Episodes
The British occultists took the thin and sickly but beautiful boy away from his family. Groomed him for 20 years to become the savior of humanity. Trained him between 1909-29 to be a serene guru and charming English aristocrat. He looked good in a double-breasted suit and had fabulous hair. Huge amounts of money flowed into the organization they built around him. But Krishnamurti became a man the day he shocked them all. Julian’s latest chapter of his historical series wraps up Helena...
Published 09/23/24
“God talks to human beings through many vectors. But nowhere with such detail, and grace and joy, as through creation. When we destroy nature, we diminish our capacity to sense the divine.” With this April 2023 tweet, RFK Jr inaugurated his presidential campaign, which has now folded into a daily ritual of Trump bootlicking. Now, Bobby is telling Tucker Carlson and the world that climate change cannot be solved through commitment to the “carbon orthodoxy.” “It’s not about quantifying stuff,”...
Published 09/21/24
There’s been a question gnawing at fans of Charles Eisenstein: what does he really feel about RFK Jr’s pivot to Trump? The always aspiring poet-philosopher was hired as a messaging advisor to Bobby, after all. We’ve spotted little fragments of Eisenstein’s exceptionally long essays sneaking their way into Bobby’s speeches. There was some influence, for sure, even after Charles went on multiple Costa Rican sabbaticals right in the middle of campaign season and apparently cut his consulting...
Published 09/19/24
"Biohacking expert" Kayla Barnes recently published a 31-minute video about her morning routine, filled with EMF-blocking shields, grounding protocols, and 40 different daily supplements. Good if you can afford it, but then she sells questionable protocols at her Cleveland, Ohio-based clinic, Lyv Wellness, despite having no clinical training. Derek watches what she says, then watches what she sells. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Published 09/16/24
Tucker Carlson is the Steve Bannon of Joe Rogans. Tucker surpasses Rogan’s massive reach at times, but his curated guest list drives a deliberate agenda: normalizing neo-fascist political discourse. He does it all with an affable, friendly, just-asking-questions, I’m-not-as-smart-as-my-guests attitude that may disguise what he’s doing—like interviewing a Holocaust-denier Nazi apologist, or framing modern-day dictatorships as admirable, or promoting the anti-semitic Great Replacement Theory,...
Published 09/14/24
In 2022, Tucker Carlson produced a documentary called “The End of Men,” his contribution to the so-called “masculinity crisis.” That’s when testicle tanning hit the mainstream, which one astute observer dubbed “bromeopathic therapy.” Turns out the former Fox News host isn’t done dabbling in conspirituality. This year, he’s platformed the QAnon Shaman, Jacob Chansley; lyme disease conspiracist, Kris Newby; the “other” Naomi, Naomi Wolf; brother-sister optimizers, Casey and Calley Means; and...
Published 09/12/24
Here’s the first installment of a regular timeline cleanser featuring interviews with folks reflecting on hope, faith, resilience and building community in hard times.  You know—all the things that conspirituality itself can’t offer. These are short, personal visits in which Matthew asks each guest the same five questions about their life wisdom—at least as it’s coming together in this moment. To start this series, Matthew hearkens back to the roots of Conspirituality Podcast in the yoga...
Published 09/10/24
What does it mean to spill ink on dispelling conspiracy theories about non-existent children being murdered, while actual children are being murdered? At what point does the labour of debunking right wing wackjobs also do the shadow-work of supporting the liberal-center orthodoxy? Matthew looks at how with QAnon, the liberal-center press criticized irrational responses to imaginary traumas, with a great sense of urgency. But on Gaza, they criticize rational responses to actual traumas, and...
Published 09/09/24
Calley Means is the cofounder of TrueMed, a company that helps businesses qualify products and services like supplements and ice baths for HSA and FSA money. Casey Means is the founder of Levels, a continuous glucose monitor subscription service aimed at the biohacking community. The brother and sister recently appeared on Tucker Carlson's podcast to rage against seed oils, as well as the food and pharma industries' focus on profits over people. Derek dug into their business models, finding...
Published 09/07/24
RFK Jr has dropped out of the presidential race and thrown his weight behind Trump. In our 10th episode on the man in the last year-and-a-half, we look at the potential dangers of this unholy alliance, and what it means for America. Show notes are extensive, visit patreon.com/conspirituality or conspirituality.net for more. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Published 09/05/24
Born in 1831, Helena “Madame” Blavatsky pioneered the New Age grift. The Russian aristocrat plagiarized her books while claiming to be channeling the “Masters of Ancient Wisdom” to tell a dodgy heroic back-story. She founded the Theosophical Society in New York, claimed to have learned a secret Tibetan language, and laid the foundation for alien channelers and Woo-Anon. She also inspired the Nazis. In this debut episode from a series on the pseudoscience New Age roots of today’s...
Published 09/02/24
Dems are laughing about Donny Dentures or #TrumpisDone, but the reality inside his head, and Mar a Lago, will be very grim, and there will be a lot of collateral damage. Mental health titans like Robert Lifton have reached the consensus that Trump has been mentally ill for a long time. They’ve diagnosed him with “narcissistic personality disorder, antisocial personality disorder, paranoid personality disorder, delusional disorder, malignant narcissist,” and so on. Such patients meet...
Published 08/31/24
In one survey, 82% of young people aged 18-25 searched the internet for mental health advice. Another survey of university students found that 44% report using the internet to learn about sadness, anxiety, or confusion. Regardless of what mental health experts advise, people of all age groups are turning to the internet and social media for help. What are the potential risks and rewards of using these platforms to try to communicate credible mental health science? And what happens when you’re...
Published 08/29/24
Peter McCullough recently shared a ton of misinformation about mpox while speaking to Drew Pinsky; both men work for The Wellness Company, a supplements company that weaponizes anti-vax misinformation to sell products. Mikki Willis uses the Hero's Journey as a guide to dealing with mpox—and falsely represents Joseph Campbell's work. Russell Brand and Bret Weinstein claim mpox is a government psyop and nothing more. Derek looks at the conspiritualist fervor bubbling up around what's turning...
Published 08/26/24
ProPublica recently got a hold of 25 Project 2025 training videos—over 14 hours worth of content revealing the policies the Heritage Foundation would like to see implemented if Donald Trump regains the White House. Derek and Julian break down one of the most egregious. Show Notes Inside Project 2025’s Secret Training Videos Undercover in Project 2025 Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Published 08/24/24
Did you hear that Taylor Swift is supporting Donald Trump for president? That’s right: last week, the former president shared photos of fans rocking “Swifties for Trump” t-shirts on Truth Social. Trump seemed pleased, replying to his online following of 24 billion people: “I accept.” Yet something seemed off. Just like photos of Trump surrounded by seven-fingered Black Americans smiling on city stoops, these Swiftie endorsement photos were AI generated. As it turns out, AI is playing a more...
Published 08/22/24
A short break-the-fourth-wall reflection from Matthew on his new regular series for our main feed, starting in September.  The Conspirituality Relief Project will provide regular timeline-cleanser interviews in which super interesting guests reflect on hope, faith, resilience, and building community in hard times.  You know, all of the things that conspirituality itself promises to do, but can’t, or won’t. Every guest gets thirty minutes, and the same five questions: What terrifies you most...
Published 08/19/24
An unexpectedly cheerful followup to “JD Vance Taps into Parental Rage.” The alt titles today could be: “Tim Walz Taps into Parental Goals,” or “Disarming the Disinfo of the Right is Great, But Have You Tried Dad Jokes?”  Across social media, liberal millennial women are tagging Tim Walz as the return of the dad they lost to Fox News. Matthew digs into that graveyard with a survey of the tools that we’ve used to examine the nature and function of patriarchal b******t as it dominates...
Published 08/17/24
Eight years ago, they called us cucks, libtards, and globalists. We were corrupted by cultural Marxism, teaching our kids to hate themselves. Four years ago they gloated over drinking liberal tears. They called us sheeple, groomers, vampires, pedos. We made up a pandemic so that we could brew up a kill shot, and force it on everyone after making ourselves soy-boy sick. We were exposing our kids to trans strippers in the library and showing them how to use buttplugs in kindergarten. When our...
Published 08/15/24
Tech billionaire Peter Thiel claims “freedom and democracy are incompatible.” Mentor and $15M donor behind JD Vance’s political career, Peter Thiel also has an influence: Mencius Moldbug, computer programmer and lead philosopher of the “Dark Enlightenment,” or “neoreactionary” movement.  Moldburg says, “if Americans want their government to change, they’re going to have to get over their dictator phobia.” Erstwhile pen-name of Curtis Yarvin, “Moldburg” is openly anti-democratic, advocating...
Published 08/12/24
Ziklag’s ultra-wealthy network of Christian donors is spending nearly $12M to mobilize Republican voters in order to secure a Trump victory this November. ProPublica found that their plan involves purging 1M+ people from the voter rolls in key swing states. Unsurprisingly, this is yet another Christian nationalist group with ties to Project 2025. Here’s the thing: Ziklag is classified as a 501c3 charity organization, which means they’re breaking longstanding rules of nonprofit governance....
Published 08/10/24
You’re an eight year-old girl. The purity culture of your evangelical church, ruled by men but policed by women, has you worried that the spaghetti straps on your summer top might be sinful. You learn from the women around you how to defer, serve, please, keep your voice girl-like forever, and use it to both signal obedience but also piously request relief from sexual aggression.  You’re a seven year-old boy. The holy laws of gender in your church dictate that when you’re the only male...
Published 08/08/24
Scroll through masculinity influencer social media feeds and you're constantly told there's a "crisis of meaning." But is that really true? Has a shared meaning ever reflected the totality of any population? Derek turns this idea over in his head by looking at the mythology of the hero's journey. But first, he provides some inspirational messages from the White Dudes for Harris call last week, where perhaps a new and empowering sense of masculinity is taking hold. Show Notes White Dudes for...
Published 08/05/24
The “childless cat lady” thing is as ridiculous as JD Vance is. But it’s not stupid. It’s tapping into something powerful, because it’s shameful. Vance’s fantasy that childless cat ladies are miserable in their lives is another case of every accusation being a projection. In actuality, he’s speaking to that swath of parents out there in general—and particularly on the right—who are actually miserable in their lives, regretting their choices, wondering why God saddled them with 4-5-6 kids in a...
Published 08/03/24
If something real occurs in this timeline, but no conspiracy theorist is there to FUBAR it, does it actually happen? An old man, weakened by COVID, picks up an old-timey phone handset on a Delaware Saturday to tell a childless cat lady that the reins of destiny are now in her hands. A staffer clicks “post” at 1:46pm, and X lights up with something real… that throws an instant shadow of insanity. Biden is too sick to have posted, they say. He’s dead, they say. He has staged or suffered a coup....
Published 08/01/24