Matthew eulogizes longtime Conspirituality listener Joseph Baker, who died on February 4 at the age of 51. They became online friends when Joseph reached out to say that maybe Matthew was being too harsh with people who found inspiration in A Course in Miracles . Expecting an irritating exchange, Matthew came to know an incisive political thinker who managed to radiate hope and forgiveness, and learned more about how a radical flank can develop in any spiritual community. Learn more about your a...
Mar 28, 2026•32 min
Did we all need a streaming manosphere documentary? Many did. Did we need one made in the GenX stop-and-mug slacker analysis-avoiding style of Louis Theroux? Debatable. Today we review Theroux’s Inside the Manosphere : its aesthetic mimicry of manosphere style, a potential ethics issue, how monetizing misogyny interacts with the gigwork incentives of OnlyFans, how all the bravado covers for legitimate fears, but only pays out at the top. Many Mexican Americans this past week were devastated to l...
Mar 26, 2026•1 hr 13 min
From a repurposed orphanage in the North of England, Abdullah Hashem tells his audience in five languages, across two satellite TV companies, and multiple social media channels that he is the successor of Jesus and Mohammed, the “one true Pope” for Christians. In his carefully staged and ominously lit “basilica,” he lectures to his 200 residential followers (who emulate his idiosyncratic fashion style) about angels, aliens, reincarnation, and a planet where giant rabbits keep humans as pets. Oh ...
Mar 23, 2026•8 min
There's been talk about the "male loneliness epidemic" for years. Yet what about women? Derek reviews economist Corinne Low's recent book, Having It All , in light of this question, contrasting it with Scott Galloway's recent self-help book for men. The contrasts between the books couldn't be clearer. Show Notes Having It All: What Data Tells Us About Women's Lives and Getting the Most Out of Yours Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices...
Mar 21, 2026•30 min
When Hannah and Daniel Neeleman recently went on camera to explain their position on raw milk, they assured their 22 million-plus following that they were going to follow regulations—with a bit of a grudge. The couple behind Ballerina Farm wasn’t going to let a little bacteria get in the way of their farming operations, so they’ll just focus on pasteurized products. While not associated with MAHA, some of their takes on health certainly rhyme. So today we’ll get into this uber-popular feed: who ...
Mar 19, 2026•56 min
The Pitt recently exposed fans to the complexities and reality of panic attacks. Derek uses that moment in the exceptional show to discuss his own longstanding struggle with anxiety, exploring the latest science and interventions for dealing with them. Show Notes Generalized Anxiety Disorder and Panic Disorder in Adults Management of generalized anxiety disorder and panic disorder in general health care settings: new WHO recommendations Anxiety Disorders Guidelines Clinical Practice Guidelines f...
Mar 16, 2026•7 min
Turning Point USA's Women’s Leadership Conference returns to Dallas in June. Derek and Julian take a look inside. Show Notes Antifeminist women’s summit: ‘The kitchen is where the real revolution starts’ Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Mar 14, 2026•30 min
As black rain falls from the smoke-choked skies of Tehran, the US and Israel continue their war against the Islamic Republic of Iran. From the start, Trump officials have seemed only to disagree on both the murky rationale and the objectives of their mission. Meanwhile, the Military Religious Freedom Foundation has been flooded with reports of commanding officers rallying their troops with apocalyptic pep talks in which Trump has been anointed by Jesus to kick-off Armageddon. This should come as...
Mar 12, 2026•1 hr 15 min
Matthew found out that the late Marxist historian Michael Parenti went on a yoga retreat at the Sivananda Ashram in the Bahamas. He clocked the BS immediately—unlike Matthew when he showed up in spaces like that decades later. Was political training the difference? Show Notes Michael Parenti "The Political Uses of Religion" Denver, Colorado 4.18.87 How a #MeToo Facebook Post Toppled a Yoga Icon | by Matthew Remski | GEN Shielded for Decades, a Leader of Sivananda Yoga Finally Comes Under Fire fo...
Mar 09, 2026•5 min
Matthew digs into the fascism-enabling political theology of Bishop Robert Barron and the rightward slide of Big Catholic media. From his early admiration of Thomas Merton—carefully stripped of his antiwar and anti-capitalist passion—to his praise for Jordan Peterson, Marco Rubio, and Charlie Kirk, Barron repackages Red Scare tropes in the language of beauty, civility, and “religious liberty.” And what about his virtual silence on ICE operations in Minnesota and the suffering of immigrants withi...
