Conspirituality

Cult leaders, religious fanatics, dictators, and charlatans all have one thing in common: they exploit our fear of death. Humans act out “immortality projects” in the form of religion, culture, and political ideologies as unconscious ways  to override the terror we feel at our uniquely self-aware knowledge that we will one day die. Where the orthodox priest promises eternal life, the cult leader might predict an alien apocalypse, while the authoritarian strongman invokes the transcendent glory of leading a chosen nation and race. In light of a recent death in the family, Julian leans into Ernest Becker's Pulitzer Prize winning cultural anthropology text, The Denial of Death. He also draws on poetry and the archetypal psychology of Donald Kalsched to ask the big questions. Does existential acceptance of death lead inevitably to nihilism? Is belief in God(s) and an afterlife necessary? Are poor or deeply traumatized people only left with despair in the absence of supernatural faith? Will children raised with no religion have no moral compass? A rich discussion of philosophy and psychology alongside poems, myths, fairy tales, and deeply personal story-telling, especially about how to tell his 7-year-old that grandma won't be back for Xmas. Not to worry, though. This is, ultimately, an uplifting journey. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Casey Means was grilled by some Senators at her hearing for nomination of Surgeon General on Wednesday. Others lobbed softballs. Derek revisits the book that made her a star on the MAHA circuit, Good Energy, to detail all the misleading claims and outright misinformation.  Show Notes Well, That Didn't Sound Like Casey Means Casey Means, Critic of Mainstream Medicine, Poised to Become Nation's Top Doctor What is Shared Clinical Decision Making? Former Trump surgeon general: ‘Incomprehensible' Senate is considering Means "Good Energy" has very bad data Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

It's hard for some people to accept that the normalized and unbridled accumulation of wealth and power is a selection process for apex predators, who wind up having overwhelming influence over the systems that enabled them. The metaphysical reflex can provide a lot of relief: Epstein was uniquely evil, so different from the rest of us that he engaged in supernatural acts. He was a cosmic raider invading an otherwise balanced world. In the chaos of facts and allusions that swirl around the Epstein Files, the nearest available and resonant metaphysics are found in the recycling of Satanic Panic themes from the 1980s. These stories have been surging since QAnon erupted in 2017. Now they're reaching another peak in visibility and provocation, and their ability to reduce the problem of the Epstein Class to the unsolvable problem of evil.  Show Notes Michelle Remembers Series on Patreon Teal Swan Series on Patreon We have a whole chapter on Barbara Snow 50 Million People Suffer Today Under Global Slavery Many Countries Still Allow Child Marriage Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

MAHA isn't a health movement. It's a marketing engine driving activist propaganda. Derek looks at Tony Lyons, one of MAHA's key architects, and his recent strategic memo sent to Republican leadership about how to use MAHA talking points to retain power in the midterm elections.  Show Notes Tony Lyons's strategic memo to GOP leadership Examining Who Benefits From Kennedy's Anti-Science MAHA Push MAHA Supporters Form New Organization to Boost RFK's Goals in D.C. MAHA's money man has built a political machine. Will it matter for midterms? The co-founder of the Robert F. Kennedy Jr. super PAC is a Steve Bannon and MAGA media ally As MAHA turns 1, a fired-up movement is still figuring out how to fulfill its promises Skyhorse Publishing: About Us MAHA Action American Values 2024 Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

In the wake of the DOJ's dump of 3 million documents from the FBI's Epstein investigation, journalists, content creators, and everyday people are forming narratives and schema for what it all means. Social media is flooded with survivor stories, overwhelming disgust, rage and grief, and reports of anxiety, sleep disturbance, and difficulty functioning in the world (mostly from women). Pizzagate and QAnon conspiracy memes are being resurrected. Satanic Ritual Abuse materials are again circulating, which imbue sex trafficking and child abuse with sensationalized supernatural overtones. The Epstein class must be held accountable. Alongside that, Julian explores how toxic masculinity teaches men to dehumanize women and girls, as evidenced by email exchanges that play along with misogynistic attitudes and objectification. Making sense of the cultural and historical context for the global human trafficking trade, which extends far beyond movie villain elites, billionaires, and royal family members, requires that men speak up against casual everyday dehumanization of women and girls, while actively fostering relational intelligence within male culture. Show Notes 50 Million People Suffer Today Under Global Slavery Many Countries Still Allow Child Marriage Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Deepak Chopra is all over the Epstein files. Are we surprised? Nope. But we are interested in the various layers of his entanglement and what they say about the ethics and politics at play in the shadow of Big Wellness. Show Notes Self-Help Guru Sorry He Got Busted for Vile Epstein Emails Deepak Chopra: New Age Guru, UCSD Prof – and Epstein Confidant God Is A Construct, Cute Girls Are Real': Bestselling Spiritual Author Deepak Chopra's Emails To Epstein Revealed Deepak Chopra told Epstein to 'bring your girls.' Here's their entire email exchange Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Mark Carney is a devout Catholic, and his economic vision came from a challenge posed by Pope Francis. Matthew walks through the contradictions of Carney's economic spirituality.  Show Notes Values by Mark Carney | Penguin Random House Canada  Pope Francis says he wasn't offended by 'communist crucifix' gift  The Catholic Case for Communism - America Magazine  Pope Francis: “If I See the Gospel in a Sociological Way Only, Yes, I Am a Communist, and So Too Is Jesus” - The American TFP  Exclusive: Pope Francis disusses Ukraine, U.S. bishops and more - America Magazine Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Matthew pokes at the contradictions behind Prime Minister Mark Carney's polished Davos attempt to distance Canada from U.S. chaos, while Canadian companies continue profiting from the U.S. domestic terror regime.  Drawing on reporting by Rachel Gilmore, Matthew looks at how Canada's “middle power” liberalism masks deep complicity with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement through arms, surveillance tech, and security contracts.  Carney's benevolent affect continues the tradition of obscuring a longer history of exclusionary border politics. He's there to manage outrage without challenging the capitalist structures that escalate into authoritarian violence. Show Notes The Great White North: Canada's New Border Bill Appeases the Trump Administration | TechPolicy.Press  A list of Canadian companies profiting off of ICE and Trump's violent mass deportation regime  If TikTok News Is the Future, Rachel Gilmore Is Living It | The Tyee  Liberals Fear Closing Arms Export Loophole Would Anger U.S. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Over 1,000 children and women were potentially victims of Jeffrey Epstein's trafficking and sexual abuse. It is not clear how deeply Peter Attia was enmeshed in Epstein's core activities, but we do know he belonged to an important tier of his operation: the influencer-celebrity-intelligentsia set that legitimized him as a sophisticate across a wide range of disciplines.  We revisit Attia in light of his 1,700+ appearances in the Epstein Files. Show Notes 285: Can Peter Attia Live Forever? Longevity guru Peter Attia keeps CBS News role despite showing up in Epstein files Peter Attia, the Epstein Files and the Lie Propping Up Big Wellness Bari Weiss Attempts to Get Past Her Rocky Start At CBS News Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

