185: Light in the Growing Darkness
In this annual meditation and reflection, the trio consider the past year's significant happenings in conspirituality, discuss their biggest influences, identify 2024's most pressing challenges, and offer what gives them each hope as we transition into 2024.
Brief: The Mother God Cult
Julian and Matthew discuss HBO’s new docu-series, “Love Has Won: The Mother God Cult,” directed by Hannah Olson. They meditate on religious freedom, spiritual tragedy, and the ethics of big-budget cult documentary filmmaking.
184: Lies That Take Lives (w/Scott Kennedy)
Scott Kennedy’s new documentary, Shot in the Arm, details the deadly impact of these anti-vax kingpins, as well as the tireless counter-efforts of scientists, medical workers, and science educators like Peter Hotez, Paul Offit, Karen Enrst, and Blimi Marcus.
Deep Cut: The Final Battle
Julian unpacks the incendiary streams of far-right anti-government militia history and religious apocalypticism that our former president is tapping into as he faces legal jeopardy.
183: Woke Pope Cancels America's Bishop (w/Mike Lewis)
Our guest today, Mike Lewis of the Catholic news and opinion website, wherepeteris.com, walks us through the strange tale of the former Bishop of Tyler, Texas, Joseph Edward Strickland.
Brief: The Twin Flames Story (w/Alice Hines)
Journalist and producer Alice Hines discusses the “master Christ” young couple at the center of Twin Flames Universe and the alarming story that unfolds in the documentary based on her Vanity Fair expose.
182: Recovering from Conspiracy Theories (w/Stephanie Kemmerer)
Today the trio discusses excerpts of an interview Matthew recorded with Stephanie Kemmerer, a former conspiracy theorist and now public educator. Stephanie is part of a newly formed non-profit called The American Information Integrity Alliance and co-facilitator of the support group DOUBT: Discussing Our Unusual Beliefs Together.
Deep Cut: The Eyes Always Watching Us
Derek interviewed journalist and researcher, Arthur Holland Michel, after the publication of Michel's 2019 book, Eyes in the Sky: The Secret Rise of Gorgon Stare and How It Will Watch Us All. When reading Naomi Klein's book, Doppelganger, Derek was struck by Klein's insight that the Right has picked up issues the Left has abandoned—such as surveillance technology.
181: YouTuber Redpills Preteen Boys
Julian and Matthew discuss Gadzhi's seemingly plagiarized rhetoric that invites preteen boys from Boston to Belarus to drop out of school. Manosphere types are drawn to fascist values like moths to the flame, yet when they get too close, they have to reckon with authoritarianism, and try to rebel against it.
Brief: RFK Jr. Loses New Age Support Over Israel
Matthew reports on the developments in RFK Jr's campaign and poses the questions: What is it about Gaza that suddenly makes the mainstream media reports credible to conspiritualists—as opposed to the news from Ukraine, or about COVID? And if RFK Jr. loses the support of the natural health pacifist who first backed him, who is he left to stand with?
180: Is This the Next Andrew Tate?
Iman Gadzhi is aggressively reaching into the brains of pre-teen boys around the world with a morbid fantasy about the origins of public education, and how it dooms them all into woke slavery. But it’s not just a conspiracy theory. It’s a highly-structured marketing campaign pitching his online sales coaching scheme as a substitute for high school.
Brief: Neoliberal Psychedelics
What happens when psychedelic therapy is introduced into a society in which both the set and setting is capitalism? Derek navigates the hope and hype of psychedelics in a for-profit healthcare system with two leading researchers, Neşe Devenot, PhD and Brian Pace, PhD.
179: The Conspiracy of…Cities? (w/Doug Gordon)
Derek is joined by “The War on Cars” co-host, Doug Gordon, to discuss how this conspiracy started and why smart urban planning is a boon for society. First, we discuss Jane Jacobs, the journalist and theorist who brought her civic activism to Toronto in 1968, with Matthew coloring in how her legacy has fared during the rise of the Ford family.
Special Report: QAnon Fantasies Look Like Colonial Realities (w/Julian Brave NoiseCat)
Matthew talks to Julian Brave NoiseCat, a writer and film doc maker, and a member of the Canim Lake Band, Tsq'escen.
178: Silicon Valley Veda
We dissect Marc Andreessen’s anarcho-capitalist attempt at a Silicon Valley religious doctrine, The Techno-Optimist Manifesto.
Brief: Bari Weiss's Sexual Revolution (w/Michelle Lhooq)
Bari Weiss recently held a "debate" about the failure of the sexual revolution. Derek gets the lowdown from journalist Michelle Lhooq, who wonders how the New Right captured the cool factor of the American counterculture—and how the Left gets it back.
Brief: Sovereign In Sedona (w/Isaac Stone Simonelli)
Arizona’s recent increase in “sovereign citizen filings” connects to a New Age spiritual center called the Ultimate Light Mission. Julian talks to investigative reporter Isaac Stone Simonelli.
176: Russell Brand’s Man Stans
We look at choice man-stan statements from Charles Eisenstein (RFK Jr’s Director of Messaging), and psychonaut Daniel Pinchbeck. We also look at a pre-allegations interview Brand did with meditation guru Jack Kornfield to learn more about how Brand has ingratiated himself to wellness entrepreneurs flattered by his attention.
Special Report: RFK Jr.’s Independence Day
On October 9, RFK Jr. brought his three-podcast-bros-in-a-trench-coat campaign to Philadelphia. On a dias across from Independence Hall, he announced his anticipated departure from the Democratic party and his new status as an independent candidate. Matthew and Julian profile his conspirituality credentials, his diagonalist politics, and his incoherent positions.
175: Diagonalism (w/William Callison and Quinn Slobodian)
There no clear left-right polarity in conspirituality. And Horseshoe Theory won’t cut it. We’re in the age of Diagonalism, and things are very, very weird.