Mind control. Satanic rituals. Unspeakable sexual perversions. Supervillains eating children’s brains. A divine mandate to …
Content warning CW for QAnon; Conspiracy Theories
Despite being perceptive enough to identify the medieval origins of QAnon’s fanatical obsession with the notion that innocent children are being kidnapped from their bedrooms and harvested by the “elites,” [Barbara] Fister concludes her piece by saying that that the best way to combat QAnon is to change “how education approaches information-literacy instruction.” After the destructive events of January 6, 2021, Fister’s wide-eyed approach to the problem seems both charming and dangerous. It was partly this dangerous naivety among entrenched political commentators that convinced me to begin writing about QAnon from a perspective slightly different from what I was seeing in mainstream publications during the first few months of 2020.
— Operation Mindfuck by Robert Guffey (Page 6)
Barbara Fister wrote in the Atlantic on February 18, 2021:
. . . QAnon is something of a syncretic religion. But its influence doesn’t stop with religious communities. While at its core it’s a 21st-century reboot of a medieval anti-Semitic trope (blood libel), it has shed some of its Christian vestments to gain significant traction among non-evangelical audiences. ("The Librarian War Against QAnon")