Last month Fox News presenter Tucker Carlson released a TV series called The End of Men, warning that American men were becoming effete, flabby and sterile. Civilization is descending into chaos, the series suggests, but that’s OK, because ‘hard times produce strong men’. …

I’d never heard of starseeds before January 6 2021, when one of them stormed the Capitol building in DC. In the days after, I was researching Jake Angeli, the ‘Qanon shaman’, and discovered he ran something called the ‘Starseed Academy. Like other ‘starseeds’, Jake thinks he is a highly evolved…

Western culture urgently needs to improve its cultural resources to help people make sense of ecstatic experiences. Evidence suggests that more and more people in western culture are having and seeking ecstatic experiences, because of the growing popularity of psychedelics and contemplative practices like meditation and yoga. However, we have…

You can’t escape signs of the narco economy in Latin America, it affects everything. Why is Costa Rica so expensive? Because narco violence forced rich gringos out of the Mexican coast and down to the Costa Rican coast. Why are there so many sky scrapers in Panama City? Because Colombian…

What happens when a world leader falls for crackpot philosophy? We’re going to examine a movement known as Cosmism, which appeared in late 19th century Russia and the early Soviet Union. It set itself the grand task of steering evolution to create immortal, cosmic superbeings. We’ll also look at how…

This is the 16th entry in my Spiritual Eugenics project, which looks at the overlap between New Age spirituality and eugenics. For a definition of these terms, an intro to the project, and preceding chapters, go here. The ‘religion’ of eugenics originated in the UK but Britain never passed a…

This is the 15th entry in my Spiritual Eugenics project, which looks at the overlap between New Age spirituality and eugenics. For a definition of these terms, an intro to the project, and preceding chapters, go here. In this chapter, we will look at how Julian Huxley and his peers…

If spirituality is a new religion which arose in the 19th century, then right now feels like the Reformation. It’s a moment of disenchantment, scepticism, criticism, iconoclasm and denunciation. …

This is the 14th entry in my Spiritual Eugenics project, which looks at the overlap between New Age spirituality and eugenics. For a definition of these terms, an intro to the project, and preceding chapters, go here. As children of one of the most intellectually distinguished families in Britain, Julian…