So What's The Problem With Starseeds?

---

A Brief History of Starseeds

The idea of nonhuman beings incarnating into human bodies isn't new. Christianity, for example, typically holds that Jesus is a divine being (or God himself) who temporarily incarnated into human form to bring salvation to mankind. In Hinduism, gods occasionally incarnate into human bodies to bring wisdom or change to the world. Starseeds belong to the realm of New Age ideology, which takes a lot of its cues from Christianity and Hinduism.

I've gone into the origins of the New Age movement over here. If you aren't interested in reading it right now, then suffice it to say that it was kicked off in the late 19th century by a Russian woman, Helena Blavatsky, who traveled to Asia allegedly in search of spiritual wisdom. The thing is, Blavatsky misrepresented these philosophies on many points, and it's almost certain that she lied about learning from masters in Tibet for the simple fact that travel to Tibet was pretty much impossible at the time.

The core of New Age ideology is that the world is on the cusp of a new era, the Aquarian Age, or the Age of Aquarius. This new world will be populated only by the spiritually enlightened who choose to move forward in humanity's development or evolution; all others will perish. Basically, it's spiritual eugenics, and yes, a certain German political party ate Blavatsky's stuff right up in the 1920's and 1930's. (In the 1925 book Atlantis, Edda, & Bible, which tries to prove that the Germanic people actually descended from Atlanteans, the author constantly cites Blavatsky and describes her and her work in glowing terms. Many people try to claim that Blavatsky didn't influence these people, but their own writings show us otherwise.)

The idea of alien beings had already been catching on and developing for some time. For example, in 1647 Henry More speculated on the possibility of life on other worlds. In 1686, Bernard Le Bovier de Fontenelle published Conversations on the Plurality of Worlds, and in 1758 Emanuel Swedenborg published a book about his supposed adventures with extraterrestrial beings. In the early 20th century, there were numerous comic books and pulp novels about extraterrestrial visitors and voyages to other worlds, and with the rise of the film industry, movies about aliens hit the theaters.

Throughout the the 20th century, people reported all kinds of encounters and communications with alien beings. These accounts were often contradictory, and the alien beings were often credited with saying extremely bizarre and cryptic things, but nonetheless a kind of mythology emerged, with certain alien races and notions of what these races were like becoming more popular than others. Now of course, this mythology has evolved and shifted significantly over the decades, and if you compare it to contemporary politics and events it's often easy to see where people are projecting their hopes, fears, and prejudices onto alien beings. For example, the 1951 film The Day The Earth Stood Still gave us a jumpsuited alien who arrived on Earth to tell its leaders that they had to live in peace, or else they would destroy the planet. In 1952, George Van Tassel would begin channeling messages from "Ashtar," an entity who was supposedly very concerned that we'd destroy ourselves with our technological advancements.

Another huge factor at play in this time was white people being in denial over the accomplishments of non-white people. In the 19th and 20th centuries, many considered non-white people to be inherently inferior, and pretty much anytime white people found something that challenged that notion, they made up some nonsense to explain it away; EG, claiming that cities in Africa must have been built by a long-vanished white civilization, or even a race of aliens. Around the mid-20th century, a number of books advocating ancient aliens were published. Many people have heard of the 1968 book Chariots of the Gods? by Erich von Däniken, but Von Däniken himself got many of his ideas from other white people in denial such as Jacques Bergier, Louis Pauwels, and Robert Charroux.

It was in this cultural and spiritual milieu that the idea of alien beings incarnating into human bodies to help humanity along its spiritual development began to emerge and evolve. Please note, the books I bring up may not be the first books to introduce these ideas; they are, however, the earliest ones I could find.

In the 1907 book A Series of Lessons in Gnani Yoga, a white American man by the name of William Walker Atkinson writing under the pseudonym of "Yogi Ramachakara" claimed that enlightened souls from other planets are incarnating on Earth to help humanity ascend. It's mentioned very briefly, so it doesn't seem to be an idea that Atkinson put a lot of thought into. Worth noting, Atkinson was part of the extremely sketchy New Thought Movement - you know, the predecessor of Prosperity Gospel and the Law of Attraction, which today are often used to blame individuals suffering from problems caused by systemic inequality and rigged business models like MLMs. And I hope it's obvious that passing yourself off as an Indian mystic when you are very much not one is a very sketchy thing to do.

