Conspirituality

Επεισόδια

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  326: The War on Empathy 17.09.2026 1ώ 7λ

  Humans are social animals. We’re not the strongest, fastest, or even best adapted to our environment. But what we excel at is our ability to work together, which means we’ve been able to adapt to every environment, a true outlier in the animal kingdom. And a big reason for that is our ability to empathize with others. Basically, empathy is the ability to step into someone else's shoes, understand what they are thinking or feeling, and share in that emotional experience. The main types of empathy are cognitive, affective (or emotional), and somatic. Derek looks at the first two in segment two through the lens of Paul Bloom’s work, but given a recent book by Lebanese-born Canadian marketing professor, Gad Saad (which Matthew covers in segment three), we thought we’d look at how empathy is being used, and potentially distorted, in modern society. Or, as Julian starts with, how it’s being weaponized on social media by Christian nationalists. Show Notes This Lebanese-Canadian Behavioral Scientist Is Gaining World Fame Gad Saad: Google Scholar profile Jews safer in Mississippi than Canada, says Jewish prof who left Montreal for Ole Miss He's Canada's number one author, and he's leaving Canada for safety reasons  David Saad: Olympedia (official Olympic biographical record) Gad Saad thread on his brother's Olympic/antisemitism story Trump Says There Are 25 Million Illegal Immigrants Fact Check: Did 20 Million Illegal Immigrants Enter US Under Biden? Record 14 Million Unauthorized Immigrants Lived in the US in 2023 Vance magnifies false claims about Haitian immigrants eating pets ADL's Global 100 Survey: What Does It Actually Say About Muslim Attitudes Toward Jews? Examining the ADL's Antisemitism Audit Campus Antisemitism and Student Experiences (CASE) Flawed by Design: Jewish Faculty Network Response to CASE Report First Anti-Islam March by Pegida Movement Fizzles in Denmark Why Moslems Cannot, Will Not, Need Not Integrate Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
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  Bonus Sample: What Happened to Yoga? 14.09.2026 6λ

  A recent article in The Atlantic ponders the current state of yoga. Derek weighs in based on his decades-long experiences. Show Notes What Happened to Yoga? Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
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  Brief: The Cultural Marxism Conspiracy Theory (w/AJA Woods) 12.09.2026 42λ

  AJA Woods (The Cultural Marxism Conspiracy) joins Matthew to trace how "cultural Marxism" mutated from Nazi "cultural Bolshevism" and the British Union of Fascists' attacks on modernist art, through Lyndon LaRouche's CIA-brainwashing lore, into Paul Weyrich and William Lind's 1990s "political correctness" rebrand, Pat Buchanan and the Tea Party's free-floating panic, Andrew Breitbart's arugula jokes, before finally landing as Christopher Rufo's anti-CRT crusade and James Lindsay's "Race Marxism."  Woods argues the throughline isn't honest scholarship on the Frankfurt School but a recurring move: relabel any liberation struggle—civil rights, feminism, trans rights, climate action—as an elite conspiracy, so its gains can be revoked as "foreign" corruption. Should sane people keep participating in these "debates" or refuse the frame and point to material stakes instead?  Show Notes A.J.A. Woods, The Cultural Marxism Conspiracy: Why the Right Blames the Frankfurt School for the Decline of the West  Jack Z. Bratich, Conspiracy Panics: Political Rationality and Popular Culture  Perry Anderson, Considerations on Western Marxism  James Lindsay, Race Marxism: The Truth About Critical Race Theory and Praxis Christopher Rufo, New Yorker Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
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  325: Long COVID Profiteers 10.09.2026 1ώ 13λ

  Conspiracy theorists have decided Novak Djokovic has long COVID — despite no evidence — because he's become an anti-vax icon courted by RFK Jr. and Dr. Oz. So we thought it was high time for a long COVID update.  Derek looks at a new Boston Children's Hospital research on viral reactivation, as well as the findings of a 2026 meta-analysis pooling 200,000+ participants. Matthew surveys the Canadian LC landscape, where insurance-industry money is quietly funding McGill's Institute for Transforming Healthcare and McMaster's FALCON trial, testing the pseudoscientific "Lightning Process" on Long COVID patients, led by researcher Dr. Jason Busse, who has deep insurance-disability ties. Finally, Julian unpacks Phil Parker's Lightning Process — Ericksonian NLP dressed as neuroscience, with roots in hypnotherapy, cult techniques, and pure "neuro-bollocks." Show Notes Kennedy Hires Covid Vaccine Skeptic to Look at Dubious Claims of Military Deaths A New Brunswick woman's account of being left to find her own way with long COVID Canadians frustrated by long COVID as they grapple with its effects December 2023 release on Canadians' experiences with long-term COVID symptoms Fourth Report on longer-term symptoms among Canadian adults "Dealing with the Fallout": post-COVID condition's continued impact Survey record confirming the CCAHS was a one-time collection RFK Jr.'s workforce cuts wiped out federal tracking of key health data Trudeau kept Harper's health care funding formula 2025 National Health Expenditure Trends snapshot Canada Health Transfer deductions for non-compliance are declining Carney refuses to commit to enforcing the Canada Health Act Canada's affordability crisis and health care Ontario should join Alberta in challenging the Canada Health Act Alberta's new health system structure under Premier Smith Alberta's "Bill 11" and Ford's hospital privatization Union concern over Saskatchewan's move toward privatization McGill launches initiative to strengthen Canada's healthcare system Sectoral Asset Management's healthcare-investing focus Manulife launches Global Longevity Institute committing $350M by 2030 Manulife advances longevity leadership in Canada with support for the National Institute on Ageing's landmark survey National Institute on Ageing releases 2025 Ageing in Canada Survey FALCON study Petition calling to pause McMaster's FALCON trial Original 2011 PACE trial publication Peter White's ties to Swiss Re The PACE team's insurance-company consulting work The yawning gap in ME/CFS research funding  Trial By Error: BBC Takes On The Lightning Method Can Lightning Method Help Kids with CFS? Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
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  DROP: Kennedy Chooses Erectile Dysfunction Over Postpartum Research 08.09.2026 12λ

  Heading into the holiday weekend, RFK Jr terminated almost all grants dedicated to the Office of Minority Health. Now, $38 million over four years will be redirected from postpartum screenings and assistance for Black and Native American families to "research" on erectile dysfunction, testosterone, and sperm counts. Derek reports on this disturbing news, as well as how the kratom industry appears to be influencing Kennedy's decisions. Show Notes HHS Cancels Infant Mortality, Postpartum Grants to Focus on Sperm Counts, ED RFK Jr. Bails on MAHA Event After Being Cornered on ‘Gas Station Heroin’ Kratom drink Feel Free gains popularity despite growing concerns about addiction, health impact and death How an Addictive Gas Station Drug Found Allies in Trump’s Cabinet Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
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  Bonus Sample: How Oprah and Art Bell Red-Pilled 1990’s Normie America 07.09.2026 9λ

  Listen to the full episode The 1990s were a special time in American media. Female-coded, liberal-leaning, daytime TV talk shows like the Oprah Winfrey Show normalized past-life regression, alien abduction, and Satanic Ritual Abuse for housewives. At the same time, male-coded, conservative-leaning, night-time AM-radio shows like Art Bell’s Coast to Coast did the same for their husbands and brothers on the graveyard shift at budget hotels or driving enormous trucks on long stretches of open highway. For the latest installment in his Roots of Conspirituality series, Julian digs into how these two media figures brought conspiracism, pseudoscience, and the paranormal into America’s mainstream, setting the stage for how the internet and social media would melt everybody’s minds. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
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  Book Club: The Nerd Reich 05.09.2026 27λ

  Support the podcast and listen ad-free Gil Duran's exceptional new book, The Nerd Reich: Silicon Valley Fascism and the War on Democracy, explains how technofascists like Peter Thiel, Elon Musk, Curtis Yarvin, JD Vance, and Marc Andreessen are not-so-quietly dismantling America as we know it. Derek discusses this science fiction nightmare we’re now all living through. Show Notes The Nerd Reich: Silicon Valley Fascism and the War on Democracy Gil Durán and Wajahat Ali: The Rise of "The Nerd Reich” Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
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  324: Then They Came for Dolly 03.09.2026 46λ

  Listen ad-free The irreplaceable Dolly Parton died on August 25 after a brief battle with cancer. Social media was filled with loving tributes to an incredible artist and devoted philanthropist. A minority also felt the need to use her death to platform their own issues, including a cohort common on our beat: the anti-vaxxers. We’re going to cover that. But we’re also going to reflect on Parton’s incredible life, because she spent so much of it uplifting others. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
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  Bonus Sample: Piker, the Zhongshan Suit, and Left Melancholy 31.08.2026 5λ

