Conspirituality

Wellness influencers are quite capable of inventing and spreading health misinformation. When it comes to culture war issues, however, they're incapable of generating original thoughts. So it shouldn't surprise anyone that they simply parrot talking points created by the likes of Chris Rufo and Bari Weiss, especially when it comes to their uninformed critiques of DEI and CRT efforts. Author, lawye...

This episode has been brewing for some time. This week we ask: which hole is coffee really supposed to go in? Because, in the contrarian and conspiratorial wellness world, a growing number of influencers advocate for your morning java to go where the sun doesn't shine. If that's not alarming enough, they claim coffee enemas will treat autism, cancer, parasites, and much more. Mallory DeMille is he...

Project 2025 is the libertarian conservative Heritage Foundation’s systematic governance plan for the next Republican president. The 920-page plan aims to implement the "unitary executive theory," which would give all of the power of the US government to the executive branch. This week, Derek and Julian investigate the chapter on US media agencies and the GOP's plan to create a true state-sponsore...

From the Supreme Court to Project 2025, reactionary Catholics are on the frontlines of this year’s war on democracy. Many of them bend the knee to an Italian redpilled Vatican diplomat: Cardinal Carlo Maria Viganò.  Who is this guy, and who let him onto the internet? In 2018, Viganò rebranded Pizzagate for Catholics, by accusing Pope Francis and his progressive allies of supporting “homosexual net...

The internet has changed not only how we communicate with each other, but how we understand the world. All technologies reorient how we navigate the world. This one just feels, at times, so disorienting—especially if you are, like the three of us today, extremely online.  That’s the title of Washington Post columnist Taylor Lorenz’s recent book. Taylor has been covering internet culture since star...

Project 2025 is the libertarian conservative Heritage Foundation’s systematic governance plan for the next Republican president. The 920-page plan aims to implement the "unitary executive theory," which would give all of the power of the US government to the executive branch. This week, Derek and Julian break down the dystopic chapter on the Department of Health and Human Services, written by the...

Do people radicalized into conspiracism or cults ever admit their errors? When the prophecy fails and evidence shows they were wrong, do they come clean or double-down?  Julian checks in on some of the legacy conspiritualists profiled in our book—Russell Brand, Dr. Christiane Northrup, Mikki Willis, JP Sears, and Lorie Ladd—to see what their online messaging around Christmas and the New Year tells...

Science evolves, often through fits and starts. Yet for most of medical history, there’s been one consistent theme: most science has been conducted on male bodies. And this has created a range of problems for women. Thankfully, says Cat Bohannon, that’s changing. As more women and BIPOC are entering the STEM fields, we’re undergoing a renaissance in our understanding of a more inclusive and expans...

Julia Tucker is a professional church organist in Savannah, Georgia. She grew up homeschooled in a TradCath home presided over by a father who is now a minor celebrity on the reactionary right. In this Listener Story, she discusses her long strange trip out of Catholic revanchism, the unexpected freedoms of homeschooling, sneaking around in sacristries, why she believes that figures like Bishop St...

Dr. Taslim Alani-Verjee joined us last January for a Brief on Jordan Peterson’s professional status as a shitposting registered psychologist. She returned for Episode 141 on whether it makes sense that the Canadian Medical Assistance in Dying act is fuelling conspiracy theories about state neglect.  Today she returns, as a psychologist and as a practicing Muslim, to discuss with Matthew how it fee...

Nothing will stop Republicans from lining up behind Trump. But the left? It's in crisis. Fragmented. Perhaps in times of great flux fascists reflexively double-down while progressives slide into a cloud of self-doubt. There, strange bedfellows are sometimes found in the dark. To help us understand this territory—what it is and how to navigate it—we're joined by journalist, professor, and documenta...

Control the Court. Overturn Roe. Funnel anonymous donations and shady gifts. Deregulate for Jesus. Roll back the cultural clock. Celebrate. Rinse and Repeat.  Leonard Leo’s libertarian Catholic agenda has made him a preeminent power-broker in right-wing American politics. He’s reshaping society while enjoying the pipeline of cash and influence that connects billionaire GOP mega-donors and the SCOT...

