Conspirituality
af Derek Beres, Matthew Remski, Julian Walker
Seneste episode
334: Digital Soldiers Win in Brazil
334: Digital Soldiers Win in Brazil
Om denne podcast
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.
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- 334: Digital Soldiers Win in Brazil · 1 t. 10 min.Listen ad-free Brazil has a Steve Bannon of the Left. Today we study up how Congressman Andre Janones turned Lula’s Worker’s Party defeat in round one of the PE on October the 4…
- Drop: How the Black Virgin of Brazil Helped Beat Fascists (w/Maria Bernardes) · 36 min.Listen ad-free Matthew speaks with Maria Bernardes, a volunteer in Lula's digital army, about how Nossa Senhora Aparecida, Brazil's Black Marian patron, became a flashpoint in…
- Bonus Sample: Two Faces of The Gen-Z “Revolutions” · 9 min.Listen to the full episode What is going on with Gen-Z revolutions across the globe right now? A student-led movement in Serbia just organized a massive nonviolent protest…
- Brief: Schadenfreude · 35 min.Listen ad-free First, the blue wave. Then, Russell Brand gets convicted of rape and sexual assault. Derek and Julian talk about the meltdowns going on in America right now…
- 333: Blue Wave · 45 min.Listen ad-free For the moment, a sigh of relief ripples across America, perhaps even across the world. Seats that have not gone Democrat in decades did so across the country on…
- Book Club: Man in the Mirror (w/Anand Giridharadas) · 58 min.Listen ad-free Julian interviews journalist Anand Giridharadas about his new book, Man in the Mirror: Hope, Struggle, and Belonging in an American City. The book centers on the…
- Bonus Sample: "Islamogauchisme" = Sam Harris in a Beret · 6 min.Listen to the full episode Matthew tracks the concept of "islamo-gauchisme," the French accusation that leftists are useful idiots for jihad. Pierre-André Taguieff's 2002 book…
- Brief: MAGA’s Midterm Election Denialism Network (w/Julie Millican) · 41 min.Election denialism didn’t go away after the Capitol Insurrection. If anything, the revolving door between the Trump administration, the far-right conspiracy-mongering media…
- Drop: The Christian Nationalist Fight For Embryos · 21 min.Listen ad-free In 2021, the first secular embryo adoption organization received federal funding after decades of pro-life Christian organizations had hogged the kitty with their…
- 332: The Protest Kids in France (w/Anthony Mansuy) · 1 t. 0 min.Listen ad-free The protests in France were initially sparked in mid-September by high school kids as young as 14 in the poorer metro districts, articulating concrete grievances…
- Bonus Sample: Mikki Willis Injects More Bad Medicine · 9 min.Mikki Willis is back with another installment of Plandemic—er, with a new book that further explains Plandemic, or something like that. Given how badly his sequels have gone, it…
- Book Club: American Caesar (w/Brad Onishi) · 57 min.Listen ad-free Matthew welcomes friend of the pod, Brad Onishi, back to Conspirituality. Brad is the co-host of Straight White American Jesus, and he’s got a new book out called…
- 331: Charles Eisenstein Reflects · 1 t. 18 min.Listen ad-free Charles Eisenstein’s very long essay, “The Coronation,” was the focus of EP1 of Conspirituality. The sacred economist turned philosopher king joined us on EPs 30…
- Bonus Sample: The New Age Nuclear Doomsday Prophet · 10 min.Listen to the full episode The Church Universal and Triumphant became an international mainstream news story in 1990. Their leader, Elizabeth Clare Prophet, was poised…
- Book Club: The Last Temptation of Beck (w/Josephine Riesman) · 37 min.Listen ad-free and support the podcast Although Beck David Hansen was born into Scientology, he’s never really practiced it. Except for that period where he did, heavily, when…
- 330: The Hypocrisies of Paul Saladino [feat Mallory DeMille] · 1 t. 2 min.Listen ad-free and support the podcast Paul Saladino doesn’t like peanut butter. Or whey protein. Or processed foods at all. Except when they’re his peanut butter whey protein…
