Conspirituality
232 episodes - English - Latest episode: almost 2 years ago -A weekly study of converging right-wing conspiracy theories and faux-progressive wellness utopianism. 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 trafficking. In the process, spiritual beliefs that have nurtured creativity and meaning are transforming into memes of a quickly-globalizing paranoia. Conspirituality Podcast attempts to bring understanding to this landscape. A journalist, a cult researcher, and a philosophical skeptic discuss the stories, cognitive dissonances, and cultic dynamics tearing through the yoga, wellness, and new spirituality worlds. Mainstream outlets have noticed the problem. We crowd-source, research, analyze, and dream answers to it.
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Episodes
Bonus Sample: Swan Song Series 6 | Michelle Remembers: Literal Symbols
August 29, 2022 11:00 - 10 minutes - 7.02 MBThe homestretch of our study of Michelle Remembers zeroes in on the literal symbols—and symbols gone literal—of the Satanic Panic. Archetypes, gore, anxieties about sex and babies and filth: Lawrence Pazder mined it all, using modes of abstraction and dehumanization as old as religion itself to weave a story he claimed was all about Michelle—but was really an exercise of his own fetishes. Michelle Smith could have received proper care for her understandable stresses. She could have offered ...
117: The Real Cost of Fitness in America (w/Natalia Petrzela)
August 25, 2022 13:00 - 1 hour - 46.3 MBFitness is the beating heart of America. No, wait, that’s opportunistic capitalism. But opportunistic capitalism, as it turns out, is the beating heart of fitness. Yet fitness has a soul too—in fact, mysticism, capitalism, and fitness have been dancing together for a very long time, while politics calls the tune, as historian and assistant professor at The New School, Natalia Petrzela, is here to tell us about today. We should also note that Natalia is our only four-time guest. She’s also t...
Bonus Sample: JP Sears is Definitely Binary
August 22, 2022 13:00 - 6 minutes - 4.57 MBJP Sears constantly refers to himself as a freethinker. His increasing religiosity is counter to critical thinking, however. Derek responds to two recent videos that detail his religious thinking and transphobia, showing how a specific strain of Christianity—and binary thinking—is not freethought, but propaganda.
UNLOCKED: Swan Song Series 2 | Teal Swan: Art & Artifice (w/Paola Marino)
August 18, 2022 13:00 - 1 hour - 74 MBIn this episode of the Swan Song Series, Matthew interviews Paola Marino about why she found Teal Swan a fascinating subject to film for 2018’s “Open Shadow.” They discuss aesthetics, the mystery of personality, why Swan’s parents agreed to sit down with her. Matthew also surprised her with the newly-revealed translations of Swan’s coded journal pages. Prefacing the interview is a discussion between Julian and Matthew about art, artifice, the risks of doing and not doing hard journalism on ...
Bonus Sample: Swan Song Series 5 | Michelle Remembers: Themes & Framing
August 15, 2022 09:00 - 8 minutes - 5.9 MBIn the second of three episodes on Michelle Remembers, we recap its Catholic contexts, and Lawrence Pazder's quest to transcend the limitations of psychiatry through mystical nightmares. We then explore the front matter: how Pazder introduces his project (and himself), and the ambivalent endorsement of Remi de Roo, Archbishop of Victoria. In Pazder's many clerical alliances, a crucial theme is established: the rapprochement between psychiatry and the priesthood, in which the former submits t...
116: History is Not a Placebo: Chinese Medicine in America (w/Tamara Venit-Shelton)
August 11, 2022 21:00 - 1 hour - 56.5 MBTraditional Chinese Medicine is an ancient medical system that has persisted in its homeland for countless generations before being exported to the rest of the world—right? Well, not exactly, but that doesn’t mean the varying sets of practices have not made an impact in China and abroad. This week, historian Tamara Venit-Shelton joins the podcast to talk to Derek about the history of Chinese Medicine in America. The author of Herbs and Roots: A History of Chinese Doctors in the American Me...
Bonus Sample: Swan Song Series 4 | Michelle Remembers: Context & History
August 08, 2022 10:00 - 8 minutes - 5.57 MBThere's no Teal Swan without the Satanic Panic. And there's no Satanic Panic without the 1980 publication of Michelle Remembers, by Lawrence Pazder and Michelle Smith. In this first of three segments on this melted book, Matthew and Julian cover its historical, cultural, and mass media context. We start with a review of a 1985 20/20 episode called “The Devil Worshippers” for a taste of how mainstream outlets hosted cranks like Pazder, giving him a hall pass on evidence, and overlooking how...
