214: Aubrey Marcus is Totally Not a Cult Leader
Today we’re looking at a lavish infomercial put out by New Age oligarch and RFK Jr superfan Aubrey Marcus, in which he tries to show the world that his very expensive encounter group, Fit For Service,...
11 Jul 20241h 12min
Bonus Sample: You Can’t Do Religion on the Internet
Back in 2011, Ward and Voas wrote that conspirituality was a mainly-online movement, and they were right about that. They didn’t do fieldwork at events. They didn’t attend trainings and rituals. They ...
8 Jul 20245min
Brief: The Freebirth to Born-Again Pipeline
The stress of influencing in the New Age / alt-med world is rough. You have to pretend to know everything, from vaccine science to the origins of autism, to how feminism has desecrated the sanctity of...
6 Jul 202437min
213: Yoga for Gaza, Yoga for Israel
Can yoga bring hostages home? No. Can yoga stop a genocide? Also no. But this won’t stop earnest practitioners from instrumentalizing practice for both purposes. For supporters of Israel, practice is...
3 Jul 20241h 9min
Bonus Sample: The Prophet & the Electrical Storm
What does it really mean to be a prophet, found a religion, and persuade millions of people that god speaks directly to you? And what does this god tell you? How to live morally. What kinds of sex ar...
1 Jul 20246min
Brief: Jordan Peterson Teaches Russell Brand Theology
Last month, Russell Brand visited Jordan Peterson's podcast for “The Evolution of Theology.” Which, given these two figures, had to focus on topics like the unreligious impulsivity of gay people and w...
29 Jun 202435min
212: US Military Tells RFK Jr-Style Lies
On June 14, Reuters published an article about the US Military’s clandestine program to discredit China’s Sinovac vaccine during the early days of Covid-19. Turns out the Pentagon hired an outside age...
27 Jun 20241h 12min
Bonus Sample: Sanctimonious Spirituality
What is the distance between spiritual practice and social action? Derek has weighed this question for decades. This unscripted meditation on the topic uses Aubrey Marcus's new "documentary," Anti-Cul...
24 Jun 20246min
