Conspirituality

Bonus Sample: Conspirituality Casting Call

04 Apr 2022

Contributed by Lukas

Matthew and Julian draw back the curtain to take you behind the scenes of the book-writing process. They step back to consider the pantheon of conspir...

97: Brand Awareness

31 Mar 2022

Contributed by Lukas

This week we’re “just asking questions.” You probably recognize that quip from Joe Rogan, of course, but today’s focus is another actor and co...

Bonus Sample: Feedback Monday

28 Mar 2022

Contributed by Lukas

Hey everyone... Matthew and Julian here with a more relaxed format. We'll be periodically checking in on feedback going forward, starting with a look ...

96: The Terrain Theory Grift (w/Dr Dan Wilson)

24 Mar 2022

Contributed by Lukas

You might have heard some revolutionary news: germs don’t exist. Ok, they exist, but they only make you sick after you ruin your relationship with y...

Bonus Sample: Reading Tony Robbins

21 Mar 2022

Contributed by Lukas

The world's top life coach has a new book, Life Force. Seemingly bulletproof to criticism due to connections in high places (and a litigious legal tea...

95: Aleksandr Dugin: Kali Yuga Chess

17 Mar 2022

Contributed by Lukas

The mystical politics of Aleksandr Dugin, the mercurial philosopher and geopolitical strategist hovering behind Vladimir Putin, is front and center th...

Bonus Sample: Conspirituality Timeline Stories (pt 1)

14 Mar 2022

Contributed by Lukas

Matthew brushes off and polishes stories and analyses we’ve only had the time to glance at in various episodes. A second or even 3rd instalment may ...

94: Conspirituality Goes to War

11 Mar 2022

Contributed by Lukas

After two years of being lied to about COVID, are you really going to believe the mainstream media about what’s happening in Ukraine? Didn’t you k...

Bonus Sample: Encanto

07 Mar 2022

Contributed by Lukas

Matthew takes a break from the news to expand on the possible origins of conspirituality—as being related to intergenerational trauma.What is conspi...

93: Roganomics (w/Daniel Latorre & Jessica Malaty Rivera)

03 Mar 2022

Contributed by Lukas

A few weeks ago, you couldn’t turn to a social media platform without seeing that Joe Rogan was trending. The diversity of topics boggled the mind: ...

Bonus Sample: Left/Right Horseshoe

28 Feb 2022

Contributed by Lukas

The Left-Right political spectrum doesn't really capture the breadth of political sentiment in America. Derek looks at a 2021 study by Pew Research on...

92: The Quiet Part, Loud (w/Sara Aniano and dappergander)

24 Feb 2022

Contributed by Lukas

"Freedom Convoy" leader, Pat King, recently live-streamed his arrest on Facebook. His racist public incitements to violence belie claims that the conv...

Bonus Sample: Carpetbagger Pharaohs

21 Feb 2022

Contributed by Lukas

They couldn’t be more different: the self-made, self-help guru to the stars, the antisemitic Black-separatist, the blue-blood anti-vax lawyer, and t...

91: We Need to Talk About Stephanie

17 Feb 2022

Contributed by Lukas

When Stephanie Sibbio, owner of Glowing Mama Fitness in Toronto, livestreamed herself harassing workers in her local health food store over COVID poli...

Bonus Sample: Spiritual, Um—Sorry—Canadian Bypassing

14 Feb 2022

Contributed by Lukas

"An essential pleasure of white liberal identity in Canada is the schadenfreude of looking down our noses when we consider what’s south of us. It’...

90: The Convoy is an Occupation (w/Elizabeth Simons)

10 Feb 2022

Contributed by Lukas

We cover a lot of ground in this episode. But to introduce it in seed form, we want to draw your attention to a 15-second video we’ve posted to our ...

Bonus Sample: The Ritual of Healing

07 Feb 2022

Contributed by Lukas

Despite the binary conversations around vaccinations, healing has never been an either/or dependent on one factor. What works for one person isn't nec...