In the wake of ICE murders, some are calling for more protestors with guns, or at least to prepare to meet fire with fire. Julian examines the history of armed struggle in South Africa and Northern Ireland, as well as the arguments for nonviolent vs militant political movements.  Is there a way back from the turning point at which people recruit their friends and families into neighborhood militias, learn to kill soldiers and civilians in the name of a cause, and construct chains of command that justify executing informants and collaborators from within? Does this actually work? And do we risk becoming the very monsters we are fighting in the process? Show Notes The Role of Violence in Nonviolent Struggles Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Two new MAHA-approved bills would force insurance companies to cover supplements and shield homeopathic manufacturers from any liability while allowing them to make more health claims. As Derek argues, this is what Kennedy has always been aiming for: shuffle as many alt-med products into circulation as possible while ensuring they don't need any of those pesky regulations pharmaceuticals must endure. Show Notes West Virginia House Bill 4760 Texas HR 7050 Supplements Are a $70 Billion Industry. RFK Jr. Is Good for Business. RFK Jr.'s MAHA Movement Picks Up Steam State by State With RFK Jr. in Charge, Supplement Makers See Chance To Cash In Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Prior to last month's killings of Renee Good and Alex Pretti, many white American citizens felt obligated to use their privilege to actively disrupt unjust ICE activities in their cities. But the stakes just got higher for everyone. In the wake of these tragic deaths, we look at how the MAGA propaganda machine dehumanizes opposition and demands loyalists not trust the evidence of their own eyes and ears. In segment two, Matthew will look into how renegade religious leaders, then in segment three Derek discusses brave community organizers in Portland currently resisting ICE and the authoritarianism it advances. Show Notes Christians, Let's Stop Abusing Romans 13  As a resident of Minnesota—Bishop Barron Bishop Barron's tendentious attack on Mayor Mamdani distorts doctrine | National Catholic Reporter  Leo ally: defund ICE BBC Audio US Military Archbishop, Faith and Gen Z, 'Understanding British Imams' project Fact-Checking Trump Admin Claims of Paid Protestors “Womanosphere” Influencers Urge Against the “Sin of Empathy” ‘Oregon was next': Trump targeted state after Minnesota, report says Feds at Portland ICE facility again deploy chemical agents against protesters PDX ICE Watch This nonviolent stuff'll get you killed : how guns made the civil rights movement possible : Cobb, Charles E., Jr., author : Free Download, Borrow, and Streaming : Internet Archive Brief: Beyond Violence and Nonviolence (Part 1) — Conspirituality   Omar Wasow on Non-Violent Protest Effectiveness Charles Tilly on Public Perception of Protest Movements William Gamson's Strategy Of Social Protest Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

When videos surfaced of Alex Pretti kicking an ICE vehicle's taillight 11 days before his murder, claims that the video was AI dominated social media. Some commenters even posted articles that stated the opposite of what they thought they said. Derek explores the necessity of curiosity when coming across information that contradicts what you want to hear. First, he explores it through his love of books before applying the skill to situations like the Pretti video. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

The silence of MAHA influencers around the murder of Renee Good (and ICE generally) has been excessively loud. Yet that's expected from the coalition that voted for Donald Trump in order to install RFK Jr at this point. Many believe “health isn't political” while refusing to accept or acknowledge what their vote has empowered. Dr Jonathan Howard, a neurologist and psychiatrist at NYU Langone's Multiple Sclerosis Comprehensive Care Center, returns to the podcast to talk about MAGA's enablers in the MAHA movement with Derek and Julian. Show Notes MAHA Gave Us MAGA 2.0.  Remember the Enablers. Everyone Else is Lying to You: How our medical establishment weaponized doubt to spread COVID, normalize quackery, and undermine public health Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

