Conspirituality

Less than two weeks after a shooter unloaded 500 rounds at the CDC in Atlanta, RFK Jr gutted that agency's violence prevention research by firing 100 employees. Less than a month later, Charlie Kirk was shot in front of a crowd of 3K at a Utah university. Millions saw the graphic clip online, which ignited a propaganda and disinformation culture war. Meanwhile, yet another child shot his classmates at a Denver high school that same day. It's not the guns though, say the GOP pundits and politicians, it's the violent rhetoric from the left, and those hateful transgender antifascists. Just ask RFK Jr. He'll confirm that it's not the guns, but all those kids overmedicated on dangerous antidepressants. What are SSRIs anyway, do hurt people hurt people, and do gun laws have any effect? Show Notes No, Antidepressants Do Not Provoke Mass Shootings Mental Illness and Lone Actor Terrorism Is There a Link Between Mental Health and Mass Shootings? | Columbia University Department of Psychiatry Politically-Motivated Violence is Rare in the US No Statistical Support for SSRI-Mass Shooting Connection Mass Shooters and Political Assassins Have Similar Profiles The Violence Prevention Project Characteristics of Lone Wolf Violent Offenders Blackpill Aesthetics: A Crash Course in Meme Extremism  62: Manifesting Something Awful (w/Dale Beran) — Conspirituality Gun Purchases by Year Correlation Between States with Weak Laws/High Ownership and Gun Deaths Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

The events of September 11, 2001 changed the world. Julian reflects on several interpretations of what they meant, proposing that each is a kind of Rorschach-test result based on our own religious and political beliefs, backgrounds, and social conditioning.  The conspiracy theorist simply can’t believe something like that could happen to America, going in search of complicated alternative explanations that exist outside of the “official narrative,” even of reality itself. Where the Christian conservative might see a call to Holy War signaling that the End Times is near, Neocon warhawks surrounding Bush observe an opportunity to enact plans for maintaining economic and political power and security. Meanwhile, many on the left see the attack as justifiable “blowback” against American imperialism, Cold War atrocities, and Western colonialism. Religion is merely an inflaming of a fundamentalist minority based on political injustices. What about the Soviet Union? The history of political Islam and massive Muslim caliphates that ruled for nearly 1,300 years? The intractable sectarian conflicts and the multiple internal ideologies vying for control over the Middle East? There may be no easy answers, but perhaps engaging with these different perspectives can allow us to name some of the many factors that got us to 9/11 and the seemingly unsolvable dilemmas of our world today. Show Notes Popular Mechanics on 911 conspiracies Noam Chomsky on 911 conspiracies Pilger on Project for A New American Century NYT 2023 Piece on the Reasons for Iraq War Saddam’s Ruthless Purge CNN on Kabul attitudes after US Invasion Polling of Iraqis Mahmood Mamdani Good Muslim, Bad Muslim Interview Human Rights Watch on Soviet Invasion of Afghanistan Taimur Rahman’s Red Star History of Political Islam Lectures Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Derek worked for nearly 10 months on a NY Times opinions video, "You Might Have Already Fallen for MAHA’s Conspiracy Theories," which was published this week. He discusses what it took to produce this video with his collaborator, Alex Stockton, as well as the role journalism has to play in dispelling health misinformation. Show Notes You Might Have Already Fallen for MAHA’s Conspiracy Theories Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

If it wasn't all so tragic, politics might seem like a bad joke. But how did comedy become so unfunny, so politically toxic?  From his hideout in a remote mountain cabin, anonymous video collage artist and essayist The Elephant Graveyard has finally cracked the code. According to him, Joe Rogan has created a doomsday death cult that feeds the dad-shaped hole in the hearts of its followers. In this allegory, his Comedy Mothership theater in Austin is like the alien spacecraft zooming in from behind the Hale Bop comet to take the Heaven's Gate group suicide victims home, freed from their earth-suits.  And it turns out tech oligarchs Peter Thiel and Elon Musk are really behind it all. Show Notes Vile Grifters Are Taking Over Establishment Media How Comedy Was Destroyed by an Anti-Reality Doomsday Cult Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Biostatistician Halbert Dunn's 1961 book, High Level Wellness, set the stage for the modern wellness movement. Derek reads it alongside some of today's top conspiritualists, noticing the themes (and differences) that run throughout Dunn's work. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

