Bonus Sample: How to Stamp Out Racists (and more)

After becoming global leaders in gun manufacturing in the 16th century, Japan banished all guns from their country for two centuries. How did this happen? And what were the results? Well, even today, the nation of 127 million experiences under 10 gun deaths every year. Derek looks back at this period in history to find out what happens when a society seems to move backward when in reality progress is made. He also looks at the psychology of warfare while noting that as bad as society can become, nothing is inevitable. Show NotesGiving Up the Gun: Japan's Reversion to the Sword, 1543-1879The demographics of gun ownershipAmerica's gun culture - in seven chartsPacky McCormick: OptimismJapan has almost completely eliminated gun deaths — here's howA Terrible Love of War: James HillmanWar is a Force That Gives Us Meaning: Chris HedgesTribe: Sebastian Junger -- -- --Support us on PatreonPre-order Conspirituality: How New Age Conspiracy Theories Became a Health Threat: America | Canada Follow us on Instagram | Twitter: Derek | Matthew | JulianOriginal music by EarthRise SoundSystem Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

20 Kesä 20227min

Half-a-million Facebook followers. Hundreds of videos in a series called “The Great Awakening.” Christiane Northrup, the matriarch of New Age women’s wellness, warns her followers about fake viruses, and tells them to avoid sex with their vaccinated partners. She stumps alongside QAnon celebrities, shovels campaign contributions to Trump, and dotes over sovereign citizen sheriffs. To ease your symptoms of ascension, she offers bath recipes of alfalfa greens and Dr. Bronner’s soap. You can have a good soak and listen to her golden harp. But in this nowhere world, where oh where is Christiane Northrup? Who is she? Is she flesh and blood, or a social media hologram generated by a Louise Hay AI? Is that mansion she broadcasts from a sound stage, or is there real soil and manure and flowers there? Our guests today know Northrup as super-real, because they live in her home state of Maine. Alyce Ornella, Andy O’Brien, and Mooncat have known her as a doctor, an MLM diva, antivax rabble rouser, and QAnon tour promoter. Now, they tell us, another Northrup may be crystallizing on Maine’s rocky shore, floating past the lighthouses and over the cranberry bogs on a cloud of essential oils. She’s been seen haunting the blueberry patches, wearing a chunky necklace of lobster claws. As Northrup begins to hold revival meetings in Down East churches, and openly fantasize about murdering political enemies, they wonder if she is assuming her ultimate form—as an IRL cult leader.Show NotesDear Dr. Northrup Dr. No: Christiane NorthrupRepublican barred from inviting guests into State HouseNaomi Wolf: “Five Freedoms” speech, April 2021.Arise USA rally draws crowds inside, outside Crosby Center Arise USA Meets Maine Stands UpInside the Disastrous Conspiracy Roadshow That Likely Killed a COVID-Denying Ex-CIA AgentMaine Republican compared the governor to Nazi Josef MengeleME state rep compares COVID vaccine mandate to NazismNorthrup bo -- -- --Support us on PatreonPre-order Conspirituality: How New Age Conspiracy Theories Became a Health Threat: America | Canada Follow us on Instagram | Twitter: Derek | Matthew | JulianOriginal music by EarthRise SoundSystem Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

16 Kesä 20221h 40min

Julian recently attended his first Catholic funeral and found himself equal parts supportive friend and atheist anthropologist. This week, Matthew draws on his Catholic upbringing and experience as church organist (for close to 1,000 funerals) to help unpack this experience. In hindsight, it turns out that the rote blandness of organized religion may serve communities more honestly than the monetized performative charisma of New Age ritual. The conversation touches on the mythological and social dimensions of religion, as well as both Julian and Matthew’s experience of corporal punishment at school, meted out by the same authority figures who donned ceremonial robes for church. -- -- --Support us on PatreonPre-order Conspirituality: How New Age Conspiracy Theories Became a Health Threat: America | Canada Follow us on Instagram | Twitter: Derek | Matthew | JulianOriginal music by EarthRise SoundSystem Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

13 Kesä 202210min

Aubrey Marcus really wants to not be a cult leader. He really wants Fit For Service to not be labeled a cult. He’s come out and said so, in a bold but vague response to criticism of his content from our podcast. Matthew takes him at his word, and puts on his cult research hat to give some pointers on how Aubrey can avoid abusing his power. Key bits of advice include: rejecting high intensity recruitment techniques, not depicting the world outside Fit For Service as “upside down” or insane, and not platforming alleged child molesters like Marc Gafni.While this open letter is addressed to Aubrey, his Fit For Service clients might also find it useful as they decide whether to keep spending up to 20K USD per year participating in the program. Also, if Aubrey feels that this episode contains information that will help current and future participants assess whether he is really making good on his promise to provide “radical self-sovereignty,” we at Conspirituality Podcast would happily give permission for this episode to be included with Fit For Service materials, pro bono.This letter is also open in a broader sense, because it contains solid tips for all earnest charismatic influencers who want to improve their ethics game. We believe you can do it, influencers! You can dig deep, and live your better life, by fucking over fewer people!Show NotesA Holocaust Denier Is Travelling Across Canada Building Up The Country's Newest Far-Right Militia Movement - Canadian Anti-Hate Network 'I Was 13 When Marc Gafni's Abuse Began' – The Forward Former Rabbi Accused of Improper Sexual Conduct Now Rising Star in U.S. Spiritual Movement Gafni Faces Fallout From New Age Community Marc Gafni Named In Latest Sexual Abuse Lawsuit Against Yeshiva University Popular New Age author Marc Gafni molested 13-year-old girl in 1980, lawsuit says Sara Kabakov lawsuit docket“Jane Doe” lawsuit -- -- --Support us on PatreonPre-order Conspirituality: How New Age Conspiracy Theories Became a Health Threat: America | Canada Follow us on Instagram | Twitter: Derek | Matthew | JulianOriginal music by EarthRise SoundSystem Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

