Dismantling New Age cults, wellness grifters, and conspiracy-mad yogis. At best, the conspirituality movement attacks public health efforts in times of crisis. At worst, it fronts and recruits for the fever-dream of QAnon. As the alt-right and New Age horseshoe toward each other in a blur of disinformation, clear discourse, and good intentions get smothered. Charismatic influencers exploit their followers by co-opting conspiracy theories on a spectrum of intensity ranging from vaccines to child trafficking. In the process, spiritual beliefs that have nurtured creativity and meaning are transforming into memes of a quickly-globalizing paranoia. Conspirituality Podcast attempts to bring understanding to this landscape. A journalist, a cult researcher, and a philosophical skeptic discuss the stories, cognitive dissonances, and cultic dynamics tearing through the yoga, wellness, and new spirituality worlds. Mainstream outlets have noticed the problem. We crowd-source, research, analyze, and dream answers to it.
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Listen to the full episode . With the CDC recently updating its website with anti-vax propaganda under the direction of RFK Jr, disgraced and disbarred physician, Andrew Wakefield, is back in the news. In fact, Senator Ron Johnson even tweeted out that he deserves an apology. He must be relying on short attention spans, given all the ways Wakefield manipulated the “study” that showed a link between vaccines and autism—even though the study itself found no such proof. Derek revisits the retracted...
Derek and Julian survey all of the incredible, life-changing deals going down this weekend in Wellnesslandia. Show Notes Influencers made millions pushing ‘wild’ births – now the Free Birth Society is linked to baby deaths around the world Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices...
In the wildly popular biohacking and longevity space, Peter Attia is often cited as one of the leading luminaries. His straightforward, science-backed approach seems to cut through the noise in a space dominated by fit bros and wellness grifters who always seem to have a product to sell. But the man who dropped out of residency at Johns Hopkins to found a private clinic focused on longevity has his share of critics, who are a bit suspicious about his self-experimentations—and the millions he mak...
This bonus episode is Part 2 of Graeber vs Bannon, Anarchism vs Leninism . I start in the 1870s with Marx and Bakunin fighting over the joys and traumas of the Paris Commune. Marx sees it as an imperfect but historic prototype of a workers’ transitional state, cut down before it could consolidate power. Bakunin reads it as a betrayal of anarchist principles — too willing to replicate the machinery it meant to overthrow. Out of that conflict comes a rift that still haunts us: should revolution be...
In this first of a two-part series, I dig into a century-long debate within revolutionary politics—one that now shapes the fault lines between MAGA authoritarianism and the fragmented resistance against it. How did the American far right end up using Leninist strategy more effectively than the American left? And what does that say about our own movements—our blind spots, our strengths, and inherited illusions? In 2013, Steve Bannon called himself a Leninist. In 2016, he openly called for the “de...
In 1954 a doomsday alien cult headed up by Chicagoland housewife Dorothy Martin was waiting for the cataclysmic flood that would herald the arrival of spaceships to transport her and her followers to safety. When the hour came and went and nothing happened, she and her followers made up a Bible’s worth of excuses, saying that the group's penitence and piety had saved them, and so the failure of the prophecy was actually a validation of their new religion. And even though its central claim had be...
They offered initiation into ancient Christian mysticism, ritual communion with the spirits, an understanding of reincarnation, and the destined transition to inhabiting a "solar-body" in the Sirius star-system. But it all ended in murderous blood sacrifice and fire—and 74 dead believers. What is this dark preoccupation with sacrifice and ritual killing in the name of metaphysical belief? Grotesque to modern ears, yet quite commonplace historically. Julian covers the late 20th-century French cul...
RFK Jr's senior advisor and supplements salesman, Calley Means, has repeatedly fabricated the story of Abraham Flexner and the birth of the modern medical system. Derek looks into his historical revisionism and what it could mean for the MAHA movement. Show Notes Medical Education in America: Abraham Flexner The Great Influenza: John Barry The Greatest Benefit to Mankind: Roy Porter Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices...
Back in June, we published an episode about the "Speaking with American Men" (SAM) project, a $20 million initiative designed by political consultants to understand and win back young men (18-29) who increasingly voted for Donald Trump. We talked about this cringey, inauthentic approach to compete over the influence of manosphere figures like Jordan Peterson and Andrew Huberman, who exploit a perceived "meaning crisis" with pseudo-intellectual and often reactionary messages. Instead of what? We ...