UNLOCKED: Swan Song Series 1 | Close to Home
August 06, 2022 14:00 - 1 hour - 56.9 MBWe can't understand Teal Swan without understanding the Satanic Panic. And we can't really understand that historical disaster with out feeling our way into the mysteries of memory, fantasy, shame, and terror. Many of you will have heard about therapists interfering in a family constellation by insinuating the client has has memories of abuse to uncover, and that they can’t go forward in their lives without doing that work. This is the bread and butter of Swan's technique, with the result ...
115: Controlling Women's Bodies "Naturally" (w/EJ Dickson)
August 04, 2022 10:00 - 56 minutes - 38.9 MBMatthew sits down with ace journalist EJ Dickson to explore her deep archive of reporting on the policing of women's bodies, and how it reflects on her own experience of childbirth. This episode opens and closes with reference to the essay that first introduced Matthew to this world, "Giving Birth in Yogaland," written by his partner Alix, after two C-section deliveries. Links: "Giving Birth in Yogaland" —Alix Cale raggapunzel on Instagram —water birth on the beach Pieces by EJ Dickson C...
Bonus Sample: The Wellness Theory of Depression
August 01, 2022 13:00 - 8 minutes - 5.58 MBA recent review questioning the serotonin theory of depression has revived a generations-long debate over the very notion of "chemical imbalances." While there are plenty of important debates about the roles of pharmacology and psychotherapy in mental health disorders, conspiritualists from both wellness spaces and the far right have been using mental health to promote (and monetize) their own agendas. Derek investigates. Show Notes The serotonin theory of depression: a systematic umbrell...
114: Guns, Germs & Fear (w/Alan Levinovitz)
July 28, 2022 20:00 - 1 hour - 62.2 MBLife is scary. Natural disasters, violent intruders, and deadly viruses threaten our survival and endanger our loved ones. When ordinary solutions and institutions are not trusted, we may reach for talismanic help; crystals, herbal remedies, ritual prayer and magical thinking, or we might consult the charismatic oracle who channels prophecies from the Great Beyond—right on your iPhone. But what about weaponry? Even though guns exert devastating real-world impact, our guest argues that they...
Bonus Sample: Listening to Teal Swan’s Mom and Dad
July 25, 2022 13:00 - 4 minutes - 3.42 MBSome of the most valuable material that comes to us from Paula Marino's Open Shadow film of 2017 is an extended interview with Swan's parent's, the Bosworths. They speak about Swan's sensory sensitivity as a young child, and how that morphed into a staunchly independent but sometimes isolated social life. They describe Swan's secret runic writing, their belief in her capacities as a medical intuitive, and discuss the gaps in psychiatric care that failed them all when her mental health needed...
113: A Course in Conspiracies (w/Sam Kestenbaum)
July 21, 2022 10:00 - 59 minutes - 41.1 MBWe spend so much time on this podcast discussing the wellness industry’s paranoia around anything from the medical “establishment” or the Luciferean nature of “Big Pharma,” but there’s another devil that’s lurking around every corner: the Mainstream Media. Derek has long argued that there’s no such thing. Media organizations are competing businesses, and while there can be sloppiness when trying to break a story or laziness when rewriting press releases for clicks, the notion of a media “D...
Bonus Sample: Swan Song Series 2 | Teal Swan: Art and Artifice (w/Paola Marino)
July 18, 2022 09:00 - 4 minutes - 3.09 MBIn this episode of the Swan Song Series, Matthew interviews Paola Marino about why she found Teal Swan a fascinating subject to film for 2018’s “Open Shadow.” They discuss aesthetics, the mystery of personality, why Swan’s parents agreed to sit down with her. Matthew also surprised her with the newly-revealed translations of Swan’s coded journal pages. Prefacing the interview is a discussion between Julian and Matthew about art, artifice, the risks of doing and not doing hard journalism on ...
112: The Science Whisperer (w/Danielle Belardo)
July 14, 2022 10:00 - 1 hour - 65.5 MBThis podcast was born in response to COVID and vaccine disinformation that, while bubbling up for some time, flooded the population with the release of the pseudodocumentary, “Plandemic.” Ever since then, we’ve wondered how to combat the constant tides of pseudoscience masquerading as “natural remedies” that conspiritualists champion, then sell for a profit. One of our earliest champions was the Southern California-based cardiologist, Danielle Belardo, who built up a large social media fol...
