Greetings from the galactic being

On outer space, psychedelics, and conspirituality

Hello cowboys, cowgirls, and cowthems—welcome back to another edition of Snake Oil. Today we present the third part of my exploration into Starseeds, an online community (or arguably, New Religious Movement or NRM) whose members claim to be angelic, higher dimensional aliens.¹ We are in the process of figuring out why on Earth and in space people began buying into this idea. As it turns out, identifying oneself as an enlightened alien for ideological or entrepreneurial ends is nothing new.

Have yourself a scroll through parts 1 and 2 of the series if you need a refresher on that history. The series begins with a look at theosophy, a 19th century occultist movement that cherry-picked and exoticized elements of Eastern philosophy and brought them into the West to create a kind of spiritually dressed-up racism. Part 2 explores how fascist and eugenicist thought mixed with the Western occultist milieu in the 20th century.

Two key takeaways from my previous research are: 1) Western occultism peddles the idea that there is an elite, secret group of individuals guiding humanity to a more evolved state; and 2) there “chosen” individuals meant to shepherd humanity from a spiritually primitive state to a more enlightened one—but not all people are destined to make the cut.

In this installment we see how these ideas continued into the latter half of the 20th century, though in slightly different packaging. Read onward to learn about the impacts of science fiction, the psychedelic era, and New Age hooey on the development of “Starseeds.” And finally, some thoughts on how this paved the way for “conspirituality” or the mixing of conspiracy theories and spirituality so prevalent in online spaces today.

Welcome aboard the flying saucer. Time for take off.

A marriage of psychedelics and sci-fi

During the 60s and 70s there were two distinct trips being taken in the West: the journeys of cosmonauts into the void of outer space, and the explorations of the LSD-dropping neuronauts, seeking to understand the depths of the human psyche. One focused on an external unknown, and another on the internal mystery—but the explorations that were conflated.The reality of space travel sparked conversation about the possibility of sentient life beyond Earth, UFOs, transhumanism, and off-world colonization, which combined with spiritualist ideas in kooky ways.

The term “starseeds,” as far as I can tell, originated in speculative fiction in the 1960s, coinciding with the launch of the age of space exploration. The first usage I was able to locate was in Larry Niven’s “Known Space” universe, where the term has a strictly fictional, sci-fi meaning.

Niven wrote around 40 works in the Known Space universe, including a mixture of novels and short stories. Above is the cover of a collection of short stories he wrote from 1964 to 1975.

“Starseeds” likely acquired its spiritual meaning during the same time period, but from psychedelic literature.

One such writer was Timothy Leary, the psychologist, futurist, and counterculture icon. In 1973, the sacked Harvard psych professor penned a 24-page dispatch from Folsom Prison, where he was incarcerated on marijuana possession charges. Titled “Starseed: A Psi Phy² Comet Tale,” he wrote the essay as Comet Kohoutek soared into vision in the cosmos, an event that had not occurred in 150,000 years. He became fixated on its meaning.

“The comet Kohoutek, Starseed, can mean nothing or it can mean everything,” he wrote. “The moment of spiritual reckoning approaches. Karmic plague sweeps the globe. Scan the headlines. Drought. Famine. Shortage. Pollution. Malaise. Disorder. Tyranny. Espionage. Watergate is the American word for a world-wide epidemic of government illegalities.”

The opening pages of Dr. Leary’s dispatch from Folsom Prison.

Leary hailed the comet as a sign of an awakening for humankind, and positioned himself a special messenger sent to herald the next stage of human evolution. A stage which would return humankind to space—but only individuals who were spiritually evolved enough to make that leap.³ The dispatch perfectly captured Leary’s brand of “psychedelic eugenics,” as Jules Evans, policy director at the Centre for the History of Emotions at Queen Mary, University of London, writes in a blog post.

Leary’s other writings continued on this eugenicist track, especially his pseudo-scientific belief in what he termed the eight-circuit model of consciousness. He asserted that humans had eight different evolutionary levels of consciousness, four being on Earth, and four off-planet and in a post-human state—a state where our minds are so powerful we would be able to alter our own DNA though thought alone.