The recent killing of two police officers (and wounding of a third) in Porepunkah, Australia has highlighted the dangers of sovereign citizen-style conspiratorial beliefs. The alleged shooter is still at large, but his social media footprint shows anti-vaccine, COVID-contrarian, and even QAnon-aligned beliefs, as well as a long history of violent threats against police. Julian talks to journalists Ariel Bogle and Cam Wilson, co-authors of an excellent new book, Conspiracy Nation: Exposing The Dangerous World of Australian Conspiracy Theories. As with everywhere else in the world, the pandemic poured gasoline on what would become a familiar set of incendiary false beliefs—but the sociopolitical and historical context down under has its own unique details. The conversation spans claims of government false-flag operations, real legacies of institutional abuse, and Australia’s most famous conspiracy export and celebrity chef, Pete Evans. Show Notes Conspiracy Nation Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Trump is still alive, though a lot of folks are excited that won't last. Maybe it’s testimony to the allure of the fantasy that he really is powerful, that his strongman schtick has legs, that he really has cast some magical spell over everyone—and that if he drops dead we’ll all wake up to a different world… Of course we won’t. But we’ll go through the fantasies today: the wishes, the schadenfreude, the diagnosis-at-a-distance, and what it means to imagine the death of a king. Show Notes ŌURA Announces U.S. Manufacturing Operations in Support of Scaling Defense Business Oura Ring makers working with military to open first U.S. factory in Fort Worth What Does Palantir Actually Do? Palantir co-founder Peter Thiel to lead 4-part series on the Antichrist Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Matthew recounts the story of a young, hoity-toity soft-nationalist German theologian named Dietrich Bonhoeffer who discovered the radical soul of antifascism by hanging out in a Black Baptist church in Harlem in 1930. He came to the US believing in the white Jesus of European empire, but left enthralled by the Black Jesus of the oppressed. Back in Germany, he played 78s of spirituals and gospel tunes for the students of his illegal seminaries as he and other members of the Confessing Church issued some of the earliest formal rebukes to the Reich. And then he joined a plot to assassinate Hitler.  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Matthew recounts the story of a young, hoity-toity soft-nationalist German theologian named Dietrich Bonhoeffer who discovered the radical soul of antifascism by hanging out in a Black Baptist church in Harlem in 1930. He came to the US believing in the white Jesus of European empire, but left enthralled by the Black Jesus of the oppressed. Back in Germany, he played 78s of spirituals and gospel tunes for the students of his illegal seminaries as he and other members of the Confessing Church issued some of the earliest formal rebukes to the Reich. And then he joined a plot to assassinate Hitler.  Show Notes UCLA Fires Beloved Professor Over 2024 Encampment Arrest – Poppy Press  NY Mayoral Candidates Address Sanctuary, Trump and Religious Hatred at Interfaith Forum  Religion and Socialism Working Group - Democratic Socialists of America (DSA)   Undersold and Oversold: Reinhold Neibuhr and Economic Justice  Swing Low Sweet Chariot - Fisk Jubilee Singers (1909)  St. James Missionary Baptist Church of Canton: Wade In the Water (1978)  Evangelische Kirche Halle Westfalen Bethge, Eberhard. Dietrich Bonhoeffer: A Biography. Translated by Eric Mosbacher, Peter and Betty Ross, Frank Clarke, and William Glen-Doepel. Revised and edited by Victoria J. Barnett. Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 2000. Bonhoeffer, Dietrich. The Cost of Discipleship. Translated by R. H. Fuller, revised by Irmgard Booth. New York: Touchstone, 2018. Bonhoeffer, Dietrich. Letters and Papers from Prison. Edited by Eberhard Bethge. Translated by Reginald Fuller, Frank Clark, and John Bowden. New York: Touchstone, 1997. Bonhoeffer, Dietrich. The Bonhoeffer Reader. Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 2013. Marsh, Charles. Strange Glory. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2014. Martin, Eric. The Writing on the Wall: Signs of Faith Against Fascism. Eugene, OR: Cascade Books, 2022. McNeil, Genna Rae, Houston Bryan Roberson, Quinton Hosford Dixie, and Kevin McGruder. Witness: Two Hundred Years of African-American Faith and Practice at the Abyssinian Baptist Church of Harlem, New York. Grand Rapids, Michigan: Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Co., 2014. Tietz, Christiane. Theologian of Resistance: The Life and Thought of Dietrich Bonhoeffer. Translated by Victoria J. Barnett. Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 2016. Weil, Simone. The Need for Roots: Prelude to a Declaration of Duties towards Mankind. Translated by Arthur Wills. With a preface by T. S. Eliot. New York: Routledge, 2002. Williams, Reggie L. Bonhoeffer’s Black Jesus: Harlem Renaissance Theology and an Ethic of Resistance. Waco, Texas: Baylor University Press, 2014. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

