Paper short abstract:

The paper examines QAnon as a religious phenomenon in the context of Web 2.0, specifically focusing on the utilization of religious motifs and narratives. This paper's primary target is to understand how QAnon connects to esoteric traditions, proposing that QAnon employs an occult rhetoric of truth.

Paper long abstract:

QAnon is a phenomenon of a time of change, occurring against the backdrop of unprecedented societal transformations and crises such as globalization, media change, and climate change. Conventional explanatory models are becoming increasingly insufficient, as the speed of communication and abundance of information sources leads to an increase in complexity, which in turn leads to a sense of uncertainty. Alternative explanations, which promise to provide a sense of control and security, are becoming more prevalent as a result. This trend is facilitated by Web 2.0, which allows those who feel excluded from institutionalized truth production to actively participate in truth conflicts and discursive battles over meaning.

QAnon is one of these alternative truth producers, utilizing social media and other digital channels to spread its perspective on the world. Using conspiratorial narratives, QAnon actively constructs the idea of a ‘hidden’ truth whose unveiling is systematically prevented by certain ‘elites’ but actively pursued by an insightful ‘avant-garde,’ who are encouraged to actively decipher and discuss cryptic messages (QDrops) shared on anonymous message boards.

The proposed paper aims to study the practices of evidence production and truth modeling employed by QAnon. From a religious studies perspective, QAnon is understood as a religious phenomenon that is connected to the evidence practices of esoteric traditions and employs an occult rhetoric of truth. This truth is only accessible to ‘initiates’ and can never be completely unravelled. The main research focus is the observed utilization of familiar religious motifs and narratives, stemming from the reservoir of apocalypticism, occultism, and anti-Semitism. This utilization creates a connection to a variety of religious and esoteric traditions, but also undermines them by transforming borrowed motifs and narratives into a ‘master narrative’ of hidden truth through semantic recoding.