Inside a growing spiritual movement built around awakening, ascension and the search for something bigger

At a packed conference in Los Angeles, thousands of people gathered to explore a different way of understanding reality — through crystals, energy healing and the belief that some humans didn’t originate on Earth.

They’re called starseeds: people who believe they were sent here from other planets to help humanity “ascend” to a higher dimension.

According to our guest RNS reporter Kathryn Post, it might sound fringe. But the deeper you go, the more familiar the underlying search begins to feel.

Because the people drawn to this world aren’t so different from anyone else. They’re looking for meaning, for purpose, for a way to make sense of suffering. And increasingly, they’re finding those answers online — through influencers, shared language and communities that have no central authority.

But as these beliefs spread, they’re also evolving — in some cases, blending with conspiracy theories about hidden elites, cosmic battles and the end of the world as we know it.

So, what happens when belief becomes entirely personal — but still somehow shared?

And how do you tell the difference between a spiritual search … and something more dangerous?

This transcript was generated using AI tools and may contain minor transcription errors.

AMANDA HENDERSON: From RNS and the Institute for Religion, Politics and Culture, this is Complexified, a podcast for the religiously curious and politically frustrated. I’m Amanda Henderson. In Los Angeles this winter, more than 5,000 people gathered at something called the Conscious Life Expo. It’s part spiritual marketplace, part wellness retreat and part gathering for people who believe the answer to life’s biggest questions might come from somewhere beyond this world. Walk through the doors and you’ll find crystals and energy healers, influencers talking about awakening, and people who believe they’re what’s known as starseeds — that they didn’t originate on Earth but came here with a purpose. It’d be easy to dismiss that, but the deeper you go, the more familiar the underlying search starts to feel. Because the people here aren’t so different from anyone else. They’re looking for meaning, for direction, for a sense that their lives fit into something bigger. And what’s taking shape in spaces like this isn’t just a set of ideas — it’s a shared language, a shared way of understanding the world. But the components of these beliefs are truly individualized at the same time. What does it mean when belief becomes entirely personal and still somehow shared? Today I’m joined by Kathryn Post, a reporter with Religion News Service, who spent time inside this world and met the people building it. Kathryn, welcome to Complexified.

KATHRYN POST: Thanks so much for having me.

HENDERSON: OK, you went to the Conscious Life Expo. Before we get into what it is — what did it feel like to walk into that space?

POST: It was so crowded. There were over 5,000 people there, and I truly did not expect the lines of folks, especially on the first day getting into registration. There’s also a very distinct sound that comes with the expo because the entire lobby of the hotel has been transformed into a festival stage. So, there’s either a musician on the stage playing some sort of music, or there are loudspeakers playing ethereal sounds, or sometimes droning sounds. So, there’s like a soundtrack going on. There’s also an exhibition hall. So, you keep walking through the hotel lobby, you get to the exhibition hall, and it’s packed. There are booths everywhere. And the booths — they have some of what you might expect at a conference like this. They’ve got a lot of crystals, a lot of amulets. They also have a lot of health and wellness stuff, like skin care. But then there’s also some things that I wasn’t expecting. Like right inside the exhibition hall, if you walk in the doors on your right-hand side, there’s a booth and there’s a giant inflatable, like human-sized mantis. It’s bright blue. And so, you’re like, what is this? And the gentleman at this booth — he wears like a glittery headdress and he channels alien mantis beings. And so, he invites folks to come to his booth and ask questions.

HENDERSON: OK, slow down. What is a mantis? I don’t know this word.

POST: Oh, right. Like, you know, the bug — like a praying mantis. But they’re a type of alien species. So, a lot of folks in this space believe in different alien species. The different species have different characteristics. So, this guy specifically has a connection to an alien mantis and will provide insights by channeling that mantis.

HENDERSON: Who are the people there? Who did you meet? Tell me more about the people that you met.

POST: Yes, so, I was actually really struck by the diversity of this space. I’ve been to a lot of religious conferences. This one was genuinely diverse — people of all ages, races, ethnicities. There were folks who were kind of in the spiritual space full time — they might be people who own a spiritual gift shop or something. But there were also a lot of people who were just everyday professionals. Maybe they were retired teachers, or Realtors, or they worked in insurance. But they were here at the conference because this was an important part of their worldview and they were really excited to just be surrounded by other people who share their beliefs.

