Body image is a phenomenon that has long simmered below the surface of the wellness industry. We’ve spent years covering the hard and soft eugenics that inform so many physical and spiritual practices, and how the notion of an ideal self persists and, as we get into today, grown in the online world. Just as shaming and skewed body perceptions proliferate in the comments sections and fitfluencer podcast world, so have opportunities for meaningful conversations. One such venue is the wildly popula...
Jul 17, 2025•1 hr 15 min
Protest slogans are designed to pack a punch. They communicate potent emotions and persuasive ideas to the public while galvanizing activist allies. At 5 '11, wearing an elegant hijab over jet-black hair, Nerdeen Kiswani cuts an elegant figure. “From the river to the sea,” she cries, and the loyal group around her repeats it back, loudly. “Palestine will be free!” Again the repeated phrase comes back. “You are my amplifier,” she tells them. Even while delivering her speech, the crowd loudly shou...
Jul 14, 2025•6 min
In 1898, British naturalist Alfred Russel Wallace published a pamphlet entitled, "Vaccination a Delusion; Its Penal Enforcement a Crime." This work became the foundation of the modern anti-vax movement. Derek discusses how even though vaccination science is constantly evolving, the rhetoric of people like RFK Jr is just rehashing old and outdated ideas. Show Notes Vaccination a Delusion; Its Penal Enforcement a Crime Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices...
Jul 12, 2025•22 min
We return to the ongoing saga of Aubrey Marcus. As a wealthy, anti-vax New Ager who campaigned for RFK Jr (before going MAGA), he’s a pole star for the conspirituality moment and its political manias. He’s also a ceaseless innovator of guru narrative tech, with his latest trick being the attempt to turn his own implosion into top-tier content by enlisting an ex-fiance to prove his spiritual bona fides. , As we look at his rehab schtick in the context of the great guru death-spirals of the past, ...
Jul 10, 2025•1 hr 12 min
Zohran Mamdani's win in the NYC democratic mayoral primary has been filled with deflections and pivots so that politicians and pundits don't have to focus on the core issues he's talking about. The left has a path worth considering. The democratic establishment is, for the most part, refusing to endorse him. Derek wonders if the rest of the left can avoid similar traps. Show Notes Globesonic On the Pier: 8 Years in NYC Globesonic Sound System 5 Years On The Hudson River The Cause That Turned Ide...
Jul 07, 2025•8 min
On June 24, Brian Johnson, aka The Liver King, was arrested in Austin for threatening Joe Rogan. The infamous raw organ "primal" influencer has since published dozens of videos detailing what appears to be a downward spiral—though the problems date back years. Derek and Julian detail the crash. Show Notes 'Liver King' arrested in Austin after allegedly threatening Joe Rogan 'Liver King' says he 'will never stop' after arrest over alleged threat against Joe Rogan Learn more about your ad choices....
Jul 05, 2025•36 min
"Tonight we made history," grinned Zohran Mamdani as his supporters cheered with delight, "I will be your Democratic nominee for the mayor of New York City. His victory over disgraced former governor Andrew Cuomo in this primary election has made Mamdani, the 33-year-old fresh-faced Indian Muslim assemblyman from Queens, into a national sensation—and one of the biggest news stories in the week when Trump bombed Iran's nuclear facilities. He's used his eloquent, telegenic charisma to make a princ...
Jul 03, 2025•1 hr 10 min
Greta Thunberg is a burr in the ass of the powerful throughout the world—and not only for rightwing sociopaths. Increasingly, as she grows up, learns more, and networks with other activists around the world, she’s become a scourge for liberals as well. Many of them would prefer she remain a child, providing a theatre of emotional catharsis for a climate crisis industry more interested in raising money from green economy donors than forcing change. Now, as Thunberg broadens her target to capitali...
Jun 30, 2025•5 min
Greta Thunberg is a burr in the ass of the powerful throughout the world—and not only for rightwing sociopaths. Increasingly, as she grows up, learns more, and networks with other activists around the world, she’s become a scourge for liberals as well. Many of them would prefer she remain a child, providing a theatre of emotional catharsis for a climate crisis industry more interested in raising money from green economy donors than forcing change. Now, as Thunberg broadens her target to capitali...
Jun 28, 2025•42 min
“Dad went to war last night” read Vance Boelter's text to his family in the early hours of June 14. This was sent after his shooting rampage aimed at Democratic lawmakers, which left two dead and two critically wounded. Turns out Boelter is an ordained pastor in a church associated with the New Apostolic Reformation, which sees the world as a spiritual battlefield and whose leaders have preached that political enemies are possessed by demons. This is not some small fringe movement. Key figures i...
