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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: Romancing the Stoned Feb 27, 2023

Show notes

So much suffering occurs because we romanticize a past that never actually existed in the belief that it's destined to become the future. In the middle we sit, here, now, with time marching forward. Derek explores how wellness influencers weaponize this psychological phenomenon and describes his personal remedy for such thinking.

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Original music by EarthRise SoundSystem

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Brief: Reggae Muzak Feb 25, 2023

Show notes

Continuing a conversation from EP142, Derek looks at the cultural damage done when musicians co-opt musical styles to promote their own propaganda, which is often at odds with the social struggles of the oppressed class that created the music.

After briefly investigating the history of reggae through the lens of indentured servants from India, he discusses artists using two genres—reggae and hip-hop—in such a way that strips the original intention of the music of all value.

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Support us on Patreon

Pre-order Conspirituality: How New Age Conspiracy Theories Became a Health Threat: America | Canada

Follow us on Instagram | Twitter: Derek | Matthew | Julian

Original music by EarthRise SoundSystem

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142: Destination Rabbit Hole (w/Anna Merlan) Feb 23, 2023

Show notes

Do visiting inter-dimensional spirits and stowaway UFO passengers use the LAX Airport to touch down among us? Well they do if they're in town for the Conscious Life Expo, conveniently located at the LAX Airport Hilton for those who rely on otherwise mundane modes of travel.

The Valentine's Day weekend crystals and angel cards fest of disjointed spirituality meets dodgy science just celebrated its 21st year as the premiere gathering point for awakened seekers choosing to come out of sovereign superposition and manifest in space-time reality.

But, as visiting Vice News correspondent Anna Merlan tells us, it turns out the organizers have grappled for years with how to reconcile the tensions between obvious charlatans and those who really, truly can talk to the dead, psychics who can diagnose your dog's mystery ailments, and those making artificial claims about all-natural elixirs, prophets of light and love, and QAnon promoting anti-vax conspiritualists.

This year's solution? Tuck the most radicalized New Age hate-preachers away in the Rabbit Hole Room, and charge top-dollar for the red-pilled faithful to swoon at their feet.

Show Notes

Thrive review by Eric Johnson

COVID-19 misinformation contributed to 2800 Canadian deaths, report suggests

Fault Lines Report: Canadian Council for Academics

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Original music by EarthRise SoundSystem

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Bonus Sample: Maggie the Good Conspiritualist Feb 20, 2023

Show notes

How does it feel to grow up in a back-to-the-land house that vibrates with the anxious passion of conspiracy theories?
What would happen when the world began to disconfirm the conspiratorial lore? How would you maintain your relationships, nurture the good, and gently let go of everything else?
Maggie joins Matthew for this Listener Story to explore these questions in relation to her journey from childhood to today.
Note: my question about conspirituality being an ethnicity was inspired by a conversation with listener Lilium Rajan, a writer who I hope to learn more from.

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Support us on Patreon
Pre-order Conspirituality: How New Age Conspiracy Theories Became a Health Threat: America | Canada
Follow us on Instagram | Twitter: Derek | Matthew | Julian
Original music by EarthRise SoundSystem

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

141: Does Canada Want Suffering Citizens to Die? (w/Taslim Alani-Verjee) Feb 16, 2023

Show notes

Is Canada trying to euthanize the mentally ill?

Self-professed "theocratic fascist" Matt Walsh says so. So does the OG anti-woke agitator, James Lindsay. Both cravenly distort Canada's proposed expansion of its Medical Assistance in Dying (MAiD) laws to include people suffering from mental illness.

But are they entirely wrong? From the left, Jeremy Appel writes in Jacobin:

I’ve come to realize that euthanasia in Canada represents the cynical endgame of social provisioning within the brutal logic of late-stage capitalism — we’ll starve you of the funding you need to live a dignified life, demand you pay back pandemic aid you applied for in good faith, and if you don’t like it, well, why don’t you just kill yourself?

Psychologist and ethics professor Dr. Taslim Alanii-Verjee joins Matthew to discuss the ethical labyrinth of MAiD expansion, and how the altruistic quest for patient autonomy and dignity can run afoul of the neoliberal state's failure to provide the necessaries.

Show Notes

Dr. Taslim Alani-Verjee

Federal government moves to delay MAID for people suffering solely from mental illness | CBC News

The Problems With Canada’s Medical Assistance in Dying Policy

Special Joint Committee on MAiD - Dr. Sonu Gaind

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Support us on Patreon

Pre-order Conspirituality: How New Age Conspiracy Theories Became a Health Threat: America | Canada

Follow us on Instagram | Twitter: Derek | Matthew | Julian

Original music by EarthRise SoundSystem

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Brief: Bikram Convoy Stopped by His Survivors Feb 14, 2023

Show notes

Hot yoga tycoon and sex offender Bikram Choudhury was set to teach his sweaty pseudoscience in Vancouver starting on February 20th. But a team of yoga allies, led by a woman who has sued Choudhury for rape, said "Fuck off."

So that's that.

Or is it? We have many questions.

Why was this cursed event planned in the first place? Who on earth is continuing to support this clown, and trying to make money off of him? Who would cover themselves in sweaty shit in order to prop up this Simpsons-level caricature of a yoga megalomaniac? And how did Bikram Yoga become the de facto exercise method and spiritual practice of "Freedom Convoy" supporters?

Matthew takes a sweaty tour through a land of pseudoscience and rape culture, hot yogis and truckers, anti-vaxxers and frog-lickers to find out.

Big thank you to Colin Hall of Bodhi Tree Yoga for stopping by!