Listen to the full episode The nonprofit organization (and its adjoined Super PAC), MAHA Action, is leading semi-regular Zoom calls featuring a host of wellness influencers and RFK Jr appointees, including Jillian Michaels, Dr Oz, and Russell Brand. Derek listens into a recent call to see just what they're saying. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices...
Taylor Swift: Nazi sympathizer, freshly-minted racist, MAGA trad wife. Or so proponents of a recent conspiracy theory would have it. For years, the most successful female recording and performing artist of her generation (and therefore of all time) has used “easter eggs” as part of her marketing. Hidden messages in music videos and lyric sheets, oblique references in social media posts, and puzzles as merchandise marketing gimmicks have all contributed to a parasocial sense of intimacy and insid...
The hosts discuss the resurgence of mutual aid in response to federal cuts in SNAP benefits and the aggressive tactics of ICE, exemplified by Portland's community food initiatives and citizen resistance. They delve into the historical roots of mutual aid, contrasting it with social Darwinism and critiquing government's role in undermining communal support. The episode concludes by examining a socialist political campaign's use of mutual aid principles and its stand against Islamophobic attacks.
Listen to the full episode on Patreon Part 2 follows the money flowing from US agencies and interests to anti-Liberation Theology figures in Latin America. We meet Jesuit operator Roger Vekemans, who in the 1960s drew funding from the CIA, USAID, West German bishops, and U.S. conservative foundations to undermine Liberation and Christian socialism in Chile and beyond. Nelson Rockefeller used Protestant missions as a model for soft power in the region, including the Summer Institute of Linguistic...
This is the first of a two-part deep dive into how U.S. foreign policy stared down the political threat of Liberation Theology by promoting Evangelical Christianity in Latin America. The CIA and USAID, in league with Vatican conservatives like Cardinal Ratzinger, spent money and social capital on the suppression of this vital new movement which insisted that poverty is political and that faith without structural change is hollow. By contrast, the Evangelical emphasis on individual sin, salvation...
“Meet the man who built RFK Jr’s kitchen cabinet” goes the title of a recent investigative article in Politico . Yet that man, Jeffrey Tucker, is much more than that. In fact, you can make the case, as Politico does, that Tucker is one of the main driving forces behind MAHA. We’ve covered Tucker before on this podcast, including two previous interviews with his estranged daughter, Julia—who Matthew will again be talking to in segment 2 today. Derek will then talk to Duke professor Gavin Yamey, w...
Earlier this year, a spate of news stories told of chatbot users travelling through the looking-glass right into Conspirituality. Paranoid conspiracies, spiritual awakenings, even falling head-over-heels in love with the simulated personalities of large language models like ChatGPT. Could AI have finally crossed the threshold into autonomous sentient consciousness? Could it be that chatbots were anointing new prophets—or, conversely, that very special users were awakening their very special frie...
Social media has been filled with clips of Curtis Sliwa, the Republican nominee for mayor of NYC. He's been proving quite the foil for Andrew Cuomo's attempt to upset Zohran Mamdani. But who is this man, exactly? Derek and Julian discuss. Show Notes 16 Cats, 320 Square Feet and One Long-Shot Candidate for Mayor 7 Takeaways From the Final N.Y.C. Mayoral Debate Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices...
Tech billionaire Peter Thiel is no cuck philanthropist. The co-founder of Palantir is leading his company at the bleeding edge of mass surveillance, facial recognition, predictive policing, and AI-assisted warfare. He also fancies himself a political player, responsible for funding his protege, JD Vance, to a heartbeat away from the presidency. Considering this CV, the announcement that Thiel would give a series of four lectures on the AntiChrist was puzzling. Why would a tech-bro with a notorio...
Listen to the full episode on Patreon After attending the No Kings rally in Portland on Saturday, Derek shares some thoughts about the week leading up to the nationwide protests. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Stephen Miller is once again making headlines for saying the quiet part out loud. Derek and Julian look into this strange little man from Santa Monica. Show Notes Stephen Miller: Understanding the man who became ‘Trump’s brain’ through his Chronicle opinion column ‘I love Hitler’: Leaked messages expose Young Republicans’ racist chat What Stephen Miller Was Like in High School - Charles Gould Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices...
