I think this is an interesting topic. Unfortunately the book’s structure didn’t work for me and I was finding myself a bit lost. After reading some other reviews of readers who felt similarly, I decided to dnf.

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.

5/5 stars, easy.

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

I haven't consumed much true crime/nonfiction in general in the past few years because I was tired of how disrespectful authors, podcasters, and showrunners were to the folks involved. Sottile threaded the needle between calling out heinous behavior and showing compassion for the victims and perpetrators alike, especially since the line between those two parties is often blurred. The Love Has Won cult was one of the first cults I saw dissolve in real time on the news so I was especially interested to learn about its origins and belief systems, as I really only knew about how it ended. I especially liked how Sottile framed the Love Has Won story within a history of New Age subcultures and cults in America, revealing a throughline of nationalist (and often homophobic, sexist, xenophobic, and racist) fringe beliefs all the way back to Lemuria that I hadn't considered but that honestly answered a lot of my questions of "why does this keep happening?" If you've ever wondered where the basis for the anti-vaxxer and crunchy-to-white-supremacist pipeline came from or if you just want to read a compassionate examination of how a cult came to be, this is the book for you.

I have long been fascinated with cults and the people who begin them, so reading BLAZING EYE SEES ALL was a welcome look into the inner workings of "Mother God" and Love Has Won, beyond the sensationalized facts of a woman who rode the tiger until it turned around and clamped its jaw down on her. Even though she was abusive to her followers and a grifter of the vulnerable, she still died young and ended up mummified wrapped in Christmas lights. I also enjoyed the history of purely American cults who worshipped, above all, their own superiority. I will be keeping the print galley I received and plan on purchasing a copy for my library.

Blazing Eye Sees All; love has won, false prophets and The fever dream of the American New Age by Leah Sottile, In this new journalistic gift from the author we mainly learn about Amy Carlson, Who was a leader of a cult, despite the fact there were so many reasons not to believe in anything she said but to understand her story Miss Sottile takes us back to the beginning. She not only discusses the roots of the enlightenment era those most likely to fall for it The similarities between all the groups from the 1800s and on. She discusses the fox sisters the Eddie brothers The “I am “cult even a cult to the stars JC Duncan Who can summon a warrior from a place that don’t even exist and so much more. This book was so interesting how this normal every day woman got these people to not only believe in her but give her thousands and thousands of dollars call her mom, despite the fact she abandon her own three children believe she was God even though every day she got drunk and did drugs catered to her every whim and punishment and even put up with all the different men she made their father God. It’s so easy to blow off people like this in just say how could they be so stupid but the issue goes much deeper and she even explores that. I had never heard of this woman before but now that I have I will not soon forget about her. I love this authors books and totally recommend this one. Throughout the book she ask many questions and tries her best to answer them all I thought this book was well researched conversationally written and keeps you wanting to turn the page. #NetGalley,#TheBlindReviewer, #MyHonestReview, #LeeSottile, #BlazingISeesAll,#GrandCentralPublishing,

As an avid non-fiction reader with an interest in new religious movements, cults, and critiques of the contemporary spirituality & wellness industry - aaand someone who is decidedly down with the woo-woo, and also healthily skeptical, and insatiably curious about the roots of the New Age movement - this book hit all the right notes for me.

Author Leah Sottile uses the story of the Love Has Won Cult and leader Amy Carlson/Mother God as a framing device and vehicle for exploring the roots of the contemporary New Age movement. She lays out for the reader, (with a particular focus on the New Age myth/obsession with Lemuria) a thread that leads us from Victorian Spiritualism and Helena Blavatsky's Theosophy, to the 1930s and the Ballard's Saint Germain focused religion, the I Am Movement, to the 80s/90s and Elizabeth Clare Prophet and her Church Universal and Triumphant, through to contemporary channeling teachers like Jane Roberts (Seth), JZ Knight (Ramtha) and their followers. She unearths the unfortunate connections of the roots of the New Age movement with bad/disproven science, eugenics, nationalism, racism, and antisemitism. It illuminates for the reader the spirituality/wellness to antivaxxer/conspiracy theorist to Q-Anon pipeline that has seemed baffling for many on the outside looking in.

The story of Love Has Won has particular relevance in the light of this history, showing how this cult's leader and members were regurgitating (mis)information with a long history and lineage they were completely unaware of. The dynamics of this group are by degrees troubling, abusive, angering, and just plain sad. I felt that the author did her best to humanize the subjects of her investigation. Even Amy Carlson, who by all accounts appeared to be a narcissist, addict/alcoholic, in varying throes of untreated mental illness. In the end her demands for obedience, her rambling delusions, and the enablers/cult members that surrounded her led to her own death by alcoholism, anorexia, and poisoning. The author helps us understand how this group of people got there, and the oft-hidden dark legacy of a broader movement trying to point people to the light.