Bonus Sample: The Music of the Conspirituality Podcast
July 11, 2022 13:00 - 9 minutes - 6.53 MBDerek steps back from conspiracies and wellness this week to discuss something very healing and personal to him: music. Specifically, how music has shaped his career, as well as the story behind the music you hear every week on this podcast. Show Notes EarthRise SoundSystem on Spotify Earthrise SoundSystem vs Nina Simone: Come Ye Bole 2 Harlem Pete Kuzma Global Beat Fusion: The History of the Future of Music
111: Who's Afraid of Teal Swan (pt 2) (w/Jennings Brown)
July 07, 2022 10:00 - 1 hour - 74.8 MBOur guest today, Jennings Brown, is a bright light in an increasingly chaotic cult-content economy. His 2018 podcast on Teal Swan, The Gateway, produced with Gizmodo, sets a high-watermark standard for research, fairness, and sensitivity. A lot has happened since that pod dropped: #MeToo, MAGA, QAnon, COVID, and now a post-reality Supreme Court in which Justice Thomas publishes a concurrence in which he states that COVID vaccines use the tissues of aborted fetuses. All of which is to say: we...
Bonus Sample: Swan Song Series: Close to Home
July 04, 2022 09:00 - 9 minutes - 6.88 MBWe can't understand Teal Swan without understanding the Satanic Panic. And we can't really understand that historical disaster with out feeling our way into the mysteries of memory, fantasy, shame, and terror. Many of you will have heard about therapists interfering in a family constellation by insinuating the client has has memories of abuse to uncover, and that they can’t go forward in their lives without doing that work. This is the bread and butter of Swan's technique, with the result ...
110: Temple of the Gun
July 01, 2022 00:00 - 1 hour - 57.8 MBRosaries made of shell casings. A breakaway Unification Church sect that holds rituals with gilded ARs. JP Sears on the gun range. The unholy American trinity of conservative politics, religious extremism, and gun culture is deep into its liturgical calendar. And it looks like conspiritualist influencers in the yoga and wellness space are setting up their juice bars outside the temple of the gun. Is Christiane Northrup LARPing when she talks about murdering political enemies? What would Mi...
The Chapels in Our Brains
June 27, 2022 13:00 - 9 minutes - 6.71 MBMatthew introduces Julian to the solipsism of an old Catholic catechism. Julian remembers meditating on non-duality. What spaces in our brains do these exercises create? Did we need those spaces for safety, or to hide from ourselves and the world? What happens to these spaces when we no longer need them? If we learned how to take pleasure in “cognitive closure” through religion or spirituality, can we use that skill forever, but detached from the ideologies that want to steal that fire?
109. Who’s Afraid of Teal Swan? (w/ Jon Kasbe)
June 23, 2022 21:00 - 2 hours - 83.9 MBIf the world has become too much to bear—and the bots know it from your search history— you will likely find Teal Swan. She will appear, an angel of the algorithms, part icon and part anime avenger. Against a backdrop of flowing water or turning constellations, she will gaze into your despair. She will speak in a drone at once hypnotic and relieving, giving words to feelings you thought were taboo. At 3am, this might feel like mystical luck, but it’s no accident. Swan is open about recruitin...
Bonus Sample: Giving Up the Gun
June 20, 2022 13:00 - 7 minutes - 5.21 MBAfter becoming global leaders in gun manufacturing in the 16th century, Japan banished all guns from their country for two centuries. How did this happen? And what were the results? Well, even today, the nation of 127 million experiences under 10 gun deaths every year. Derek looks back at this period in history to find out what happens when a society seems to move backward when in reality progress is made. He also looks at the psychology of warfare while noting that as bad as society can b...
108: Downeast with Christiane Northrup (w/ Mooncat, Andy O’Brien, & Alyce Ornella)
June 16, 2022 10:00 - 1 hour - 67.8 MBHalf-a-million Facebook followers. Hundreds of videos in a series called “The Great Awakening.” Christiane Northrup, the matriarch of New Age women’s wellness, warns her followers about fake viruses, and tells them to avoid sex with their vaccinated partners. She stumps alongside QAnon celebrities, shovels campaign contributions to Trump, and dotes over sovereign citizen sheriffs. To ease your symptoms of ascension, she offers bath recipes of alfalfa greens and Dr. Bronner’s soap. You can ha...
