This is another comprehensive article on QAnon and the vulnerability of a range of people to be pulled into this dangerous cult. Many of us have friends or family members who identify with and believe the conspiracy theories espoused by QAnon.
The tragedy is how phrases like “save the children” and “the great awakening” have been co-opted by this cult — which is a hook for those whose best intentions are with saving children and being part of a paradigm shift. As these false and disturbing beliefs spread, the ripples sent out impact us all.
It’s deeply important to not judge or shame anyone who’s been a direct victim of QAnon or any other cult. Instead, we need to inform ourselves and dive deeply into the roots of our human vulnerability to unknowingly hold harmful beliefs and act out of a deep disconnect with our professed values.
May we all be vehicles of understanding, compassion, truth, and love — the exact qualities which are the most effective and needed antidotes to those among us who’ve lost our way. We’re all related, all in this together. 
Molly
Molly
- QAnon, the baseless far-right conspiracy theory, has jumped from anonymous message boards into the mainstream — even finding its way into the world of yoga.
- Yogis' interest in the conspiracy-theory movement, which is focused on the notion that a "deep state" cabal of child traffickers runs the world, comes amid QAnon's shift to an anti-human-trafficking "save the children" guise.
- While the yoga-QAnon intersection may be surprising, a confluence of factors, including the rise of medical misinformation amid the pandemic, has made it possible.
- "People are drawn to yoga and spirituality who have felt marginalized and let down by the medical system. For many women, it's that they've felt patronized," Julian Walker, a yoga instructor who's researched cultism in wellness, told Insider.
She saw fellow yogis expressing doubts about the severity of COVID-19, the disease caused by the novel coronavirus, challenging government-mandated lockdowns and mask-wearing regulations, and positing whether natural medicine and meditation could best protect us from the viral threat. Their claims have been proven false by the World Health Organization and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, as both agencies have repeatedly asserted that the best defense against the virus is social distancing and mask-wearing.
Then, in late April, the tone of the posts became increasingly ominous, Davis-Flynn, who is also a freelance journalist, told Insider. Yogis she followed suggested baseless conspiracy theories, including that the virus might be a hoax caused by a shadowy high-tech influence of 5G, or a cover to inoculate every citizen with a vaccine hiding a tracking device.
Suddenly, accounts that previously served up "fitspiration" or glossy messages about light and love were peppered with posts baselessly referencing an insidious underworld of child exploitation, sex crimes, the devil, and a coming war between good and evil.
"All of a sudden Satan would come in and I was, like, 'What?!' I've never seen a yoga teacher talk about Satan before," Davis-Flynn said. They had been red-pilled, and had fallen down the QAnon rabbit hole.
QAnon is the baseless far-right conspiracy theory that alleges Trump is fighting a deep-state cabal of Satanic pedophiles. It has seen huge surges in popularity in recent years.
It originated on far-right message boards. The anonymous "Q" figure has been leaving cryptic messages (or "Q drops") for followers since the fall of 2017, pedaling conspiracy theories linked to dozens of alleged crimes in the US.
The FBI said in 2019 that the movement posed a domestic-terrorism threat. Facebook, Instagram, YouTube, and Twitter have announced attempts to shut it out of their platforms.
And yet it has entered mainstream culture, fanned by flattering comments from the president himself. Now it has taken hold of less politically charged communities, such as the yoga, wellness, and lifestyle influencer spaces, where it's becoming more appealing to women.
Some experts question whether the movement could begin to dissipate post-Trump, with President-elect Joe Biden having won the election. But the spread of QAnon in the yoga community suggests not.
While QAnon's core is made of Trump-loyal followers who are posting baseless theories of voter fraud, yogis who espouse QAnon messages have adopted the movement's general posture without any mention of the president.
The phrase "Save the Children" has been part of QAnon's successful pivot into mainstream culture. It started with QAnon believers spreading false claims that Hillary Clinton trafficked and abused children and consumed their blood.
Now, though, it is being used in captions on pastel-colored Instagram posts by yogis, who write about their "awakening" — another QAnon phrase — to the movement against human trafficking. But they do not espouse the conspiracy theory explicitly.
One yogi, Jane Allen Chaisson, posts about "the truth" and "the awakening" on Instagram. She told Insider she did not identify as a member of the QAnon community, despite having recommended "The Fall of the Cabal," one of QAnon's top recruitment videos, to her 1,450 followers.
She wrote in a post in July: "Some extremely dark, horrific and unspeakable things have been coming into the light recently. Information regarding our precious children. If you don't know what I'm talking about, be courageous and get informed."
Stephanie Birch is a yoga influencer with 56,000 followers. On August 24 she posted a picture of clouds in front of a dark-blue sky.
"We are experiencing a spiritual warfare against mastery manipulating puppets that go back years," she wrote in the post, "through kill tactics of separation, delusions, safety, and survival." She added the hashtags "great awakening" and "purpose over popularity."
The post previously included the now deleted phrase "wwg1wga" — a QAnon slogan which stands for "where we go one, we go all," according to screenshots obtained by Conspirituality, a podcast that traces the rise of QAnon in the yoga and wellness world.
Buti Yoga founder Bizzie Gold, who has 56,000 Instagram followers, has shared videos about a "Satanic agenda" in the US, mentioning "adrenochrome," a chemical related to the human stress hormone adrenaline. In QAnon's fictional lore, adrenochrome is consumed as a recreational drug by Satan-worshipping elites who harvest it from the fear of children.
Gold told Insider that she doesn't identify with the QAnon movement, and that attempts to categorize people as such "feels like a witch hunt."
Chaisson, Birch, and Gold were featured on Conspirituality's list of yogis endorsing QAnon. Birch did not respond to a request for comment.
Marc-André Argentino, a doctoral candidate at Concordia University who researches extremism, has dubbed this phenomenon of women spreading QAnon in the wellness world "pastel QAnon" because they use pastel colors and softer language in their social-media posts.
"We're in a different phase now, kind of a second wave" of QAnon, said Marc Tuters, a lecturer in the University of Amsterdam's media-studies program. He researches radical political subcultures online.
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