Would highly recommend if you are interested in these subjects. While the author has a particular emphasis in mind, and I personally would have read a book three times as long and with a broader approach to the subject, the focus and narrative through lines are on point. This book illuminates an important part of the contemporary spiritual/new age/metaphysical movement.

Also if you are nerdy/academic/mildly obsessed with these topics the author does a great job of sharing her resources - books, archival materials, court records, and interviews with scientists, historians, academics, and people personally involved with these movements. Great work and research leading to a satisfying and thoroughly informative read.

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.

I've always thought cults are like murder. You like to think you're not capable of joining one--or killing someone--but if the circumstances are just right, if you're desperate enough, who can say for sure? There's an element of dating to it too, though; every now and then I learn about a cult I can safely say holds no appeal. Love Has Won is such a cult. The leader, Amy Carlson, claimed to be god, talked to aliens, had a parasocial relationship with dead celebrities, and also spewed hatred and medical misinformation online. The reason people know about her, if they know about her at all, is because of the HBO documentary showing how she withered away and eventually died from anorexia, alcoholism, and colloidal silver poisoning (at which point her followers kept and decorated her mummified corpse). It's shocking and sad and, as Leah Sottile shows in Blazing Eye Sees All, somehow inevitable.

Sottile ably shows Amy as the latest in a long line of New Age liars and grifters. Chapters alternate between Love Has Won and other b.s. artists through the ages: sisters pretending to be mediums, wackadoodles hanging around Mt. Shasta, and my personal favorite--Ramtha, the "30,000 year old warrior" supposedly channeled through the body of a random white lady who badly wanted people to pay attention to her. It's easy to make fun of stuff like this, but this is the age of Q and ivermectin and almond moms who would rather pay a scammer for "etheric surgery" than vaccinate their kids. This book is helpful in tying the various conspiracies together and showing how so many of them take a hard right turn, like all these people whose defining belief is "I have the right to believe anything I want, no matter how stupid and harmful it is" all end up in the same place.

Highly recommended for anyone curious about cults, the crunchy wellness/right wing overlap, Lemuria, and the sad saga of Love Has Won. Thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for providing a review copy.

This is a fantastic write up not only of the Love Has One/Mother God cult, but also of a history of the American New Age movement going all the way back to spiritualism and Madame Blavatsky, and showing the stark connections to White Supremacy and the modern alt right movement. As someone who has been deeply fascinated and horrified by QAnon/pastel QAnon and how it indoctrinates people though various means, and I really liked the way Sottile linked it all together to American New Age practices and influencers. Really scary stuff but super relevant, unfortunately. Definitely a must read if you are interested in cults and spiritual abuse and manipulation.

You can say many things about Leah Sottile's Blazing Eye Sees All, but you certainly cannot call it boring. Sottile takes a look at the cult, Love Has won, New Age Spiritualism, Lemuria, and a who's who of spiritual charlatans. I'm about to spill a lot of ink parsing out what is in this book. Ultimately, you need to ask yourself this question if you are deciding whether or not to read it. If you are okay with being entertained while not necessarily feeling fully informed, then you should read this book. If an author's inability to truly examine a subject with a critical eye is a requirement for you, then you should skip it.

Love Has Won, and really its leader Amy Carlson, is the main subject of the narrative. Love Has Won is based in....well, it kinda follows the philosophy of....Amy was kinda....well, I have now read a book and watched a documentary on Love Has Won and damn if I still can't explain it. Amy thought she was God. More specifically, she was "Mother God" and she had a succession of "Father Gods". She also drank colloidal silver to the point she turned blue. See, told you that you would be entertained.

There are numerous tangents off of the Love Has Won story line. Some have very clear connections like the spiritual charlatan that Amy claimed she was in a previous life. There are other very tenuous threads which Sottile follows briefly. At times, Sottile will also try to shoehorn misogyny into the story. I felt like none of these things really helped me understand Amy and Love Has Won. Also, none of them were investigated enough to convince me of anything really. That said, they were interesting diversions.

It must be said as well that I saw a long documentary on Love Has Won before the book. On one hand, it made me primed to enjoy the book. On the other hand, I could tell how much was left out of this book which could have been used. The tangents and diversions should have been replaced with more on the cult in the attempt to really shed some light on what was going on there. In the last few chapters, Sottile gets to interview Amy's children and these chapters are riveting. I wanted more, but alas, I had to hear more about Lemuria. It's a problem when a non-fiction book gets a bit too focused on the fictional ideas of the story instead of the people at the center of it.

In the end, I wasn't mad at Blazing Eye Sees All, but there are so many places where it plainly could have been better. The choice is yours whether it's a journey you want to take.

(This book was provided as an advance copy by Netgalley and Grand Central Publishing.)