Coronavirus meets QAnon – conspiracy, terror threat, new religion!

May 21st, 2020 by Charles Cameron

On May 3, the theme of the QAnon portion of the service was about COVID-19. Bushey spoke about a popular QAnon theory that the pandemic was planned. (There is no evidence of this.) And when an anti-vax conspiracy theory documentary called “Plandemic” went viral , the video was shared on the HCW websites as a way for e-congregants to consume the latest in a series of false theories about the coronavirus.

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The QAnon ekklesia Marc-André Argentino attended is called the Omega Kingdom Ministry, and quotes Q:

It’s going to be Biblical

— where Biblical is intended both literally and metaphorically — enormous!!

This is emphasized in large letters on a greenboard reproduced in Argentino’s subsequent twitter thread, which is also used for four panels explaining the parallels between the Biblical Passover and “Passover II” associated with QAnon, of which I’m reproducing on here:

The rhetoric here, “For as Benjamin Netanyahu is to Israel, so shall this man be” is nicely reminiscent of Romans 8:14, James 2:26, and [forgive me] I Corinthians 11:12, “For as the woman is of the man, even so is the man also by the woman>”

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Whether or not the entire QAnon movement as a whole can be considered a NRM [New Religious Movement], there certainly exists within it an ekklesia and ministry.

NRM scholars, as well as FBI agents and other terrorism analysts, should keep their eyes on the QAnon phenomenon.

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Posted in Apocalyptic, Charles Cameron, conspiracy theory, judaism, QAnon, scriptures, Uncategorized | 5 comments

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  1. Jean Rosenfeld:

    May 21st, 2020 at 7:05 pm

    thanks, again, charles for your advance notice of a developing hybrid of urban myths/conspiracy theories, new religious movements–evangelical derivatives, and the trump movement.
    .
    there is so much now exploding on the web that it takes an army of researchers to notice and compile the data. what is the common thread is something i’ve been paying attention to for decades–apocalypticism. some believed that it retreated after the year 2000, but that does not happen historically, because apocalyptic time, as john r. hall is currently revealing and theorizing about, is not congruent with ordinary time. as with virus infections, there are prodromes and sequellae. we are in the midst of a heightened apocalyptic anxiety, for solid reasons, and the proliferation of scriptural interpretation that speaks to that anxiety is to be expected.
    .
    jean

  2. Sally Benzon:

    May 24th, 2020 at 12:37 pm

    QAnon is an active and established force that cannot be ignored. I know a couple who are practicing Buddhists and yet have gotten hooked as believers of “Q”. How they were manipulated is something I have a hard time wrapping my head around. The hate of Q is so antithetical to Buddhist practice, yet they don’t see the hate that is part of the foundation of “Q”.

  3. Charles Cameron:

    May 24th, 2020 at 8:43 pm

    Quite how someone would get from Buddhism directly to QAnon I don’t know, but I can imagine a route between the two via the movie The Matrix.
    .
    Let me explain. Suppose your friends saw the Matrix, they might well identify it as a quasi-Buddhist metaphor. After all, Sam Littlefair, the Lion’s Roar writer who regularly captures Buddhist echoes in aspects of pop culture, took a look at The Matrix last year, and among his comments you’ll find:

    The Matrix itself is humanity’s self-constructed illusory prison of the mind — a handy metaphor for the Buddhist concept of samsara.

    and:

    Neo, the hero played by Keanu Reeves, is the film’s bodhisattva-in-training.

    I’m not a huge fan of The Matrix myself, but I can easily see it as a politically neutral if not left-leaning vehicle that’s fairly compatible with Buddhism.
    .
    Then, as a Buddhist who sometimes thinks in Matrix terms, you run across this thing called QAnon which, intriguingly enough, uses the Matrix framework, with its red and blue pills, to explain current affairs — which interest and concern you, but you find confusing and out of control, particularly out of your personal control. Scary.
    .
    So you transition from The Matrix to QAnon, as earlier you transitioned from Buddhism to The Matrix. I’ll let a Guardian writer explain the feasibility of that transition:

    There are essentially two ways of looking at the film: 1. The world as you know it is a lie. 2. The world as you know it is changeable. The first way is narrow and pessimistic, but it explains why the notion of “red-pilling” has become so popular in the far right, which seeks to recruit new members by showing them the ugly truth about their environment. When you can persuade someone that their assumptions and perceptions are wrong – that everything they know is sanitized propaganda – they can then see things through an entirely new lens, one helpfully provided by the red-piller. This is how grand unifying theories like QAnon take root.

    That doesn’t explain the conspiracist mindset — but at least it provides a route from Buddhism to QAnon.
    .
    Sam Littlefair, Buddhism and “The Matrix”
    Scott Tobias, The Matrix at 20: how the sci-fi gamechanger remains influential

  4. Sally Benzon:

    May 24th, 2020 at 9:13 pm

    Charles, thank you so much for your reply. Very thoughtful and detailed. I really appreciate. And, yes, I think that is what happened with this couple. Interesting that you mention Sam Littlefair’s attention to Buddhist echoes in aspects of pop culture. I call it Buddhism by Starbucks. (One of the most pernicious misinterpretations is the insistence on “being positive”. ) I’m sure that this couple has taken some of the aspects of Buddhist teaching that are named, and yet not actually meant to be understood as fixed and concrete forces — such as the Guardians of the Law. What is still so striking to me is the about turn from love and mercy to absolute justice. Anyway, when in doubt, I am always reminded, “If ye have faith as a grain of mustard seed, nothing shall be impossible unto you.” Which according to how I heard Pastor Stewart recite it, meant also that we must remember the very small from which we come, and only by carrying the humility of our beginnings can we rightfully take on the larger conditions of calling in our lives.

  5. Charles Cameron:

    May 27th, 2020 at 2:57 am

    Thanks, Sally — happy to be of service.
    .
    Sam Littlefair is pretty upscale as coffee houses go IMO. I’d be happy to take a cappucino at his place.
    .
    : )