a shift calls for more than policy reform; it requires reimagining the emotional and cultural foundations of public knowledge.

This section signals a shift toward deeper, more focused inquiry. The chapters that follow will explore previously underexamined dimensions of the interconnected realities described above: the spiritualization of science, the psychology of conspiratorial cognition, the appropriation and distortion of Indigenous sovereignty, and the role of moral and scientific education in fostering epistemic resilience.

We must, therefore, investigate how pseudoscience and religious metaphors intermingle to generate new spiritual epistemologies across wellness culture, environmentalist movements, and sovereignty discourse (Ambasciano, 2016). We need to dissect the psychological architecture that supports conspiratorial cognition, including schizotypy, social dominance orientation, and epistemic mistrust; traits which contribute to closed belief systems and polarized identities (Grant et al., 2018; Fetterman et al., 2019; Brandenstein, 2022). Further, we must critically analyze how sovereign citizen ideology appropriates the language and symbolism of Aboriginal sovereignty to legitimate settler colonial narratives cloaked in pseudolegal authority (Taplin, 2023; Carlson & Day, 2023). Finally, we must explore how education, particularly through moral reasoning and scientific literacy, can inoculate societies against the allure of cultic capture and disinformation (Piejka et al., 2020; Blancke et al., 2015).

These are not marginal topics or postscript elaborations. They are central to the overarching aim of this project: to offer a world-leading synthesis of how fractured epistemologies are constructed and how they might be dismantled. The chapters that follow extend and deepen the analytical framework, offering a roadmap for future scholarship, pedagogy, and social practice.

With this invitation to dig deeper, we now turn to those vital explorations.

Chapter 6: Pseudoscience as Sacred Infrastructure – The Rituals and Icons of Settler Conspirituality

In the ecosystem of fractured realities, pseudoscience functions not only as an alternative epistemology but also as sacred infrastructure: a symbolic and affective architecture that lends moral coherence and spiritual resonance to belief systems divorced from empirical accountability. Far from being incidental or peripheral, pseudoscience often occupies a ritualistic and legitimizing role within cultic and conspiratorial worldviews, functioning analogously to religious sacraments and sacred texts.

This chapter unpacks how pseudoscientific rhetoric and performance serve as the scaffolding of what Ambasciano (2016) calls “scientific religion” or “religion without revelation.” Within this framework, graphs, citations, white coats, diagnostic machines, and brain scans take on iconographic significance, substituting traditional religious symbols with the aesthetics of scientific credibility (Blancke et al., 2015; Schmid & Betsch, 2022). This substitution allows pseudoscientific systems to position themselves as rational, modern, and authoritative—even when the content lacks falsifiability or peer validation (Fasce & Picó, 2019).

One prominent example is the practice of “quantum healing” and “vibrational medicine,” which co-opts quantum physics terminology to promote untestable claims about energetic fields, chakras, or frequencies. These are frequently deployed alongside high-cost devices such as “bioresonance scanners” or “quantum analyzers,” marketed with charts, citations, and complex-sounding terminology. As Ernst (2010) argues, such practices rely on rhetorical proximity to legitimate science while eschewing its methodological rigor. In this sense, pseudoscience performs two key functions: it cloaks spiritual belief in empirical language, and it functions as a sacrament of belonging within conspiritual subcultures.

Another crucial element of this sacred infrastructure is the idea of the “suppressed cure” or hidden knowledge, which constructs institutions like Big Pharma or academia as persecutors of truth. As shown in COVID-19 vaccine denialism and the promotion of ivermectin or hydroxychloroquine as miracle cures, alternative health influencers framed themselves as custodians of truth repressed by institutional power (Andrejevic et al., 2025; Bruns et al., 2020). The narrative of persecution becomes a badge of honor, reinforcing a salvific mission against institutional corruption. This framing is not merely oppositional; it mirrors religious martyrdom narratives and reinforces a dualistic worldview of good versus evil, truth versus deception.

Within settler conspirituality, pseudoscientific rituals also intersect with colonial ideologies. Jake Cassar’s bushcraft teachings, for example, blend animistic storytelling with speculative archaeology and “Yowie” lore to construct a sacred faux-ecology of place divorced from Aboriginal Culture or meaning. This mimics Indigenous ecological knowledge while inserting settler figures as spiritual mediators and truth-bearers (Cooke, 2025). The appropriation of ‘sacred space’, such as Kariong’s hoax “Egyptian glyphs” or the so-called “Grandmother tree” demonstrate how pseudoscientific narratives become territorial claims. These performances are bolstered by ritualistic community events, such as “Save Sacred Land” vigils or “spiritual smoking ceremonies” conducted without Aboriginal consent. Such acts transform pseudoscience into a performative politics of possession (Moreton-Robinson, 2015).

