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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:

108: Downeast with Christiane Northrup (w/ Mooncat, Andy O’Brien, & Alyce Ornella) Jun 16, 2022

Show notes

Half-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 have a good soak and listen to her golden harp.
But in this nowhere world, where oh where is Christiane Northrup? Who is she? Is she flesh and blood, or a social media hologram generated by a Louise Hay AI? Is that mansion she broadcasts from a sound stage, or is there real soil and manure and flowers there? Our guests today know Northrup as super-real, because they live in her home state of Maine. Alyce Ornella, Andy O’Brien, and Mooncat have known her as a doctor, an MLM diva, antivax rabble rouser, and QAnon tour promoter.
Now, they tell us, another Northrup may be crystallizing on Maine’s rocky shore, floating past the lighthouses and over the cranberry bogs on a cloud of essential oils. She’s been seen haunting the blueberry patches, wearing a chunky necklace of lobster claws. As Northrup begins to hold revival meetings in Down East churches, and openly fantasize about murdering political enemies, they wonder if she is assuming her ultimate form—as an IRL cult leader.
Show Notes
Dear Dr. Northrup
Dr. No: Christiane Northrup
Republican barred from inviting guests into State House
Naomi Wolf: “Five Freedoms” speech, April 2021.
Arise USA rally draws crowds inside, outside Crosby Center
Arise USA Meets Maine Stands Up
Inside the Disastrous Conspiracy Roadshow That Likely Killed a COVID-Denying Ex-CIA Agent
Maine Republican compared the governor to Nazi Josef Mengele
ME state rep compares COVID vaccine mandate to Nazism
Northrup bo

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Bonus Sample: Julian Goes to Church Jun 13, 2022

Show notes

Julian 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 social dimensions of religion, as well as both Julian and Matthew’s experience of corporal punishment at school, meted out by the same authority figures who donned ceremonial robes for church.

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107: An Open Letter to Aubrey Marcus Jun 09, 2022

Show notes

Aubrey 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, and not platforming alleged child molesters like Marc Gafni.
While this open letter is addressed to Aubrey, his Fit For Service clients might also find it useful as they decide whether to keep spending up to 20K USD per year participating in the program. Also, if Aubrey feels that this episode contains information that will help current and future participants assess whether he is really making good on his promise to provide “radical self-sovereignty,” we at Conspirituality Podcast would happily give permission for this episode to be included with Fit For Service materials, pro bono.
This letter is also open in a broader sense, because it contains solid tips for all earnest charismatic influencers who want to improve their ethics game. We believe you can do it, influencers! You can dig deep, and live your better life, by fucking over fewer people!
Show Notes
A Holocaust Denier Is Travelling Across Canada Building Up The Country's Newest Far-Right Militia Movement - Canadian Anti-Hate Network
'I Was 13 When Marc Gafni's Abuse Began' – The Forward
Former Rabbi Accused of Improper Sexual Conduct Now Rising Star in U.S. Spiritual Movement
Gafni Faces Fallout From New Age Community
Marc Gafni Named In Latest Sexual Abuse Lawsuit Against Yeshiva University
Popular New Age author Marc Gafni molested 13-year-old girl in 1980, lawsuit says
Sara Kabakov lawsuit docket
“Jane Doe” lawsuit

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Bonus Sample: Jordan Peterson, Derrick Jensen, and the Anti-Trans Laugh Emoji Jun 06, 2022

Show notes

An 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 the cover of Sports Illustrated. And then Jensen visited his page.

Show Notes
The New Age / Medieval Mortifications of Jordan Peterson | by Matthew Remski | Medium
That FB post about Peterson and Yumi Nu
Yumi Nu cleverly responds to Jordan Peterson's 'not beautiful' comment' | indy100
Simulacra and Simulations — Baudrillard
Government Bill (House of Commons) C-16 (42-1) - First Reading - An Act to amend the Canadian Human Rights Act and the Criminal Code - Parliament of Canada
Canada's gender identity rights Bill C-16 explained
Four years on, past critics are silent on whether fears around transgender human rights bill were founded
An Act to amend the Canadian Human Rights Act and the Criminal Code
Jordan Peterson: The right to be politically incorrect
I Was in the Room While Jordan Peterson and Senators Debated My Human Rights
Lies of the land: against and beyond Paul Kingsnorth's völkisch environmentalism
What Speaking Like Jordan Peterson Probably Feels Like
J

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106: Conspiracy Dojo (w/Stephan Kesting) Jun 02, 2022

Show notes

We'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 frame of Joe Rogan, Dana White, and many other figures peddling misinformation in the arts.

