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: MAHA's Soft Eugenics
MAHA's response to the measles outbreak has been horrific, though expectable. Yet RFK Jr's op-ed, in which he advocated for the MMR vaccine, ripped apart his coalition—briefly.
Derek looks at the re…
00:29:32 |
Sat 08 Mar 2025
247: The Deeper State
This week we’re looking at how folks who associated themselves with the magical and morbid QAnon memes about the “coming storm” that would destroy the Deep State have become that storm, mainly by tal…
01:02:00 |
Thu 06 Mar 2025
Bonus Sample: What’s a Nazi Salute, Really?
Former "race realist" Richard Hanania recently published an article on The Free Press claiming that all those Nazi salutes the right is waving high in the sky is really "just trolling." Derek disagre…
00:05:39 |
Mon 03 Mar 2025
Brief: Smooth-Talking Anti-Feminism
Is life worse for women now than in the 1950s? In a recent interview for The Free Press, author Louise Perry and journalist Bari Weiss muse on just how much women have lost since premarital sex was n…
00:35:03 |
Sat 01 Mar 2025
246: Shock Doctrine of Discovery
Trump has decreed it’s the Gulf of America, and Google agrees, at least for US users. Rep Buddy Carter has introduced HR 1161, the Red White and Blueland Act of 2025 to rename Greenland. And then, of…
01:03:24 |
Thu 27 Feb 2025
Bonus Sample: Manners, the Machine, and Malaparte’s Technique de Coup d’État
What do we worry more about: the far-right beliefs of trolls, or the coding skills of the trolls?
The split focus on Marco Elez and Elon Musk—are they Nazis, or hackers, or Nazi hackers?— highlight …
00:06:05 |
Mon 24 Feb 2025
Brief: Antifascist Woodshed
Education / Public service alert:
Matthew critically reviews six books that define fascist eras and recount how they have been opposed. A kind of “here we are, now what?” episode that hopefully inter…
00:35:05 |
Sat 22 Feb 2025
245: Raw Dogging Wellness [feat Mallory DeMille]
Raw Milk. Raw Water. Raw Meat.
Mallory DeMille returns to break down the raw trend in wellness. We look at the science and cultural implications behind it.
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit meg…
00:54:32 |
Thu 20 Feb 2025
Relief Project #8: Blair Hodges
The eighth installment of Matthew’s Five Big Questions Posed to an Extremely Thoughtful Person.
Friend of the pod Blair Hodges joins Matthew to talk about how he’s transformed the teachings of his M…
00:26:39 |
Tue 18 Feb 2025
Bonus Sample: Scientology’s Sci-Fi Religion
“You don’t get rich writing science fiction. If you want to get rich, start a religion.” With those words, prolific sci-fi pulp fiction writer L. Ron Hubbard prophesied the course of his life’s work.…
00:06:02 |
Mon 17 Feb 2025
Brief: Make Apartheid Great Again
Given how much shit the zone is being flooded with right now, you might have missed Donald Trump screaming about the supposed mistreatment of white South Africans recently. Last week, he said “certai…
00:25:31 |
Sat 15 Feb 2025
244: Battle for the Onesies
As of recording time, RFK Jr has not yet been confirmed to the HHS Secretary position by the Senate. That might change by publication date. But if we were setting odds on this confirmation, we’d say …
01:01:00 |
Thu 13 Feb 2025
Bonus Sample: What We're Facing
Derek meditates on a recent conversation about the left-right divide between Ezra Klein and James Pogue.
Show Notes
MAGA’s Big Tech Divide: Ezra Klein Show
Going Back to Cincinnati — James Pogue
Insi…
00:07:03 |
Mon 10 Feb 2025
Brief: Why Didn’t I Yell STFU at Jordan Peterson in 2017?
In the spring of 2017, Jordan Peterson first went viral by writing this in Canada’s National Post:
I will never use words I hate, like the trendy and artificially constructed words “zhe” and “zher.”…
00:45:11 |
Sat 08 Feb 2025
243: Free Market Contrarians (w/Eoin Higgins)
Edward Snowden is largely only a public name thanks to Glenn Greenwald’s reporting, for which he was one of the contributors to a Pulitzer Prize-winning series for The Guardian in 2014. For a while, …
01:00:26 |
Thu 06 Feb 2025
Bonus Sample: Kelly Brogan’s Divine Dungeon: Pt 2 (feat/Esme Providence Brown)
Part 2 of Matthew’s sit down with sex-work veteran and social justice advocate Esme Providence Brown to discuss New Age / wellness antifeminist, Kelly Brogan, and how her craven politics bolster the …
00:06:01 |
Mon 03 Feb 2025
Brief: Anti-Social Media (w/Renee Diresta)
When asked if he thought Mark Zuckerberg’s effective ending of fact checking was in response to threats that he would “put him in jail for a very long time,” Trump replied, “Probably. Yeah, probably.…
00:29:21 |
Sat 01 Feb 2025
242: Executive Disorder
What the ever loving fuck. That’s our intro today.
But we do have a structure. Julian’s going to review the Executive Order chaos, including the pardoning and deputizing of fascist street gangs. Dere…
00:52:21 |
Thu 30 Jan 2025
Bonus Sample: 1950’s Alien Yoga
Full episode available here.
The alien from Venus in George King’s head said: “Prepare yourself. You are to be the voice of interplanetary parliament.” It’s 1952 and the Englishman has been meditatin…
00:05:41 |
Mon 27 Jan 2025
Brief: Patients Before Profits
On Jan 10, the Oregon Nurses Association launched the largest healthcare strike in Oregon state history. Some 5k frontline caregivers from 8 Providence hospitals and 6 clinics have been holding the l…
00:33:33 |
Sat 25 Jan 2025
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