The unavoidable question of the week: why is Jillian Michaels on CNN commenting on slavery, exactly? As it turns out, Netflix provides the answer. The three-part docuseries, Fit for TV: The Reality of the Biggest Loser, creeps behind the scenes of this uber-popular and uber-disturbing reality show that weirdly promoted fat-shaming while simultaneously pretending to alleviate it. As we’ll discuss today, we can’t shake the feeling that the biggest loser from this entire mess is all of us. Show Notes As Republicans spar over IVF, some turn to obscure MAHA-backed alternative RFK Jr. Is Getting Personal Authority Over Who to Kick Off Medicaid Trump and RFK Jr. to Ban COVID-19 Vaccine ‘Within Months’ Scientists Strip ‘Diversity’ Language From Research to Keep Federal Grants After ‘The Biggest Loser,’ Their Bodies Fought to Regain Weight ACOG on "Restorative Reproductive medicine” Arkansas’ RESTORE Act MAHA-backed IVF-alternative Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Levitation, world peace, and blissful enlightenment were all essential to the hippie counterculture. But it came at quite a price. Maharishi Mahesh Yogi made billions selling magical mantras and the promise of perfect happiness. Most well-known for being endorsed by the Beatles and David Lynch, he was also feted by world leaders and prestigious universities. The true story behind this 5’1” marketing genius is complex and layered: illicit sex, paranormal promises, alternative medicine, palatial estates, overpriced courses, bogus quantum physics, indoctrinated children, and mass group meditation combined with “yogic flying” would supposedly bring about world peace. For his latest stand-alone episode in the Roots of Conspirituality series, Julian dives deep into the money-scented blissful waters of Transcendental Meditation and reports back on the sharks that swim beneath the surface. Stay tuned for some reflections at the end about the differences between cults and more familiar, normalized religions. Show Notes David Wants to Fly Robes of Silk, Feet of Clay The Deceptive World of ™ Maharishi Exposed Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Plandemic creator Mikki Willis recently hosted an hour-long webinar to promote his supplements company. Marketed as a storytelling hour to share the power of immunity and god with their followers, the conversation went off the rails. Derek and Julian tune in and discuss. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

The right has waged a war on “woke” Sesame Street for generations. When the party passed the 2025 Recissions Act, they were finally able to take a significant field advantage in this battle—one which Big Bird and Mr Snuffleupagus never wanted to be in. That bill stripped $1.1 billion from the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, greatly damaging NPR, PBS, and mostly their member stations. The CPB announced it will have to close in January 2026. What will take its place? Well, the right has a plan for that, or so Vox speculates: PragerU. Founded in 2009 as a right-wing alternative to reality, the sprawling, well-funded network teaches kids to hate DEI, love paying taxes, and recognize that the Bible offers the only salvation on this planet. Could it replace Sesame Street, however? Well, it’s already in use in numerous classrooms—and the right wants it in all of them. Show Notes The White House has a preferred alternative to PBS. It may already be in countless classrooms. What Percentage of White Southerners Owned Slaves How Neoliberalism Swallowed Arts Policy The Global Liberal Arts Challenge | Ethics & International Affairs When the Arts Are Attacked, Democracy Is at Risk | Greater Pittsburgh Arts Council Davis, Michael. Street Gang: The Complete History of Sesame Street. New York: Penguin Books, 2014. Kamp, David. Sunny Days. New York: Simon & Schuster, n.d. Ledbetter, James. Made Possible By...: The Death of Public Broadcasting in the United States. London; New York: Verso, 1997. Stewart, David C.The PBS Companion: A History of Public Television. New York: TV Books, 1999. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

In preparation for this Thursday's episode on PragerU, Derek looks at one of the propaganda organization's videos featuring naturopathic practitioner, Joseph Pizzorno. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

The Enhanced Games promises to display the "true potential" of athletes by letting them use any sort of performance enhancement drugs available when it launches in Las Vegas in 2026. Yet why would a group of Silicon Valley billionaires and venture capitalists with no interest in sports be behind it? Likely because it's all a supplements grift, as Derek and Julian discuss. Show Notes The Definitive, Insane, Swimsuit-Bursting Story of the Steroid Olympics Joe Rogan Experience #2166 - Enhanced Games Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

The implications of awarding Robert F Kennedy, Jr with a position he’s completely unqualified for are becoming clearer by the day. While he’s made numerous egregious and dangerous moves as Secretary of HHS, canceling nearly $500 million of mRNA research grants is one of the most startling and shortsighted to date. Today we look at both the microcosm and macrocosm of such a move. Show Notes Kennedy Cancels Nearly $500 Million in mRNA Vaccine Contracts RFK Jr. slashed mRNA vaccine development funding. A Nobel Prize winner just responded Kennedy to halt $500 million in vaccine projects Exclusive: Medical journal rejects Kennedy's call for retraction of vaccine study Do All Celebrities Have Lyme Disease Now?  CDC Lyme Disease Case Maps  How mRNA Vaccines Work CDC Explaining How Vaccines Work Clinical Advances for mRNA Vaccines and Cancer Immunotherapy Katalin Kariko’s Brittanica page Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Well, I seem to always be inspired by the person who is considered marginal. Firstly, their spirit of survival, their resilience, their lack of self-pity, the ability usually to laugh in the face of having nothing and to create a kind of sense of flamboyance and life at any cost, despite having you know no resources of any kind that are visible. That's what inspires me and I think in making portraits of the so-called outsiders, I'm also then allowed to question what is that society that deems us an outsider? — Mira Nair on BBC “Masterpiece”, 11/29/04 When official America speaks of good and bad Muslims, we must not think that they are speaking of the attitude of Muslims to Islam. They are actually talking about the attitude of Muslims to the U.S. A good Muslim is simply a pro-American Muslim and a bad Muslim is simply an anti-American Muslim. This is not about Islam, it is about America. — Mahmoud Mamdani, C-Span's Book TV series, hosted by the University of Michigan on April 15, 2005. Want to better understand Zohran Mamdani’s intellectual and emotional heritage? Want to understand how he seems to be thrashing the culture war with, well culture? Matthew did, and so he looked into the films of his mom Mira Nair (Part 1), and the scholarship of his dad, Mahmood (Part 2). Show Notes Masterpiece - Mira Nair - BBC Sounds  Good Muslim, Bad Muslim | Author Mahmood Mamdani  Good Muslim, Bad Muslim | Penguin Random House Secondary Education  Reluctant Fundamentalist, The Ben Affleck, Sam Harris and Bill Maher Debate Radical Islam | Real Time with Bill Maher (HBO)  Sam Harris on the Reality of Islam - Truthdig   Samuel Huntington’s Great Idea Was Totally Wrong | The New Republic #ZeeJLF2018 | Mira Nair A timeline of JK Rowling's anti-trans shift  Mori Araj Suno lyrics  My secret debate with Sam Harris: A revealing 4-hour dialogue on Islam, racism & free-speech hypocrisy - Salon.com  New Atheists and old prejudices - The Chronikler The Clash of Civilizations - If Books Could Kill - Apple Podcasts  President Reagan welcomes al-Qaeda and Mujahideen leaders to the White House, May 1986   For Zohran Mamdani, Mom Mira Nair’s Films Were a Formative Influence Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Well, I seem to always be inspired by the person who is considered marginal. Firstly, their spirit of survival, their resilience, their lack of self-pity, the ability usually to laugh in the face of having nothing and to create a kind of sense of flamboyance and life at any cost, despite having you know no resources of any kind that are visible. That's what inspires me and I think in making portraits of the so-called outsiders, I'm also then allowed to question what is that society that deems us an outsider? — Mira Nair on BBC “Masterpiece”, 11/29/04 When official America speaks of good and bad Muslims, we must not think that they are speaking of the attitude of Muslims to Islam. They are actually talking about the attitude of Muslims to the U.S. A good Muslim is simply a pro-American Muslim and a bad Muslim is simply an anti-American Muslim. This is not about Islam, it is about America. — Mahmoud Mamdani, C-Span's Book TV series, hosted by the University of Michigan on April 15, 2005. Want to better understand Zohran Mamdani’s intellectual and emotional heritage? Want to understand how he seems to be thrashing the culture war with, well culture? Matthew did, and so he looked into the films of his mom Mira Nair (Part 1), and the scholarship of his dad, Mahmood (Part 2). Show Notes Masterpiece - Mira Nair - BBC Sounds  Good Muslim, Bad Muslim | Author Mahmood Mamdani  Good Muslim, Bad Muslim | Penguin Random House Secondary Education  Reluctant Fundamentalist, The Ben Affleck, Sam Harris and Bill Maher Debate Radical Islam | Real Time with Bill Maher (HBO)  Sam Harris on the Reality of Islam - Truthdig   Samuel Huntington’s Great Idea Was Totally Wrong | The New Republic #ZeeJLF2018 | Mira Nair A timeline of JK Rowling's anti-trans shift  Mori Araj Suno lyrics  My secret debate with Sam Harris: A revealing 4-hour dialogue on Islam, racism & free-speech hypocrisy - Salon.com  New Atheists and old prejudices - The Chronikler The Clash of Civilizations - If Books Could Kill - Apple Podcasts  President Reagan welcomes al-Qaeda and Mujahideen leaders to the White House, May 1986   For Zohran Mamdani, Mom Mira Nair’s Films Were a Formative Influence Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

In her new biography of Gwyneth Paltrow, Amy Odell calls Goop “a powerful platform for spreading health misinformation.” So many topics Goop has covered favorably—yoni eggs, coffee enemas, celery juice—have been scrutinized on our podcast. Rolling off her successful biography of Anna Wintour, Odell decided to train her sight on the “It girl” of the nineties who pivoted to a lucrative but contentious wellness business that laid the groundwork for the influencer aesthetic. She joins Derek to discuss her new book. But first, we discuss our thoughts on Odell’s subject. Show Notes Gwyneth: The Biography BackRow by Amy Odell Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Everything about Zen Master Rama was fake—except for the piles of money he made. His black belt in paranormal martial arts, three past lives as a Buddhist teacher, 31 meditation albums he claimed to compose in other dimensions, multiple computer software companies, and a bestseller based on being a “world-class snowboarder” were all smoke and mirrors.  He had no training or talent in any of these areas. He was an expert con man, however. The man wore Versace suits and Rolex watches, bought mansions, and owned a collection of pricey cars. His headshots were by the top Hollywood photographer of the day; he made many TV appearances. His students believed he could fill rooms with golden light, skate on light-beams, and protect them from the demons he claimed wanted to steal their enlightened energy. He instructed them to be celibate but then manipulated and coerced the prettiest into joining him for tantric sex rituals he claimed would accelerate their enlightenment. It didn’t end well for anyone—including him. In the latest installment of the Roots of Conspirituality series, Julian tells the tale of Frederick Lenz, a quintessential 80's synthesizer of phoney Buddhism, New Age delusions, cultic abuse, and wealth as a signifier of spiritual progress. Show Notes The Code Cult of the CPU Guru Mentor to Some, Cult Leader to Others The Guru’s Latest Incarnation Atrocity Guide The Enlightenment Fraud of  Zen Master Rama Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices