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
Bonus Sample: Listening to Teal Swan’s Mom and Dad
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 sensitiv…
00:04:54 |
Mon 25 Jul 2022
113: A Course in Conspiracies (w/Sam Kestenbaum)
We spend so much time on this podcast discussing the wellness industry’s paranoia around anything from the medical “establishment” or the Luciferean nature of “Big Pharma,” but there’s another devil …
01:01:46 |
Thu 21 Jul 2022
Bonus Sample: Swan Song Series 2 | Teal Swan: Art and Artifice (w/Paola Marino)
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 …
00:04:25 |
Mon 18 Jul 2022
112: The Science Whisperer (w/Danielle Belardo)
This podcast was born in response to COVID and vaccine disinformation that, while bubbling up for some time, flooded the population with the release of the pseudodocumentary, “Plandemic.” Ever since …
01:37:18 |
Thu 14 Jul 2022
Bonus Sample: The Music of the Conspirituality Podcast
Derek steps back from conspiracies and wellness this week to discuss something very healing and personal to him: music. Specifically, how music has shaped his career, as well as the story behind the …
00:09:26 |
Mon 11 Jul 2022
111: Who's Afraid of Teal Swan (pt 2) (w/Jennings Brown)
Our guest today, Jennings Brown, is a bright light in an increasingly chaotic cult-content economy. His 2018 podcast on Teal Swan, The Gateway, produced with Gizmodo, sets a high-watermark standard f…
01:50:52 |
Thu 07 Jul 2022
Bonus Sample: Swan Song Series: Close to Home
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, a…
00:09:57 |
Mon 04 Jul 2022
110: Temple of the Gun
Rosaries made of shell casings. A breakaway Unification Church sect that holds rituals with gilded ARs. JP Sears on the gun range. The unholy American trinity of conservative politics, religious extr…
01:26:06 |
Fri 01 Jul 2022
Bonus Sample: The Chapels in Our Brains
Matthew introduces Julian to the solipsism of an old Catholic catechism. Julian remembers meditating on non-duality. What spaces in our brains do these exercises create? Did we need those spaces for …
00:09:42 |
Mon 27 Jun 2022
109. Who’s Afraid of Teal Swan? (w/Jon Kasbe)
If the world has become too much to bear—and the bots know it from your search history— you will likely find Teal Swan. She will appear, an angel of the algorithms, part icon and part anime avenger. …
02:04:06 |
Thu 23 Jun 2022
Bonus Sample: Giving Up the Gun
After becoming global leaders in gun manufacturing in the 16th century, Japan banished all guns from their country for two centuries. How did this happen? And what were the results? Well, even today,…
00:07:31 |
Mon 20 Jun 2022
108: Downeast with Christiane Northrup (w/ Mooncat, Andy O’Brien, & Alyce Ornella)
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,…
01:40:38 |
Thu 16 Jun 2022
Bonus Sample: Julian Goes to Church
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 c…
00:10:05 |
Mon 13 Jun 2022
107: An Open Letter to Aubrey Marcus
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 …
01:20:07 |
Thu 09 Jun 2022
Bonus Sample: Jordan Peterson, Derrick Jensen, and the Anti-Trans Laugh Emoji
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 …
00:10:17 |
Mon 06 Jun 2022
106: Conspiracy Dojo (w/Stephan Kesting)
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 ch…
01:08:48 |
Thu 02 Jun 2022
Bonus Sample: The Ruthless Sovereignty of Kelly Brogan
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 sublim…
00:08:59 |
Mon 30 May 2022
105: TikTok, Cults, & Conspiracies (w/Abbie Richards)
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 stil…
01:56:27 |
Thu 26 May 2022
Bonus Sample: Alt-Med Treadmill
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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00:08:43 |
Mon 23 May 2022
104: Leaving Ramtha's Ranch (w/Cortney & Shana)
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…
01:28:42 |
Thu 19 May 2022
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