Conspirituality

On June 26, presidential candidate Robert F Kennedy, Jr hosted a "health policy roundtable" on Rumble. His guests included Joe Mercola, Sherri Tenpenny, Mikki Willis, and a host of other anti-vax luminaries. Very little policy was discussed, though RFK put forward plenty of ideas about executive orders, including blackballing scientists and researchers behind FDA-approved drugs and censoring scien...

Matthew narrates the first three sections of the audiobook, Conspirituality: How New Age Conspiracy Theories Became a Health Threat. More information on our book here. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Derek discusses the new Conspirituality book with filmmaker and podcaster Mike Hull at Powell's Books on June 26, 2023. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Friend of the pod and historian of American fitness culture, Natalia Petrzela, joins Matthew to shed light on a new development in RFK Jr’s campaign to disrupt the Democratic Party: his recent workout campaign videos from the barbell patio of Gold’s Gym in Venice beach.  Topics include the iconic status of Gold’s, why Bobby Muscles is in Wranglers rather than lycra, how he’s both drawing on and di...

Chaos in Russia! Wagner’s pagan neo-Nazis. Is conspirituality unique to a failing American empire in the internet age? Does it require Californian New Age spirituality, with conspiracy theories that weave around alternative medicine, for-profit pharma with no social safety net, and the reactionary politics of White Christian Nationalism? This week, Julian explores a different version of Conspiritu...

Today in our Listeners’ Stories installment, Lynn Short joins her partner Justin to discuss how they met, grew up in, and grew out of a branch of “Gnosis,” a theosophical cult founded in the 1950s by Samael Aun Weor in Columbia. Weor was a classic old-school spiritual pervert, with 60-plus (likely ghostwritten) books to his name, and a passion for meddling in his followers’ sex lives. Lynn and Jus...

“It’s much more interesting to live not knowing than to have answers which might be wrong," wrote Richard Feynman. But does curiosity end where awareness cuts off? Derek explores the positive and negative sides of the spiritual search, especially in light of the burgeoning eco-spiritual movement. Show Notes I’m “spiritual but not religious.” Here’s what that means for a physicist How to hold onto...

To celebrate book launch month, we started a little “takeaway” series two weeks ago. First, Derek led us through “Science and Sensibility,” in which he shared some really good practices for science literacy, along with examples of how conspirituality maximizes social stress and struggling medical systems to exploit wellness consumers. Last week, Julian addressed the aching questions asked by those...

The exiled cult leader, the MAGA mastermind, the Chinese con-artist billionaire, and the CCP. Insatiable dragons, all. Each claims to be at war with evil, as their fiery propaganda melts the minds of far-right media consumers. Julian connects the dots on these overlapping stories of life in the “Dharma-ending times.” Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

We've spent three years tracking the slide from online wellness influencer to red-pilled conspiracy promoter, from yoga and breath work teacher to anti-vax ivermectin slinger, from vegan raw chocolate aficionado to anti-immigrant, transphobic, election denial. Turns out, the roots of this phenomenon run deep. Along the way we've gotten a lot of praise, plenty of pushback, and a slew of sincere and...

From Ron DeSantis's anti-woke presidential campaign to Bari Weiss's FAIR war on woke, the concept of "wokeness" has become an ideal devil in right-wing and right-leaning politics—even if (or especially because) no one can really define it. But as Derek discusses, a recent deep dive into FAIR shows, anti-woke crusaders are suffering from internal conflicts and coming up with troubling non-solutions...

How can we protect ourselves and our children from online hate and misinformation? Julian interviews Imran Ahmed about the latest work the Center for Countering Digital Hate has done on TikTok, Twitter, and Facebook ads for state-sponsored antisemitic propaganda from Iran. Show Notes Parents Guide to TikTok Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

How did “following the science” get so confusing during the pandemic? As the publication of our book draws closer, Derek shares his best practices for science literacy, and examples of where grifters and conspiracists maximized confusion to exploit wellness consumers. This is the first in a three-part series on what we’ve learned though writing our book and working on the podcast. Each episode is...

