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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

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

en

78:18

233: DC’s Catholic Power Center (w/Gareth Gore)

Conspirituality ·

2024/11/21

Josemaria Escriva founded Opus Dei, an ultra-conservative, high-demand, secretive Catholic organization in Madrid, Spain, after receiving a supposed vision from God in 1928. His small inner circle initially initiated university students into strict obedience, celibacy, medieval practices of self-flagellation, and deceptive recruitment techniques to convert their friends. Operating outside of the mainstream church, Opus Dei rose to prominence under Spain's authoritarian dictator, Francisco Franco

en

5:56

Bonus Sample: Thinking About "Holism"

Conspirituality ·

2024/11/18

A personal journey through health describing what led Derek to focus on health, science, and healthcare as a career and, eventually, this podcast.Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

en

17:38

Brief: Post-Election Online Survivor Group Dynamics

Conspirituality ·

2024/11/16

The post-election online chaos has a lot in common with what can go wrong in online survivor groups. Matthew tracks how opportunities for connection and solidarity can crater into gravity wells of recrimination, trauma-dumping, moral outrage porn, and the rise of new influence hierarchies. Not just because of differences in politics and values and temperament—but because of inequality and privilege. A meditation on the difference between building a boat to sail in vs. a boat in a bottle, on

en

71:16

232: Gaslighting The Election

Conspirituality ·

2024/11/14

Once upon a time, there was a golden age. A time when the news media was fair and balanced, unbiased and honest. But we've lost all that to the corrupting influence of big money, political correctness, and woke censorship. Blame the radical left. Not to worry: the online charisma of heterodox new media figures like Bari Weiss and her plucky, centrist, truth-telling little start-up, The Free Press, has come to Make Journalism Great Again. Yet their supposed heterodoxy is neither neutral nor

en

5:36

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

Conspirituality ·

2024/11/11

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

28:31

Brief: Tucker Carlson's Daddy Issues

Conspirituality ·

2024/11/09

Derek discusses Tucker Carlson advocating for corporal punishment as a way to discipline children in his appearance at the Turning Points USA MAGA rally. This is an unlock from a recent Patreon bonus, with a new intro from Matthew. Show Notes Stephen Colbert: Tucker Carlson’s Weird Daddy Issues Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

en

69:32

231: New Age Bible, Postmodern Novel (w/ Sheila Heti)

Conspirituality ·

2024/11/07

Rapid-response electoral punditry is not our lane. So, while we gather our feelings and thoughts, Matthew hosts novelist Sheila Heti for a discussion of her encounter with A Course in Miracles, and what she discovered when she investigated its origin story for Harper’s Magazine.Was Helen Schucman, the book’s “scribe”, mentally ill? Was she unduly influenced by her boss at Columbia Medical School, William Thetford, who once worked for the CIA’s MKUltra programme, and with whom she was clearly in

en

6:00

Bonus Sample: Elections on 3 Continents

Conspirituality ·

2024/11/04

Having lived under Apartheid in South Africa, voted in the UK, and now staring down this terrifying US election, Julian reflects on the political differences between the three countries.Stay tuned for some hopeful poetry at the end. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

en

25:30

Brief: No Really, They’re Coming For Your Pets

Conspirituality ·

2024/11/02

Recently, “holistic veterinarian” Marcie Fallek, whose latest book, “Little Miracles Everywhere: My Unorthodox Path to Holistic Veterinary Medicine," is the #1 bestseller on Amazon in the Alternative Holistic Medicine category, appeared on Children's Health Defense's daily morning show.During “Pet Vaccines and Holistic Vet Care" she spreads the same sort of vaccine misinformation and fear-mongering that RFK Jr's nonprofit has become infamous for. All of which made Derek realize that yes, they're

en

92:07

230: How Did We Get Here?

Conspirituality ·

2024/10/31

With days left before the most consequential US election in our lifetime, we reflect on the last 4.5 years of this podcast while expressing our hopes–and our own reporting goals—for the future.Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

en

31:33

Relief Project #3: Michelle Cassandra Johnson

Conspirituality ·

2024/10/29

Matthew here with the third installment of Five Big Questions Posed to an Extremely Thoughtful Person. Michelle Cassandra Johnson was an early guest on our show and helped us lay the groundwork for understanding the reality and impacts of racism in the worlds of wellness and new spirituality. She’s an author, activist, and racial equity trainer. Her latest book, A Space For Us: A Guide For Leading Black, Indigenous, and People of Color Affinity Groups, was published by Beacon Press in August 2023

en

6:07

Bonus Sample: Tucker Carlson's Daddy Issues

Conspirituality ·

2024/10/28

Derek discusses Tucker Carlson advocating for corporal punishment as a way to discipline children in his appearance at the Turning Points USA MAGA rally. Show Notes Stephen Colbert: Tucker Carlson’s Weird Daddy Issues Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

en

37:36

Brief: Leonard Leo’s Plan to “Crush” Democracy

Conspirituality ·

2024/10/26

Billionaire legal activist Leonard Leo has had a role in placing all six conservative justices on the SCOTUS, and so therefore is in large part responsible for the overturning of Roe V Wade. But his right-wing activism isn’t even close to over, as he recently stated during a rare interview with The Daily Wire. Derek and Julian discuss Leo’s dark vision for the future. Show Notes Swamp Creatures 6: Leonard Leo, Judicial Kingmaker Inside Leonard Leo’s Plan For Conservatives To ‘Crush Liberal

en

74:32

229: Stanford Has Fallen

Conspirituality ·

2024/10/24

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 Peter

en

6:09

Bonus Sample: The Apocalyptic Portal

Conspirituality ·

2024/10/21

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 real

en

35:12

Brief: Trump Temple Playlist

Conspirituality ·

2024/10/19

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

en

71:03

228: Hurricane Trump

Conspirituality ·

2024/10/17

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

en

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