The 1953 book Other Tongues - Other Flesh by George Hunt Williamson talks about the "Wanderers." Williamson revisits some cryptic statements supposedly made by aliens mentioned in an earlier book he wrote, The Saucers Speak!, and claims they were about alien beings who travel to "backward worlds" and incarnate into human form in order to help their inhabitants. According to Williamson, 144,000 of these beings (a number borrowed from the Book of Revelation) arrived on Earth with Jesus back in the day, though others arrived later. Williamson claims that many famous people, including Benjamin Franklin, were among these Wanderers. Williamson also claims that "many ancient legends and manuscripts" mention them, and cites Lessons In Gnani Yoga - a book which would have only been 43 years old at this time.

Williamson claims that Wanderers can be identified by traits such as scars that have been present since birth, and that by focusing on these scars they can come to remember more and more of who they really are. He claims that many "great men of history" were such beings, and says that they have "infiltrated everywhere," especially in writing and radio careers. He also claims that they are often "nervous" or "highly sensitive types," or otherwise have gastrointestinal disorders. Supposedly, this is because of Earth's "lower vibratory rate." Williamson claims that many of these Wanderers are basically disabled.

Williamson claims that all Wanderers and alien beings observing and helping Earth in general are "Knights of the Solar Cross." And yes, the "Solar Cross" is a swastika. Later, he goes on to repeat a message allegedly passed on from a Knight who watches Earth from a UFO. The alleged Knight claims that Saturn is the home of the Universal Tribunal that gave Wanderers permission to visit Earth, which is interesting as these days Saturn is often believed to be the home of malevolent entities.

The "Knight" also claims that there's an "Interplanetary Federation," a name which incidentally appeared in Robert Heinlein's serial novel Between Planets two years earlier in 1951. The "Knight" goes on to say that in the past, they contacted Earth's prophets, who were unable to comprehend their true nature. They go on to claim that the "mysterious symbols" of ancient Egypt contain "records" of their presence, and among other things, claim that they left "outstanding landmarks" in various places around the world, including Egypt where they "established a headquarters for a time." The Knight claims that the "Eye of Horus" actually represents a stylized cross-section of a UFO, and not, ya know, the eye of a lanner falcon. They even claim that the Grecian discus was based on flying saucers.

The "knight" goes on to claim that the time for the aliens to fully reveal themselves to mankind is "fast approaching." As of 2021, it's been sixty eight years since this was published, and the aliens still haven't shown up.

Williamson goes on to tell us that all of the planets in the solar system are part of the Interplanetary Confederation. This is an interesting contrast to our current alien lore, which currently focuses on aliens from other solar systems. However, earlier materials and reported encounters frequently involve planets from our own solar system.

Later, Williamson goes on to claim that "Apollo, Hermes, Osiris, and others" were clearly alien beings regarded as gods by humanity. In the next chapter, he claims that Isaiah and Ezekiel were visited by aliens. And on and on he goes trying to link various Biblical figures and concepts to aliens, because why seek out Jewish perspectives on what these texts are all about you can just make things up instead?

This demonstrates that the idea of alien beings incarnating into human bodies has been linked to the concept of ancient aliens for a long while now; at least since the early 1950's. This isn't just some recent perversion of an innocuous older idea; it's been packed in with it since the beginning. Likewise, we can see that the ableism has been in here for a long time. Williamson doesn't focus on symptoms associated with autism and ADHD quite as much as later people do, but we can see how it's already pointing that way.

In the 1977 book Secrets of the UFO by Don Elkins and Carla Rueckert, Elkins explores the concept of Wanderers further. Elkins claims that Wanderers are essentially set apart by an inherent bias toward the love and brotherhood-oriented messages brought by the Confederation. And knowing what I know today, I would call that "being highly susceptible to fascist cult recruitment tactics." Fascists generally don't recruit people over things like violence and bloodshed; rather, they recruit them through promises of love, kinship, and brotherhood. Look at how warm and fuzzy the image on this poster looks. Read up on love bombing.

Elkins goes on to describe how he's found people who, through past life regression sessions, remember existences on other planets. Of course, we know full well that this kind of hypnosis does not prompt people to "remember" so much as it prompts a dreamlike state in which people fabricate new memories. Such is demonstrated in the case of Michelle Smith, whose supposedly recovered memories of Satanic abuse are described in the discredited book Michelle Remembers. (Quite frankly, the "memories" described in Michelle Remembers are so surreal and quite obviously impossible that I don't know how anyone could actually take it seriously.)

The book includes a transcript with a group of people who allegedly remember life as the "Nordic" type of alien. One part that really gets me in particular is where one of these people is asked if their planet has fish. They respond, "I don't know. There is much water." I don't know about you, but I think if one would remember anything about their homeworld, the matter of whether or not their oceans had some kind of wildlife would be one of them. What kind of rock do you have to live under not to have some idea of what's in your oceans? One might argue that this person might not remember because it's a past life, but this is extremely basic, fundamental information and should therefore be the easiest of all to remember.

Later, this person is asked if they can give an idea of which planet they're talking about. They respond, "No." Which, this seems to me like it should be the easiest question in the world to answer, if you are indeed experiencing genuine memories. The name of the planet you live on is pretty fundamental knowledge. This person claims that they can communicate with the animals of their planet "without words," but can't remember what they look like.

The 1984 book The Law of One: Book 1, which was produced by Don Elkins, Carla, Rueckert, and their group, purports to contain the transcriptions of a series of channelling sessions that began in 1981. Elkins claims that these messages come from an alien race known as Ra. He states that the Ra visited earth 11,000 years ago with the intention of helping us in our "mental evolution," but was unable to do so and retreated to monitor us. This is basically the now-discredited idea of linear evolution - the idea that there is a specific that path evolution (or at least, our own evolution) is "meant" to follow. The idea of linear evolution, or unilineal evolution, has always been extremely racist because it presupposes that European cultures were more evolved than, say, African ones.

The book brings up the Confederation of Planets in the Service of the Infinite Creator. According to Ra, the Confederation comprises of fifty three civilizations comprising of "five hundred planetary consciousness complexes." Considering that Ra is supposed to be an alien race and yet also speaks of itself as a singular entity, I can only assume that a "planetary consciousness complex" is some sort of alien hivemind, which is kind of a little creepy if you ask me.

The Ra entity talks about "Wanderers," and says that they "have as a general rule some form of handicap, difficulty, or feeling of alienation," with alienation being the most common feeling. Ra even claims that Thomas Jefferson was a Wanderer, which is quite a statement considering what a terrible person Jefferson actually was. Like, if you asked me to pick out someone on Earth who might secretly be an enlightened alien being, I sure wouldn't go for the one who impregnated an enslaved teenager.

The 1990 book E.T. 101: The Cosmic Instruction Manual purports to be from an entity called Zoev Jho, channeled by Diana Luppi. I don't know whether Zoev Jho/Diana Luppi were the first to use the term "starseed," but this was apparently a fairly popular book and so it would seem that at the very least, it helped put it into the public consciousness. And the ideology of eugenics is blatant.

The book claims that the 1990s will see "the Great Awakening," which will make the 60's look like an episode of Leave It To Beaver. Supposedly, a second wave of extraterrestrials will remember who they are. This second wave supposedly carries the seeds of a new consciousness in their DNA, and this new consciousness is described as an "unstoppable force." It goes on to say that the Great Awakening is a manifestation of the Victory of Light. This victory, the book claims, is already won outside of this plane and just has to manifest here.

For those of you who aren't aware, this is the ideology that the fascist, alt right crowd is going for these days. And little wonder, what with its its focus on superior genetics and an insistence that the forces of light have already won.

So in a nutshell, the initial idea of advanced alien beings incarnating on Earth to help us along basically comes from a white guy pretending to be an Indian mystic in the early 20th century. As far back as the early 1950s, the idea was being bundled in with the idea of ancient aliens, a concept that came into existence because white people refused to accept that people of color were capable of creating things on their own. And as far back as the 1950s, it was used to explain disability and what we now understand to be neurodivergence.

The fact that starseeds appeal to white supremacists today is not a fluke, nor an accident. It's the whole damn point. Today, the whole starseed phenomenon is essentially an alt-right pipeline. It gives alienated young people an explanation for their experiences, and pushes them toward hateful conspiracy theories that will ultimately radicalize them into the far right, something that's going on right now in communities such as r/starseeds. As of today, the mythology of starseeds proclaims that the bad guys of the universe are the reptilian aliens, or "lizard people," of Alpha Draconis.

For those of you who don't already know, the concept of reptilian aliens has been used to push antisemitism as far back as 1998, when British conspiracy theorist David Icke basically claimed that lizard people were infiltrating and controlling the world's banks and governments, and drinking human blood. These are literally just antisemitic tropes applied to space aliens. While not every believer in these conspiracy theories thinks most Jews are literally lizards, there are a number who believe that the vast majority of Jewish people refuse to convert to Christianity because they're being manipulated by space lizards, which they allege that wealthy Jewish families such as the Rothschilds are. (The idea that Jews need to convert to Christianity at all is itself antisemitic, as forcing conversion is a way of destroying culture and subjecting a people to one's own spiritual authority.)

So in a nutshell, the problem with starseeds is that it's yet another manifestation of New Age racism and far right conspiracy theory.

So what now?

I realize that this is a fairly brief summary of the history of starseeds, but I hope it's enough to demonstrate that this isn't some innocuous concept that's only recently been twisted and perverted toward hateful agendas. It was born from hateful, arrogant ideologies, and as such is inextricably intertwined with them.

If you feel deep down that you are really some kind of alien being, then I recommend that at the very least you don't call yourself a starseed. Understand that this whole obsession with DNA is just spiritualized eugenics no matter how you slice it. The reasons you are the way you are have nothing to do with "advanced" DNA, and the benefits your spiritual practice gives you aren't actually coming from "DNA activation" or whatever.

Whether or not you consider yourself an alien being, please understand while that channeling and hypnosis can be interesting, even fun ways to explore what's going on inside your own subconscious, they are not reliable means of gathering information pertaining to the real world, or "3D physicality," if that's the term you prefer. If you haven't seen it already, I really recommend watching Philosophy of Mysticism - Are Mystical Experiences True and Can Gnosis be Trusted?

Understand that the glittering promises that today's alien channelers and whatnot are making to you, were made to previous generations. Aliens have been supposed to reveal themselves "soon" since the mid-20th century. I know that with everything being as wild and unpredictable as it is, the idea that alien beings have everything under control is very soothing. But I think we also have to be honest with ourselves and look at the bigger picture. The basic claims have been the same for close to seventy years. If the aliens didn't deliver on their promises back in the 1950s, why should they deliver now or within any timeframe that's actually meaningful to us?

One thing I hope readers will take away from this, is that any time you find yourself interested or curious about a new spiritual movement or metaphysical concept, you should take some time to research and examine when and where it came from. Who were its proponents? When and where did they come from? What movements were they a part of, and what circles did they move in? How did the events, politics, and belief systems of their day influence them? What kind of criticism did their ideas get? Do they have a record of perpetrating frauds, hoaxes, or engaging in other dishonest behavior? And who or what influenced their beliefs, and how do these questions apply to them?

The thing is, any claim can seem plausible if you don't have enough information to understand why it might be doubtful or downright wrong. For example, the claim that ancient people knew about "vibrations" can seem very plausible if you aren't really familiar with any actual ancient cosmological views. Likewise, the notion that the gods might have actually been extraterrestrials can seem likely enough if you don't understand the complex histories of the worlds' religions, nor how an animistic worldview played into shaping many of them. If you're unfamiliar with world mythology in general, you won't realize how parochial focusing on the narrative of Genesis 1-3 is. If you don't know that Genesis 1-3 probably isn't even the oldest Hebrew creation myth, and an older one is referenced in Isaiah, you won't realize how ultimately strange and arbitrary it is to focus on Genesis as a source of "secret historical truth."

Starseed proponents, alien cultists, and other peddlers of woo in general exploit common gaps in people's knowledge to make plausible-sounding claims. And that's why it's important to look into the sources of these ideas. You can't just take their claims at face value or accept their proposals on their own terms; you have to look at it from an outside vantage point as well, and examine the movements from a historical and sociological perspective.

I hope you learned something from this article. Please share it with your friends and on your social media to help get the word out that this the whole starseed thing is actually a dangerous cult. If you want to support me, please consider subscribing to my Patreon. I'll also be including links to other information you might find relevant or interesting down in External Resources.

I know a lot of us feel overwhelmed with everything going on, but if we can work together to expose this stuff for what it is, we can make a difference. So please, start researching this stuff, spread the word around, and don't let democracy die.