The online pseudoscience clearing house, Human Garage, treats fascia as a cure-all to nearly every disease imaginable. Yet as today's guest, David Lesondak, Senior Structural Integrator and Fascia Specialist at the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center’s Center for Integrative Medicine and author of the bestselling Fascia: What It Is and Why It Matters, tells Derek, they begin with a little bit...

What happens when white knights role-play at saving all the children? What impacts do they have on the actual realities faced by trafficked children and adults? And how does their propaganda—rolled out in blockbuster trauma porn events like Sound of Freedom—stigmatize and endanger adult sex workers, especially those who are already marginalized? Esme Providence Brown returns as our correspondent t...

Rightwing activist Chris Rufo recently led the charge in helping oust Claudine Gay from the Harvard presidency. While the charge is plagiarism—a charge Gay herself acknowledged—the reason for Rufo’s intense focus on her has little to do with academic pedigree. Rufo, a former vegetarian yogi, is leading the right-wing charge against DEI trainings, LGBTQ+ rights, and any mention of critical race the...

On January 6, 2021 Del Bigtree took the stage at the MAGA Health Freedom Rally a few blocks away from where Donald Trump had just instigated a riot. He joked about how the former president was a hard act to follow.  But he dug deep and persevered by stringing together key dog whistles of Trumpian disinformation and resentment: public health officials are corrupt, COVID is a scam, and the election...

Last year, the Heritage Foundation published a 920-page document that lays out the conservative organization’s road map for the next Republican president’s first four months in office, which could very well be Donald Trump. Project 2025 rests on four pillars devoted to the implementation of the unitary executive theory—basically, all levers of the American government bowing down to the executive b...

Friend of the pod and Straight White American Jesus host Brad Onishi returns to pick up with Matthew where they left off in their discussion of post-religious spirituality. They discuss what happens after disenchantment, the spirituality of boredom, and why, as we hurtle into the coming chaos of 2024, it’s good to keep an eye out for new allies in unlikely places.  This is Part Two of two-part con...

Friend of the pod and Straight White American Jesus host Brad Onishi joins Matthew for a New Year’s discussion of post-religious spirituality. Onishi fills out the details on a nascent identity that many of you might resonate with: the “secular person of faith.” They talk about the false choice of Max Weber’s fork in the road: that either we commit to the sciences or languish in the churches. They...

Life coaching is big business. The life coaching industry was worth $1.5 billion in 2022 and is considered one of the fastest growing industries in America. The International Coaching Federation reported more than 26,000 coaches in North America in 2020. Yet those numbers are hard to qualify given that you don’t need certifications or training to become a life coach or, as we explore today, coachi...

The joys of Xmas, the wonder of parenting, the complexities of family, the distinctions between religions and cults, and the compassionate dignity of locating the sacred in our mortal humanity. Julian offers an atheist reflection on the holidays that is equal parts heartwarming, thought-provoking, and (perhaps) inspiring. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

COP28, the 2023 United Nations Climate Change Conference, recently took place in the UAE. The controversial conference included 2,500 fossil fuel industry lobbyists and featured billionaires flying into Dubai on private jet. Yet, as Maya Lilly—a film, television, and digital media producer who focuses on activist documentary storytelling—tells Derek, it's one of the few places that so many nations...

In this annual meditation and reflection, the trio consider the past year's significant happenings in conspirituality, discuss their biggest influences, identify 2024's most pressing challenges, and offer what gives them each hope as we transition into 2024. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

In November, the comedian Matt Rife released his first Netflix special, "Natural Selection." Early in the show he made a joke about domestic violence that many people took offense to. Since then, he’s clapped back at a number of people on social media (including a six-year-old boy), published a fake apology that linked to helmets for people with disabilities, and has been praised by many right-win...

Amy Carlson’s metallic blue body was covered in glitter, wrapped in a sleeping bag, and draped in Christmas lights when police found her on the night of April 16, 2021. The 45-year-old leader of the “Love Has Won” cult weighed just 75 pounds; her eyes had been removed.  Carlson, known as “Mother God,” proselytized along with her followers by livestreaming around the clock, preaching a QAnon-themed...