Jun 26, 2025•59 min
He built a lucrative seminar empire in the 80s, owned an Italian Villa, founded a “spiritual university,” and travelled the world with a harem of handsome young initiates. Roger Hinkins claimed to be inhabited by another consciousness that he called “John the Beloved” and the “Mystical Traveller,” which taught the secrets of out-of-body experiences. As he copied those teachings from elsewhere, his lies eventually caught up with him. But he told his loyal followers that critics and defectors were...
Jun 23, 2025•6 min
What dangers does an RFK Jr HHS pose to Americans, really? Derek dives into science writer's Laurie Garrett's work, who spoke to the dangers we're facing today in 1994—and who has raised an alarm about the consequences of destroying public health ever since. Show Notes The Coming Plague — Laurie Garrett Betrayal of Trust — Laurie Garrett Laurie Garrett on This Week in Virology Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices...
Jun 21, 2025•37 min
takeover—legacy media and Democratic strategists have the same question on their lips: What is going on with young men? Though Kamala Harris won the overall 18- to 29-year-old demographic, Trump improved his share by 9 points. Men in this age group voted for Trump by 16% more than women did. What explains this? Perhaps this is due to the right inflaming the anxieties and resentments of young men online. Red-pilled, hyper-masculine, anti-woke conspiracy influencers are filling the gap created by ...
Jun 19, 2025•1 hr
In October 2020, three contrarian medical professionals published The Great Barrington Declaration to great applause by the pro-business, anti-closure crowd. One of them, Jay Bhattacharya, now runs the NIH. Things are not going well under his watch. Last week, he was grilled in front of Congress about the $18B in proposed cuts to NIH funding. This happened a day after over 300 people under his guard published The Bethesda Declaration, a document filled with issues occurring under Bhattacharya's ...
Jun 16, 2025•7 min
Cable travel channels are filled with haunted houses and other paranormal activity, beyond History Channel’s Ancient Aliens and cryptozoology content. The more radicalized Gaia TV has close to a million paid subscribers gobbling up content about yoga, meditation, and psychedelic consciousness alongside accounts of inter-dimensional cryptids, Q-adjacent vampire reptilians, and channeled messages from benevolent ETs. Julian’s talk with Pulitzer-nominated journalist Matt Hongoltz-Hetling about his ...
Jun 14, 2025•40 min
From 1999-2002, VH1 ran a show called “Where Are They Now?” The irregularly produced series wondered aloud what happened to former cultural icons like eighties hair metal bands, kid actors, and one-hit wonders. While some people remained surprisingly relevant, most were confined to, at best, appearing at VFWs and regional summer festivals in parking lots or, tragically, gripped by an addiction and dreams of a better time that they couldn’t make last. Two years ago this month our book, Conspiritu...
Jun 12, 2025•1 hr 1 min
Matthew continues the Antifascist Woodshed series with a two-part analysis of an extraordinary cultural event: rebellions within rebellions—or how a ragtag band of writers and worldbuilders Trojan-horsed an antifascist masterpiece into the Empire of streaming content. Seven chapters: (This past Saturday, main feed:) Space Wizards or Antifascism? Star Wars Culture Wars A Post-Fragmentary Left (Today:) Hope and Love Tony Gilroy’s Antifascist Field Manual The Used Future Antifascist Parents Are Bet...
Jun 09, 2025•6 min
Matthew continues the Antifascist Woodshed series with a two-part analysis of an extraordinary cultural event: rebellions within rebellions—or how a ragtag band of writers and worldbuilders Trojan-horsed an antifascist masterpiece into the Empire of streaming content. Seven chapters: Space Wizards or Antifascism? Star Wars Culture Wars A Post-Fragmentary Left (Monday on Patreon:) Hope and Love Tony Gilroy’s Antifascist Field Manual The Used Future Antifascist Parents Are Better than Jedi Parents...
Jun 07, 2025•39 min
Megamillionaire supplements and New Age life coach tycoon Aubrey Marcus recently claimed the goddess Isis told him that he must impregnate both his wife and the third member of their throuple while doing spiritual tourism in Egypt. During a nearly three-hour podcast, the three explain their polygamous plans and heartaches while their on-call guru, Marc Gafni—an old-school spiritualist most famous for the long list of sexual assault and misconduct allegations against him—frames their drama as a s...