Mar 07, 2026•45 min
Despite saying “I believe glyphosate causes cancer” a few weeks ago, RFK Jr quickly pivoted when his boss declared an executive order calling for the ramping up of glyphosate under a 75-year-old defense production act that also happens to give immunity to Bayer, the parent company of Monsanto. MAHA activists immediately went into a frenzy, shocked that their tallow daddy would betray them like this. Mallory DeMille not only coined the term “tallow daddy,” she’s also been tracking the civil war t...
Mar 05, 2026•50 min
Cult leaders, religious fanatics, dictators, and charlatans all have one thing in common: they exploit our fear of death. Humans act out “immortality projects” in the form of religion, culture, and political ideologies as unconscious ways to override the terror we feel at our uniquely self-aware knowledge that we will one day die. Where the orthodox priest promises eternal life, the cult leader might predict an alien apocalypse, while the authoritarian strongman invokes the transcendent glory of...
Mar 02, 2026•9 min
Casey Means was grilled by some Senators at her hearing for nomination of Surgeon General on Wednesday. Others lobbed softballs. Derek revisits the book that made her a star on the MAHA circuit, Good Energy , to detail all the misleading claims and outright misinformation. Show Notes Well, That Didn’t Sound Like Casey Means Casey Means, Critic of Mainstream Medicine, Poised to Become Nation’s Top Doctor What is Shared Clinical Decision Making? Former Trump surgeon general: ‘Incomprehensible’ Sen...
Feb 28, 2026•26 min
It’s hard for some people to accept that the normalized and unbridled accumulation of wealth and power is a selection process for apex predators, who wind up having overwhelming influence over the systems that enabled them. The metaphysical reflex can provide a lot of relief: Epstein was uniquely evil, so different from the rest of us that he engaged in supernatural acts. He was a cosmic raider invading an otherwise balanced world. In the chaos of facts and allusions that swirl around the Epstei...
Feb 26, 2026•1 hr 23 min
MAHA isn’t a health movement. It’s a marketing engine driving activist propaganda. Derek looks at Tony Lyons, one of MAHA’s key architects, and his recent strategic memo sent to Republican leadership about how to use MAHA talking points to retain power in the midterm elections. Show Notes Tony Lyons’s strategic memo to GOP leadership Examining Who Benefits From Kennedy’s Anti-Science MAHA Push MAHA Supporters Form New Organization to Boost RFK’s Goals in D.C. MAHA’s money man has built a politic...
Feb 23, 2026•6 min
In the wake of the DOJ’s dump of 3 million documents from the FBI’s Epstein investigation, journalists, content creators, and everyday people are forming narratives and schema for what it all means. Social media is flooded with survivor stories, overwhelming disgust, rage and grief, and reports of anxiety, sleep disturbance, and difficulty functioning in the world (mostly from women). Pizzagate and QAnon conspiracy memes are being resurrected. Satanic Ritual Abuse materials are again circulating...
Feb 21, 2026•37 min
Deepak Chopra is all over the Epstein files. Are we surprised? Nope. But we are interested in the various layers of his entanglement and what they say about the ethics and politics at play in the shadow of Big Wellness. Show Notes Self-Help Guru Sorry He Got Busted for Vile Epstein Emails Deepak Chopra: New Age Guru, UCSD Prof – and Epstein Confidant God Is A Construct, Cute Girls Are Real': Bestselling Spiritual Author Deepak Chopra's Emails To Epstein Revealed Deepak Chopra told Epstein to 'br...
Feb 19, 2026•1 hr
Mark Carney is a devout Catholic, and his economic vision came from a challenge posed by Pope Francis. Matthew walks through the contradictions of Carney’s economic spirituality. Show Notes Values by Mark Carney | Penguin Random House Canada Pope Francis says he wasn't offended by 'communist crucifix' gift The Catholic Case for Communism - America Magazine Pope Francis: “If I See the Gospel in a Sociological Way Only, Yes, I Am a Communist, and So Too Is Jesus” - The American TFP Exclusive: Pope...
Feb 16, 2026•5 min
Matthew pokes at the contradictions behind Prime Minister Mark Carney’s polished Davos attempt to distance Canada from U.S. chaos, while Canadian companies continue profiting from the U.S. domestic terror regime. Drawing on reporting by Rachel Gilmore, Matthew looks at how Canada’s “middle power” liberalism masks deep complicity with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement through arms, surveillance tech, and security contracts. Carney’s benevolent affect continues the tradition of obscuring a ...
Feb 14, 2026•20 min
Over 1,000 children and women were potentially victims of Jeffrey Epstein's trafficking and sexual abuse. It is not clear how deeply Peter Attia was enmeshed in Epstein's core activities, but we do know he belonged to an important tier of his operation: the influencer-celebrity-intelligentsia set that legitimized him as a sophisticate across a wide range of disciplines. We revisit Attia in light of his 1,700+ appearances in the Epstein Files. Show Notes 285: Can Peter Attia Live Forever? Longevi...
