Brief: DJ Khaled of Pseudoscience

Selling enemas to replace psych meds, or treat cancer, or cure autism is some dangerous shit. But Matthew has a tingling sense that the wellness enema craze promises more than false health benefits. Perhaps the coffee might be an artisanal distraction from a more existential promise: a ritual of cleansing and muscular control for a world that feels filthy, guilty, and in absolute chaos. A way of returning to a crucially innocent time when you learned to hold it all in, then given permission to let it all out, and then lovingly cleaned up when you did. Today, Instagram gives us permission to show it to the world: look at what I made! Look at how fresh and pure I am! Look at how I am polishing my innermost self. Look at this magic of making the invisible visible. Welcome to your 50-minute analysis session to process Mallory’s brilliant reporting on Thursday: a tour through a labyrinth of dirt, control, differentiation, exhibitionism, shame—and possibly reclamation and integration. Chapters: How to Read an Enema Managing Filth with Freud Winnicott’s the Best The Abject Political Shit Dear Kyah Butcherbox promo: Sign up today at butcherbox.com/conspirituality and use code conspirituality to choose your free offer and get $20 off. Show Notes Conspirituality 192: Coffee is Your Friend, Not Your Enema Paranoid Reading, Reparative Reading — Sedgwick Know Your Enemy: UNLOCKED: Freud and Politics (w/ Pat Blanchfield) on Apple Podcasts Freud, "Character and Anal Eroticism" | PDF THE SEMINAR OF JACQUES LACAN BOOK X ANXIETY 1962 - 1963 The child, the family, and the outside world : Winnicott, D. W. (Donald Woods), 1896-1971 : Internet Archive Kristeva, Julia. Powers of Horror: An Essay on Abjection. New York: Columbia University Press, 1982. Pro-Trump rioters smeared poop in US Capitol hallways during belligerent attack Are Anti-Vaxers Really Pooping Themselves Because of Ivermectin? What Donald Trump Actually Smells Like, According to Ex-GOP Congressman Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

12 Feb 20245min

Wellness influencers are quite capable of inventing and spreading health misinformation. When it comes to culture war issues, however, they're incapable of generating original thoughts. So it shouldn't surprise anyone that they simply parrot talking points created by the likes of Chris Rufo and Bari Weiss, especially when it comes to their uninformed critiques of DEI and CRT efforts. Author, lawyer, and social impact consultant Dax-Devlon Ross takes Derek on a journey through the life of a DEI facilitator—and corrects the bias and misinformation pundits like Rufo and Weiss spread as gospel. Head to factormeals.com/conspirituality50 and use code conspirituality50 to get 50% off your first box and 2 free wellness shots per box while subscription is active! Sign up today at butcherbox.com/conspirituality and use code conspirituality to choose your free offer and get $20 off. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

10 Feb 202440min

This episode has been brewing for some time. This week we ask: which hole is coffee really supposed to go in? Because, in the contrarian and conspiratorial wellness world, a growing number of influencers advocate for your morning java to go where the sun doesn't shine. If that's not alarming enough, they claim coffee enemas will treat autism, cancer, parasites, and much more. Mallory DeMille is here to finally flush out this nonsense. Head to factormeals.com/conspirituality50 and use code conspirituality50 to get 50% off your first box and 2 free wellness shots per box while subscription is active! Sign up today at butcherbox.com/conspirituality and use code conspirituality to choose your free offer and get $20 off. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

8 Feb 20241h 1min

Project 2025 is the libertarian conservative Heritage Foundation’s systematic governance plan for the next Republican president. The 920-page plan aims to implement the "unitary executive theory," which would give all of the power of the US government to the executive branch. This week, Derek and Julian investigate the chapter on US media agencies and the GOP's plan to create a true state-sponsored media beholden exclusively to the president. Head to factormeals.com/conspirituality50 and use code conspirituality50 to get 50% off your first box and 2 free wellness shots per box while subscription is active! Sign up today at butcherbox.com/conspirituality and use code conspirituality to choose your free offer and get $20 off. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

