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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:

103: Roe Against the Machine (w/Kiera Butler) May 12, 2022

Show notes

Since 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 from women: the use of contraception. She joins Derek this week to talk about this seemingly dystopian present we're moving into, as well as the continued merging of the Christian Right and wellness influencers—which is very much a part of this movement.
Show Notes
The Anti-Abortion Movement’s Next Target: Birth Control
The Terrifying Story of How QAnon Infiltrated Moms’ Groups
The Death of Roe Is Going to Tear America Apart

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Bonus Sample: Yoga & the Body in Time (Pt 1) May 09, 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 1, they discuss the origins of their yoga practices, what led them to teaching, and some ideas about yoga philosophy in general.

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102: Conspirituality, Cancer, & Compassion (w/Gavin Ryan) May 05, 2022

Show notes

After 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 palms and stars of Ubud, with Gavin at her side. She’d spent six years feverishly trying to keep ahead of breast cancer with alternative medicine and New Age spirituality. She received several turns of evidence-based care that had served her body well. But she would always return to the energy work, herbs, and meditations that spoke to her soul.
Gavin was there with her all the way. He found himself stretched thin between advocating for treatments that worked, and honoring her need for magic.
We're really grateful that he has shared this story with us.
Show Notes
Here's the full recording of Fey reciting "Karuna Breath."

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Bonus Sample: Cash Grab May 02, 2022

Show notes

Manifestation 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.

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101: Eugenic Pandemic (w/ Beatrice Adler-Bolton) Apr 28, 2022

Show notes

In 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 going to cost me?" is microcosmic to neoliberal obsessions—austerity, productivity, and dreams of a better future purchased with moral sacrifices in the present. It’s microcosmic to the brutal decisions our societies are now making about who is worthy of protection and who isn't, and which political constituencies we can't afford to piss off by appealing to the small amount of generosity and humility it takes to wear a mask.
We're living in a culture of What is it going to cost me? And that's not really a culture at all.
If we don't do better, then how exactly are the conspiritualists wrong? Not about the details, but about the existential condition. They imagine a Cabal at the top of everything, making nefarious decisions, and this is easy to dismiss. Less easy to dismiss is the feeling they articulate, that many of us share: that unseen and impersonal forces are working against the spirit of human generosity. They know that sometimes we all feel ourselves participating in that process, which means we have to do something—perhaps as radical as waking up. Not to the magic of turmeric, or the realization that we’re starseeds. Something far more radical than that, and much more mundane: that we can organize ourselves in more fair and loving ways.
Beatrice Adler-Bolton is a blind/low vision and chronically ill artist, writer, and disability justice advocate. Beatrice studies radical patient groups and the capitalist political economy of health as an independent researcher and is earning a master's in Disability Studies at CUNY. She is the co-host of the Death Panel podcast with Artie Vierkant and Phil Rocco.
Note from Beatrice:
If you'd like to give your listeners a little more info on Disability Justice (DJ), I would recommend this link from Sins Invalid, which is a short and foundational DJ text and a really quick primer on what it is written by Patty Berne and Sins Invalid: tinyurl.com/DJ10Principles.

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Bonus Sample: Taking the Con Out of Spirituality Apr 25, 2022

Show notes

Derek 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.

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100: State of Disinformation (w/Imran Ahmed) Apr 21, 2022

Show notes

In 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, Instagram, and YouTube turned out to be roughly $1 billion.
Imran’s group kept reporting and we kept covering them. You probably remember the Center thanks to its Disinformation Dozen report, which profoundly impacted awareness of just how much anti-vax leaders were monetizing their supplements, seminars, and other supposed COVID “interventions.” The report even reached the White House where Joe Biden called out the Disinformation Dozen during a press conference.
What’s changed in the nearly two years since we had Imran on? Well, a lot—and in some ways, not much at all. Julian interviews Imran this time around after having met up in person at the Defeat the Mandates rally in downtown Los Angeles. Imran discusses what’s changed, what hasn’t, and how the bottom line remains the same: namely, the conspiritualist’s bottom line. They also talk about the nature of free speech in an internet filled with disinformation.
Before hearing from Imran, Derek and Julian briefly discuss the state of disinformation and free speech online, which Derek frames in terms of urban planning and the concept of legibility.

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Original music by EarthRise SoundSystem

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Bonus Sample: Zach Bush and the Holy Sardines Apr 18, 2022

Show notes

The 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 opposed to pain meds, and inspires his listeners to have no fear of death. After all—it’s the ultimate upgrade. From Sardine to Salvation, Bush has it covered.

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Original music by EarthRise SoundSystem

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99: Conspirituality Goes to Therapy (w/Rachel Bernstein) Apr 14, 2022

Show notes

Listeners: 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 on Kickstarter. We know it’s coming. There will be oils, and breathing exercises, and some very long emotional check-ins on Zoom.
Meanwhile, Netflix is distinguishing itself from GaiaTV, the Netflix of cults, with an explosion of cult documentaries. There’s a gold rush on. Scouts for all of the streaming companies are lined up outside of the ashrams, vetting survivors to see who has the chops to carry a series. We seem to love them, but sometimes not as much as the sociopaths themselves. The cult doc is the new true crime chill.
Beneath the feeding frenzy, there’s real work to be done. The QAnon Casualities subreddit has 235K followers as of today. We get dozens of emails and DMs from people who have had their lives upended by conspirituality and cults. We have hints and whispers to offer them, but no answers. Yes, we live in a capitalist hellscape in which emotional turmoil of the people is commodified and sold back to them in the form of workshops and bingeable series. But we are also able to host Rachel Bernstein, cult recovery therapist, to get some clarity on the basic phenomena that dominate our commons today.
Program note: We’re going to try to stretch this out to 90 minutes so that we can each say we got a 45-minute free consult on why TF we’re doing this job.

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Follow us on Instagram | Twitter: Derek | Matthew | Julian
Original music by EarthRise SoundSystem

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Bonus Sample: Watch What They Say, Watch What They Sell Apr 11, 2022

Show notes

Since 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.

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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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