Discernment Articles

Mapping out the Wellness-to-White Supremacy Pipeline

The wellness-to-white supremacy pipeline – aka the crunchy-to-alt-right pipeline – may be something you heard of. This describes the pattern of indoctrination of people within the wellness world into the alt-right. Today, I’m going to show you how New Agers are uniquely susceptible to it, which might explain why so many fall for conspiracy theories and become born-again Christians.

More Discernment Articles

Mapping out the Wellness-to-White Supremacy Pipeline

Mapping out the Wellness-to-White Supremacy Pipeline

The wellness-to-white supremacy pipeline – aka the crunchy-to-alt-right pipeline – may be something you heard of. This describes the pattern of indoctrination of people within the wellness world into the alt-right. Today, I’m going to show you how New Agers are uniquely susceptible to it, which might explain why so many fall for conspiracy theories and become born-again Christians.

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How to Spot Spiritual Frauds Online

How to Spot Spiritual Frauds Online

If I’ve done anything over the eight year span of writing this blog, I hope I’ve taught you discernment. Today I’m giving you a few tools to help you discern whether or not you should be putting your trust in someone online, whether it be a spiritual teacher or coach.

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Performative Vulnerability

Performative Vulnerability

“Vulnerability porn or performative vulnerability” looks like sharing highly curated intimate details of one’s life for the sake of engagement, virtue signaling, and at the end of the day, sales. This brand of faux authenticity still only shows you a small piece of the whole picture. As with everything, it’s often not the action itself, but rather, the motivation behind it. Let’s explore.

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Your Perspective isn’t Valid if it Contradicts Objective Reality

Your Perspective isn’t Valid if it Contradicts Objective Reality

A common misconception that many spiritual people have is that spirituality tells us that we each create our own reality. What many often don’t realize, however, is that reality isn’t what is subjective –– your experience of it is what is subjective. The personal beliefs and opinions formed by those experiences are may not be valid, particularly compared to someone else’s.

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Health and Privilege in the Wellness Industry

Health and Privilege in the Wellness Industry

I’ve noticed that a lot of people have been led to believe that health is something that is equally attainable to anyone who simply chooses it. Today I’m talking about why this is a misconception that has been inceptioned into your brain by a $4.3 Trillion industry that needs you to believe it in order to get you to pay the unfairly high prices they are asking.

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Law of Attraction

Law of Attraction

One of the most common confusions in spirituality – and the most damaging – is the Law of Attraction. So today, I’m explaining what the Law of Attraction really is, and how almost all New Agers have had it all wrong this entire time.

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How Ableism Shows Up in Spirituality

How Ableism Shows Up in Spirituality

I made a post on Instagram last week about ableism and spirituality which has sparked some conversations that further demonstrate how ableism is so deeply embedded in our beliefs and culture. I’m going to really dig into this today and ask you to critically examine some of your own spiritually-based beliefs and biases.

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Disembodied Spirituality: Is it Really Zen or is it Dissociation?

Disembodied Spirituality: Is it Really Zen or is it Dissociation?

Spirituality and holistic wellness is supposed to be about the mind, body, and spirit, but a lot of toxic, ungrounded spirituality completely ignores the entire body part and only focuses on the mind or the spirit. Here’s how to discern whether or not a spiritual teacher/teaching is disembodied (and thus, not holistic).

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What Everyone Needs To Know About Narcissism

What Everyone Needs To Know About Narcissism

I talk about narcissism a lot and in varying ways, and I see it spoken about with a lack of important context online, so I wanted to make sure that everyone understands it all appropriately. Here’s what you need to know.

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How to Know if your Spiritual Teacher is a Narcissist

How to Know if your Spiritual Teacher is a Narcissist

Spiritual professions are an area ripe for manipulation due to the lack of structure, cohesion in teachings, no governing body to regulate them, and a host of wide-eyed people in pain seeking answers from gurus. Here’s some tips on identifying patterns of behavior from a narcissist disguised as a “light worker.”

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Victim Consciousness isn’t What You Think it is

Victim Consciousness isn’t What You Think it is

The concept of victim consciousness gets thrown around by New Agers a lot as this motivation for every single person needing to take 100% personal responsibility for everything that happens to them, but this label gets thrown at the wrong people most of the time and I’m going to tell you why.