Screenshots from Leary’s 1977 book, Exo-psychology: A manual on the use of the human nervous system according to the instructions of the manufacturers, which assigned each stage of human evolution to an astrological symbol, Tarot card, Greek and Roman myth, and other tropes and symbols (Stage 7 “Virgo” depicted above). Yet another example of Western (pseudo)scientific thought’s proclivity for conjuring up hierarchies and incomprehensible charts.

The term “Starseeds,” as it is understood online today—as celestial aliens in human form—most likely originated with Brad Steiger’s mystical, New Age book titled Gods of Aquarius: UFOs and the Transformation of Man, published in 1976. Here Steiger,a prolific author on conspiracy theories and the paranormal, used the term to refer to “cosmic” people on Earth who have the ability to perform miracles and communicate with extraterrestrials from other dimensions.

The front cover of Steiger’s work, which opens with the questions: “Are we mere animals struggling for survival? Or are we gods waiting to be born? Have we evolved from a lower order of creatures? Or were the seeds of future greatness planted in us long ago?”

“Starseeds” gained another infusion of New Age thinking in Ken Carey’s 1992 work, The Starseed Transmissions.⁴ It echoes Leary’s and Steiger’s ideas of chosen individuals being able to connect to a cosmic consciousness. In the book, he published messages that he allegedly received from extraterrestrial and angelic beings.

“I bring instructions to your race from the directive organ of Galactic Being,” Carey channeled from his farm in Missouri over 11 wintry days spanning 1978 to 1979.

“Life was seeded on your planet billions of years ago by nucleotide templates which contained the blueprint for gradual evolution through a sequence of biomechanical stages. The goal of evolution is to produce nervous systems capable of communicating with and returning to the Galactic Network where we, your interstellar parents, await you.”

There’s something to be said here about dudes with spare time on their hands, who are maybe a little too souped up on science fiction, the Space Race, and possibly mind-altering substances, spinning pseudo-scientific tales. And I think that narrative holds a great deal of truth when trying to make sense of these writings. Leary, Steiger, and Carey are only three out of dozens of New Age thinkers’ names I could pull from a hat who remixed similar ideas about extraterrestrials and spirituality.

But I think there is perhaps a deeper reason why throughout the 20th century conspiracy theories and spirituality, “conspirituality,” proved to be such a winning formula—and why it seamlessly made the migration onto the 21st century internet. My hunch: Believing you are a “Chosen One” alien is a soothing narrative in the face of political powerlessness and political trauma. It carries the aesthetics of awakening to reality without the trouble of actually engaging in it.

Therefore, it is also a copout from meaningfully engaging in political life and work. But I think that is also by design. More of my thoughts on the appeal and mechanics of internet “conspirituality” in the next edition of Snake Oil.

My eternal thanks to Darcy Modica for reading this over and helping me get this out of the drafts folder.

If you’d like to toss a coin to your writer, you can visit my Buy Me A Coffee page which also features a proletariat-approved Karl Marx meme :)

1. It is important to note that many indigenous cultures—Cherokee, Ojibwe, Chumash to name a few in the Americas—have myths centered around connections to “star people.” But “starseeds,” which I am writing about here, is a separate phenomenon emerging from Western/European occultist thought.

2. “Psi-phy” being an abbreviation of “philosophy of science.”

3. For Leary, that leap could be summed up in the acronym “SMI2LE,” which is nearly a post code for St. Dunstan’s Road in Sutton, England, but also stands for space migration, intelligence enhancement, and life extension—something similarly touted today by the likes of Peter Thiel, Elon Musk, and other members of the billionaire class. A weird connection that is perhaps meant to be explored another time in another newsletter.

4. Some editions feature a blurb on the cover from none other than former US presidential candidate Marianne Williamson. Her quote reads: “Ken Carey is one of the great living teachers...Read him, and you'll have hope.” Lol.