Affective aesthetics are central to this process. Digital platforms such as Instagram and TikTok are saturated with curated imagery: crystals, ritual altars, herbal remedies, barefoot gatherings that evoke the symbolic language of both magic and spirituality. This visual culture encourages identification through mood rather than logic, intensifying emotional bonds with communities built around these narratives (Darwish, 2025). TikTok’s algorithm, in particular, reinforces these aesthetic cues by linking spiritual content with pseudoscientific hashtags and aspirational imagery, creating an ecosystem where belonging is performed through shared visual codes.

Pseudoscience thus becomes more than a set of claims; it is a living system of meaning. It offers rituals of self-care, myths of origin, enemies to fight, and sacred spaces to protect. It is structurally analogous to religion, yet camouflaged in the aesthetics of science. As Vyse (2018) notes, this synthesis allows adherents to claim empirical legitimacy while embracing metaphysical or magical frameworks. In doing so, they participate in what might be called a post-secular mythos: a system that privileges intuition, feeling, and revelation while preserving the prestige of scientific modernity.

In sum, pseudoscience in settler conspirituality functions as both infrastructure and iconography. It mediates the sacred and the empirical, translating deep emotional and spiritual needs into scientifically coded practices that resist critical scrutiny. These practices shape not only what adherents believe, but how they feel, act, and belong. Recognizing the affective and ritual dimensions of pseudoscientific systems is essential to confronting their influence, not simply as erroneous claims, but as spiritually meaningful architectures of belief.

The next chapter turns more explicitly to the psychological architecture underlying these systems, focusing on conspiratorial cognition and epistemic drift.

Chapter 7: Minds Unmoored – The Psychology of Conspiratorial Cognition and the Architecture of Belief

This chapter explores the psychological terrain on which conspiracy theories, cultic ideologies, and pseudoscientific beliefs take root. While social and cultural forces structure the environments in which these beliefs flourish, individual cognitive traits shape how people interpret, adopt, and defend them. Understanding this psychological architecture is critical to designing effective responses that are not merely corrective but restorative and preventative.

A growing body of psychological research identifies schizotypy, need for closure, epistemic mistrust, and social dominance orientation (SDO) as consistent predictors of conspiratorial belief (Barron et al., 2014; Fetterman et al., 2019; Brandenstein, 2022; Grant et al., 2018). Schizotypy refers to a personality organization marked by magical ideation, pattern recognition in randomness, and a tendency toward interpersonal paranoia, traits which, when unregulated, can tilt cognition toward mystification and grand explanatory myths (Kernberg, 2016; Blancke et al., 2015). It is important to note that schizotypy exists on a spectrum, and while heightened pattern recognition can be adaptive in creative or spiritual domains, its unregulated forms can predispose individuals toward mystification and grand explanatory myths disconnected from empirical scrutiny (Mohr & Claridge, 2015).

Social dominance orientation, by contrast, reflects a preference for hierarchy and group-based inequality. Individuals high in SDO are more likely to reject egalitarian information sources and are disproportionately drawn to conspiratorial narratives that justify or explain their group’s perceived dominance or victimhood (Ho et al., 2015; Fasce et al., 2020).

Compounding these predispositions is epistemic mistrust, the suspicion that information from conventional authorities is untrustworthy or maliciously intended (Brandenstein, 2022). As Brandenstein’s machine learning model demonstrated, individuals scoring high on these psychological variables were significantly more likely to engage with conspiratorial content and display a greater sense of certainty about false claims.

These traits do not operate in a vacuum. Digital platforms, by design, exploit these vulnerabilities. Content delivery algorithms privilege affectively charged, emotionally polarizing material, creating feedback loops that reinforce cognitive bias, disinhibition, and moral outrage (Lewandowsky et al., 2021). These platforms commodify outrage and cultivate engagement by privileging content that activates fear, disgust, or righteous anger. This creates affective economies in which belief is validated by emotional intensity rather than evidentiary strength (Papacharissi, 2015; Renner et al., 2023). The result is a psychologically engineered ecosystem where belief is more often a function of emotional salience than of empirical verification.

Furthermore, belief systems rooted in conspiratorial cognition often function as compensatory mechanisms. During times of social upheaval or existential threat, individuals may seek coherent explanatory frameworks, however flawed, that preserve a sense of agency, identity, or moral clarity (Imhoff & Bruder, 2014; van Prooijen & Douglas, 2017). These belief systems often serve as compensatory frameworks that provide epistemic, existential, and relational security during periods of crisis. Whether facing political instability, pandemic uncertainty, or social dislocation, individuals gravitate toward narratives that restore a sense of coherence, moral clarity, and belonging.

While earlier psychological accounts risked pathologizing believers, contemporary research increasingly recognizes the relational and contextual nature of conspiracy beliefs. They arise not only from individual cognition but from shared narratives, social marginalization, and a collapse of epistemic trust. This recognition requires a shift in how we respond.

This chapter concludes that addressing conspiratorial cognition requires an interdisciplinary strategy: one that combines clinical insight, digital regulation, community-based dialogue, and structural transformation to rebuild the psychic and institutional preconditions for shared reality. Without such strategies, the psychic wounds of disinformation will continue to fester, undermining not only truth but the social fabric upon which democratic and pluralistic societies depend.

We now turn to examine how this psychological architecture intersects with settler colonial logics in Australia and beyond, particularly through the co-option of Indigenous sovereignty by pseudolegal movements.

Chapter 8: Paper Nations and Stolen Sovereignties – Settler Conspirituality, Pseudolaw, and the Hijacking of Indigenous Struggle

In the shifting terrain of conspiratorial belief, perhaps no intersection is more dangerous, or more culturally and politically volatile, than the entanglement of settler pseudolaw with Aboriginal sovereignty. This chapter explores how conspiratorial movements like the Sovereign Citizens in Australia appropriate the language of decolonization and Indigenous rights, while ultimately serving settler-colonial interests and undermining Aboriginal-led struggle (Taplin, 2023; Day & Carlson, 2023).

During the COVID-19 pandemic, so-called “Original Sovereigns” emerged as a hybrid movement blending sovereign citizen ideology with misappropriated Aboriginal symbols, language, and narratives of dispossession. The Muckudda Camp and the fire at Old Parliament House in 2021 became symbolic flashpoints, not of Indigenous resistance, but of conspiratorial performance masquerading as sovereignty (Messenger, 2023). Disconnected from any Aboriginal community or governance structure, these movements mobilized tropes of ancient bloodlines, sacred rights, and natural law to justify anti-government resistance, often aligning with far-right populism and pandemic denialism.

Their legal tactics mimic those of white sovereign citizens: rejecting statutory law, invoking the Magna Carta, and declaring pseudo-tribal affiliations in defiance of recognized land councils or Elders. As Taplin (2023) and Hardy (2023) document, this blend of pseudolegal belief and racial mimicry has disrupted native title claims, overwhelmed court systems, and sowed confusion among Aboriginal communities seeking recognition through legitimate legal means.

The appropriation of Aboriginal sovereignty functions as a form of symbolic violence: it reinscribes white possession under the guise of spiritualized rebellion. Day and Carlson (2023) argue that this is not a form of decolonization but a weaponization of Indigeneity for settler ends. By invoking the aesthetics and lexicon of First Nations resistance without accountability, these actors engage in what Watego (2021) describes as epistemic and cultural theft, a further entrenchment of colonial power through performative solidarity.

This phenomenon must also be situated in the broader context of settler conspirituality, where fringe environmental, wellness, and anti-government groups fuse metaphysical narratives with libertarian politics. Many of the same figures opposing Local Aboriginal Land Council developments in NSW, including the GuriNgai cult and Coast Environmental Alliance, draw on a similar spiritualized sovereignty discourse to deny the authority of Aboriginal governance (Cooke, 2025).

Defending Indigenous sovereignty requires more than legal reform; it demands a cultural and epistemic reckoning. Institutions, media, and communities must actively distinguish between authentic Aboriginal-led resistance and its conspiratorial counterfeit. Without such clarity, the project of truth-telling and justice risks being hijacked by those who would rather see the colony re-enchanted than deconstructed.

We now turn to examine the final dimensions of this fractured epistemic field: the role of digital platforms, AI, and the algorithmic future of belief.

