Conspirituality - TopPodcast.com

View Top 200 Chart

Back to Rankings Page

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: JP Sears is Definitely Binary Aug 22, 2022

Show notes

JP 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.

-- -- --
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: Swan Song Series 2 | Teal Swan: Art & Artifice (w/Paola Marino) Aug 18, 2022

Show notes

In 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 the subjects we cover. They discuss James Joyce’s proverb about noble art, in which he describes “aesthetic arrest” as the middle way between propaganda and pornography.
Marino’s work attempts to find that path, while Jon Kasbe’s The Deep End falters to both sides. On one hand Kasbe’s film titillates viewers with high drama. On the other hand it tells viewers what they should think. And in both cases it creates a story where the truth would suffice.
The feelings excited by improper art are kinetic, desire or loathing. Desire urges us to possess, to go to something; loathing urges us to abandon, to go from something. These are kinetic emotions. The arts which excite them, pornographical or didactic, are therefore improper arts. The esthetic emotion (I use the general term) is therefore static. The mind is arrested and raised above desire and loathing. —James Joyce, Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man
Show Notes

Open Shadow—Paola Marino
Gizmodo Launches 'The Gateway,' an Investigative Podcast About a Controversial Internet Spiritual Guru

-- -- --
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: Swan Song Series 5 | Michelle Remembers: Themes & Framing Aug 15, 2022

Show notes

In 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 to the latter to restore the reality of the supernatural.
We also look at the pre-emptively defensive intro penned by the publisher, Thomas B. Congdon Jr. He claimed to have verified the substance of the book through interviews, and thought that Pazder and Smith were very earnest and forthcoming people when he hosted them for editorial meetings. Okay sure.
Show Notes
Remi De Roo - Wikipedia
Thomas B. Congdon, Editor of Best Sellers Like 'Jaws,' Dies at 77
The Beginning of a Community

-- -- --
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

116: History is Not a Placebo: Chinese Medicine in America (w/Tamara Venit-Shelton) Aug 11, 2022

Show notes

Traditional 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 Medical Marketplace, they discuss the xenophobia and racism that Chinese encountered in the 19th century West, how early Chinese doctors used the exoticism of their system to their advantage when advertising to disaffected Americans who were suspicious of the dominant health care system, the moment that these varying practices became unified by Chairman Mao in the middle of the 20th century, and how the acupuncture needles we use today are not actually Chinese in origin—we can thank the Japanese for the world’s recent widespread adoption of that practice.
Show Notes
Herbs and Roots: A History of Chinese Doctors in the American Medical Marketplace
Tamara Venit-Shelton gets to the roots of Chinese medicine in America
Evidence Map of Acupuncture review of systematic reviews on 1,500 RCT’s.
David Gorski “Acupuncture is a theatrical placebo, retconned beyond recognition.”
$2.5 Spent—No Alternative Cures Found by the NCCIH

-- -- --
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: Swan Song Series 4 | Michelle Remembers: Context & History Aug 08, 2022

Show notes

There'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 his Catholic fetishes and paranoias played a huge role in the fictions he spun.
The post Vatican 2 context is crucial, especially as we bear witness to the current political triumphs of Trad-Cath propaganda and politics in our post-Roe, QAnon -fried world. For help, we look to an excellent essay by social historian Bernard Doherty about the genre and elements of the Catholic Horror Film, which begins with Rosemary's Baby in 1968. This reactionary genre attempted to respond to modernizing—or postmodernizing, as Jordan Peterson might say—changes in Church doctrine.
Bottom line? The Satanic Panic largely begins in and is sustained by Catholic-flavoured conspirituality anxiety about secularization, sex, babies, and abortion.
Show Notes
Michael Hobbes and Sarah Marshall cover Michelle Remembers with great skill.
"20/20" the Devil Worshippers - May 16, 1985
West of Memphis movie review & film summary (2012) | Roger Ebert
Mel Gibson: The man without a pope - Where Peter Is
The Smoke of Satan on the Silver Screen: The Catholic Horror Film, Vatican II, and the Revival of Demonology | Journal for the Academic Study of Religion

-- -- --
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: Swan Song Series 1 | Close to Home Aug 06, 2022

Show notes

We 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 being that many of her close followers come to tell stories about their childhoods that echo hers. Swan's own story of childhood abuse crystallized after she goes through treatment with a leading Satanic Panic therapist, Barbara Snow.
Those are stories on the page. But today, to kick off the Swan Song Series, Julian shares the moment-by-moment mechanics of how this disastrous parody of therapy turned his own life inside out, and alienated him from his family for a decade.
Content warning for listeners: we’ll be talking about stories of child sexual abuse.
Show Notes
The Gateway
Michelle Remembers, covered by Sarah Marshall and Michael Hobbes
Forrest Yoga students ask A. Forrest to stop using the Zia Nation symbol
A. Forrest's ostensible mentor

