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PODCAST

Conspirituality

Derek Beres, Matthew Remski, Julian Walker

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

society & culture philosophy

All Episodes

28:10

Relief Project #6: Rebecca Solnit

Conspirituality ·

2024/12/31

Happy New Year’s Eve! The sixth installment of Matthew’s Five Big Questions Posed to an Extremely Thoughtful Person. Writer, historian, and activist Rebecca Solnit is the author of more than 20 books on feminism, western and indigenous history, popular power, social change and insurrection, wandering and walking, hope and disaster. Show Notes Rebecca Solnit Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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5:34

Bonus Sample: Why Big Wellness Hates Ozempic

Conspirituality ·

2024/12/30

Ozempic might be all the rage among people who want to lose weight, but wellness influencers and MAHA acolytes are raging against the antidiabetic medication. Derek investigates recent statements by RFK Jr and Calley Means and holds up their claims to the data we can all see online. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

en

39:28

Brief: The Free Press Tastes Its Own (Polio) Medicine

Conspirituality ·

2024/12/28

We've been highly critical of The Free Press in the past, but a recent memoir-article about grappling with a familial history of polio by Jana Kozlowski stood out. Derek and Julian take no issue with the piece, which was an emotional plea to understand the ravages of polio and the efficacy of vaccines. The comment section is another thing. Show Notes Polio Ravaged My Family. Forget Its Horror at Your Peril. The First Five Errors in the Moth in the Iron Lung Book The First Five Errors in Dissolving

en

30:08

Unlocked: “What will happen?” (asks a 12 year-old)

Conspirituality ·

2024/12/26

A special Patreon bonus unlocked episode as we enjoy the holidays with our families and friends. Matthew got The Question on the morning after the election. At that moment, he came up with nothing but a hug. But then he chewed on it for days, and came up with eleven things to consider. So here are some notes for possible conversations with tweens about anxiety, bullies, fascism, friends, mutual aid, and love. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

en

6:09

Bonus Sample: Blessed NeoKayfabe of Santa Claus

Conspirituality ·

2024/12/23

“If you grow up with it, religion is real until you realize it is also imagined. And after a period of disenchantment or even depression that associates imagination with lies, you might then sense that the imagined part was also real, but because it’s imagined, you know you can change it.”Matthew reflects on how Santa becomes more real in the home after the kids know he’s just a story, but a story of unbridled love and causeless generosity they can now participate in telling. Happy holidays,

en

38:48

Brief: My Dad Became a MAGA Power Broker (w/Julia...

Conspirituality ·

2024/12/21

Jeffery Tucker is the founder of the MAGA thinktank Brownstone Institute. In 2020, Brownstone published The Great Barrington Declaration, with lead author Jay Bhattacharya—now the nominee for head of the NIH. Jeffrey’s daughter, Julia, joins Matthew to discuss her dad’s rise through the punditocracy, through decades of fringe libertarian publishing, working for Ron Paul, boosting anarcho-capitalism and crypto, writing for the Epoch Times, and asking such daring questions as: “What’s so wrong about

en

84:04

237: Your Revolution is Out of Network

Conspirituality ·

2024/12/19

The murder of United HealthCare CEO Brian Thompson has set off shockwaves across America. This week we look at the story’s online impact, people mythologizing the alleged killer, its intersection with conspirituality, and the healthcare system in America writ large. Show Notes Jen Gunter on insurance denial for her premature babies' oxygen needs Exclusive: Luigi's Manifesto - Ken Klippenstein Savings: Quarter of Americans Have Few, One in 10 Have None | Statista The Burden of Medical Debt in the

en

31:53

Relief Project #5: Annie Kelly

Conspirituality ·

2024/12/17

The fifth installment of Matthew's Five Big Questions Posed to an Extremely Thoughtful Person. Dr. Annie Kelly joined us in Episode 61 to lay out her research on the manosphere-to-conspirituality pipeline. Today she joins me to discuss the trouble and joy of balancing extremism research with stories of hope and solidarity. Show Notes Annie Kelly Vaccine: The Human Story - YouTube Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

en

5:24

Bonus Sample: TheoBros, Political Religion, and...

Conspirituality ·

2024/12/16

Extremely online, bearded, Millennial pastors in tailored suits want to repeal women’s suffrage, criminalize gays, and Make America Christian Again. These “TheoBros” even have a guy on the inside: JD Vance. Trump’s Dept of Defense nominee, Pete Hegseth, attends an affiliated church. Julian tracks their genealogy and ugly ideas, as well as their parallel reactionary theocratic visions wreaking havoc elsewhere in the world today. Stay tuned for conversational reflections and wholesome holiday wishes

en

27:09

Brief: The Unfreedom of Others (w/Talia Lavin)