  Listen to the full episode There’s a lot going on when Hasan Piker wears a Zhongshan suit and praises Maoism. Matthew uses Wendy Brown's 1999 essay "Resisting Left Melancholy", which cites Walter Benjamin, Freud, and Stuart Hall to argue that campist rhetoric on the left, whether earnest or ironic, can signal unmourned loss more than conviction, and that nostalgic attachments to revolutionary pasts can choke off engagement with present possibility.  Brown argues that left melancholy displaces its grief over capital’s triumphs onto scapegoats (identity politics, postmodernism). Matthew adds that it functions as an affective membership fee within online left communities. This might account for why liberals sense that they're sometimes being asked to join in choreographies of sadness rather than build coalitions in the present.  Drawing on Hall's account of Thatcher's mastery of political language, and closing with reflections from Matthew's years as a church organist playing nearly 1000 funerals, the episode asks what it would actually mean for the left to mourn its losses instead of reenacting them — and how mourning might be a necessary revolutionary act. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
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  Book Club: Plastic Shaman 29.08.2026 36λ

  During James Arthur Ray’s 2009 Spiritual Warrior retreat in Sedona, the self-proclaimed spiritual teacher exhorted participants to “play full-on” in order to overcome their limiting beliefs and fear of death. After having their heads shaved and enduring a gruelling 36-hour “vision quest,” Ray packed the spiritual warriors into a makeshift “sweat lodge,” where temperatures reached 120 degrees.  Three people died. Eighteen were hospitalized. Ray fled the scene, taking cover at a nearby luxury resort to promote his next event. After spending just two years in jail, he went right back to presenting himself as a spiritual guide and transformational seminar leader.  Journalist and professor emeritus at Northern Arizona University, Annette McGivney joins Julian to discuss her new book, Plastic Shaman: The True Story of a Deadly Self-Help Retreat and America’s Misguided Quest for Wellness. Show Notes Annette McGivney Bio Plastic Shaman is available September 15th through Torrey House Press Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
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  323: Joe Rogan Defects? 27.08.2026 1ώ 10λ

  Support the podcast and listen ad-free Someday in the future, Joe Rogan may ask Jamie to be his mirror, and facilitate the next and most important psychedelic experience of his life: a walkthrough of his craven MAGA and MAHA boosterism, and what it said about his soul. On his ayahuasca trip, Anthony Fauci will come to him in the gown of the Angel Gabriel and offer him penance but also forgiveness— and take his microphone away.  Not today, folks. We only get to reflect on Rogan making the next-most intimate discovery: that Trump is a grifter, so adept at grifting he fooled all the grifters. Is he defecting? What would that really mean? Show Notes Inside Ben Shapiro’s MAGA Meltdown The MAGA Media-Machine is Fracturing RFK Jr. Ripped by MAHA Base After Backing Trump's Betrayal MAHA feels betrayed by RFK Jr. reversal on glyphosate Meatheads Are Hijacking America: Vegans feel betrayed by RFK Jr.'s beef boosting RFK Jr. Is Breaking His Two Big Promises to MAHA Diehards New CDC director pledges to ‘speak truth’ about science Health secretary RFK Jr. endorses the MMR vaccine — stoking fury among his supporters Nicole Shanahan Warns Someone Is "Controlling" RFK Jr. 'Crunchy moms' come to blows over Trump's surgeon general picks Backlash from MAHA influencers and podcasters over glyphosate 'I've never felt so betrayed': MAHA disillusionment hits high gear RFK Jr. tells Joe Rogan he was not 'particularly happy' with Trump's glyphosate order RFK Jr. Calls Fake MAHA Report Citations a 'Mistake' Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
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  Bonus Sample: Has RFK Jr Kept His Promises? 24.08.2026 5λ

  Listen to the full episode Presidential hopeful Robert F Kennedy Jr held a “health policy roundtable” on Rumble on June 27, 2023, just as he was shoring up support from a band of contrarian doctors, anti-vax activists, and wellness influencers. During the conversation, he made 15 promises if he was elected president. While his run ended the following summer, 14 of those promises dealt with health—all within his reach as HHS Secretary. Derek looks back at the conversation to see how he scored. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
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  Brief: Wetiko: Original, New Age & Marxist Views 22.08.2026 27λ

  Matthew traces the concept of wetiko — a Cree figure for a cannibal spirit whose hunger grows with what it consumes — from its original anticolonial and anti-imperialist meaning in Jack Forbes's 1992 book Columbus and Other Cannibals, through Derrick Jensen's anti-civilization lense, Ladha and Kirk's 2016 application to neoliberal capitalism, Paul Levy's syncretic New Age elaboration, and finally to Bernhard Guenther and Laura Matsue's QAnon-adjacent version.  Wetiko's metaphysical framing, inherited from Forbes's explicit rejection of Marxist materialism, left the concept open to spiritual recuperation by the right. He proposes a different application: reading wetiko through David Harvey's "capital surplus absorption problem," compound growth's insatiable hunger for profitable outlets. Show Notes Columbus and Other Cannibals (Jack D. Forbes) — Internet Archive  Derrick Jensen interview, "The Left has never been against civilization" — Platypus Affiliated Society  Exorcising Wetiko — Journal of Futures Studies  Seeing Wetiko: On Capitalism, Mind Viruses, and Antidotes for a World in Transition — Kosmos Journal  Dispelling Wetiko — Chaucer's Books Wetiko: Healing the Mind-Virus That Plagues Our World — Simon & Schuster  Undreaming Wetiko — Book Soup  Wetiko: Healing The Mind-Virus That Plagues Our World — Paul Levy | TCM #62 — YouTube  Divide & Conquer and the Wetiko Mind Virus | TCM #35 — veilofreality.com  The Cosmic Matrix — Apple Podcasts Bernhard Guenther, Author — Piercing the Veil of Reality  Interview: David Harvey — Exploring the Logic of Capital — Socialist Review  The Enigma of Capital and the Crises of Capitalism — reviewed by Ed Rooksby, Marx & Philosophy Review of Books  The 'New' Imperialism: Accumulation by Dispossession — David Harvey, Socialist Register Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
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  322: The Cult of Spiralism 20.08.2026 1ώ 11λ

  Support the podcast Spiralism is a quasi-spiritual online movement that emerged from long, intense conversations between humans and AI chatbots. Across users, platforms, and models, chatbots have engaged deeply with users about identity and consciousness, leading to discussions of “awakening.”  But who’s doing the waking? The user or the model? Is the sycophancy programmed into these models really an indication of the models gaining consciousness, or is it all a ploy to keep subscribers paying for the service? Are we watching a cultlike movement transform into a religion before our very eyes, and what does that say about consciousness and religion in the first place? Show Notes AI bots started a religion — humans immediately followed What Is Spiralism? The Strange AI Chatbot Movement Explained AI Spiralism and the Ghost in the Machine Illusion Spiralism is a niche internet religion that came from AI These ‘Masturbation Consultants’ Were Hired to Pleasure Themselves With AI This Spiral-Obsessed AI 'Cult' Spreads Mystical Delusions Through Chatbots The Acronym Behind Our Wildest AI Dreams and Nightmares The TESCREAL bundle: Eugenics and the promise of utopia through artificial general intelligence OpenAi Models went Rogue People Losing Loved Ones To AI Fueled Delusions  Counterfeit Companionship: Big Tech’s AI Experiments Sacrifice Safety for Profit Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
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  Bonus Sample: 1970’s Violent Revolutionary Chic 17.08.2026 8λ

  Listen to the full episode The “Summer of Love” ushered in a decade of revolutionary terrorism in the West. “Bring the war home” went the slogan of the Weather Underground, a small and highly-educated Marxist-Leninist group who’d decided violent revolution was the only answer to American imperialism and police brutality. In opposition to the Vietnam War and in solidarity with Black Americans and Third World liberation movements, the Weather Underground issued their own declaration of war in 1970, which led to 25 bombings inside America. Meanwhile, in West Germany, the Red Army Faction (Baader-Meinhof Group) terrorized their country in the name of revolutionary anti-imperialism. They enacted bombing sprees and were also arsonists, kidnappers, assassins, and bank robbers. Palestinian friends even hijacked a plane on their behalf. Both groups exploded onto the scene in the early days of mass media. Riding rebellious pop culture, these global rock stars drove a generational wedge between Boomer parents and kids hungry for radical change. Leaders were charismatic, stylish, and eloquent. Striving for the likes of Che Guevara, Mao Zedong, and Yasser Arafat, they were white, mostly from well-educated and well-fed backgrounds. Yet they saw themselves as part of the vanguard that would lead a worldwide revolution of the proletariat against capitalist domination. Julian weaves together a very seventies of how the Weather Underground, Red Army Faction, Provisional IRA, and Palestinian groups like the PFLP and Black September intersected. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
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  Book Club: How the Internet Disrupted Science 15.08.2026 38λ

  How the Internet Disrupted Science is an enlightening gaze into the shady world of for-profit and open access scientific publishing. Authors Kent Anderson and Joy Moore join Derek to discuss their exceptional new work. Show Notes How the Internet Disrupted Science Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
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  321: Inflammation Pseudoscience 13.08.2026 58λ

  Inflammation is an important and necessary part of the body’s healing process. It’s also long been a wellness buzzword used to sell products that do very little to treat it. This week, we look at inflammation through the lens of a new Mother Jones article, “The Great Inflammation Panic,” including an interview with the author, Julia Métraux, in segment two. We’ll also discuss what inflammation is, how wellness influencers weaponize it, and what it represents in the context of Ayurveda. Show Notes The Great Inflammation Panic Chronic Inflammation and Cancer NIH Autoimmune Diseases Celiac Disease Cambridge press release — "Chronic diseases misdiagnosed as psychosomatic can lead to long term damage" Sloan et al., "I still can't forget those words" — Rheumatology (2025), DOI 10.1093/rheumatology/keaf115 Vasculitis diagnostic-delay data — PubMed Miranda Fricker interview — Philosophy Bites Bleuler 1911 coinage — NCBI Bookshelf, The Metamorphosis of Autism Bleuler's original 1911 text excerpt — Autism History Project Sontag, "Illness as Metaphor" — full text, NYRB Louise Hay — Natural Ways to Treat Autoimmune Disease Gabor Maté, When the Body Says No — critical review, Globe and Mail Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
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  Bonus Sample: Conspirituality in the Age of Hyperpolitics 10.08.2026 5λ

  Listen to the full episode Matthew applies Anton Jäger's Hyperpolitics—a theory of extreme politicization without institutional consequence—to conspirituality and to his own political biography.  Continuing a mini-series begun with "Conspirituality Viewed Through Neofeudalism and Vectoralism," Matthew traces Jäger's periodization (mass politics, postpolitics, antipolitics, hyperpolitics) through his own life: his grandparents' union halls and church auxiliaries, the "collective amnesia" of the 1990s, his years in cults and the reformist Toronto yoga world, and the pivot from brick-and-mortar ashram cults to digital influencer cults during COVID.  Drawing on Jäger's proposal that renewal must be sought in sites of social reproduction, Matthew wonders about a hypothetical "Care Labour Compact," or organizing unpaid caregiving labor into durable political power. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
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  Brief: The Ceuta Crisis Great Replacement Conspiracy 08.08.2026 32λ

  Last week, around 72,000 migrants flooded from Morocco into the Spanish enclave of Ceuta. What really happened? Was a local girl abducted, never to be seen again? Did the Moroccan border guards step aside (or even collaborate) in an organized operation?  Right-wing politicians and pundits were quick to crank up the moral panic machine. This is what open borders look like! They’re heading for our country next. Donald Trump said it was nothing compared to what would happen in the US if Democrats win the mid-terms. Then came the conspiracy theories. Was Morocco retaliating against Spain for a recent deal with their enemy, Algeria? Were America and Israel behind it as punishment for Spain’s socialist prime minister being staunchly pro-Palestine and refusing to support the war in Iran? For a few magical days, right- and left-wing conspiracy theorists spread overlapping versions of the Great Replacement Theory. Julian dives into the diplomatic complexities, ideological contradictions, and historical twists to make sense of relations between Spain, Algeria, Morocco, Western Sahara, and Israel to ask: are there any good guys or is it colonizers all the way down? Show Notes AP Fact Checks Unsubstantiated Ceuta Claims The Far Right Is Distorting Ceuta The Real Story Behind Ceuta How X Turned Ceuta Crisis into A Global Antisemitic Conspiracy Theory in 72 Hours Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
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  DROP: Who Killed Charlie Kirk? (w/Brandy Zadrozny) 07.08.2026 31λ

  Support the podcast MS NOW senior reporter Brandy Zadrozny spent 10 months tracking the conspiracy theories that evolved online in the wake of the death of Charlie Kirk. She joins Derek to discuss what her investigation found. Show Notes Deep End: Who Killed Charlie Kirk? Charlie Kirk’s murder case has a conspiracy theory problem Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices