#2504: Steven Bancarz

Lynda Balneaves is the president of the Society of Integrative Oncology, and a ridiculous and lunatic crackpot – but also frighteningly influential. She is, however, also Canadian, and although her work has enjoyed some influence in the US, she is accordingly disqualified for an entry.

 

Steven Bancarz doesn’t enjoy the same level of influence, but is much funnier. Bancarz is a youtuber and “former New Ager saved by Christ”, and he has brought all the reasoning patterns and critical thinking skills that characterized his New Age stuff – ostensibly, he “actively participated in astral projection, Christ-consciousness and more” ­– to his newfound radical fundamentalism. Indeed, Bancarz seems to have taken most of his New Age beliefs about orgone, chakras and astral projections with him into Christianity – he just inverted the evaluations.

 

So according to Bancarz, the 2017 Super Bowl, for instance, was, as is “typical” for Superbowl halftime shows, a Satanic ritual: “Pentagrams lining the stage at the Superbowl halftime show. Cross-dressing men with makeup dancing on stage. Flames, black clothing, 666 hand signs over the eyes.” In fairness, both Alex Jones and Dave Daubenmire made similar observations, which alone tells you most of what you need to know about Bancarz’s interpretive and cognitive abilities.

 

Bancarz is, with one Josh Peck, also the author of a book, The Second Coming of the New Age: The Hidden Dangers of Alternative Spirituality in Contemporary America and Its Churches. We haven’t read it, but apparently it reports on “perverse dealings the authors personally witnessed from their experiences deep within the New Age Movement” and explains the “real and dangerous supernatural force lurks behind the New Age”, the “[c]onnections between New Ageism, fallen angels, extraterrestrials, and the Nephilim” and “[h]ow quantum physics is being manipulated to promote the New Age agenda” (yes, New Age gurus engage in plenty of quantum woo; we suspect that’s not precisely what Bancarz and Peck have in mind). It also lays out the “[w]arning signs and influences of the occult in your life and home, and what to do if you are under spiritual attack.” In short, our “lives, our relationships, our world, and our churches all depend on our willingness to take action against the deceit of New Age spirituality.”

 

For the most part, Bancarz’s conversion seems to have been an ideological regression to the 1980s Christian paranoia/sensationalism –  the “Turmoil in the toybox”-stuff of, say, Phil Phillips and Gary Greenwald. Here, for instance, is Bancarz explaining (or whatever you call it) how possessing various items, toys and objects can give demons “legal rights” to do their demon stuff to you.

 

Diagnosis: One of the most laughable dingbats on the Internet, but he does enjoy quite a number of followers – far more now, as a fundie, than before, apparently. Probably mostly harmless nevertheless, in the sense that e.g. parents who listen to him would probably have ruined their kids’ lives anyway, Bancarz or not.