The Algorithm Is Not Your Spirit Guide

Have you ever found yourself on your phone or computer, an hour deep into tarot readings, astrology updates, or channeled messages nodding along, feeling genuinely seen, maybe even taking notes thinking yes, this is exactly what’s happening for me right now?

I have. There’s something that feels like recognition when the right message lands. And for a while it’s comforting. You believe it. You carry it with you.

And then, slowly, quietly, whatever was supposed to happen doesn’t. The shift doesn’t come. The person doesn’t return. The breakthrough stays just around the corner. And you’re back watching another video, looking for the next message. But over time you start to realize what the content pointed toward, and what showed up in your life don’t match, and probably never will. That gap is what I want to explore today.

How do we even get pulled into this loop? It usually starts somewhere real. You’re going through something — a relationship that’s uncertain, a transition you didn’t choose, a loss, a period where the future feels unclear. Maybe you’re just anxious at 11pm and you pick up your phone. You find a video. A tarot reader who seems warm and grounded looks into the camera and says something like “this reading is for whoever needs to hear it,” and then proceeds to describe something that feels close to your life. You feel seen. You feel like maybe the universe is paying attention.

The algorithm, which has now clocked that you watched that video, starts filling your feed with more. More readings. More energy updates. More “the collective is going through a massive shift right now.” And for a while, it’s comforting. There’s a community of people in the comments who feel what you feel. There’s a language for your experience. There’s someone telling you that you matter and that things are going to be okay.

The need underneath this is very real. The longing to be seen, to find pattern and meaning in hard times, to feel connected to something larger than yourself, that is not a flaw. Research from Columbia University psychologist Dr. Lisa Miller, who has spent decades studying the neuroscience of spirituality, shows that humans are neurologically hardwired for this kind of connection. Our brains are literally built to seek relationship with something greater than ourselves. So, the pull is not a weakness, it’s biology.

But is the content we’re consuming feeding our hunger in a way that is truly nourishing?

At some point, for a lot of us, something shifts. We watch the videos, we consume the content, and we actively look for guidance. But instead of feeling more grounded, connected, or spiritually alive, we find ourselves feeling the same as we always did. Maybe that predictive reading from six months ago didn’t pan out, or maybe we start noticing that every single week promises a massive energy shift designed to keep us tuned in. If you have felt a quiet sense of disillusionment lately, please know that you haven’t failed at your spiritual practice. You have just run into a very sophisticated machine. When ancient tools meet modern algorithms, it creates a powerful psychological loop, and looking behind the curtain can help us understand what is happening.

The first layer of this loop relies on a psychological phenomenon known as the Barnum Effect. In 1949, researcher Bertram Forer gave students what they believed were personalized personality assessments, and the students rated them as highly accurate. The catch was that everyone had received the exact same vague description, filled with universal statements about having doubts or wanting to be liked. Collective tarot readings and energy updates work the exact same way. They are structured to feel deeply personal while remaining broad enough to apply to almost anyone going through a transition. It is completely natural that these messages land so hard in the moment, but the structural vagueness explains why a quiet emptiness creeps in later.

Our continued engagement is driven by a mechanism called intermittent reinforcement. Psychologist B.F. Skinner discovered that when rewards are unpredictable, we pursue them more compulsively than when they are consistent. This is the exact design principle behind slot machines and social media notification feeds. When one online reading happens to nail your exact situation, it creates a powerful neurological hit. We naturally go looking for that feeling again. Sometimes we find it, and sometimes we don’t, and that very unpredictability is what keeps us scrolling. It is not a lack of willpower keeping us hooked; it is basic brain chemistry responding to an unpredictable reward.

This digital format also mimics intimacy through what sociologists Horton and Wohl termed parasocial relationships. These are one-sided emotional connections where we feel genuine warmth and familiarity for a media figure who does not know we exist. When an online creator looks directly into the camera and says that your viewing is not an accident, they collapse the distance between you. Your nervous system responds to that warmth because the emotional experience feels entirely real. The human craving for connection is beautiful, but a video broadcast is fundamentally one-way and cannot do what a reciprocal relationship does.

