Amid great media attention, four women and nine children with links to Islamic State have returned from Syria to Australia.

Three of the women were arrested by police after touching down in Melbourne and Sydney on Thursday night. One was charged with terror-related offences after arriving in Sydney, while two were charged with crimes against humanity offences after arriving in Melbourne.

Those cases will be now play out through the courts.

They will all face other challenges, too, with Australian Federal Police Commissioner Krissy Barrett stating some of the group “will be asked to undergo community integration programs, therapeutic support and countering violent extremism programs”.

So-called “de-radicalisation” programs are complex and can differ depending on the age and location of the people involved.

Let’s unpack what happens in these situations, specifically in Victoria and New South Wales, where the women and children have returned to.

Different states, different programs

Each state and territory has different programs with slightly different focuses.

In Victoria, the program is more ideologically focused. It was originally led by the Islamic Council of Victoria in cooperation with Victoria Police and Corrections Victoria.

Since then it has been revised, evaluated and taken over by Victoria’s Board of Imams who continue to work closely with authorities.

It’s a voluntary, community-led program where imams help the alleged offenders gain a better understanding of their religion, and guide them towards peaceful interpretations of their faith. It also has a therapeutic element designed to disengage people from violent extremism and aid their reintegration into the community.

There are other aspects of the program that deal with possible mental health issues and support to address specific risks and needs.

In NSW, it’s very much a social services model. You could liken it to a triage system where they look at the risks and needs of the person and then provide interventions based on addressing those specific risks and needs. For example, if someone has anger management issues, they’ll set up psychological support and education and so forth.

There’s no Australia-wide de-radicalisation program – there is federal coordination but each state and territory’s approach is slightly different through police-led intervention and support from social service agencies.

Read more: IS-linked women are facing a raft of criminal charges. A legal expert explains the laws at play

How do these programs work?

There are a lot of professionals who work in these programs: social workers, psychologists, psychiatrists, legal practitioners, criminologists, religious clerics and leaders.

The key to a successful outcome is intensive engagement and trust-building.

If a person doesn’t trust the people working with them, they tend not to engage with the facilitators and often just look for a way out. But if trust has been established, others can be brought into the circle, which can include family and friends as well as mentors and trained professionals.

One of the greatest challenges is getting community cooperation. Some of the best programs are community-led rather than government-led, as communities tend to have the right cultural and religious sensitivities to ensure the program is effective. These subtleties are often missed by those on the outside of relevant communities.

But de-radicalisation is not always a linear path. There are often setbacks and failures and sometimes people re-offend.

Police play a vital role if things go wrong, such as if the person threatens to harm themselves or others. Aside from their own community engagement programs, police can step in to re-arrest the person and protect the community if needed.

The first priorities

For the families that returned to Australia this week – the throng of media, the crush of people around them – these circumstances will be traumatic. There is also stigma associated with their history and that’s going to require lots of effort to get through.

The immediate focus should be getting them out of public attention as soon as possible to dial down the pressure. Until that happens, it’s going to be very hard to get effective interventions going.

For the women who have been arrested and are being brought before the courts, there will be a judicial process where they may or may not be granted bail prior to further court hearings.

If convicted, either Corrections Victoria or Corrections NSW have dedicated prison programs. There is also a good chance they will be eligible for de-radicalisation programs before and after their release, should they wish to participate voluntarily.

There’s also going to be significant separation anxiety issues – not just between mothers and children but also the separation between the members of the group. They will have gone through a lot together and now they’re being separated, this will affect them psychologically.

What about the children?

The children involved have likely all suffered extensive trauma – living in difficult conditions in the refugee camps, suffering through extreme cold and extreme heat, poor diets and so on.

Child psychologists will be crucial, but the most immediate priority will be ensuring their basic needs are met – such as proper housing, nutritious food and getting them re-engaged with their families.

There’ll be different courses of action for the children and that will be based on age. Treatment will be different depending on a child’s age.

But first question is: what do they need straight away? Then, there’s the longer-term interventions that can hopefully produce a good outcome for the person involved, and the wider community.

Clarke Jones receives funding from the Australian Government for his work in the Philippines correctional system.

If you scroll through social media for long enough, you’ll probably find videos claiming that listening to songs tuned to “A 432Hz” can provide an amazing sense of calmness or healing.

It’s even claimed that listening to music tuned to this frequency can align your internal frequencies to those of the universe. It’s an alluring idea – that simply listening to music tuned in a specific way could improve your health.

But does it have any scientific basis?

An ancient idea

Firstly, what does it even mean if songs are tuned to A 432Hz?

