On Oct 4, Jay Bhattacharya, a professor of medicine, economics, and health research policy at Stanford, held a symposium at his university. Titled “Pandemic Policy: Planning the Future, Assessing the Past,” it was marketed as an open-minded series of panel discussions involving a range of experts to debate and discuss the efficacy of Covid mitigation techniques. In reality, it was a collection of mostly anti-vax and definitely anti-lockdown contrarians that tried in vain to bait people like Dr P...
Oct 24, 2024•1 hr 15 min
As the world watches, Israel and Iran are squaring off for a potential war. Meanwhile, a Texas evangelical preacher, who runs the biggest Christian Zionist group in the world, is cheering on the coming apocalypse—as predicted in his 2005 book, Jerusalem Countdown. John Hagee even flew to DC to persuade Speaker of the House, Mike Johnson, to jam through another military aid package. Julian examines the real-world significance of conflicting religious prophecies focused on one particular piece of ...
Oct 21, 2024•6 min
Trump’s Town Hall DJ love-in stumped a lot of folks. From the conspirituality angle, however, there’s something familiar about this improvised ritual. Because the world we cover is strewn with the wreckage of charismatic patriarchs who bleed their followers dry in the closed-loop system of cultic dynamics. When leaders like Trump get to the end of the line, all that’s left is pure affect. They have exhausted themselves in the efforts of self-aggrandizement. They have nothing left to say because ...
Oct 19, 2024•35 min
People will reach for anything to relieve the stress of climate anxiety. There’s outright denial: this can’t be happening. It doesn’t fit in with my understanding of the world. The science must be wrong. During Milton, Catturd wonders why the wind speed keeps changing on the weather reports. They must be making it up. Or the guy in Galveston, TX, posting that he can’t see any hurricane from his Gulf view. When denial is impractical, there’s political displacement: our enemies are responsible. Th...
Oct 17, 2024•1 hr 11 min
Matthew fields excellent questions about his new book from colleagues Ann Gleig and Michelle C. Johnson. NAB Show Notes This event includes discussions on sensitive topics related to abuse; sexual assault; high-demand tactics; racism; gender-based violence; and systems of dominance, patriarchy, and oppression. We know that these topics may be distressing or triggering to some attendees, and we invite you to take care when listening, and to tend to your needs if you feel activated, overwhelmed, o...
Oct 14, 2024•6 min
Born in 1831, Helena "Madame" Blavatsky pioneered the New Age grift. The Russian aristocrat plagiarized her books while claiming to be channeling the “Masters of Ancient Wisdom” to tell a dodgy heroic back-story. She founded the Theosophical Society in New York, claimed to have learned a secret Tibetan language, and laid the foundation for alien channelers and Woo-Anon. She also inspired the Nazis. In the latest episode from a series on the pseudoscience New Age roots of today’s conspirituality ...
Oct 12, 2024•52 min
On September 29, a predicted one million people were going to show up for the Rescue the Republic event in Washington DC. Founded by the libertarian party chair, the Defeat the Mandates founder, and “professor in exile,” Bret Weinstein, about 1,500 mostly MAGA acolytes showed up. Yet the event represents something a long time building in America: the strange and at times uncomfortable merging of wellness and right-wing politics via MAHA and MAGA. Sure, RFK Jr was there, but today we’re going to ...
Oct 10, 2024•1 hr 14 min
With MAHA taking over stages nationwide, we’re experiencing a deluge of wellness influence and contrarians screaming about systemic issues with food, medicine, and government. Yet the solutions they offer never actually address public health. Ironically, the same trend has been occurring in investment-driven medicine, where both government and private sector money is flowing into individualized medicine at the expense of public health. Derek dives into this sordid affair, concluding with six ste...
Oct 07, 2024•6 min
Finally: a dedicated, concise report on RFK Jr’s sordid history with women, with all the sources. Why? Because now one of the allegations involves a criminal act. And because it’s becoming clearer that the emotional manipulation he allegedly deploys in his personal life—many sources say that “love-bombing” is his technique—rhymes so closely with his political day-to-day that it’s hard to find the lines between stumping, white knighting, seducing, and screwing. Correction: The RFK Jr clip “I’m no...
Oct 05, 2024•23 min
Cleanse the soil! Purify the blood! Save the children! Make America Healthy Again! On Sept 23, Jordan Peterson, RFK Jr., rising alt-health stars Casey and Calley Means, and many other nutrition non-experts gathered for a live streamed event they called the American Health and Nutrition Roundtable, hosted by Republican Senator Ron Johnson of Wisconsin. Their subtitle, A Second Opinion, was an apt description for the alternative fact-filled diatribes that ensued. The soil has been poisoned, everyo...
