We Can't Blame Astrology in Influencer Danielle Johnson's Case. Any Spiritual Practice Can Incite Violence.

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Believers is a series running throughout April, examining different facets of faith and religion among young people. In this Op-Ed, writer Angie Jaime examines the long history of blaming spirituality for the actions of individuals.

“This eclipse is the epitome of spiritual warfare. Get your protection on and your heart in the right place,” Danielle Johnson said in a post on X on April 4. Just days later, according to report from the Los Angeles Times, the morning before the solar eclipse would reach its partial nexus in Southern California, Johnson allegedly killed her partner the kitchen of the family apartment in Woodland Hills, and pushed her eight-month-old baby and nine-year-old child out of a moving vehicle while driving on the 405, before dying by suicide. Only her nine-year-old daughter survived.

Posting as “Ayoka,” under the handle MysticxLipstick, Johnson was an astrology influencer with more than 100,000 followers — one who often shared and reposted conspiracy theories and antisemitic-filled rhetoric across her social media pages. She frequently posted about QAnon, often connecting her spiritual beliefs to these conspiracies. Her connection to astrology, as well as her conspiracy-fueled beliefs were almost immediately called out by the public and the media, coloring the context of her death and alleged murders. The Los Angeles Times reported that investigators found “lying about the Woodland Hills apartment: tarot cards and black feathers.”

On X, where Johnson had amassed her large following, many commented about the connection between both conspiracy theories and familial violence, as well as the intersection of race in the equation. Epidemiologist and political commentator Gabrielle Perry further connected the concepts, sharing, “MysticxLipstick being outspoken about QAnon conspiracy theories is another reminder (as I am always telling people): Black people are NOT IMMUNE from being influenced by cults.”

The night before the eclipse and Johnson’s devastating actions, she reposted a cryptic message from QAnon conspiracy account QTHESTORMM, which read “ALERT: THIS IS THE FINAL WARNING. TURN NOTIFICATIONS ON. DO NOT LOOK AT THE ECLIPSE. SOMETHING BIG IS COMING …”

The connection between alternative spiritual practices, so-called New Age modes of thinking and right-wing conspiracy ideologies such as QAnon has been increasingly examined, particularly after the Covid-19 pandemic, when a confluence of widespread anxiety and the systemic racism that led to communities of color distrusting medical establishments created a breeding ground for exploitation of vulnerable communities by those with dubious intentions.

The phenomenon, however, is not new. Jules Evans, a researcher on the connection between leading members of the Nazi party in the ‘30s and ‘40s and alternative medicine, told the Washington Post, “there was an idea that western culture has lost its way and we need to return to traditional sources of wisdom, whether that be Hinduism or Sufism or traditional gender roles,” he said. “There is an overlap between New Age and far-right populism in traditionalist thinking, that the West has lost its way with feminism, multiculturalism, egalitarianism, and we need a return to order.” (The irony of exploiting beliefs like Hinduism, largely held by people of color, in order to subjugate and control those very same people, is not lost here.)

Conspiratorial beliefs like QAnon have been a driving force for violence in the U.S., with a notable overlap between certain spiritual communities and alt-right conspiracy communities. Still, while the connection is worth examining and being mindful of, we must be clear that engaging in alternative spirituality is not an automatically dangerous path. While it can open the doors to a questioning worldview, which in turn can be a slippery slope, practicing tarot and astrology isn’t necessarily an indicator of belief in dangerous conspiracies. And, blaming violence like Johnson’s solely on that link can lead to moral panic in the vein of the Satanic Panic of the 1980s.

Satanic Panic, in its original form, was a period of moral panic in the '80s over all manner of “occult” practices and the ‘“satanic ritual abuse” of women and children, a phenomenon that coincided with the Reagan era’s tough-on-crime politics, and performative calls to “protect children.”

American conservatives, the vast majority of whom were white, wielded the fears of a primed audience in order to conflate homosexuality with pedophilia, as well as alternative non-white, non-Christian spiritual beliefs, linking the three with “demonic” practices. Then, as now, marginalized people were scapegoated in response to social anxieties about child abuse.

In present day, a new iteration of satanic panic has returned. A survey conducted by researchers at the University of Miami in 2022 revealed pervasive fear over satanic rituals and child sexual abuse. One-third of respondents agreed with the statement, “members of Satanic cults secretly abuse thousands of children every year.”

This time, the fixation by conservatives is more specifically on transgender and visibly-queer people in public, falsely deeming large swaths of LGBTQ Americans as “groomers” of children. Books by people of color which provide racially-inclusive histories have also come under attack, being banned from schools as a “danger to children.” Both instances have inspired conservative Americans to craft legislation on the foundation of the moral panic stoked by such fears; this represents yet another stepping stone in a broad political trajectory that has continued for the past 40 years.

Simultaneously, (and perhaps further complicating this context), the current moment exists in a time of racial reckoning, when Black and brown women have begun to turn from Eurocentric Christianity, as opposed to diasporic varieties, to reconnect with spiritual practices rooted in African, Indigenous, and Latinx ancestry. Much of these practices have been historically maligned and even criminalized. At least among younger generations, stigma surrounding non-Christian spiritual practices has begun to fade, in favor of return to ancestral traditions that reclaim foundations of non-white identity. It’s a particularly powerful movement and reclamation of identity in the face of a history of forced Christian conversion, a religion which has been used as a justification for mass violence and colonization for centuries.

Indeed, the exploration of so-called New Age spirituality can be linked to the path toward conspiratorial thinking and with it, the manipulation of those communities. And to be clear, the exploitation of vulnerable people by spiritualists into right-wing extremist philosophies is all too real. But we must stop short of conflating alternative spirituality writ large, which many marginalized groups find refuge in from the ancestral wounds inflicted by white, Christian, heteronormative structures of power, with danger to children and the public in general. The realities —and implications— are much more complex.

Originally Appeared on Teen Vogue