Hertz (or Hz) is a measurement of frequency, or the number of times sound waves vibrate per second. Sounds are transmitted as waves through the air which hit our eardrums to create the sensation of hearing. The more quickly those sound waves are vibrating, the higher the pitch of the note.

In standard concert tuning, the note A above middle C is tuned to 440Hz. A 432Hz tuning simply means the pitch of that A and all the other notes in the music are tuned a little lower than normal.

Some argue 432Hz is closer to natural harmonic frequencies than 440Hz and that using this tuning is therefore better for wellbeing.

The idea that sounds or music can heal or even align us with the cosmos is not new. Long before social media, the ancient Greeks linked sound to the frequencies of the universe. Pythagoras proposed musical notes were governed by simple numerical ratios, the same ratios he believed underpinned the cosmos itself.

Later, medieval and Renaissance thinkers built on these ideas with the concept of “music of the spheres” – the idea that sound could be used to align us with the vibrations of the planets in a kind of cosmic harmony that influenced human emotions and wellbeing.

No magical effect

Although the concept of cosmic alignment is intriguing, there’s little scientific support for the idea that specific frequencies have any magical effect on wellbeing.

In one study from 2019, researchers played movie soundtracks tuned to 440 Hz to participants on one day and to 432 Hz on another day, finding that after listening to the 432 Hz tunings participants had slightly decreased heart rate and blood pressure. However, the study was limited by a very small sample and non-randomisation of participants, making it difficult to separate true frequency effects from expectancy or general relaxation responses.

Modern research suggests the effects of sound or music on wellbeing are less about any single special frequency, and more about how we perceive and interpret sound.

Some have theorised the use of frequencies that correspond to specific brainwave patterns such as delta waves (0.5–4Hz, associated with deep sleep), or alpha waves (8–12Hz, associated with relaxed wakefulness), can make the brain synchronise to those frequencies and achieve a relaxed state.

However, research in support of this theory is inconclusive. One study from 2017 found no changes in electrical activity in the brain after hearing such frequencies presented as binaural beats.

Binaural beats themselves are another form of sound that many claim can have miraculous effects on wellbeing. When two slightly different frequencies are played separately into each ear, the brain perceives a rhythmic pulse at a rate equal to the difference between the two frequencies. This is called a binaural beat.

There is some evidence that our physiological systems (such as breathing and heart rate) synchronise to any beat that we hear. This can help lower our levels of arousal or alertness.

That’s why most of us tend to be attracted to slower, calmer sounding music when we want to relax, for example, since the slower beat helps slow our breathing and heart rate and make us feel sleepier or calmer.

Focusing on your own response

Does that mean binaural beats have any special therapeutic effect? Not really.

A recent study found binaural beats can increase relaxation and alter brain activity. But crucially, similar effects were also observed with other types of moving or spatialised sounds. The authors concluded the benefits were likely driven by general auditory features rather than the binaural beats themselves.

It all comes down to individual preferences and perceptions. For example, binaural beats are frequently associated with meditation or mantras. And it could be this association which enhances the supposed wellbeing effects of binaural beats for some people.

Similarly with music tuned to A 432Hz.

Our brains tend to interpret sounds as expressions of emotional states. When humans are relaxed, our voices are usually lower in pitch than when we are excited or agitated.

Thus, notes of a lower pitch are sometimes perceived as more relaxing than notes that are higher pitched. Again, this doesn’t mean there is anything special or magical about 432Hz tunings – just that for many people, lower pitched notes seem calmer. The same effect could be achieved by listening to other music or frequencies with a lower pitch.

So while 432Hz might sound soothing to some ears, it’s not a shortcut to cosmic alignment. Rather than thinking about the numbers, focus on really becoming aware of your own response. Notice how different sounds make you feel, what slows your breathing, eases your body, or lifts your mood.

When it comes to wellbeing, what works is what works for you.

Sandra Garrido is the CEO of MoodyTunes, a music-based smartphone app for youth mental health.

This week, the Australian Bureau of Statistics released its refreshed General Social Survey. It tells a story economic indicators can’t capture.

On almost every measure of how Australians experience their lives – trust, connection, cultural openness, financial security, even how healthy we feel – things have gotten worse since the last survey in 2020, which was conducted during COVID.

What the data reveal

The survey results, collected in May and June 2025, show that many aspects of Australian life are shifting.

Compared to the previous General Social Survey in 2020, the new data reveal:

● Cultural tolerance is high, but dropping: 75% of people think it’s good for society to include different cultures, down from 85%.

● Trust in people and systems is falling: 50% agree others can be trusted (down from 61%), and 61% trust the healthcare system (down from 76%).