Oct 03, 2024•1 hr 13 min
Matthew here with the second installment of Five Big Questions Posed to an Extremely Thoughtful Person. Does Natalie Wynn need an introduction? Or do we simply know that every frame of every Contrapoints essay is a gorgeous still life, a love letter to the unknown viewer thirsty for smarts and queerness and justice? Often, top-tier artfulness will wind up concealing the artist. But despite the rigors of curation and the introversion Wynn ‘fesses up to in this interview, she also communicates wel...
Oct 01, 2024•30 min
An essay from Matthew exploring the problem of authenticity which plagues every investigation we do on the spiritual influencer beat. There are queasy questions we’re always contending with when we’re listening to the preaching of Charles Eisenstein, Kelly Brogan, Zach Bush, or RFK Jr: Has this person really committed to the spirituality they are presenting? Or is spirituality instrumental to them? Do they have experience to share, or programs to sell? It’s hard if not impossible to find the lin...
Sep 30, 2024•6 min
On Monday, Senator Ron Johnson sponsored a congressional panel entitled "American Health and Nutrition: A Second Opinion." Unfortunately no actual health or nutrition experts were invited. Instead, the four-and-a-half hour event featured speakers like Robert F Kennedy Jr, Jordan Peterson, Jillian Michaels, Vani Hari (Food Babe), and a host of other influencers and contrarians. Derek investigates all the science that wasn't told—and all the products and services that were sold. Note: Derek meant ...
Sep 28, 2024•43 min
Tens of people will be flocking to Washington DC this Sunday as Rumble comes to life during Rescue the Republic, a one-day event featuring RFK Jr, Russell Brand, Jordan Peterson, Bret Weinstein, Tulsi Gabbard—it’s quite an impressive roster of anti-vax luminaries and right-wing contrarians gathering under the pretense of what is effectively a glorified Donald Trump rally. And that’s not hyperbole, given that Trump is seated next to Elon Musk on the marketing materials, which is a graphic retelli...
Sep 26, 2024•1 hr 14 min
The British occultists took the thin and sickly but beautiful boy away from his family. Groomed him for 20 years to become the savior of humanity. Trained him between 1909-29 to be a serene guru and charming English aristocrat. He looked good in a double-breasted suit and had fabulous hair. Huge amounts of money flowed into the organization they built around him. But Krishnamurti became a man the day he shocked them all. Julian’s latest chapter of his historical series wraps up Helena Blavatsky’...
Sep 23, 2024•6 min
“God talks to human beings through many vectors. But nowhere with such detail, and grace and joy, as through creation. When we destroy nature, we diminish our capacity to sense the divine.” With this April 2023 tweet, RFK Jr inaugurated his presidential campaign, which has now folded into a daily ritual of Trump bootlicking. Now, Bobby is telling Tucker Carlson and the world that climate change cannot be solved through commitment to the “carbon orthodoxy.” “It’s not about quantifying stuff,” he ...
Sep 21, 2024•42 min
There’s been a question gnawing at fans of Charles Eisenstein: what does he really feel about RFK Jr’s pivot to Trump? The always aspiring poet-philosopher was hired as a messaging advisor to Bobby, after all. We’ve spotted little fragments of Eisenstein’s exceptionally long essays sneaking their way into Bobby’s speeches. There was some influence, for sure, even after Charles went on multiple Costa Rican sabbaticals right in the middle of campaign season and apparently cut his consulting rate d...
Sep 19, 2024•1 hr 17 min
"Biohacking expert" Kayla Barnes recently published a 31-minute video about her morning routine, filled with EMF-blocking shields, grounding protocols, and 40 different daily supplements. Good if you can afford it, but then she sells questionable protocols at her Cleveland, Ohio-based clinic, Lyv Wellness, despite having no clinical training. Derek watches what she says, then watches what she sells. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Sep 16, 2024•6 min
Tucker Carlson is the Steve Bannon of Joe Rogans. Tucker surpasses Rogan’s massive reach at times, but his curated guest list drives a deliberate agenda: normalizing neo-fascist political discourse. He does it all with an affable, friendly, just-asking-questions, I’m-not-as-smart-as-my-guests attitude that may disguise what he’s doing—like interviewing a Holocaust-denier Nazi apologist, or framing modern-day dictatorships as admirable, or promoting the anti-semitic Great Replacement Theory, or g...
Sep 14, 2024•28 min
In 2022, Tucker Carlson produced a documentary called “The End of Men,” his contribution to the so-called “masculinity crisis.” That’s when testicle tanning hit the mainstream, which one astute observer dubbed “bromeopathic therapy.” Turns out the former Fox News host isn’t done dabbling in conspirituality. This year, he’s platformed the QAnon Shaman, Jacob Chansley; lyme disease conspiracist, Kris Newby; the “other” Naomi, Naomi Wolf; brother-sister optimizers, Casey and Calley Means; and he’s ...