HENDERSON: Yeah, do you think that people were generally searching for something, or were they happy to find their people?

POST: Yeah, actually it was a bit of a mix. So, there were some folks for whom this was brand-new. And the newbies at the convention — a lot of them, at least the ones that I talked to — they were definitely seekers. Some of them might have had what they described as a recent spiritual awakening, perhaps triggered by a health crisis or even a midlife crisis of some kind. They were really searching for answers and explanations and some kind of community to be a part of. And then there were also folks who’d been going for decades, and they are definitely still spiritual seekers. This is really an evolving space and there’s nothing that feels permanent in terms of the beliefs there. But there’s also a sense of groundedness — like, these are my people, I feel deeply known here. And so, there was a sense of relief that came with that.

HENDERSON: Yeah. At what point did you realize that this was more than just a quirky conference, that it was part of something bigger?

POST: I actually knew it was part of something bigger before I even got to the conference, because of this book, which I want to shout out. It’s called The Conspiracists: Women, Extremism and the Lure of Belonging. It’s written by Noelle Cook. And it is just an absolutely fabulous introduction into this space — this overlap between New Age spirituality and extremism. There’s actually an entire chapter in this book that talks about the conference. And the book is really about how New Age spirituality in general is evolving. It’s something that maybe we used to think about as reserved for folks who were kind of like progressive, crunchy granola people. And now that’s not always the case. There’s also a lot more right-wing beliefs that are making their way into New Age spirituality, and it’s shifting the space.

HENDERSON: Interesting.

POST: There’s also other shifts going on as well. One of the shifts she talks about is this ramping up of the starseed phenomenon, which you mentioned earlier. And there’s an increasing number of folks who fall into the starseed category who are also shifting what New Age spirituality looks like today.

HENDERSON: OK, let’s talk more about these starseeds. And first, I think that there are some more terms that I need to better understand, because every community and every religion has its own vocabulary. And I saw some of those terms in your reporting. Can we walk through a couple of those?

POST: Absolutely.

HENDERSON: Great. OK, so, first — what is a starseed?

POST: Right. So, a starseed is someone who understands themselves as originating from off-planet. They see themselves as an intergalactic being, often an alien being, who chose to come to Earth and take human form in order to help humanity ascend.

HENDERSON: OK, what is ascend?

POST: Right. Ascension — it’s this word that is used a lot in this space. And it refers to this idea that our current version of reality is a limited, fallen version of reality. They’ll use different words — they’ll talk about it as like a 3D version of reality, or a simulation, or the system, or the matrix. And the idea is to ascend into a higher dimension. So, ascension refers to the idea of moving from the limited version of reality to the better, higher, more advanced, more idyllic version of reality, which is often referred to as 5D.

HENDERSON: OK, so, starseeds came from another planet, or somewhere outside of Earth, and came to Earth with the goal of helping move people toward this higher plane of living?

POST: Yes. You got it.

HENDERSON: OK, so, how do people come to believe this about themselves? What does that process look like?

POST: The people that I spoke to often came into this space online. I met a woman at the expo named Francella. She lives in Texas. She’s in her 60s. And she is a pastor’s kid — she grew up in institutional Christianity. But she had a spiritual shift after her husband died recently. After her husband’s passing, she felt like God, which she now refers to as spirit, was directing her to YouTube, which she had never heard of before. So, she went on YouTube in the wake of her husband’s passing and she found this New Age spiritual community. And just through watching a bunch of videos, she came to understand herself as a starseed as well. So, it’s often very much online, through consuming videos. And what does this belief give people? When I asked this same question to the experts I’ve interviewed for my reporting, many of them suggested that believing that you’re a starseed — that you are on a mission to help humanity — is a way for folks to help explain their suffering, because you can say your suffering is part of this fallen 3D reality. And it’s also part of a cosmic battle between the good aliens who are trying to help humanity ascend and the bad aliens, often referred to as reptilians, who are trying to thwart that mission. It also often gives people a sense of purpose, something they’re working toward, and it can give them a sense of agency over their suffering that’s really easy to access.