We also have to name the platform architecture plainly: the algorithm is not a neutral tool, nor is it the universe sending you a synchronicity. It is a machine engineered to measure and maximize engagement. It does not serve content because it is true, useful, or good for your soul. It serves it because you clicked on something similar in the past.

When we combine a real human need for meaning with a machine optimized to mimic fulfillment, we experience a slow atrophy of our own discernment. Spending all our time letting someone else interpret the energy of our lives causes us to lose touch with our own brilliant ability to read our own terrain. Stepping back from the screen is not a loss of spirituality; it is the reclamation of your sovereignty. The universe speaks through your actual life, your immediate community, and your own quiet intuition.

It is one thing to name the trap we have all been caught in, but it is another thing entirely to find our way out of it.

When we step away from the flashing lights of the algorithmic feed, the sudden quiet can feel a little disorienting. We might wonder where to look for genuine depth when our screens have spent years defining what “spirituality” is supposed to look like. Fortunately, we do not have to reinvent the wheel or wander blindly in the dark. There are extraordinary thinkers, scientists, and practitioners who have spent decades anchoring transformation in the physical body, in rigorous data, and in real-world communities. They are the ones doing the quiet, heavy lifting to show us what lies beyond the screen, and their insights offer a beautiful, practical roadmap for anyone ready to ground themselves in something real.

Resources for Doing the Work

If you are ready to step away from the algorithmic feed and ground yourself in something substantive, you do not have to navigate the terrain alone. I want to introduce you to some researchers, therapists, and thinkers whose work offers a powerful antidote to passive spiritual consumption. These are the people doing the rigorous, deeply human work of showing us what real transformation looks like.

We can start with the actual biology of belief. Dr. Lisa Miller is a psychologist and professor at Columbia University, where she founded the Spirituality Mind Body Institute — the first Ivy League graduate program of its kind. Through over a hundred peer-reviewed studies and books like The Spiritual Child and The Awakened Brain, Miller has provided some of the most rigorous research we have on what spiritual engagement does to the human body.

Her work states that humans are neurologically built for spiritual experience. We possess specific brain circuitry designed for connection, meaning making, and feeling held by something larger than ourselves.

Here is the vital catch: that circuitry is only activated through actual, active practice, not passive consumption. When we engage that circuitry firsthand, our brains become more resilient and measurably protected against depression and addiction. The deep peace and connection people chase in those online videos are entirely real. The brain states they point toward are real. They are just fundamentally inaccessible through a screen.

5 Daily Practices to Activate Your “Awakened Brain”

According to groundbreaking research by psychologist Dr. Lisa Miller, human beings are hardwired for spiritual connection, we’ve already covered this. However, this neural circuitry cannot be activated by passive consumption, instead it requires active practice.

When we engage this circuitry firsthand, our brains physically change, building measurable resilience against depression, anxiety, and addiction. Here are five practical ways to activate your “awakened brain” today:

• The “Hosting Council” Meditation
  A 90-second imagery exercise to shift out of isolation. Close your eyes, take five deep breaths, and visualize a table. Invite anyone who has your absolute best interests at heart (living or deceased), your higher self, and your higher power to sit with you. Ask them: “What do I need to know right now?” This activates the brain’s bonding networks, replicating the neural feeling of being safely held.

• Shifting to “Spiritual Listening”
  Treat your mind like an antenna rather than a factory. When hit with an unexpected roadblock, stop trying to force a logical solution. Instead, quiet your mind and ask out loud: “What is life showing me right now?” This disengages hyper-focused task networks to allow for broader, more creative insights.

• Active Altruism and Service
  Spiritual circuitry requires a deliberate choice to love and serve others. Actively choose to engage in community service, help a neighbor, or respond to an annoyance with kindness. This engages mirror neurons and bonding circuitry, dissolving the illusion of separation.

• Cultivating Awe in Nature
  Nature is a universal gateway to transcendent awareness. Spend dedicated time outdoors without technology, intentionally focusing on the vastness and complexity of the natural world. Deep awe quietens the brain region responsible for tracking the boundaries of “self,” creating a physical feeling of oneness.

• Tracking Synchronicity
  Train your brain’s attentional networks to scan for meaning rather than threats. Keep a journal of meaningful coincidences, sudden intuition, or chance encounters that shifted your day. Actively documenting these moments validates them, wiring your brain to recognize that you are part of a larger, supportive universe.