After reviewing how Mother Marianne and Bobby Kennedy Jr are set to disrupt the race in Part 1, we turn now to  Mr. “Coronavirus is a Coronation for all,” Charles Eisenstein, has just disclosed that he’s working on Bobby’s campaign as Director of Messaging. Holy shit. It’s like our book is so accurate that Steve Bannon fed a digital ARC into a LLM to spit out AIs of all the characters in it so he...

On Monday, May 29, Danielle Smith, the leader of the UCP of Alberta, seized the reigns of majority government power with the help of a right-wing antivax group called Take Back Alberta.  Jeremy Appel, founder of The Orchard, joins Matthew for a masterclass on how things got so bad in Alberta, and how conspirituality played a key role. Show Notes The Orchard — Jeremy Appel Learn more about your ad...

Medical Medium, aka Anthony William, gained many of his 4.4M IG followers thanks to his declaration that celery juice can heal you from many ailments that science hasn’t figured out. William proudly displays his numerous celebrity endorsements and hundreds of anecdotal healing stories on his library-esque website. Yet when one reporter—Vanity Fair’s Dan Adler—had the audacity to report on one now-...

Marianne Williamson—New Age matriarch and popularizer of A Course in Miracles—is polling at 9%. Muscular Catholic antivax entrepreneur Bobby Kennedy Jr is polling at 20% or more: Rasmussen has him in a dead heat with Biden.  And Mr. “Coronavirus is a Coronation for all,” Charles Eisenstein, has just disclosed that he’s working on Bobby’s campaign as Director of Messaging. Holy shit. It’s like our...

Another Kennedy is running for President. But discussion of his anti-vaccine activism often overlooks how it affects people with autism. Julian talks to Eric Michael Garcia, political correspondent for The Independent, and author of We're Not Broken: Changing The Autism Conversation, about the human cost. Show Notes We’re Not Broken: Changing the Autism Conversation — Eric Garcia Learn more about...

What "really" happened during the pandemic? Conspiracists have decided to take a victory lap. They were right, you see? The vaccines failed, and besides, they were super dangerous. COVID obviously came out of a lab. Masks were useless, and the lock-downs were completely unnecessary forms of totalitarian oppression. The authors of the Great Barrington Declaration, who were censored on social media,...

In 1970, farmer, writer, and environmental activist Wendell Berry published his essay, "Think Little." In it, he writes about the dangers of not making your public causes private causes as well, depending too much on outside organizations to make decisions, and—this is key—of how autonomy should lead to the greater good and the recognition of interdependence. Many of these messages resonate in the...

In the post-truth world, journalists who report facts are disparaged as perpetuating the narrative while candidates who hold the appropriate qualifications are smeared as deep state operatives. Likewise, a career spent studying terrorism, online conspiracy theories, and digital propaganda becomes "evidence" of opposing free speech and the American way. Our guest today became the "main character" o...

What the hell happened between the Dalai Lama and that Indian boy? The internet served up a raft of painfully inflammatory takes, so I took a month to talk with Tibetologists and review the literature on sexual abuse in Tibetan Buddhist contexts.  This is a deep, tangled dive. Content warnings apply.  Chapters: Why cover this, and why now? Summary The Clip Virality Two Orientalisms Outrages and Pi...

We've seen it over and over again: somehow, in some way, globalists are involved. George Soros is pulling the strings. Jews will replace us, with other minorities, or fund the interests that are against "us." Derek talks with The Banter founder, Ben Cohen, about the modern state of antisemitism. They also discuss Russell Brand's meteoric rise into right-wing celebrity, as well as Aubrey Marcus's u...

Did you know that it’s not the sun that causes cancer, but sunscreen? Or that sunscreen is actually a Big Pharma creation to keep you from receiving the sun’s magical healing properties? How about the fact that sunscreen molecules can be found in your brain 10 years after application? And don’t even get me started on the life-changing effects of exposing your asshole to direct sunshine.  Ok, I pro...

Florida governor Ron DeSantis appointed right-wing propagandist, Christopher Rufo, along with other conservative Christian education-activists, to the board of the tiny, progressive New College in Sarasota, FL this past January. They fired the president, installed prayer at the board meetings, forbade personal pronouns in faculty email signatures, and claimed DeSantis’s electoral victory gave them...