Nexus is an Australian-based bi-monthly alternative news magazine. It covers geopolitics and conspiracy theories; health issues, including alternative medicine; future science; the unexplained, including UFOs; Big Brother; and historical revisionism. The magazine also publishes articles about freedom of speech and thought, and related issues. The magazine is or has been published in over 12 languages and is sold in over 20 countries. When including digital editions, Nexus has approximately 100,000 Australian readers and 1.1 million readers globally. It is owned and edited by Duncan Roads.
Statement of purpose
In the magazine's masthead, a statement of purpose is printed:
<blockquote>NEXUS recognises that humanity is undergoing a massive transformation. With this in mind, NEXUS seeks to provide 'hard-to-get' information so as to assist people through these changes. NEXUS is not linked to any religious, philosophical or political ideology or organisation.</blockquote>
History
The magazine was first formed in 1986 by Ramses H. Ayana as a quarterly publication covering human rights, the environment, alternative health, women's rights, New Age, Free Energy, alternative science and the paranormal. Co-founder of the magazine was Jenni Elf and both founders had previously worked on the independent Australian magazine Maggie's Farm. Nexus was purchased by Duncan Roads in 1990, continuing a long tradition of keeping alternative publications alive in Australia. Following the handover, the topics covered by Nexus were changed and it moved to a bi-monthly publication schedule.
Conspiracy theories
In 1998, academic Michael Barkun wrote that "Recent issues of Nexus provide a collage of stigmatized knowledge claims, ranging from the health risks of fluoridated water, unleaded gasoline, and pasteurized milk, to "forbidden archaeology", Great Pyramid channeling, and UFO encounters. Threaded through this mélange of New Age and occult themes, however, are persistent political motifs". Barkun notes that Nexus's claimed goal "is the day when all people of all races and colours can live together in total trust and respect, on a planet that is clean, abundant, and healthy", but that this goal "seems constantly shadowed by malevolent forces" including the World Trade Organization, which is presented as a possible part of a sinister New World Order. Barkun observes that Nexus repeated conspiracy claims of right-wing American publications about the Oklahoma City bombing and that the magazine featured prominently in an article in the New Statesman titled "New-Age Nazism", which characterised it as "a propaganda journal for the ideas and conspiracy theories of the US militias". The New Statesman article's authors suggested that Nexus was originally a green, alternative magazine with an orientation that was liberal and multicultural but that it had become a publication of the far-right under editor Duncan Roads.
See also
- List of magazines of anomalous phenomena
- Philip Coppens, a contributor to Nexus magazine who died in 2012