Conspirituality
Episodes
48: Traumatic Influence (w/Kyra Haglund & Hala Khouri)
23 Apr 2021
Contributed by Lukas
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 ...
Bonus Sample: Vanillaroma
19 Apr 2021
Contributed by Lukas
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 ...
47: Is An Ethical Cult Possible? (w/Jamie Wheal)
15 Apr 2021
Contributed by Lukas
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 ...
Bonus Sample: Gaia & The Map to Nowhere
12 Apr 2021
Contributed by Lukas
With over a half-million paying subscribers, Gaia is the world’s largest spiritual media streaming service. Have they have played a role in redpilli...
46: Back to the Vax (w/Lydia Greene & Heather Simpson)
08 Apr 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Our EP10 guest, Center for Countering Digital Hate founder, Imran Ahmed, has been bringing the heat. His “Disinformation Dozen” white paper made a...
Bonus Sample: Pray & Work
05 Apr 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Matthew offers a meditation on Brandolini’s Law — “the amount of energy needed to refute bullshit is an order of magnitude bigger than to produc...
45: Theatre of the Transferred
01 Apr 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Conspiritualists hide their grifts in mantras. MLMs market themselves as communities, while cults preach freedom. When a research firm spotlights Saye...
Bonus Sample: The Role of Intuition
29 Mar 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Social psychologists and evolutionary psychologists have been studying the origins, neural networks, and role of intuition for decades. Wellness influ...
44: Netflix & Pill
26 Mar 2021
Contributed by Lukas
It was inevitable: QAnon has stormed HBO. Less inevitably, Conspirituality Podcast has been invited to an academic conference Down Under. In this epis...
Bonus Sample: This is NOT Just a Drug!
22 Mar 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Julian recounts the wild and touching journey of four close friends in a self-directed spiritual group therapy session—super high on Ecstasy.Content...
43: How to Redpill a Yoga Podcaster
19 Mar 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Back in December, a certified anesthesiologist named Dr. Madhava Setty posted a long critique of our podcast to the New Age website Collective Evoluti...
Bonus Sample: “CIS White Man” Means So Many Things
15 Mar 2021
Contributed by Lukas
This episode follows up on earlier discussions on the podcast about how we manage privilege. Our exploration of cancel culture — specifically that p...
42: Deradicalizing From Digital Hate (w/Caolan Robertson)
11 Mar 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Imagine that you’re 25 years old. You grew up Irish, gay, and online. When the Orlando Pulse massacre explodes, you go to YouTube for the news. You ...
Bonus Sample: Cats and the Meaning of Life
08 Mar 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Humans will never be cats. In his new book, Feline Philosophy: Cats and the Meaning of Life, the philosopher John Gray argues that we can learn a lot ...
41: Snark Tank
05 Mar 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Two episodes in our catalog haunt this podcast. In episode 6, Steve Hassan advised listeners to treat people under the undue influence of QAnon and co...
Bonus Sample: Stranded On The Lifeboat: Escaping The Large Group Awareness Cult
01 Mar 2021
Contributed by Lukas
One-hundred-and-twenty seekers filled the LA hotel ballroom. We sought the life-changing experience that could only happen by holding in our pee, bein...
40: White Supremacy: Grift and Gravity (w/Michelle Cassandra Johnson & Daniel Lombroso)
25 Feb 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Around 2015, the alt-right movement erupted online to both provoke and monetize MAGA momentum and distort and defame the real-world progress symbolize...
Bonus Sample: Anti-Masker at the Skating Trail
22 Feb 2021
Contributed by Lukas
One of the precious bright spots for our family in this long dark winter of COVID has been outdoor skating. Other than the walking trails, it’s the ...
39: How to Talk about Conspiracy Theories (w/Anna Merlan)
18 Feb 2021
Contributed by Lukas
What are we learning about conspiracies, conspiracy theories, and those who hold them? How are we maintaining our optimism that facts are real, that t...
Bonus Sample: How to Debate on Social Media
15 Feb 2021
Contributed by Lukas
The medium of social media is both relatively new and socially challenging. But this doesn’t mean we can’t have healthy debates. In this sample fr...
38: Natural Hopes, Natural Fallacies (w/Drs Juniper Martin & Adriana Berusch)
11 Feb 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Many of us came to yoga and wellness spaces to heal or flee from the alienation of modernity. We wanted something untouched by our cities and factorie...