● Financial stress is rising: one in four households (25%) have at least one cash flow problem in the past year, up from one in five (21%). For single parents with dependents, it’s closer to one in two (48%).

● Fewer people feel healthy: 49% report their health as excellent or very good, down from 54%.

Almost one in ten Australians (9%) report very high mental distress. This is more common in women than men (10% vs 7%), especially in those aged 15–24 (17% of women vs 6% of men).

Although collected differently, mental distress rates are higher than previous ABS survey data from 2020–22, where only 6% reported very high levels.

How satisfied with life are we?

Overall life satisfaction, one of the most widely used measures of subjective wellbeing globally, sits at 7.1 out of 10 – similar to 2020 levels.

The annual Australian Unity Wellbeing Index data collected at the same time in 2025 was similar (6.9), but showed a small rise from its 2024 recording of 6.7.

Perhaps unsurprisingly, when we compare people with low life satisfaction to those with very high life satisfaction, big differences emerge. People with low life satisfaction are far more likely to:

● have very high mental distress (40% vs 1%)

● feel very lonely (47% vs 5%)

● have low trust in others (43% vs 19%)

● feel rushed for time (50% vs 20%)

● and feel they can’t have a say about important issues within their community (62% vs 24%).

Turning data into policy

Politicians talk about delivering a “good life” for more Australians. We now have ABS data on some important markers of a good life that go beyond traditional economic measures like GDP and productivity, or administrative measures like hospitalisations.

But the question remains: how will we use these data to deliver better lives for more Australians?

The Australian government formally acknowledged the limits of economic measurement by introducing its Measuring What Matters Framework in 2023.

The framework tracks 50 indicators of wellbeing across five themes: healthy, secure, sustainable, cohesive and prosperous.

The federal treasury has invested $14.8 million over five years to make the General Social Survey annual from this year onwards. This provides important regular data to help meet the goals of Measuring What Matters.

However, measurement alone changes nothing. A 2024 Australian National Audit Office report found treasury had no arrangements to monitor whether Measuring What Matters was actually being used in government decision-making.

Treasury accepted the recommendation to fix this – but until wellbeing measures are tied to budgets and championed by those in power, they remain a dashboard, not a lever. After all, budgets determine where resources flow, and resources drive outcomes.

States are already doing it

Several state and territory governments have moved beyond just measuring wellbeing and built it into how they make budget decisions.

The Australian Capital Territory government requires a “Wellbeing Impact Assessment” for all new budget proposals.

This involves identifying which areas of community wellbeing the funding will affect and how these impacts will be measured. It also specifically considers the effects on Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples, women and future generations.

Victoria’s Early Intervention Investment Framework takes a different approach. Through evidence-based budgeting, it invests early in social programs to improve outcomes and reduce long-term government costs, such as avoidable hospitalisations.

Sitting within the state’s treasury department, it also increases cross-collaboration across government departments and portfolios, enhancing coordinated efforts.

Without tools like these, budget processes will default to familiar patterns. Money flows towards addressing problems after they occur, rather than towards longer-term investments that prevent problems from happening in the first place.

Funding what we value

Internationally, many countries have redesigned budgeting systems to serve people and the planet, rather than economic growth. Where this has worked best, citizens have helped shape the journey.

Wales is a standout example where large-scale national conversations about the country’s future shaped the Wellbeing of Future Generations Act, whose seven goals are now embedded in government decision-making.

Community consultation was somewhat light for Measuring What Matters. Many Australians have no idea what it is. A national conversation would help everyday Australians shape the long-term direction of our country.

But we don’t have to wait for a national conversation to begin changing budget systems. Measuring What Matters and the General Social Survey are major steps in the right direction and provide the foundations to be embedded into budgetary decisions and adapted over time.

The five themes could become goals. If a policy proposal cannot demonstrate how it benefits these goals, it shouldn’t be funded. This would mean building wellbeing into how we allocate resources instead of just reporting on it.

What a nation measures signals what it values. What it funds builds on these values to shape better lives.

Kate Lycett receives funding from Australian Unity as part of the Deakin University and Australian Unity partnership to conduct the Australian Unity Wellbeing Index.

Georgie Frykberg received funding from Australian Unity as part of the Deakin University-Australian Unity industry partnership to conduct the annual survey of Australians' subjective wellbeing.

Warwick Smith is a Research Director at the Centre for Policy Development and a Director of the Castlemaine Institute, a charitable research hub.

Eighty-one years after Adolf Hitler died by his own hand in a Berlin bunker, a viral video on TikTok shows an AI-generated vision of the Nazi dictator standing in Antarctica, shoulders broad and face smiling, sipping a White Monster Energy drink while Men at Work’s iconic song Down Under plays.

