Conspirituality

Bonus Sample: How Did Gen X Go MAGA?

05 May 2025

Contributed by Lukas

Gen X went from leaning slightly right in 2016 to become, as one analysis puts it, “the bedrock of Trumpism.” Derek meditates on what happened to ...

Brief: The New Media Order

03 May 2025

Contributed by Lukas

The White House Correspondents’ Dinner was a little different this year. No president. No comedian. The event featured a mea culpa from an Axios jou...

255: A MAHA Wellness Scam at Ontario Place

01 May 2025

Contributed by Lukas

Doug Ford’s Progressive Conservative government in Ontario has leased the public space of OP to the Therme Spa company, which promises to bring well...

Bonus Sample: How To Talk To Your Son About Fascism (Pt 2)

28 Apr 2025

Contributed by Lukas

Part 2 of Matthew’s conversation with historian Craig Johnson (PhD Berkeley), who hosts Fifteen Minutes of Fascism, which covers the global rise of ...

Brief: How To Talk To Your Son About Fascism (Pt 1)

26 Apr 2025

Contributed by Lukas

Historian Craig Johnson (PhD Berkeley) hosts Fifteen Minutes of Fascism, which covers the global rise of the radical right. He’s the author of an ex...

254: The Great MAHA Purity War of 2025

24 Apr 2025

Contributed by Lukas

Someone’s got dirt on RFK Jr. MAHA voters went MAGA because Bobby said he was going to end vaccine mandates—their code for ending vaccines, period...

Bonus Sample: God is a Cloned Alien Love-Machine!

21 Apr 2025

Contributed by Lukas

When the aliens landed, they told a young musician and wannabe race car driver that he was the chosen one, and they were the real gods. He should buil...

Brief: The Cult of Crossfit

19 Apr 2025

Contributed by Lukas

When cultural and psychological anthropologist Katie Rose Hejtmanek set out to study Crossfit, she knew she had to throw herself into it fully. For se...

253: The Politics of Abundance

17 Apr 2025

Contributed by Lukas

"In order to have the future we want, we have to build and invent more of the things we need." That’s the central claim of Ezra Klein and Derek Tho...

Bonus Sample: We Already Know What September Will Bring

14 Apr 2025

Contributed by Lukas

It's been quite the week at HHS with Robert F Kennedy Jr in charge. Derek considers what's been going on: Bobby's announcement that he's going to "det...

Brief: Karma & Christ at the NIH

12 Apr 2025

Contributed by Lukas

Jay Bhattacharya, Covid contrarian and co-author of the Great Barrington Declaration, is now the Director of the NIH. The day before beginning his new...

252: Netflix vs. Andrew Tate (On “Adolescence”)

10 Apr 2025

Contributed by Lukas

There’s a mystery of violence swirling in and amongst the kids these days. Especially boys. What could it be? Snapchat? Video games? Andrew Tate? A ...

Bonus Sample: Antifascist Woodshed 3.1: The Kids are Alright

07 Apr 2025

Contributed by Lukas

Part Two: Matthew remembers the snow job of “The Sound of Music.” Also: more on Sophie Scholl, introducing the Edelweiss Pirates, the “adult gaz...

Brief: Antifascist Woodshed 3: The Kids are Alright

05 Apr 2025

Contributed by Lukas

But the parents? Meh.  When fascism rises, and some young people are drawn into its orbit, because everyone from Jordan Peterson to Andrew Tate has f...

251: Who Is Curtis Yarvin?

03 Apr 2025

Contributed by Lukas

"If Americans want to change their government, they're going to have to get over their dictator-phobia." That's neo-reactionary philosopher Curtis Y...

Bonus Sample: American Oligarchy and the Kremlin Wizard

31 Mar 2025

Contributed by Lukas

What is an oligarchy, exactly? Is the US entering a period similar to post-Soviet Russia in the 1990s? What do Russian oligarchs have to do with prove...

Brief: Is It Fascism?

29 Mar 2025

Contributed by Lukas

Derek and Julian discuss Robert Paxton's 2004 book, The Anatomy of Fascism, in light of 2025 America. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphon...

250: The Mercola Tapes

27 Mar 2025

Contributed by Lukas

McGill University science communicator, Jonathan Jarry, was recently given hundreds of hours of Zoom calls between alt-med salesman, Joseph Mercola, a...