89: Till Death Do Us Part (w/Mary)

04 Feb 2022

Contributed by Lukas

Mary joins Matthew for an extended interview about the last year of her husband’s life. Louis died of pancreatic cancer almost exactly a year ago, a...

Bonus Sample: Misinformation Millionaires

31 Jan 2022

Contributed by Lukas

Last week’s Defeat The Mandate March in Washington D.C. saw a who’s-who of conspiracists address thousands from the steps of the Lincoln Memorial....

88: New Age Crack

28 Jan 2022

Contributed by Lukas

Snap. Crackle. Pop. That’s the release you’ve been waiting for—the ecstasy of small gas bubbles being “cracked” along your spine. While it’...

Bonus Sample: The Irrational Makes Sense

24 Jan 2022

Contributed by Lukas

Inspired by a recent discussion on psychoanalysis and politics with Pat Blanchfield on Know Your Enemy, this brief meditation focuses on two aspects o...

87: The Aubrey Marcus Spectacle

20 Jan 2022

Contributed by Lukas

When we left our Austin conspirituality heroes in the last episode, Charles Eisenstein, New Age Q, was locking in his position as the philosopher—or...

Special Report: Red-pilled Poet, Charles Eisenstein

18 Jan 2022

Contributed by Lukas

Charles Eistenstein has had quite the pandemic. Essays read by millions, retweeted by Jack Dorsey, quoted by Ivanka Trump, held up as the poet philoso...

Bonus Sample: Science Is Not a Religion

17 Jan 2022

Contributed by Lukas

In 2017, Charles Eisenstein addressed the SAND (Science And Non-Duality) Conference on our "obsession with measurement." A clip of that talk, publishe...

86: Charles Eisenstein, New Age Q

14 Jan 2022

Contributed by Lukas

Up to this point, we’ve understood Charles Eisenstein as the poet-philosopher of conspirituality, lending his Burning Man ritual workshop chops to t...

Bonus Sample: Red-pilled Poet, Charles Eisenstein

10 Jan 2022

Contributed by Lukas

Charles Eistenstein has had quite the pandemic. Essays read by millions, retweeted by Jack Dorsey, quoted by Ivanka Trump, held up as the poet philoso...

85: Gaia Buys Yoga International, Stocks Rise on Uranus

07 Jan 2022

Contributed by Lukas

On the day after the Winter Solstice, as the world tucked in for an Omicron staycation, a news flash came over the wire. Yoga International—one of t...

Bonus Sample: The Inventor of Yoga Teacher Training Was a Rapist Obsessed with UFOs

03 Jan 2022

Contributed by Lukas

In 1969, Swami Vishnudevananda pioneered what has become a life transition ritual for the GenX and Millennial precariat: the Yoga Teacher Training (YT...

84: Red State Christians (w/Angela Denker)

30 Dec 2021

Contributed by Lukas

"When we don't avoid people who think differently than we do, we gain an opportunity for growth and national renewal." So opens Red State Christians: ...

Bonus Sample: The Language of Conspiritualist Merchants

27 Dec 2021

Contributed by Lukas

Derek investigates the origins of language through thinkers like David Crystal, Michael Corballis, and others, to investigate how two popular figures—...

83: Climate Solstice (w/George Monbiot)

23 Dec 2021

Contributed by Lukas

The global pandemic response is a microcosm of the global climate collapse response. In both  we get to see what’s really under the hood when the p...

Bonus Sample: The Middle Circle

20 Dec 2021

Contributed by Lukas

In the 1990s, Westerners searching for enlightenment flocked to India. The pilgrimage represented an affirmation of status and authority in the burgeo...

82: Steve Bannon, Mystic (w/Benjamin Teitelbaum)

17 Dec 2021

Contributed by Lukas

While Americans were transforming esoteric strains of yoga into a commodifiable industry in 1980, a young naval officer named Steve Bannon was picking...

