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
- 687
- Years Active
- 2020 - 2025
Bonus Sample: What Will Yoga Do to Our Children?
News from Alabama: after a 23-year ban on yoga in schools, generated by a Republican moral panic, Governor Kay Ivey signs a bill that lets kids do yoga again, but with some restrictions:“All instruct…
00:10:00 |
Mon 07 Jun 2021
54: Māori MAGA (w/Joe Trinder and Anke Richter)
Matthew sits down, across 9,000 miles of mostly ocean, with journalist Anke Richter and reporter and Māori rights activist Joe Trinder to discuss the mind-bending rise of Māori MAGA in the COVID-free…
01:59:48 |
Thu 03 Jun 2021
Bonus Sample: How Many Monuments Must Fall?
Derek looks back at three important historical figures with unsavory pasts to ask the question: who gets to decide who gets canceled, and why?Show NotesGreat Soul: Mahatma Gandhi and His Struggle wit…
00:09:17 |
Mon 31 May 2021
53: Learning Cultish (w/Amanda Montell)
We’re extremely pleased that someone who isn’t a Boomer — and is younger than us — is making a serious but accessible contribution to this golden age of cult literature. Linguist Amanda Montell join…
01:49:30 |
Thu 27 May 2021
Bonus Sample: Loaded Language & Productive Discussion
Julian and Matthew discuss words, world views, and how productive disagreement can lead to mutual understanding. In today’s overheated discourse, social media posturing can make the culture wars feel…
00:09:33 |
Mon 24 May 2021
52: The Clerical Class of the Right (w/Alex Ebert)
This week we learned that Melinda Gates was disturbed by Bill’s men’s-club relationship with Jeffrey Epstein all the way back in 2011. And for fuck sake: when Bill visited Epstein’s Manhattan lair, r…
01:35:49 |
Thu 20 May 2021
Bonus Sample: No Moral Outrage Porn, No Punching Down
Matthew had a plan for this week — a 4K word essay on what could be learned from studying the content of an outrageously offensive conspiritualist… but then he shelved it. Why?A last-minute, off-the-…
00:09:12 |
Mon 17 May 2021
51: You Can’t Force It (w/Devendra Banhart)
As our access to vaccines eases the pandemic in the Global North, U.S.-based conspiritualists keep riding the wave of covid-denial influence—all the way to the bank. This week, Julian reports that Ge…
02:19:24 |
Thu 13 May 2021
Bonus Sample: On the Anxiety of Death
Derek discusses a forthcoming interview with Alex Ebert, which will be featured on Conspirituality 52. They discuss the dearth of death rituals in America. In this bonus episode, Derek meditates and,…
00:05:49 |
Mon 10 May 2021
50. Sellouts & Zealots (w/Sheena Sood)
When the drones hum over the improvised cremation grounds of Delhi, what will the conspiritualist see in the livestream—if they even look? Will their Orientalist spell, fixated on fire ceremonies and…
02:23:01 |
Thu 06 May 2021
Bonus Sample: The God-Man & His Enabler: How Ken Wilber Got Adi Da All Wrong
By the 1990s, the sadistic cult leader who claimed to be God on Earth had already fled the United States to avoid a stack of lawsuits and potential criminal charges. Even still, highly influential sp…
00:10:40 |
Mon 03 May 2021
49: Tik Tok Fulfillment Center (w/Abbie Richards)
On the road to the screen, a rich story can flatten into propaganda. On the road to the influencer economy, a complex teaching can degrade into a conspirituality meme. As the Oscar glitter fades, we …
02:16:56 |
Thu 29 Apr 2021
Bonus Sample: Post-Cult Shame
Survivor shame over what has been lost, and how one has been complicit.
Apologist shame: turned inside out and externalized as aggression.
Popular shaming, which tries to deflect attention from how…
00:10:12 |
Mon 26 Apr 2021
48: Traumatic Influence (w/Kyra Haglund & Hala Khouri)
Teal Swan’s suicide-teasing trauma pseudo-therapy has cast a spell over millions. Kaia Ra is an up-and-coming contender, selling divine jewelry and a channeled text about how to transcend QAnon-type …
02:11:15 |
Fri 23 Apr 2021
Bonus Sample: Vanillaroma
We don’t get “well” until everyone has an opportunity to tap into the resources needed to live. This week, Derek reads a 2006 essay from one of his closest friends, Dax-Devlon Ross, about being pulle…
00:15:53 |
Mon 19 Apr 2021
47: Is An Ethical Cult Possible? (w/Jamie Wheal)
How do we tease apart the gold from the dross? What can be salvaged from a subculture marred by charismatic con-artistry, power abuses, and the toxic ingredients that lead to conspirituality? Founder…
02:51:41 |
Thu 15 Apr 2021
Bonus Sample: Gaia & The Map to Nowhere
With over a half-million paying subscribers, Gaia is the world’s largest spiritual media streaming service. Have they have played a role in redpilling the Q-Age demographic? With a little help from K…
00:06:20 |
Mon 12 Apr 2021
46: Back to the Vax (w/Lydia Greene & Heather Simpson)
Our EP10 guest, Center for Countering Digital Hate founder, Imran Ahmed, has been bringing the heat. His “Disinformation Dozen” white paper made a huge splash, prompting a conference call with Nancy …
02:26:29 |
Thu 08 Apr 2021
Bonus Sample: Pray & Work
Matthew offers a meditation on Brandolini’s Law — “the amount of energy needed to refute bullshit is an order of magnitude bigger than to produce it” — and accepting the hopelessness of altruistic re…
00:08:37 |
Mon 05 Apr 2021
45: Theatre of the Transferred
Conspiritualists hide their grifts in mantras. MLMs market themselves as communities, while cults preach freedom. When a research firm spotlights Sayer Ji as a disinformation super-spreader, he calls…
01:36:19 |
Thu 01 Apr 2021
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