The opening keynote panel from the (Con)spirituality - Science and COVID-19 Colloquium, recorded 25 March 2021. Featuring Prof David Voas (University College London), A/Prof Mar Griera (Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona) and Dr David Robertson (Open University).
(Con)spirituality – the merger of conspiracy theories and spirituality – has attracted significant media and academic attention globally during the COVID-19 pandemic.
This colloquium is the first to bring together leading scholars and practitioners from the UK, EU, USA, Canada and Australia – including Professor David Voas (University College London), Professor Paul Bramadat (University of Victoria), Associate Professor Mar Griera (Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona), Professor Cristina Rocha (Western Sydney University), and Derek Beres, Matthew Remski, and Julian Walker of Conspirituality.net – to examine themes of (con)spirituality, science, QAnon, the Far Right, vaccine hesitancy and COVID-19.
Ward and Voas used the term conspirituality in 2011 to describe the merger of New Age spirituality and conspiracy theories. This colloquium seeks to provide a deeper understanding of this phenomenon during the COVID-19 pandemic, and to illuminate the internal diversities and complexities within conspirituality and vaccine hesitancy. We therefore bracket the ‘con’, as the colloquium will investigate a wide spectrum of spiritual beliefs and practices that co-opt or critique scientific orthodoxy, including those that are non-controversial, those that may indeed be ‘cons’, and those that adhere to conspiracy theories and pose significant risks to society.