9 Kesä 20221h 20min

An audio essay from Matthew about how anti-trans ideology can so curdle the soul that an otherwise progressive eco-activist—Derrick Jensen of Deep Green Resistance—can blow up his entire career over it, disrupting the very thing he says he lives for, and destroying the movement he spent years building up.The story starts more than a decade ago, but comes to its peak absurdity, for Matthew at least, on Facebook. He posted some thoughts about Jordan Peterson freaking out over that woman on the cover of Sports Illustrated. And then Jensen visited his page. Show NotesThe New Age / Medieval Mortifications of Jordan Peterson | by Matthew Remski | MediumThat FB post about Peterson and Yumi NuYumi Nu cleverly responds to Jordan Peterson's 'not beautiful' comment' | indy100Simulacra and Simulations — BaudrillardGovernment Bill (House of Commons) C-16 (42-1) - First Reading - An Act to amend the Canadian Human Rights Act and the Criminal Code - Parliament of CanadaCanada's gender identity rights Bill C-16 explainedFour years on, past critics are silent on whether fears around transgender human rights bill were foundedAn Act to amend the Canadian Human Rights Act and the Criminal CodeJordan Peterson: The right to be politically incorrectI Was in the Room While Jordan Peterson and Senators Debated My Human Rights​​Lies of the land: against and beyond Paul Kingsnorth's völkisch environmentalismWhat Speaking Like Jordan Peterson Probably Feels LikeJ -- -- --Support us on PatreonPre-order Conspirituality: How New Age Conspiracy Theories Became a Health Threat: America | Canada Follow us on Instagram | Twitter: Derek | Matthew | JulianOriginal music by EarthRise SoundSystem Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

6 Kesä 202210min

We've gone deep on yoga communities infected by conspiracy theories. We've looked at essential oils and supplements influencers peddling in misinformation. There are channelers and astrologers and chiropractors. But there's another world we've only mentioned in passing: martial arts practitioners, which turn out to be another influential vector for disinformation. This week, Stephan Kesting, longtime BJJ black belt and instructor (and so much more) joins Derek to look at the conspiratorial frame of Joe Rogan, Dana White, and many other figures peddling misinformation in the arts. -- -- --Support us on PatreonPre-order Conspirituality: How New Age Conspiracy Theories Became a Health Threat: America | Canada Follow us on Instagram | Twitter: Derek | Matthew | JulianOriginal music by EarthRise SoundSystem Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

2 Kesä 20221h 8min

Matthew and Julian have to thank Kelly Brogan for hanging out on an episode of Aubrey Marcus's podcast, where she lays bare the emotional avoidance and cruelty that conspirituality attempts to sublimate—or dispel the guilt of.Here's the pull quote for the ages:So when I am sick, right, chronically sick, what do I get? I get compassion built in to my life from others who pity me. Right? And who offer me that surrogate hit of love. I get to say no without having to actually learn to assert my boundaries and express my desires in this clear, indirect way because of course, I'm limited by my illness. I can't do that. I get to say no all the time. I get to experience the validation of this felt sense of wrongness and brokenness that's always lived within me out of all my patients told me that the first time they got a diagnosis, they felt like See, I knew something was wrong with me. Yeah. And it's like, you know, ends up being like the prison number you know, that's put on their vest, but it feels in the moment like it's somebody's finally seeing their hurt. And when, you know, we end up over identifying with that wound with the cancer diagnosis with the, you know, the mental illness…She goes on in the episode to say: "victim consciousness is the only human pathology." Show NotesPremka MemoirIf you want to STAY SICK, Don't Watch This | Dr. Kelly Brogan MD on Aubrey Marcus PodcastLesson 136: Sickness is a defense against the… | ACIM -- -- --Support us on PatreonPre-order Conspirituality: How New Age Conspiracy Theories Became a Health Threat: America | Canada Follow us on Instagram | Twitter: Derek | Matthew | JulianOriginal music by EarthRise SoundSystem Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

30 Touko 20228min

Is humanity doomed to repeat the mistakes of the past? This week, Julian traces a timeline from the bright-eyed early days of the internet to the dark message boards where QAnon emerged—and that still foment white supremacist mass shootings. to the dizzying infinite scroll on TikTok. Each new evolution of social media exploits innate human vulnerabilities more effectively, delivering more potent strains of deceptive manipulation to receptive young minds. No surprise, then, that a crew of talented dancers with huge TikTok audiences appears to have been recruited into a high-demand evangelical group with a divine mandate to conquer all aspects of American life for Jesus. We'll hear from friends and family anxiously wondering what is going on.For today's interview, Abbie Richards returns. She's the the mis and disinformation researcher with special expertise on the "clock app."Show NotesHow Lonelygirl15 Changed The InternetAnalyzing TikTok Usage and GrowthIs "The Garden" a TikTok Cult?Dancing In The Name of The LordInside the $2.5M LA Mansion Where Alleged TikTok "Cult" Shoots VideosShekinah Church "About" PageThe Modern Apostles Who Want To Want To Reshape America Ahead of the End TimesHBO Recruits Instagram Independent Reporters -- -- --Support us on PatreonPre-order Conspirituality: How New Age Conspiracy Theories Became a Health Threat: America | Canada Follow us on Instagram | Twitter: Derek | Matthew | JulianOriginal music by EarthRise SoundSystem Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

26 Touko 20221h 56min