Bonus Sample: Julian Goes to Church
June 13, 2022 13:00 - 10 minutes - 6.97 MBJulian recently attended his first Catholic funeral and found himself equal parts supportive friend and atheist anthropologist. This week, Matthew draws on his Catholic upbringing and experience as church organist (for close to 1,000 funerals) to help unpack this experience. In hindsight, it turns out that the rote blandness of organized religion may serve communities more honestly than the monetized performative charisma of New Age ritual. The conversation touches on the mythological and ...
107: An Open Letter to Aubrey Marcus
June 09, 2022 10:00 - 1 hour - 53.7 MBAubrey Marcus really wants to not be a cult leader. He really wants Fit For Service to not be labeled a cult. He’s come out and said so, in a bold but vague response to criticism of his content from our podcast. Matthew takes him at his word, and puts on his cult research hat to give some pointers on how Aubrey can avoid abusing his power. Key bits of advice include: rejecting high intensity recruitment techniques, not depicting the world outside Fit For Service as “upside down” or insane, a...
Jordan Peterson, Derrick Jensen, and the Anti-Trans Laugh Emoji
June 06, 2022 10:00 - 10 minutes - 7.11 MBAn audio essay from Matthew about how anti-trans ideology can so curdle the soul that an otherwise progressive eco-activist—Derrick Jensen of Deep Green Resistance—can blow up his entire career over it, disrupting the very thing he says he lives for, and destroying the movement he spent years building up. The story starts more than a decade ago, but comes to its peak absurdity, for Matthew at least, on Facebook. He posted some thoughts about Jordan Peterson freaking out over that woman on t...
106: Conspiracy Dojo (w/Stephan Kesting)
June 02, 2022 13:00 - 1 hour - 45.9 MBWe've gone deep on yoga communities infected by conspiracy theories. We've looked at essential oils and supplements influencers peddling in misinformation. There are channelers and astrologers and chiropractors. But there's another world we've only mentioned in passing: martial arts practitioners, which turn out to be another influential vector for disinformation. This week, Stephan Kesting, longtime BJJ black belt and instructor (and so much more) joins Derek to look at the conspiratorial...
Bonus Sample: The Ruthless Sovereignty of Kelly Brogan
May 30, 2022 09:00 - 8 minutes - 6.23 MBMatthew and Julian have to thank Kelly Brogan for hanging out on an episode of Aubrey Marcus's podcast, where she lays bare the emotional avoidance and cruelty that conspirituality attempts to sublimate—or dispel the guilt of. Here's the pull quote for the ages: So when I am sick, right, chronically sick, what do I get? I get compassion built in to my life from others who pity me. Right? And who offer me that surrogate hit of love. I get to say no without having to actually learn to assert...
105: TikTok, Cults, & Conspiracies (w/ Abbie Richards)
May 26, 2022 13:00 - 1 hour - 78.6 MBIs humanity doomed to repeat the mistakes of the past? This week, Julian traces a timeline from the bright-eyed early days of the internet to the dark message boards where QAnon emerged—and that still foment white supremacist mass shootings. to the dizzying infinite scroll on TikTok. Each new evolution of social media exploits innate human vulnerabilities more effectively, delivering more potent strains of deceptive manipulation to receptive young minds. No surprise, then, that a crew of...
Bonus Sample: Alt-Med Treadmill
May 23, 2022 10:00 - 8 minutes - 6.03 MBJulian and Matthew decompress after the interview with Gavin Ryan and discuss the "alt-med treadmill" and what it means to never quite know where the threshold of evidence lies,
104: Leaving Ramtha's Ranch (w/Cortney & Shana)
May 19, 2022 10:00 - 1 hour - 59.6 MBCortney and Shana can’t remember exactly how they first became aware of the New Age promises and anxieties that would come to dominate every aspect of their lives. Their mom brought it into the house and their daily rhythms bit by bit. As kids in the early 1980s, they would fall asleep to visualizations by the self-help guru Wayne Dyer, on audiocassette. Or mom would read passages from Autobiography of a Yogi, by Paramahansa Yogananda, after tucking them into bed. Cortney remembers an eeri...
Bonus Sample: Yoga & the Body in Time (Pt 2)
May 16, 2022 13:00 - 8 minutes - 6.14 MBAs the crew is in the final stages of submitting their forthcoming book, Julian and Derek reflect on how yoga has evolved in their personal lives. In Part 2, they talk about yoga in aging bodies, the pursuit of philosophy, and leaving the damn cell phone out of yoga studios.