Chapter 9: The Algorithmic Abyss – Platforms, AI, and the Automation of Epistemic Collapse

If conspiracy is the religion of the modern disenchanted, then the algorithm is its priest. Algorithmic infrastructures designed for engagement, not truth, shape the beliefs, emotional states, and collective imaginaries of billions. We examine how digital platforms and AI systems automate the production and circulation of false epistemes, reinforcing conspiracy thinking, cultic identities, and affective polarization.

Platforms like YouTube, Facebook, and TikTok function not as neutral tools of communication but as “affective infrastructures” that curate experience, manufacture consent, and exploit psychological vulnerabilities (Kalpokas, 2019; Lewandowsky et al., 2021). Their algorithms favor content that is emotionally charged, cognitively dissonant, and conspiratorially suggestive, because such content maximizes user engagement and time on platform (Bruns et al., 2020).

During the COVID-19 pandemic, Facebook’s algorithm was found to consistently elevate anti-vaccine content and misinformation despite moderation attempts, contributing directly to public health risk and belief radicalization (Bruns et al., 2020). Husted et al. (2022) show how online prepper communities, facilitated by platform affordances, became epistemic echo chambers where shared delusions about societal collapse, elite betrayal, and spiritual warfare formed tight digital cults.

Machine learning studies (Brandenstein, 2022) reveal that users with certain psychological traits such as high epistemic mistrust, need for closure, and social dominance orientation, are significantly more likely to engage with conspiratorial and pseudoscientific content online. The platforms do not just passively mirror this behavior; they train it. As content becomes tailored to the user’s cognitive-emotional profile, belief becomes increasingly automated, emotionally encoded, and socially reinforced.

In this environment, AI systems become co-authors of ideology. Recommendation engines do not just suggest content; they sequence affective journeys, manipulate emotional pacing, and reinforce schema that favor magical thinking, tribalism, and ontological insecurity (Forberg, 2022). In this sense, digital platforms now function as cultic superstructures, automating recruitment, ritual, and reinforcement without the need for a centralized leader (Crabtree et al., 2020).

What results is a form of algorithmic determinism, in which agency is constrained by platform logics and social identity becomes entangled with emotionally satisfying untruths. The logic of conspiracy becomes totalizing; every counterpoint is evidence of the cover-up. Every institutional critique is read not as engagement but as confirmation of oppression. These are not beliefs that can be “debunked” in the traditional sense; they are rituals of meaning woven into digital life.

This chapter also considers how AI-driven content generation and deepfakes further destabilize the epistemic commons. As synthetic media becomes indistinguishable from real speech, video, or documentation, the idea of an objective archive collapses. The weaponization of “fake news” discourse becomes not a defensive tactic but an offensive strategy: a way to delegitimize all verification systems and elevate personal belief as sovereign.

To address this algorithmic abyss, we must combine regulation, design ethics, and epistemic education. Platform design must shift from engagement-maximization to resilience-building. AI systems must be constrained not only by legal standards, but by cognitive and affective consequences. At the same time, we must invest in public infrastructures of truth, spaces where shared reality can be recovered through dialogue, peer validation, and lived experience.

The future of collective sanity may depend not only on resisting false prophets but on redesigning the digital temples that enthrone them.

Chapter 10: The Cultic Lifecycle – Recruitment, Control, and Recovery in the Age of Hyperbelief

This chapter examines how modern cultic systems evolve, adapt, and reproduce across digital, conspiratorial, and pseudoscientific contexts. Drawing on classical cult theory, psychological models of high-control groups, and contemporary case studies of belief-based radicalization, we outline the lifecycle of cultic engagement from initial contact to full immersion, and, critically, to the possibility of recovery.

The classical model of cult recruitment involves three core phases: seduction, entrapment, and indoctrination (Langone et al., 2021; Lalich & McLaren, 2018). In the digital age, these mechanisms are not only preserved but enhanced. Seduction begins not in isolated compounds but on Instagram wellness pages, Telegram conspiracy channels, or Facebook eco-activist groups. Entry points are affective: aesthetic resonance, shared outrage, or spiritual yearning. These create a sense of recognition that precedes belief (Ambasciano, 2016).

Entrapment follows through escalating interaction, personal disclosure, and subtle withdrawal from outside influences. Users are encouraged to distrust external authorities, reduce relationships with non-believers, and immerse themselves in group culture. As Crabtree et al. (2020) note, the rise of “preference falsification” within these groups pressures members to perform deeper belief than they hold, accelerating identity fusion and group loyalty.