As Trump surges his Gestapo and threatens to annex new territory, his brain is collapsing. He's sundowning on Truth Social, nodding off in meetings, slurring words, slurping at the saliva pooling in his mouth. His insults and aggressions are as constant and predictable as his arms are, reaching out for handholds. Up until this point, discourse on the mental health of this decrepit fascist leader has used the kid gloves of psychology, psychoanalysis, and psychiatry, in which even the most informed analyses were constrained by the fact that experts were interpreting his inner states. For our part, we've compared his fate to that of charismatic cult leaders at the end of the line—and we'll do more of that today. Now a new posse of clinical commentators on IG and TikTok have made it all much more biological: we are witnessing, they say, the predictable signs of fast-progressing dementia. Show Notes Goldwater Rule vs Duty to Warn, American Academy of Psychiatry and Law World Health Organization: Dementia Signs and Symptoms of Dementia Alzheimer's disease: a comprehensive review of epidemiology, risk factors, symptoms diagnosis, management, caregiving, advanced treatments and associated challenges USC study finds new evidence linking dementia to problems with the brain's waste clearance system A new drug could stop Alzheimer's before memory loss begins A 2025 update on treatment strategies for the Alzheimer's disease spectrum Dementia prevention, intervention, and care: 2024 report of the Lancet standing Commission Broadening dementia risk models: building on the 2024 Lancet Commission report for a more inclusive global framework Study finds disparities in diagnosis and treatment of dementia Decomposing Racial and Ethnic Disparities in Risk and Protective Factors of Dementia in the U.S. Mapping racial and ethnic healthcare disparities for persons living with dementia: A scoping review Dementia Diagnosis Disparities by Race and Ethnicity Racial disparities in dementia determined by social factors Straight-forward Explainer: What's Going on With NIH Cuts to Alzheimer's Research? Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Listen to the full episode Simone Weil was skeptical about the project of “rights.” They argued that obligations come before rights, and that rights only become real when obligations are recognized and lived.  Weil believed the French Revolution made a foundational error by grounding society in rights rather than eternal obligations, creating a contradiction that still haunts liberal democracies today. Rights, Weil argues, carry a bargaining spirit and ultimately depend on force for enforcement, while obligations arise unconditionally from the mere fact of another person's vulnerability. You owe something to others not because they've asserted a claim, but because they exist. Drawing from Weil's posthumous The Need for Roots, Matthew unpacks their critique of liberal rights discourse: that modern societies undermine their own moral claims by prioritizing abstractions over duties. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

If conspirituality names the ways religion and spirituality are weaponized to justify power, prospirituality points to religious traditions doing the opposite: grounding resistance, ethical clarity, and solidarity in moments of crisis.  So: is there a growing prospirituality response to fascism, genocide, climate collapse, and AI-driven labor precarity? Matthew argues that yeah, there's some good news.  In Israel, scripture has been mobilized by political and religious leaders to sacralize violence in Gaza. But there's also a surge of Jewish religious resistance among U.S. rabbis and Peter Beinart's On Being Jewish After Gaza sets a new landmark of reckoning. Mona Haydar's rapping and chaplaincy models a form of Muslim spirituality that is feminist, anti-genocide, and rooted in mutual aid, while resisting both Islamophobia and liberal domestication.  Then there's Pope Leo's escalating critiques of U.S. immigration policy and his renewed emphasis on liberation theology. Show Notes Dark Mirror: A Torah View of Revenge, and its Reflection in Israeli Media During Operation Iron Swords Peter Beinart, “I No Longer Believe in a Jewish State,” The New York Times Being Jewish After the Destruction of Gaza by Peter Beinart: 9780593803899 | PenguinRandomHouse.com: Books Even if you hate it- I still wrap my hijab — Haydar Mona Haydar: Ask a Muslim Program Fights Prejudice Conservative Muslims and Islamophobes Have One Thing in Common: Hating Mona Haydar  Pope Leo replaces New York's Cardinal Dolan in shake-up of US Church | Reuters  New archbishop ‘committed' to immigration issues, accountability on abuse — and staying a Cubs fan  Pope's naming of New York archbishop signals continued challenge to Trump on immigration Pope Leo's new US bishops are critics of Trump's migrant crackdown | Reuters   Pope Leo calls for Venezuela to remain an independent country | Reuters  Pope Leo says Trump administration 'extremely disrespectful' to migrants | Reuters  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Noelle Cook's The Conspiracists: Women, Extremism, and the Lure of Belonging is the first ethnography of conspirituality, and it comes via someone who was able to really embed themselves in a volatile culture and find its emotional logic. She's our guest today. Cook focuses on the travails of two middle-aged women following the January 6 Capitol riot. By spending years befriending and talking with Tammy Butry and Yvonne St. Cyr, Cook is able to document the impacts of childhood trauma and systemic neglect—as well as diverse personality quirks—that can drive folks toward QAnon.  They are starseeds. They are mama bears. They are on a divine mission to destroy the matrix and usher in the Great Awakening. For them, the algorithms were oracles, reinforcing isolation and radicalization by providing a sense of purpose to the purposeless, and visibility to the invisible. Cook has not written a book for answers, but a book filled with the next questions worth grappling with as we realize how deeply wounded some recruits to fascism are. Show Notes The Hottest Spot for Sunday Church Is a MAGA Dive Bar The Conspiracists: Women, Extremism, and the Lure of Belonging Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

