105: TikTok, Cults, & Conspiracies (w/Abbie Richards)

What should a global network of popular and private schools do when faced with evidence that the foundation of their pedagogy was laid by a racist, proto-fascist pseudoscientist? What should they do when it becomes clear that they are evangelizing while pretending to teach secular humanism? These are the sticky questions raised by Dr. Jennifer Sapio in today’s interview with Matthew. Sapio taught for three years at the Austin Waldorf School. She was hired from her secular training, but gradually found herself drawn into what she calls an “inherently racist cult.” Her mentors pushed her towards accepting the 19th-century babblings of Rudolf Steiner, who, among other exploits, read the “Akashic Records” to learn why the spirit world disapproved of vaccines. They discuss the long shadows of racist and metaphysical nonsense that hang over the otherwise wholesome project of Waldorf education.  In the Ticker, Derek and Julian review a recent episode of Ben Shapiro’s podcast, in which he mutually masturbates with Russell Brand to consummate their brands, but they don’t quite come together.Show NotesThe Ben Shapiro Show Sunday Special Ep. 116The gun control debate is complex, but there are things we can doMovement against critical race theory is deeply necessaryDr. Thomas Cowan: Viral video claiming 5G caused pandemic easily debunkedDr. Sapio’s Waldorf memoir: Waldorf Schools Are Inherently Racist CultsAustin Waldorf School, Tuitions & FeesProf. Staudenmeier: “Anthroposophy and Ecofascism”Protesting too much: Myths about Waldorf educationMatthew on: The “Akashic Records” to “Do Your Research” PipelineAPTN: Residential Schools ArchivesNYT: Unmarked Graves at Residential Schools in Canada: What to KnowAnishnabek.ca: An Overview of the Indian Residential School SystemWoops. -- -- --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

8 Jul 20212h 22min

Julian reflects on unchosen racial complicity and how moments of moral courage in the face of oppressive power can reveal one’s true colors. He traces the history of Apartheid as it intersects with the stories of his youth in South Africa. -- -- --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

5 Jul 20219min

How do we avoid being the subject of—and feeding the market for—trauma porn? If anyone knows, it’s India Oxenberg, who in less than two years (while under the unforgiving glare of a media firestorm) went from cult victim to survivor to anti-cult activist. Matthew sits down with her to discuss her recovery journey: learning to box, learning to love food, learning about “the strong yes” from her therapist. They also discuss the behind-the-scenes expertise that went into the documentary series India starred in and co-produced: Seduced.  In the Ticker, Derek wonders why wellness influencers are falling back on bad habits as the world reopens while Julian tracks how Bret Weinstein’s cries of censorship exponentially boost the exposure of his anti-vax, pro-Ivermectin science hipsterism.Show NotesHow Dangerous Is the Delta Variant, and Will It Cause a COVID Surge in the U.S.?Sah D’Simone: Transmission Hotline6 facts about economic inequality in the U.S.The Pandemic Is Turning the Natural World Upside DownWith almost 50 million Americans traveling on July 4 weekend, you may need to pack your patienceJune 28 Ivermectin Systemic Review and Meta-AnalysisSlavoj Zizek — Is Jordan Peterson the real Postmodernist?SEDUCED: INSIDE THE NXIVM CULTA Timeline of the Nxivm Sex Cult CaseJudge Says Allison Mack ‘Willingly Enslaved, Destabilized and Manipulated’ Women -- -- --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

1 Jul 20211h 53min

Matthew debriefs after the Mike Rothschild interview, looking at QAnon’s “Conspiracy Theory of Everything” as a hyperobject and spiritual dilemma.Show Notes‘A reckoning for our species’: the philosopher prophet of the AnthropoceneConversations with Cornel West | Glenn Loury, Cornel West & Teodros Kiros | The Glenn Show -- -- --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

28 Jun 20216min

It’s only been eight months since Q stopped posting, but Mike Rothschild has been able to corral the firehose of data into the first major journalistic study of the fever dream that has tortured millions since 2018. He joins us as co-host this week just as his new book, The Storm is Upon Us: How QAnon Became a Cult, Movement and a Conspiracy Theory of Everything, drops. We’ll ask him about researching a “conspiracy of everything, what a leaderless cult means, how an online religion worships, and how, amidst catastrophic disconfirmation and deplatforming, we’re seeing new delta QAnon variants emerge.Show NotesThe Storm Is Upon Us: How Qanon Became a Movement, Cult, and Conspiracy Theory of EverythingQAnon Is Not Dead, It’s Evolving Into Something Far Worse -- -- --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

24 Jun 20211h 15min

The race to capitalize on the world’s wellness needs in a post-pandemic society—well, at “post” as we can pretend to be—was unavoidable. Derek reflects on the continually unrealistic marketing promises being offered by wellness influencers, discussing how we’d benefit from more honest ad copy than the hyperbole attempting to be passed off as destiny. -- -- --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

21 Jun 20216min

In June 2020, equity consultant and journalist Dax-Devlon Ross—who you might remember from Conspirituality 4 that very same month—published an essay called “A Letter to My White Male Friends of a Certain Age.” In it, he applied his decades of experience as a nonprofit executive and program facilitator to have an honest discussion with, as the title suggests, his white male friends. A year later and the book version of that essay, called “Letters to My White Male Friends,” has been published by St. Martin’s Press. There couldn’t be a better time for this conversation, given the heated skirmishes around the meaning and manipulation of Critical Race Theory in our politics. Dax joins this week as a co-host, nearly a year to the day since his last appearance, to discuss the topics in his book, including the many years of lived experiences that cut through the academic rhetoric and political posturing concerning race in America today.Show NotesA Letter to My White Male Friends of a Certain Age (the original essay)Letters to My White Male Friends -- -- --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

17 Jun 20211h 27min

Humanity has an apocalypse fetish. But wrapped up In the doomsday death wish is a utopian fantasy of the ascension that comes after a fallen and sinful world is purified by cataclysmic fire. Whether the longed-for intervention is supernatural or extraterrestrial, spirituality porn hijacks our neurobiological wet-ware to bond cults together in a shared and singular climactic focus.For this week’s Bonus, Julian traces the recurring themes between the 19th-century Great Awakening, the Heaven’s Gate mass suicide, the New Age fascination with 2012, and the QAnon fever dream.Might our vulnerability to these narratives stem from evolutionary side-effects—which, like the space between medieval cathedral archways that are decorated with ornate trumpeting angels and burgeoning flowers, serve no structural purpose, but somehow draw a hyper-focused otherworldly fixation?  -- -- --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

14 Jun 202112min