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How Some Spiritual Beliefs Breed Codependency

How Some Spiritual Beliefs Breed Codependency

The flip side of spiritual narcissism is spiritual codependency. Do you think you’re responsible for manifesting all of the shit people and situations that have come into your life? It might be time to reexamine that frame of mind.

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Fear Is Not A Dirty Word

Fear Is Not A Dirty Word

Fear gets a bad rap in New Age spirituality. I’m here to argue that certain, very obvious kinds of fear need to fuck off, but other kinds of fear are actually quite helpful in helping you determine where your edges are.

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Spirituality’s Relationship With Mental Illness

Spirituality’s Relationship With Mental Illness

Spirituality and mental illness have a complex relationship. My goal today is to talk about mental illness within the spiritual community in a way that can help those of you reading this recognize just how pervasive it is in the spiritual community and help you identify spiritual people–psychics, channels, influencers, whomever–suffering from mental illness, all the while without stigmatizing it.

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Abuse and The Law of Attraction

Abuse and The Law of Attraction

For a community that is supposed to be focused on love, light, and healing, New Agers have invented and contributed to some of the most toxic, harmful, bullshit ideologies on the planet, and nine times out of ten, the Law of Attraction is behind it. Here’s what everybody gets wrong about LOA.

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Recognizing And Understanding Synchronicity

Recognizing And Understanding Synchronicity

One thing we all look for on our spiritual path is signs. Signs help guide us, give us validation, and simply give us hints that there’s more to reality than meets the eye. We call those signs “synchronicities.” But is it really synchronicity? Or is it something else?

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Is There A Correct Spiritual Path?

Is There A Correct Spiritual Path?

It’s been ages since I’ve done a Q&A post, but this was submitted as a comment on my post about spiritual teacher credibility and I thought it was worth addressing for a broader audience.

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How To Know If A Spiritual Teacher Is Credible

How To Know If A Spiritual Teacher Is Credible

The concept of credibility came up in my post on critical thinking and spirituality yesterday. I think part of our issue today with all of the misinformation floating around is that a lot of people don’t really understand what credibility means. Today I’m going to give you a rundown of what makes someone credible in the realms of science and journalism, and how to apply that to spirituality.

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Are You A Critical Thinker?

Are You A Critical Thinker?

I posted a poll in my Facebook group a couple of weeks ago asking which topics people would be most interested in having me write about, and critical thinking within the context of spirituality came out on top by far. I think it’s an especially important topic in this day and age when there’s so much misinformation swirling about on the internet. Consider this your crash course in the foundations of critical thinking.

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Spiritual Politics

Spiritual Politics

Are your spiritual leaders telling you who to vote for? If so, you might want to reconsider who you’re listening to. Here’s a tip on how to evaluate the people you put on a pedestal.

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I Quit

I Quit

The day I thought would never come has arrived. This the end of In My Sacred Space.

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When Psychics and Spiritual Teachers Feel “Off”

When Psychics and Spiritual Teachers Feel “Off”

I’m sure many of you have had experiences where you’ve come across a spiritual teacher who just didn’t resonate with you, or perhaps you had a psychic reading from someone that just didn’t feel quite right. In those times, we often doubt ourselves, because we’re still placing our faith in things and people outside of ourselves. But it’s of the utmost importance to trust your instincts.

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Discerning The Internet: Misinformation, Media Bias, Conspiracies, and Fake Quotes

Discerning The Internet: Misinformation, Media Bias, Conspiracies, and Fake Quotes

I think this is a HUGELY important topic among spiritual people for one reason: For people who are allegedly so concerned with finding the Truth, they sure do circulate an awful lot of bullshit. That being said, it is of the utmost importance that each of us takes responsibility for detaching ourselves from what we WANT to be true, and get off our lazy asses to find out what actually IS true.

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Why Fear-Based Belief Systems Are Distorted

Why Fear-Based Belief Systems Are Distorted

A person lives in a fear-based belief system when they have not yet remembered who they really are and still cling to fearful beliefs and perceptions. When they have not yet realized that everything in their world is love, and the only thing that makes it appear as fear is their limited understanding of it.

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Balancing Belief, Discernment, and Sanity

Balancing Belief, Discernment, and Sanity

Question from a reader: “I struggle with noticing synchronicities; rather, I struggle with an internal dialog of feeling nuts when I notice synchronicity. Banish fear, sure. But there’s a difference between discernment and neurosis. I guess that’s a good description of the elements at play…”

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