To move from the brain into the rest of the body, we can look to therapists and somatic practitioners like Resmaa Menakem and Prentis Hemphill. Menakem’s book, My Grandmother’s Hands, is foundational reading for any kind of deep inner work. His framework, Cultural Somatics, starts from the premise that healing is not primarily an intellectual or cognitive event. It lives in the body, in the nervous system, and in the patterns of contraction and release we inherit through generations. So much of the spiritual content we scroll through is purely cerebral — it is a collection of words, concepts, predictions, and mental frameworks. The body simply does not know what to do with that. Actual healing requires our physical nervous system to be present.

Prentis Hemphill expands on this beautifully in their book, What It Takes to Heal. Hemphill argues with immense compassion that healing is not a destination, a product, or something you can consume your way into. It happens in real-world relationships, in the body, over time, through steady practice and returning to ourselves. This is a direct, gentle answer to the algorithmic loop. Both Menakem and Hemphill remind us that five minutes of being inside your own skin will do more for your spiritual life than five hours of watching someone else talk about theirs.

When we look at the broader online wellness space, we also have to examine what we are consuming. Spiritual activist and author Rachel Ricketts explicitly addresses this in her book, Do Better. Ricketts examines how the modern wellness industry centers whiteness while systematically extracting from Black, Indigenous, and other traditions of color.

A large portion of the “energy update” and “collective ascension” content floating around the internet draws heavily from ancient lineages it never acknowledges. Stripped of its historical context, community accountability, and original depth, this content becomes watered down and unmoored. By connecting spiritual practice directly to justice and systemic accountability, Ricketts grounds spirituality in a way that makes it real, historical, and deeply responsible to the world we live in. The exercises and prompts at the end of each chapter go deep, and prompt a thoughtful deconstruction of your own behavior and beliefs.

For a model of what a grounded spirituality looks like in action, we can turn to adrienne maree brown. In her book, Emergent Strategy, she describes a spirituality rooted in nature, in relationships, and in the fractal patterns of living systems. She reminds us that true change and transformation happen at the level of the small and the intimate. It does not occur in massive “portal activations” or overnight collective energy shifts, but in how we show up for each other, for ourselves, and for the earth on an ordinary day.

And if you want to understand the exact mechanics shaping your feed, Dr. Safiya Umoja Noble’s Algorithms of Oppression is the place to start. A professor at UCLA, Noble documents how digital platforms are shaped entirely by private profit motives and are anything but neutral in what they amplify. The spiritual community is not exempt from this. The voices, aesthetics, and versions of spiritual truth that get pushed to the top of your feed are not a random assortment, nor are they the universe curating your awakening. It is a corporate machine prioritizing engagement over your well-being.

Lastly, if you love the tarot and you also love anti-racist self exploration, you’ll really love Tarot for the Hard Work by Maria Minnis which transforms the tarot from a traditional tool of personal divination into a powerful mirror for collective liberation. By mapping the evolutionary journey of the Major Arcana to the heavy labor of anti-racism, Maria Minnis elevates tarot as a spiritual practice beyond a tool for mere self comfort, reframing it as a tool for self and social accountability. This practice forces radical self-honesty, using the cards to reflect our unexamined biases, privileges, and internalized complicity in systemic oppression.

Rather than allowing for spiritual bypassing (using mysticism to escape harsh social realities) the book explores the idea that inner insights turn into real-world action. It positions inner shadow work not as an end in itself, but as the essential spiritual practice required to dismantle systemic injustice. Through this lens, engaging with the cards becomes a sacred, active ritual of unlearning, proving that true spiritual awakening requires us to look honestly at our own reflections and take active responsibility for repairing harm in our communities.

If You’re Ready for Something Different

This is not an invitation to quit the internet forever or to decide that everyone making spiritual content is doing something wrong. It is simply an invitation to notice, honestly and without shame, whether the content you consume is nourishing you, or if it has become a substitute for the real-world action and connection you are looking for.

If you feel ready to reclaim your inner landscape, you might find it useful to step back from a few specific things:

• Collective readings that claim to tell you exactly what the universe has in store for millions of strangers simultaneously.

