Some things I might have added:
1.
Mick asked about New Age friends who might also have been conspiracy theorists, and I mentioned a few that believed in a 9/11 inside job and that chemtrails was perhaps the most prevelant theory.
Having thought about that, I ponder three things: 1. That New Agers tend to be highly optimistic and positive thinking people, so rather than paranoia they tend to exhibit "pronoic" traits: that is, "that the Universe (and everything in it) is conspiring for my benefit"; 2. That New Agers tend to be mostly apathetic towards politics - or, indeed, looking on the physical world as an "illusion" - so not particularly interested in worldy goings on; and 3. That a lot of people in these circles are highly focused on health and the body, and that may be why things like chemtrails and "flouride in the water" seem to be the most common CTs to pop up. I believe, for example, that there's a whole mythology about flouride "calcifying the pineal gland" - which to many believers is synonymous with the so-called "third eye" - and, since that's not something they want, they maybe look into that one. But there isn't much interest, on the whole, as far as I can see.
Thanks to you,
@Rory and @Mick for the links. Your avatar has always made my mouth water for a well-marbled, happy, beefsteak dinner saying “eat me”! I watched a double handful of your videos and the illustrations are valuable and clear. The negative comments, however, were a bit surprising in their aggressiveness. That’s not my point here, however.
With regards to New Agers, I agree with 1.1 except that I haven’t seen the “conspiring for my benefit”, although I could ask questions that may reveal that information. 1.2 I agree completely, but would add that my contacts seem to follow worldly events, and can converse superficially on, say, certain political events, but they don’t seem to have an emotional connection to them. One of them seems genuinely interested, and brings up current events as conversation points, but as far as I can tell, she has no emotional or intellectual investment in the conversation. So, “not particularly interested” except perhaps as conversation fodder.
1.3 - Agree completely on health and body. The folks I classify as New Agers have interesting twist on CT that perhaps add to your examples. Two of them are convinced that diet determines just about everything with regards to general health & fitness, and we only disagree on the details. According to them, the reason everyone doesn’t jump on these trends is because Western medicine is conspiring to withhold this “world-changing” information from us. The “research” however, mostly tend to be of the “one Chinese doctor reported 2 patients out of 3 had spontaneous cancer remissions after drinking high-Ph water for 3 months.” I apologize for over generalization here, because they actually cite maybe 20 studies with the same general description. Confusing anecdotal vs. double-blind studies.
Commentary>OFF and humor>ON. One New Ager is on a multi-decade-long cabbage binge. She literally exudes the scent of cabbage, which isn’t necessarily a bad thing, since i’m Quite fond of cabbage, but quite an unusual scent in the realm of perfumes. Every time we have dinner at her house (excellent cook, by the way, and she is vegan), I have to fight down the urge bring a nicely-cooked corned beef brisket. I’m not dismissing the cabbage diet, by the way. I haven’t researched it but she looks a decade younger than her actual age and as far as I’m concerned, she could be onto something!