Bonus Sample: The War on Fat People

24 Mar 2025

Contributed by Lukas

The Wellness Company is now selling retatrutide, a weight loss drug currently undergoing stage 3 trials by Eli Lilly. An anti-vax company that uses fe...

Brief: Jordan Peterson’s Shady Billionaire Backers

22 Mar 2025

Contributed by Lukas

Julian covers the recent Alliance for Responsible Citizenship (ARC) conference in London. Headlined by Jordan Peterson, featuring Konstantin Kisin, Ay...

249: Kings of Pain

20 Mar 2025

Contributed by Lukas

Trump administration Treasury Secretary, Scott Bessent, recently stated the American economy is going to need a "detox" period. And so today we look a...

Bonus Sample: Antifascist Woodshed 2.1 (Punching Nazis?)

17 Mar 2025

Contributed by Lukas

Click here to hear the full episode on Patreon. Second of Matthew’s two-part examination of why the hell questions of force, non-violent resistance...

Brief: Antifascist Woodshed 2 (Punching Nazis?)

15 Mar 2025

Contributed by Lukas

First of Matthew's two-part examination of why the hell questions of force, non-violent resistance with and without force, unarmed violence and proper...

248: What Side Are You On?

13 Mar 2025

Contributed by Lukas

Lately a lot of folks (including us) have been doing the fascism comparisons. The questions we ponder this week: How long it takes for fascism to ful...

Bonus Sample: Sex, Lies, & Communist Spies

10 Mar 2025

Contributed by Lukas

Subscribe for full episode The MAGA attack on government jobs, takeover of government agencies, and purge of supposed “DEI” and “woke” profe...

Brief: MAHA's Soft Eugenics

08 Mar 2025

Contributed by Lukas

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 ap...

247: The Deeper State

06 Mar 2025

Contributed by Lukas

This week we’re looking at how folks who associated themselves with the magical and morbid QAnon memes about the “coming storm” that would destr...

Bonus Sample: What’s a Nazi Salute, Really?

03 Mar 2025

Contributed by Lukas

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...

Brief: Smooth-Talking Anti-Feminism

01 Mar 2025

Contributed by Lukas

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 ho...

246: Shock Doctrine of Discovery

27 Feb 2025

Contributed by Lukas

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 Blu...

Bonus Sample: Manners, the Machine, and Malaparte’s Technique de Coup d’État

24 Feb 2025

Contributed by Lukas

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 ...

Brief: Antifascist Woodshed

22 Feb 2025

Contributed by Lukas

Education / Public service alert: Matthew critically reviews six books that define fascist eras and recount how they have been opposed. A kind of “h...

245: Raw Dogging Wellness [feat Mallory DeMille]

20 Feb 2025

Contributed by Lukas

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 behin...

Relief Project #8: Blair Hodges

18 Feb 2025

Contributed by Lukas

The eighth installment of Matthew’s Five Big Questions Posed to an Extremely Thoughtful Person.  Friend of the pod Blair Hodges joins Matthew to ta...

Bonus Sample: Scientology’s Sci-Fi Religion

17 Feb 2025

Contributed by Lukas

“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...

Brief: Make Apartheid Great Again

15 Feb 2025

Contributed by Lukas

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 So...

244: Battle for the Onesies

13 Feb 2025

Contributed by Lukas

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 ...

Bonus Sample: What We're Facing

10 Feb 2025

Contributed by Lukas

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 Kle...

Brief: Why Didn’t I Yell STFU at Jordan Peterson in 2017?

08 Feb 2025

Contributed by Lukas

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 ...

243: Free Market Contrarians (w/Eoin Higgins)

06 Feb 2025

Contributed by Lukas

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-win...

Bonus Sample: Kelly Brogan’s Divine Dungeon: Pt 2 (feat/Esme Providence Brown)

03 Feb 2025

Contributed by Lukas

Part 2 of Matthew’s sit down with sex-work veteran and social justice advocate Esme Providence Brown to discuss New Age / wellness antifeminist, Kel...

Brief: Anti-Social Media (w/Renee Diresta)

01 Feb 2025

Contributed by Lukas

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 ...

242: Executive Disorder

30 Jan 2025

Contributed by Lukas

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 p...

