Book Review: ‘The Instability of Truth,’ by Rebecca Lemov; ‘Blazing Eye Sees All,’ by Leah Sottile

Many of these self-styled sages claimed deep connections to “lost” civilizations and espoused elaborate mythologies that touted specialized diets, supplements, “angel numbers” and high-vibration colorways. A lot of them also enthusiastically embraced the material perks that their followers’ fervent financial support provided, even as they grew increasingly paranoid and isolated from their flocks.

More than once, Sottile floats the idea that New Age practices gave women voice and agency in a world where that is hard to find. It’s a thought worth exploring, though one that also seems to let some uniquely harmful people off the hook: religious chicanery, the great feminist equalizer!

A penchant for elisions and overbroad statements (“No one wants to be a God. Not really,” Sottile asserts at one point, after having spent some 250 pages methodically proving otherwise) also tends to mar an otherwise compelling and colorful read. The entertainment value is evident; the aftertaste is queasy and a little sad.

Where both writers find consensus — other than the loony historical footnote of the former first lady Nancy Reagan’s outsize fixation on astrology — is the essential humanity of their subjects, many of whom it would be too easy to put at a disparaging distance.

On “Severance,” the show’s split characters eventually begin to uncover the more sinister aims of their supposedly benevolent employer, a mega-corporation whose arcane codes and credos hint at its own cultish leanings. The cognitive dissonance of that will surely be resolved, give or take a season, by some canny mix of science and screenwriting. But no one outside a TV show wakes up and says, “I’d like to lose my mind today.” There are many ways to detach from perceived reality or even basic good sense, whether it’s the Manson Family or a peer-to-peer marketing scheme that sells brightly patterned leggings, and not a lot of proven methods to get it back.

The brain is a soft black box whose ideologies regularly tip toward extremes: Look no further than the diverse demographics of those who have come to furiously reject vaccines. (Hence the memorable designation of some of the fringier elements of New Age conspiracy as “pastel QAnon.”) Then again, maybe even the most passionate of those true believers will change their minds; it happens all the time.

THE INSTABILITY OF TRUTH: Brainwashing, Mind Control and Hyper-Persuasion | By Rebecca Lemov | Norton | 464 pp. | $32.99

BLAZING EYE SEES ALL: Love Has Won, False Prophets and the Fever Dream of the American New Age | By Leah Sottile | Grand Central | 296 pp. | $30