Conspirituality

Derek meditates on a recent conversation about the left-right divide between Ezra Klein and James Pogue.

Show Notes

MAGA’s Big Tech Divide: Ezra Klein Show

Going Back to Cincinnati — James Pogue

Inside the New Right, Where Peter Thiel Is Placing His Biggest Bets — James Pogue

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In the spring of 2017, Jordan Peterson first went viral by writing this in Canada’s National Post: 

I will never use words I hate, like the trendy and artificially constructed words “zhe” and “zher.” These words are at the vanguard of a post-modern, radical leftist ideology that I detest, and which is, in my professional opinion, frighteningly similar to the Marxist doctrines that killed at least 100 million people in the 20th century.

Remember that horseshit, or things like it? Did you guffaw because he was obviously absurd? Did you try to reason with his stans online? Did you see him as a crank influencer, or a dangerous political figure? 

Did you hope his ideas would be beaten down in the marketplace of ideas? Or did you seek him out at a public event and shout him down with a bullhorn?

Today, word salad like this is everywhere—including in Project 2025, now driving the Trump admin. 

Matthew visits the antifascist woodshed to investigate the liberal manners, free speech naivety, and lack of community alliances that dissuaded him from grabbing the mic during a Peterson Q&A in 2017 and shouting: 

“Your ideas are fascist and you should STFU. You are endangering trans people with your bullshit. Why do you care about how they experience their bodies, you whining pervert? Why are you inciting hatred against young people who want a better world?”

Because… look where we are now.

Show Notes

Read the Memo Pausing Federal Grants and Loans - The New York Times 

President George H.W. Bush on political correctness (1991)

The History of Political Correctness—Lind

The Pitfalls of Liberalism — Kwame Ture

The Forgotten History of the World's First Trans Clinic | Scientific American 

Jordan Peterson: The right to be politically incorrect | National Post 

Bill C-16, An Act to amend the Canadian Human Rights Act and the Criminal Code (gender identity or expression) 

Jordan Peterson is trying to make sense of the world — including his own strange journey

Postmodern Neo-Marxism — Jordan Peterson’s Shadow  

Doug Ford met Jordan Peterson, appointment calendar reveals | CBC News 

Why are the Proud Boys so violent? Ask Gavin McInnes — SPLC  

Jordan Peterson revealed he once earned $400,000 a month

Antifa by Mark Bray

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Edward Snowden is largely only a public name thanks to Glenn Greenwald’s reporting, for which he was one of the contributors to a Pulitzer Prize-winning series for The Guardian in 2014. For a while, Matt Taibbi was considered the heir to Hunter Thompson when his gonzo journalism tore open the 2008 financial crisis and gave the public the term “vampire squids.” 

Yet in more recent years, both men have swerved right: Glenn became a darling on Fox News and Taibbi was recruited by Elon Musk as one of the Twitter Files “journalists.” How did that happen? We’re joined by journalist Eoin Higgins, whose new book, Owned: How Tech Billionaires on the Right Bought the Loudest Voices on the Left, dives into the career arcs of both Greenwald and Taibbi, and how they confuse and distort right-left alignments.

Show Notes

Sharath Jois, Heir to Founder of Ashtanga Yoga, Dies at 53 - The New York Times

Sharath’s Statement on Pattabhi Jois’s Assaults: Context, Links, Notes – Matthew Remski 

Surviving Modern Yoga - North Atlantic Books 

Owned: How Tech Billionaires on the Right Bought the Loudest Voices on the Left

Eoin Higgins Morning Brew | Bluesky

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Part 2 of Matthew’s sit down with sex-work veteran and social justice advocate Esme Providence Brown to discuss New Age / wellness antifeminist, Kelly Brogan, and how her craven politics bolster the permission structure for Trumpian misogyny.

They track her political and aesthetic journey from labcoat wearer to wellness pole dancer to BDSM cosplayer—a spiral through deepening layers of appropriation, disavowal of responsibility, and cringe-tastic ideas. Esme concludes with some deep insights on what it means for artisanal BDSM to be stripped of its political and consent-culture context, and who Brogan’s “feminism is a psy-op” argument really serves.

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When asked if he thought Mark Zuckerberg’s effective ending of fact checking was in response to threats that he would “put him in jail for a very long time,” Trump replied, “Probably. Yeah, probably.” A week later, TikTok voluntarily disabled their app for users, then put up an announcement saying that Trump was going to bring them back. 

Julian talks to digital disinformation expert Renee Diresta about the massive Big Tech realignment with MAGA, which now means Meta, X, and TikTok may become more like TruthSocial. If fact checking is biased, content moderation is censorship, and combating foreign propaganda is anti-free speech, where does that leave us now?

Show Notes

If you Give A Mouse a Cookie: Renee Diresta

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What the ever loving fuck. That’s our intro today.