Bonus Sample: 1950’s Alien Yoga

27 Jan 2025

Contributed by Lukas

Full episode available here. The alien from Venus in George King’s head said: “Prepare yourself. You are to be the voice of interplanetary parliam...

Brief: Patients Before Profits

25 Jan 2025

Contributed by Lukas

On Jan 10, the Oregon Nurses Association launched the largest healthcare strike in Oregon state history. Some 5k frontline caregivers from 8 Providenc...

241: Unravelling The Telepathy Tapes

23 Jan 2025

Contributed by Lukas

One of the top podcasts in the world—even beating out Rogan for a few hours—is popularizing a well-meaning intervention for non-speaking autistic ...

Relief Project #7: Sam Adler-Bell

21 Jan 2025

Contributed by Lukas

The seventh installment of Matthew’s Five Big Questions Posed to an Extremely Thoughtful Person.  Sam Adler-Bell is a journalist, political theoris...

Bonus Sample: Calling Out Bullsh*t

20 Jan 2025

Contributed by Lukas

Twitter Files journalist Alex Berenson recently published two articles claiming that Moderna covered up a child's death from a Moderna Covid booster t...

Brief: Tech-Bro Mormonism (w/Blair Hodges)

18 Jan 2025

Contributed by Lukas

We know Bryan Johnson gobbles 100 pills a day. He pumps his son’s plasma through his veins. He does light therapy on his junk and wants to live fore...

240: Bryan Johnson’s Impossible Blueprint

16 Jan 2025

Contributed by Lukas

In January, 2023, Bloomberg published an article about how tech entrepreneur turned longevity stan, Bryan Johnson, spends $2 million a year in an atte...

Clarity Lab: Fighting Cancer Misinformation

14 Jan 2025

Contributed by Lukas

A one-time drop of Derek's new podcast, Clarity Lab, the official podcast of Siris Health, a 501(c)(3) nonprofit building a free educational platform ...

Bonus Sample: Kelly Brogan’s Divine Dungeon: Pt 1 (feat/Esme Providence Brown)

13 Jan 2025

Contributed by Lukas

Matthew sits down with sex-work veteran and social justice advocate Esme Providence Brown for the first of two chinwags about our famous New Age / wel...

Brief: Vinay Prasad’s Pick-me Campaign

11 Jan 2025

Contributed by Lukas

UCSF epidemiology and biostatistics professor Vinay Prasad's star rose when he compared the US response to Covid-19 to the beginnings of the Third Rei...

239: Conspiracy Of Dunces

09 Jan 2025

Contributed by Lukas

Like it or not, 2025 is here. What happens in post-truth America when formerly fringe conspiracy theorists, religious extremists, pseudoscience-peddle...

Bonus Sample: The Giant Rock Interplanetary Spacecraft Convention

06 Jan 2025

Contributed by Lukas

George van Tassel was the original UFO contactee. He claimed to have been visited by aliens from Venus in 1953, which led to him hosting thousands of ...

Brief: Trump the Babyface, Trump the Heel (w/Abraham Josie Reisman)

04 Jan 2025

Contributed by Lukas

Journalist and author Josie Reisman says we can’t understand the Trump era without understanding his life-long pro-wrestling fandom, and his bonds w...

238: Diary of a CEO Bro

02 Jan 2025

Contributed by Lukas

British entrepreneur and investor Steven Bartlett launched his podcast, Diary of a CEO, in 2017. He quickly found an audience in the tech world, which...

Relief Project #6: Rebecca Solnit

31 Dec 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Happy New Year’s Eve! The sixth installment of Matthew’s Five Big Questions Posed to an Extremely Thoughtful Person.  Writer, historian, and acti...

Bonus Sample: Why Big Wellness Hates Ozempic

30 Dec 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Ozempic might be all the rage among people who want to lose weight, but wellness influencers and MAHA acolytes are raging against the antidiabetic med...

Brief: The Free Press Tastes Its Own (Polio) Medicine

28 Dec 2024

Contributed by Lukas

We've been highly critical of The Free Press in the past, but a recent memoir-article about grappling with a familial history of polio by Jana Kozlows...

Unlocked: “What will happen?” (asks a 12 year-old)

26 Dec 2024

Contributed by Lukas

A special Patreon bonus unlocked episode as we enjoy the holidays with our families and friends. Matthew got The Question on the morning after the ele...

