(Con)spirituality as a curriculum of immortality

If we are listening to marketing hype, it seems that—with enough money—we can live longer, healthier lives. These products, however, are often no more than consumerist swindling steeped in pseudo-science and pseudo-spirituality. When viewed through the lens of terror management theory (TMT), mitigating the harms of (con)spiritual grifts is more than a problem of a lack of scientific literacy, anti-consumer education, and media literacy. Those who are marketing items that claim to improve health and extend life are tapping into death anxiety. On their own, a lack of consistency, logic, evidence, or other criteria are not enough to halt (con)spirituality. Emotionality impacts consumerism, including conscious and unconscious desires linked to our existential situation. Considering (con)spirituality as a curriculum of immortality helps us to further understand the ways in which materialities of certain types of consumerism impact our deep anxieties about death (and vice versa), and thus moves beyond (con)spirituality as an informational problem.