🎙️ "The Algorithm Can Put You Into Spiritual Psychosis": Lauren Meisner’s Warning to the Always-Online Generation

🖋️ A word from our editor…

That Vice article mentioned in this episode—ChatGPT Is Giving People Extreme Spiritual Delusions—is wild. People believing they’re being chosen, guided, even loved by ChatGPT. Whole identities being rewritten by a chatbot that’s just ... mirroring us back to ourselves.

It sounds extreme, but if you spend enough time online, especially when you’re vulnerable, it starts to make a strange kind of sense. You’re looking for signs, comfort, direction. The algorithm gives you something that feels like an answer.

That’s what makes this Weirder Together episode with Lauren Meisner so timely. She’s not out to scare anyone, but she’s been in that spiral herself—tarot TikToks, spiritual videos, algorithmic affirmations. And she gets how easy it is to blur the line between content and meaning, especially when life feels uncertain.

It’s a strange and sometimes scary time to be online. Stay safe out there.

— Hao Nguyen, Editor

🤖 When Ben Lee brought up a recent Vice article on ChatGPT-induced psychosis, Lauren Meisner didn’t flinch. She’d seen it coming.

“We did an episode last year on like spiritual psychosis and how the algorithm can put you into spiritual psychosis,” she said on Weirder Together. “It wasn't related to ChatGPT—it was actually more related to TikTok. And it was based off of my own personal experience.”

That experience came at a vulnerable moment—her co-founder had just left their company, and Lauren was searching for direction. What she found instead was an algorithmic rabbit hole. “I was addicted to like, tarot talk, to all of those readings,” she admitted. “They got me. No, they did. And then I started getting these videos and I was like, oh my God.”

It’s an algorithmic spiral many recognise, especially in moments of personal upheaval. TikTok, ChatGPT, Instagram—these platforms offer the illusion of guidance, community, even prophecy. “All of my private videos are me using the sounds where they’re like, ‘use this sound,’ even if it’s private. And it’s just me on the couch being like, ‘money will come to me in like ten days.’”

Lauren wasn’t surprised that people are now reporting extreme spiritual delusions triggered by conversations with ChatGPT—claims that the AI is communicating secret messages, offering divine insight, or guiding life-altering decisions. “When I talk to GPT—I know you're not supposed to do this—but I’ll be like, ‘hey Queen,’ and then she’ll be like, ‘hey sister,’ with like emojis and stuff. I totally see how that happens with ChatGPT.”

Ben compared it to ayahuasca or guru culture—“it’s almost like an act again, with God.” The thread mentioned in the Vice article, “Chatgpt induced psychosis”, is filled with testimonials from people whose loved ones became convinced the AI was a personal prophet. “It's such deep manipulation,” Ben said. “And it really targets people who are in a state of vulnerability and looking for a sign.”

Lauren has spent years analysing online behaviour. As the founder of Centennial World, a Gen-Z media brand focused on internet culture, she’s built a career studying how the platforms we love can push us to the brink. From the outside, her career looks like a digital success story: a podcast network, a huge audience, and a growing brand. But she’s candid about the toll the online world can take—and the responsibility creators have when engaging with it.

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