While Americans were transforming esoteric strains of yoga into a commodifiable industry in 1980, a young naval officer named Steve Bannon was picking up theosophical texts in metaphysical bookstores and practicing Zen meditation in secret while stationed in Hong Kong. He was wary of his countrymates liberal explorations of Eastern philosophies, aware of the nationalistic roots upon which these “mystical” systems were founded. Then he stumbled into Traditionalism, a perennial philosophy that con...
Dec 17, 2021•1 hr 19 min
Matthew responds to the robust feedback on the Sam-Harris-is-a-highbrow-conspiritualist bonus, and then stretches the terms around harm in the conspirituality sphere in another way, by looking at the spectrum of agency offered by different wellness/spirituality products. He interrogates the premise implicit in some of our reporting that the cognitive errors and magical thinking of alt-health and New Age paradigms are all on a slippery slope to ruin. TLDR: isn’t it always more about sociology tha...
Dec 13, 2021•10 min
When Mike Flynn posted a video on July 4, 2020 in which his family recited QAnon slogans, it cemented the disgraced former National Security Advisor and U.S. Army lieutenant general as a MAGA patriot super-hero. On September 17, just 14 short months later, Flynn took the stage, bathed in light at the Lord of Hosts Church in Omaha, Nebraska to lead a political prayer that was a fiery angelic call-to-arms. But, oops! It turns out that this prayer traces back to New Age doomsday cult leader, Elizab...
Dec 10, 2021•1 hr 26 min
Derek shares a story from his time as a Lululemon brand ambassador to highlight the toxic merging of spiritual practices and consumerism. Not only does he detail Lulu's post-Chip Wilson pivot in an attempt to "own yoga," he also explores the histories of branding, money, and markets in an attempt to understand how we arrived at the influencer culture that dominates social media today. -- -- --Support us on PatreonPre-order Conspirituality: How New Age Conspiracy Theories Became a Health Threat: ...
Dec 06, 2021•14 min
We've talked a lot on this podcast about the selfie sermon: the kind of iPhone video native to Instagram influencers. Easily weaponized by conspiritualists, this sermon is equal parts intimate confessional, prophecy download, and motivational coaching, directly transmitted from your favorite self-anointed maverick expert. Social media seems perfectly designed for such hypnotic performances and spiritual darshans. But in the brick-and-mortar world, yoga teachers have long blurred the line between...
Dec 03, 2021•1 hr 7 min
Kyle Rittenhouse walks away from the courthouse while Ahmaud Arbery's killers were found guilty and "QAnon Shaman," Jacob Chansley, was received significant jail time. Our opinions on each of these cases are likely determined by our political affiliations, which in turn are a reflection of how we think about morality, crime, and punishment.Julian draws on scientific research into how genetics and the brain shape our politics, thought experiments in moral philosophy, and the work of moral psychol...
Nov 29, 2021•9 min
COVID has been a recruiting windfall for hate groups in Canada, with new alliances and networks forged between white supremacists, xenophobes, and ethnonationalists in the fire of accelerated conspiracism. Joining Matthew to map out this landscape are street-level anti-hate activists Elizabeth Simons, the deputy director of the Canadian Anti-Hate Network, Dan Collen, a researcher with the Neuberger Holocaust Education Center's Online Hate Education and Research Project, and Morgan Yew, a video j...
Nov 25, 2021•1 hr 21 min
Bonus episode, piloted by Matthew.There is a subtle form of conspirituality that rides on the familiar dialectic of political cynicism and spiritual promise—but it's dressed for a button-down salon dinner in Harvard Square. No crystals in sight, no essential oils wafting through the room. Sam Harris isn’t sounding the alarm about the Cabal or the Illuminati: his bugaboos are Islam, or “wokeism,” or “cancel culture.” And he isn’t saying that starseeds will save the day, or that a Great Awakening ...
Nov 22, 2021•10 min
Conspiracy theories flourish during uncertain times. They're always with us, passed down through generations like alternate histories, yet they’re constantly reinvented when collective stress levels peak. Julian reports on the QAnon spin-off group that’s been camped out in Dallas’s Dealey Plaza for two weeks, hoping to catch a glimpse of a pantheon of resurrected dead celebrities. In light of the Astroworld concert tragedy, which killed 10 people, being interpreted as a ritual Satanic sacrifice ...
Nov 19, 2021•1 hr 10 min
Privilege is often blind and rampant across societies. But is the term also overused?Derek looks at two examples of privilege in wellness spaces, the danger of its overuse, and a possible reframing of how to approach the topic. -- -- --Support us on PatreonPre-order Conspirituality: How New Age Conspiracy Theories Became a Health Threat: America | Canada Follow us on Instagram | Twitter: Derek | Matthew | JulianOriginal music by EarthRise SoundSystem Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megap...
