lol pilgramage what. is he converting?
The parts I skimmed mostly read like a travelogue so tax write-off vacations with the family in Europe, plus he has an audience of marks that will eat up fucking anything as long as it's framed as independent research into the parts mainstream academia doesn't want YOU to know about.
Still the cross-section between simulationists/transhumanists and mysticism enthusiasts was already huge before Yud mixed in adult Harry Potter fandom and an implicitly supernatural set of adages about human-to-computer soul transfer and living in the end of days waiting for the Artificial Godhead Intelligence to incarnate and judge humanity.