Jun 05, 2025•1 hr 10 min
Support Conspirituality on Patreon . Does the word protestor conjure a masked figure in black clothing smashing windows and lighting fires or a weekend liberal ineffectually following rules while sipping on a creamy latte along the state-permitted protest route? A popular media narrative is that peaceful protest works best, but has the power of nonviolent resistance been debunked? Julian responds to Matthew’s interview with political sociologist, Benjamin Case. In the context of anarchist activi...
Jun 02, 2025•6 min
Marty Makary and Vinay Prasad claim they're going to open the "black box" at the FDA, an agency they're now both employed at. So they started a podcast. It's not the first official FDA podcast, but it certainly fits into the contrarian ethos both men have cultivated since 2020. Derek and Julian listen in to see how much of that box is actually being opened. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
May 31, 2025•34 min
We’ve been talking about RFK Jr for years, and even dedicated an entire chapter to him in our 2023 book—and we’re going to keep covering him. Since his power and influence has only grown, and since he’s now in charge of America’s entire health apparatus, there’s no way to avoid it. This week we catch up on the last few months of MAHA. Derek looks into why he believes Kennedy’s apparatus, despite claims of being about health, is really a cover for Project 2025’s deregulatory agenda. Julian discus...
May 29, 2025•1 hr 3 min
Calley Means is one of RFK Jr’s top advisors. Alongside Tucker Carlson, Means has claimed responsibility for shepherding Kennedy into Trump’s camp. Does this former business school graduate Heritage Foundation intern and business school graduate really care about the nation’s health? Derek listens to a recent interview with Politico and finds the deregulatory ethos that underlies all of Project 2025 is alive and well in MAHA. Show Notes Full interview with Calley Means | POLITICO Health Care Sum...
May 26, 2025•7 min
After being confirmed as Secretary of HHS, RFK Jr started installing his cabal of wellness influencers and contrarian doctors across the government's many public health agencies. And that means they have to apologize for their boss. Derek and Julian listen in on some of the most outrageous takes so far. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
May 24, 2025•35 min
The most annoying convert TradCath in the world, JD Vance, whose cherubic face belies all his bootlicking aggression, gets his moment with Pope Bob. Usha stands behind him in a black mantilla. He hands the pontiff an oversized envelope: an invitation from Donald and Melania to a White House dinner. Bob smiles guardedly as he takes it and without looking at it, setting it on his desk. “I’ll read that at some point,” Vance sputters, “of course, of course.” The scene is set for the Church-State ten...
May 22, 2025•1 hr 16 min
Matthew is back today for more with Ben Case: profiling Gene Sharp and the (non)politics of strategic nonviolence, plus his strange funding sources. Also: why did Erica Chenoweth speak out against antifascist Trump protesters in January of 2017, and suggest their research proved that property damage and scuffles with the police would ruin any opposition movement to Trump? Also: where does the funding come from for all this bad research? Gene Sharp worked for the Department of Defense, and today,...
May 19, 2025•6 min
You may have grown up with the term “nonviolence” shining like a pole star over every discussion of how we accomplish socio-political change. But what does it really mean? And who defines violence for that matter—beyond the police, the courts, and others in power? Today, the theory of non-violence has grown beyond its Gandhian, spiritual aspiration roots, while retaining an irrational faith and offering a distorted view of resistance history. It is now a think-tank-approved, purportedly evidence...
May 17, 2025•48 min
The chat bot flashes its elipsis at the bottom of the screen. What is it thinking, what does it want from you, what do you want from it? Beneath those pixels lies a sea of mined data and lightning storms of electricity heating up servers in barren deserts. What will it find for you in the past labor of the generations? According to a stunning new article in Rolling Stone , it will find whatever the fuck makes you feel like a god—incuding all the NewAge pablum it has scarfed down—because oops, Ch...
May 15, 2025•1 hr 11 min
It begins with a failed human sacrifice in Detroit in 1932. Some would say it actually starts with an evil god-scientist who created the first white people—white devils, really—some 6,000 years ago. Either way, the Nation of Islam has had an important cultural and political presence for almost a century in America. Today’s installment of Julian’s Roots of Conspirituality series covers the incredible real world history of this extremist new religious movement, as well as its outlandish sci-fi myt...
May 12, 2025•6 min
In 2022, Oregonians passed Measure 111, which amends the state constitution to declare access to affordable healthcare a right for every citizen. As it happens, this was the first ballot Derek voted on when moving to the state. Now that the long journey to universal healthcare is a reality in Oregon, what does that actually entail? Derek is joined by two members of the nonprofit organization, Health Care for All Oregon: Collin Stackhouse, the Social Media Coordinator, and Rebecca Schoon, an Asso...
May 10, 2025•33 min
