Brief: Plandemic Takes the Promenade

Deep Cut pulls from our bonus episode archive to unearth previous ideas that remain relevant today. Survivor shame over what has been lost, and how one has been complicit. Apologist shame: turned inside out and externalized as aggression. Popular shaming, which tries to deflect attention from how close to home cultic dynamics really are. In the cult landscape, shame is a common denominator. In this contemplation, Matthew unpacks various aspects, with help from the writing of cult theorists and recovery counselors Alexandra Stein, Daniel Shaw, and Holocaust survivor Primo Levi. Deep Cut Intro Music Single Origins — Pete Kuzma Show Notes Primo Levi: The Drowned and the Saved The Relational System of the Traumatizing Narcissist — Shaw Rachel Bernstein's “One More Thing” at the end of Betrayal and Power w/ Nitai Joseph, former Hare Krishna — S4E5. All of Rachel Bernstein’s IndoctriNation podcast. What’s Behind the Blowback You’ll Get When You Engage Cult Members "Deception, Dependence, Dread of Leaving" — Langone "I Got Mine-ism" Selected Bibliography: Ainsworth, Mary D. Salter. Patterns of Attachment: a Psychological Study of the Strange Situation. Routledge, 2015. Arendt, Hannah. The Origins of Totalitarianism. Penguin Classics, 2017. Freyd, Jennifer J. Betrayal Trauma: the Logic of Forgetting Childhood Abuse. Harvard University Press, 1998. Freyd, Jennifer J., and Pamela Birrell. Blind to Betrayal: Why We Fool Ourselves We Arent Being Fooled. Wiley, 2013. Hassan, Steven. Combating Cult Mind Control: the #1 Best-Selling Guide to Protection, Rescue, and Recovery from Destructive Cults. Freedom of Mind Press, 2016. Kramer, Joel, and Diana Alstad. The Guru Papers: Masks of Authoritarian Power. North Atlantic Books/Frog, 1993. Lalich, Janja, and Madeleine Landau. Tobias. Take Back Your Life: Recovering from Cults and Abusive Relationships. Bay Tree Pub., 2006. Lalich, Janja. Escaping Utopia: Growing up in a Cult, Getting out, and Starting Over. Routledge, 2018. Langone, Michael D. Recovery from Cults: Help for Victims of Psychological and Spiritual Abuse. W.W. Norton, 1995. Lifton, Robert Jay. Thought Reform and the Psychology of Totalism: a Study of “Brainwashing” in China.W.W. Norton, 1961. Miller, Alice, et al. For Your Own Good: Hidden Cruelty in Child-Rearing and the Roots of Violence. Farrar, Straus, Giroux, 2002. Oakes, Len. Prophetic Charisma: the Psychology of Revolutionary Religious Personalities. Syracuse University Press, 1997. Shaw, Daniel. Traumatic Narcissism: Relational Systems of Subjugation. Routledge, Taylor & Francis Group, 2014. Stein, Alexandra. Terror, Love and Brainwashing: Attachment in Cults and Totalitarian Systems. Routledge, Taylor & Francis Group, 2017. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

29 Jul 20231h 3min

We’ve been tracking Bobby’s misinformation, contradictions, and cursed networks for three years. And now he’s having his moment, and it’s anyone’s guess how far he’ll run. But why is he so appealing on the presidential stage? Why is he polling at 20%, with his favorability in double digits against Biden?  It’s not just that his endless rhetoric appeals to libertarians on the right and paranoiacs on the left. It’s that he casts a charismatic spell that echoes, exacerbates, and amplifies some of the deepest conflicts in the American psyche—between tradition and rebellion, nostalgia and grievance, idealism and paranoia. Bobby, you see, is never quite who he seems to be. In one moment he’s the prodigal prince of Camelot, seen through a sepia lens. In the next he’s a tortured and braying conspiracy theorist, lit by the blue light of countless screens. Show Notes RFK Jr. says COVID may have been 'ethnically targeted' to spare Jews  A Kennedy and His Mentor Part Ways Over River Group - The New York Times  Robert F Kennedy Jr says he has ‘conversations with dead people’ | Democrats | The Guardian  Transcript for Robert F. Kennedy Jr: CIA, Power, Corruption, War, Freedom, and Meaning | Lex Fridman Podcast #388 Beware: we ignore Robert F Kennedy Jr’s candidacy at our peril | Naomi Klein | The Guardian  Most People Believe In JFK Conspiracy Theories | FiveThirtyEight Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