But we do have a structure. Julian’s going to review the Executive Order chaos, including the pardoning and deputizing of fascist street gangs. Derek’s going to explain what the ever loving fuck it means for health agencies to turn off access to health data. And I’ll look at two Xtian responses to fascism: one hypocritical and one poetic… but maybe toothless.

Show Notes

Freed Capitol riot ringleaders regroup - and vow 'retribution'

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Full episode available here.

The alien from Venus in George King’s head said: “Prepare yourself. You are to be the voice of interplanetary parliament.” It’s 1952 and the Englishman has been meditating deeply. Eight days later, a famous yogi from India materializes to explain what’s going on.

These experiences became the basis for the Aetherius Society—an organization that still has 35 chapters around the planet today. They claim the world’s governments are covering up their communication with a spiritually enlightened galactic federation, so as to maintain control over humanity.

If that sounds like 2020 red-pilled Instagram grift, you’re right! Everything old is new again.

Julian’s series, The Roots of Conspirituality, a history of new age conspiracism, is now conveniently organized under the “Collections” tab at the top of our Patreon page. Each episode is self-contained—but listen from the start if you want to trace the journey from the 1840’s “burned over region” of the American North East to today!

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On Jan 10, the Oregon Nurses Association launched the largest healthcare strike in Oregon state history. Some 5k frontline caregivers from 8 Providence hospitals and 6 clinics have been holding the line in freezing temperatures as they fight for basic rights that their employer—a Catholic nonprofit healthcare system whose C Suite members make millions of dollars every year—refuses to give them.

Derek discusses why such strikes, and unions in general, are so important as the new administration takes office. He breaks down some of Providence’s past legal problems, discusses his own experience as a Providence patient, and talks to some of the nurses on the strike line.

Show Notes

Dr Jennifer Lincoln

Oregon Nurses Association

Resources for striking healthcare professionals

It's Time for Providence to Put Patients Before Profits 

Providence, striking Oregon health workers remain apart on key issues

They Were Entitled to Free Care. Hospitals Hounded Them to Pay.

Hospital System to Refund Poor Patients Who Were Entitled to Free Care

Wealthiest Hospitals Got Billions in Bailout for Struggling Health Providers

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One of the top podcasts in the world—even beating out Rogan for a few hours—is popularizing a well-meaning intervention for non-speaking autistic people. Unfortunately, that intervention happens to be a proven failure, and may set autistic and disability rights discourse back by decades. 

Filmmaker Ky Dicken’s The Telepathy Tapes podcast delves into the world of Facilitated Communication, in which non-speaking people are believed to miraculously gain access to complex written language after lives of silence. According to Dickson, non-speaking people can also gather in transdimensional spaces and channel spiritual knowledge.

But there’s a problem. Every controlled test shows that the messages produced through letterboards and iPads are coming from the facilitators—not the non-speaking persons.

In this episode, Matthew interviews experts in pseudoscience and autism, including Janyce Boynton, a former (now dissident) practitioner of Facilitated Communication who explains how seductive and promising it was to practice, but how it ultimately steals agency and dignity from the autistic client.

And... this is also a story about parents dealing with crushing levels of unpaid and invisible labour. They are already doing miraculous work. A fantasy is no replacement for true support and recognition.

Show Notes

Podcast About 'Telepathic' Autistic Children Briefly Knocks Joe Rogan Out Of No. 1 Spot  

Ky Dickens Director | Filmmaker 

Facilitated Communication—what harm it can do: Confessions of a former facilitator

MD25438 - Powell, Diane Hennacy, MD - OR License Verification - 01/12/2025 11:07:47 AM 

The Telepathy Tapes: Separating Science From Pseudoscience In Autism Communication 

Stolen Voices: Facilitated Communication Devalues Autism | Psychology Today Canada

Multiple method validation study of facilitated communication: II. Individual differences and subgroup results - PubMed  

The Telepathy Tapes Prove We All Want to Believe

"The Telepathy Tapes" is Taking America by Storm. But it Has its Roots in Old Autism Controversies. 

Mixed Messages: Validity and Ethics of Facilitated Communication | Disability Studies Quarterly 

Is There Science Behind That? Facilitated Communication 

Controlled Studies — Facilitated Communication

Served people with severe communication impairments — Obit for Rosemary Crossley

More Doubts over Disability ‘Miracle’ 

Katharine Beals

Jonathan Jarry MSc - Science Communicator  

FCisNotScience - YouTube — Janyce Boynton’s awesome YouTube channel

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The seventh installment of Matthew’s Five Big Questions Posed to an Extremely Thoughtful Person. 

Sam Adler-Bell is a journalist, political theorist, and co-host of one of Matthew’s favourite podcasts, Know Your Enemy—a show about the American right. They discuss the normalization of genocide, the stark comforts of Freud and Janet Malcolm, the relief of DW Winnicott, how we can’t avoid playing the role of our own mothers, and also good advice from his dad, a labour lawyer who knows something about long, uncertain, but always worthwhile battles for the common good. 