Bonus Sample: The Devil & The Arrow of Time
08 Feb 2021
Contributed by Lukas
In this sample of our weekly Patreon bonus episode, Julian travels back in time to the 80s. He finds that when it comes to the fear of diabolical evil...
37: Guru Jagat Cultjacks Kundalini Yoga (w/Philip Deslippe & Stacie Stukin)
04 Feb 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Today we forge ahead with part 2 of Matthew’s interview with Kundalini Yoga scholar Philip Deslippe and journalist Stacie Stukin on the tragic past,...
Bonus Sample: Michael Roach Meditates COVID Away
01 Feb 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Episodes 36 & 37 cover how Guru Jagat (Katie Griggs) and her Venice Beach RAMA Institute have pivoted in the COVID era to a new area of focus: anti-lo...
36: Guru Jagat’s Pandemic Brandwash (w/Philip Deslippe & Stacie Stukin)
29 Jan 2021
Contributed by Lukas
What happens when a charismatic yogalebrity rises to prominence in LA’s fashion and wellness scene, gets exposed as an inheritor of a notorious cult...
Hearing Voices, Seeing Colors, & Fighting Phantoms
26 Jan 2021
Contributed by Lukas
We decided to release this Monday patron bonus episode publicly after receiving a great response on Patreon. Julian draws heavily on the work of neuro...
35: Séance Science (w/Susannah Crockford)
22 Jan 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Joe Biden was inaugurated as the 46th President of the United States yesterday, proving the long-awaited QAnon prophecy false. It’s the perfect time...
34: Insurrectionist Influencers (w/RP Eddy)
15 Jan 2021
Contributed by Lukas
It’s been eight days since the Capitol was ransacked by a mob of MAGA supporters, Proud Boys, ex-military with tactical gear, and Nazis wearing disg...
33: Manipulating the Hero’s Journey
08 Jan 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Christiane Northrup addresses her followers as “angel warriors.” JP Sears counsels his supplement customers to never “outsource their own truth....
32: Both Sides Pt 2: Healing & Sense-making in the New Year (w/Charles Eisenstein)
31 Dec 2020
Contributed by Lukas
A rough tally of our labor from the inception of this podcast in May puts us at over 1,100 hours of treading water in the content sea of JP Sears, Mik...
31: Bro Science: Anti-Vaxxers (w/Jonathan Berman)
24 Dec 2020
Contributed by Lukas
As two coronavirus vaccines roll out we’re being flooded with more disinformation than ever. Wellness gurus are cashing in on home-made “natural”...
Bonus: Solstice Light in the Man Cave
22 Dec 2020
Contributed by Lukas
This episode dropped for our Patreon supporters on the darkest day of the year. We’re unlocking it as a holiday gift to all of our listeners.In this...
30: Are There Really Two Sides? (w/Charles Eisenstein)
17 Dec 2020
Contributed by Lukas
Who gets to take up space in critical times? How do we orient ourselves toward expertise? In a culture dominated by “experts” on social media, do ...
29: Bro Science (w/Dr. Dan Wilson)
11 Dec 2020
Contributed by Lukas
Here’s an episode that’s been micro-brewing for a while: Bro Science: where conspirituality meets the manosphere. We’ve even got a working defin...
28: Resurrection of Jordan Peterson (w/Jeff Brown)
04 Dec 2020
Contributed by Lukas
This week we inaugurate “The Conspirituality Ticker,” a weekly bullet-point rundown on the ongoing pandemic of influencers who spread medical misi...
Bonus: Yoga Teachers Are Not Doctors, Doctors Are Not Priests
30 Nov 2020
Contributed by Lukas
Do famous people become famous for staying in their lane? Do some find fame by carving out a lane that never existed before? What is the disruptive pr...
27: Finding Meaning (and Laughs) in Crisis (w/Alex Auder)
26 Nov 2020
Contributed by Lukas
Though we’re all staying put this holiday season, we continue to super-spread our conspirituality vibes. This week we’re fielding listener questio...
Bonus: Diversity Has Always Mattered
23 Nov 2020
Contributed by Lukas
Diversity has lost some of its strength as a term in our bifurcated world, and yet in nature diversity has always mattered. Our apprehension of using ...
26: Return of the Repressed, Or The Drugs Paula White is Not On (w/Brian Muraresku)
20 Nov 2020
Contributed by Lukas
Trump’s personal pastor Paula White seizes the podium to speak in tongues and prophesize that angels from Africa will certify her master’s elector...
Bonus: Digital Soldiers, Purity Tests, & Word Magic
16 Nov 2020
Contributed by Lukas
As more of the world has gained access to mobile internet, populism, and the perception (rightly or wrongly) of government, corruption has steadily in...
25: Waking Up from Cancel Culture (w/Clementine Morrigan & Jay from F*cking Cancelled)
13 Nov 2020
Contributed by Lukas
On Election night, Mikki Willis, JP Sears, Del Bigtree, and the conspirituality glitterati gathered in Austin for a prayer meeting for Donald Trump. W...
Bonus: Sh*tposting and The Embodiment Conference
09 Nov 2020
Contributed by Lukas
Mark Walsh, the proprietor of The Embodiment Conference, was recently challenged by cultural somaticist Tada Hozumi in an Open Letter, penned by Hozum...
24: Body Politic Recovery (w/Tada Hozumi)
06 Nov 2020
Contributed by Lukas
This week could have been worse; what comes now must get better. If we’ve learned anything over these six months, it’s that QAnon is to conspiritu...
Bonus: COVID Fatigue & Empathy (w/Dr. Ali Haider)
02 Nov 2020
Contributed by Lukas
Derek talks with Dr. Ali Haider about being on the frontlines of COVID-19.Dr. Haider is an Assistant Professor of Medicine at Tufts University Medical...
23: Election Resilience (w/Hala Khouri, Lissa Rankin, & Tara Stiles)
29 Oct 2020
Contributed by Lukas
When we started this project six months ago, we could feel the cliff-edge of the election on the horizon. We could sense that our footholds of communi...
Bonus: Hay House & New Age Jesus
26 Oct 2020
Contributed by Lukas
Coming off of Conspirituality 22 with Rebekah Borucki, Matthew casts a wider net over Hay House’s cultural influence in two parts: a brief survey of...
22: Racism & Fraud in New Age Publishing (w/Rebekah Borucki & Dr Jay Mohan)
22 Oct 2020
Contributed by Lukas
Author and publisher Rebekah Borucki joins the Conspirituality team as our first co-host for this episode. She’s got a story to tell: the culture of...
Bonus: A Letter to a Friend in a Cult
19 Oct 2020
Contributed by Lukas
More than 20 years ago, Richard Vaughan wrote Matthew a very kind and perceptive letter, asking him to reconsider whether his participation in a Buddh...
21: Om-ed and Dangerous: Militant Wellness (w/Sarah Hightower)
15 Oct 2020
Contributed by Lukas
We still can’t believe alt-health Bali retreat rockstar Sacha Stone called for the “evisceration” of public officials last week. Are conspiritua...
Bonus: The White Yogi, The Brown Activist, and the Evil Billionaire
12 Oct 2020
Contributed by Lukas
Who’s right, who’s confused, who’s noble, who’s the bad guy?Nothing exists in a cultural vacuum. The emergence of yoga as a hugely popular and...
20: The Second Wave: Pastel Q Goes Undercover (w/Ben Lee)
08 Oct 2020
Contributed by Lukas
The reality of a second COVID wave started back in the Spring. Now that With over half of American states are experiencing increased cases, the conspi...
Bonus: Bullying Gates, Bullying Biden: The Conspiracy of Male Violence
05 Oct 2020
Contributed by Lukas
Bill Gates is unknowable—except to close and estranged friends, family members, his therapist if he has one. His empire sprawls; his philanthropy is...
19: Hurtling Into the Q-Hole (w/Mike Rains)
01 Oct 2020
Contributed by Lukas
Thirty-two days out from the election and every hour reveals another layer of intensity. The more widely conspirituality and QAnon spreads, the more n...
Bonus: Demons in QAnon & Beyond (w/Professor Jonathan O’Donnell)
28 Sep 2020
Contributed by Lukas
For our inaugural bonus episode of Conspirituality Podcast, we feature a single interview: a deep dive into the demonology of QAnon and Xtian evangeli...
18: From Psych Meds to Red Pills (w/Jules Evans)
24 Sep 2020
Contributed by Lukas
Some wellness influencers offer compelling critiques of Big Pharma, factory farming, and psychiatric malpractice. What happens when their arguments be...
17: The Politics of QAnon Spirituality (w/Seane Corn & Jared Yates Sexton)
17 Sep 2020
Contributed by Lukas
At this point, we can say for sure that American spiritual and wellness communities are not only vulnerable to conspiracy brainworms but they’re act...
16: So You Want to Save the Earth? (w/John Roulac)
10 Sep 2020
Contributed by Lukas
Yoga-crazed Hindu nationalists murder Muslims for eating beef, believing that the cow embodies the religious gift of India’s soil. American white su...
