Complexified

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?

RELATED: Starseeds, government plots and an alien mantis: Inside New Age spirituality's new age
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Muslim families in Texas are asking: does school choice include us?

A Houston father went to enroll his kids in Texas's new school voucher program and discovered his school wasn't on the list — along with every other Islamic school in the state. Texas launched one of the country's largest school choice programs promising families public funds for religious private schools, but roughly a hundred Muslim schools were excluded without official explanation. State officials have posted publicly about not funding schools tied to terrorist organizations, pointing to Governor Abbott's designation of CAIR as a foreign terrorist organization — a designation the federal government has not made. Now families are suing with a March 17th deadline bearing down. Amanda Henderson talks with RNS reporter Fiona André and editor-in-chief Paul O'Donnell about the lawsuits, the communities affected, and what this moment reveals about who "school choice" was really built for.

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When the podium becomes a pulpit.

At a Pentagon press briefing this week, Secretary of War Pete Hegseth closed his remarks with a reading from the Book of Psalms and ended with "Amen." Press briefings don't usually end that way. RNS reporter Jack Jenkins joins Amanda Henderson to trace how we got here — from monthly worship services in the Pentagon auditorium to biblical scripture overlaid on weapons systems to a Secretary of War who told his troops the nation needed to be "on bended knee, recognizing the providence of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ."

When the podium becomes a pulpit, what happens to everything else? That question hasn't gotten easier.

00:00 — Introduction: When the Podium Becomes a Pulpit

01:27 — The Original Episode: Setting the Scene

02:41 — The Generals' Meeting and the Warrior Ethos

05:14 — Christianity in the Military: Civil Religion vs. Hegseth's Faith

06:57 — "SecWar's Worship Service": The Pentagon Prayer Series

07:59 — Bible Verses Over Fighter Jets: The Social Media Campaign

10:15 — Recruitment, Viral Content, and Capital-B Believers

12:50 — The Theological Question: Faith as Military Doctrine

15:17 — Pushback — and Why It's Hard to Find

17:14 — Closing: The Baptism of the Military
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When empathy became toxic and cruelty became strength for Christian women.

Christian womanhood has changed—and not in the ways many expected. In this episode, Amanda Henderson talks with the co-hosts of the Saved By The City podcast Katelyn Beaty and Roxanne Stone about the shift from 1990s purity culture to today’s trad wives, MAGA moms, and warnings against “toxic empathy.”

They unpack how pandemic burnout, influencer culture, and widening political gender gaps reshaped the ideal Christian woman—and why empathy itself has become a flashpoint.

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Are six decades of solidarity giving way to generational strain?

For much of the last half-century, support for Israel was a defining pillar of American Jewish life. It shaped institutions, philanthropy, politics, and identity. The consensus wasn’t always quiet — but it was broad.

Today, that consensus is under strain.

Younger American Jews — many raised in synagogues, camps, and on Birthright trips — are expressing a different relationship to Israel than their parents and grandparents. Some are building alternative communities. Some are challenging legacy organizations. Some are questioning whether Israel should remain the organizing center of American Jewish life at all.

Meanwhile, established institutions are responding with urgency — and anxiety – warning of rising antisemitism, political danger, and fractures that could reshape the community for decades.

This tension didn’t begin on October 7. But October 7 — and the war that followed — has intensified it.

Religion reporter Yonat Shimron joins us to trace the full arc: from postwar American Jewish flourishing, to decades of near-consensus, to the generational and institutional rupture unfolding now.

What changed? Who gets to define Jewish responsibility? And what happens next?
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