128: The Trauma of Caste (w/Thenmozhi Soundararajan)
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128: The Trauma of Caste (w/Thenmozhi Soundararajan)

The Trauma of Caste: A Dalit Feminist Meditation on Survivorship, Healing, and Abolition by Thenmozhi Soundararajan pulls back the curtain on the carceral impacts of terms like dharma and karma, and concepts like purity, pollution, and reincarnation. We discuss the impact of this longstanding history with her.

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126: Light Language TikTok (feat Mallory DeMille)
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126: Light Language TikTok (feat Mallory DeMille)

Our guide today is our new correspondent, Mallory DeMille, who comes to us from the land of TikTok, where Light Language has gone viral, and is making bank, bank, bankity bing bong bank.

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125: Deliver Us From “Evil” (w/Amy Berg)
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125: Deliver Us From “Evil” (w/Amy Berg)

What is the state of the documentary film in the age of manipulative online propaganda? In the hands and eyes of a documentarian like Amy Berg we find a journalistic commitment to the truth combined with the artistry of compelling and intimate story-telling.

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124: No Bad Idea Ever Dies (w/Thomas Lecaque)
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124: No Bad Idea Ever Dies (w/Thomas Lecaque)

History professor Thomas Lecaque joins to discuss the Hobbit fetish of new Italian PM and heir to Mussolini, Giorgia Meloni, as well as the American right’s obsession with the Templar Knights, and the troubling midterm election trend of open White Christian Nationalism.

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123: The Red-Pilled "Academic" Who Named Our Podcast
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123: The Red-Pilled "Academic" Who Named Our Podcast

QAnon was foreshadowed by Pizzagate, but Pizzagate was foreshadowed by a moral panic in London, England that was driven in part by someone the three of us are karmically bound to, for good or ill, forever.

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122: Timeline Retox: Biohacking and Fascism and Stuff
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122: Timeline Retox: Biohacking and Fascism and Stuff

The book is filed. Our mental health is in check. And, as it turns out, Matthew found a new guru. We return to trio work by investigating his fellow Canadian's cure for, uh, anything, or maybe something, as well diving into two biohacking conferences and the conspiritualist's new favorite fascist on the block.

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121: The Gospel of Wellness (w/Rina Raphael)
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121: The Gospel of Wellness (w/Rina Raphael)

Rina Raphael joins to discuss her new book, The Gospel of Wellness: Gyms, Gurus, Goop, and the False Promise of Self-Care. She talks to us this week about her adventures in modern spirituality—its teachings as well as its traps.

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120: Overripe Avocado (w/Jill Ettinger)
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120: Overripe Avocado (w/Jill Ettinger)

We’re finally looking at David “Avocado” Wolfe, whose paranoid Telegram channel boasts all of the above claims and much, much more. And we’re not just clipping recent podcast talks and driver’s seat rants. We’re joined by longtime journalist, health food marketing guru, and co-founder of the website, Ethos, Jill Ettinger, who worked side-by-side with David for many years.

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119: We Are Slenderman (w/Kathleen Hale)
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119: We Are Slenderman (w/Kathleen Hale)

Author Kathleen Hale joins Matthew to discuss her reporting on this story in her riveting and compassionate new book, Slenderman: Online Obsession, Mental Illness, and the Violent Crime of Two Midwestern Girls.

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116: History is Not a Placebo: Chinese Medicine in America (w/Tamara Venit-Shelton)
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116: History is Not a Placebo: Chinese Medicine in America (w/Tamara Venit-Shelton)

Historian Tamara Venit-Shelton joins the podcast to talk to Derek about the history of Chinese Medicine in America. The author of Herbs and Roots: A History of Chinese Doctors in the American Medical Marketplace, they discuss the xenophobia and racism that Chinese encountered in the 19th century West and how the acupuncture needles we use today are not actually Chinese in origin.

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114: Guns, Germs & Fear (w/Alan Levinovitz)
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114: Guns, Germs & Fear (w/Alan Levinovitz)

Philosophy and religion professor Alan Levinovitz calls this "empowerment epistemology" and describes it as a connective tissue between the seemingly distant domains of gun culture and the wellness sphere.

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113: A Course in Conspiracies (w/Sam Kestenbaum)
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113: A Course in Conspiracies (w/Sam Kestenbaum)

Derek began his career as a religion journalist, and this week he interviews Sam Kestenbaum, who’s made a career in this field. Sam has written for the NY Times and the Washington Post, where he recently published an expose on Christiane Northrup.

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112: The Science Whisperer (w/Danielle Belardo)
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112: The Science Whisperer (w/Danielle Belardo)

Derek was recently a guest on cardiologist Danielle Belardo’s podcast, and now she returns the favor, joining him to discuss her thoughts on being a science communicator and a female cardiologist in a male-dominated field, as well as many of the wellness myths circling around social media, including supplements, statins, sunscreen, veganism, organic foods, and GMOs.

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111: Who's Afraid of Teal Swan (pt 2) (w/Jennings Brown)
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111: Who's Afraid of Teal Swan (pt 2) (w/Jennings Brown)

Our guest today, Jennings Brown, is a bright light in an increasingly chaotic cult-content economy. His 2018 podcast on Teal Swan, The Gateway, produced with Gizmodo, sets a high-watermark standard for research, fairness, and sensitivity.

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110: Temple of the Gun
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110: Temple of the Gun

Is Christiane Northrup LARPing when she talks about murdering political enemies? What would Mikki Willis wear to tactical boot camp? Amidst the carnage of Uvalde and the Supreme Court, are conspiritualists gearing up to offer logistical or merely symbolic support for political violence? Does it even make a difference? When does the Temple of the Gun become a firing range and then a staging ground?

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