HENDERSON: Interesting. OK, so, what is the scope of this? Do we have an idea of how many people understand themselves to be starseeds?

POST: It’s super hard to quantify. And even among experts, I encountered debate as to the scale of this. Some people say starseeds are really visible and really vocal and very online, but they only represent a slice of New Age spirituality. Other experts I spoke to said starseeds are really important and very overlooked, and they’re really reshaping this ecosystem of New Age spirituality. And some easy stats might be looking at even the hashtag “starseed” or “starseeds” on social media — we know that there’s been over a billion pieces of content labeled with that hashtag on TikTok. So, that’s just one metric.

HENDERSON: Fascinating. Let’s take a break.

HENDERSON: Kathryn, as you were reporting, when did it start to feel like this wasn’t just a set of ideas, but something more like a belief system?

POST: So, when we’re thinking about starseeds specifically — which is sort of a subcategory underneath the New Age spirituality umbrella — there are points at which it starts to feel more religious and spiritual. For example, starseeds have a lot of lore, as the youth say. There’s a lot of lore around the history of the galaxy. They’ll talk about these different galactic wars and how it shaped the history of the world. There’s a lot of lore about the history of the planet and Atlantis and the Egyptian pyramids and how aliens were connected to these different places at certain times. There’s also a lot of mythology around specific alien species. Like we talked about with the mantis, there are these categories of aliens and beliefs about these different categories of aliens. So, the concept of having all of these mythologies makes it feel kind of religious. There’s also a moral framework happening here. Like we talked about, the starseeds themselves see themselves as benevolent aliens — they are on the side of good, fighting evil. What the evil is is hard to pin down, and there are differences among different starseed influencers, but usually the evil actors are a group of elites who are controlled by some kind of shadow government, secret society or reptilian aliens. So, this moral framework of the good aliens versus the evildoers also feels very religious in some ways. And then a third way that this starts to feel kind of religious is ritual. In religion we have a lot of practices — we show up to temple or church on Sunday and we do the same things together. This looks different because it’s very online, but online starseeds will gather together and they will channel light language, which is this language from extraterrestrials. And when it’s channeled it sounds like different vocalizations and hand gestures, and it’s supposed to help raise the vibrations, raise the frequency and generate healing.

HENDERSON: So interesting. Is there any kind of central authority or text that holds these stories or the rules, or is there a group online? You’ve mentioned influencers a couple of times. How does this information get shared?

POST: That’s a great question. And I think that’s where I want to be really careful to say — I don’t think this is a religion. I think there are religious elements and it’s certainly a part of spirituality and the spiritual ecosystem, but it’s not centralized in any way. And while there are similarities — instead of pastors you have influencers, instead of speaking in tongues you have light language, instead of a conversion experience you have a spiritual awakening — like, there are parallels, but the way it actually works out, it’s not religious. It’s inherently anti-institutional.

HENDERSON: So interesting. So, is this growing in this moment, and why now?

POST: So, beliefs around starseeds in particular peaked around the pandemic, which is interesting, and if you think about it, kind of makes sense. Around 2020, 2021, it was this moment of fear and mass uncertainty, and it was also a time when people were stuck at home on their phones. A lot of folks stumbled across these influencers around that time, and they were looking for meaning, they were looking for purpose, they were looking for clarity, and they were looking for answers. They began to embrace this narrative of the starseeds and the battle between good and evil and everything that comes with that. It also makes sense that it happened around 2020 because it tapped into the distrust of institutions that’s already sort of baked in to the New Age spirituality space. So, when the pandemic happened and there was a lot of suspicion about vaccines and government actions taken, it confirmed what some New Age folks already thought in terms of their skepticism about government institutions.

HENDERSON: Or at least that’s how they interpreted it, right?

POST: It all just kind of came together in this moment, creating this environment where the belief in starseeds in particular accelerated.

HENDERSON: There’s this element of hyper-individualization that I hear within this, because it’s really happening for individuals. At what point does it become more collective, as you witnessed at the conference?

POST: Yeah, it’s so hard to measure. But I do think it has to do with the ways that ideas are disseminated online. One of the experts I spoke to talked about how there have always been folks who’ve had fringe ideas. The difference is that now they’re talking to one another.

