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.
- Update frequency
- every 2 days
- Average duration
- 48 minutes
- Episodes
- 686
- Years Active
- 2020 - 2025
Special Report: QAnon Fantasies Look Like Colonial Realities (w/Julian Brave NoiseCat)
Julian Brave NoiseCat is a writer and film doc maker, and a member of the Canim Lake Band, Tsq'escen. In May of 2022 he posted this Twitter thread. Matthew wanted to learn more:
I'm struck by the sim…
01:01:21 |
Sat 04 Nov 2023
178: Silicon Valley Veda
5 am. Day 4 of executive plant medicine retreat. The venture capital tech bro sits on a metaverse mountaintop, immersed in deep meditation. He hears a hum—a vibration from the great beyond. A mantra …
01:25:27 |
Thu 02 Nov 2023
Bonus Sample: RFK Jr. and Deconstruction Ecstasy Syndrome
Matthew’s essay about the transient, disorganized, purificatory pleasure of RFK Jr's campaign for his wellness/yoga/biohacker demographic.
A workshop breakthrough is not a strategy. The pleasure of …
00:18:02 |
Mon 30 Oct 2023
Brief: Bari Weiss's Sexual Revolution (w/Michelle Lhooq)
Bari Weiss recently held a "debate" about the failure of the sexual revolution. Expensive tickets to the Theater at the Ace Hotel in downtown LA allowed you to see Grimes and Sarah Haider talk about …
00:29:39 |
Sat 28 Oct 2023
Bonus Sample: Swamp Creatures 4: Let We The People Say “Amen!”
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Today’s profile by Julian is of a man who connects the dots between the gun-nut fifth column in American law enforcement, local s…
00:04:49 |
Mon 23 Oct 2023
Brief: Sovereign In Sedona (w/Isaac Stone Simonelli)
Arizona’s recent increase in “sovereign citizen filings” connects to a New Age spiritual center called the Ultimate Light Mission. Julian talks to investigative reporter Isaac Stone Simonelli.
Show N…
00:25:10 |
Sat 21 Oct 2023
176: Russell Brand’s Man Stans
Women journalists spend years meticulously investigating, corroborating and fact-checking allegations that Russell Brand is a serial sex offender. The result? A 6600-word masterpiece of survivor-cent…
01:20:08 |
Thu 19 Oct 2023
Bonus Sample: Inside the Church of Bleach
Four members of the Florida-based Grenon family were recently sentenced to between 5 and 12 years of prison for selling bleach. The problem? They claimed that bleach, known as Miracle Mineral Solutio…
00:09:36 |
Mon 16 Oct 2023
Special Report: RFK Jr.’s Independence Day
On October 9, RFK Jr. brought his three-podcast-bros-in-a-trench-coat campaign to Philadelphia. On a dias across from Independence Hall, he announced his anticipated departure from the Democratic par…
01:12:17 |
Sat 14 Oct 2023
175: Diagonalism (w/William Callison and Quinn Slobodian)
Quinn Slobodian teaches Modern German History at Wellesley and William Callison teaches Political Theory and Human Geography at Uppsala. We first came across their work via Naomi Klein’s examination …
01:32:34 |
Thu 12 Oct 2023
Bonus Sample: Swamp Creatures 3: The Pirate Palace
Our main character this week is the six-degrees of authoritarians—more like one or two degrees, in fact. He’s made millions playing footsie with most of the blood-thirsty kleptocrats of the last half…
00:07:02 |
Mon 09 Oct 2023
Special Report: Stealing Indigenous Voices in Australia (w/Tyson Yunkaporta)
On October 14, Australians will vote in a referendum on a simple question: should Indigenous peoples be invited to form an advisory council—a Voice—to Parliament?
It seemed like a shoe-in “Yes”—befo…
00:52:52 |
Sun 08 Oct 2023
174: Everything is Chemistry (w/Drs Andrea Love & Jessica Steier)
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We love our scicomm episodes, because the…
01:11:57 |
Thu 05 Oct 2023
Bonus Sample: Matt Christman & the Silence
On September 19, Matt Christman was hospitalized with, in the words of his colleagues on the podcast Chapo Trap House: “a sudden, severe medical emergency that will require a significant period of re…
00:14:53 |
Mon 02 Oct 2023
Deep Cut: The Dalai Lama Spectacle
Deep Cut pulls from our bonus episode archive to unearth previous ideas that remain relevant today.
What the hell happened between the Dalai Lama and that Indian boy? The internet served up a raft of…
01:34:52 |
Sat 30 Sep 2023
173: Psychedelic Capitalism (w/Psymposia)
The market for psychedelics is projected to grow from $2 billion in 2020 to $10.75 billion by 2027—a growth rate that could outpace the legal US cannabis market. Many high-profile investors and celeb…
01:20:27 |
Thu 28 Sep 2023
Bonus Sample: A Theory of Motivation
We’ve spent the last three-and-a-half years criticizing a range of wellness ideas, charismatic charlatans, abusive self-styled gurus, and conspiracy theories. We’ve also discussed our own beliefs and…
00:04:58 |
Mon 25 Sep 2023
Brief: Russell Brand
In light of the recent allegations, Matthew offers a backgrounder on what we’ve learned about Brand through conspirituality and cultic studies and from his opportunistic relationships to wellness, se…
00:37:07 |
Sat 23 Sep 2023
172: Why Always the Jews? (w/Mike Rothschild)
Who could be a better guide through the fever dream of modern anti-semitism—the socialism of fools—than a scrappy young scion of the House of Rothschild? How has Mike, this mysterious insider—visible…
00:55:56 |
Thu 21 Sep 2023
Bonus Sample: You Can’t Just Take Things Away from People
When we deconstruct harmful ideas and beliefs—from antivax positions to reactionary social views—we will inevitably be seen or felt as attacking the relationships that people form through those views…
00:10:18 |
Mon 18 Sep 2023
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