Brief: DJ Khaled of Pseudoscience

Dolphins, drugs, new age music. Isolation tanks as a portal into other dimensions. True love and fake aliens. Julian shares a personal love story from the nineties that intersects with the work of prolific scientist, inventor, and psychonaut, John C. Lilly.  The belief that we can contact extraterrestrial civilizations, which are waiting to usher humanity into a golden age of light and love, is now a hugely profitable and popular commodity. Apparently these extraterrestrials also want to help us vanquish the forces of Deep State darkness. This is evidenced by the QAnon-and-alien-disclosure-style of programming on Gaia’s spiritual subscription platform (which brings in roughly $80 million annually). Yet: Gaia is currently embroiled in a legal battle with a former host who claims that his stories about secret space programs and eight-foot tall “blue avian” aliens are actually part of his trademarked creative IP. When it comes down to dollars, he admits it’s all make-believe. Has he really ever dropped acid in a flotation tank though?! Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

18 Mar 20245min

Masculinity, in all its wounded and preening anxiety, is the perennial currency of American populism. America’s foremost public historian on fitness and education, Natalia Petrzela, returns to the pod to discuss her recent study, with Ilyse Hogue, of the appeal RFK Jr. has with young men, and what progressives can learn from it.  Show Notes Bio – Natalia Petrzela  RFK Jr. has a distinct appeal when it comes to young male voters — Petrzela and Hogue Robert F. Kennedy Jr | "My Plan To Heal Addiction" | News Nation  Prior coverage of RFK Jr. Brief: RFK Jr Flirts with Body Fascism (w/Natalia Petrzela) — Conspirituality 164: The Two Faces of Robert Francis Kennedy Jr. — Conspirituality Brief: The New Age Origin Story of RFK Jr’s Campaign — Conspirituality Brief: RFK Jr’s New Director of Propaganda — Conspirituality Special Report: RFK Jr.’s Independence Day — Conspirituality Brief: RFK's Health Propaganda Roundtable — Conspirituality Brief: RFK Jr., The Anti-Vax Candidate — Conspirituality      Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

16 Mar 202431min

The “healer” mutters prayers, flutters his hands over the patient’s belly, then rubs his fingers close to her navel. A stream of what looks like blood shoots out from between his fingers. After a few more finger wiggles, he appears to pull several bloody cocktail shrimp out of an invisible incision. The patient is healed. Of something. Welcome to “psychic surgery.” Documentarian of the uncanny, Brad Abrahams, takes our correspondent seat this week to explain how Shirley MacLaine, Burt Lancaster, Andy Kaufman, Charlie Mingus, and tens of thousands of Americans got drawn into the morbid healing craze that kicked off in the 1970s, and which may have seen its last hurrah with the imprisonment of Brazil’s John of God. Centuries of colonization in Brazil and the Philippines, Brad explains, made conventional medical care basically unavailable for anyone poor or outside of major cities. This left a void for traditional and alternative healing to fill as the only real options, as well as provide a connection to a cultural identity that had been systematically repressed. And of course, charlatans rode the wave. Brad brings his characteristic curiosity, empathy, and cultural competence, holding the door open for us to imagine why this abject form of medical and spiritual fraud speaks so deeply to so many. Show Notes Brad Abrahams Love And Saucers — Brad Abrahams   Do you see what I see? | Short Doc about Controversial Conspiracy Theorist Artist David Dees — Brad Abrahams  72: John of Fraud (w/Lisa Braun Dubbels & Mirna Wabi-Sabi) — Conspirituality Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

14 Mar 20241h 7min

At what point do you tune someone out and no longer consider them worth considering? Is their entire catalog of thought defined by one encounter you don’t like? Multiple encounters? If you disagree with someone on one point, do you write them off entirely, or can you consider other points of agreement? What if your initial encounter with a thinker is disagreeable? What if you really like someone and then find them increasingly disagreeable over time? Have they really changed that much? Or have you? And would you know it if you did? Derek meditates on these questions while working through his own process of consideration. Most importantly, he lands on one certainty: racists, bigots, transphobes, and misogynists need to be stamped out. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

