I recently had to go to Bristol for work, so I decided to get in touch with a friend of mine who lives an hour down the road in Glastonbury. As luck w

Blinded By The Light: countering extremist disinformation in Glastonbury

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2024-06-09 02:00:03

I recently had to go to Bristol for work, so I decided to get in touch with a friend of mine who lives an hour down the road in Glastonbury. As luck would have it, on the day I was able to visit, two local groups called Glastonbury Independence Alliance and Community Solidarity Glastonbury were holding an event called Blinded By The Light, an event aimed at countering extreme right wing messaging in Glastonbury, with particular focus on The Light newspaper.

As a member of the Skeptical community in the UK, I had heard of The Light Newspaper through listening to Skeptics with a K, and from reading Mark Horne’s articles about The Light and the community pushback against it taking place in Stroud.

Put briefly, The Light is a free newspaper, founded in September 2020. Self-styled as a “truth” newspaper, it spreads misinformation and conspiracy theories. Had I heard about this event taking place anywhere I would have been interested, but the fact that it was taking place in Glastonbury made the event especially intriguing.

I’m sure that most people know of Glastonbury as the UK’s largest mud and music festival, but not as many will be familiar with the small town in the county of Somerset after which the festival is named. To those in the know, the town of Glastonbury is synonymous with all things alternative, spiritual, and occult. This is abundantly clear to anyone just taking a walk down the high-street. It seems every other shop is offering crystals, decks of tarot cards, incense, bundles of sage, singing bowls, aura readings, soul healing, sound therapy… The list is endless. There are even a surprising number of private residences with posters in the window advertising mystical services of one sort or another.