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The late historian of religion James Carse (1932-2020) made a radical proposal in his 2012 book, The Religious Case Against Belief. He argued that beliefs, far from being central to or definitive of religion, are actually antithetical to religious community.
A religion’s historical longevity, he argued, depends on its ability to absorb and neutralize beliefs—epistemological dead ends built on willful ignorance.
“The challenge to religion,” Carse says, “is not its opponents from without, but its believers from within, and the real enemy of religion is belief itself.”
What does this mean for a project like Conspirituality and other projects of disillusionment carried out in the shadow of New Atheism and other modern skeptical movements?
Blair Hodges of the Fireside and Family Proclamations podcasts joins Matthew to discuss a potential casualty of the battle against religious extremism: a nuanced understanding of religion itself.
Show Notes
The Religious Case Against Belief by James P. Carse
Fireside with Blair Hodges
Family Proclamations w/ Blair Hodges
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Robert F Kennedy, Jr isn’t backing down. You can’t get away from his voice or his endless content stream. He’s banked on tech world oligarch anti-vax mom, Nicole Shanahan, to nail down the VP slot. His Children’s Health Defense charity is casting doubt on whether polio was even a virus. And he keeps claiming he’s not against vaccines himself, but his messaging around it tells a different story.
It’s been a few months since we’ve checked up on Chaos Kennedy, so it’s high time we did: to look at polling, rhetoric, and charismatic technique.
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Saknas det avsnitt?
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"Human Biologist" and life coach Gary Brecka's star rose after biohacking UFC President Dana White's health. Yet Derek has a few questions this week: Is someone with a degree from a chiropractic college qualified to talk about seed oils, GMOs, depression, tinnitus, fluoride, detoxifying through water fasts, and diet plans? Is it concerning that his 10X Health System cofounder is a fervent Scientologist? And what happens when you actually read the science Brecka is linking to?
Show Notes
Worst U.S. cities for air pollution ranked in new American Lung Association report
GMO Foods: How Genetically Modified Foods Sabotage Your Health | Ultimate Human with Gary Brecka
Are children and pregnant women risking their health by eating “GMO” foods? The American Association of Pediatrics controversially says ‘yes’. The real question: Is the AAP endangering the food vulnerable?
Organic foods are not healthier...or pesticide free.
A Comprehensive Review of Health-Benefiting Components in Rapeseed Oil
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A Deep Cut from our Patreon archive (July 2023)
What do we mean when we say that we believe something? When the QAnon Shaman got dressed on the morning of January 6, he put on his red, white, and blue face paint, his postmodern quasi-Native American horned fur hat, and grabbed the spear to which he had attached an American flag. In performance mode, this cosplay persona had already garnered him a taste of the attention that would soon increase exponentially as he became the most recognizable figure of the Capitol Riot.
In today’s Bonus, Julian argues that his costume, as well as his ritual actions on that day were also an expression of a political worldview, run through with deeply held spiritual beliefs about the world and his role in it. The history of political religion, propagandistic conspiracies, and progressive spiritual convictions may show that—far from being trivial—belief is at the heart of the American, and perhaps the human, story.
Intro music: Single Origins—Luz Cafe
Interstitial: Silent Song—Eccodek (EarthRise SoundSystem Remix)
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Neal Brennan has upped the artistic ante in stand-up comedy. In Netflix specials like "3 Mics and Blocks" he’s explored loneliness, isolation, and the mental health fallout of growing up the youngest of 10 in a Catholic family with an extremely unwell father. In the process he’s made some of the great mysteries of family pain and inner turmoil more tolerable.
And—he’s a fan of our podcast, because in his search for relief, he’s tripped through the land of psychedelics, where conspirituality can sour the active ingredients.
Neal joins us today to talk about his weird journey through the plant medicine scene, to wonder whether emotional and spiritual healing makes him funnier, and to answer our questions about how today’s comics are dealing—or not—with their supersized role as political pundits.
His new special is called Crazy Good.
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Tensions between Israel and Iran escalated as supernaturally-charged conspiracy theories about the solar eclipse flooded the internet. And so Julian searched for answers about the mysterious “red heifer.” What is so special about a red cow? Might its discovery and ensuing journey from Texas to Jerusalem have played a role in the October 7 attacks? Why are zealots from all three Abrahamic religions so focused on one piece of holy real estate? Could apocalyptic prophecies actually be self-fulfilling, even when the metaphysics are make-believe?