103: Roe Against the Machine (w/Kiera Butler)
May 12, 2022 13:00 - 43 minutes - 29.8 MBSince day one, we've been covering medical disinformation on this podcast, always wondering where it would move next. Our collective breaths were stolen when learning about the seemingly inevitable overturning of Roe v Wade last week—and the extensive implications that could have for American society. Mother Jones senior editor, Kiera Butler, has been reporting on medical disinformation in parenting groups for years. Her most recent piece points out the next potential freedom to be stripped...
Bonus Sample: Yoga & the Body in Time (Pt 1)
May 09, 2022 13:00 - 8 minutes - 6.09 MBAs the crew is in the final stages of submitting their forthcoming book, Julian and Derek reflect on how yoga has evolved in their personal lives. In Part 1, they discuss the origins of their yoga practices, what led them to teaching, and some ideas about yoga philosophy in general.
102: Conspirituality, Cancer, & Compassion (w/ Gavin Ryan)
May 05, 2022 10:00 - 59 minutes - 41.1 MBAfter we published episode 98 on “Placebo Joe” Dispenza, an Australian artist named Gavin Ryan posted a comment to Facebook in response: “My wife was full of this stuff, when she stopped taking all the treatments that had finally turned her breast cancer around, right up to the day she died of it. Still fully convinced she was going to heal herself by sheer force of wishful thinking.” We reached out, and Gavin agreed to an interview. Fey was 47 years old when she died under the coconut pa...
Bonus Sample: Cash Grab
May 02, 2022 13:00 - 8 minutes - 6.2 MBManifestation workshops. MLM downlines. The supplement grift. Cash is king everywhere in the conspirituality sphere, even—especially—when disguised in the jargon of spiritual-ese. Derek and Julian step back and discuss the cash grab impulse, as well as talk about their own feelings on money and its value.
101: Eugenic Pandemic (w/ Beatrice Adler-Bolton)
April 28, 2022 11:00 - 1 hour - 56.2 MBIn this conversation, Beatrice Adler-Bolton—disability justice advocate and co-host of Death Panel Podcast—says something twice: "Under capitalism, you’re only entitled to the survival you can buy." Her forthcoming co-authored book is called, provocatively, Health Communism. Part of its argument is that we have to imagine a society in which everyone is entitled to the survival we can share. How disquieting it is that the natural instinct we have as individuals to ask: "What is this goin...
Bonus Sample: Taking the Con Out of Spirituality
April 25, 2022 10:00 - 9 minutes - 6.79 MBDerek and Julian discuss the literary influences and yogic practices that led them to yoga in the first place, while also discussing what spirituality in a post-pandemic world could look like.
100: State of Disinformation (w/Imran Ahmed)
April 21, 2022 20:00 - 1 hour - 64.3 MBIn July 2020, just as we were finding our sea legs with this podcast, Imran Ahmed joined to discuss the state of disinformation occurring around the world. As the founder of the UK’s Center for Countering Digital Hate, he had just produced a report that found anti-vax organizations were reaching 58 million people on social media—and this was well before the COVID vaccines were developed. The total amount of money spent by anti-vax groups and advertisers targeting their followers on Facebook,...
Bonus Sample: Zach Bush and the Holy Sardines
April 18, 2022 13:00 - 10 minutes - 6.93 MBThe Sermon of the Sardines is etched into our very souls. Picture the scene, as dreamboat doctor Zach Bush recounts his shimmering story of swimming off the coast of Tulum with thousands of tiny heroic fish, for Rich Roll’s Tuscany retreat participants. In this week’s Bonus episode Matthew and Julian connect the dots between Zach’s quivering amphibious ecstasy, his fascist notions of holy sacrifice in warfare via “non-empathic presence,” how he praises his hospice staff for using reiki as op...
99: Conspirituality Goes to Therapy (w/ Rachel Bernstein)
April 14, 2022 22:00 - 1 hour - 60 MBListeners: there’s a revolution going on. Legions of Twitter counselors and Instagram therapists has risen up to offer unsolicited sermons on cults, cult leaders, and cult recovery. With COVID closing down the studios, every third yoga teacher has become an expert in trauma. They’re starting Facebook groups. They’re selling courses. They’re doing their Family Systems work out in the open, displaying heroic levels of vulnerability. We’re just waiting for the first QAnon recovery MLM to launch...
Bonus Sample: Watch What They Say, Watch What They Sell
April 11, 2022 13:00 - 7 minutes - 5.49 MBSince early on in this conspirituality experiment, Derek has been using the catchphrase that is the title of this week's bonus episode. Julian joins in to discuss exactly what the phrase means in the landscape of conspiritualists, who the most egregious offenders are, and the origin story of the term. If you think your coffee is moldy or those glasses are really blocking blue light, think again.