Indoctrination in the conspiratorial cult does not rely on formal doctrine but on epistemic style: a way of knowing that prizes intuition, pattern recognition, and moral clarity over evidence. Overwijk and de Zeeuw (2023) describe how QAnon, for instance, functions through the “New Clarity” of emotionally resonant meaning-making; no matter how incoherent the narrative, it feels true.

Importantly, the lifecycle model must also include its final and least understood stage: exit and recovery. As Lalich and McLaren (2018) argue, leaving a cult is not a single act but a multi-stage psychological and social process that involves trauma, loss of community, identity disorientation, and, often, intense shame. This is compounded in digital cults, where content remains available, relationships are parasocial, and the cult is ambient rather than bounded (Langone et al., 2021; Halafoff et al., 2022).

Recovery strategies must address what Langone and colleagues call the “triple wound” of cult departure: epistemic destabilization, relational fracture, and existential grief. Community reintegration, trauma-informed therapy, and public narratives of deconversion are essential. Cognitive inoculations are proactive interventions that teach people how to recognize coercive techniques, challenge epistemic closure, and tolerate ambiguity (Lewandowsky et al., 2021; Farias et al., 2023).

We argue that modern conspiratorial and pseudoscientific movements are not fringe but structurally cultic, and that many individuals are trapped in what Ambasciano (2016) calls “scientified enchantments”: systems of belief that wear the mask of knowledge, but operate as engines of existential control. The only meaningful counter to this is not ridicule but ritual reversal, the intentional cultivation of truth practices, democratic rituals, and affective solidarity rooted in care, not coercion.

This chapter thus calls for a shift from reaction to reparation. Deprogramming must be cultural, institutional, and interpersonal. And the cultic lifecycle, once broken, must be replaced with cycles of truth, accountability, and collective reintegration.

Chapter 11: Ghosts in the Machine – Algorithms, Artificial Intelligence, and the Future of Belief

The architecture of contemporary belief is no longer shaped solely by human hands. From the personalization algorithms that filter our newsfeeds to the large language models capable of generating synthetic knowledge, artificial intelligence (AI) is rapidly transforming how belief is formed, circulated, and contested. This chapter examines the emergent role of algorithmic systems in cultivating conspiracy theories, pseudoscientific ideologies, and cultic worldviews, arguing that the digital infrastructures of modernity are not passive channels but active participants in the epistemic crisis.

At the heart of this transformation lies the algorithmic attention economy, wherein user engagement is prioritized over veracity. Platforms such as YouTube, TikTok, and Facebook deploy recommendation engines that disproportionately promote content marked by emotional intensity, moral outrage, or sensational claims, features which align closely with the affective structure of conspiratorial thinking (Lewandowsky et al., 2021; Bruns et al., 2020). This creates a self-reinforcing loop of exposure and radicalization, where the user is gradually nudged toward ever more extreme content through a process known as algorithmic extremitization.

This phenomenon is not accidental. As van Prooijen and Douglas (2017) explain, conspiracy theories thrive in environments of uncertainty and perceived threat; conditions algorithmically optimized for virality. In turn, this encourages what Kalpokas (2019) terms post-truth engineering: the deliberate curation of fractured realities designed to exploit epistemic mistrust and harvest attention. AI systems, trained on vast corpuses of text and image data, increasingly reflect and reproduce the very biases, fears, and mythologies that fuel conspiracy cultures.

The rise of generative AI introduces a new layer of complexity. Tools such as ChatGPT, Midjourney, and other synthetic media engines can be used to fabricate documents, images, or even entire ideologies. As Brandenstein (2022) and Farias et al. (2023) suggest, these tools lower the cost of epistemic fabrication itself, creating a “hyperreal” infosphere where the distinction between fact and fiction collapses. This mirrors Jean Baudrillard’s (1994) notion of the simulacrum: a copy with no original, a world of signs that refer only to other signs, creating what he calls the “precession of simulacra.”

Moreover, these digital systems do not exist in isolation. They operate within platformed social ecologies (Gillespie, 2010), shaped by commercial interests, policy failures, and algorithmic opacity. Attempts to regulate these platforms have been largely reactive, focusing on de-platforming or content moderation, rather than addressing the deeper structural incentives that privilege virality over verification.

