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The Dark Side of New Age Spirituality

Glyn Baker
/
WikiMedia Commons

New Age spirituality is everywhere these days, from tarot cards and crystals, astrology and energy healing. A new book traces the history of New Age movements.

The writer Leah Sottile begins her story in the 1800s, when a British zoologist was trying to understand why there were lemurs in Madagascar, lemur fossils in far-away India, but no lemurs on the African mainland. His hypothesis? That an entire continent may have gone missing. He proposed the name Lemuria.

More than a century later, the leader of a New Age cult called Love Has Won claimed that she was the reincarnated queen of a place called Lemuria. She said she’d also been Joan of Arc, as well as Jesus Christ. And a lot of people decided to worship her. Leah Sottile joins us to talk about the often compelling, sometimes troubling, world of New Age spirituality.

GUEST –

Leah Sottile | She’s a writer and journalist. Her new book is “Blazing Eye Sees All: Love Has Won, False Prophets, the Fever Dream of the American New Age.” [Amazon|Bookshop]

Airdate: Wednesday, July 23, 2025 at 9 a.m. and 7 p.m.

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