Tripping Hippies and Jesus Freaks

Prosperity Gospel and the New Age

Alright…

Took a couple week breather in this 5 part series surveying American Religiosity circa 2025.

Why does this matter beyond nerdy academic analysis or confirmation for True Believers?

Well, it’s my growing hunch that we’re about to slipslide assbackwards into a spike in conspiracy theories, fundamentalism, apocalyptic cults and mayhem.

So getting a bead on our coordinates before it all gets super duper woolly seems helpful.

It’s Rational Mysticism or National Mysticism

(and as we know, that didn’t work out so well for the Germans, or the rest of us)

Now back to the thread to bring it home with episodes 4 (today’s) and 5 (all about AI religion and its weird mutations).

We began this survey with an investigation into the resurgence of the most archconservative High Churches—both to OG Catholicism (like JD Vance and Steve Bannon and their Opus Dei confessors) as well as to Eastern Orthodoxy (like Paul Kingsnorth and Texas “Ortho-Bros”). Some folks are yearning for all of the smells, bells, saints and feast days of an almost medieval belief system. Weird, but popping up all over.

#spiritualkink

The last essay came from secret-shopping some of the Evangelical Mega-Churches here in Austin.

Despite self-consciously contemporary presentation (casual jeans preachers, rock band music, conference center services, etc.) they still hewed to some pretty old-school fundamentalist interpretation of scriptures and social codes (Wives submit to Husbands. Eye for an Eye capital punishment. Homos and Buttstuff = bad. Citizens submit to their leaders, etc).

Now we’re going to move one click further, to churches that share the same contemporary informal presentation as the Evangelicals, but differ significantly from the message they’re selling.

That’s the Prosperity Gospel Megachurches.

You know, the Joel Osteen’s and Kenneth Copeland’s of the world. Private jets. Megamansions (to go with their megachurches). Nice Cars. Strong Hair Game. Dazzling dental crowns.

(but oddly, no thorns?)

And lest any of this get too into the theological weeds trying to sort out who’s in which camp…just look up “Top Ten Richest Preachers in America” and odds are strong that almost all of them are in on the Prosperity Grift.

After all, how else to justify to your congregation that you’re skimming the till, other than by saying “but this is what God wants!!! And if he’s blessed me with all of this abundance cuz I prayed on it real hard, then you can get some too. Just after you give ten percent of your life savings to me. Then it comes back to you Three Fold! (I promise).”

I mean, how genius is that?

Back in the day, the Church already had a pretty solid value prop for the beleaguered peasant:

“Life kinda sucks. gotta admit. You’ve buried half your children, you toil in the fields and give what little’s left over to your feudal lord. And you’ll likely be back broken, toothless and dead by forty. But hey, come to church, bow, scrape and make confession on the regular, and we promise, you’ll be rewarded in the next life!”

#kickingthecan

That was a sticky enough pitch to soothe the downtrodden and hopeless for the better part of two thousand years.

But the Prosperity Gospel crowd takes that promise and doubles down on it.

“come to our church, and not only do we guarantee salvation in the next life, we guarantee riches in this one!”

#atleastformeifnotforthee

So where the Evangelical Churches are more about submission to Authority (Divine or Moral), the Prosperity Gospel is all about expansion of the Self.

It’s your desires that you pray for.

It’s your personal relationship with Jesus that matters, far more than any stuffy old church doctrine.

It’s your life that is the most important expression of your faith.

It’s you future getting that prompts your present giving.

So to recap: the fundamentalist church and the prosperity church often look identical. Big auditoriums. Jumbotrons, lasers and rock bands replacing steeples, stained glass and pipe organs.

Preachers dressed somewhere between status casual and shiny suits (but not a white collar or black frock in sight).

But underneath, their theologies are quite different—one is submission of self to Authority, the other is inflation of Self to Prosperity.

Which brings us to the other side of the divide–the Conspirituality Crowd.

We’re leaving the megachurch campus now, and wandering into a very different part of town.

Now this lot looks and behaves totally differently from the Prosperity Gospel church goers.

But underneath their Big Dumb Hats, they’re following an almost chapter and verse imitation of the Prosperity Game.

“the kind of hat that makes you go…oh, that girl”

No big auditoriums and bible campuses. These folks swap all that for short term bling: fancy AirBnBs and glamping retreats. They’re too nomadic to ever hold down a year round lease.

(or if they’re really ambitious, they might have secured a vibey and “curated” members club. Somewhere between SoHo House, a Burning Man camp and a biohackers lair).

Electric Jesus Rock gets replaced by Soundbaths and a harmonium (those wheezy little Hindu accordions).

Hype Priests wearing $300 sneakers transform into Shaman Bros wearing $300 v-neck t-shirts.

TradWives get switched for…

Shanti Priestesses

(who only moonlight as “medicine servers” and “tantric consorts” in-between Tech Bro boyfriends, you understand).

And what about the theology stuff? Surely they’re about as far apart as one could possible be on their actual matters of faith?

Actually, they’re chapter and verse in the same hymnbook.

Just swap out: I trust, surrender to, or allow “Jesus” for trusting, surrendering to, or allowing “The Universe.”

It’s a seamless 1:1 exchange!

• “The Universe” (Jesus) wants me to have abundance.

• “The Universe” (Jesus) forgives me and knows I am whole and pure.

• “The Universe” (Jesus) has a spiritual plan for us all.

• I just let go and let “the Universe” (Jesus)

• “The Universe” (Jesus) is here to give me everything I’ve ever wanted.

And it doesn’t end with which Authority they appeal to.

It shows up across all the customs and rituals they believe in.

Swap the “laying on” of healing hands in the Pentecostal church for “spooky-healing-at-a-distance” Reiki in the Conspirituality crowd…

• Or exchange speaking in tongues for angelic light language: (both unintelligible gibberish made sensible by the gullible)

• Or receiving Prophecy for getting “Downloads”

• Or wine and wafer sacraments for mushroom and cacao “medicines”

• Or casting out demons for releasing “unattached burdens” in Internal Family Systems

• Or getting beamed up to heaven in the Rapture vs. vibrating out to the Fifth Density

• Or battling Satanist Child Molesters in QAnon (rednecks on PCs) for…

  battling Satanist Child Molesters in Pastel QAnon (yoga moms on Macbooks)

It’s never ending.

In the same way that John Gray at the London School of Economics has pointed out that Communism was really just Christianity minus the god, the Yooniverse crew is just Prosperity Gospel minus the cross.

But what’s most important to note, is that both the Prosperity Gospel and the Conspirituality bunch are inescapably products of Late Stage Capitalism.

In an ingenious/horrifying act of seduction and digestion, even our most transcendent aspiration–to merge with the very Godhead itself–has been tidied up, packaged and resold back to us for bite size consumption.

And never mind the theological inconsistencies, the shameless seeking and materialism. Or the decidedly spotty ethics of both of these camps.

They just don’t care!

They are literally high on their own supply. Juiced to the gills with the regressive narcissist’s conviction that their thoughts and prayers control reality.

They’re utterly convinced that they will be rewarded in this life and the next. Any gaps between reality and ambition can be blithely chalked up to errors in technique.

They’ve just got to pray harder. They’ve just got to manifest more.

So calling them up on gaps in ethics or logic don’t really land. You couldn’t possibly understand.

Ye of so little faith.

***

So that completes our survey of the brick and mortar churches of today.

We’ve got the High Church folks—all stained glass and steeples.

But then in this middle band we’ve been discussing we’ve got three different types united by either their presentation, or their doctrine.

The Evangelical and the Prosperity Churches look the same on the outside–-classic non-denominational megachurch.

But they differ on the inside–one emphasizes deference to strict theology and power, the other emphasizes the Personal Journey and material abundance.

And then we pick up with the New Agers, who look totally different than either of those two, but share a near identical theology to the Prosperity Types.

An all seeing, benevolent Jesus gets swapped for an all-knowing benevolent Universe.

But the premise and the promise (plus the payoff) are chapter and verse identical.

Next week: we’ll explore two different types of AI religions—the first are existing faiths that are using AI avatars and chatbots to serve up everything from talking saints to peppier sermons.

The second are the truly deeply weird that none of us are ready for (but already walk among us).

Pray for us all.