-- -- --
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

115: Controlling Women's Bodies "Naturally" (w/EJ Dickson) Aug 04, 2022

Show notes

Matthew 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.
Show Notes
"Giving Birth in Yogaland" —Alix Cale
raggapunzel on Instagram —water birth on the beach
Covid-19 Vaccine: How Dommes Are Convincing Submissives to Get Jabs
Matt Gaetz, QAnon Followers, and the GOP Are Exploiting the #FreeBritney Movement
Are Sex-Negative 'Puriteens' Actually Taking Over the Internet?
'Pastel QAnon' Is Infiltrating the Natural Parenting Community
Princess Diana Struggled With Bulimia. Does 'The Crown' Do Her Justice?
The Baby-Formula Shortage Has Spawned a New Brand of Mom-Shamers
Roe v. Wade: Top Influencers Avoid Abortion Debate - Rolling Stone
Amber Heard, Johnny Depp: TikTok Reenactments of Testimony Goes Viral
Michelle Phan: How YouTube Beauty Guru Fell in With Bullshit Peddler
There Are a Million Reasons to Get An Abortion. This Was Mine.
Bentinho Massaro: Instagram Guru 'F-king' His Followers 'To Freedom'
In Minnie Mouse's D

-- -- --
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: The Wellness Theory of Depression Aug 01, 2022

Show notes

A 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 umbrella review of the evidence
The New Study on Serotonin and Depression Isn’t About Antidepressants
Inside Kelly Brogan’s Covid-Denying, Vax-Resistant Conspiracy Machine
The Far Right’s Next Target for a Bullshit Moral Panic: Antidepressants

-- -- --
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

114: Guns, Germs & Fear (w/Alan Levinovitz) Jul 28, 2022

Show notes

Life 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 also carry an important symbolic power. While most may never use it, the knowledge that cold hard steel is nearby is one attempt at managing an anxiety that is all-too human. In fact, coping strategies both magical and militaristic are woven into the American political psyche—and as the pandemic has demonstrated, flare up dramatically during social crises; even at times becoming strange bedfellows.
Philosophy and religion professor Alan Levinovitz calls this "empowerment epistemology" and describes it as a connective tissue between the seemingly distant domains of gun culture and the wellness sphere. In both cases, this longing for empowerment in the face of helplessness motivates us to cleave to what we believe protects us, regardless of evidence to the contrary—or the tragic consequences in our middle schools and medical ICUs.
Show Notes
Oprah's 'happiness guru' designed apartments to maximize joy — and they start at $5 million
Killing does not come easy for soldiers - The Washington Post
Hanns Johst “Schlageter”
Quote/Counterquote: “Whenever I hear the word 'culture'…”

-- -- --
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: Listening to Teal Swan’s Mom and Dad Jul 25, 2022

Show notes

Some 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 help. This episode examines this interview, and then cross-checks some aspects against the account of Swan's childhood friend, Diana Hansen Ribera.
Here we have the unique insight into parents speaking vulnerably and transparently about their baffling child—which means we can really lean into the primal material that pre-exists the charged questions about whether Teal Swan is running a cult or encouraging suicide. What we find, between the accounts of the Bosworths and Ribera, is a collection of commonplace phenomena: high sensitivity, parents learning as they go, the intrusion of internet pornography, and a likely abusive figure who was too close to the family.
In this episode, Matthew and Julian discuss the mystery of familial memory, idealizing vs. pathologizing children, the appeals of fantasy as a mode of relief, whether the Satanic Panic was a collective cry for help to resolve commonplace domestic and community abuse, and the possibility that cult formation is a social form of post traumatic play.
Show Notes
Open Shadow — Paula Marino
Do You Cry Easily? You May Be a 'Highly Sensitive Person'
The science behind why some of us are shy
Study: Pornography does not cause violent sex crimes
When Children Act Out Sexually: A Guide for Parents and Teachers
1607: Growing up with Teal Swan - Diana Hansen Ribera
“Forbidden Games”: Post-Traumatic Child's Play — Lenore Terr
Valerie L. Dripchak (2007). Posttraumatic Play: Towards Acceptance and Resolution. , 35(2), 125–134. doi:10.1007/s10615-006-0068-y

-- -- --
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

Related Podcasts