HENDERSON: How do these beliefs start to shape how people understand the world around them?

POST: So, it depends, because there’s a spectrum, and just like any belief system, people can embrace these beliefs to a certain degree. And it also manifests differently. For some people, when they embrace these ideas about what it means to be a starseed, it can actually numb you from the rest of reality and from current events. Because if you believe you’re living in a fallen, limited, 3D reality, then the world around you as it is doesn’t really matter that much — you’re just waiting until you can ascend and get to the next dimension. But on the other hand, if you think about your role as a starseed as being part of this cosmic battle between good and evil, for some people it actually underscores the urgency around this political moment, because you might be compelled to actually take direct action in order to bring about the ascension, in order to trigger this coming new dimension, this better version of reality.

HENDERSON: Say more about the politics around those who understand themselves to be starseeds.

POST: I want to be careful not to overgeneralize. But I think what’s important to note is there are ways in which the conspiracies can bleed into really hard conspiracy theories like QAnon. And we are seeing conspiracy really ramp up in recent years. And there are similarities between the sort of cosmic narrative that comes along with being a starseed and QAnon. There is this belief in a cabal of elites that is satanic and evil and that you’re out to destroy. The difference is sort of the political implications. So, for some, when you really get into the harder QAnon part of this, Donald Trump is the savior — he is the one who is leading the charge against the cabal of evil elites who are pedophiles. It’s when you get into that territory, particularly, where you can have really dangerous consequences. And one example of this is the fact that the QAnon shaman, who was present on Jan. 6, identified as a starseed and actually started something online called Starseed Academy. Again, I don’t want to blow that out of proportion — not all starseeds are QAnon by any means.

HENDERSON: But there are extreme cases where these ideologies bleed together. It sounds like there are ways that people really benefit and find meaning from this community, and ways that it can become dangerous for individuals and for communities.

POST: Yeah, and it’s hard to tell the difference, because when you watch this content online, the sort of positive, good-vibes, self-help part of it really easily blends into the conspiracy stuff. There’s an influencer that I write about — her name is Elizabeth April. She’s 33. She will talk about the importance of choosing love over fear and will share positive messages with her followers, and then she’ll share a video that’s all about how Queen Elizabeth was a reptilian.

HENDERSON: There was a moment you wrote about — someone talking about ascension and their relationship. Can you tell me what happened there?

POST: This is taking us back to the Conscious Life Expo, which I attended a couple weeks ago. It was the final panel at the expo. Now, the panel wasn’t specifically about starseeds, but it was hinting at this idea of ascension. The title of the final panel was “Something Is Coming.” And there was a Q&A portion at the very end where a woman stood up and she said, you know, I’m super excited about ascension. I am so ready for the shift from 3D to 5D. I’m there. I’m ready. And then she paused and she said, but I don’t think my husband is coming with me. People laughed — it was actually almost like an inside joke at the convention and it was part of this shared language. But even though it was a moment of levity, I think it really can set the stakes for folks who are in this space.

HENDERSON: And when you think about that moment, what does it reveal about what people are really searching for?

POST: I think it shows how people want to feel chosen. They want to feel like they are part of the chosen ones, that they are chosen to ascend to the next dimension. They’re really hungry for a different version of reality. I don’t want to make assumptions about the folks who are in this space, but many of the folks I met had a lot of personal challenges — whether it was a health crisis or the death of a loved one. They want to live in a different kind of world. And they also want to be part of something bigger than themselves. Yes, they want to look inward toward themselves for healing and meaning and spiritual guidance, but they also want to be part of this cosmic narrative — part of this mission, part of something that gives them meaning.

HENDERSON: Something that so many of us are searching for in different ways. Kathryn, this has been a fascinating conversation, and there aren’t many times when I learn about something completely new in the religious and spiritual world. So, I am so grateful for you bringing this story to us.

POST: Thanks for having me. It was great to be here.

HENDERSON: Complexified comes to you from the Institute for Religion, Politics, and Culture at Iliff School of Theology in partnership with Religion News Service. Senior producer is Jonathan Woodward. Associate producer is Josh Perez. Consulting producer is Paul O’Donnell. Share this episode with your friend who is most likely to believe in aliens. And email me right now at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.. That’s This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it..