Matthew is joined by Esme Providence Brown to examine the history of and present-day ramifications of anti-trafficking movements—projects that often scapegoat women who are secretly desired but publicly hated.

Matthew runs down what we know about Del Bigtree and what he thinks this appointment with the RFK Jr campaign will bring. 

With 54 conservative and religious organizations signing on and over 450 contributors, as well as untold millions in dark money, The Heritage Foundation is leading the charge with Project 2025, an anti-abortion, anti-LBGTQ+, anti-DEI, anti-civil liberties game plan.

Friend of the pod and Straight White American Jesus host Brad Onishi joins Matthew for a New Year’s discussion of post-religious spirituality.

Mallory DeMille returns to talk about the coaches who coach coaches industry: marketing tactics, parallels to multilevel marketing, and the glut in the coaching industry.

Maya Lilly—a film, television, and digital media producer who focuses on activist documentary storytelling—joins Derek to discuss the challenging world of climate change activism.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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. 

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.

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.

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.

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?

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.

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.

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.

Matthew talks to Julian Brave NoiseCat, a writer and film doc maker, and a member of the Canim Lake Band, Tsq'escen.