America’s Golden Calf: QAnon and the Religious Function

Abstract

This theoretical dissertation examined the QAnon conspiracy theory as a psychological manifestation of an exiled religious function seeking expression through alternative mythological structures. Through a depth psychological hermeneutic lens, it investigated how religious fundamentalism’s control of numinous experience creates psychological conditions wherein archetypal content emerges in distorted and compensatory forms. The research analyzed QAnon imagery, symbols, and narratives. The biblical golden calf narrative emerged as a template for understanding religious alienation and substitute religious experiences.

The study demonstrates QAnon functions as a contemporary religious movement, complete with its own trinity (Q, Trump, and Anons), apocalyptic narrative (The Storm and Great Awakening), and demonic opposition (the Satanic cabal). These elements provide substitute religious encounters when authentic numinous experience has been constrained by fundamentalist attitudes, creating institutional, epistemic, temporal, and spiritual forms of psychological exile.

Analysis reveals how the substitutes for authentic numinous experience lead to a literalization of symbols rather than an authentic symbolic engagement. This pattern manifests in QAnon through concrete narratives about trafficked children, adrenochrome, and apocalyptic political judgment that represent literalized archetypal motifs. Drawing on Jung’s treatment of the Yahweh archetype in Answer to Job, the research illuminates how these narratives demonstrate the psyche’s persistent need for meaningful engagement with archetypal content.

The dissertation contributes to cultural complex theory by framing QAnon as psychological movement toward dark re-enchantment—a “living myth” channeling archetypal energy in response to spiritual alienation. It offers a framework for reintegrating exiled religious functions through renewed symbolic awareness rather than further repression or literalization.