• Weekly energy update accounts that frame every regular planetary alignment or lunar event as a crisis requiring outside interpretation.

• Channeled messages that position a single online creator as the exclusive conduit between you and spiritual truth.

• Timeline shift and ascension content that promises a sudden, passive collective transformation that never quite arrives.

None of these things are inherently evil or bad, but a steady diet of them quietly replaces your own vibrant inner life with someone else’s interpretation of it.

Consider what you might like to put into that newly opened space instead. You can pick up your own tarot or oracle deck, pull a single card, and just sit with it. Let it act as a psychological mirror, surfacing something from deep inside you rather than delivering a message from the outside. You can sit, breathe, and sense what is happening in your body without trying to fix or interpret a single thing. You can journal with intention, asking yourself the hard, beautiful questions that only you can answer: What am I feeling right now? What do I know to be true today? What am I avoiding?

Building the capacity to stay with those questions is exactly what a true practice does. When you spend time in your own emotional landscape and set aside hours to be in the living, breathing world with your attention off the screen, you step out of the spell and back into your own sovereign life.

A Few Questions for the Road:

• Which of the psychological loops mentioned today (the Barnum Effect, intermittent reinforcement, or parasocial connection) do you recognize most in your own digital habits?

• If you took just half the time you currently spend watching online content and gave it back to your own direct practice, what is one small thing you would love to do with that time this week?

• Looking back at the thinkers introduced today, whose work feels like the specific medicine or perspective your inner life needs right now?

If You’re Looking for More, There Is More

• The Awakened Brain by Dr. Lisa Miller — rigorous neuroscience on why we are wired for spiritual experience and what actual practice does in the brain.

• My Grandmother’s Hands by Resmaa Menakem — somatic healing, body-centered practice, and the nervous system as the site of real transformation.

• What It Takes to Heal by Prentis Hemphill — healing as practice, not product. One of the most honest books I know on what this work requires.

• Do Better by Rachel Ricketts — spiritual practice, accountability, and the ways the wellness industry has extracted from traditions it doesn’t credit.

• Emergent Strategy by adrienne maree brown — transformation rooted in relationship, nature, and the patterns of living systems.

• Braiding Sweetgrass by Robin Wall Kimmerer — Potawatomi botanist and writer on reciprocity, attention, and what it means to be in actual relationship with the living world. One of the most genuinely spiritual books I’ve encountered.

• Algorithms of Oppression by Safiya Umoja Noble — for anyone who wants to understand what is shaping their feed and why.

• No Nonsense Spirituality by Britt Hartley — Britt has a master’s degree in theology, is an ordained Sufi and atheist spiritual director, and came through her own profound deconstruction. Subtitled All the Tools, No Faith Required. She also has a podcast and an active TikTok presence if you want to get a feel for her before the book.

• Tarot for the Hardwork by Maria Minnis — Take your tarot practice to the next level by implementing Maria’s ideas into your personal tarot practice. It will help you explore parts of yourself that live within the realm of unconscious bias and more.

Podcasts worth your time:

• On Being with Krista Tippett — long-form, rigorous conversations at the intersection of science, theology, poetry, and lived experience. Consistently features women, people of color, and Indigenous voices.

• Prentis Hemphill’s podcast Becoming the People and Finding Our Way — an accessible entry point into their work on somatics, healing, and practice.

• Blooming Wand — My podcast is built around exactly this kind of inquiry: grounded, honest, willing to look at the hard things, and genuinely interested in what it means to develop your own inner life rather than outsource it.

Getting in the Water

A spiritual practice can be anything — genuinely, anything — but it does require one thing that the algorithm actively works against, which is effort and return. Not perfection. Not a dramatic awakening. Just showing up, again and again.

The difference between consuming content about spirituality and having a practice is essentially the difference between reading about swimming and getting in the water. The content can point at the water. It can describe what it feels like. But you’re the one who has to get in.

If you feel like you’re at the threshold of wanting to get into deeper waters in terms of your spiritual practice, stay tuned. My next piece is all about how we move from consuming spiritual content to developing a practice that feels supportive and fulfilling. We’ll talk about the dark night of the soul and other spiritual allegories that speak to the sacred times when we begin to yearn for something more.