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Conspirituality — Philosophy
Conspirituality

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 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.

Copyright: © 2023 Conspirituality

Latest Episodes:

Bonus Sample: The UFOs Are Being Censored! Nov 25, 2024

Show notes

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 the laws of physics!

Shellenberger and his fellow “witnesses” provide precisely zero evidence for any of these earth-shattering claims.

Welcome to the Government Oversight and Accountability Committee circus.

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Brief: How to Fire a Billionaire Nov 23, 2024

Show notes

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 discuss their year-and-a-half long investigation that resulted in a billionaire founder leaving one of the most well-known supplements brands in the world. They also talk about why journalism still matters in a world seemingly run by billionaires.

Show Notes

AG1 founder Chris Ashenden resigns amid scrutiny of NZ criminal history

DELVE: Powder Keg podcast on Apple Podcasts | Spotify | iHeart

Trump sues for billions from media he says is biased against him

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233: DC’s Catholic Power Center (w/Gareth Gore) Nov 21, 2024

Show notes

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. Escriva was eventually canonized as a saint while the group amassed enormous wealth and influence around the world.

Today, their reactionary religious and political mission has established a foothold in Washington DC through the Catholic Information Center—the tabernacle closest to the White House.Bill Barr, Leonard Leo, and Project 2025 mastermind, Kevin Roberts, all visit for spiritual guidance. Meanwhile, scandals and lawsuits involving child sex abuse, money laundering, and human trafficking plague Opus Dei's reputation. Gareth Gore joins us to discuss his controversial new book on the past and present of this secretive organization, Opus.

Show Notes

Pew Research Center: America’s News Influencers

How Opus Dei Converted DC

Gareth Gore Author page for his book, Opus

Opus Dei Paid $900K to Settle Sexual Misconduct Claim

Argentine Prosecutors Accuse Opus Dei of Human Trafficking

Maria del Carmen Tapia Book Summary on Opus Dei

Financial Times on Opus

Biblical omen uncovered in aftermath of Hurricane Helene | Daily Mail Online

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Bonus Sample: Thinking About "Holism" Nov 18, 2024

Show notes

A personal journey through health describing what led Derek to focus on health, science, and healthcare as a career and, eventually, this podcast.

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Brief: Post-Election Online Survivor Group Dynamics Nov 16, 2024

Show notes

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 considering the second arrow, and on when to log the fuck off.

Show Notes

MORAL OUTRAGE PORN C. Thi Nguyen and Bekka Williams

The Second Arrow — Sutta Central

Log the Fuck Off with Amber Frost, Matt Christman, & Ben Fong

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232: Gaslighting The Election Nov 14, 2024

Show notes

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 journalistically rigorous. It's pure culture war contrarian sensationalism that wastes little ink critiquing the rise of right-wing authoritarianism.

We trace these tangled threads by listening in to the supposedly non-partisan The Free Press election night livestream, which giddily praised Trump for being the consummate bullshitter that will take an ax to Democratic institutions.

Show Notes

The evolution of France’s left and right politics, from the 1789 French Revolution to this year's election

What to Know About the Origins of ‘Left’ and ‘Right’ in Politics, From the French Revolution to the 2020 Presidential Race

Our American Zion

When a Terrorist Comes to Your Hometown

Columbia's Own Middle East War

Bari Weiss’s Unasked Questions

TFP latest round of funding

Thiel/Lonsdale and UATX funding

UATX huge cash injection after pro-palestine protests

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Bonus Sample: “What will happen?” (asks a 12 year-old) Nov 11, 2024

Show notes

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.

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Brief: Tucker Carlson's Daddy Issues Nov 09, 2024

Show notes

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

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231: New Age Bible, Postmodern Novel (w/ Sheila Heti) Nov 07, 2024

Show notes

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 love, even though he was gay? Were they dropping acid on assignment from Langley? Why was the initial dictation of the book so radically altered by its first editors? Why did Helen Schucman curse A Course in Miracles so soon after publication? Why did she keep writing trite poems to Jesus before dying in bitterness?

Heti was the ideal gumshoe for this project, because as a novelist all-too-familiar with internal voices and the feeling of “channeling,” she was able to feel her way into Helen’s life. Matthew asks her what she found.

Show Notes

The New Age Bible — Sheila Heti

Sheila Heti — website

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Bonus Sample: Elections on 3 Continents Nov 04, 2024

Show notes

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.

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