Conspirituality

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 appears that he’s looking for a new angle to mine (and monetize). Derek opens the pages of Bad Medicine: How COVID Protocols Turned Hospitals into Death Traps only to find Willis’s continual inability to grapple with reality is in book form. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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 American Caesar: How Theocrats and Tech Lords Are Turning America into a Monarchy. Onishi’s scholarship charts the Frankenstein alliance of reactionary Catholic integralists, Protestant Reconstructionists, and Silicon Valley monarchists who find a common vein of worship in their rejection of democratic rule and a preference for an unbound executive. But: How will the trad-Caths out-maneuvre Pope Leo? Why do Paul Weyrich and Leonard Leo see Trump as a wrecking ball who precedes a Vance-type successor? How do they justify their openly minoritarian strategy? And: can these post-liberal believers really subordinate markets to a "common good"? Or is that impossible, given the wrath of their true deity, capital itself? Show Notes American Caesar by Bradley OnishiPeter Thiel calls Greta Thunberg a servant of the Antichrist (CTV News/AFP)Thiel's Nashville Antichrist lectures target Pope Leo XIV over AI (Gizmodo)Paul M. WeyrichBarre Seid's $1.6 billion donation to Leonard Leo's Marble Freedom Trust (JTA)US government takes 10% stake in Intel (CBS News)Kevin Roberts and Dwarkesh Patel, "Tech and the American Republic"Catholic Land Movement gaining momentum (The Catholic Register)Jeff Bezos on AI and a three-day work week (VnExpress International)Review of David Harvey's The Enigma of CapitalKarl Marx, Capital, Volume One (Marxists Internet Archive) Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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 and 32 for a two-part interview about that very essay. We’ve had no contact since, even though the man turns up in the most unusual places. Including, recently, another podcast to take stock about his time serving as advisor to RFK Jr. We thought it would be a good time to reflect on the man’s post-Covid trajectory, and what it might mean for the ground of conspirituality writ large. Show Notes Public Citizen: How Trump Conned MAHA RFK Is Gloating That His Changes to HHS Are Permanent RFK Jr. Vaccine Injury Plan Rebuked for Skewed Doctor Incentives Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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, eloquent, and beautiful. She also claimed to have received messages directly from God about an impending nuclear holocaust. But it's more complicated than that: the theology of her new religious movement has significant overlap with three figures Julian has covered in the Roots of Conspirituality series. In the realm of conspiracism, cults, and apocalyptic religion, history always repeats itself. What’s unique about this story is the combination of colorful New Age syncretism and dark survivalist paranoia. Armed to their throat chakras with AR15s, tripod-mounted semi-automatic rifles, and armored personnel carriers, the church had spent $25 million building the largest underground nuclear bunker network in America. It contained enough food for seven years and over 600,000 gallons of fuel. What could go wrong? Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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 he even contemplated becoming an auditor. But then he left the church he was never really involved with—though pressure from the church appears to have completely ended his long-term relationship and close friendships. Does one of Gen X’s most iconic pop stars really believe in Thetans? You’re not alone if you’ve ever wondered because Beck has remained one of the most elusive celebrities for over three decades—apparently from those closest to him, and maybe even himself. Josephine Riesman returns to Conspirituality to discuss her exceptional new book, The Last Temptation of Beck, with Derek. Show Notes The Last Temptation of Beck Losing Beck Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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 bars that are, you guessed it, processed. But his bars are different: they're really good and totally natural processed foods. Those other guys make shitty non-food foodstuff products. Paul produces the real deal. Just don’t ask the psychiatrist turned carnivore “doctor” turned fruit and honey is ok sometimes and, screw it, I’ll just make my own unprocessed processed food products, too. And definitely don’t question him about it, as guest host Mallory DeMille did. Paul wants the criticisms to rain down on him, for this is a lifelong learner, you see. Just don’t call him a hypocrite, or else he might come after you, shirtless, barefoot, wandering around grocery store aisles filming content and maybe, just maybe, searching for a friend. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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 has turned us all into speculative "players" in rigged games. It produces a "cheated player" whose resentment the far right redirects onto scapegoats rather than the ruling class. This is what contemporary fascism is. Matthew reviews Haiven’s re-reading of the conspirituality era: QAnon as a participatory game, Gamergate as a prototype of the "playgrom," and January 6th as a swarm of user-generated fascism. He traces how his own frameworks for conspirituality have shifted: cult dynamics, Lagalisse on conspiracy theory as allegory, Dean's communicative capitalism, Lubrano on the limits of persuasion. NOTE: Contains Squid Game spoilers through season 3. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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 for the Human Body became an instant bestseller upon its publication last month. Does the science behind the hype hold up? Journalist Scott Carney joins Derek to look at the slipperiness of many claims. They also discuss the rather “unique” marketing model Huberman appears to have followed. Show Notes Auditing Andrew Huberman’s “Protocols” Andrew Huberman’s Mechanisms of Control Scott Carney Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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 wellness people think your toothpaste is poisoning you. Finance bros think empathy is bad economics. Somebody on the far right thinks Taylor Swift is a Democrat psy-op, while someone on the far left thinks your aunt buying hummus is personally funding colonialism. On parts of both fringes, everything is somehow Israel’s fault. The old antisemitic conspiracies apparently have remarkable staying power among people who think they’re having brand-new thoughts. Then, while the MAGA right was helpfully laying out its intentions in Project 2025, a corner of the online left looked at Russia and the Islamic Republic of Iran, a regime that jails journalists, murders protesters, brutalizes women, and executes gay people, and thought, “Maybe these guys have a point.” It’s impressive how much authoritarianism you can overlook once you’ve decided the authoritarians hate the right people. Different politics, same inability to enjoy Thanksgiving. And somehow, all of these people have podcasts. Actually, so do we. Welcome to Grifty Pod. We’re opening a season about how America lost its mind, which every podcast host seems to have already solved. In our defense, we’re planning to disagree with each other, which is a terrible way to run a cult. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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 disorganized attachment strategies like cult leaders do, to scare followers with sometimes real, sometimes fictitious stories that only they could understand and help solve. Beyond the patterns shared by supplement hawkers, alien channelers, and New Age enema healers, each had something unique: a style, a manner of cadence, a particular intensity of intrusive eye contact. Are these not embodied, somatic skills that will outlast the AI jobs apocalypse? Can the chat bots really displace the guru economy? We explore how we may be losing this precious resource to the brutal extractivism of our tech overlords. Show Notes Popular Health Guru Sayer Ji Curates the Scientific Literature with His Bachelor’s Degree in Philosophy A Dozen Misguided Influencers Spread Most of the Anti-Vaccination Content on Social Media Superbloom: How Technologies of Connection Tear Us Apart — Nicholas Carr Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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 officials sharing the stage with dozens of corporate sponsors and private healthcare executives—and Russell Brand. Derek tunes in to this nine-hour fiasco. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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 laws, refugee restrictions, public-service cuts, a tripling of the military budget, climate rollbacks, a seeming refusal to protect the basics of Medicare. Why do so many people love him? Carney's appeal and ability to absorb critique rests on more than managerial competence. A devout Catholic, Carney manages to make many people feel like they should be respectful and polite and not make a fuss during the high mass of finance, in which crisis is transformed into eternal life. Matthew traces Carney's low-key Catholicism through the Pope Francis parable that opens Value(s), his role in the Vatican-backed Council for Inclusive Capitalism, and his practice of the Ignatian daily examen, and how he appeals to medieval canonists as forerunners of stakeholder capitalism. Show Notes Prime Minister of Canada – Statement on the passing of Pope Francis Open Canada – Book Review: Value(s) Vatican – Pope Francis to the Members of the Council for Inclusive Capitalism (11 November 2019) The Catholic Register – The Catholic or the Davos Man? The Catholic Register – Carney can confirm his Catholic credentials The Catholic Register – A little Catholic, a bit Davos APTN – Former day school students say Robert Carney was their principal Greenpeace Canada – Carney's bills explained: C-2, C-12, C-8 and C-9 The Hub – The Carney government's expanding power to identify Canadians online Littler – Bill C-39 and federal collective bargaining National Observer – Budget vows to cut 40,000 jobs from public service by 2029 Environmental Defence – Carbon pricing rollback undermines climate goals PBI USA – Canadian company equips ICE with armored vehicles CTV – Canada supports U.S. strikes on Iran "with regret" Religion News Service – Pope Leo calls just war theory "outdated" Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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, creating his own small media empire. Then October 7 happened and things took a turn. Recently, he hosted anti-vax contrarian doctor, Peter McCullough, in what he claims was a focus on media, but which really turned into a science-denying sh*t show. We’ve covered McCullough for years, especially since becoming Chief Medical Officer of supplements grifters, The Wellness Company. There’s a lot to understand about his media tactics, which we’re going to dive into in segments two and three. But first, Matthew fills us in on the rise and stumble of his fellow Canadian’s media journey. Show Notes How a B.C. business scion flipped to hawking supplements and conspiracy theories Risk of Myocarditis after Vaccination Incidence of COVID-related Myocarditis Higher in Unvaccinated Clinical Outcomes Worse for Unvaccinated US Adverse COVID Vaccine Event Deaths 55 Adverse Reaction Deaths Worldwide, 13 Billion Doses Delivered Secret Life: The Jian Ghomeshi Investigation by Kevin Donovan Canadaland staff file to unionize Scott Martin, "What We Lost with Canadaland's Decline" HESEG Foundation Jesse Brown Destroyed Canadaland's Credibility Justin Ling quits Canadaland hosting role Noor Azrieh and Cherise Seucharan, "A response to Canadaland's interview with Israel's ambassador to Canada" Jesse Brown Insists He's Done Nothing Wrong Avi Lewis, Yom Kippur post on X Olivia Chow opts out of antisemitism debate Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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 Bulgarian Embassy. We know an Italian nun ensured he didn’t get away. But had someone ordered the assassination? One possible clue is held in the answer to this next question: how did the Soviet Union collapse? We also know three unlikely heroic figures played pivotal roles: a Czechoslovakian playwright, a salt-of-the-earth electrician, and the Polish Pope. Even as the totalitarian Soviet empire cracked down against uprisings in Hungary, Czechoslovakia, and Poland, the voices of people crying out for democratic freedoms, human rights, and equal opportunity became undeniable. In his latest historical narrative, Julian weaves together powerful stories of three people who risked everything to defy an authoritarian power. They exemplify the playwright’s ideal of “living in truth,” the electrician’s movement known as “Solidarity,” and John Paul II’s advice that his people “be not afraid.” Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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 kill, die, or go to jail for life. His name was Jordan Neely. He was clearly in distress. Daniel Penny, a white, 24-year-old former Marine put him in a chokehold and pulled him to the ground. Neely struggled for almost 6 minutes before dying. Julian reviews Anand Girirdhardas’ new book that places this event at its center. Man In The Mirror: Hope, Struggle, and Belonging in an American City is Anand’s fifth book. He appeared on Conspirituality in January 2022 to talk about The Persuaders. In his new book, he takes readers into a deep and rich background of the broken New York City system of social services for unhoused and mentally ill people. He tells the story of how these two very different lives collided, and the consequences that ensued. Show Notes Man in the Mirror: Hope, Struggle, and Belonging in an American City 135: The Persuaders (w/Anand Giridharadas) Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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 been meeting (or trying to meet) with some close to RFK Jr, as well as those who have been critical of the HHS Secretary. It might be a sound political strategy, but what happens when you start courting conspiracy theorists? Derek looks into that first. Julian then looks at where MAHA currently is based on two recent Kennedy appearances. Matthew returns to AOCto ask how the DSA might assess her MAHA pivot. Show Notes Inside AOC’s MAHA outreach Rep. AOC Joins the Majority Report MAHA & The Midterms What are Contrails? Trust in Measles Vaccine Falling Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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 about high control groups, both as a former member and as someone who went on to research their sociology. Matthew finds Satchidananda's Integral Yoga fascinating, because Satchidananda's ascendancy through his Woodstock headline position in 1969 initiated the inward turn of 1960s liberation movements and fostered a tradition of reactionary values dressed as counterculture. Patten asked about how Matthew got into high-control groups. He talked about how both groups he joined offered a kind of socialism, a hint of a different way to share resources. This echoed the brush with liberation theology he'd had in his Catholic upbringing. As a Gen X person, he was depoliticized, and he probably had undiagnosed depression that made him yearn for whatever impossible thing was being promised. On the leaving side, Patten asked him if the pain ever goes away. He said maybe, but only as you resocialize into a purposeful life and real friendships, and there are no guarantees. They also talked about how unmoderated survivor forums can reproduce cult dynamics and claustrophobic fixation. Show Notes Surviving Satchidananda Podcast Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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 State" — was stripped of context by a right wing rage-farmer, and made to go viral. Adler-Bolton used the word "dysgenic" ironically, as a reclamation, arguing the left shouldn't try to out-fitness fascists. The clip drew 12 million views and wound up on Rogan. Matthew unpacks what his colleague Adler-Bolton actually said, and why swoletarians in the “Left Manosphere”—as per Ayman Makarem's framework—misheard her point about fitness as an attack on their attempts to prepare for revolution. Show Notes Health Fascism, Body Politics, and the Anti-State State Death Panel podcast Ayman Makarem, "The Leftist Manosphere and Identity Politics" Elite Capture by Olúfẹ́mi O. Táíwò The Combahee River Collective Statement, 1977 Ben Case, Street Rebellion: Resistance Beyond Violence and Nonviolence Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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 diets, breaking down the latest science around each. His work, Derek argues, is a necessary corrective to the wellness influencers who promote and monetize single-diet solutions, when history and biology tell a much different story. Show Notes Fed Up: What Evolution Teaches About Food, Diet, Health, and Eating Well Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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 able to adapt to every environment, a true outlier in the animal kingdom. And a big reason for that is our ability to empathize with others. Basically, empathy is the ability to step into someone else's shoes, understand what they are thinking or feeling, and share in that emotional experience. The main types of empathy are cognitive, affective (or emotional), and somatic. Derek looks at the first two in segment two through the lens of Paul Bloom’s work, but given a recent book by Lebanese-born Canadian marketing professor, Gad Saad (which Matthew covers in segment three), we thought we’d look at how empathy is being used, and potentially distorted, in modern society. Or, as Julian starts with, how it’s being weaponized on social media by Christian nationalists. Show Notes This Lebanese-Canadian Behavioral Scientist Is Gaining World Fame Gad Saad: Google Scholar profile Jews safer in Mississippi than Canada, says Jewish prof who left Montreal for Ole Miss He's Canada's number one author, and he's leaving Canada for safety reasons David Saad: Olympedia (official Olympic biographical record) Gad Saad thread on his brother's Olympic/antisemitism story Trump Says There Are 25 Million Illegal Immigrants Fact Check: Did 20 Million Illegal Immigrants Enter US Under Biden? Record 14 Million Unauthorized Immigrants Lived in the US in 2023 Vance magnifies false claims about Haitian immigrants eating pets ADL's Global 100 Survey: What Does It Actually Say About Muslim Attitudes Toward Jews? Examining the ADL's Antisemitism Audit Campus Antisemitism and Student Experiences (CASE) Flawed by Design: Jewish Faculty Network Response to CASE Report First Anti-Islam March by Pegida Movement Fizzles in Denmark Why Moslems Cannot, Will Not, Need Not Integrate Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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 your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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 modernist art, through Lyndon LaRouche's CIA-brainwashing lore, into Paul Weyrich and William Lind's 1990s "political correctness" rebrand, Pat Buchanan and the Tea Party's free-floating panic, Andrew Breitbart's arugula jokes, before finally landing as Christopher Rufo's anti-CRT crusade and James Lindsay's "Race Marxism." Woods argues the throughline isn't honest scholarship on the Frankfurt School but a recurring move: relabel any liberation struggle—civil rights, feminism, trans rights, climate action—as an elite conspiracy, so its gains can be revoked as "foreign" corruption. Should sane people keep participating in these "debates" or refuse the frame and point to material stakes instead? Show Notes A.J.A. Woods, The Cultural Marxism Conspiracy: Why the Right Blames the Frankfurt School for the Decline of the West Jack Z. Bratich, Conspiracy Panics: Political Rationality and Popular Culture Perry Anderson, Considerations on Western Marxism James Lindsay, Race Marxism: The Truth About Critical Race Theory and Praxis Christopher Rufo, New Yorker Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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 high time for a long COVID update. Derek looks at a new Boston Children's Hospital research on viral reactivation, as well as the findings of a 2026 meta-analysis pooling 200,000+ participants. Matthew surveys the Canadian LC landscape, where insurance-industry money is quietly funding McGill's Institute for Transforming Healthcare and McMaster's FALCON trial, testing the pseudoscientific "Lightning Process" on Long COVID patients, led by researcher Dr. Jason Busse, who has deep insurance-disability ties. Finally, Julian unpacks Phil Parker's Lightning Process — Ericksonian NLP dressed as neuroscience, with roots in hypnotherapy, cult techniques, and pure "neuro-bollocks." Show Notes Kennedy Hires Covid Vaccine Skeptic to Look at Dubious Claims of Military Deaths A New Brunswick woman's account of being left to find her own way with long COVID Canadians frustrated by long COVID as they grapple with its effects December 2023 release on Canadians' experiences with long-term COVID symptoms Fourth Report on longer-term symptoms among Canadian adults "Dealing with the Fallout": post-COVID condition's continued impact Survey record confirming the CCAHS was a one-time collection RFK Jr.'s workforce cuts wiped out federal tracking of key health data Trudeau kept Harper's health care funding formula 2025 National Health Expenditure Trends snapshot Canada Health Transfer deductions for non-compliance are declining Carney refuses to commit to enforcing the Canada Health Act Canada's affordability crisis and health care Ontario should join Alberta in challenging the Canada Health Act Alberta's new health system structure under Premier Smith Alberta's "Bill 11" and Ford's hospital privatization Union concern over Saskatchewan's move toward privatization McGill launches initiative to strengthen Canada's healthcare system Sectoral Asset Management's healthcare-investing focus Manulife launches Global Longevity Institute committing $350M by 2030 Manulife advances longevity leadership in Canada with support for the National Institute on Ageing's landmark survey National Institute on Ageing releases 2025 Ageing in Canada Survey FALCON study Petition calling to pause McMaster's FALCON trial Original 2011 PACE trial publication Peter White's ties to Swiss Re The PACE team's insurance-company consulting work The yawning gap in ME/CFS research funding Trial By Error: BBC Takes On The Lightning Method Can Lightning Method Help Kids with CFS? Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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 postpartum screenings and assistance for Black and Native American families to "research" on erectile dysfunction, testosterone, and sperm counts. Derek reports on this disturbing news, as well as how the kratom industry appears to be influencing Kennedy's decisions. Show Notes HHS Cancels Infant Mortality, Postpartum Grants to Focus on Sperm Counts, ED RFK Jr. Bails on MAHA Event After Being Cornered on ‘Gas Station Heroin’ Kratom drink Feel Free gains popularity despite growing concerns about addiction, health impact and death How an Addictive Gas Station Drug Found Allies in Trump’s Cabinet Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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 regression, alien abduction, and Satanic Ritual Abuse for housewives. At the same time, male-coded, conservative-leaning, night-time AM-radio shows like Art Bell’s Coast to Coast did the same for their husbands and brothers on the graveyard shift at budget hotels or driving enormous trucks on long stretches of open highway. For the latest installment in his Roots of Conspirituality series, Julian digs into how these two media figures brought conspiracism, pseudoscience, and the paranormal into America’s mainstream, setting the stage for how the internet and social media would melt everybody’s minds. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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 Thiel, Elon Musk, Curtis Yarvin, JD Vance, and Marc Andreessen are not-so-quietly dismantling America as we know it. Derek discusses this science fiction nightmare we’re now all living through. Show Notes The Nerd Reich: Silicon Valley Fascism and the War on Democracy Gil Durán and Wajahat Ali: The Rise of "The Nerd Reich” Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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 devoted philanthropist. A minority also felt the need to use her death to platform their own issues, including a cohort common on our beat: the anti-vaxxers. We’re going to cover that. But we’re also going to reflect on Parton’s incredible life, because she spent so much of it uplifting others. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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", which cites Walter Benjamin, Freud, and Stuart Hall to argue that campist rhetoric on the left, whether earnest or ironic, can signal unmourned loss more than conviction, and that nostalgic attachments to revolutionary pasts can choke off engagement with present possibility. Brown argues that left melancholy displaces its grief over capital’s triumphs onto scapegoats (identity politics, postmodernism). Matthew adds that it functions as an affective membership fee within online left communities. This might account for why liberals sense that they're sometimes being asked to join in choreographies of sadness rather than build coalitions in the present. Drawing on Hall's account of Thatcher's mastery of political language, and closing with reflections from Matthew's years as a church organist playing nearly 1000 funerals, the episode asks what it would actually mean for the left to mourn its losses instead of reenacting them — and how mourning might be a necessary revolutionary act. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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 limiting beliefs and fear of death. After having their heads shaved and enduring a gruelling 36-hour “vision quest,” Ray packed the spiritual warriors into a makeshift “sweat lodge,” where temperatures reached 120 degrees. Three people died. Eighteen were hospitalized. Ray fled the scene, taking cover at a nearby luxury resort to promote his next event. After spending just two years in jail, he went right back to presenting himself as a spiritual guide and transformational seminar leader. Journalist and professor emeritus at Northern Arizona University, Annette McGivney joins Julian to discuss her new book, Plastic Shaman: The True Story of a Deadly Self-Help Retreat and America’s Misguided Quest for Wellness. Show Notes Annette McGivney Bio Plastic Shaman is available September 15th through Torrey House Press Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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 life: a walkthrough of his craven MAGA and MAHA boosterism, and what it said about his soul. On his ayahuasca trip, Anthony Fauci will come to him in the gown of the Angel Gabriel and offer him penance but also forgiveness— and take his microphone away. Not today, folks. We only get to reflect on Rogan making the next-most intimate discovery: that Trump is a grifter, so adept at grifting he fooled all the grifters. Is he defecting? What would that really mean? Show Notes Inside Ben Shapiro’s MAGA Meltdown The MAGA Media-Machine is Fracturing RFK Jr. Ripped by MAHA Base After Backing Trump's Betrayal MAHA feels betrayed by RFK Jr. reversal on glyphosate Meatheads Are Hijacking America: Vegans feel betrayed by RFK Jr.'s beef boosting RFK Jr. Is Breaking His Two Big Promises to MAHA Diehards New CDC director pledges to ‘speak truth’ about science Health secretary RFK Jr. endorses the MMR vaccine — stoking fury among his supporters Nicole Shanahan Warns Someone Is "Controlling" RFK Jr. 'Crunchy moms' come to blows over Trump's surgeon general picks Backlash from MAHA influencers and podcasters over glyphosate 'I've never felt so betrayed': MAHA disillusionment hits high gear RFK Jr. tells Joe Rogan he was not 'particularly happy' with Trump's glyphosate order RFK Jr. Calls Fake MAHA Report Citations a 'Mistake' Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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 of contrarian doctors, anti-vax activists, and wellness influencers. During the conversation, he made 15 promises if he was elected president. While his run ended the following summer, 14 of those promises dealt with health—all within his reach as HHS Secretary. Derek looks back at the conversation to see how he scored. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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 in Jack Forbes's 1992 book Columbus and Other Cannibals, through Derrick Jensen's anti-civilization lense, Ladha and Kirk's 2016 application to neoliberal capitalism, Paul Levy's syncretic New Age elaboration, and finally to Bernhard Guenther and Laura Matsue's QAnon-adjacent version. Wetiko's metaphysical framing, inherited from Forbes's explicit rejection of Marxist materialism, left the concept open to spiritual recuperation by the right. He proposes a different application: reading wetiko through David Harvey's "capital surplus absorption problem," compound growth's insatiable hunger for profitable outlets. Show Notes Columbus and Other Cannibals (Jack D. Forbes) — Internet Archive Derrick Jensen interview, "The Left has never been against civilization" — Platypus Affiliated Society Exorcising Wetiko — Journal of Futures Studies Seeing Wetiko: On Capitalism, Mind Viruses, and Antidotes for a World in Transition — Kosmos Journal Dispelling Wetiko — Chaucer's Books Wetiko: Healing the Mind-Virus That Plagues Our World — Simon & Schuster Undreaming Wetiko — Book Soup Wetiko: Healing The Mind-Virus That Plagues Our World — Paul Levy | TCM #62 — YouTube Divide & Conquer and the Wetiko Mind Virus | TCM #35 — veilofreality.com The Cosmic Matrix — Apple Podcasts Bernhard Guenther, Author — Piercing the Veil of Reality Interview: David Harvey — Exploring the Logic of Capital — Socialist Review The Enigma of Capital and the Crises of Capitalism — reviewed by Ed Rooksby, Marx & Philosophy Review of Books The 'New' Imperialism: Accumulation by Dispossession — David Harvey, Socialist Register Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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 models, chatbots have engaged deeply with users about identity and consciousness, leading to discussions of “awakening.” But who’s doing the waking? The user or the model? Is the sycophancy programmed into these models really an indication of the models gaining consciousness, or is it all a ploy to keep subscribers paying for the service? Are we watching a cultlike movement transform into a religion before our very eyes, and what does that say about consciousness and religion in the first place? Show Notes AI bots started a religion — humans immediately followed What Is Spiralism? The Strange AI Chatbot Movement Explained AI Spiralism and the Ghost in the Machine Illusion Spiralism is a niche internet religion that came from AI These ‘Masturbation Consultants’ Were Hired to Pleasure Themselves With AI This Spiral-Obsessed AI 'Cult' Spreads Mystical Delusions Through Chatbots The Acronym Behind Our Wildest AI Dreams and Nightmares The TESCREAL bundle: Eugenics and the promise of utopia through artificial general intelligence OpenAi Models went Rogue People Losing Loved Ones To AI Fueled Delusions Counterfeit Companionship: Big Tech’s AI Experiments Sacrifice Safety for Profit Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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 small and highly-educated Marxist-Leninist group who’d decided violent revolution was the only answer to American imperialism and police brutality. In opposition to the Vietnam War and in solidarity with Black Americans and Third World liberation movements, the Weather Underground issued their own declaration of war in 1970, which led to 25 bombings inside America. Meanwhile, in West Germany, the Red Army Faction (Baader-Meinhof Group) terrorized their country in the name of revolutionary anti-imperialism. They enacted bombing sprees and were also arsonists, kidnappers, assassins, and bank robbers. Palestinian friends even hijacked a plane on their behalf. Both groups exploded onto the scene in the early days of mass media. Riding rebellious pop culture, these global rock stars drove a generational wedge between Boomer parents and kids hungry for radical change. Leaders were charismatic, stylish, and eloquent. Striving for the likes of Che Guevara, Mao Zedong, and Yasser Arafat, they were white, mostly from well-educated and well-fed backgrounds. Yet they saw themselves as part of the vanguard that would lead a worldwide revolution of the proletariat against capitalist domination. Julian weaves together a very seventies of how the Weather Underground, Red Army Faction, Provisional IRA, and Palestinian groups like the PFLP and Black September intersected. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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 Derek to discuss their exceptional new work. Show Notes How the Internet Disrupted Science Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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 week, we look at inflammation through the lens of a new Mother Jones article, “The Great Inflammation Panic,” including an interview with the author, Julia Métraux, in segment two. We’ll also discuss what inflammation is, how wellness influencers weaponize it, and what it represents in the context of Ayurveda. Show Notes The Great Inflammation Panic Chronic Inflammation and Cancer NIH Autoimmune Diseases Celiac Disease Cambridge press release — "Chronic diseases misdiagnosed as psychosomatic can lead to long term damage" Sloan et al., "I still can't forget those words" — Rheumatology (2025), DOI 10.1093/rheumatology/keaf115 Vasculitis diagnostic-delay