ICE is on the loose in our cities, acting with seeming impunity. They've repelled from Black Hawk helicopters, thrown journalists and protestors to the ground, and belligerently refused to unmask, provide identification, or present warrants for the people they're kidnapping. Among the social media videos documenting this despicable stormtrooper behavior came the image of a priest being hit in the head and knocked to the ground by a pepper ball shot from an ICE building rooftop. We've homed in on...
Hey everyone… special drop today: the inaugural episode of Matthew’s new side project, Antifascist Dad Podcast. Matthew sits down with songwriter Nathan Evans Fox to talk about kinship, Appalachia, and the viral hymn that’s resonating across communities. Nathan shares the roots of his concept of yallidarity—solidarity rooted in labor, joy, food, music, and taking care of one another. They discuss the myths and realities of Appalachia, the erasure of labor history, and the dangers of “bootstrap” ...
Full episode on Patreon Part 2 moves from Christofascist spectacle to the “mushy middle” of liberal Christianity—why it so often blesses order over justice and falters when fascism rises. Drawing on MLK’s Letter from Birmingham Jail , Reggie Williams’s Bonhoeffer’s Black Jesus , and lived experience inside white urban churches, he traces how bureaucratic piety, respectability politics, and spiritual bypassing drain the Gospel of conduct and courage—what Bonhoeffer called a “funeral wreath” laid ...
In this first installment of Antifascist Christianity: Black Jesus , Matthew revisits Dietrich Bonhoeffer’s journey from the theological classrooms of Berlin to the Black churches of Harlem — where he encountered a Jesus entirely unlike the imperial figure of his upbringing. Bonhoeffer arrived in New York a servant of white European Christendom, and left transformed by the radical, suffering, and liberatory presence of Black Jesus. Matthew connects Bonhoeffer’s awakening to today’s spectacle of ...
Our podcast is not actually illegal—yet. Thanks to Trump’s recent Security Presidential Memorandum, NSPM-7, or “Countering Domestic Terrorism and Organized Political Violence,” it soon could be. Today we talk about one of the starkest moves into fascism Americans have yet seen from MAGA: what it is, how pre-crimes can soon be reality, and the fear factor this memo is designed to inspire. We’ll also discuss some possible responses to the next phase of MAGA authoritarianism. Show Notes Trump’s NSP...
The People’s Temple in Jonestown, Heaven’s Gate, The Order of the Solar Temple. All cults that ended in tragic mass suicides. How could such lofty aspirations end so badly? For today’s self-contained installment of The Roots of Conspirituality series, Julian explores the shadow side of the anxiety-relieving religious notion that death is just a doorway into a better place. How do charismatic prophets indoctrinate believers into ending their lives, and often the lives of their children, in the na...
The host meticulously debunks RFK Jr.'s recent video where he argues against vaccine efficacy, revealing how Kennedy selectively quotes studies, conflates morbidity and mortality, and misrepresents the views of public health experts. The episode highlights Kennedy's consistent use of straw man arguments and outright falsehoods, including baseless claims about political figures' funding, all to push an agenda against established public health measures and childhood vaccines.
Did you hear about the pregnant woman who ingested too much Tylenol just to “own Trump” and is now on a ventilator and will likely not wake up, offing both herself and her baby? If you were tapped into social media at all this past week, you likely saw dozens of wellness and right-wing influencers sharing it, each with their own hot take. One problem: there’s still no proof this woman exists. Mallory DeMille returns to discuss this cursed game of telephone, as well as unpack the mad rush that we...
Listen to the full episode here . When RFK Jr announced that Tylenol might be implicated in autism, he forefronted correlative research that has yet to prove causation. That didn’t stop a number of MAHA-pilled wellness influencers from running with the narrative. Derek looks at their posts, as well as the immediate pushback, after breaking down Kennedy’s slipperiness during the press conference. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices...
MAGA congressman Clay Higgins recently sent a letter to top tech executives demanding subservience when it comes to "acceptable" speech. This comes two years after Higgins co-sponsored a bill protecting freedom of speech. Given recent capitulations to the Trump administration by tech CEOs, we shouldn't write off Higgins's aggressive push. Derek and Julian discuss. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