AI’s involvement in belief formation also raises profound questions about agency. As Daniel Dennett (2023) has noted, when machines play a constitutive role in shaping our attention, preferences, and values, they begin to function as epistemic agents, not in the philosophical sense of consciousness, but as actors within a distributed cognitive system. This demands a fundamental reevaluation of digital literacy, not as a technical skill but as a civic imperative grounded in ethical discernment and critical epistemology.

Lastly, the implications for cultic recruitment and belief-based radicalization are stark. Online communities now act as algorithmically amplified cultic milieus, where identity formation is shaped by constant exposure to affective memes, charismatic influencers, and pseudoscientific narratives (Halafoff et al., 2022; Ambasciano, 2016). The digital infrastructure has, in effect, collapsed the distinction between recruitment and reality; to log on is to enter the ritual.

This chapter concludes that reclaiming our digital epistemic agency requires three shifts: regulatory reform to restructure platform incentives; educational reform to embed critical media literacy across all levels of society; and cultural reform to reinstate truth as a shared social practice, not merely an individual discovery. If belief is now co-authored by machines, then the responsibility to resist their manipulation falls not only on technologists, but on educators, policymakers, artists, and the broader public.

In the final chapter, we will return to the ground of shared reality, outlining a radical blueprint for truth, recovery, and resistance in the fractured age of hyperbelief.

Chapter 12: Pseudoscience and the Aura of Credibility – The Manufacturing of Scientificness

Pseudoscience thrives not merely because it offers alternative explanations, but because it adeptly mimics the visual, rhetorical, and institutional cues of legitimate science; however, it lacks the methodological foundations that define real scientific inquiry. Unlike science, which requires falsifiability, peer review, and reproducibility, pseudoscientific claims often bypass these essential criteria, creating only the illusion of credibility. This chapter investigates the semiotics of scientific authority as appropriated by pseudoscientific movements, focusing on how these mimicries manufacture credibility and obscure epistemic boundaries (Fasce et al., 2020; Fazio et al., 2022).

Central to this mimicry is the performance of scientificness: lab coats, graphs, data-like figures, citation-heavy rhetoric, and appeals to objectivity. These elements lend aesthetic plausibility to pseudoscientific claims. As Fasce and Picó (2019) note, pseudoscience often constructs a “scientific brand” that bypasses peer review and falsifiability while retaining surface-level signs of legitimacy. The public, frequently undertrained in scientific reasoning, is thus vulnerable to accepting these cues at face value.

Credentialism, or the strategic invocation of academic titles and affiliations (real or fabricated), further entrenches the illusion of authority. Figures within anti-vaccination, alternative health, or climate denial movements often cite spurious credentials or exploit ambiguous disciplinary boundaries to confer epistemic weight on unverified claims (Blancke et al., 2015; Schmid & Betsch, 2022). This weaponization of credentials is compounded by the selective use of citation networks, where papers published in predatory journals or low-quality outlets are interlinked to create a self-reinforcing architecture of legitimacy.

Failures in science communication exacerbate these dynamics. As Piejka (2020) and Schiele (2022) observe, when communicators over-rely on simplification or fail to differentiate between scientific uncertainty and falsity, they inadvertently open space for bad actors to exploit ambiguities. Moreover, the lack of public education in epistemology and philosophy of science creates fertile ground for pseudoscience to flourish under the guise of “open debate.”

Another critical vector is the use of scientific iconography to trigger trust heuristics. Visual platforms such as YouTube and Facebook are particularly saturated with this kind of content; videos featuring individuals in white lab coats, slick animations of molecular biology, or artificially intelligent voiceovers reading purported scientific scripts all lend an aura of legitimacy. These visual cues, while devoid of empirical substantiation, are processed heuristically by many viewers and interpreted as indicators of trustworthiness. As Fazio et al. (2022) and Schmid and Betsch (2022) highlight, such imagery can activate “truthiness” biases and bypass critical reasoning, especially among audiences lacking formal scientific training. Visual representations such as DNA spirals, microscope imagery, white laboratory settings etc. are frequently employed in anti-scientific campaigns to short-circuit critical engagement. These images tap into what Fazio et al. (2022) describe as “truthiness”—the tendency to accept visually rich or familiar content as inherently valid.

Pseudoscience also co-opts the moral authority of science by positioning itself as a maverick truth-teller. Claims of suppression by mainstream academia or pharmaceutical industries resonate with populist sentiment and anti-elitist narratives, creating what Ambasciano (2016) calls “scientific gnosticism“: an insider-outsider dualism where believers see themselves as guardians of forbidden knowledge. This is particularly evident in New Age and alternative health circles, where terms like “quantum healing” or “epigenetic energy” simulate scientific depth while lacking empirical grounding.

