New research reveals the link between conspiracy theories and spirituality.

Conspirituality began as a Canadian hip-hop group's name and later was used academically.

The findings surrounding purity have also been seen in religious communities.

My work as a belief psychologist and parapsychologist often puts me in situations where I encounter people who hold unusual and sometimes dangerous beliefs. I started noticing something in the town where I live: People who identified as spiritual seemed unusually susceptible to conspiracy beliefs.

This got me thinking about the New Age wellness movement, which, according to the Global Wellness Institute, is now a $6.8 trillion global industry that includes brands like Gwyneth Paltrow's GOOP. It's also visible in individual figures like Russell Brand, whose own political and religious views have shifted markedly rightward in recent years. I wanted to look at this connection between spirituality and conspiracy belief a bit further, and after some research, I realised somebody had beaten me to the punch and already come up with a term: conspirituality.

Charlotte Ward and David Voas looked at spirituality and its relationship with conspiracy beliefs in their 2011 study titled The Emergence of Conspirituality. They used the term "conspirituality" in an academic sense. Ward and Voas saw conspirituality as a reflection of spiritual people's dissatisfaction with the political system, which kind of backed up my thoughts on the subject.

I also wanted to include another aspect: the idea of moral purity, in this context, a........

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