15: Tantra: Sex, Death, & Chaos (w/Alex Auder)
03 Sep 2020
Contributed by Lukas
For decades, Neo-Tantra has focused on sex workshops and orgasmic bliss, overlooking the fact that the Kama Sutra is effectively a patriarchal instruc...
14: The Problem with Revelation: Psychedelics and Conspiracies (w/Lorna Liana)
27 Aug 2020
Contributed by Lukas
This week we announce and discuss a refinement in our podcast’s direction. Real talk: conspirituality has clearly become both a front and a gateway ...
13: Religion Can Be A Dangerous Verb (w/Dr Theo Wildcroft)
20 Aug 2020
Contributed by Lukas
Dr. Theodora Wildcroft joins us again to take us through the basics of contemporary Religious Studies. She discusses how the discipline approaches iss...
12: So You Want To Stop Child Abuse (w/Regan Williams & Dr Theo Wildcroft)
13 Aug 2020
Contributed by Lukas
Last week, we started to explore how the real issue of child trafficking is being weaponized by bad-faith actors. This week we’re joined by two expe...
11: Cults and Disaster Spirituality
06 Aug 2020
Contributed by Lukas
Two of this podcast’s hosts have been involved in destructive cult dynamics. Matthew’s three years with Michael Roach and three years at Endeavor ...
10: The Anti-Vax Agenda (w/Imran Ahmed)
30 Jul 2020
Contributed by Lukas
A recent report by the UK’s Center for Countering Digital Hate found that anti-vaxx organizations reach 58 million people on social media. The total...
9: Ableism in Conspiracy Theories (w/Jivana Heyman)
23 Jul 2020
Contributed by Lukas
Percolating alongside racism and classism, one of the most pernicious subtexts of conspirituality propaganda is ableism. Proponents spout accusatory m...
8: Taking Dr. Christiane Northrup Seriously (w/ Professor Jacqueline Antonovich)
16 Jul 2020
Contributed by Lukas
As Christiane Northrup’s social media feed descends even further into the delusional zone — this week she retweeted explicitly identified QAnon co...
7: Doctoring COVID: Christiane Northrup’s Great Truther Awakening (w/Britt Hermes)
09 Jul 2020
Contributed by Lukas
OB/GYN Dr. Christiane Northrup has been a giant in women’s healthcare advocacy for decades. She has persuasively argued for lower-intervention child...
6: Grappling with the Cult of Trump (w/Steven Hassan)
02 Jul 2020
Contributed by Lukas
It can be as hard to talk with your well-meaning yoga-world friend about their COVID-conspiracy beliefs as it is to talk with a family member about th...
5: Disease as a Metaphor (w/Maggie Levantovskaya)
25 Jun 2020
Contributed by Lukas
Conspiritualists are compelling for numerous reasons: they’re charismatic; they claim to transcend polarized politics; they claim to speak the unspe...
4: Racism in Wellness Culture (w/Dr Natalia Petrzela & Dax-Devlon Ross)
18 Jun 2020
Contributed by Lukas
On one hand, we have the CEO of Crossfit tweeting that “Floyd-19” is the real problem. (He got canceled.) On the other, COVID-truther psychiatrist...
3: Why Are Spiritual People Vulnerable to Conspiracy Theories?
11 Jun 2020
Contributed by Lukas
Right-wing conspiracy theories are being marketed in wellness communities as a form of spiritual freedom. While pattern recognition is an essential su...
2: Conspirituality in Zach Bush and J.P. Sears
04 Jun 2020
Contributed by Lukas
To the layperson, Dr. Zach Bush’s vision of a resurrected microbiome as being the answer to modern illnesses sounds appealing. His basic argument: w...
1: Coronation for Whom?
28 May 2020
Contributed by Lukas
Barely two weeks into various stages of lockdown around the world, New Age philosopher Charles Eisenstein published a 9,000-word essay on the meaning ...
0.2: The Kelly Brogan Effect & Red Pills
21 May 2020
Contributed by Lukas
Conspirituality started with Julian and Matthew as guests on Derek’s EarthRise podcast. We’re reposting these episodes for you to hear the origins...
0.1: Conspiracy Theories & Cult Dynamics
14 May 2020
Contributed by Lukas
Conspirituality started with Julian and Matthew as guests on Derek’s EarthRise podcast. We’re reposting these episodes for you to hear the origins...