Bonus Sample: Not All Conspiritualities Are the Same

13 Dec 2021

Contributed by Lukas

Matthew responds to the robust feedback on the Sam-Harris-is-a-highbrow-conspiritualist bonus, and then stretches the terms around harm in the conspir...

81: Praying for Fire (w/Sean Prophet)

10 Dec 2021

Contributed by Lukas

When Mike Flynn posted a video on July 4, 2020 in which his family recited QAnon slogans, it cemented the disgraced former National Security Advisor a...

Bonus Sample: Spiritual Consumerism

06 Dec 2021

Contributed by Lukas

Derek shares a story from his time as a Lululemon brand ambassador to highlight the toxic merging of spiritual practices and consumerism. Not only doe...

80: Lights, Camera, Yoga (w/Jill Miller)

03 Dec 2021

Contributed by Lukas

We've talked a lot on this podcast about the selfie sermon: the kind of iPhone video native to Instagram influencers. Easily weaponized by conspiritua...

Bonus Sample: Did We Choose to Be the Good Ones?

29 Nov 2021

Contributed by Lukas

Kyle Rittenhouse walks away from the courthouse while Ahmaud Arbery's killers were found guilty and "QAnon Shaman," Jacob Chansley, was received signi...

79: Anti-Hate Work in Canada (w/Dan Collen, Elizabeth Simons, & Morgan Yew)

25 Nov 2021

Contributed by Lukas

COVID has been a recruiting windfall for hate groups in Canada, with new alliances and networks forged between white supremacists, xenophobes, and eth...

Bonus Sample: Sam Harris: High-Brow Secular Conspiritualist

22 Nov 2021

Contributed by Lukas

Bonus episode, piloted by Matthew.There is a subtle form of conspirituality that rides on the familiar dialectic of political cynicism and spiritual p...

78: Society of the Conspiracy

19 Nov 2021

Contributed by Lukas

Conspiracy theories flourish during uncertain times. They're always with us, passed down through generations like alternate histories, yet they’re c...

Bonus Sample: Privilege in Wellness Spaces

15 Nov 2021

Contributed by Lukas

Privilege is often blind and rampant across societies. But is the term also overused?Derek looks at two examples of privilege in wellness spaces, the ...

77: A Homeopathy Episode So Potent You Can’t Hear It (w/Jonathan Jarry)

12 Nov 2021

Contributed by Lukas

To prepare this curative episode, we listened carefully to alternative health consumers for many hours, taking an exhaustive history of life challenge...

Bonus Sample: Rational Emotions & Poetic Science

08 Nov 2021

Contributed by Lukas

Are emotions really separate from rationality? Is trusting science similar to religious faith? Do poetry and mythic archetypes disclose a reality beyo...

76: A Field Guide to White Supremacy (w/Kathleen Belew)

04 Nov 2021

Contributed by Lukas

There is no avoiding the fact that conspirituality plays out against a backdrop of racially-charged politics and the echoes of colonialism. And from t...

Bonus Sample: My Religious Attitude Toward Science

01 Nov 2021

Contributed by Lukas

Okay, maybe the title is overstated. But, as Matthew explores in this bonus episode: what are the contours of social comfort and habitus — supported...

75: How to Talk to a Science Denier (w/Lee McIntyre)

28 Oct 2021

Contributed by Lukas

What happens when a philosopher of science shows up at a flat earth conference to test out his theories about changing people's minds? This story cata...

Bonus Sample: Charisma & Extroversion

25 Oct 2021

Contributed by Lukas

It's been over a century since Dale Carnegie began teaching the importance of extroversion, bringing with it a cultural shift that champions an aggres...

74: Elena Brower Could Stop Selling doTERRA

21 Oct 2021

Contributed by Lukas

What happens when MLM sales and neoliberal life coaching collide with a yoga charisma that oozes with pseudofeminism? Where do we even begin? Exploita...