In 1953 the CIA and MI6 participated in a coup d'etat in Iran. That true sentence (and what usually follows) can create an oversimplified distortion of history—and present. But Iran is in the news again with the biggest protests since the 1979 Islamic Revolution bringing millions to the streets. The regime unsurprisingly cracked down hard: at least 2,700 protesters have been killed and 18,000 arrested. Though the initial impetus was economic, these are the latest in a wave of growing uprisings in Iran against the far-right theocratic authoritarian government—especially its treatment of women. How did we get here? What happened in 1953? Isn't this all just about oil anyway? Was the 1979 revolution really about religion? Weren't there Communists involved? Does all the turmoil in this region trace back to Western colonial imperialism? Julian explores the tangled threads of oil, empire, and religion. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Whole milk is back! The war on protein is over! Mainline meat! Derek investigates the new inverted pyramid and everything lacking in the new dietary guidelines. Show Notes The New Dietary Guidelines and the “Flipped Pyramid” Several of Kennedy's Dietary Advisers Have Ties to Meat and Dairy Interests Carotenoid bioavailability is higher from salads ingested with full-fat than with fat-reduced salad dressings as measured with electrochemical detection Human health effects of conjugated linoleic acid from milk and supplements Enhancing the fatty acid profile of milk through forage-based rations, with nutrition modeling of diet outcomes Dietary Fats and Cardiovascular Disease: A Presidential Advisory From the American Heart Association Reduction in saturated fat intake for cardiovascular disease Effect of Interventions Aimed at Reducing or Modifying Saturated Fat Intake on Cholesterol, Mortality, and Major Cardiovascular Events : A Risk Stratified Systematic Review of Randomized Trials Omega-6 fats for the primary and secondary prevention of cardiovascular disease Butter and Plant-Based Oils Intake and Mortality Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

“Train your mind gently, not to deny what is hard, but to see what is still good” implores the monk sharing spiritual messages to his 2.5 million Instagram followers. Clad in an orange robe—well, sometimes a blue robe, sometimes grey or yellow—the little man of unknown descent speaks knowledge from a temple constructed from just about every Asian country imaginable. As it turns out, the creators of the AI-generated Yang Mun are…Israeli tech bros? Turns out AI isn't just for spirituality. There's an entire industry of health slopfluencers pushing untested supplements, as Derek covers before Matthew breaks down the AI Orientalism of Yang Mun. First, Julian touches on the 5th anniversary of the Jan 6 riots, and all the propaganda that's emerged in its wake. Show Notes The Promise of Health Chatbots Has Already Failed Yang Mun on Instagram LinktreeMcMindfulness: how capitalism hijacked the Buddhist teaching of mindfulness Traumatic Narcissism: Relational Systems of Subjugation GigaChad | Know Your Meme Jean Baudrillard - Simulacra and Simulation Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

From Andrew Huberman's Goop collab and Mel Robbins' protein shots to MAHA flipping the long-defunct food pyramid and making meningitis great again, the first full week of 2026 was off to quite a start. Derek covers the week that made heads spin. Show Notes Andrew Huberman is Optimizing Turkey Chili Mel Robbins is Selling Protein Shots What to Know About the New Childhood Vaccine Schedule Health officials slash the number of vaccines recommended for all kids Johns Hopkins doctor concerned over CDC's new child vaccine recommendations Flu season already rivals last winter's harsh epidemic FDA announces sweeping changes to oversight of wearables, AI-enabled devices Ōura's Ricky Bloomfield proposes new regulatory pathway for wearable health features Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Marco Rubio's office published an official press release last month titled “Announcement of Actions to Combat the Global Censorship Industrial Complex.” The memo discusses the decision to impose visa restrictions on five individuals due to their “organized efforts to coerce American platforms to censor, demonetize, and suppress American viewpoints they oppose.” One of those individuals is Imran Ahmed, CEO of the Center for Countering Digital Hate and repeat Conspirituality podcast guest. Derek and Julian break down what's going on with this case. Show Notes Rubio Announcement CBC: Individuals Named and EU Reactions Imran Ahmed on PBS NewsNight Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