5 Feb 20246min

From the Supreme Court to Project 2025, reactionary Catholics are on the frontlines of this year’s war on democracy. Many of them bend the knee to an Italian redpilled Vatican diplomat: Cardinal Carlo Maria Viganò.  Who is this guy, and who let him onto the internet? In 2018, Viganò rebranded Pizzagate for Catholics, by accusing Pope Francis and his progressive allies of supporting “homosexual networks, which are now widespread in many dioceses, seminaries, religious orders,” and “act under the concealment of secrecy and lies with the power of octopus tentacles, and strangle innocent victims and priestly vocations.”  Viganò went on to pen an open letter to Trump—in the style of one spiritual leader to another—in which he spoke of the great war between the “children of light and the children of darkness.” His 19th century flair, boosted by Trump himself, was such a hit it got featured in a Qdrop, got echoed by Mike Flynn, and won him an invite into the world of Steve Bannon.  Catholic political commentator Dr. David Lafferty has been following Viganò for years. He walks Matthew through how the Cardinal Catholicized MAGA fever dreams to discredit the progressive administration of Pope Francis—going so far as to wish death upon him—while inspiring a generation of TradCath crusaders. Show Notes Puccini meets Watergate in 'Vatileaks' scandal Former ambassador Vigano accuses Vatican of covering up McCarrick scandal for years The Man Who Took On Pope Francis: The Story Behind the Viganò Letter The (Growing) List of Catholic Prelates and Other Notable Catholics Supporting Archbishop Carlo Maria Viganò. : r/Catholicism  ‘It Is Not a Closet. It Is a Cage.’ Gay Catholic Priests Speak Out Open Letter to President Donald Trump from the Carlo Maria Vigano, Archbishop of Ulpiana Vigano's most pilled tweet   Viganò, QAnon, and the 'Deep Church' explained Another Viganò Wake-Up Call “An infamous betrayal of the mission of the Church”: Interview with Archbishop Viganò - Crisis Magazine (CW: Steve Bannon BS ahead) Americans, including Catholics, continue to have favorable views of Pope Francis — Pew Research  The Silence of Sodom: Homosexuality in Modern Catholicism, Jordan Decadence and Catholicism — Hanson The Causes and Context of Sexual Abuse of Minors by Catholic Priests in the United States, 1950-2010 John Jay Report: On Not Blaming Homosexual Priests Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

3 Feb 202445min

The internet has changed not only how we communicate with each other, but how we understand the world. All technologies reorient how we navigate the world. This one just feels, at times, so disorienting—especially if you are, like the three of us today, extremely online.  That’s the title of Washington Post columnist Taylor Lorenz’s recent book. Taylor has been covering internet culture since starting in social media for the Daily Mail in 2011, which led to positions as a technology reporter for Business Insider, the Daily Beast, and the NY Times. In her insightful book, she details the history of internet culture, and she joins us today to discuss reporting in an age of conspiracy theories and online trolling, the challenges of covering long Covid in an age of overwhelming health misinformation, and what it’s like to be extremely online.  Show Notes Extremely Online: The Untold Story of Fame, Influence, and Power on the Internet Taylor Lorenz on YouTube Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

1 Feb 202452min

Project 2025 is the libertarian conservative Heritage Foundation’s systematic governance plan for the next Republican president. The 920-page plan aims to implement the "unitary executive theory," which would give all of the power of the US government to the executive branch. This week, Derek and Julian break down the dystopic chapter on the Department of Health and Human Services, written by the anti-abortion, anti-LGBTQ+ Catholic nationalist, Roger Severino. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

29 Jan 20246min

Do people radicalized into conspiracism or cults ever admit their errors? When the prophecy fails and evidence shows they were wrong, do they come clean or double-down?  Julian checks in on some of the legacy conspiritualists profiled in our book—Russell Brand, Dr. Christiane Northrup, Mikki Willis, JP Sears, and Lorie Ladd—to see what their online messaging around Christmas and the New Year tells us.  These figures drove the anti-vax, Covid denial, QAnon virality, and rightward political trend in conspirituality during 2020-21. We’ll find out if they’ve seen the error of their ways in the aftermath of the 5th dimensional Great Awakening that never happened. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

27 Jan 202445min