Show Notes

Canadian yoga competition stretches into Edmonton | CBC News

Controversial Bikram yoga founder's planned Vancouver workshops raising flags

Jill Lawler's 1st-person account

Petition · Stop Predator Bikram Choudhury from hosting Yoga Seminar in Vancouver · Change.org

Woman speaking out against Bikram Yoga event gets disturbing pushback from organizer

Bikram yoga event no longer planned for Vancouver hotel

Bikram Yoga Creator Loses It When Asked About Sexual Assault Allegations | HuffPost Women

Sponsor: https://www.gardomlakeyoga.ca/

WATCH: Justin Trudeau cross-examined by Convoy lawyer

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Support us on Patreon

Pre-order Conspirituality: How New Age Conspiracy Theories Became a Health Threat: America | Canada

Follow us on Instagram | Twitter: Derek | Matthew | Julian

Original music by EarthRise SoundSystem

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Bonus Sample: Bad News Berenson on Brand Feb 13, 2023

Show notes

The Twitter Files are the grift that keeps on giving. This week, Derek and Julian look at Alex Berenson's recent appearance on Russell Brand's Rumble channel to talk about the conspiracies that only exists in their heads—and the misinformation they share along the way.
Show Notes
The Pandemic’s Wrongest Man
Russell Brand: Elites Are Using Liberal Ideas to Justify Inequality
How anti-vaxxers monetize misinformation
URGENT: A federal database offers more evidence the mRNA Covid jabs may have serious cardiovascular risks
For red and blue America, a glaring divide in COVID-19 death rates persists 2 years later
Scathing evaluation of Sweden's COVID response reveals 'failures' to control the virus
Large, real-world study finds COVID-19 vaccination more effective than natural immunity in protecting against all causes of death, hospitalization and emergency department visits

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Support us on Patreon
Pre-order Conspirituality: How New Age Conspiracy Theories Became a Health Threat: America | Canada
Follow us on Instagram | Twitter: Derek | Matthew | Julian
Original music by EarthRise SoundSystem

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

140: Surviving Larry (w/Daniel Levin & Zach Heinzerling) Feb 09, 2023

Show notes

Today, Hulu releases a 3-episode doc series called “Stolen Youth,” directed by Zach Heinzerling.

The pole star for this low-dopamine, low-cortisol, non-true-crime, survivor-centred documentary is Daniel Levin’s painful and radiant memoir, Slonim Woods 9. In 2010, Levin was drawn into an extended-family domestic abuse group led by Larry Ray, the father of one of his friends at Sarah Lawrence College. It took him years to leave, years to begin to recover, and years to become the de facto subject coordinator for this film.

Matthew talks with Zach and Daniel about what it takes to really listen to survivors of group abuse, and how the arts of memoir and documentary can be doorways to reconnection and integration.

In an interview debrief, Julian and Matthew discuss why reviewing Stolen Youth is such a relief in the current Wild West cultsploitation landscape.

Well-told stories in this zone—and we need more of them—educate, de-sensationalize, and de-stigmatize. They humanize every step of the journey: from recruitment, to enmeshment, to complicity, to recovery, to creativity.

Show Notes

Slonim Woods 9 by Daniel Barban Levin

Rough Cut: What do filmmakers owe their subjects? w/Souki Medhaoui

Larry Ray and the Stolen Kids of Sarah Lawrence

How Did Larry Ray Run a Cult at Sarah Lawrence?

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Support us on Patreon

Pre-order Conspirituality: How New Age Conspiracy Theories Became a Health Threat: America | Canada

Follow us on Instagram | Twitter: Derek | Matthew | Julian

Original music by EarthRise SoundSystem

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Bonus Sample: What Are We Doing Here? Feb 06, 2023

Show notes

Sure, a big question: one Derek explores in the context of this nearly three-year-old Conspirituality project. Criticism and awareness are essential tools in a critical thinking kit, but to what end? As he prepares upcoming presentations on the topic of misinformation in public health, Derek reflects on the value of identifying charlatans and quacks while also speculating about how to move forward.

-- -- --
Support us on Patreon
Pre-order Conspirituality: How New Age Conspiracy Theories Became a Health Threat: America | Canada
Follow us on Instagram | Twitter: Derek | Matthew | Julian
Original music by EarthRise SoundSystem

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

UNLOCKED: Leaving S-Factor (w/Jessica Hopper) Feb 04, 2023

Show notes

Those who fly high, fall hard. Pole dance company S-Factor crashed and burned in 2021 amidst a stack of complaints. Detractors said the company was conducting unlicensed group therapy, cosplaying enlightenment by co-opting the labour of sex workers, and whitewashing issues of racial equality.
Created by former actor Sheila Kelley, S-Factor monetized pole dancing as a path of feminist and spiritual awakening.
In this 2-part Listener Story, Matthew speaks to Jessica Hopper about her 13 years learning and teaching in the now-defunct company. Hopper paints a picture of a confusing, high-demand group, and tells us how she made her way out.

NOTE: During our discussion, Jessica recounts a tense all-hands S-factor staff meeting to discuss PR strategy at a crucial moment as the company cracked-up over issues of white fragility. I wasn't able to secure a recording of that call before my interview with Jessica, or since. But after we recorded, I did confirm what Jessica reports about it with 3 of the other participants on that call. MR
Show Notes
Stripped Down: The Undoing of Hollywood's Favorite Pole-Dancing Studio —Hollywood Reporter.
"Strip Down, Rise Up" | Official Trailer | Netflix
Faces of Fierce Femininity—online conference organized by Kelly Brogan
Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema—Laura Mulvey, 1975

-- -- --
Support us on Patreon
Pre-order Conspirituality: How New Age Conspiracy Theories Became a Health Threat: America | Canada
Follow us on Instagram | Twitter: Derek | Matthew | Julian
Original music by EarthRise SoundSystem

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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