Feb 12, 2026•58 min
In the wake of ICE murders, some are calling for more protestors with guns, or at least to prepare to meet fire with fire. Julian examines the history of armed struggle in South Africa and Northern Ireland, as well as the arguments for nonviolent vs militant political movements. Is there a way back from the turning point at which people recruit their friends and families into neighborhood militias, learn to kill soldiers and civilians in the name of a cause, and construct chains of command that ...
Feb 09, 2026•6 min
Two new MAHA-approved bills would force insurance companies to cover supplements and shield homeopathic manufacturers from any liability while allowing them to make more health claims. As Derek argues, this is what Kennedy has always been aiming for: shuffle as many alt-med products into circulation as possible while ensuring they don't need any of those pesky regulations pharmaceuticals must endure. Show Notes West Virginia House Bill 4760 Texas HR 7050 Supplements Are a $70 Billion Industry. R...
Feb 07, 2026•23 min
Prior to last month’s killings of Renee Good and Alex Pretti, many white American citizens felt obligated to use their privilege to actively disrupt unjust ICE activities in their cities. But the stakes just got higher for everyone. In the wake of these tragic deaths, we look at how the MAGA propaganda machine dehumanizes opposition and demands loyalists not trust the evidence of their own eyes and ears. In segment two, Matthew will look into how renegade religious leaders, then in segment three...
Feb 05, 2026•1 hr 4 min
When videos surfaced of Alex Pretti kicking an ICE vehicle's taillight 11 days before his murder, claims that the video was AI dominated social media. Some commenters even posted articles that stated the opposite of what they thought they said. Derek explores the necessity of curiosity when coming across information that contradicts what you want to hear. First, he explores it through his love of books before applying the skill to situations like the Pretti video. Learn more about your ad choice...
Feb 02, 2026•6 min
The silence of MAHA influencers around the murder of Renee Good (and ICE generally) has been excessively loud. Yet that’s expected from the coalition that voted for Donald Trump in order to install RFK Jr at this point. Many believe “health isn’t political” while refusing to accept or acknowledge what their vote has empowered. Dr Jonathan Howard, a neurologist and psychiatrist at NYU Langone’s Multiple Sclerosis Comprehensive Care Center, returns to the podcast to talk about MAGA’s enablers in t...
Jan 31, 2026•37 min
As Trump surges his Gestapo and threatens to annex new territory, his brain is collapsing. He’s sundowning on Truth Social, nodding off in meetings, slurring words, slurping at the saliva pooling in his mouth. His insults and aggressions are as constant and predictable as his arms are, reaching out for handholds. Up until this point, discourse on the mental health of this decrepit fascist leader has used the kid gloves of psychology, psychoanalysis, and psychiatry, in which even the most informe...
Jan 29, 2026•58 min
Listen to the full episode Simone Weil was skeptical about the project of “rights.” They argued that obligations come before rights, and that rights only become real when obligations are recognized and lived. Weil believed the French Revolution made a foundational error by grounding society in rights rather than eternal obligations, creating a contradiction that still haunts liberal democracies today. Rights, Weil argues, carry a bargaining spirit and ultimately depend on force for enforcement, ...
Jan 26, 2026•6 min
If conspirituality names the ways religion and spirituality are weaponized to justify power, prospirituality points to religious traditions doing the opposite: grounding resistance, ethical clarity, and solidarity in moments of crisis. So: is there a growing prospirituality response to fascism, genocide, climate collapse, and AI-driven labor precarity? Matthew argues that yeah, there’s some good news. In Israel, scripture has been mobilized by political and religious leaders to sacralize violenc...
Jan 24, 2026•29 min
Noelle Cook’s The Conspiracists: Women, Extremism, and the Lure of Belonging is the first ethnography of conspirituality, and it comes via someone who was able to really embed themselves in a volatile culture and find its emotional logic. She’s our guest today. Cook focuses on the travails of two middle-aged women following the January 6 Capitol riot. By spending years befriending and talking with Tammy Butry and Yvonne St. Cyr, Cook is able to document the impacts of childhood trauma and system...
Jan 22, 2026•1 hr 8 min
In 1953 the CIA and MI6 participated in a coup d’etat in Iran. That true sentence (and what usually follows) can create an oversimplified distortion of history—and present. But Iran is in the news again with the biggest protests since the 1979 Islamic Revolution bringing millions to the streets. The regime unsurprisingly cracked down hard: at least 2,700 protesters have been killed and 18,000 arrested. Though the initial impetus was economic, these are the latest in a wave of growing uprisings i...
Jan 19, 2026•7 min