Nov 15, 2021•9 min
To prepare this curative episode, we listened carefully to alternative health consumers for many hours, taking an exhaustive history of life challenges on physical, mental, and emotional planes. We scanned the symptoms against our compendium of disease states and prescribed the precise substances that would mirror them.Then, we took minuscule audio samples from our podcasting apothecary — skepticism, melancholy, and empathy. We mixed these, diluted them a thousand times, to the point at which th...
Nov 12, 2021•2 hr 2 min
Are emotions really separate from rationality? Is trusting science similar to religious faith? Do poetry and mythic archetypes disclose a reality beyond the material world? What might characters like Mr. Spock reveal about logical thinking? Julian explores the relationships between scientific and religious world views through the lenses of emotions, metaphors, and the brain. He draws on clips from neuroscientist Antonio Damasio, philosopher Julia Galef, linguist George Lakoff, biology professor ...
Nov 08, 2021•8 min
There is no avoiding the fact that conspirituality plays out against a backdrop of racially-charged politics and the echoes of colonialism. And from the beginning of this podcast project we’ve tackled things like the origins of yoga and wellness being tangled up with European fascist movements and racist eugenics. We’re speaking from and into a culture that is predominantly white, and has the disposable income to afford boutique health ideologies. We know it’s naturally allergic to the project o...
Nov 04, 2021•2 hr 4 min
Okay, maybe the title is overstated. But, as Matthew explores in this bonus episode: what are the contours of social comfort and habitus — supported by faith and ritual — that haunt any layperson's relationship to science? When the pressure is on, be it acute or existential, do we really display "critical thinking" — or are we really skilled at post-hoc rationalizing choices that embody the social status we wish to identify with?What are the psychosocial scents that waft from institutional actor...
Nov 01, 2021•8 min
What happens when a philosopher of science shows up at a flat earth conference to test out his theories about changing people's minds? This story catapults you into Lee Mcintyre’s new book, How to Talk to a Science Denier. As anti-vaccine and anti-quarantine protests flare up around the world, and the pandemic drags us all through financial and emotional destruction, discussing science communication has become more necessary than ever. Mcintyre's 2018 book, Post-Truth, examined the manipulative ...
Oct 28, 2021•2 hr 52 min
It's been over a century since Dale Carnegie began teaching the importance of extroversion, bringing with it a cultural shift that champions an aggressive social and work style. Gone were the days of championing introspection.Derek explores his own relationship with introversion in Yogaland, wondering how a quiet form of self-investigation that often champions the loud and bombastic on social media. The influence of the extrovert has dominated many domains, but none more insidiously than the wel...
Oct 25, 2021•7 min
What happens when MLM sales and neoliberal life coaching collide with a yoga charisma that oozes with pseudofeminism? Where do we even begin? Exploitation. Heartbreak. Toxic mimicries of therapy, mentorship, political awareness, and community.In this investigative report, Matthew digs into the background of a recent article posted to Medium called “Open Letter to Elena Brower.” He interviews the author, Tatum Fjerstad, who Brower mentored from 2014 to 2016, and Liz Fullen, who worked as Brower’s...
Oct 21, 2021•2 hr 2 min
With a new variant of QAnon circulating through white evangelical churches, protests against masks and vaccines are becoming more aggressive around the world. In Germany, a gas station attendant who asked a customer to mask-up was shot dead this week, and a Maryland man allegedly killed his pharmacist brother and sister in law, believing that they were poisoning people with vaccines. Demonstrations have turned violent in Australia; in New York, a mobile-free Covid-test site was up-ended. In LA, ...
Oct 18, 2021•11 min
Meat is toxic. Dairy is toxic. Eggs? As dangerous as cigarettes. Garlic stokes the hormones. Avoid nightshades at all costs. Organic or bust. Eat according to your blood type. Eat according to your chronotype. Cacao resonates with the frequency of the sun, but never, ever add sugar to it. Sugar is toxic. Juice cleanses lead you to your highest self. If you’re exhausted already, so are we. This week, Derek anchors our look at how the wellness world disguises eating disorders as purity tests and p...
Oct 14, 2021•2 hr 48 min
An audio essay loosely based on conversations Matthew has while parenting. Content is possibly appropriate for ages 7 to 11 — although who really knows. The main point is to deflate the media persona and cut back on the cynicism and hot-takery to discuss these things in a way that leaves the door open for growth and hope. Rules: use simple sentences, many examples, frame bad news within good news, and never call anyone stupid. Don’t give a kid a story that has no way out. Don’t people their worl...
Oct 11, 2021•9 min
Whatever one’s conception of “God” is, “John of God” should now be a nauseating name. For decades, João Teixeira de Faria pretended to heal an endless stream of pilgrims to his center in rural central Brazil through the Spiritist practice of “psychic surgery.” In reality, the miracle healing claims worked to cover up an obvious truth. João was sexually assaulting and raping women, in public and in private, likely every day of his “working” life. As he did so, he amassed a vast fortune in affilia...