It’s an absurd image, but one that makes sense in the context of the “Agartha” trend on TikTok, which is quietly bringing white supremacist narratives into the mainstream to be seen by millions of users.

The modern myth of Agartha, a supposed utopia hidden inside the hollow Earth, was constructed from older pieces by esoteric authors after the second world war. It blends “Aryan” white supremacist themes with ideas of an occult SS and Third Reich spaceships.

Literal belief in hollow-Earth myths or Nazi UFOs is not the point. Instead, it’s an aesthetic – one that can host both coded far-right messages and explicit ones, fused with pop-cultural references such as the White Monster Energy meme.

Mainstreaming through borderline content

Agartha videos on social media are “awful but lawful”: the content is objectionable but legal. It allows extremists to embed their narratives into mainstream social media spaces, without triggering moderation or outright rejection by the audience. As a result, they can reach large, young audiences.

To understand how the underlying esoteric myths are used, we analysed a network of more than 43,000 Agartha-related TikTok videos and closely studied selected examples. This analysis is part of an ongoing project led by researchers at Neu-Ulm University of Applied Sciences in Germany. The goal is to understand how extremists abuse platform features to carry radical narratives into the mainstream.

We identified four key mechanisms which far-right actors use to push radical narratives to unsuspecting audiences: aesthetic camouflage, dog-whistles and split-second glimpses, network building, and weaponised irony. Let’s unpack each of these terms.

Aesthetic camouflage

Moderation systems on social media platforms aim to remove overt extremist propaganda. These systems work imperfectly, but overt propaganda is unlikely to reach mass audiences before being removed.

Instead, far-right actors often use generative AI to mask racial ideology behind seemingly benign tropes from science fiction and fantasy. This allows a “de-demonising” of their ideas. Elf-like depictions of the “Aryan” inhabitants of Agartha, or footage of an underground utopia, make the idea of a white ethnostate seem palatable.

The engaging aesthetic keeps people watching longer. In turn, this triggers the algorithm to push the video to wider audiences.

Dog whistles and split-second provocations

Far-right actors infuse their content with dog whistles that communicate to a certain audience without triggering moderation.

Our research identified recurring visual symbols in Agartha videos. “Raw milk” signals white supremacy. The number 271, which appears in hundreds of the videos, is a code for Holocaust denial.

Agartha videos also sometimes include overt extremist markers such as the Hakenkreuz (the Nazi symbol of the “hooked cross” or swastika). They are often flashed for only fractions of a second.

This is a calculated provocation. It tests and pushes platform boundaries, normalising the presence of far-right markers and slowly desensitising viewers. At the same time, successful inclusion of forbidden symbols in videos with viral reach serves as a badge of honour within the in-group.

Building network bridges

The Agartha community is not an isolated echo chamber. Our analysis shows the Agartha network connects to others on TikTok. Around 87% of these connections come via the inclusion of mundane, mainstream hashtags on Agartha videos.

Extremists may deliberately “hijack” benign, high-traffic hashtags, such as #roblox or #loganpaul, to push their content into everyday feeds. Agartha is also strongly connected to gym and fitness content. Hashtags such as #gymtok serve as a bridge, potentially funnelling users towards radical narratives.

Here, we also observed targeted appeals. Agartha videos would commonly include hashtags associated with “looksmaxxing” – a trend for extreme physical self-optimisation – to push their videos towards audiences seen as potentially susceptible, such as insecure young men. Well-known looksmaxxers were also sometimes depicted in Agartha videos.

Weaponised irony

As the example of Adolf Hitler drinking a Monster Energy illustrates, Agartha videos rely heavily on absurd situations, frequently co-opting mainstream social media trends.

Because White Monster Energy is a popular meme within non-extremist spaces, users familiar with the trend are particularly likely to get algorithmic recommendations fused with extremist narratives.

Similarly, actors superimpose mainstream figures into Agartha to force association, such as YouTuber Logan Paul or actor Mads Mikkelsen.

Such co-opting is also done through music, with many hollow-Earth edits set to Men at Work’s 1980s hit Down Under. The track serves as a darkly ironic nod to the subterranean utopia.

This increases the chances for algorithmic amplification while providing creators with plausible deniability. Criticisms can be dismissed as a misunderstanding of dark humour or current trends.

Recognising the threat

Agartha is more than just a digital resurfacing of fringe occultism. It is a blueprint for how to design extremist content for algorithmically curated short-video platforms.

It’s also a reminder that extremist content on social media does not exist in isolation. Instead, it lives in what researchers call “hybridised spaces”, where users move in and out of extremist discourse. In such spaces, borderline content, outright extremism, mundane trends and humour blend seamlessly – and participants may find their mainstream interests lead them to radical narratives.