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Matthew is joined by Theo Wildcroft and Harriet McAtee, co-editors of The Yoga Teacher's Survival Guide: Social Justice, Science, Politics, and Power (Singing Dragon Publications), a volume of essays from 16 yoga world contributors.
Three yoga culture critic nerds get into the weeds of how wellness workers and yoga teachers survive and navigate a post-pandemic world that exists at the crossroads of:
capitalism and spirituality
medicine and religion
modern therapeutics and precolonial philosophy and caregiving
gigwork and care work
Theo is a yoga scholar. Harriet has been training yoga teachers for seven years in a little school in Oxford, UK.
Show Notes
The Yoga Teacher's Survival Guide | Singing Dragon - US
Theo Wildcroft
Harriet McAtee
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“Cult expert” Steve Hassan has been publicly concerned with the complex sociology of trans youth since 2020. We track that interest back to his communications with gender critical activists in 2017, who reached out to him because they believed that his cult theory could shed light on what they believed were nefarious aspects of the trans awareness movement. In the spirit of helpfulness, but without any chops in the subject, he stepped up to the plate and started swinging.
Regardless of how earnest or paranoid his concern is, his access to this landscape has been bought with his intellectual legacy, and been filtered through networks that question trans identity altogether. His most inflammatory (but also silly) claim is that many young people are being hypnotized by online pornography and influenced by social media groups to the extent they inexorably choose medical transition. We investigate and analyze this unfortunate skid into the culture war mud.
Hassan has stated at length his opposition to the “cancel culture” he believes is directed at Rowling and himself. This episode is not that. It’s a sober evaluation of legacy, disciplinary overreach, and what better public intellectual engagement would look like.
Show Notes
Full show notes posted to our website and Patreon.
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Following up on our Long COVID episode with Tara Haelle, Matthew will be expanding the Listener Stories portfolio with stories from listeners about navigating Long COVID. Why? Because there’s nothing like a mysterious disease, denied by some, stigmatized by others, and politicized by multiple interests, that will bring a person closer to the appeal of alt-med conspirituality.
Matthew Stillman is our guest today. Author, documentary filmmaker, and lifelong New Yorker, Stillman grew up in an eccentric family of spiritualism and alternative medicine, but which also fostered a healthy respect for evidence-based medicine. So what happens when experts at Mt. Sinai Center for Post-COVID care reach the end of their capacity to help him with not one but two strains of Long COVID? Red light therapy! Chinese herbs! And a bracing contemplation of what it means to explore the tension between hope and knowledge.
Show Notes
Matthew Stillman
The major genetic risk factor for severe COVID-19 is inherited from Neanderthals | Nature
How Genes from Neanderthals Predispose People to Severe COVID-19 | The Scientist Magazine
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Matthew is joined by historian Neil J. Young, co-host of the excellent Past Present Podcast, to talk about his new book: Coming Out Republican: a History of the Gay Right.
Young’s riveting storytelling shows how, beginning in the aftermath of WWII, many American gay men—born into socially conservative and religious families from which they had struggled to individuate—hitched the wagon of their political hopes to a Republican party they believed would champion their privacy and individual civil rights.
Ground zero for their fiercely libertarian clubs and action committees was San Francisco, where a culture of rugged entrepreneurship fostered the slogan “Keep the government out of our bedrooms, and out of our wallets.” It was an individualist politics that looked to Civil Rights and women’s rights movements for inspiration, but not allyship.
In time that same GOP would lead a culture war against everything queer—paradoxically led by closeted gay politicians who, with deeply conflicted motives, legislated against their fellows. But even as the tide turned, many gay Republicans kept their shoulders to the unforgiving wheel of respectability politics.
Young illuminates the flashes of bravery and self-reliance in these men’s stories, but also shows what happens when a marginalized group seeks acceptance and political power—instead of liberation—within a culture built on exclusion.
Neil writes for WaPo, the Atlantic, CNN, the Los Angeles Times, Vox, Politico, Slate, and the New York Times.
Show Notes
Coming Out Republican: A History of the Gay Right, Young
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When Moms For Liberty attacks libraries with demands to ban books about MLK Jr and age-appropriate sex education, and claims that librarians are grooming their children into the trans agenda, they’re enacting the worst forms of neo-fascist bullying. But they’re also paradoxically defending a troubled American legacy against a librarian culture attempting to course-correct towards greater inclusion.To discuss this problem, Matthew talks to Heath Umbreit, a reference librarian who works at a public library in the northeastern U.S. Mis- and disinformation has been a professional and personal interest of theirs for several years; Heath's study of the phenomenon focuses on a critical examination of popular narratives about disinformation, the concept of epistemic supremacy, and the ways in which information and disinformation intersect with systemic power differentials in American society.Show NotesDerek gives the Keynote Address at the 2023 Oregon Library Association's Annual ConferenceLibrary Bill of Rights | Advocacy, Legislation & Issues Students, authors fight censorship in PA schools Kuo & Marwick, "Critical Disinformation Studies"Morales & Williams, "Moving Toward Transformative Librarianship: Naming and Identifying Epistemic Supremacy"danah boyd, "You Think You Want Media Literacy... Do You?"PEN America, 2023 Banned Books Update: Banned in the USAKelly Jensen, Trauma, Book Bans, and Libraries: A Resource Guide for Library Workers, Library Supporters, and BeyondKristen Browde, Who's Making News for Sex Crimes Involving Children?Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
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Project 2025 is the libertarian conservative Heritage Foundation’s systematic governance plan for the next Republican president. The 920-page plan aims to implement the "unitary executive theory," which would give all of the power of the US government to the executive branch—Donald Trump, if he wins in November.
Derek and Julian read the chapter on the Department of Education, which focuses on unlocking public funds for Christian schools while banning any discussion on DEI, CRT, or gender theory.
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A common sentiment in wellness spaces is that people turn to alt-med practices due to the exorbitant costs of American healthcare. While the latter is certainly true, Derek and Julian discuss why a lot of products and services in wellness land is really just another form of extractive capitalism.
Head to factormeals.com/conspirituality50 and use code conspirituality50 to get 50% off your first month plus 20% off your next month!
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This week we take stock of the full entrenchment of the Mirror World, where conspirituality influencers bask in the rays of confident delusion. After a little stage-setting on the heterodox mediasphere, we open with a snapshot of conspirituality Valhalla as we listen in on Joe Rogan and Chris Rufo talking about unhoused people as though they are children who haven’t been given good boundaries.
Then we’ll look at four instances in which the spectacle brokers meet reality. What happens when Chaya Raichik gets bodied by Taylor Lorenz? What happens when the Moms for Liberty have to explain themselves on 60 minutes? What happens when Destiny rejects Jordan Peterson’s bullshit? And what happens when the mack daddy of it all, Alex Jones, gets confronted by Sandy Hook parents, face to face? Does reality break through?
Head to factormeals.com/conspirituality50 and use code conspirituality50 to get 50% off your first month plus 20% off your next month!
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Project 2025 is the libertarian conservative Heritage Foundation’s systematic governance plan for the next Republican president. The 920-page plan aims to implement the "unitary executive theory," which would give all of the power of the US government to the executive branch—Donald Trump, if he wins in November.
This week, Derek and Julian investigate the chapter on the Department of Agriculture, which aims to strip funding for food stamps and welfare programs and further deregulate Big Ag. And if you think the author is part of a climate change denial think tank, you'd be correct.
Head to factormeals.com/conspirituality50 and use code conspirituality50 to get 50% off your first month plus 20% off your next month!
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The death of Mahsa Jina Amini at the hands of the Islamic Republic’s “morality police” in September 2022 lit a fuse on a fervent global protest movement. Jina’s crime was wearing an “improper” headscarf in public. The slogan, “Woman, Life, Freedom,” which first emerged in the fight for Kurdish equality, was used by thousands of brave, defiant women in Iran (along with male supporters), who called for an end to oppression, discrimination, tyranny, and dictatorship.
Eighteen months later, the Iranian government has increased video surveillance and morality police patrols, imposed even harsher penalties for female disobedience, and leaned even further into brutal torture methods and daily executions. Meanwhile, Ali Khamenei’s administration floods the population with propaganda and conspiracy theories.
Julian talks to Iranian human rights activist and former BBC World Service reporter, Negin Shiraghaei, about the Woman, Life, Freedom movement, which she says remains active and unstoppable.
Show Notes
Iran one year after Woman, Life, Freedom
Iran: Alarming Surge in Executions
Khamenei Refuses US Help, Citing COVID Conspiracy Theory
Iran’s Supreme Leader Calls Gender Equality a Zionist Plot
Iranian Singer Sentenced to 3 years in Jail for Mahsa Amini Protest Anthem
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In response to Kerry Howley’s meticulous reporting on the deceptions of Andrew Huberman in New York Magazine, Huberstans around the world are braying that the man’s private life has nothing to do with his virtue as a science communicator.
Not so, we argue in this brief. Deception in one mirrors deception in the other, and there is no private life for the influencer who wants to influence your private life.
Beyond shilling for Athletic Greens and saying that sunscreen winds up in your brain, Huberman opines on relationships, sex, and addiction issues as if he is an expert—instead of (an alleged) hot mess.
Pseudoscience and pseudotherapy are parallel harms—both using manipulative jargon to convince consumers or women respectively that the influencer is well-researched and using best practices to be of service.
So we advise all Huberstans to view their hero… holistically.
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Reverend Rob Schenck spent 30 years on the front lines of the Evangelical war against Roe V. Wade. He blockaded abortion clinics, screamed at women in crisis, used fetal remains as political props, and helped wage a covert war of moneyed influence over federal officials to end abortion access.
Now, in a return to his deeper religious commitments, he is repenting his past. In an interview with Matthew, he discusses his blissful conversion experience as a teenager rooted in what he believed was a radical social justice movement. And he describes what he now sees: an anti-abortion movement helping to galvanize the Christian Nationalism poised to wreak havoc on American politics, and what we can do to push back against its aggression.
Show Notes
Fresh Air for July 11, 2018: An Evangelical Minister's Change Of Heart On Abortion
Former Anti-Abortion Leader Alleges Another Supreme Court Breach
Former Anti-Abortion Lobbyist Rev Robert Schenck Statement on "Operation Higher Court"
Robert "Rob" L. Schenck
About - Truth Revealed — Rob Schenck’s blog
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In this series of audio essays, Matthew will examine how children as symbols—but not persons with their own internal lives—are at the center of conspirituality anxiety and discourse.
There are two types of imaginary child in conspirituality. One is an object of dread. The other is an idol of aspiration.
In the realm of dread we have fetuses murdered by late term abortion, children who are trafficked, made autistic by vaccines, sexualized by pornography in elementary school, or mutilated by trans activist doctors.
In the realm of idols we have newborn babies sliding like dolphins into warm birthing tubs after a mere hour of ecstatic, medically-unassisted home births. We have little girls in prairie dresses or first communion veils who must be protected from library drag queens or woke grade school teachers. We have starseeds and indigo children who carry prophecies from the great beyond.
We often reflect on the problem of authority on this podcast. Who are our leaders, and what gives them power? Why do conspiracists default to God to corroborate fantasies? What gap in cultural fatherhood is Jordan Peterson trying to fill?
With this series, Matthew looks in the other direction: what does the conspirituality crowd do with its own authority? How do misgivings, regrets and shame in relation to children get inflated and projected into moral panics?
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Former monk turned spiritual influencer to the stars, Jay Shetty, has amassed 15 million followers on Instagram. He’s interviewed Michelle Obama, Kim Kardashian, and Kobe Bryant on his popular podcast. Shetty has received accolades from Gwenyth Paltrow and Ellen Degeneres. He even officiated J Lo and Ben Affleck’s wedding.
Yet when LA-based writer John McDermott was assigned to cover Shetty for Esquire, something seemed…off. When he started pulling at some threads, Esquire pulled out of the feature. Fortunately, The Guardian agreed to publish McDermott’s investigative reporting, in which he found little of Shetty’s origin story holds up to scrutiny.
John joins Derek and Matthew to discuss.
Show Notes
Uncovering the higher truth of Jay Shetty
‘Very few have balls’: How American news lost its nerve
Jay Shetty Is Full Of SH*T!
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