Sep 12, 2024•1 hr 19 min
Here’s the first installment of a regular timeline cleanser featuring interviews with folks reflecting on hope, faith, resilience and building community in hard times. You know—all the things that conspirituality itself can’t offer. These are short, personal visits in which Matthew asks each guest the same five questions about their life wisdom—at least as it’s coming together in this moment. To start this series, Matthew hearkens back to the roots of Conspirituality Podcast in the yoga world wi...
Sep 10, 2024•30 min
What does it mean to spill ink on dispelling conspiracy theories about non-existent children being murdered, while actual children are being murdered? At what point does the labour of debunking right wing wackjobs also do the shadow-work of supporting the liberal-center orthodoxy? Matthew looks at how with QAnon, the liberal-center press criticized irrational responses to imaginary traumas, with a great sense of urgency. But on Gaza, they criticize rational responses to actual traumas, and imply...
Sep 09, 2024•6 min
Calley Means is the cofounder of TrueMed, a company that helps businesses qualify products and services like supplements and ice baths for HSA and FSA money. Casey Means is the founder of Levels, a continuous glucose monitor subscription service aimed at the biohacking community. The brother and sister recently appeared on Tucker Carlson's podcast to rage against seed oils, as well as the food and pharma industries' focus on profits over people. Derek dug into their business models, finding them...
Sep 07, 2024•21 min
RFK Jr has dropped out of the presidential race and thrown his weight behind Trump. In our 10th episode on the man in the last year-and-a-half, we look at the potential dangers of this unholy alliance, and what it means for America. Show notes are extensive, visit patreon.com/conspirituality or conspirituality.net for more. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Sep 05, 2024•1 hr 14 min
Born in 1831, Helena “Madame” Blavatsky pioneered the New Age grift. The Russian aristocrat plagiarized her books while claiming to be channeling the “Masters of Ancient Wisdom” to tell a dodgy heroic back-story. She founded the Theosophical Society in New York, claimed to have learned a secret Tibetan language, and laid the foundation for alien channelers and Woo-Anon. She also inspired the Nazis. In this debut episode from a series on the pseudoscience New Age roots of today’s conspirituality ...
Sep 02, 2024•6 min
Dems are laughing about Donny Dentures or #TrumpisDone, but the reality inside his head, and Mar a Lago, will be very grim, and there will be a lot of collateral damage. Mental health titans like Robert Lifton have reached the consensus that Trump has been mentally ill for a long time. They’ve diagnosed him with “narcissistic personality disorder, antisocial personality disorder, paranoid personality disorder, delusional disorder, malignant narcissist,” and so on. Such patients meet predictable ...
Aug 31, 2024•34 min
In one survey, 82% of young people aged 18-25 searched the internet for mental health advice. Another survey of university students found that 44% report using the internet to learn about sadness, anxiety, or confusion. Regardless of what mental health experts advise, people of all age groups are turning to the internet and social media for help. What are the potential risks and rewards of using these platforms to try to communicate credible mental health science? And what happens when you’re en...
Aug 29, 2024•1 hr 6 min
Peter McCullough recently shared a ton of misinformation about mpox while speaking to Drew Pinsky; both men work for The Wellness Company, a supplements company that weaponizes anti-vax misinformation to sell products. Mikki Willis uses the Hero's Journey as a guide to dealing with mpox—and falsely represents Joseph Campbell's work. Russell Brand and Bret Weinstein claim mpox is a government psyop and nothing more. Derek looks at the conspiritualist fervor bubbling up around what's turning out t...
Aug 26, 2024•7 min
ProPublica recently got a hold of 25 Project 2025 training videos—over 14 hours worth of content revealing the policies the Heritage Foundation would like to see implemented if Donald Trump regains the White House. Derek and Julian break down one of the most egregious. Show Notes Inside Project 2025’s Secret Training Videos Undercover in Project 2025 Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Aug 24, 2024•39 min
Did you hear that Taylor Swift is supporting Donald Trump for president? That’s right: last week, the former president shared photos of fans rocking “Swifties for Trump” t-shirts on Truth Social. Trump seemed pleased, replying to his online following of 24 billion people: “I accept.” Yet something seemed off. Just like photos of Trump surrounded by seven-fingered Black Americans smiling on city stoops, these Swiftie endorsement photos were AI generated. As it turns out, AI is playing a more insi...
Aug 22, 2024•1 hr 19 min