Bonus Sample: Blessed NeoKayfabe of Santa Claus

23 Dec 2024

Contributed by Lukas

“If you grow up with it, religion is real until you realize it is also imagined. And after a period of disenchantment or even depression that associ...

Brief: My Dad Became a MAGA Power Broker (w/Julia Tucker)

21 Dec 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Jeffery Tucker is the founder of the MAGA thinktank Brownstone Institute. In 2020, Brownstone published The Great Barrington Declaration, with lead au...

237: Your Revolution is Out of Network

19 Dec 2024

Contributed by Lukas

The murder of United HealthCare CEO Brian Thompson has set off shockwaves across America. This week we look at the story’s online impact, people myt...

Relief Project #5: Annie Kelly

17 Dec 2024

Contributed by Lukas

The fifth installment of Matthew's Five Big Questions Posed to an Extremely Thoughtful Person.  Dr. Annie Kelly joined us in Episode 61 to lay out he...

Bonus Sample: TheoBros, Political Religion, and Christmas

16 Dec 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Extremely online, bearded, Millennial pastors in tailored suits want to repeal women’s suffrage, criminalize gays, and Make America Christian Again....

Brief: The Unfreedom of Others (w/Talia Lavin)

14 Dec 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Journalist Talia Lavin joins Derek to discuss her recent book, Wild Faith: How the Christian Right is Taking Over America.  Show Notes Wild Faith: Ho...

236: Damage Control

12 Dec 2024

Contributed by Lukas

As we ride out the aftershocks of the election and prepare for Trump 2.0, it’s as if nothing is bolted down. Trump’s cabinet appointments signal a...

Bonus Sample: The Raw Truth About Health

09 Dec 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Researchers in California recently warned that just one mutation in H5N1, the bird flu virus, could make the disease transmissible between humans. Whi...

Brief: Freeing the Well-Trained Wife (w/Tia Levings)

07 Dec 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Exvangelical author Tia Levings joins Matthew to discuss her harrowing memoir of indoctrination, abuse, recovery, and advocacy, The Well-Trained Wife:...

235: MAHA Mamas (feat Mallory DeMille)

05 Dec 2024

Contributed by Lukas

If you’ve spent one minute on social media in the last few months, you’ve probably heard that seed oils are extremely toxic, food dyes are the rea...

Bonus Sample: Deep State Religion

02 Dec 2024

Contributed by Lukas

An essay from Matthew on how MAGA religiosity obscures the religious nature of liberalism, and how both obscure the underlying religion of capitalism....

Brief: The $100M Free Press

30 Nov 2024

Contributed by Lukas

The Free Press founder, Bari Weiss, recently hosted Peter Thiel on her podcast. While The FP markets itself as as a return to independent and non-part...

234: Trump’s Conspiracist Cabinet

28 Nov 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Since the election, Democratic voter disbelief and despair has alternated between grief and rage. We watched some erstwhile vociferous critics of Trum...

Relief Project #4: Rob Schenck

26 Nov 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Matthew here with the fourth installment of Five Big Questions Posed to an Extremely Thoughtful Person.  Rob Schenck joined me in Episode 199 to disc...

Bonus Sample: The UFOs Are Being Censored!

25 Nov 2024

Contributed by Lukas

The climate denialist who exposed the so-called “censorship industrial complex” returns, this time at another congressional hearing. Michael Shell...

Brief: How to Fire a Billionaire

23 Nov 2024

Contributed by Lukas

AG1 built a billion-dollar brand in large part by tapping into the fitness and wellness podcast and YouTube markets. Recently, AG1’s founder, Chris ...

233: DC’s Catholic Power Center (w/Gareth Gore)

21 Nov 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Josemaria Escriva founded Opus Dei, an ultra-conservative, high-demand, secretive Catholic organization in Madrid, Spain, after receiving a supposed v...

Bonus Sample: Thinking About "Holism"

18 Nov 2024

Contributed by Lukas

A personal journey through health describing what led Derek to focus on health, science, and healthcare as a career and, eventually, this podcast. Lea...

Brief: Post-Election Online Survivor Group Dynamics

16 Nov 2024

Contributed by Lukas

The post-election online chaos has a lot in common with what can go wrong in online survivor groups. Matthew tracks how opportunities for connection a...

232: Gaslighting The Election

14 Nov 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Once upon a time, there was a golden age. A time when the news media was fair and balanced, unbiased and honest. But we've lost all that to the corrup...

Bonus Sample: “What will happen?” (asks a 12 year-old)

11 Nov 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Matthew got The Question on the morning after the election. At that moment, he came up with nothing but a hug. But then he chewed on it for days, and ...

Brief: Tucker Carlson's Daddy Issues

09 Nov 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Derek discusses Tucker Carlson advocating for corporal punishment as a way to discipline children in his appearance at the Turning Points USA MAGA ral...

231: New Age Bible, Postmodern Novel (w/ Sheila Heti)

07 Nov 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Rapid-response electoral punditry is not our lane. So, while we gather our feelings and thoughts, Matthew hosts novelist Sheila Heti for a discussion ...

Bonus Sample: Elections on 3 Continents

04 Nov 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Having lived under Apartheid in South Africa, voted in the UK, and now staring down this terrifying US election, Julian reflects on the political diff...

Brief: No Really, They’re Coming For Your Pets

02 Nov 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Recently, “holistic veterinarian” Marcie Fallek, whose latest book, “Little Miracles Everywhere: My Unorthodox Path to Holistic Veterinary Medic...

230: How Did We Get Here?

31 Oct 2024

Contributed by Lukas

With days left before the most consequential US election in our lifetime, we reflect on the last 4.5 years of this podcast while expressing our hopes–...

Relief Project #3: Michelle Cassandra Johnson

29 Oct 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Matthew here with the third installment of Five Big Questions Posed to an Extremely Thoughtful Person.  Michelle Cassandra Johnson was an early guest...

Bonus Sample: Tucker Carlson's Daddy Issues

28 Oct 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Derek discusses Tucker Carlson advocating for corporal punishment as a way to discipline children in his appearance at the Turning Points USA MAGA ral...

Brief: Leonard Leo’s Plan to “Crush” Democracy

26 Oct 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Billionaire legal activist Leonard Leo has had a role in placing all six conservative justices on the SCOTUS, and so therefore is in large part respon...

229: Stanford Has Fallen

24 Oct 2024

Contributed by Lukas

On Oct 4, Jay Bhattacharya, a professor of medicine, economics, and health research policy at Stanford, held a symposium at his university. Titled “...

Bonus Sample: The Apocalyptic Portal

21 Oct 2024

Contributed by Lukas

As the world watches, Israel and Iran are squaring off for a potential war. Meanwhile, a Texas evangelical preacher, who runs the biggest Christian Zi...

Brief: Trump Temple Playlist

19 Oct 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Trump’s Town Hall DJ love-in stumped a lot of folks. From the conspirituality angle, however, there’s something familiar about this improvised rit...

228: Hurricane Trump

17 Oct 2024

Contributed by Lukas

People will reach for anything to relieve the stress of climate anxiety.  There’s outright denial: this can’t be happening. It doesn’t fit in ...

Bonus Sample: Surviving Modern Yoga Panel (w/Ann Gleig & Michelle C. Johnson)

14 Oct 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Matthew fields excellent questions about his new book from colleagues Ann Gleig and Michelle C. Johnson.  NAB Show Notes This event includes discussi...

Deep Cut: The OG New Age Grifter: Madame Blavatsky

12 Oct 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Born in 1831, Helena "Madame" Blavatsky pioneered the New Age grift. The Russian aristocrat plagiarized her books while claiming to be channeling the ...

227: Rescue Remedy for The Republic

10 Oct 2024

Contributed by Lukas

On September 29, a predicted one million people were going to show up for the Rescue the Republic event in Washington DC. Founded by the libertarian p...

Bonus Sample: What Are We Doing About Health?

07 Oct 2024

Contributed by Lukas

With MAHA taking over stages nationwide, we’re experiencing a deluge of wellness influence and contrarians screaming about systemic issues with food...

Brief: RFK Jr Screws His Followers

05 Oct 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Finally: a dedicated, concise report on RFK Jr’s sordid history with women, with all the sources. Why?  Because now one of the allegations involves...

226: MAHA Storms the Capitol

03 Oct 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Cleanse the soil! Purify the blood! Save the children! Make America Healthy Again! On Sept 23, Jordan Peterson, RFK Jr., rising alt-health stars Casey...