Bonus Sample: Radical Denial

18 Oct 2021

Contributed by Lukas

With a new variant of QAnon circulating through white evangelical churches, protests against masks and vaccines are becoming more aggressive around th...

73: Eating Disorders in Yogaland (w/Jason Nagata & Chelsea Roff)

14 Oct 2021

Contributed by Lukas

Meat is toxic. Dairy is toxic. Eggs? As dangerous as cigarettes. Garlic stokes the hormones. Avoid nightshades at all costs. Organic or bust. Eat acco...

Bonus Sample: Talking to Children About Conspirituality

11 Oct 2021

Contributed by Lukas

An audio essay loosely based on conversations Matthew has while parenting. Content is possibly appropriate for ages 7 to 11 — although who really kn...

72: John of Fraud (w/Lisa Braun Dubbels and Mirna Wabi-Sabi)

08 Oct 2021

Contributed by Lukas

Whatever one’s conception of “God” is, “John of God” should now be a nauseating name. For decades, João Teixeira de Faria pretended to heal...

Bonus Sample: Flow States & Humility

04 Oct 2021

Contributed by Lukas

During Thursday’s episode, Derek briefly described Flow States in the context of a universal form of spirituality. He explores that concept in a lit...

71: So Do We Believe in Anything at All?

30 Sep 2021

Contributed by Lukas

We’re grounding down. We’re letting go. We are going deep. We are finding the metta in our meta and tuning in to Source. This week we’ll either ...

Bonus Sample: Reality Bites: The Tragedy of Magical Thinking

27 Sep 2021

Contributed by Lukas

Julian traces the roots of today’s pandemic-era conspirituality back to What The Bleep’s quantum woo, The Secret’s privileged denial and grandio...

70: Conspiracy Theories Conceal a Burning World (w/Daniel Sherrell)

23 Sep 2021

Contributed by Lukas

Daniel Sherrell is the author of an extraordinary memoir and prayer book, Warmth: Coming of Age at the End of Our World, in which he recounts how, as ...

Bonus Sample: Spirit Island No Garbage

20 Sep 2021

Contributed by Lukas

On his family’s yearly trip to Manitoulin Island, Matthew detoxes from conspirituality influencer garbage, and returns with parts of a new plan.Show...

69: Fascism Down Under!!! (w/Dr. Izzy Smith)

16 Sep 2021

Contributed by Lukas

This week, California Governor Gavin Newsom rode sane pandemic messaging to victory against the Republican-led recall election by a huge margin. Unsur...

Bonus Sample: Mikki Willis Rewrites History

13 Sep 2021

Contributed by Lukas

In June, Planedemic creator Mikki Willis appeared on Living 4D with Paul Chek to discuss what “really happened” at the Capitol on Jan 6. During th...

68: The Jordan Peterson of Fitness Bros (w/Antonio Valladares)

10 Sep 2021

Contributed by Lukas

Paul Chek will tell you how much he’s influenced the fitness industry. He’ll tell you that he popularized Swiss Balls, and about his time working ...

Bonus Sample: Hollow Men: The QAnon Roadshow Flop

06 Sep 2021

Contributed by Lukas

A QAnon-themed Stop The Steal, anti-vax, Covid-denial roadshow came to an untimely end in mid-August with their fearless leader succumbing to COVID pn...

67: The Promise & Peril of Psychedelics

03 Sep 2021

Contributed by Lukas

Psychedelics are all the rage in the investment world, with hundreds of millions of dollars pouring into research-based startups in the hope of findin...

Bonus Sample: I Don’t Know Who My Friends Are

30 Aug 2021

Contributed by Lukas

After watching the Almost 30 podcast hosts bond over Zach Bush’s Jesus-like qualities, Matthew explores the barren friendship landscape of wellness ...