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Bonus Sample: The Ruthless Sovereignty of Kelly Brogan May 30, 2022

Show notes

Matthew 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 my boundaries and express my desires in this clear, indirect way because of course, I'm limited by my illness. I can't do that. I get to say no all the time. I get to experience the validation of this felt sense of wrongness and brokenness that's always lived within me out of all my patients told me that the first time they got a diagnosis, they felt like See, I knew something was wrong with me. Yeah. And it's like, you know, ends up being like the prison number you know, that's put on their vest, but it feels in the moment like it's somebody's finally seeing their hurt. And when, you know, we end up over identifying with that wound with the cancer diagnosis with the, you know, the mental illness…
She goes on in the episode to say: "victim consciousness is the only human pathology."

Show Notes
Premka Memoir
If you want to STAY SICK, Don't Watch This | Dr. Kelly Brogan MD on Aubrey Marcus Podcast
Lesson 136: Sickness is a defense against the… | ACIM

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Original music by EarthRise SoundSystem

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105: TikTok, Cults, & Conspiracies (w/Abbie Richards) May 26, 2022

Show notes

Is 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 talented dancers with huge TikTok audiences appears to have been recruited into a high-demand evangelical group with a divine mandate to conquer all aspects of American life for Jesus. We'll hear from friends and family anxiously wondering what is going on.
For today's interview, Abbie Richards returns. She's the the mis and disinformation researcher with special expertise on the "clock app."
Show Notes
How Lonelygirl15 Changed The Internet
Analyzing TikTok Usage and Growth
Is "The Garden" a TikTok Cult?
Dancing In The Name of The Lord
Inside the $2.5M LA Mansion Where Alleged TikTok "Cult" Shoots Videos
Shekinah Church "About" Page
The Modern Apostles Who Want To Want To Reshape America Ahead of the End Times
HBO Recruits Instagram Independent Reporters

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Bonus Sample: Alt-Med Treadmill May 23, 2022

Show notes

Julian 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.

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104: Leaving Ramtha's Ranch (w/Cortney & Shana) May 19, 2022

Show notes

Cortney 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 eerie photograph of the yogi’s corpse in a glass coffin in the mortuary. The lore was that he just wouldn’t decay. “Mom had a real fascination with beating death,” she told us.
When the girls were still in elementary school, mom took them to an “attunement”, which must have made them the youngest Reiki Masters in Green Bay, Wisconsin—if not the whole midwest. “She was on a search,” Shana told us.
And at some point the local massage training, the flyers in the health food stores, and the mail-order books weren’t enough. Mom started going to events, a long way from home—all the way out in Washington State. One time she came home with a VHS tape and played it for the girls. It showed a woman named J.Z. Knight transform into someone she called “Ramtha,” who she said was 35,000 years old, and carried the wisdom of the ages. She also brought audiocassettes of Ramtha, which they played in the car.
This was their introduction to “channeling.” They were young teens, and didn’t know what to think. Was it magic? Was it funny? Ramtha sounded like the Great Gazoo, after all. When mom wasn’t home they’d show the VHS tape to their friends and giggle. But they also felt strange about it. Embarrassed.
“I remember yelling at my mom, ‘Why can't you be normal?’” Shana said. What they understand now is how much she desperately needed to find something that was meaningful.
“She was really struggling in the Catholic religion,” Shana said, “And her marriage,” Cortney added. “And midlife. It was the perfect storm.”
Matthew sits down with Cortney and Shana as they share their story publicly for the first time.

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Original music by EarthRise SoundSystem

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Bonus Sample: Yoga & the Body in Time (Pt 2) May 16, 2022

Show notes

As 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.

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Original music by EarthRise SoundSystem

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