Conspirituality ·

2024/12/14

Journalist Talia Lavin joins Derek to discuss her recent book, Wild Faith: How the Christian Right is Taking Over America. Show Notes Wild Faith: How the Christian Right is Taking Over America Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

en

80:30

236: Damage Control

Conspirituality ·

2024/12/12

As we ride out the aftershocks of the election and prepare for Trump 2.0, it’s as if nothing is bolted down. Trump’s cabinet appointments signal a disregard for competence or temperament as he seems to prioritize fervent deep state conspiracism and anti-woke aggression in his choices. The chattering classes (both legacy and new media) are on the front lines of having to adapt in real time. What to do? Double down on anti-fascist resistance, turn the disinformation detection devices up to 11, chart

en

4:36

Bonus Sample: The Raw Truth About Health

Conspirituality ·

2024/12/09

Researchers in California recently warned that just one mutation in H5N1, the bird flu virus, could make the disease transmissible between humans. While the virus was first identified in 1959 (and became globally significant in 1996), they’re also concerned that increasingly damaging effects of climate change could make us more susceptible to such viruses. The same week, California-based raw milk manufacturer, Raw Farm, was forced to recall its products due to third-party testers discovering it

en

41:16

Brief: Freeing the Well-Trained Wife (w/Tia Levings)

Conspirituality ·

2024/12/07

Exvangelical author Tia Levings joins Matthew to discuss her harrowing memoir of indoctrination, abuse, recovery, and advocacy, The Well-Trained Wife: My Escape from Christian Patriarchy. It’s a wild GenX journey that tells us a lot about the logic of evangelical support for Trumpism, and how those caught within it can see their way clear the gender terror, rape culture, and fantasies of retribution. Show Notes Tia Levings This season, Patreon is checking some big things off your wish list Learn

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62:14

235: MAHA Mamas (feat Mallory DeMille)

Conspirituality ·

2024/12/05

If you’ve spent one minute on social media in the last few months, you’ve probably heard that seed oils are extremely toxic, food dyes are the reason for rising obesity rates—oh wait, that’s glyphosate—and vaccines are still causing autism. Nevermind the fact that the supposedly criminal preservative, thimerosal, was removed from almost all vaccinations in 2001. Clinical research is irrelevant in MAHA, RFK Jr’s Make America Healthy Again MAGA ripoff. Wellness acolytes have found a champion in

en

6:09

Bonus Sample: Deep State Religion

Conspirituality ·

2024/12/02

An essay from Matthew on how MAGA religiosity obscures the religious nature of liberalism, and how both obscure the underlying religion of capitalism. Inspired by Walter Benjamin, who in 1921 wrote: One can behold in capitalism a religion, that is to say, capitalism essentially serves to satisfy the same worries, anguish, and disquiet formerly answered by so-called religion. Capitalism is a pure religious cult, perhaps the most extreme there ever was. Within it everything only has meaning in direct

en

45:18

Brief: The $100M Free Press

Conspirituality ·

2024/11/30

The Free Press founder, Bari Weiss, recently hosted Peter Thiel on her podcast. While The FP markets itself as as a return to independent and non-partisan real journalism, Julian and Derek point out that's not the case at all—especially when the organization's $15M in funding comes from rightwing and libertarian VCs. Will Weiss factcheck Thiel's misinformation in real-time, as a "non-partisan" outlet should?Show Notes Lapdogs Of The "Counter-Elite" Authoritarians Learn more about your ad choices

en

72:56

234: Trump’s Conspiracist Cabinet

Conspirituality ·

2024/11/28

Since the election, Democratic voter disbelief and despair has alternated between grief and rage. We watched some erstwhile vociferous critics of Trump in the legacy media, like Joe Scarborough and Mika Brzezinski, kiss the ring and bend the knee, while others adopted a contorted posture of seeming legitimization, like NPR hosting Leonard Leo for a nice long sit-down interview. Meanwhile, the big egos of MAGA 2.0 seem to rise like Soviet propaganda banners over the American landscape. Trump has

en

19:09

Relief Project #4: Rob Schenck

Conspirituality ·

2024/11/26

Matthew here with the fourth installment of Five Big Questions Posed to an Extremely Thoughtful Person. Rob Schenck joined me in Episode 199 to discuss his deradicalization from the Evangelical anti-abortion movement. Today he joins me to discuss some things he’s learned about hope, faith, resilience and building community in hard times. Show Notes Costly Grace - Rob Schenck 199: Inside Anti-Abortion Christian Nationalism (w/Rob Schenck) Learn more about your ad choices. Visit

en

6:00

Bonus Sample: The UFOs Are Being Censored!

Conspirituality ·

2024/11/25

The climate denialist who exposed the so-called “censorship industrial complex” returns, this time at another congressional hearing. Michael Shellenberger has come to blow the whistle on Big Government’s UFO cover-up. Nancy Mace, Lauren Boebert, and Anna Paulina Luna alternate between showing off their knowledge of fantastical History Channel “documentaries” and playing bad cop interrogators. Reverse-engineered UFO’s! Recovered alien “biologics!” Interdimensional beings! Organic machines that defy

en

38:07

Brief: How to Fire a Billionaire

Conspirituality ·

2024/11/23

AG1 built a billion-dollar brand in large part by tapping into the fitness and wellness podcast and YouTube markets. Recently, AG1’s founder, Chris Ashenden, resigned after a decades-old real estate scam in his native New Zealand came to light. While Chris has mentioned it in passing, he’s always claimed to have paid full reparations for his crime—and it was a crime. Turns out that he hasn’t paid it all, as uncovered by New Zealand journalists Jonathan Milne and Mike Wesley-Smith. They join Derek to

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