Marten Risius receives funding through the Distinguished Professorship Program via the Bavarian Hightech Agenda from the Bavarian Ministry of Sciences and Arts.

Christopher David does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

Words escape you. Your skin tingles. You are overwhelmed by how small and insignificant you really are, bursting with a feeling that is hard to define. This is awe.

Awe is a complex emotional state we experience when the enormity of what we see or feel transcends what we understand. It can be positive or negative.

Astronauts report this feeling when confronted with the vastness of space and Earth’s puny place within it. This experience – sometimes known as the “overview effect” – can change forever how people who’ve seen Earth from afar think about life here.

But you don’t have to travel to the moon and back to experience awe. Beautiful art, a walk in nature or dancing in a crowd can give you this overwhelming, transcendent feeling.

Neuroscience suggests experiences of awe can be good for your mental health – when they’re positive. So, when is awe good for us? And what exactly is going on in the brain?

Awe can be both positive and negative

Positive awe is what probably comes to mind when most people think of awe. If you’ve ever been moved by something immense and beautiful – such as a majestic mountain or sunset – you’ve likely experienced this sense of calm and wonder.

However, psychologists sometimes describe awe as an experience at the boundary of pleasure and fear. Both pleasure and fear can result in similar bodily arousal – racing heartbeat, goosebumps and chills – but the way we interpret this as an emotion will depend on the context. It can be the same when we experience something vast and overwhelming.

Negative awe may occur when we feel threatened or a lack of control, such as during an earthquake or terrorist attack.

Imagine standing in front of a tsunami and seeing it come towards you. You may feel powerless and filled with dread, while also overcome with a sense of insignificance in the face of nature’s majesty and power. This is the complexity of awe.

Trying to make sense of the unexpected

Our brains are constantly making predictions and integrating our experiences into what we already know.

We tend to “filter out” sensory signals that match our expectations, to instead focus on being ready to respond to information that is surprising.

New information is processed by parts of the brain that help to fit it within our pre-existing understanding of the world, knowledge frameworks known as schemata (or schemas).

According to schema theory, we either assimilate this new information into an existing schema, or have to change the schema to fit the new knowledge.

Not all new experiences will evoke awe. It occurs when we experience both the inability to assimilate an experience into current knowledge and a sense of vastness.

For example, you might have a schema for “waterfall” – a mental framework of what you expect (rocks, water, beautiful). But confronted by the roar of Victoria Falls, its size and velocity, the way the sun hits the spray, you experience awe; it’s unlike any waterfall you have ever seen and is beyond your expectations.

What happens in the brain when we experience awe?

When we feel awe, activity decreases in the brain regions associated with internal or self-referential processing. This network is what drives our memory and understanding of our place in the world.

When activity in these regions decreases, there is a shift away from yourself towards processing external information. This may explain why you tend to “feel small” when you experience awe.

But positive and negative awe may have different effects on our nervous system.

Negative awe is associated with sympathetic nervous system activity, which drives our “fight or flight” response.

Positive awe, however, is associated with increased parasympathetic activity. This reduces heart rate and arousal, which is why we may feel calmer.

How awe can be good for us

If you’re someone who seeks out experiences bigger than yourself – hiking for breathtaking views, enjoying meditation, art or losing yourself in the roar of a crowd – you probably already know awe can make you feel fantastic.

Now, research is exploring why. Emerging evidence suggests awe may be good for mental health and wellbeing in five ways:

1. improving your nervous system’s ability to relax
2. diminishing self-focus
3. making us more likely to help other people
4. connecting us to others
5. increasing sense of meaning.

More work needs to be done before we can say whether awe results in long-lasting benefits. But purposefully seeking awe may help you feel less stressed, more satisfied and happier.

Finding awe in the everyday

What evokes awe will likely be different for different people. But we know some things are more likely to induce this complex feeling, such as experiences of art, music and natural environments that move us.

Many people also find awe in collective experiences, especially those involving shared music or movement, or religious rituals. These help us transcend ourselves and become part of something bigger. Contemplating inspiring and complex “big” intellectual ideas by learning something new may also have this effect.

So, can you actively cultivate awe? One way to start is by taking “awe walks”. These involve walking with the intention of noticing beauty, vastness and wonder. Connecting with your own sense of spirituality – even if you are not religious – can also evoke awe.

In many cases, the vast and overwhelming experience of awe can start with simple acts of noticing.

Nikki-Anne Wilson has previously received funding from the Australian Association of Gerontology and the UNSW Ageing Futures Institute.