- Bonus Sample: Max Haiven’s The Player and the Played · 6 min.Listen to the full episode Max Haiven's The Player and the Played: From Gamed Capitalism to Twenty-First Century Fascism (MIT Press, 2026) argues that financialized capitalism…
- Book Club: Protocols (w/Scott Carney) · 43 min.Andrew Huberman’s new book takes many hours of podcast transcripts and distills them to what he believes are ideal protocols for a healthy life. Protocols: An Operating Manual…
- DROP: It’s Not a Horseshoe. It’s a Business Model. · 55 min.This is episode 1 of a new side project Julian is doing with Azi Ghaffari, Dr. Inna Kanevsky, and Aaron McCall. Find upcoming episodes via Grifty Podcast and at grifty.org The…
- 329: Does Claude Have Charisma? · 1 t. 13 min.Listen ad-free and support the podcast When we started this show, the charismatic influencers we covered had identifiable tactics of hard-selling, finding pain points, using…
- When Men Lie: Listening to the MAHA Summit · 9 min.Listen to the full episode Last week, MAHA Action once again blurred the lines between activist organization and government entity, with RFK Jr, JD Vance, Dr Oz and other…
- Brief: Mark Carney, Davos Catholic · 31 min.Matthew examines how Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney has paired an 18-month austerity rampage with approval ratings near 60%. Centralized power, new surveillance and protest…
- 328: Canadaland Platforms Antivax Grifter · 1 t. 13 min.In 2013, businessman turned independent journalist Jesse Brown launched Canadaland as a podcast focused on media criticism. He grew the business to include many other podcasts…
- Bonus Sample: The Pope, the Playwright, & the Electrician · 6 min.Who was behind the gunman that shot Pope John Paul II in 1981? We know the man who pulled the trigger was a Turkish member of the Grey Wolves. We know he planned to flee via the…
- Book Club: Man In The Mirror · 21 min.When the Black, 30-year-old Michael Jackson impersonator stepped onto the F train in Manhattan on May 1, 2023, he was ranting angrily about being hungry and thirsty, willing to…
- 327: AOC Meets MAHA · 1 t. 15 min.Listen ad free Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez has been meeting with MAHA activists in an attempt to bring the coalition to the Democratic party. Recent reporting reveals that she’s…
- DROP: When Spiritual Teachers Abuse Their Power · 1 t. 1 min.Today's Drop is a crosspost of an interview Matthew Remski did with Brianna Patten of the Surviving Satchidananda Podcast. Patten asked him a bunch of really good questions…
- Bonus Sample: Swoletarians and the Left Manosphere Attack a Disability Activist · 6 min.Matthew tracks the attack on disability justice activist Beatrice Adler-Bolton after a clip from her Socialism 2026 panel — "Health Fascism, Body Politics, and the Anti-State…
- Book Club: Fed Up · 36 min.Harvard paleoanthropologist Daniel Lieberman returns with Fed Up: What Evolution Teaches About Food, Diet, Health, and Eating Well. In the book, he tries a variety of major…
- 326: The War on Empathy · 1 t. 7 min.Humans are social animals. We’re not the strongest, fastest, or even best adapted to our environment. But what we excel at is our ability to work together, which means we’ve been…
- Bonus Sample: What Happened to Yoga? · 7 min.A recent article in The Atlantic ponders the current state of yoga. Derek weighs in based on his decades-long experiences. Show Notes What Happened to Yoga? Learn more about…
- Brief: The Cultural Marxism Conspiracy Theory (w/AJA Woods) · 43 min.AJA Woods (The Cultural Marxism Conspiracy) joins Matthew to trace how "cultural Marxism" mutated from Nazi "cultural Bolshevism" and the British Union of Fascists' attacks on…
- 325: Long COVID Profiteers · 1 t. 13 min.Conspiracy theorists have decided Novak Djokovic has long COVID — despite no evidence — because he's become an anti-vax icon courted by RFK Jr. and Dr. Oz. So we thought it was…
- DROP: Kennedy Chooses Erectile Dysfunction Over Postpartum Research · 12 min.Heading into the holiday weekend, RFK Jr terminated almost all grants dedicated to the Office of Minority Health. Now, $38 million over four years will be redirected from…
- Bonus Sample: How Oprah and Art Bell Red-Pilled 1990’s Normie America · 10 min.Listen to the full episode The 1990s were a special time in American media. Female-coded, liberal-leaning, daytime TV talk shows like the Oprah Winfrey Show normalized past-life…
- Book Club: The Nerd Reich · 27 min.Support the podcast and listen ad-free Gil Duran's exceptional new book, The Nerd Reich: Silicon Valley Fascism and the War on Democracy, explains how technofascists like Peter…
- 324: Then They Came for Dolly · 46 min.Listen ad-free The irreplaceable Dolly Parton died on August 25 after a brief battle with cancer. Social media was filled with loving tributes to an incredible artist and…
- Bonus Sample: Piker, the Zhongshan Suit, and Left Melancholy · 5 min.Listen to the full episode There’s a lot going on when Hasan Piker wears a Zhongshan suit and praises Maoism. Matthew uses Wendy Brown's 1999 essay "Resisting Left Melancholy"…
- Book Club: Plastic Shaman · 37 min.During James Arthur Ray’s 2009 Spiritual Warrior retreat in Sedona, the self-proclaimed spiritual teacher exhorted participants to “play full-on” in order to overcome their…
- 323: Joe Rogan Defects? · 1 t. 10 min.Support the podcast and listen ad-free Someday in the future, Joe Rogan may ask Jamie to be his mirror, and facilitate the next and most important psychedelic experience of his…
- Bonus Sample: Has RFK Jr Kept His Promises? · 6 min.Listen to the full episode Presidential hopeful Robert F Kennedy Jr held a “health policy roundtable” on Rumble on June 27, 2023, just as he was shoring up support from a band…
- Brief: Wetiko: Original, New Age & Marxist Views · 28 min.Matthew traces the concept of wetiko — a Cree figure for a cannibal spirit whose hunger grows with what it consumes — from its original anticolonial and anti-imperialist meaning…
- 322: The Cult of Spiralism · 1 t. 11 min.Support the podcast Spiralism is a quasi-spiritual online movement that emerged from long, intense conversations between humans and AI chatbots. Across users, platforms, and…
- Bonus Sample: 1970’s Violent Revolutionary Chic · 8 min.Listen to the full episode The “Summer of Love” ushered in a decade of revolutionary terrorism in the West. “Bring the war home” went the slogan of the Weather Underground, a…
- Book Club: How the Internet Disrupted Science · 38 min.How the Internet Disrupted Science is an enlightening gaze into the shady world of for-profit and open access scientific publishing. Authors Kent Anderson and Joy Moore join…
- 321: Inflammation Pseudoscience · 59 min.Inflammation is an important and necessary part of the body’s healing process. It’s also long been a wellness buzzword used to sell products that do very little to treat it. This…
- Bonus Sample: Conspirituality in the Age of Hyperpolitics · 6 min.Listen to the full episode Matthew applies Anton Jäger's Hyperpolitics—a theory of extreme politicization without institutional consequence—to conspirituality and to his own…
- Brief: The Ceuta Crisis Great Replacement Conspiracy · 32 min.Last week, around 72,000 migrants flooded from Morocco into the Spanish enclave of Ceuta. What really happened? Was a local girl abducted, never to be seen again? Did the…
- DROP: Who Killed Charlie Kirk? (w/Brandy Zadrozny) · 32 min.Support the podcast MS NOW senior reporter Brandy Zadrozny spent 10 months tracking the conspiracy theories that evolved online in the wake of the death of Charlie Kirk. She…
- 320: The Fauci Files · 1 t. 2 min.During an extraordinary career, Dr. Anthony Fauci led the federal response to HIV-AIDS, SARS, H1N1, Ebola, and Zika. He always advocated funding for pandemic preparedness…
