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51
Conspirituality

Derek Beres, Matthew Remski, Julian Walker

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Dismantling New Age cults, wellness grifters, and conspiracy-mad yogis. At best, the conspirituality movement attacks public health efforts in times of crisis. At worst, it fronts and recruits for the fever-dream of QAnon.As the alt-right and New Age horseshoe toward each other in a blur of disinformation, clear discourse, and good intentions get smothered. Charismatic influencers exploit their followers by co-opting conspiracy theories on a spectrum of intensity ranging from vaccines to chi ...
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Out of the Woods is a podcast for stories about not-quite-cults but not-quite-not-cults. People share their experiences being strong believers in something--a religion, an ideology, a community, anything--and share how they came to realize it was, well...cult-ish. Stories of all kinds of these beliefs & experiences are welcome, with a particular interest in those in the digital world.
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The Woo Woo 'Verse

Lynette Arkadie & Kirileigh Lynch

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WELCOME TO THE WOO WOO VERSE: An enlightening, practical and humorous deep dive into the world of energy, self and soul awakening. Join your hosts Lynette Arkadie and Kirileigh Lynch on one hell of an adventure, as they transverse the wild, inspiring, wacky & vast landscape of possibility, synchronicity, source energy and all things Woo Woo. ... Put down your crystals, return your chakras to the aligned and upright positions and strap yourself in, because it's a wild ride through the Woo Woo ...
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The Mindful Cranks broadly explores the cultural translation of Buddhism in the West, various facets of Buddhist modernism, and the mainstreaming of mindfulness in secular contexts. The podcast serves as a forum for voices that go beyond the dominant narratives which have been thus far uncritical of consumerism, medicalization, psychologization, corporatization and self-help approaches. Drawing from a wide range of disciplines — the humanities, philosophy, cultural studies, education, critic ...
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Join Peter for deep and often provocative dives into the wide open wonder, and potentially revolutionary implications, of authentic Spiritual Awakening in our Tipping Point Times. Peter is a spiritual guide and the co-founder of a thriving contemporary experiment in spiritual awakening and collective emergence based in Portugal called The Awakened Life Project. He is the author of the book The Fire of the Heart, leader of the Awakened Life Men's Collective and founder of EvoLusa: Toward an A ...
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The aim of This Life Without Limits is to give you the tools you need to cultivate a lasting and durable sense of holistic well-being in your life. It is my intention to discuss all manner of ways we can bring substantive change to our lives in order to render them more powerful, productive, enjoyable, fulfilling and in alignment with our innermost values and principles. My mission is to catalyze powerful transformation in your life through the aspects of spirituality, mental and emotional h ...
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Shortly after my Huffington Post essay “Beyond McMindfulness” went viral, a popular mindfulness promoter accused me of being a “crank”. So why not own it? Alas, The Mindful Cranks was born. The Mindful Cranks was the first podcast to critique the mindfulness movement. Conversations with guests soon expanded in scope to include critical perspectives on the wellness, happiness, resilience and positive psychology industries - sharing a common concern that such highly individualistic and market- ...
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We cover conspiracy theories, spiritual abuse, and religious and right-wing extremism. We cover showmen and charismatics suffering from King Victim Complex. Last week we had to study a goddam assassination attempt. But sometimes we get to peek into the worlds that younger people are making within our cursed digital environments, and we realize they…
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Two landmark Supreme Court decisions—the Trump immunity case and the overturning of the Chevron doctrine—represent the legal institutionalization of the core values of conspirituality: self-sovereignty, natural immunity or divine protection, and “doing your own research.” The attempted assassination on the former president forged the essence of the…
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We're back! And this episode feels very precient. We recorded this in June, but life has been crazy and we haven't had a chance to edit and post it until now. We apologize for the delay, but the episode definitely has some interesting information foreshadowing some of the current events we've experienced in July. As everyone now knows, an assassina…
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Project 2025's approach to environmental issues is pretty straightforward: deny climate science, dismantle the EPA, clear a path that prioritizes corporate profits, and let the world burn. Derek and Julian unpack the details on the chilling chapter from Project 2025's 920-page manifesto that outlines their plans for the Environmental Protection Age…
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While speaking on Steve Bannon’s podcast, The War Room, Heritage Foundation president Kevin Roberts recently stated, “We are in the process of the second American Revolution, which will remain bloodless—if the left allows it to be.” Roberts is the mastermind behind Project 2025, Heritage’s 920-page “presidential transition” agenda that seeks to imp…
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Today we’re looking at a lavish infomercial put out by New Age oligarch and RFK Jr superfan Aubrey Marcus, in which he tries to show the world that his very expensive encounter group, Fit For Service, is definitely not a cult. And at how Matthew got quoted in the opening montage as though he endorsed FFS as an “anti-cult.” He hasn’t. Marcus might b…
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Back in 2011, Ward and Voas wrote that conspirituality was a mainly-online movement, and they were right about that. They didn’t do fieldwork at events. They didn’t attend trainings and rituals. They combed the internet for evidence of what they were looking for. They found strange and anxious spiritual themes. But they also found evidence of what …
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The stress of influencing in the New Age / alt-med world is rough. You have to pretend to know everything, from vaccine science to the origins of autism, to how feminism has desecrated the sanctity of motherhood. It’s not surprising that a growing number of the conspirituality influencers we know and love are all tuckered out, and now choosing to l…
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Can yoga bring hostages home? No. Can yoga stop a genocide? Also no. But this won’t stop earnest practitioners from instrumentalizing practice for both purposes. For supporters of Israel, practice is dedicated to the protection of land, the return of hostages, and to uphold the spiritual valor of soldiers. Among supporters of Palestine and a ceasef…
