This Message Is for You: Seeking Meaning in the Age of the Algorithm [9780063474727]

Overview

A journalist’s incisive and darkly entertaining look at self-improvement spirituality—in which new age practices like astrology, tarot, and manifestation are reconfigured through the lens of social media algorithms and wellness culture to create a religion of the highly-optimized self.

If you’re seeing this, this message is for you . . .

We’ve all come across this kind of social media post in our feeds. It’s meant to imply that a divine force has delivered it specifically to you, rather than an AI algorithm that has simply learned your preferences. The phrase is immensely popular online, usually racking up hundreds of thousands of likes, with thousands of comments “claiming” the message being relayed, whether it’s a promise of career change or a new relationship.

These posts are just one example of the growing practice of self-improvement spirituality. As young people today turn away from traditional religions, practices of the 1960s and ’70s New Age movement—including astrology, tarot, yoga, and manifestation, among others—are being infused with the language and instincts of wellness culture and social media to create a new personalizable religion—one that worships the highly-optimized self.

In This Message Is For You, Laura Pitcher chronicles the interconnected history of Western spirituality, the wellness industry, and capitalistic ideas of ascension to reveal how we’ve come to this moment—exploring what it means when the search for spiritual connection becomes yet another ceaseless pursuit of self-refinement and curation, the toll of which can have real and sometimes devastating consequences.

Pitcher blends historical research, cultural critique, and a range of interviews with practitioners—including tarot readers, aura stylists, witches, and astrologers—and their followers. Her clear-eyed and insightful investigation explores our unshakeable desire for spiritual meaning, and what happens when the spiritual gap in our lives leads us to seek answers within the machine .

This fascinating look at self-improvement spirituality explores:

The Gospel of the Self: The cost of turning our need for spiritual meaning and community into a ceaseless pursuit of Goop-ified self-improvement.

The Meaning Crisis: How modern ideas around spiritual meaning have taken shape alongside rapid technological progress and an uncertain political landscape.

The “Woo-to-Q Pipeline”: How and why the journey into alternative spirituality online leads many down a path of conspiracies and misinformation.

The Commodification of Spirituality: From manifestation classes, healing crystals and even love spells sold for a few dollars, This Message Is For You examines what is lost when spiritual practices become yet another product available on the TikTok Shop.