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
Brief: Unmasking Liana Shanti (w/Jennings Brown)
Jennings Brown is becoming the Dr. Who of cult journalism. Every few years he pops up on a very different planet in the cultiverse, and tries to repair the timeline.
These days he’s deep into the st…
00:42:55 |
Sat 22 Apr 2023
150: Spiritual Influencer Theory
Julian and Matthew go big-picture in this tour through all the elements that construct and drive spiritual Influencers.
At the center of the parasocial storm is charisma, which covers over the intell…
01:14:48 |
Thu 20 Apr 2023
Bonus Sample: From Rabbit Hole to Research (w/Jaigris Hodson)
Our Listener Story this week comes from Dr. Jaigris Hodson, Associate Professor and Canada Research Chair for Digital Communication for the Public Interest at Royal Roads University in Victoria, Brit…
00:28:32 |
Mon 17 Apr 2023
Brief: The Promises & (Mostly) Perils of Ketamine Therapy
Though not specifically a psychedelic — ketamine is a dissociative anesthetic — ketamine therapy is being touted as a depression treatment and, for some, a new form of spiritual healing. And indeed, …
00:32:49 |
Sat 15 Apr 2023
149: Spiritual Heartbreak
“I would pursue transcendence and live with its inevitable close cousins, disappointment and heartbreak, for most of my life.” So writes “Steven” (not his real name) in the first of our six spiritual…
01:19:13 |
Thu 13 Apr 2023
Bonus Sample: JP Sears’s Woke CBD Grift
JP Sears is selling CBD. His new company, Awaken, recently sent out a marketing email extolling the benefits of CBD. Derek looks at the science behind the claims.
Show Notes
CBD is everywhere. But is…
00:06:28 |
Mon 10 Apr 2023
Brief: The Spirituality of Vaccine & Mask Panics
Why do so many inflammatory culture war issues crystallize around vaccines and masks? What is so compelling about these forms of public health and mutual aid, that they become central to the right-wi…
00:29:23 |
Sat 08 Apr 2023
148: Marianne Williamson and Asshole Jesus
Is Marianne Williamson’s promotion of A Course in Miracles any more relevant to her political persona than Biden’s Catholicism? If it demonstrably informs her every instinct and communication (as we …
01:16:14 |
Thu 06 Apr 2023
Bonus Sample: The Final Battle
Why did Trump kick-off his 2024 presidential campaign in Waco, Texas? Who were the Branch Davidians, anyway?
Julian unpacks the incendiary streams of far-right anti-government militia history and re…
00:06:09 |
Mon 03 Apr 2023
147: The Censorship Megaphone
Listen… Can you hear it?
All across the propagandist right and the free speech center, there's a new rallying cry: it's time to fight the “censorship industrial complex!”
Researching and documenting …
00:59:06 |
Thu 30 Mar 2023
Bonus Sample: Losing My Charisma
Recording the audiobook at a swanky Toronto studio sends Matthew down a memory hole to wonder about performance, self-awareness, and anxiety, and their relation to charisma.
“Whatever charisma I have…
00:06:50 |
Mon 27 Mar 2023
146: The Reality of Online Child Abuse (w/Håkon Høydal)
Conspiritualists are not wrong that Jeffery Epstein’s downline has so far evaded justice. Or that the highest levels of the Catholic Church aided and abetted child sexual abuse for generations. They …
00:59:49 |
Thu 23 Mar 2023
Special Report: Nostalgia for the Superego (w/Sam Binkley)
Matthew sits down with Sam Binkley, Professor of Sociology at Emerson College in Boston to discuss his 2007 book Getting Loose: Lifestyle Consumption in the 1970s.
We cited this very helpful work as …
01:06:23 |
Tue 21 Mar 2023
Bonus Sample: The Privilege of Wellness
There are a number of philosophies presented in yoga spaces as "universal truths" that turn out to be little more than directives in an echo chamber. And there are protocols presented as therapeutic …
00:09:39 |
Mon 20 Mar 2023
145: Fever Dream Goes Mainstream in Florida
When Disneyworld becomes DeSantisland, Eric Weinstein will be in charge of the Epcot Planetarium, JP Sears will headline the Family Values comedy stage, Jordan Peterson and Jonathan Pageau will build…
01:07:34 |
Thu 16 Mar 2023
Brief: Roku-Q, The Sequel (w/Alex Kaplan)
QAnon ain't over—it's on your television. It's been mainstreamed, networked, and remixed. Senior online extremism and disinformation researcher, Alex Kaplan of Media Matters joins Julian to share his…
00:31:03 |
Tue 14 Mar 2023
Bonus Sample: Hydroxychloroquine Emergency
In this listener story, Julian talks to disabled rights activist and journalist Abby Mahler about how the fake COVID-cure grift endangers people who really need hydroxychloroquine to survive.
-- -- -…
00:08:08 |
Mon 13 Mar 2023
144: The Magic Spells of Wellness (w/Colleen Derkatch)
"Cleansing is no longer an option, it's a necessity.”
From wellness influencers obsessed about the meat-body, to Christofascists obsessed about the body politic, rhetoric bombards us from all sides.…
01:30:17 |
Thu 09 Mar 2023
Bonus Sample: Marianne Williamson for Prez. New Age Jesus for VP.
Can Marianne Williamson maintain street cred as a progressive while promoting New Age Jesus? Can she hammer out functional policy while preaching out of A Course in Miracles—the most anti-political p…
00:15:52 |
Mon 06 Mar 2023
Brief: Flood the Zone (w/Dr Dan Wilson)
Answering the current wave of confusing vaccine misinformation. Julian is joined by molecular biologist Dr. Dan Wilson. "Died Suddenly," correlation vs. causation, the vaccine court, and the recycled…
00:17:41 |
Tue 28 Feb 2023
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