In Blazing Eye Sees All, author Leah Sottile details, the current situation of New Age lifestyles and influencing within American culture. She tells all of this from popularity of tarot cards and astrology to pandering crystals and oils, along with a detailed deep dive into self-professed guru Love Has Won’s “Mother God” Amy Carlson.

Going from the casual, new age, motivational posting to the extreme cultish conspiracies, Leah travels through the gambit of New Age spirituality that has reached its penultimate crisis point during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Presented in a podcast like style Leah alternate from her history/deep dive into the Love Has Won cult and New Age spirituality in general from its history to its current variations online.

The audiobook is narrated by the author, and that adds to the podcast like feel of the story. She does a good job, bringing the reader in and making it feel like you’re having a personal conversation with the author. Her connection to the work is felt and heard throughout her reading, giving it a strong, personal touch.

This book hooked me from the very start; it’s an easy 4.5.

Sottile is known for her long-form journalism here in the Pacific Northwest, mostly about crime, criminals, and political and religious zealots. Blazing Eye continues in this vein, examining new age spiritualism and its connection to cults and conservatism.

The book spends about half of its time telling the story of Amy Carlson and her cult “Love Has Won.” In between this story, Sottile focuses on notable new age ideas (Atlantis, Lemuria, colloidal silver, “I am . . .”) and gurus (JZ Knight and Ramtha, Blavatsky, the Ballards and St. Germain) who preceded Carlson and LHW. These other clerics and cultists were, frankly, more interesting than LHW, mostly because it seems neither the cult nor Carlson added anything new to theosophical literature—or even really stood for much of anything besides elevating Carlson to her “Mother God” status.

Blazing Eye argues that new age spiritualism is a distinctly American invention, one driven by intuition and emotion instead of ritual and hierarchy. This personal, direct and intuitive approach made spiritualism more the domain of women than men, a contrast to most religions even today. Maybe this individualistic skewing, along with spiritualism gaining popularity when much of the west was still wild, entwined the new age with the west coast. Selection bias as adventurers and “open to experiencers” traveled west? Maybe Mt. Shasta is really just that glorious? Whatever it is, as someone who lived the first 30 years of my life on the east coast, it explained a lot about the west coast! (I am only half joking.)

Sottile narrates this and it’s perfect. Her voice is the exact kind of hard-boiled you want in a journalistic book: it’s dynamic, canny and a bit folksy. Thanks to Netgalley and Hachette Audio for the arc.

This is easily one of the best books I have read this year.

Leah Sottile writes about conspirituality, feminism, psychology, history, and the new age in a way that is everything I want in a book. She shares people's stories with nuance and kindness, works intersectionally to help make sense of the stories she's telling, and brings some really important insights into this conversation.

Reading this book felt like someone had sifted through my brain, found all the questions I had never thought to ask about some of my favorite subjects, and then put all the answers to those questions in a book. I can't shut up about it, I've been telling anyone who will listen about how great this book is.

I listened to the audiobook, which was narrated by the author. It was a solid performance- nothing special, but no complaints.

5/5 stars, easy.

Thanks to NetGalley for an ARC in exchange for an honest review.

𝑩𝑳𝑨𝒁𝑰𝑵𝑮 𝑬𝒀𝑬 𝑺𝑬𝑬𝑺 𝑨𝑳𝑳 𝒃𝒚 𝑳𝒆𝒂𝒉 𝑺𝒐𝒕𝒕𝒊𝒍𝒆 was graciously #gifted to me by @grandcentralpub and it caught my...attention. (Couldn't do it.) After diving in for several chapters, I was able to add the audio from @hachetteaudio via @netgalley which enabled me to stay with this fascinating nonfiction through my work.

I loosely remember hearing about "Mother God" Amy Carlson, specifically related to her place of birth less than an hour from where I now live. I did not, however hear about her group called "Love Has Won" until this book. I have, however, been acquainted with other various New Age accoutrement and while I do not put much stock in these ideas, it has been a great education.

This book looks at this one woman's journey to declaring herself a god, but also examines the deeper history of new age belief systems; explaining some history and possible reasons for why so many women are drawn to these practices. I was impressed with the level of compassion that was given alongside the factual realities of these movements. I felt as though I was gently encouraged to try to understand vs judge, and still land in truth.

This is not a comprehensive take down of all new age philosophies, but rather a book that looks at the motives behind groups (usually money), and to understand how cults can prey on vulnerable people and exploit them while leaders seem exempt.

I found this to be a very accessible and informative book. There is a fantastic amount of research that is given, and as I mentioned earlier, still a sympathetic exposé of a cult. Coming out March 25th, this is a great resource for understanding how extremism, cults, and new age consumerism blend together. A riveting read for me! 4.5 Stars

This was a very informative book on not only the Love Has Won cult but also the history of cults and the broader new age spiritual movement has spread throughout America and become part of every day life.
I really enjoyed the structure of the book, with jumps back and forth between the story of the Love Has Won founder and stories about other spiritualists from the past and present.
I definitely recommend this one, and think that anyone who has an interest in cults, spiritual movements, and American history would find this interesting. There were some thought provoking connections made between the various spiritual movements and beliefs and things that are happening politically in America today. It felt quite timely.

This book dragged a bit and I did find it over informative if that's possible. I did love this book though, I've watched a few different documentaries on Love Has Won and this added so much knowledge to me. It was easy to follow and overall really interesting. I listened to this on my tv and my wife who doesn't normally enjoy the genre found herself very interested in parts.

Blazing Eye was a wild ride! Great on audio. I liked the exploration of Love Has Won but also the history of "new age" mystical groups. It was well structured and propulsive.

Blazing Eye Sees All takes the following of Amy Carlson and connects it to numerous other areas of New Age Spiritualism. Honestly sounded great, but it wasn't organized in a way I could easily follow. Things felt shoehorned in to places where they didn't belong, and the rise of Love Has Won felt rushed. I already had a background of this group through the HBO documentary (highly recommend), and this didn't keep me very interested despite the story being so incredibly out of this world (I had to).

The audio was great, I think I got further along because I was listening to the audio rather than reading. The narrator was very good.

Thank you to Hachette Audio and NetGalley for an audio ARC in exchange for an honest review.