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What does it really mean to be a prophet, found a religion, and persuade millions of people that god speaks directly to you? And what does this god tell you? How to live morally. What kinds of sex are forbidden. How to avoid death and live forever. When the end of the world is coming, and which messiah will bring it. In this latest installment on t…
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Last month, Russell Brand visited Jordan Peterson's podcast for “The Evolution of Theology.” Which, given these two figures, had to focus on topics like the unreligious impulsivity of gay people and why slaves should “just not be slaves.” Derek and Julian discuss. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices…
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On June 14, Reuters published an article about the US Military’s clandestine program to discredit China’s Sinovac vaccine during the early days of Covid-19. Turns out the Pentagon hired an outside agency to purposefully spread FUD (fear, uncertainty, and doubt) about the Chinese inoculation program by flooding social media with anti-vax propaganda.…
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What is the distance between spiritual practice and social action? Derek has weighed this question for decades. This unscripted meditation on the topic uses Aubrey Marcus's new "documentary," Anti-Cult, as a jump-off point. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesBy Derek Beres, Matthew Remski, Julian Walker
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A Deep Cut from January's Patreon. Control the Court. Overturn Roe. Funnel anonymous donations and shady gifts. Deregulate for Jesus. Roll back the cultural clock. Celebrate. Rinse and Repeat. Leonard Leo’s libertarian Catholic agenda has made him a preeminent power-broker in right-wing American politics. He’s reshaping society while enjoying the p…
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Acclaimed actor Terrence Howard has a new role playing a heroic Galileo-like character on the YouTube and podcast stage, where he fearlessly points out the flaws in mainstream math and science. Howard's recent appearance on The Joe Rogan Experience gave him three hours to explain how his dreams and spiritual visions, along with his own research and…
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Six chapters on approaches to prospirituality, now that we know (or think we know) what the hell conspirtuality is. This is a long episode, but there are evenly-placed breaks for you all to pause on! Chapter 1: Positions After 4 years, we’ve come to a natural question at the end of defining the problem of conspirituality. How do we orient ourselves…
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Terrence Howard recently made waves (again) when appearing on Joe Rogan’s podcast to discuss “Terryology,” a language of logic which he claims proves one times one equals two. Since he announced his theory in 2015 (and published it on Twitter in 2017), he’s been repeatedly criticized. In this latest round, that criticism is coming from Eric Weinste…
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Are you ready to “live beyond 180? That’s the tagline of the 10th Annual Biohacking Conference, which went down in Dallas two weeks ago. The brainchild of Dave Asprey, the conference focused on numerous “hacks” to help you live not only longer, but better and longer. This has been a decades-long goal of Asprey, who you might know as the founder of …
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QAnon’s “Great Awakening,” influencers claiming to channel spirits or aliens, prophecies of a glorious Christian apocalypse—all aspects of the modern phenomenon that we call “conspirituality.” A sign of our crazy times?! Not quite. The roots of this passionate delusion can be traced to an eventful time in American history: the mid-1800’s. In this e…
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It’s all just a show, and sometimes that makes it all the more real. Playwright and theater scholar Hank Willenbrink joins Matthew to look at the spectacle of Trump through the lens of performance studies. From his childhood listening to Norman Vincent Peale, to his lifelong fascination with Broadway, to his TV celebrity, to the tableau vivants of …
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We talked to Renee Diresta, when she in the middle of a life-changing crisis. Elon Musk’s hand-picked "journalists" were testifying in front of Congress as part of the “Twitter Files.” Matt Taibbi and Michael Shellenberger sounded the alarm about a supposedly vast conspiracy between think tanks, big tech companies, and government intelligence agenc…
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Welcome to the 64th episode of the Science Witch Podcast! Pitcher Plants in Bloom at the Crosby Arboretum In this episode, Anjel interviews carnivorous plant enthusiast Carson Treckler about bewitching and queer carnivorous plants. Anjel and Enku introduce this episode Anjel recorded last year just in time to release for pride and help initiate mor…
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Nicole Shanahan, RFK Jr's VP pick, has recently started her own podcast. Dilbert creator Scott Adams joined. The conversation quickly turned into a conspiracy free-for-all, starting with DEI, then swerving into fertility, vaccines, transgender people, EMFs, and much more. Derek responds. Show Notes Inside the fringe worldview of RFK Jr.’s VP pick A…
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When young TikTok dance stars joined 7M Films, they got access to big production budgets, luxurious locations, and exciting career opportunities. There was a problem, however. Their boss, Robert Shinn, was a self-styled Christian pastor who placed increasing pressure on their time and finances, demanded unquestioning devotion, and isolated them fro…
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Serendipity Sessions returns again...for the second time in a row! To be honest, our last episode wasn't a true Serendipity Session because it involved one primary topic and Ryan was pretty prepared to discuss it. So Ryan ruined it. Blame Ryan. But the good news is that this episode is a true Serendipity Session! Serendipity Sessions was designed t…
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Every year, the Environmental Working Group, a Washington, DC-based lobbying group, publishes its “Dirty Dozen” report, which supposedly informs consumers about the 12 “dirtiest” fruits and vegetables. The report is repeated verbatim by major media outlets, which routinely demonize strawberries, blueberries, and other conventionally-grown produce. …
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In this Listener Stories episode, Matthew sits down with Jude Mills, an old friend from the yoga world, to hear her story about growing up in an anti-theist home in hyper-sectarian Scotland, but feeling the inexorable call of religion. So started a long journey toward her vocation as a hospice chaplain at the height of COVID. They discuss the needs…
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