Katherine Stewart is an investigative reporter and author who has covered religious liberty, politics, policy, and education for over a decade. Her journalism appears in the NY Times, NBC, the New Republic, and the New York Review of Books. Author of the book, The Power Worshippers, Stewart joins us today to discuss the dangers of growing Christian Nationalism in America.

An anti-vax, COVID-grievance, climate-science denying, communism panic-generating film by Mikki Willis just won “Best Documentary Feature” at the Santa Monica International Film Festival. Julian attended the festival in order to track how Willis’s latest paranoid pseudomentary, “Plandemic 3: The Great Awakening,” was platformed at this annual fete held in affluent Santa Monica.

Dr. Jen Gunter is an OB/GYN who has been offering actual women’s health information through a solidly feminist lens for decades as the author of several books, including 2019’s The Vagina Bible, 2021’s The Menopause Manifesto, and her newest book, which dropped just 3 weeks ago: Blood: The science, medicine, and mythology of menstruation.

Author, lawyer, and social impact consultant Dax-Devlon Ross takes Derek on a journey through the life of a DEI facilitator—and corrects the bias and misinformation pundits like Chris Rufo and Bari Weiss spread as gospel.

This episode has been brewing for some time. This week we ask: which hole is coffee really supposed to go in? Because, in the contrarian and conspiratorial wellness world, a growing number of influencers advocate for your morning java to go where the sun doesn't shine. If that's not alarming enough, they claim coffee enemas will treat autism, cancer, parasites, and much more.

Mallory DeMille is here to finally flush out this nonsense.

From the Supreme Court to Project 2025, reactionary Catholics are on the frontlines of this year’s war on democracy. Many of them bend the knee to an Italian redpilled Vatican diplomat: Cardinal Carlo Maria Viganò. 

Taylor Lorenz joins to discuss reporting in an age of conspiracy theories and online trolling, the challenges of covering long Covid in an age of overwhelming health misinformation, and what it’s like to be extremely online. 

Julian checks in on some of the legacy conspiritualists profiled in our book—Russell Brand, Dr. Christiane Northrup, Mikki Willis, JP Sears, and Lorie Ladd—to see what their online messaging around Christmas and the New Year tells us. 

Cat Bohannon joins to discuss her book, Eve: How the Female Body Drove 200 Million Years of Human Evolution.

Dr. Taslim Alani-Verjee discusses how it feels to see her community drawn into culture war territory over sex ed and gender issues.

To help us understand MAGA and beyond, we're joined by journalist, professor, and documentarian, Jeff Sharlet. His books, The Undertow: Scenes From a Slow Civil War and The Family: The Secret Fundamentalism at the Heart of American Power are field guides for understanding modern America.

David Lesondak breaks down what fascia is, how it functions in the body, and why fascia pseudoscience by the likes of Human Garage is so dangerous.

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.