Pseudoscience’s power lies not only in its claims but in its performance. To combat it, we must move beyond simple debunking. Epistemic resilience requires critical pedagogy, structural reform in science communication, and the demystification of scientific aesthetics. As we turn toward global strategies for epistemic repair, understanding the seductive power of pseudoscientific mimicry is essential to rebuilding public trust in science and reason.

Chapter 13: The Spiritual Roots and Esoteric Genealogies of Epistemic Drift

While pseudoscientific belief often masquerades as empirical and secular, its deeper roots are entangled with religious, esoteric, and mystical traditions. This chapter traces the spiritual undercurrents that fuel conspiratorial epistemologies, revealing a genealogy that stretches from nineteenth-century Theosophy and Western occultism to the techno-utopian mysticism of the digital age.

Many conspiritual movements draw on an enduring cultural desire to reconcile science and spirituality. As Ambasciano (2016) notes, the ‘scientification of religion’ and the ‘religionization of science’ have long been twin impulses in Western culture. Contemporary movements like QAnon or the Gaia hypothesis repackage mystical cosmologies in scientific garb, blurring ontological boundaries. This fusion is not accidental but strategic, appealing to a post-secular society increasingly suspicious of both institutional religion and institutional science.

The New Age movement, which emerged in the mid-twentieth century and accelerated in the 1980s, plays a foundational role in this epistemic drift. Drawing on Eastern philosophies, Jungian psychology, and esoteric Christianity, it generated a metaphysical marketplace that prioritized intuition, vibration, and inner truth over material evidence or peer consensus (Heelas, 1996). Ideas such as “vibrational healing,” “indigo children,” or “the Age of Aquarius” exemplify a paradigm in which knowledge is received spiritually rather than validated empirically.

This spiritual epistemology finds new life in digital spaces, where algorithmically driven platforms amplify emotionally resonant content regardless of its truth value. Halafoff et al. (2022) have demonstrated how meme culture, sacred geometry, and mystical numerology circulate in online conspirituality, often intersecting with far-right, anti-globalist, and sovereign citizen discourses. These hybrid ideologies gain traction by offering a sense of cosmic struggle, personal transformation, and insider revelation.

Esoteric genealogies also contribute to the appeal of pseudoscience by offering lineage and legacy. Figures like Rudolf Steiner and Helena Blavatsky are frequently cited in modern spiritual-scientific hybrids. Steiner’s anthroposophy, for instance, continues to shape Waldorf education and biodynamic agriculture, while Blavatsky’s theosophy underpins much New Age cosmology. Though lacking empirical grounding, these frameworks gain credibility through repetition, mystique, and narrative coherence.

Moreover, epistemic drift is fueled by a moral logic of redemption and awakening. Those who “see through the illusion” are elevated to the status of lightworkers, truthers, or digital shamans. As Crabtree et al. (2020) argue, such belief systems function as therapeutic enclaves, offering belonging, healing, and agency in a destabilized world.

Understanding the esoteric genealogies of epistemic drift: that is, the gradual movement away from empirically grounded, collectively verified knowledge toward personalized, spiritualized, or conspiratorial belief systems—is vital for countering its influence (Ambasciano, 2016; Crabtree et al., 2020; Halafoff et al., 2022). Rather than dismissing these beliefs as mere irrationality, this chapter calls for a cultural literacy that can engage their symbolic power while affirming the value of collective, empirical, and dialogical knowledge-making. Only by understanding the sacred architectures of pseudoscientific belief can we begin to disassemble them.

Chapter 14: Reclaiming Reality – A Blueprint for Epistemic Renewal

The fractures mapped throughout this report: from digital cultism and pseudoscientific mimicry to settler conspirituality and spiritualized disinformation—demand not only critique but construction. This chapter proposes a comprehensive framework for epistemic renewal: a blueprint to restore collective trust, scientific literacy, and cultural coherence in the wake of disinformation and ideological capture. The challenge is not merely to refute falsehoods, but to cultivate environments where truth can flourish.

First, renewal requires robust epistemic infrastructures, particularly in education. As Fazio et al. (2022) argue, susceptibility to pseudoscience correlates strongly with deficits in analytic thinking and scientific reasoning. Curricula must therefore emphasize epistemological literacy, encouraging learners to ask not just what is true, but how truth is determined. Teaching the nature of peer review, the logic of falsifiability, and the role of consensus in knowledge production should be central from early schooling to adult education (Piejka, 2020; Schmid & Betsch, 2022).

Second, epistemic renewal must reckon with affect. Belief is not merely cognitive; it is emotional, social, and embodied. Pseudoscientific movements offer belonging, purpose, and moral clarity. Effective countermeasures must do the same. As Lalich and McLaren (2018) emphasize, recovery from cultic belief requires not just factual correction but emotional healing, community integration, and the rebuilding of agency. Programs of epistemic repair must engage with trauma, shame, and the psychosocial needs that conspiracy movements exploit.

Third, we must reconfigure science communication. As Ambasciano (2016) and Fasce et al. (2020) observe, scientific authority is too often presented as monologic and inflexible, inviting resistance rather than engagement. “Prebunking” is a dialogical, culturally literate model Lewandowsky et al. (2022) shown to build resistance before misinformation takes root. Communicators should avoid moralizing or ridicule, instead offering transparency, humility, and a willingness to address uncertainty constructively.

Fourth, the architecture of digital life must be democratized. Platform algorithms currently reward outrage, emotionality, and visual spectacle over evidence or accuracy (Renner et al., 2023; Kalpokas, 2019). Regulatory frameworks, ethical design standards, and platform accountability are essential to curb the viral spread of falsehood. Moreover, digital literacy campaigns must teach users how to critically interpret scientific visuals, credentials, and citation practices (Fasce & Picó, 2019; Bruns et al., 2020).

Fifth, we must restore cultural authority to Indigenous and marginalized communities systematically displaced by conspiratorial and pseudoscientific narratives. As Day and Carlson (2023) warn, the co-option of Indigenous sovereignty language by settler conspiracists erodes real political struggle. Any blueprint for epistemic renewal must affirm Indigenous epistemologies as legitimate, sovereign systems of knowledge. This includes reparative justice for communities harmed by Pretendianism, pseudolaw, and spiritual appropriation.

Finally, we must foster re-enchantment through truth. One of the great appeals of pseudoscience and spiritual disinformation is its promise of wonder, mystery, and transcendence. Science, too, can evoke awe of the cosmos, of human resilience, of the vast unknowns that still await us. A revitalized epistemology must not be sterile, but alive with curiosity, imagination, and participatory truth-seeking, for example, through community initiatives, open-access research collaboratives, and dialogical forums where diverse publics contribute to the co-production of knowledge.

This is the task of our time: not merely to debunk, but to rebuild. Not only to expose epistemic collapse, but to propose new architectures of knowledge rooted in humility, dialogue, justice, and collective care. The truth, if it is to survive, must be nourished. What is required is not just reform, but renaissance.

JD Cooke

Glossary of Terms

Charisma: A form of influence based on personal magnetism or appeal, often associated with the authority of cult leaders or influencers who command devotion regardless of empirical evidence (Forberg, 2022).

Conspirituality: A belief system combining New Age spiritual ideologies with conspiracy theories, typically centred on distrust of institutions and a belief in hidden truths (Ward & Voas, 2011).

Epistemic Reclamation: The restoration of collective trust in legitimate, evidence-based knowledge systems after periods of disinformation, mistrust, or cultural distortion.

Magical Thinking: The belief that one’s thoughts or actions can influence the physical world in ways that defy causality, often found in pseudoscientific or cultic belief systems (Grant et al., 2018).

Pseudoscience: Claims, beliefs, or practices presented as scientific but lacking empirical support, testability, or adherence to the scientific method (Blancke et al., 2015).

Schizotypy: A psychological trait involving cognitive and perceptual eccentricities, magical beliefs, and social anxiety, which can predispose individuals to conspiratorial or pseudoscientific thinking (Grant et al., 2018).

Settler Conspirituality: The use of spiritualised conspiracy frameworks by non-Indigenous individuals or groups to appropriate or mimic Indigenous identity and authority, often in opposition to Aboriginal sovereignty (Day & Carlson, 2023).

Social Dominance Orientation (SDO): A personality trait reflecting preference for hierarchical social orders and intergroup inequality; correlated with belief in conspiracy theories and pseudoscience (Fasce et al., 2020).Sovereign Citizen Movement: A pseudolegal ideology that rejects government authority and legal legitimacy, often co-opting Indigenous sovereignty discourse for anti-state purposes (Taplin, 2023).