27 Jul 20231h 23min

Derek unpacks what’s really going on in conspiritualist messages about the "climate change narrative" and how they use an assault of varying degrees of credible information to conflate issues, some of which they then monetize. Then, he looks at how messages go horribly astray when the full context is missing—something quite common in social media, and which upcoming main episode guest, Tobias Rose-Stockwell, calls “context creep.” Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

24 Jul 20236min

A granular—let’s say quantum-sized—look at how RFK Jr.’s wealthiest and most influential New Age supporters are thinking about his candidacy. Aubrey Marcus and Charles Eisenstein disclosed it all on a two-hour podcast released on June 21, providing a nearly-perfect encapsulation of every theme of our beat. Their performance shows how dedicated conspiritualists keep the faith as they graduate out of the group-encounter retreat economy and into the mainstream political arena. Show Notes The Future Of The World Depends On Us w/ Charles Eisenstein  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

22 Jul 20231h 1min

Neuroscientist Andrew Huberman has become one of the most popular science podcasters in the world. His regular two- to four-hour episodes feature a dizzying assault of information on topics like physical and mental fitness, psychedelics, hair loss, brain optimization, and a host of other topics, sometimes with expert guests, while at other times he goes solo. And many of these episodes are super informative and inspirational.  And yet, at times it seems like Huberman is sacrificing quality for quantity. This week, we look at three instances in which Andrew Huberman appears to be speaking outside of his lane, or perhaps overhyping supplements for his own benefit, and we want to know what else is being sacrificed along the way. McGill Office for Science and Society science communicator, Jonathan Jarry, joins the discussion. Show Notes Andrew Huberman Has Supplements on the Brain How Podcaster Andrew Huberman Got America to Care About Science The Real-Life Diet of Andrew Huberman, Who Switches to Red Party Lights After Dark The Huberman Effect NEUROSCIENTIST: This Habit Makes You UGLY | Andrew Huberman Paul Ingraham critique of Huberman “Evidence-Based Medicine” vs Science-Based Medicine Dave Asprey’s Use of PED’s New York Times review of Tim Ferris’s book 4-Hour Body Michelle Wong’s query about sunscreen crossing blood-brain barrier Neuroscientist Asaf Weisman’s opinion on Huberman Sports Scientist Matt Stranberg opinion on Huberman “Health Nerd” Gideon Meyer-Katz on misrepresented “cold-plunge” paper Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

20 Jul 20231h 29min

Bobby provokes a “disorganized attachment” response in would-be followers.This is the emotional vortex that begins to churn when a charismatic leader draws followers into a vision of the world as irrevocably broken, poisoned, dangerous, full of lies and betrayal. But he doesn’t just scare them. Somehow, he also promises an island of salvation in their sea of doom. This is Bobby’s pattern.  It’s clear that his misinformation on everything from supposed vaccine danger to the supposed totalitarianism of COVID mitigations is not a description of the world so much as a ghoulish parody of it. As the creator of that vision, in which solutions seem so out of reach, he stands alone as the wizard who can repair it.  Show Notes Joe Rogan's worst misinformation yet, with RFK Jr.—Dr. Dan Wilson bad_stats Rogan debunk Twitter thread  How Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., Distorted Vaccine Science - Scientific American (coverage of the 2005 article)  RFK Jr.'s reign of error: Correcting the record about yet another false claim he just made | CNN Politics—Tapper   Just Another RFK Jr. Lie. I Know, Because It’s About Me. | The Nation—Joan Walsh  My Conversation with Robert F. Kennedy Jr. - by Paul Offit  Robert Kennedy Jr. Full, Controversial Speech at "Defeat the Mandates" Stein, A. 2017. Terror, Love and Brainwashing: Attachment in Cults and Totalitarian Systems. Routledge. 2017. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

17 Jul 202312min

Nazis loved yoga. Rudolf Steiner set the stage for COVID denialism. Modern social justice warriors have a fondness for Hindu nationalism. Antivax activists are stuck in 19th century Gothic novels. Yoga, as the religion of neoliberalism, has actively depoliticized large swaths of the white middle class, making yoga moms vulnerable to fascism. Who’s responsible for these outrages? Conspiritualists? Who are they and what’s their evil plan?  No, our book is not a conspiracy theory. There’s no one piloting this plane. And yet, the patterns we’ve tracked on this podcast and in our book at times suggest something organized and coherent. Do we take this too far? At point does the intricacy of our research mimic the paranoia of what we’re researching? This week, we take a look. Our Recent Op-Eds: New age wellness takes a reactionary turn (The Boston Globe) The Conspirituality of Robert F. Kennedy Jr. (Time) Opinion: Danielle Smith’s alternative health proclamations are key to her populist messaging (The Globe and Mail) Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

13 Jul 20231h 36min

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. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

10 Jul 20236min