66: Spirituality & Status (w/Will Storr)

26 Aug 2021

Contributed by Lukas

Spirituality, ill-defined a term that it is, often implies both an emptying out and an addition. What leaves is the vacuous clinging to achievements t...

Bonus Sample: The Question of Consciousness

23 Aug 2021

Contributed by Lukas

One of the most debated topics in spirituality (and beyond) involves the origins of consciousness. Most neuroscientists agree that it’s emergent—t...

65: Long-Haul QAnon (w/Rachel Bernstein & Jitarth Jadeja)

20 Aug 2021

Contributed by Lukas

Santa Barbara surf coach Matthew Coleman murdered his two young children in Mexico nearly two weeks ago. He told the FBI that he was “enlightened by...

Bonus Sample: Strongman Heroes, Barefoot Science, & Fake Victims

16 Aug 2021

Contributed by Lukas

Conspiritualists amp up their victimhood-fetish by comparing anti-vaxxers to Jim Crow-era African Americans and Jews under the Holocaust. Meanwhile, T...

64: Remembering Guru Jagat: a Panel

12 Aug 2021

Contributed by Lukas

With guests: Philip Deslippe, Jules Hartley, Janja Lalich, and Stacie StukinWe’ve convened an expert panel this week to remember and discuss Katie G...

Bonus Sample: Wellness Pornography as Abuse

09 Aug 2021

Contributed by Lukas

This past week, Matthew defined “Wellness Pornography”, working from the ideas of C. Thi Nguyen and Bekka Williams in their essay “Moral Outrage...

63: Yoga and the Jab (w/Colin Hall & Sarah Garden)

06 Aug 2021

Contributed by Lukas

The YogaVaxGate Instagram post turns out to have been a bellwether for the $88B industry packed with science skeptics and spiritual bypassers. When Wo...

Bonus Sample: Vaccines Are Not the Holocaust

02 Aug 2021

Contributed by Lukas

A recent uptick in Holocaust-related memes around the COVID vaccine is fueling further anti-Semitic thought and behavior. Derek investigates a crop of...

62: Manifesting Something Awful (w/Dale Beran)

30 Jul 2021

Contributed by Lukas

The genius parade continues this week with co-host Dale Beran, author of It Came from Something Awful: How a Toxic Troll Army Accidentally Memed Donal...

Bonus Sample: Digital Delusions: How conspiracy-fueled political religions like QAnon hijack our brains

26 Jul 2021

Contributed by Lukas

QAnon emerged out of a perfect storm of evolving technology, social psychology, and global crisis. But it exploited pre-existing neural architecture a...

61: From Anti-Feminism to Anti-Vax (w/Dr. Annie Kelly)

23 Jul 2021

Contributed by Lukas

It takes patience, empathy, and a steady hand to paint a detailed landscape of the politics and culture that connect anti-feminism to ethnonationalism...

Bonus Sample: Dear Raw Meat Guy

19 Jul 2021

Contributed by Lukas

A closer look at the content and constellations of Josh Rainer Goldstein, who livestreams himself eating raw meat.Presented in three parts: An analys...

60: Crypto Dreamin’ (w/David Morris)

15 Jul 2021

Contributed by Lukas

Are you crypto-curious? This past year has shown that an increasing number of people are dreaming of becoming crypto millionaires. But what is blockch...

Bonus Sample: The Future of Psychedelics

12 Jul 2021

Contributed by Lukas

Derek investigates a recent NY Times essay by Michael Pollan as an entry point to discuss big questions in psychedelics and conspirituality: How do we...

59: Is Rudolf Steiner Dead Yet? (w/Jennifer Sapio)

08 Jul 2021

Contributed by Lukas

What should a global network of popular and private schools do when faced with evidence that the foundation of their pedagogy was laid by a racist, pr...

Bonus Sample: True Colors

05 Jul 2021

Contributed by Lukas

Julian reflects on unchosen racial complicity and how moments of moral courage in the face of oppressive power can reveal one’s true colors. He trac...

