This week we’ll either answer or transcend the core questions our listeners post in moments of parasocial vulnerability: Do you guys believe in anything at all? Are there any wholesome spiritual communities out there? Are all spiritual teachers toxic?

Daniel Sherrell is the author of an extraordinary memoir and prayer book, Warmth: Coming of Age at the End of Our World. Matthew sits down with Daniel to discuss the real conspiracy of climate denialism, and how conspiracy theories provide relief to those who cannot contemplate our condition.

We talk to Decoding the Gurus co-host (and real-life Australian) Matthew Browne about the situation on the ground. Julian interviews another Aussie, Dr. Izzy Smith, about her online anti-conspiracy theory activism and science advocacy.

Paul Chek trained JP Sears, traded podcasts with biohacker Ben Greenfield, hung with anus sunshiner Troy Casey, and hosted Mikki Willis twice in the last year on his own podcast. Today’s co-host, Antonio Valladares, also trained with Chek, but unlike many of Chek’s acolytes, Antonio has used his time and knowledge debunking conspiracy theories in nutrition and fitness, not adding to the fire.

Julian interviews Derek about these topics based on Derek’s 2020 book, Hero’s Dose: The Case for Psychedelics in Ritual & Therapy.

Derek chats with journalist Will Storr about his new book, The Status Game: On Social Position and How We Use It. They discuss how status plays a role in anti-vax groups, spiritual communities, and political groups.

Joining us today as a co-host is Jitarth Jadeya, one of the few ex-QAnon followers so far who has been willing and able to discuss what this fever dream did to him and his family. Marriage and Family therapist Rachel Bernstein, the host of the brilliant IndoctriNation Podcast, also joins to discuss her experiences working with cult survivors and providing recovery resources.

We’ve convened an expert panel this week to remember and discuss Katie Griggs, aka GJ. She died in an LA hospital on the evening of August 1st. LA Magazine was the first outlet to confirm the death with the RA MA Institute, which Griggs co-founded in Venice, CA.

Matthew interviews Sarah Garden and Colin Hall of Bodhi Tree Yoga in Saskatchewan, who made national news when they announced that yes, they would. Bodhi Tree clients will have to show their card; if they can’t or don’t want to be vaccinated, online classes are still available. Simple, right? Not in Yogaland.

The genius parade continues this week with co-host Dale Beran, author of It Came from Something Awful: How a Toxic Troll Army Accidentally Memed Donald Trump into Office. All three of us writers are legit blown away by Beran’s layered and penetrating coverage of the chan-verse-to-Capitol Riot pipeline.

Dr. Annie Kelly’s scholarship in these spaces reveals a network of “subversion anxieties”: that patriarchy will be replaced by social justice autocrats, that the privileged will be brought low, that feminism will destroy hetero freedoms and pleasures, that human bodies will become cyborgs, that collectivism will replace capitalism.

Derek interviews David Morris, the Chief Insights Columnist at Coindesk, who also just happens to have a longtime interest in MLMs and cults. Matthew also reviews the 1996 essay, “The Californian Ideology,” the famous 1995 study of the bizarre Silicon Valley-fueled fusion of cultural bohemianism and free-market utopia rhetoric.

Dr. Jennifer Sapio taught for three years at the Austin Waldorf School. She was hired from her secular training, but gradually found herself drawn into what she calls an “inherently racist cult.” Her mentors pushed her towards accepting the 19th-century babblings of Rudolf Steiner, who, among other exploits, read the “Akashic Records” to learn why the spirit world disapproved of vaccines.

Matthew sits down with India Oxenberg to discuss her recovery journey: learning to box, learning to love food, learning about “the strong yes” from her therapist. They also discuss the behind-the-scenes expertise that went into the documentary series India starred in and co-produced: Seduced.

Mike Rothschild joins as co-host just as his new book, The Storm is Upon Us: How QAnon Became a Cult, Movement and a Conspiracy Theory of Everything, drops. We’ll ask him about researching a “conspiracy of everything, what a leaderless cult means, how an online religion worships, and how, amidst catastrophic disconfirmation and deplatforming, we’re seeing new delta QAnon variants emerge.

Dax-Devlon Ross joins this week as a co-host to discuss the topics in his book, “Letters to My White Male Friends,” including the many years of lived experiences that cut through the academic rhetoric and political posturing concerning race in America today.

This episode is co-hosted by Dr. C. Thi Nguyen, a philosopher who teaches at the University of Utah. His breakthrough book is about agency in games, in which he shines a light on disquieting aspects of our gamified lives and the question of whether we’re still able to act on our own values.

Matthew sits down, across 9,000 miles of mostly ocean, with journalist Anke Richter and reporter and Māori rights activist Joe Trinder to discuss the mind-bending rise of Māori MAGA in the COVID-free sanctuary of Aoteoroa, aka New Zealand.

Linguist Amanda Montell joins Julian for an engaging interview about her new book, Cultish: The Language of Fanaticism, which examines the power of language in high-demand groups, from The People’s Temple to the local Young Living dinner party. In a debrief, we discuss not only Montell’s study, but also our own run-ins with spiritual mumbo-jumbo.

Alex Ebert—frontman for Edward Sharpe and the Magnetic Zeros—joins Derek to map out the late 20th-century slide into infinitely co-opted creativity and revolution. They discuss the reasons America could use death rituals, the rise of Trump as the ultimate New Ager, and wellness influencers as “the clerical class of the right.”