What do fascists need to do to convince their rank and file that they're the smartest in the room? They invent new science to trash the old science they didn't like. First, we look into how RFK Jr is “making the proof” for all his scientific endeavors, then unpacking a new proposal from the AZ state sena Janae Shamp about how she's going to get to the bottom of the clinical diagnosis of Trump Derangement Syndrome. First, we read a lovely bio-romance poem from our favorite ex-Mormon vampire millionaire, Bryan Johnson. Show Notes CDC awards $1.6 million for hepatitis B vaccine study by controversial Danish researchers US awards no-bid contract to Denmark scientists studying hepatitis B vaccine in African babies Now is the Time to Scale Up Birth-Dose Hepatitis B Vaccine in Low- and Middle-Income Countries The CDC is Funding an Unethical Vaccine Trial in Guinea-Bissau The False Narrative of Nonspecific Vaccine Effects Randomized trials show no evidence of non-specific vaccine effects Hepatitis B and C in the adult population of Bissau, Guinea-Bissau: a cross-sectional survey Fiftieth Anniversary of Uncovering the Tuskegee Syphilis Study: The Story and Timeless Lessons Chronic Hepatitis Is Common and Often Untreated Among Children With Hepatitis B Infection in the United States and Canada Fired Nurse to Fierce Senator: Janae Shamp Exposes the Border Crisis & Government Betrayal State Sen. Janae Shamp on Border Security, Housing Affordability, and Health Care in Arizona  States Look to Religious Leaders to Fill Mental Health Gap  Charles Krauthammer: Bush Derangement Syndrome is spreading Zakaria: Liberals have to avoid Trump Derangement Syndrome  Krauthammer: You can't govern by id  New Yorker: Sarah Huckabee Sanders, Trump's Battering RamGreat job by Bret Baier in his Interview with Lyin' Kamala Harris Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Matthew reflects on the fifth anniversary of his mother's death and revisits how her life, trauma, and values helped him understand the appeal—and fatal flaw—of Jordan Peterson's worldview. Toughness can be an expression of love without becoming a politics of cruelty. Show Notes 33: Manipulating the Hero's Journey Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Have you seen the “Grinch prank” video trend? Bad parenting, yes. But also a nod to the conflicts, ancient and modern, embedded in Christmas.  Contrary to what Bill O'Reilly would tell you, there has never been a “war on Christmas.” Rather, Christmas itself has always been a battleground over love, dignity, and resources. What we're really fighting over is who gets care in systems built on scarcity and extraction. Vignette 1: The Original Creche Vignette 2: Krampus Vignette 3: Dickens, Chekhov, and Andersen Vignette 4: The Christmas Truce, 1914 Vignette 5: Dr. Seuss and the Grinch Show Notes Andersen, Hans Christian. The Little Match Girl. Copenhagen, 1845.https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/10623 Boyle, James. “The Second Enclosure Movement and the Construction of the Public Domain.” Law and Contemporary Problems 66, no. 1–2 (2003).https://scholarship.law.duke.edu/lcp/vol66/iss1/2/ Chekhov, Anton. “Vanka.” 1892.https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/13418 Dickens, Charles. A Christmas Carol. London: Chapman & Hall, 1843.https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/46 Imperial War Museums. “Christmas Truce, 1914.”https://www.iwm.org.uk/history/christmas-truce-1914 Imperial War Museums. “Letter Describing the Christmas Truce.”https://www.iwm.org.uk/collections/item/object/1030000503 Lenin, Vladimir Ilyich. The Principles of Socialism and the War of 1914–1915. Marxists Internet Archive.https://www.marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/1915/princip/ McCoy, Michael. “What Is Tinsel Made Of? (and How It Changed Over the Years).” Chemical & Engineering News, December 15, 2014.https://cen.acs.org/articles/92/i50/Tinsel-Made.html Mitterauer, Michael. “Peasant and Non-Peasant Forms of Family Organization in Relation to the Physical Environment and the Local Economy.” Journal of Family History 2, no. 2 (1977).https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/036319907700200203 Nel, Philip. Dr. Seuss: American Icon. New York: Continuum, 2004.https://books.google.com/books?id=Yt4QAQAAIAAJ Nissenbaum, Stephen. The Battle for Christmas. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1996.https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/171502/the-battle-for-christmas-by-stephen-nissenbaum/ Restad, Penne L. Christmas in America: A History. New York: Oxford University Press, 1995.https://global.oup.com/academic/product/christmas-in-america-9780195043659 Schmidt, Leigh Eric. Consumer Rites: The Buying and Selling of American Holidays. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1995.https://press.princeton.edu/books/paperback/9780691018448/consumer-rites Science History Institute. “History and Future of Plastics.”https://www.sciencehistory.org/topics/plastics Smithsonian Magazine. “The Origin of Krampus, Europe's Evil Twist on Santa.” December 4, 2015.https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/the-origin-of-krampus-europes-evil-twist-on-santa-180957438/ Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

In 1965, the US passed the Federal Cigarette Labeling and Advertising Act, the reason every pack of cigarettes has a warning label informing you about the potentially harmful effects. Since then, numerous regulations, educational drives, and taxation initiatives have made smoking less appealing and harder to do. In the contrarian wellness space, nicotine has become the alkaloid du jour. Forget cigs, this special chemical helps your energy, mood, and, at the far end of the influencer spectrum, treat cancer and autism—without that being medical advice, of course. And while nicotine has been shown to be potentially beneficial for a small range of issues, wellness influencers once again are sprinting the cart in front of the horse.  Mallory DeMille returns to break down the latest wellness buzz. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Listen to the full episode In 1994, Pulitzer Prize-winning Harvard psychiatry professor John E. Mack became one of the most pedigreed proponents of UFOs, alien abductions, and the alien-hybrid breeding scheme. He was introduced to celebrated painter, amateur hypnotherapist,  and UFO researcher Budd Hopkins by transpersonal psychologist Stan Grof. Hopkins had helped author Whitley Strieber recover the abduction “memories” that became the book (and then movie) Communion. Mack and Hopkins quickly produced their own movie, Intruders. Mack published Abduction: Human Encounters with Aliens, going on the TV talk-show circuit with star patients that believed they were being experimented on while on alien spacecraft. Oprah slotted alien abductions right into her schedule, alongside Satanic ritual abuse, multiple personality disorder, and past-lives regressions.  In reasoning not unfamiliar to Conspirituality listeners, Hopkins claimed a government conspiracy was covering up the ET hybrid breeding scheme, while Mack explained the lack of physical evidence by claiming the abduction experience “challenged the Western paradigm of materialist science.” The X-Files TV show was inspired by their work, which also spawned today's generation of UFO grifters, alien channelers, and pastel-Q lightworkers.  For today's installment of his The Roots of Conspirituality series, Julian explores the characters, stories, psychology, and cultural significance of fantastical repressed memories retrieved under hypnosis—be they of horny demons, ritual Satanic abuse, or alien scientists who steal abductee's DNA in the night. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Turning Point USA's AmFest 2025 saw a record number of attendees pour into Phoenix last weekend to watch a host of MAGA and MAHA luminaries proclaim they're raging against the Deep State—even though their coalition is now the Deep State. Derek and Julian look at the conference through the lens of the white, Christian Nationalist identity politics on display. Show Notes Inside AmericaFest: Infighting, lies and the desperate search for Charlie Kirk's heir Vance Refuses to Take Sides in G.O.P. Fight Over Bigotry Turning Point exposed a brewing MAGA civil war. Can JD Vance unite it? ‘It's Very Controversial, but I Love Nick Fuentes' Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

An unlock of a bonus episode from earlier this year. ⁠Access all of our bonus episodes here⁠. Happy holidays, everyone! -- -- Earlier this year, a spate of news stories told of chatbot users travelling through the looking-glass right into Conspirituality. Paranoid conspiracies, spiritual awakenings, even falling head-over-heels in love with the simulated personalities of large language models like ChatGPT. Could AI have finally crossed the threshold into autonomous sentient consciousness? Could it be that chatbots were anointing new prophets—or, conversely, that very special users were awakening their very special friends via the power of love and illuminating dialogue? Step aside, QAnon, the code behind the screen is illuminated by God! Sadly, some of these stories trended very dark. Suicides, attempted murder, paranoid delusions, spouses terrified of losing their partners and co-parents to what looked like spiritual and romantic delusions. For this standalone installment of his Roots of Conspirituality series, Julian examines this strange new phenomenon, then takes a detour into Ancient Greece and the oracle at Delphi to show that everything old is actually new again—just dressed up in digital technology. Show Notes ⁠I Married My Chatbot⁠ ⁠FTC Complaints Against OpenAI for Chatbot Psychosis⁠ ⁠AI Spiritual Delusions Destroying Human Relationships⁠ Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Listen to the full episode RFK Jr trademarked MAHA in a giant swath of categories, including many he now advocates for in his position as Secretary of HHS. After making $100,000 in licensing fees, he transferred the trademark to his anti-vax compatriot, Del Bigtree, before it was transferred again to former Kennedy security lead, Gavin de Becker. Currently being used by a variety of MAHA-based organizations, the opportunity to monetize MAHA, the brand, could be directly affected by Kennedy's policies. Given how much MAHA leadership loathes social services, more health-based privatization could be on the horizon—just as Projected 2025 prescribed. Derek winds down the rabbit hole into the MAHA trademark. Show Notes MAKE AMERICA HEALTHY AGAIN - Trademark Details The MAHA Enterprise Explained Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Dr Mike has become one of the most effective debunkers of science misinformation. His second appearance on the uber-popular show, Jubilee's Surrounded, pitted him against 20 fans of RFK Jr. Derek and Julian discuss the debate, as well as the value of Jubilee in an oversaturated media environment. Show Notes 1 Doctor vs 20 RFK Jr. Supporters (ft Doctor Mike) Surrounded Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Derek sits down with Dr Jessica Knurick at the Eudemonia Summit for this special live recording. They discuss combating health misinformation online, what MAHA gets right and wrong, whether or not "nutritionist" should be a protected term, and Jessica's possible political ambitions. Show Notes Dr Jessica Knurk on Substack | Instagram Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Listen to the full episode Matthew explores Marx's “opium of the people” passage by placing it back into the philosophical and political project it came from. Marx was not attacking religion in some essential way, but criticizing the conditions that make religion necessary as a consolation. The problem is not faith itself, but the suffering — inequality, exploitation, alienation — that gives rise to the instinct for spiritual escape.  Marx's atheism was not a New Atheist-type negation but a theological critique — a way of revealing how capitalism itself can displace Christianity as a religion of profit, rent, and wages. According to liberation theologian Enrique Dussel, Marx frames money as a jealous god, capital as the Antichrist, and private property as original sin. No wonder he is eternally hated.  Full show notes at https://www.conspirituality.net/episodes/brief-demonic-karl-marx Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Matthew examines how Karl Marx has long been framed as a demonic threat to religion and private property — a tactic that sidesteps Marx's actual critique of capitalism. J. Edgar Hoover, Ronald Reagan, and a raft of Evangelical blowhards cast communism as satanic and civilization-ending, a narrative now accelerating through Trump-era rhetoric, and Project 2025.  Capital is difficult to rebut directly, so detractors often attack Marx himself, calling him godless or deranged. Jordan Peterson and Paul Kengor treat Marx's horny gothic teenage poems as literal evidence of demonic influence—which is much more interesting to them than taking surplus value, alienation, or commodity fetishism seriously. But the OG distorter of Marxist economics is the Catholic Church, beginning with Pius IX, who Red-Scared the 19th C faithful with a now-famous trick: conflating personal property with bourgeois private property. Marx targeted only the latter — profit-generating property — which the Church depended on then and still does today. Full show notes at https://www.conspirituality.net/episodes/brief-demonic-karl-marx Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

How does an elite Millennial politics reporter wind up having phone sex with and giving campaign advice to the 70-year-old emerging fascist she's reporting on? Most of that should stay between Olivia Nuzzi and her therapist. What we do know is that American Canto, Nuzzi's new book, is a memoir (or maybe novel) made for the conspirituality age, in which raging toxic roided-up hypocritical male charisma is always the center of attention. The domineering ghoul is the pole star of interest and fascination, always moving too fast and chaotically to understand—unless you know how fascism accelerates. We scavenge these pages for clues about Kennedy and how the hell this journalism disaster happened. Show Notes Zyn pouches and American Masculinity The Olivia Nuzzi Comeback Is Everything Wrong With Modern Media A Serious Journalism Scandal Hiding Inside a Frivolous Sexual One The Scandalous Rollout Was the Best Part of Olivia Nuzzi's Memoir 119: We Are Slenderman (w/Kathleen Hale) The first-person industrial complex: How the harrowing personal essay took over the Internet. A Q&A with Olivia Nuzzi of New York magazine on her career, covering Trump and access journalism  Guests urged to be vaccinated at anti-vaxxer Robert F Kennedy Jr's party Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Listen to the full episode here Hasan Piker just spent two weeks in The People's Republic of China. The famous streamer is often invoked as being a potential “Joe Rogan of The Left,” who might bring young voters, especially working class men, back into the Democratic Party.  But Piker's livestreams from China raise controversial questions. Is he whitewashing Chinese human rights abuses? Was he paid by their government to propagandize his combined 5 million viewers? How else to explain first-class plane tickets, ultra-luxury hotel rooms, privileged access to forbidden Western social media, and carefully avoiding criticisms of the authoritarian state while waxing poetic about their country and Mao Zedong? Julian digs into Piker's politics in the context of China's tumultuous history. First stop: Tiananmen Square. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