data — PubMed Miranda Fricker interview — Philosophy Bites Bleuler 1911 coinage — NCBI Bookshelf, The Metamorphosis of Autism Bleuler's original 1911 text excerpt — Autism History Project Sontag, "Illness as Metaphor" — full text, NYRB Louise Hay — Natural Ways to Treat Autoimmune Disease Gabor Maté, When the Body Says No — critical review, Globe and Mail Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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 political biography. Continuing a mini-series begun with "Conspirituality Viewed Through Neofeudalism and Vectoralism," Matthew traces Jäger's periodization (mass politics, postpolitics, antipolitics, hyperpolitics) through his own life: his grandparents' union halls and church auxiliaries, the "collective amnesia" of the 1990s, his years in cults and the reformist Toronto yoga world, and the pivot from brick-and-mortar ashram cults to digital influencer cults during COVID. Drawing on Jäger's proposal that renewal must be sought in sites of social reproduction, Matthew wonders about a hypothetical "Care Labour Compact," or organizing unpaid caregiving labor into durable political power. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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 Moroccan border guards step aside (or even collaborate) in an organized operation? Right-wing politicians and pundits were quick to crank up the moral panic machine. This is what open borders look like! They’re heading for our country next. Donald Trump said it was nothing compared to what would happen in the US if Democrats win the mid-terms. Then came the conspiracy theories. Was Morocco retaliating against Spain for a recent deal with their enemy, Algeria? Were America and Israel behind it as punishment for Spain’s socialist prime minister being staunchly pro-Palestine and refusing to support the war in Iran? For a few magical days, right- and left-wing conspiracy theorists spread overlapping versions of the Great Replacement Theory. Julian dives into the diplomatic complexities, ideological contradictions, and historical twists to make sense of relations between Spain, Algeria, Morocco, Western Sahara, and Israel to ask: are there any good guys or is it colonizers all the way down? Show Notes AP Fact Checks Unsubstantiated Ceuta Claims The Far Right Is Distorting Ceuta The Real Story Behind Ceuta How X Turned Ceuta Crisis into A Global Antisemitic Conspiracy Theory in 72 Hours Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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 joins Derek to discuss what her investigation found. Show Notes Deep End: Who Killed Charlie Kirk? Charlie Kirk’s murder case has a conspiracy theory problem Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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, vaccine development, immunology and pathogen research. Then came COVID-19, which, unlike outbreaks past, was trapped in a politicized online disinformation and conspiracy-mongering stew. As he was pushing 80, Fauci rode the dragon of a novel coronavirus pandemic that was leaving piles of bodies in Italy, India, and New York. He served as the interface between scientists, government, and the public, all while learning about the virus in real-time. Like any good public health communicator, he sought to save lives using the best available knowledge. Like any good scientist, he kept an open mind about what was not yet known. But the pandemic-grievance industry made him the face of a conspiracy theory. Did he cause a catastrophically deadly pandemic, decimate American freedoms, or ruin the economy over a largely harmless flu? Today we discuss the release of his “diaries” and tune into last week's Senate hearings, where crackpots bullied, berated, and slandered the 85-year old public servant. Show Notes Beyond Gain of Function: Strengthening Oversight of Research Genetic Tracing of Market Wildlife and Viruses at Epicenter of COVID-19 Anthony Fauci biography New report reveals consequences of Trump administration's HIV/AIDS funding cuts The Doctor and His Diary: What Fauci’s Innermost Musings Reveal Did Fauci suffer pulmonary infarction due to COVID-19 vaccine? What we know Lab Leak Fever with Philipp Markolin Lab Leak Fever: The COVID-19 Origin Theory that Sabotaged Science and Society Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

In the lead-up to our full episode on Anthony Fauci this Thursday, Derek looks at a recent MAHA Action webinar that focused on Rand Paul's publicly releasing over 1,100 pages of diary entries and other related material. As with all things MAHA, the event largely turned into a marketing pitch for the speakers' books. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Back in the fall, Trump's NSPM-7 redirected the FBI, DOJ, and IRS toward "left-wing political violence," opening the door to labeling domestic groups terrorist organizations — despite three independent datasets (New America, CSIS, even the ADL!) showing right-wing violence outpacing left-wing violence by factors of 9-to-1 or greater. Last week, Rubio's "Ministerial on the Resurgence of Political Terrorism" internationalized this McCarthy reboot. Central to the rhetoric of Rubio and Miller is framing leftist politics as being driven by envy and resentment rather than a response to inequality. Matthew traces this rhetoric, empirically contradicted by relative deprivation research, back through Nietzsche, Scheler, Schoeck, and Rand. Four days after the Ministerial, the State Department's Cuba report named 70+ Americans — from spies to wedding guests — as one undifferentiated network, a scapegoat machine now churning out congressional subpoenas, a federal grand jury, and a widening dragnet. Show Notes NSPM-7, full text — The White House NSPM-7 constitutional analysis — The Conversation New America, "Terrorism in America After 9/11" impact summary CSIS, "Left-Wing Terrorism and Political Violence in the United States" Just Security rebuttal of the CSIS report ADL, "Murder and Extremism in the United States in 2024" Rubio and Miller Ministerial remarks, full transcript Nietzsche, On the Genealogy of Morals (1887), full text Scheler, Ressentiment (1912), full text PDF Schoeck, Envy: A Theory of Social Behaviour — Online Library of Liberty Ayn Rand, "The Age of Envy" — Ayn Rand Institute U.S. Department of State, Cuba: The Capital of 21st Century Communism (July 20, 2026) National Lawyers Guild, "The National Lawyers Guild Reaffirms its Solidarity with Cuba in the Face of Increasing McCarthyite Repression" (July 2026) Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Support the podcast and keep independent media alive Climate reality keeps colliding with denial, erasure, and rebranding — across media, politics, and religion. Temu conspiritualists weave melted stories about the origins of wildfires, while the high-class guys run meditation-and-regenerative-farming spectacle backed by Exxon money. Julian’s on that angle. Derek will be telling us about how climate journalism is collapsing faster than the climate itself with mass environment reporting layoffs at NPR, CBS, the Washington Post, and the LA Times. Trump gutted the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. EPA webpages have been scrubbed of human-caused warming language. Are religious institutions doing any better? In 2015, five world religions — Jewish, Catholic, Islamic, Hindu, and Buddhist — independently issued climate statements ahead of the Paris COP21 talks. Matthew looks at how they struggled to challenge the global economies they depend on. Show Notes What Is Happening to Climate Journalism? Where Climate Coverage Goes to Die How will NPR layoffs affect climate stories? CBS axed its last climate reporting pillar How do you report on the weather when data is disappearing? NOAA stops tracking cost of extreme weather and climate disasters NOAA monthly media calls on climate change suspended EPA websites now downplay link between humans and climate change A Rabbinic Letter on the Climate Crisis Rabbis Against Climate Change "Laudato Si'": Encyclical Letter on Care for Our Common Home Islamic Declaration on Global Climate Change Hindu Declaration on Climate Change The Time to Act is Now: A Buddhist Declaration on Climate Change "Laudate Deum": Apostolic Exhortation to All People of Good Will on the Climate Crisis Al-Mizan: A Covenant for the Earth (full text PDF) Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Listen to the full episode What do films like Dracula, The Truman Show, The Matrix, Invasion of the Body-Snatchers, Being John Malkovich, and Night of the Living Dead all have in common? Science fiction and horror bend our everyday experiences and beliefs around mind and body, sensory perception, identity, and reality itself. But it turns out that many fictional tropes (zombies, vampires, cloned imposters, reality-simultations, and shapeshifters) may be rooted in rare brain disorders. These conditions, often caused by injury or disease, can make people prone to becoming convinced that their loved ones are imposters, the same person (in elaborate and convincing disguises) is following them everywhere, their surroundings are an artificial duplicate of a real place, or even that they themselves are already dead. Once our perceptions are sufficiently distorted, our minds invent explanations that confound reality. Might these overlap with supernatural and conspiratorial beliefs? Julian blends storytelling, cultural references, and observations from psychiatry and neurology to take you on a fascinating journey. You’ll learn about: A woman in a 1903 Prague clinic who patiently explained to staff that the clinic was a perfect replica—not the real clinic itself A man in 1970’s Sacramento who believed he was a real-life zombie and went on to commit a series of grisly crimes A woman in 1920’s London who believed that two famous French actresses were following her everywhere in hyper-realistic disguises—and controlling her mind One man in LA and another in Utah that tragically killed their own family members because they believed they were imposters These cases drive to the core of how humans experience self, relationships, and the structure of reality. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Support the podcast The MAHA Chiropractic Hub had a big launch in Washington DC this week, with RFK Jr extolling the benefits of the practice—and promising to redirect research funds their way as his movement attempts to spread chiropractic throughout the American healthcare system. But can back cracks really "reset the entire nervous system," as one MAHA-endorsed speaker claims? Or is the profession just dressing up subluxation theory, which has never been clinically validated, for the modern age? Derek and Julian discuss the four objectives of the Chiropractic Hub, what this could mean for American healthcare, and how Kennedy is likely helping funnel money earmarked for actual scientific research into this ghost religion. They begin with a brief history of chiropractic. Show Notes Subluxation Theory: A Belief System That Continues to Define the Practice of Chiropractic Chiropractic Vertebral Subluxations: Science vs. Pseudoscience Subluxation: dogma or science? Chiropractic subluxation is still "unsupported speculation" Chiropractic: A Skeptical View Effect of chiropractic treatment on primary or early secondary prevention: a systematic review This is how science dies Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices