Galactic transmissions from tantra bros, pu$$y priestesses, red-pilled starseeds, and ayahuasca girls: Decoding the pedagogies of conspiritual life coaching
Sandro R. Barros, Jennifer A. Sandlin
The Review of Education Pedagogy & Cultural Studies August 9, 2024 Peer reviewed DOI: 10.1080/10714413.2024.2388371 via OpenAlex
Summary
The COVID-19 pandemic led to the rise of 'conspiritual life coaches' who blend wellness advice with conspiracy theories. These influencers use five main strategies: promoting bodily purity, reinforcing gender binaries, exploiting client trauma, appropriating Indigenous cultures, and commercializing spirituality. Together, these tactics create a curriculum of spiritual bypassing that underpins their coaching methods.
Study at a glance
| Design | qualitative study |
|---|---|
| Population | prominent online wellness influencers and their messaging |
| Key finding | The primary result is that conspiritual life coaching employs strategies that promote spiritual bypassing while exploiting personal and cultural vulnerabilities. |
Abstract
The COVID-19 pandemic spurred the growth of online wellness influencers who promote products and treatments to address spiritual distress by incorporating conspiracy theories into their messaging. In this article we investigate the rise of the “conspiritual life coach,” a subset of wellness influencers that emerged during the pandemic. We analyze their pedagogical approaches, illustrating how they exploit the ambiguity of life coaching as a therapeutic or organizational tool to promote disinformation and establish authority. Drawing on almost a year of netnographic research into the online presence of prominent coaches (Aubrey Marcus, JP Sears, Teal Swan, Kaia Ra, and others), we identify five pedagogical strategies that characterize their messaging. These coaches (1) focus on bodily purity and body fascism, (2) reinforce gender binaries, (3) exploit client trauma, (4) appropriate Indigeneity and perpetuate coloniality, and (5) commercialize spirituality through "enlightened" goods and services. We argue that these strategies work together to enact a curriculum of spiritual bypassing that serves as the main driving force of conspiritual life coaching, which we discuss in the final section of this article.