"Immortality influencer" Bryan Johnson recently livestreamed his second-ever psilocybin trip "for science." But was it, really? Derek and Julian break down the performative nature of this stunt and discuss the growing right-wing influence on psychedelics culture. Show Notes Bryan Johnson Has Discovered Shrooms, and He Really Wants You to Know It Silicon Valley's Man in the White House Is Benefiting Himself and His Friends How the Right Coopted Psychedelics Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

RFK Jr is one of the greatest perpetrators of a firehose of falsehoods that we've ever covered. The stakes were raised when he was installed as head of America's public health system. A new longform article in The Atlantic offers an inside look at the history and current thinking of this man, as insightful for what it offers as telling for what it omits. We discuss the role of journalism in an age defined by propaganda. Show Notes Scoop: The new #2 at CDC is a top ivermectin prescriber who ended Louisiana's vaccine-promotion media campaigns Doctor Critical of Vaccines Quietly Appointed as C.D.C.'s Second in Command CDC Quietly Turned Off Its Vaccine Search Tool. It's Not Clear When It's Coming Back. The Olivia Nuzzi and RFK Jr. Affair Is Messier Than We Ever Could Have Imagined RFK Jr. and the Inexplicable Appeal of Repulsive Men RFK Jr. is overhauling the program that helps preserve Americans' access to vaccines Why Is Robert F. Kennedy Jr. So Convinced He's Right? Nature: Pertussis, A Tale of Two Vaccines Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Listen to the full episode. With the CDC recently updating its website with anti-vax propaganda under the direction of RFK Jr, disgraced and disbarred physician, Andrew Wakefield, is back in the news. In fact, Senator Ron Johnson even tweeted out that he deserves an apology. He must be relying on short attention spans, given all the ways Wakefield manipulated the “study” that showed a link between vaccines and autism—even though the study itself found no such proof. Derek revisits the retracted 1998 study, as well as shows just how much proof exists to the contrary of the CDC's new page. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Derek and Julian survey all of the incredible, life-changing deals going down this weekend in Wellnesslandia. Show Notes Influencers made millions pushing ‘wild' births – now the Free Birth Society is linked to baby deaths around the world Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

In the wildly popular biohacking and longevity space, Peter Attia is often cited as one of the leading luminaries. His straightforward, science-backed approach seems to cut through the noise in a space dominated by fit bros and wellness grifters who always seem to have a product to sell. But the man who dropped out of residency at Johns Hopkins to found a private clinic focused on longevity has his share of critics, who are a bit suspicious about his self-experimentations—and the millions he makes counseling Silicon Valley insiders about experimental medicine. This week we take a look at longevity broadly and Attia specifically. Derek kicks off the episode with a recap of his time at Eudemonia Summit, where, among other things, he got to debate another leading biohacker, Dave Asprey, about seed oils. As it turns out, longevity was the top buzzword there as well. I Went to Eudemonia – a Wellness Summit with the Industry's Top Thought Leaders – Here's What It Was Like Outlive: A Critical Review  A Review of OUTLIVE Critiquing Peter Attia Andrew Huberman and Peter Attia: Self-enhancement, supplements & doughnuts? Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

This bonus episode is Part 2 of Graeber vs Bannon, Anarchism vs Leninism.  I start in the 1870s with Marx and Bakunin fighting over the joys and traumas of the Paris Commune. Marx sees it as an imperfect but historic prototype of a workers' transitional state, cut down before it could consolidate power. Bakunin reads it as a betrayal of anarchist principles — too willing to replicate the machinery it meant to overthrow. Out of that conflict comes a rift that still haunts us: should revolution be disciplined, organized, and strategic, or spontaneous, horizontal, and permanently suspicious of institutions? I explore David Graeber as a hopeful modern anarchist, highlighting his idea of “everyday communism”—the mutual aid and cooperation we already practice—and his vision of Occupy as a revelation of our capacity to act as if we're free. I contrast this with Marxist-Leninist critiques: the exhaustion of consensus, obstructionism, spectacle without strategy, and the refusal to make demands. A story about my late friend Michael Stone at an Occupy “mic check” shows how openness can invite opportunism. Finally, I contrast No King's vagueness with MAGA's fusion of mystical energy and disciplined technocracy—QAnon shamans backed by P2025 architects, vibes condensed to machinery. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

In this first of a two-part series, I dig into a century-long debate within revolutionary politics—one that now shapes the fault lines between MAGA authoritarianism and the fragmented resistance against it.  How did the American far right end up using Leninist strategy more effectively than the American left? And what does that say about our own movements—our blind spots, our strengths, and inherited illusions? In 2013, Steve Bannon called himself a Leninist. In 2016, he openly called for the “deconstruction of the administrative state.” In Trump 2.0, he's been an ideological whip for the  vanguardism of Project 2025. If Bannon has a foil, it was the late anthropologist David Graeber—Occupy organizer, anarchist, and author of The Dawn of Everything—who championed prefigurative politics and rejected the idea that the state could ever be an instrument of liberation. Drawing from Vincent Bevins' If We Burn, I explore why a decade of globally interconnected mass movements failed to build lasting power—and how the right learned from their mistakes. We revisit January 6 through the lens of conspirituality influencers, we go to São Paulo to watch anarchist punk collectives lose the narrative to organized right-wing actors, and we return to Occupy to understand the spiritual hopes and organizational gaps that still shape protest culture today. Part 2 will dig deeper into Graeber's legacy, the theological undertow of spontaneity vs. structure, and what younger activists may inherit if we don't learn from the last half-century of revolt and repression. NOTE: Full citations are available on the episode page at https://www.conspirituality.net/. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

