New Age Spirituality, MAGA Nation, and Conspirituality
Brad speaks once again with Dr. Susannah Crockford. They discuss her new book, Ripples of the Universe, which provides an ethnographic account of New Age spiritual practitioners in Sedona, Arizona. Dr. Crockford explains the various spiritual beliefs, cosmologies, and rituals that makeup the peculiar and dazzling form of spirituality in the Arizona desert. She also explains the term "conspirituality," which denotes the combination of conspiracy + spirituality.
One of the most interesting parts of this interview is the discussion of the deep resonances between Christian nationalism and New Age Spirituality when it comes to nostalgia for a mythical past, the centering of Whiteness, and belief in a global conspiracy to ruin the country and the world.
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Welcome to Straight White American Jesus.
As we announced last week, we are doing our first ever Straight White American Jesus Seminar.
And I know some of you are like, what does that mean?
So basically it's this, in September, Dan Miller is going to be teaching what is basically like a college level seminar.
And it's open to all of you.
What's included in this seminar are four live sessions and they're going to be two hours each.
So they're gonna be on Wednesday nights in September, two hours in a live session with Dan and the other participants in the course.
It also includes five exclusive course videos that participants will be asked to watch before the class each week and readings from both Dan and I on the select topic.
I'll be making appearances in some of the videos and other materials, but Dan will be really leading up the seminar and it is limited to 12 people.
Dan, I'm pretty excited about this, not only because it's our first seminar, but because I know you're an amazing teacher, and whoever signs up is going to have a great experience.
I think we've both been really excited about this for a long time.
We talked about this last week, but people have There are people who wanted to do sort of a deeper dive, something a little bit more formal than what we can do in the podcast.
We say it's like a college class without all the bad stuff.
I don't have to grade anything.
That's what we don't like.
Nobody has to do any homework.
Nobody's there because their advisor said that they have to take it.
It's just people who want to take it.
So I'm really looking forward to it.
I'm really looking forward to the other piece of this is that The participants also, part of this is what we're calling office hours where each individual will get to just meet with me if they want for half an hour and that's a chance to just clarify things or ask about other material or whatever.
So we're really excited about it, put a lot of work into it.
I'm really excited and hope that people will join us for that.
So the class is called Pure America, Religion, Race, Nation, and we're going to be looking at how white Christian nationalism tries to create a quote-unquote pure America.
It tries to purify the national body, and we're going to link this to things like xenophobia and racism.
We'll also link it to purity culture.
So it's a wide-ranging course.
It hits on all the classic things from our show, and you can find the info at straightwhiteamericanjesus.com under the Seminars tab.
So check it out today.
As we said, space is limited, so you'll want to grab yours as soon as you can.
Welcome to Straight White American Jesus.
My name is Brad Onishi.
Our show is in partnership with the Kapp Center at UCSB.
Thanks for joining us today.
I have the distinct pleasure of being joined by a return guest, and that is Dr. Susanna Crockford, who is the author of the new book, Ripples of the Universe, Spirituality in Sedona, Arizona.
Dr. Crockford was here before and talked to us about her work with white nationalists and white Christian nationalists in the Arizona desert.
We're going to touch on some of that today, but we're also going to talk about this wonderful new book.
So, Dr. Crockford, Susanna, thank you for joining me.
Hi, it's great to be back.
Thanks for having me.
So you have just published a wonderful piece of ethnography here on Sedona, Arizona.
And so I'm wondering if you would just take a minute.
I grew up in California.
I actually grew up visiting Sedona with my family.
But I know there's folks around the country who will just not be able to picture it.
What does Sedona look like?
Not only in terms of geography, but, you know, what is Sedona?
What draws people to Sedona?
When you go to Sedona, what is it you feel like you're getting into as somebody visiting the city?
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