Brief: Ground Zero Grifting

The British occultists took the thin and sickly but beautiful boy away from his family. Groomed him for 20 years to become the savior of humanity. Trained him between 1909-29 to be a serene guru and charming English aristocrat. He looked good in a double-breasted suit and had fabulous hair. Huge amounts of money flowed into the organization they built around him. But Krishnamurti became a man the day he shocked them all. Julian’s latest chapter of his historical series wraps up Helena Blavatsky’s Theosophical Society—one of the crucial 19th century roots of New Age metaphysics, and the phenomenon we call conspirituality. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

23 Sep 20246min

“God talks to human beings through many vectors. But nowhere with such detail, and grace and joy, as through creation. When we destroy nature, we diminish our capacity to sense the divine.” With this April 2023 tweet, RFK Jr inaugurated his presidential campaign, which has now folded into a daily ritual of Trump bootlicking. Now, Bobby is telling Tucker Carlson and the world that climate change cannot be solved through commitment to the “carbon orthodoxy.” “It’s not about quantifying stuff,” he says. “That's what the devil does. But the reason we're preserving these things is because we love our children.” What does this mean? Matthew tracks the sources and implications of Kennedy’s broken climate discourse—rooted in St. Francis of Assisi, appealing to gentleman farmers and homeschoolers, allergic to the scientific abstractions that give us a truly global picture, and always committed to the free market.  Show Notes RFK Jr: Teaming up With Trump, Pavel Durov’s Arrest, CIA, and the Fall of the Democrat Party  Birdwatching with Jonathan Franzen: 'Climate change isn't the only danger to birds'  Special Interview: Nostalgia for the Superego (w/Sam Binkley) — Conspirituality  Laudato si' (24 May 2015) | Francis  Brian Swimme: The Cosmos Watching Itself (E35) Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

21 Sep 202442min

There’s been a question gnawing at fans of Charles Eisenstein: what does he really feel about RFK Jr’s pivot to Trump? The always aspiring poet-philosopher was hired as a messaging advisor to Bobby, after all. We’ve spotted little fragments of Eisenstein’s exceptionally long essays sneaking their way into Bobby’s speeches. There was some influence, for sure, even after Charles went on multiple Costa Rican sabbaticals right in the middle of campaign season and apparently cut his consulting rate down from $21k per month, perhaps out of the goodness of the heart he knows is possible. And yet, for weeks after Bobby jumped the shark, Charles remained silent. Until now, that is. With the publication of his recent 6,711-word essay, “Shades of Many Colors,” Eisenstein finally breaks his silence and lands firmly on the side of…well, we’re not quite sure. But one thing that’s emerged is Charles’s penchant for not crediting the source of some of his galaxy-brained ideas. Today, we’ll look at some of what Charles says in his latest opus, and try to figure out what exactly he’s saying. Show Notes mRNA vaccine spike protein differs from viral version The effect of SARS-CoV-2 variant on respiratory features and mortality SARS-CoV-2 Infections in mRNA Vaccinated Individuals are Biased for Viruses Encoding Spike E484K and Associated with Reduced Infectious Virus Loads that Correlate with Respiratory Antiviral IgG levels. Autoimmune and Autoinflammatory Connective Tissue Disorders Following COVID-19 Risk of autoimmune diseases following COVID-19 and the potential protective effect from vaccination: a population-based cohort study The Lancet: Most comprehensive study to date provides evidence on natural immunity protection by COVID-19 variant and how protection fades over time Conspirituality 1: Coronation for Whom?  Brief: The New Age Origin Story of RFK Jr’s Campaign — Conspirituality 86: Charles Eisenstein, New Age Q — Conspirituality   Disavowing Disinformation - North Atlantic Books  Inside the Last Weeks of RFK Jr.’s Campaign Charles Eisenstein - What is the Next Story? - Scientific and Medical Network Brian Swimme: The Cosmos Watching Itself (E35) ​Charles Eisenstein Whitewashes Trump, Caricatures & Demonizes Democrats in Post Decrying Caricatures & Demonization (Part 1) Charles Eisenstein Endorses Trump, but Thinks You're Not Clever Enough to Notice (Part 2)  Cardiac Events Following Mpox Vaccine Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

19 Sep 20241h 12min

"Biohacking expert" Kayla Barnes recently published a 31-minute video about her morning routine, filled with EMF-blocking shields, grounding protocols, and 40 different daily supplements. Good if you can afford it, but then she sells questionable protocols at her Cleveland, Ohio-based clinic, Lyv Wellness, despite having no clinical training. Derek watches what she says, then watches what she sells. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

16 Sep 20245min

Tucker Carlson is the Steve Bannon of Joe Rogans. Tucker surpasses Rogan’s massive reach at times, but his curated guest list drives a deliberate agenda: normalizing neo-fascist political discourse. He does it all with an affable, friendly, just-asking-questions, I’m-not-as-smart-as-my-guests attitude that may disguise what he’s doing—like interviewing a Holocaust-denier Nazi apologist, or framing modern-day dictatorships as admirable, or promoting the anti-semitic Great Replacement Theory, or globe-trotting to flatteringly interviewing brutal enemies of democracy like Viktor Orban or Vladimir Putin. In the wake of recent controversy about WWII revisionism on Carlson’s show, Julian breaks down the accelerationist contours of Tucker’s far-right influence and agenda. Being fired from FOX News and going “independent” has only made it worse. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

14 Sep 202427min

In 2022, Tucker Carlson produced a documentary called “The End of Men,” his contribution to the so-called “masculinity crisis.” That’s when testicle tanning hit the mainstream, which one astute observer dubbed “bromeopathic therapy.” Turns out the former Fox News host isn’t done dabbling in conspirituality. This year, he’s platformed the QAnon Shaman, Jacob Chansley; lyme disease conspiracist, Kris Newby; the “other” Naomi, Naomi Wolf; brother-sister optimizers, Casey and Calley Means; and he’s currently on a 16-city tour with the likes of Russell Brand and Alex Jones. He’s also partly responsible for helping usher RFK Jr into Donald Trump’s camp. While the former CNN and MSNBC host turned far right provocateur isn’t leading wellness retreats (yet), he’s certainly being shared by an increasing number of wellness influencers, and we want to know why. Show Notes DOJ Accuses Russia of Sprawling Election Interference Campaign Homeland Violence and Diaspora Insecurity: An Analysis of Israel and American Jewry | Politics and Religion | Cambridge Core  Safety through Solidarity by Shane Burley, Ben Lorber Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

12 Sep 20241h 15min

Here’s the first installment of a regular timeline cleanser featuring interviews with folks reflecting on hope, faith, resilience and building community in hard times.  You know—all the things that conspirituality itself can’t offer. These are short, personal visits in which Matthew asks each guest the same five questions about their life wisdom—at least as it’s coming together in this moment. To start this series, Matthew hearkens back to the roots of Conspirituality Podcast in the yoga world with guest Jivana Heyman. Jivana is the founder and director of Accessible Yoga, an organization dedicated to increasing access to the yoga teachings and supporting yoga teachers. He’s the author of Accessible Yoga: Poses and Practices for Every Body; Yoga Revolution: Building a Practice of Courage & Compassion; and The Teacher's Guide to Accessible Yoga: Best Practices for Sharing Yoga with Every Body.  BTW: here are the five questions. You can think about them too. What terrifies you most in these times? What is the most meaningful and supportive idea or story you return to for reliable wisdom and relief? What is the greatest obstacle you face in forming community relationships, and how do you work to overcome it? If you were responsible for comforting and guiding a child terrified of climate catastrophe, how would you do it? What would you say?  If your wisest ancestor came in a dream to offer you one piece of advice about living in difficult times, what would it be? Show Notes jivanaheyman.com 9: Ableism in Conspiracy Theories (w/Jivana Heyman) — Conspirituality Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

10 Sep 202430min

What does it mean to spill ink on dispelling conspiracy theories about non-existent children being murdered, while actual children are being murdered? At what point does the labour of debunking right wing wackjobs also do the shadow-work of supporting the liberal-center orthodoxy? Matthew looks at how with QAnon, the liberal-center press criticized irrational responses to imaginary traumas, with a great sense of urgency. But on Gaza, they criticize rational responses to actual traumas, and imply that protesters are asking for too much, too fast.  What happens downstream of denials, minimizations, and contradictions? What are the social and mental health implications of moral injury? Are these not some of the same social conditions that generate conspiracism? Content warning: discussion of children, genocide Show Notes Is Israel Committing Genocide in Gaza? New Report from BU School of Law’s International Human Rights Clinic Lays Out Case  Rights expert finds ‘reasonable grounds’ genocide is being committed in Gaza | UN News  Dems Gave the 'Uncommitted Movement' Space to Talk About Gaza — Just Not on TV First-Ever DNC Panel on Palestinian Rights: We Need to “Restore the Soul of the Democratic Party”   “Stop Arming Israel”: Meet the DNC Delegates Who Unfurled Banner During Biden Speech  201: Librarians Are Not Groomers (w/Heath Umbreit) — Conspirituality  What I Saw Was “Unfathomable”: Doctor Who Worked in Gaza Speaks Out Against U.S. Arming of Israel  Counting the dead in Gaza: difficult but essential - The Lancet  Clearing Gaza of almost 40m tonnes of war rubble will take years, says UN  Israel Has Killed 2,100 Babies Under 2 Years Old in Gaza, Rights Group Says | Truthout  NYU barricades benches  College Administrators Spent Summer Break Dreaming Up Ways to Squash Gaza Protests  The Black Mark on the Democrats’ Big Party | The New Republic  Amnesty International Warns of U.S. Complicity in War Crimes in Gaza  Christian Wiman | Yale Divinity School Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

9 Sep 20246min