In 1954 a doomsday alien cult headed up by Chicagoland housewife Dorothy Martin was waiting for the cataclysmic flood that would herald the arrival of spaceships to transport her and her followers to safety. When the hour came and went and nothing happened, she and her followers made up a Bible's worth of excuses, saying that the group's penitence and piety had saved them, and so the failure of the prophecy was actually a validation of their new religion. And even though its central claim had been refuted, they accelerated their efforts to proselytize and convert new followers.  This is the story of the 1956 classic study, When Prophecy Fails, by Leon Festinger, Henry Riecken, and Stanley Schachter. Problem is—this didn't really happen. At least not that way. As our guest this week Thomas Kelly points out from his investigation of newly unsealed archival materials, the psychologists not only embedded themselves in Martin's cult in a way that provoked their most irrational statements, they fudged the outcome of Martin story to suit their virally popular new theory of cognitive dissonance.  Show Notes Debunking “When Prophecy Fails” - Kelly - 2026 - Journal of the History of the Behavioral Sciences Failed Prophecies Are Fatal | International Journal for the Study of New Religions Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

They offered initiation into ancient Christian mysticism, ritual communion with the spirits, an understanding of reincarnation, and the destined transition to inhabiting a "solar-body" in the Sirius star-system. But it all ended in murderous blood sacrifice and fire—and 74 dead believers. What is this dark preoccupation with sacrifice and ritual killing in the name of metaphysical belief? Grotesque to modern ears, yet quite commonplace historically. Julian covers the late 20th-century French cult, The Order of the Solar Temple, for his Roots of Conspirituality series. They identified with the Knights Templar, weaving Rosicrucianism and Theosophy into a tangled web of fraud, spiritual deception, and the dramatic, tragic deaths of everyone involved. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

RFK Jr's senior advisor and supplements salesman, Calley Means, has repeatedly fabricated the story of Abraham Flexner and the birth of the modern medical system. Derek looks into his historical revisionism and what it could mean for the MAHA movement. Show Notes Medical Education in America: Abraham Flexner The Great Influenza: John Barry The Greatest Benefit to Mankind: Roy Porter Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Back in June, we published an episode about the "Speaking with American Men" (SAM) project, a $20 million initiative designed by political consultants to understand and win back young men (18-29) who increasingly voted for Donald Trump. We talked about this cringey, inauthentic approach to compete over the influence of manosphere figures like Jordan Peterson and Andrew Huberman, who exploit a perceived "meaning crisis" with pseudo-intellectual and often reactionary messages.  Instead of what? We said that the better route would be to focus on material concerns so that the rage of young men isn't ceded to right-wing movements. Big-money consultant-led efforts to micromanage online interactions will not spawn-in the authentic cultural engagement that right-wing influencers naturally achieve. Well here we are now in the fall, and we've got a bunch of guys stepping into this contested space from different angles. Zohran Mamdani and Graham Platner present very differently as masculine role models, but share the same economic populism, but also a deep challenge in the long shadow of patriarchy: how do men become trustworthy? Show Notes Brief: Nair, Mamdani, and Culture against the Culture War (Pt 1) — Conspirituality  Matthew's Review of Notes on Being a Man by Scott Galloway  A Political Litmus Test: Can You Hang With the Boys? Zohran Mamdani Is New York's First Millennial Mayor. You Can Tell by His Suit. A Political Misdiagnosis—NYT on How Dems lost Black and Hispanic Voters Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Listen to the full episode The nonprofit organization (and its adjoined Super PAC), MAHA Action, is leading semi-regular Zoom calls featuring a host of wellness influencers and RFK Jr appointees, including Jillian Michaels, Dr Oz, and Russell Brand. Derek listens into a recent call to see just what they're saying. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Taylor Swift: Nazi sympathizer, freshly-minted racist, MAGA trad wife. Or so proponents of a recent conspiracy theory would have it. For years, the most successful female recording and performing artist of her generation (and therefore of all time) has used “easter eggs” as part of her marketing. Hidden messages in music videos and lyric sheets, oblique references in social media posts, and puzzles as merchandise marketing gimmicks have all contributed to a parasocial sense of intimacy and insider knowledge for her millions of ardent fans. With the release of The Life of a Showgirl, these treats seem to have backfired on Swift. A deluge of TikToks claim dog whistles and hidden symbols reveal a far-right turn for a progressive artist that previously stood for feminism, reproductive freedom, gay and trans rights, BLM, and gun control. Maybe it's her “cancelled” friends, the influence of Travis Kelce, or traditional, conservative “family values” finally coming home to roost as she celebrates the desire to settle down with her soon-to-be-husband, make a home, and have some kids. Julian peels apart the layers of this highly charged political conspiracy theory and looks at what it may represent. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

When restaurants and cafes in Portland and elsewhere link into networks of food pantries and soup kitchens, will mutual aid feel real in the US? When regular folks come out of their houses to shame and chase ICE thugs out of the neighborhood, will that feeling of power from below catch on? Will it create some craving for a different way of doing things and understanding authority and order? Derek looks at Portland, Julian looks at street resistance, and Matthew unpacks the old anarchist idea of mutual aid, and whether and how it intersects with our time and what's left of our institutions. Show Notes Here are 18 Portland-area coffee shops and restaurants that have pledged to feed people who lose SNAP benefits Angie Vargas, ICE Chaser LAHoodLove on Instagram BraveNewFilms on Instagram Kat Abughazaleh in Mother Jones Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices