89: Till Death Do Us Part (w/Mary)

Recording the audiobook at a swanky Toronto studio sends Matthew down a memory hole to wonder about performance, self-awareness, and anxiety, and their relation to charisma. “Whatever charisma I have or project into the world has always been both prompted and tempered by the belief that becoming larger, that reaching out and creating an impression would soothe a confused or immature sense of self. That if I could be seen, I would be loved, and if loved, I would be real. “If there is an anxiety at the core of the influencers we study, it might be related to this. This week I had the opportunity to meditate on it, to remember how charisma formed around and within me, first through an arts education, and then as a yoga and wellness entrepreneur. It’s made me wonder whether and how I’ve been that much different than Zach Bush, or Mikki Willis, or Katie Griggs. I know how to project that voice, I know how to put on my resting guru face.” Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

27 Mars 20236min

Conspiritualists are not wrong that Jeffery Epstein’s downline has so far evaded justice. Or that the highest levels of the Catholic Church aided and abetted child sexual abuse for generations. They are not wrong about the existence of child sexual abuse materials circulating online, and that children are coerced, abducted, and sometimes killed in order to make them.  But their narratives are contorted by panic, mythology, stereotypes, paranoid and grandiose assumptions, and the antisemitic conspiracy theorizing of QAnon, which spread like wildfire through yoga and wellness social media during the pandemic and has now normalized as the “groomer” meme. They say that child sexual abuse is a planned, nefarious, top-down attack on innocents. They say that its purpose is to turn the world away from God, to starve humanity of hope. Matthew sits down with Håkon Høydal, an investigative journalist in Norway who has spent years researching and exposing the most abject behaviors on the dark web. His work reveals a very different landscape. It’s a banal world, close to home, hiding in plain sight, presided over by young men who are making reckless choices after having decided that their pathological and criminally harmful impulses will never be understood, much less treated.  Show Notes Hunting Warhead | CBC News  VG exposed the largest child sexual abuse forum. It was run by the police.  Porn site founder accused of sex trafficking arrested in Spain - The Globe and Mail Sex offender treatment scheme led to increase in reoffending | UK news | The Guardian -- -- -- Support us on Patreon Pre-order Conspirituality: How New Age Conspiracy Theories Became a Health Threat: America | Canada Follow us on Instagram | Twitter: Derek | Matthew | Julian Original music by EarthRise SoundSystem Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

23 Mars 202359min

Matthew sits down with Sam Binkley, Professor of Sociology at Emerson College in Boston to discuss his 2007 book Getting Loose: Lifestyle Consumption in the 1970s. We cited this very helpful work as we dug into the sociology of conspirituality for our own upcoming book. Here’s a thumbnail of Binkley’s argument: The 1970s ushered in a period of “getting loose” in relation to the body, work expectations, family relations, and political allegiances. This happened as the great moral and political questions of the 1960s deflated without resolution, even as they enshrined looser social mores around sex and finding meaningful work. The cultural yearning for structural change found its home in the project of the self, facilitated by an accelerated consumerism that expanded the conflation of agency with consumption. Getting Loose characterizes this inward turn as a retreat from the terrors of revolutionary freedom. Show Notes Getting Loose — Binkley -- -- -- Support us on Patreon Pre-order Conspirituality: How New Age Conspiracy Theories Became a Health Threat: America | Canada Follow us on Instagram | Twitter: Derek | Matthew | Julian Original music by EarthRise SoundSystem Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

21 Mars 20231h 6min

There are a number of philosophies presented in yoga spaces as "universal truths" that turn out to be little more than directives in an echo chamber. And there are protocols presented as therapeutic in wellness spaces that blur the line between spiritual rhetoric and pseudoscience — and some are quite dangerous. Derek looks at his experiences as a student at Jivamukti Yoga as well as the recent "ozone enema" podcast between Gwyneth Paltrow and Will Cole to discuss spiritual rhetoric and pseudoscience. He opens with his experiences as an international music journalist to provide a framework for thinking outside of your box, be it a local yoga studio or the websites you treat as gospel. Show Notes Gwyneth Paltrow Admits to Getting Ozone in Her Rectum -- -- -- Support us on Patreon Pre-order Conspirituality: How New Age Conspiracy Theories Became a Health Threat: America | Canada Follow us on Instagram | Twitter: Derek | Matthew | Julian Original music by EarthRise SoundSystem Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

20 Mars 20239min

When Disneyworld becomes DeSantisland, Eric Weinstein will be in charge of the Epcot Planetarium, JP Sears will headline the Family Values comedy stage, Jordan Peterson and Jonathan Pageau will build an Orthodox cathedral for male transformation rituals. And Cinderella Castle will be remodeled into a Potemkin Capitol where Mikki Willis will choreograph and film daily insurrections. The groundwork is being laid now, as we explore the institutionalization of QAnon. Moms for Liberty, egged on by Mike Flynn, is taking over school boards throughout the Sunshine State. Chris Rufo is now a college trustee, and Bret Weinstein is holding court in state medical committees. All while our conspirituality influencers, from Sears to Northrup to Avocado Wolfe, cheer on the dissolution of every social contract, every veneer of democracy.  The propaganda and sadism is so despairing that Derek might need religion, and Matthew might lose himself in retro fantasies of Disneyworld. Luckily, Julian talks with Sarasota anti-DeSantis activist Terra Kater about fighting the good fight under the hot sun. Show Notes CBD is everywhere. But is it a scam? Dear Conservatives, I Apologize The Paranoid Style in American Politics -- -- -- Support us on Patreon Pre-order Conspirituality: How New Age Conspiracy Theories Became a Health Threat: America | Canada Follow us on Instagram | Twitter: Derek | Matthew | Julian Original music by EarthRise SoundSystem Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

16 Mars 20231h 7min

QAnon ain't over—it's on your television. It's been mainstreamed, networked, and remixed. Senior online extremism and disinformation researcher, Alex Kaplan of Media Matters joins Julian to share his reporting on the latest developments. 2024 is fast approaching. Under the looming shadows of legal calamity, Trump is rallying the Anons on Truth Social while Mike Flynn and his grifter-entourage roadshow preaches hellfire and ivermectin anti-vax election denial at an evangelical church near you. Can't make it? Sit back and grab the remote.  Show Notes Alex Kaplan's Media Matters archive -- -- -- Support us on Patreon Pre-order Conspirituality: How New Age Conspiracy Theories Became a Health Threat: America | Canada Follow us on Instagram | Twitter: Derek | Matthew | Julian Original music by EarthRise SoundSystem Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

14 Mars 202331min

In this listener story, Julian talks to disabled rights activist and journalist Abby Mahler about how the fake COVID-cure grift endangers people who really need hydroxychloroquine to survive. -- -- --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

13 Mars 20238min

"Cleansing is no longer an option, it's a necessity.” From wellness influencers obsessed about the meat-body, to Christofascists obsessed about the body politic, rhetoric bombards us from all sides. Professor of Rhetoric Colleen Derkatch joins Julian to discuss the techniques of the meaning miasma. Her focus is on wellness rhetoric specifically, and how it points to incipient illness, encourages recreational diagnostics, and describes daily routines as liturgies that grant membership in divine communities. Also we can't avoid talking about Russell Brand on Bill Maher. Sorry.  Show Notes Meet Colleen Derkatch Gish Gallop: When People Try to Win Debates by Using Overwhelming Nonsense Pharma Wants In - Rina Raphael -- -- -- Support us on Patreon Pre-order Conspirituality: How New Age Conspiracy Theories Became a Health Threat: America | Canada Follow us on Instagram | Twitter: Derek | Matthew | Julian Original music by EarthRise SoundSystem Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

9 Mars 20231h 30min