58: NXIVM: Recover & Educate (w/India Oxenberg)

01 Jul 2021

Contributed by Lukas

How do we avoid being the subject of—and feeding the market for—trauma porn? If anyone knows, it’s India Oxenberg, who in less than two years (w...

Bonus Sample: A Conspiracy Theory of Everything

28 Jun 2021

Contributed by Lukas

Matthew debriefs after the Mike Rothschild interview, looking at QAnon’s “Conspiracy Theory of Everything” as a hyperobject and spiritual dilemm...

57: The Storm is Mutating (w/Mike Rothschild)

24 Jun 2021

Contributed by Lukas

It’s only been eight months since Q stopped posting, but Mike Rothschild has been able to corral the firehose of data into the first major journalis...

Bonus Sample: Playing Shaman

21 Jun 2021

Contributed by Lukas

The race to capitalize on the world’s wellness needs in a post-pandemic society—well, at “post” as we can pretend to be—was unavoidable. Der...

56: Critical Race Theory in Real Life (w/Dax-Devlon Ross)

17 Jun 2021

Contributed by Lukas

In June 2020, equity consultant and journalist Dax-Devlon Ross—who you might remember from Conspirituality 4 that very same month—published an ess...

Bonus Sample: Doomsday Prophecy & Spirituality Porn

14 Jun 2021

Contributed by Lukas

Humanity has an apocalypse fetish. But wrapped up In the doomsday death wish is a utopian fantasy of the ascension that comes after a fallen and sinfu...

55: Games Against Humanity (w/C. Thi Nguyen)

11 Jun 2021

Contributed by Lukas

This episode is co-hosted by Dr. C. Thi Nguyen, a philosopher who teaches at the University of Utah. His breakthrough book is about agency in games, i...

Bonus Sample: What Will Yoga Do to Our Children?

07 Jun 2021

Contributed by Lukas

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 yog...

54: Māori MAGA (w/Joe Trinder and Anke Richter)

03 Jun 2021

Contributed by Lukas

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...

Bonus Sample: How Many Monuments Must Fall?

31 May 2021

Contributed by Lukas

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 Not...

53: Learning Cultish (w/Amanda Montell)

27 May 2021

Contributed by Lukas

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 g...

Bonus Sample: Loaded Language & Productive Discussion

24 May 2021

Contributed by Lukas

Julian and Matthew discuss words, world views, and how productive disagreement can lead to mutual understanding. In today’s overheated discourse, so...

52: The Clerical Class of the Right (w/Alex Ebert)

20 May 2021

Contributed by Lukas

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 fuc...

Bonus Sample: No Moral Outrage Porn, No Punching Down

17 May 2021

Contributed by Lukas

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…...

51: You Can’t Force It (w/Devendra Banhart)

13 May 2021

Contributed by Lukas

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...

Bonus Sample: On the Anxiety of Death

10 May 2021

Contributed by Lukas

Derek discusses a forthcoming interview with Alex Ebert, which will be featured on Conspirituality 52. They discuss the dearth of death rituals in Ame...

50. Sellouts & Zealots (w/Sheena Sood)

06 May 2021

Contributed by Lukas

When the drones hum over the improvised cremation grounds of Delhi, what will the conspiritualist see in the livestream—if they even look? Will thei...

Bonus Sample: The God-Man & His Enabler: How Ken Wilber Got Adi Da All Wrong

03 May 2021

Contributed by Lukas

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 cr...

49: Tik Tok Fulfillment Center (w/Abbie Richards)

29 Apr 2021

Contributed by Lukas

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 cons...

Bonus Sample: Post-Cult Shame

26 Apr 2021

Contributed by Lukas

Survivor shame over what has been lost, and how one has been complicit. Apologist shame: turned inside out and externalized as aggression. Popular s...