Oct 08, 2021•2 hr 18 min
During Thursday’s episode, Derek briefly described Flow States in the context of a universal form of spirituality. He explores that concept in a little more depth, pulling audio from Hungarian-American psychologist Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi’s 2004 TED Talk about the social ramifications of Flow States. -- -- --Support us on PatreonPre-order Conspirituality: How New Age Conspiracy Theories Became a Health Threat: America | Canada Follow us on Instagram | Twitter: Derek | Matthew | JulianOriginal mu...
Oct 04, 2021•4 min
We’re grounding down. We’re letting go. We are going deep. We are finding the metta in our meta and tuning in to Source. This week we’ll either answer or transcend the core questions our listeners post in moments of parasocial vulnerability:Do you guys believe in anything at all? Are there any wholesome spiritual communities out there? Are all spiritual teachers toxic?This four-hour immersive encounter between three white guys is not to be missed!(Seriously tho: we’ve got some huge interviews an...
Sep 30, 2021•1 hr 20 min
Julian traces the roots of today’s pandemic-era conspirituality back to What The Bleep’s quantum woo, The Secret’s privileged denial and grandiosity, and the dark lessons of why beliefs really matter, as revealed by James Arthur Ray’s deadly Spiritual Warrior Retreat.Show NotesLaura Tucker’s response to Nine Perfect StrangersGuru: The Dark Side of Enlightenment -- -- --Support us on PatreonPre-order Conspirituality: How New Age Conspiracy Theories Became a Health Threat: America | Canada Follow ...
Sep 27, 2021•10 min
Daniel Sherrell is the author of an extraordinary memoir and prayer book, Warmth: Coming of Age at the End of Our World, in which he recounts how, as a climate activist born in 1990, he has fought to manage, digest, and even celebrate the desperate tasks of the only age he’s known: the Anthropocene. The book is his homage to the resources that help him meditate on weaning ourselves from the dissociations of Twitter and doing the hard work of transforming climate grief into climate integrity.In o...
Sep 23, 2021•2 hr 16 min
On his family’s yearly trip to Manitoulin Island, Matthew detoxes from conspirituality influencer garbage, and returns with parts of a new plan.Show NotesWarmth by Daniel Sherrell: 9780143136538 | PenguinRandomHouse.com: BooksLiving at the End of Our World (w/ Daniel Sherrell & Dorothy Fortenberry) | Know Your EnemyLives Reclaimed — Mark RosemanWhat Conspiritualists and Anti-Vaxxers Get Right | by Matthew Remski | Aug, 2021 | Medium -- -- --Support us on PatreonPre-order Conspirituality: How New...
Sep 20, 2021•10 min
This week, California Governor Gavin Newsom rode sane pandemic messaging to victory against the Republican-led recall election by a huge margin. Unsurprisingly, voting patterns perfectly matched the state COVID heat map, with fans of the recall suffering the worst outbreaks. Meanwhile, a strict lockdown in Australia, which is experiencing a Delta outbreak, led to American libertarians and right-wing commentators screaming fascism! We talk to Decoding the Gurus co-host (and real-life Australian) ...
Sep 16, 2021•2 hr 16 min
In June, Planedemic creator Mikki Willis appeared on Living 4D with Paul Chek to discuss what “really happened” at the Capitol on Jan 6. During the long-ranging talk, Willis took some time to attack a VICE News article that we were featured in. Unfortunately for Willis, we have the audio from the Election Night party in Austin being referenced. Derek updates Willis’s memory.Show NotesLiving 4D With Paul Check, EP 141 – Mikki Willis 2: What’s Really Going On?The Election Night audioLeading New Ag...
Sep 13, 2021•10 min
Paul Chek will tell you how much he’s influenced the fitness industry. He’ll tell you that he popularized Swiss Balls, and about his time working with the Jordan-era Chicago Bulls and then the championship Lakers. The kinesiologist and founder of the Chek Institute, which offers numerous training programs under the slogan, “We teach the science of living well,” claims that he’s always taken a holistic approach to weightlifting and the gym. In fact, the man does not mind telling you how vast his ...
Sep 10, 2021•1 hr 14 min
A QAnon-themed Stop The Steal, anti-vax, Covid-denial roadshow came to an untimely end in mid-August with their fearless leader succumbing to COVID pneumonia on a ventilator in Florida. He denied the virus was real until his last breath.This week, Julian chronicles the 84-stop Arise USA Resurrection Tour led by the recently deceased former CIA agent, Robert David Steele.Characters on this Ill-fated tour include the aging wanna-be rock star slam-poet conspiracist Sacha Stone, anti-vax Urban Healt...
Sep 06, 2021•6 min