98: Placebo Joe Dispenza
April 08, 2022 00:00 - 1 hour - 68.2 MBIf you get treated by someone who says they’re a doctor, but they’re not, can they still have a placebo effect? That’s the question we’d like to ask Dr. Joe Dispenza, who’s not a doctor, but who plays one on the internet, treating one and all with the placebo of his bafflegab about Quantum healing and TimeSpace. Placebo Joe. Who is he? How do you take the measure of a Quantum Man? We’ll shine our browsers into the slit experiment and observe a particle here, a wave there. The particles of v...
Bonus Sample: Conspirituality Casting Call
April 04, 2022 13:00 - 8 minutes - 5.88 MBMatthew and Julian draw back the curtain to take you behind the scenes of the book-writing process. They step back to consider the pantheon of conspiritualists we’ve covered over the last two years; the kaleidoscope of themes they represent, and the key moments they’ve had on the big cultural stage as the pandemic has unfolded. Who among them is worthy of being cast in the rogue’s gallery we will include in the book that will officially document all of our work over almost 100 episodes now?
97: Brand Awareness
March 31, 2022 21:00 - 1 hour - 46.5 MBThis week we’re “just asking questions.” You probably recognize that quip from Joe Rogan, of course, but today’s focus is another actor and comedian turned popular podcaster, Russell Brand. As with Rogan, who he recently said he loved being compared to, Brand is amassing an increasingly large following—trust us, he’ll remind you of that number at the top of every episode—thanks to his high-energy solo rants about the conspiracy of, well, seemingly everything. But what’s Russell really sayi...
Bonus Sample: Feedback Monday
March 28, 2022 12:00 - 10 minutes - 7.2 MBHey everyone... Matthew and Julian here with a more relaxed format. We'll be periodically checking in on feedback going forward, starting with a look at some shade thrown by Lissa Rankin at the pod. We're not entirely buying what she's selling, but it does give us pause to reflect on communication styles, satire, and empathy. Here's what Rankin had to say: https://www.facebook.com/lissarankin/posts/521303766024162. And here's how Matthew responded: https://www.facebook.com/matthew.remski/p...
96: The Terrain Theory Grift
March 24, 2022 13:00 - 1 hour - 54.1 MBYou might have heard some revolutionary news: germs don’t exist. Ok, they exist, but they only make you sick after you ruin your relationship with your environment—the terrain. Actually, the idea isn’t new. Initially floated in the 19th century, terrain theory was never proven in real-world experiments, and so fell dormant—until now. As with many terrible 19th-century science metaphysics, conspiritualists are feeling nostalgic. And do we have a group to introduce you to this week. To help...
Bonus Sample: Reading Tony Robbins
March 21, 2022 13:00 - 8 minutes - 5.74 MBThe world's top life coach has a new book, Life Force. Seemingly bulletproof to criticism due to connections in high places (and a litigious legal team), Tony Robbins's new book is a perfect example of the conspiritualist grift: mix science with sciencey sentiment and package it in a shiny revolutionary marketing package that promises much and delivers little more than confusion. Derek reviews. Show Notes A single blood test claims to detect dozens of cancers. Skeptics wouldn’t bet your l...
95: Aleksandr Dugin: Kali Yuga Chess
March 17, 2022 13:00 - 1 hour - 48.2 MBThe mystical politics of Aleksandr Dugin, the mercurial philosopher and geopolitical strategist hovering behind Vladimir Putin, is front and center this week. Last week, we covered the phenomenon of Western conspiritualists folding the Russian invasion of Ukraine into their fact-free claims about what's really going on. It turns out that once you're all-in on the cabal, the Great Reset, mole children, and vaccine genocide, whatever happens in the world means you were right all along. Cons...
Bonus Sample: Conspirituality Timeline Stories (pt 1)
March 14, 2022 13:00 - 10 minutes - 7.12 MBMatthew brushes off and polishes stories and analyses we’ve only had the time to glance at in various episodes. A second or even 3rd instalment may be forthcoming. Presented in chronological order, dating from a year before the WHO declared the pandemic, up to just after they did. March, 2019: How JZ Knight, aka Ramtha, began forging alliances with Qanon promoters back in the spring of 2019. February, 2020: How Joe Mercola positioned himself very early as the go-to for COVID quackery, an...