11 Mar 20246min

Being a chaos agent is exhausting. The internet never ends. It’s so abstract, groundless. At some point, all of your content seems stale and redundant. All the conspiracy theories, outrage farming, and dietary supplements seem boring; your manic salesmanship starts to feel hollow. Maybe you’re also wondering about whether you’ve sold your soul, or who you may have hurt along the way. What will you turn to? Who will help you? What will your ultimate piece of content be? From time out of mind, there’s only ever been one answer: GOD. Russell Brand, Joe Rogan, and Andrew Huberman have all recently made such confessions of faith. Derek and Matthew discuss. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

9 Mar 202435min

For 22 years, astrologers, channelers, and UFO enthusiasts have run booths next to crystal healers, purveyors of esoteric books and pseudoscience products, and paranormal enthusiasts at Los Angeles’s Airport Hilton. More recently, this event—the Conscious Life Expo—has increasingly featured speakers spouting red-pilled conspiracy theories about COVID, vaccines, and the Satanic alien reptilian cabal coming for your children. To get an insider’s view, Julian donned his gray baseball camp and grabbed his recorder to do his own research on the latest iteration of conference room conspirituality. Show Notes Introduction to CymaTones cymatic sound therapy  Activate your Pineal Gland: An introduction to your third eye and exercises to awaken the higher mind: Ruehlig, Bianca  Shawn Buckley, Trucker Lawyer   Ottawa's use of Emergencies Act against convoy protests was unreasonable, violated Charter, court rules Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

7 Mar 20241h 15min

This is a newly favorite mantra that RFK Jr is using on the presidential stump.  The subtext, uttered in the shadow of a pandemic that this guy did what he could to minimize and bypass, carries a lot of American spiritual—or maybe pseudospiritual—baggage.  Digging into what he means and what his demographic hears when he says “There are worse things than dying,” can tell us a lot about the status of Death, Grief and Belief in the American psyche—and even global capitalism—in this volatile time. This episode is a recording of a talk Matthew gave at the 2024 Symposium on Death and Bereavement Studies in January, organized online by Terri Daniel of Portland, OR. Show Notes 2024 Symposium - Death, Grief, and Belief Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

4 Mar 20245min

Brad Onishi of Straight White American Jesus sits down with Matthew to analyze the debut of “America’s Bishop,” Joseph Strickland, on the CPAC stage, where he blessed MAGA Christian Nationalism with his purple finery and endless torrent of anti-choice bafflegab.  Strickland—removed as Archbishop of Tyler, Texas in November by the ultra-woke Pope Francis—has hit the influencer circuit to firm up the sometimes-precarious Evangelical-Catholic alliance on the backs of women. His aw-shucks “humility” and East Texas drawl offers this reactionary movement genteel cover for its aggressive fever dreams. He is, as Onishi puts it, the Catholic Ned Flanders who conspires with Mr. Burns at night. Butcherbox promo: Sign up today at butcherbox.com/conspirituality and use code conspirituality to choose your free offer and get $20 off. Show Notes Brad Onishi  Conspirituality 183: Woke Pope Cancels America's Bishop w/Mike Lewis  Weekly Roundup: Embryos are People Now? — Straight White American Jesus  Nazis mingle openly at CPAC, spreading antisemitic conspiracy theories and finding allies  Bishop Strickland at CPAC — LIfesite News (redpill site warning!) The making of Bishop Strickland - Where Peter Is  Strickland's Adventurous Online Legacy - Mike Lewis Extra  Bishop Strickland's "Letter from a Friend"  Twitter photo: Strickland with Fournier and Pavone Catholic Priest Uses Aborted Fetus On Altar In Appeal For Donald Trump (Trigger warning. Image blurred, but still, JFC.)  Fr. Frank Pavone uses aborted fetus in message for Election Day | National Catholic Reporter Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

2 Mar 202443min