From Russia with Love and Light

How the Kremlin targets the wellness, alternative health and spirituality ecosystem

From 2004-2007 I lived and worked as a freelance financial journalist in Moscow. I was such an obscure young hack, I barely registered on the radar of the FSB (Russian intelligence). I had one contact at Novosti, the Kremlin’s news agency,  a nice guy called Denis who quickly recognized I was unlikely to pose any threat to the Kremlin. However, Denis did kindly arrange for me to go and stay at the Optina monastery, the famous Orthodox monastery whose fans included Tolstoy and Dostoevsky. 

I went there for a retreat during Lent 2006, but departed after just one night. It was a magical place, full of beaming monks trudging through the snow to worship. It was also replete with friendly cats, one of which jumped on my back, curled round my neck and then purred like a warm pneumatic scarf. And I loved the services - the chanting, the icons’ gaunt faces flickering in the candlelight. 

There were just two problems - first, the food, or lack of it. Dinner was pretty much a carrot, if I recall correctly. Second, the Archimandrite kept trying to convert me. He invited me for two private audiences, where he went on and on about the moral bankruptcy of the West, the corruption of the Pope, the empty liberalism of the Anglican Church, the ubiquity of the Freemasons, on and on. I was flattered by his attention and politely listened, staring into his eyes until I felt hypnotized. If it wasn’t for the fact I only understood about 30% of what he said, I would probably have converted, become a nationalistic Russian Orthodox monk, and would right now be preaching against the West on Russia Today. 

Today I wonder…was that Denis’ plan all along?

Around that time, Vladimir Putin launched a new plan to influence public opinion in the West and around the world. He spent $30 million of his petro-dollars on an English language TV channel called Russia Today, which launched in December 2005 in a Kremlin attempt to counteract the global influence of the BBC and CNN. I reported on its launch and interviewed its 25-year-old CEO, Margarita Simonyan. Back then, she and RT were something of a joke among foreign correspondents. But two decades later, the joke is on us - RT is still around, Simonyan has become one of Putin’s main propagandists, and the anti-Western influence of RT creeps further and further into all sorts of corners - including into my present beat, the world of wellness and alternative spirituality. 

Putin and Margarita Simonyan, editor of Russia Today

Just last week, the Canadian prime minister Justin Trudeau claimed under oath that spiritual guru Jordan Peterson and news commentator Tucker Carlson are both secretly paid by Russia Today. This, I imagine, is based on solid Canadian state intelligence and not just an opinion.

In Carlson’s case, Kremlin influence is not so secret - Carlson went to Russia, did a fawning interview with Putin, then made videos gushing about how incredible the supermarkets are. A Kremin memo of March 2022 declared: ‘It is essential to use as much as possible fragments of segments by the popular Fox News host Tucker Carlson.’ 

But Jordan Peterson? Why would the Kremlin finance a lachrymose Jungian?

It’s simple. If you’re trying to undermine your enemy, you use whatever pieces are on the chessboard. If you’re the CIA in Afghanistan in the 1980s, you use the local Mujahideen and fund their anti-Soviet jihadi rhetoric. If you’re Russia opposing the West today, you use any online influencers, even New Age influencers, and try to align them with pro-Putin, anti-Ukraine sentiment. The New Age ecosystem was against vaccines and lockdowns, and prone to wild anti-Democrat conspiracy theories, so they can be manipulated by the Kremlin’s propaganda machine.  

If Trudeau is right, Russia Today or the FSB would have had plenty of opportunities to recruit Peterson. He spent a month in Russia in 2020, supposedly at a hospital recovering from an addiction to Benzos. Who goes to Russia for medical treatment, a country where the male life expectancy is 69, 13 years lower than Canada? 

Two years later, when Putin invaded Ukraine in a mad attempt to recreate the Holy Russian Empire, guess who came out swinging for him? Jordan Peterson. He published a long essay saying this wasn’t actually an aggressive and murderous act of egomaniacal Tsar-o-mania. No, it was Putin standing up for Christian values against the woke West. Come again? 

His essay was morally bankrupt nonsense and grotesque propaganda for a murderer, but who knows, maybe some of Peterson’s devoted followers believed it, maybe it helped turn the tide of western opinion somewhat in favour of Putin and against Ukraine. Whatever the Kremlin paid Peterson, it was money well spent from the Kremlin’s view. 

Our Tsar, Who art in Moscow, Give us this day our daily bread

This was not the first time the Kremlin has targeted wellness and New Age spirituality in its anti-western propaganda campaign. After the paywall, a quick guide to Putin’s woo-war against the West.