A New (Age) Boogeyman? A Brief Look into the Beliefs of Barbara Marx Hubbard

What is this New Age philosophy that conspiracy theory Twitter is buzzing over?

Earlier today, I happened to run across a post from a Twitter (or X/Xitter) user named “Lisa Logan,” who had this to say:

All the sectors of society are devolving into mysticism.

This is why truth has become a social construct.  

The “wizards” have taken over and you don’t realize it because THEY’RE THE PROFESSIONALS deciding what truth is.

We’re headed back to the Dark Ages if we don’t stop it.

Attached to the tweet was the following image:

The picture itself immediately interested me. It was weird and complex, for sure, but as someone who studies esoteric Buddhist mandalas in his free time, I was pretty sure I could decipher its meaning given the proper context, and so I decided to do some digging into this Barbara Marx Hubbard character.

First off, it doesn't seem like her ideas are taking off among the general populace in any significant way, which is probably why I hadn't encountered them before. If “all sectors” are adopting Mysticism, it’s probably not Hubbard’s particular brand.

Her YouTube numbers don't seem to break 26k even after being up for nearly a decade. Many others are still under 1,000 (see picture below). The comments are also filled with insults and criticism, much of it probably from the more conspiratorial spheres of social media who have adopted Hubbard as one of their boogeymen.

Regardless, I want to assess her ideas on their own merit, minus any notions from social media political commentators, so I did some research by listening to several hours of her lectures on YouTube. Now that I’m a bit more knowledgeable on the subject, I can say that I am not at all impressed.

Unlike James Lindsay acolytes, my problem with Hubbard’s ideas is not that she was a "mystic" (and she was very much openly so). She claimed to have had some mystical experiences in her middle age that awakened her to some truths about the cosmos, which is something I can actually believe to a certain extent (she definitely wouldn't be the first person to experience such things).

These universal truths include concepts like interconnectedness, universal collective consciousness, and a holographic reality where the cosmos shows similar patterns of behavior at different scales. Not exactly new and groundbreaking ideas, as these have all been explored by thinkers more than a thousand years ago at least, but still beyond that of the typical person's interest.

Again, I don't take issue with any of that stuff, but I do take issue with the conclusions she comes to. She characterizes her idea of universal consciousness as the "spirit of evolution." In her mind, evolution was a long line of progress that led to some eventual elevated state of being.

According to Hubbard, getting in touch with this evolutionary spirit would grant us some kind of “enlightenment” that could propel our evolution into a new form of humanity more fit for life on Earth and in space. Much like with Auguste Comte’s an his misguided Positivist beliefs, Hubbard believed we were on the very cusp of this profound transformation. Per her website:

We are poised in this critical moment, facing decisions that must be made consciously if we are to avoid destroying the world as we know it, if we are instead to cocreate a future of immeasurable possibilities. Our conscious evolution is an invitation to ourselves, to open to that positive future, to see ourselves as one planet, and to learn to use our powers wisely and ethically for the enhancement of all life on Earth.

Conscious evolution can also be seen as an awakening of a ‘memory’ that resides in the synthesis of human knowing, from spiritual to social to scientific. Indeed, all of our efforts to discover the inherent design of life itself can be seen as the process of one intelligence, striving to know itself through our many eyes, and to set the stage for a future of immense cocreativity.

An interesting theory, but what does all this actually look like? What are the characteristics of an "enlightened" person?

In her talks, Hubbard didn't seem keen on detailing this part of the equation, seemingly leaving it more on the open-ended side. She used words like "love" and "empathy" to describe these theoretical elevated individuals and talked about the role of technology in connecting said individuals so they can properly organize this new world, but all of the basics were left unspoken.

Even the characteristics of the desire that the “evolutionary spirit” supposedly instilled into us was left vague (this is the core of that big circle in the chart at the beginning, mind you, so it’s one of the most important parts of the equation). Which desires would be theoretically beneficial and which would be detrimental? Surely not all desires are to be followed, as that would leave all moral reasoning up to the petty constantly-shifting whims of humans.

Little was also said about what kind of trans-human society we would be striving for should we adopt this framework. The major details Hubbard gave were the dissolution of religion (which I would obviously be against) and voluntary population control for ecological reasons (another spooky subject, to say the least). The rest was allegedly a world of “infinite potential” (the top right section of the graph).

It all comes together to sound like an aging hippie’s simplistic view of positive societal development. “Just, like, love and empathize with each other, man. It’s all love.” Still, Hubbard was insistent that these enlightened people were coming into being right now at this very moment in history. If so, who are they?!

I think this component explains why conspiracy-minded online individuals are currently taking issue with Hubbard and her philosophy. If anyone can really come out and say they’re one of these evolutionary-minded advanced humans without needing to demonstrate anything, it’s very easy to imagine world leaders, oligarchs, or any other flavor of powerful opportunist latching onto this concept in order to justify potential tyranny.

There’s also the subject of her well-connected family. Her father was the owner of the toy company “Louis Marx and Company,” which made him fabulously wealthy. His lineage eventually spawned several activists (as wealthy families often do), with Barbara being one of them. None of this invalidates her ideas, but it’s definitely worth giving such philosophies plenty of scrutiny knowing that they’re derived from a life of such wealth and privilege.

All in all, I find this philosophy too goofy and shallow to treat with much seriousness. Despite making sweeping claims about the nature of humanity and our place in the world, what I have heard from Hubbard so far lacks any substance to really chew on, and it rings especially hollow when we see how so many people in our modern world act in the name of “love” and “empathy.”

It’s probably nice to be able to claim that you’re an “enlightened” person, but if this is the framework you’ve used to come to such a conclusion, it’s like buying a trophy for yourself: ultimately meaningless at best and downright cringeworthy at worst.

And what of Hubbard’s predictions? She’d been writing about these ideas for at least three decades, constantly proclaiming that we were on the precipice of some total societal ascension. It’s hard to say we’ve gotten any closer to that vision. The opposite seems to be true, in my opinion.

The only thing she correctly predicted was the decline in birthrates, although that seems to be derived from maladaptive behaviors and gender dynamics rather than any evolutionary leap.

The “Cosmo-Erotic” aspect of her beliefs, which refers to people’s eventual orientation of “erotic” energy towards the outer world and to creative endeavors as they continue to evolve, has also fallen entirely flat as we seem to be collectively funneling that energy into building sex bots and generative AI pornography instead.

In my mind, Barbara Marx Hubbard’s philosophy and tepid brand of spiritualism is emblematic of the mediocrity that is constantly pushed to the forefront of corporate-approved thought. There are some nuggets of interesting observation buried in there, but it’s underneath layers of bland cloyingly optimistic Global-Transhumanist meanderings that any Oligarch or Technocrat could nod their head at approvingly before forgetting everything and leaving the book on the shelf to collect dust.

Anyway, do you have conflicting views on this particular subject? You can let me know in the comments below.

As always, thank you all very much for reading.