Show Notes

Sam Adler-Bell

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Twitter Files journalist Alex Berenson recently published two articles claiming that Moderna covered up a child's death from a Moderna Covid booster trial—and the FDA is complicit. Children’s Health Defense then hosted him on their TV program to learn more about this outrageous scandal.

Do Berenson's claims hold up? All Derek did was click on the links in his own article to discover the "truth." He looks at this phenomenon through the lens of the 2020 book, Calling Bullshit: The Art of Skepticism in a Data-Driven World.

Show Notes

Calling Bullshit: The Art of Skepticism in a Data-Driven World

Alex Berenson’s article

Children’s Health Defense interview

The Lancet study on Covid vaccination in children

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We know Bryan Johnson gobbles 100 pills a day. He pumps his son’s plasma through his veins. He does light therapy on his junk and wants to live forever. But do we understand how Johnson’s fascinations reflect his Mormon heritage? No. No we don’t. 

That’s why we called our very own Salt Lake City expert, Blair Hodges, host of the Relationscapes podcast. 

Blair joins Matthew to discuss Johnson’s transhumanism, which has roots in the LDS but has also led him away from it. They cover the spirituality of his money, whether he’s trying to become a living god, and how his home gym has some distinctive Mormon temple elements. Also: is Bryan really as polite as he seems, or is he hiding

Blair has degrees in journalism, religious studies, and disability studies from the University of Utah and Georgetown University. He directed communications for the Neal A. Maxwell Institute for Religious Studies at Brigham Young University before moving to the nonprofit sector. He has served as communications director for Volunteers of America, Utah and RMHC of the Intermountain Area. He’s currently working on a research project on the history of intellectual disabilities in Mormon thought.

Show Notes

Relationscapes—Blair Hodges

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In January, 2023, Bloomberg published an article about how tech entrepreneur turned longevity stan, Bryan Johnson, spends $2 million a year in an attempt to live forever—or at least until age 200, as the goalposts shift. Then a Netflix documentary, Don’t Die: The Man Who Wants to Live Forever, dropped on January 1, taking a deep dive into Johnson’s quest and complex personal life. A strange thing happened along the way: Johnson felt much more personable and relatable than ever before to many viewers. Given the Bloomberg journalist is one of the producers, is this the latest propaganda piece by a supplements-pushing huckster, or is Johnson tapping into something much older and deeper about the human condition?

Show Notes

How to Be 18 Years Old Again for Only $2 Million a Year

Politico piece on Mayor Karen Bass and LA Fires

Anna Merlan on LA Fire conspiracies

Ally Carter Diddy-List Fire Conspiracy Theory Shared by Former Bush Official

Nutritionist Reviews The Blueprint Supplements

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A one-time drop of Derek's new podcast, Clarity Lab, the official podcast of Siris Health, a 501(c)(3) nonprofit building a free educational platform and curating social media channels that feature experts presenting health and science in a clear, compelling manner.

Celery juice. Coffee enemas. Ozone therapy. The list of pseudoscientific cancer "treatments" is endless. Yet they all risk pushing people in vulnerable positions toward untenable "cures."

Dr Andrea Love joins Derek Beres to discuss the dangers of cancer misinformation, as well as why the field of cancer research is so complex—and rewarding.

Dr Andrea Love is an immunologist and microbiologist, as well as subject-matter expert in infectious disease immunology, cancer immunology, and autoimmunity. She writes the Immunologic newsletter.

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Matthew sits down with sex-work veteran and social justice advocate Esme Providence Brown for the first of two chinwags about our famous New Age / wellness antifeminist, Kelly Brogan, and how her craven politics bolster the permission structure for Trumpian misogyny.

They track her political and aesthetic journey from labcoat-wearer to wellness pole dancer to BDSM cosplayer—a spiral through deepening layers of appropriation, disavowal of responsibility, and cringe-tastic ideas.

This is only Part One!

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UCSF epidemiology and biostatistics professor Vinay Prasad's star rose when he compared the US response to Covid-19 to the beginnings of the Third Reich in October, 2021. Though a less famous contrarian than others in the MAHA sphere, the hematologist-oncologist has honed his social media trolling over the past few years, always ready for a fight, evidence be damned.

Derek and Julian look at two recent videos that signal Prasad might be angling for a position in a potential RFK Jr-run HHS—and all the misinformation he continues to spread.

Show Notes

BMJ's Systematic Review on Quarantine Measures

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Like it or not, 2025 is here. What happens in post-truth America when formerly fringe conspiracy theorists, religious extremists, pseudoscience-peddlers, and wannabe authoritarians become a government—now weaponized against their personal enemies, both foreign and domestic? Should political analysis take a page from academics who study professional wrestling?

We each offer our views on what's ahead.

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George van Tassel was the original UFO contactee. He claimed to have been visited by aliens from Venus in 1953, which led to him hosting thousands of people at the annual Interplanetary Spacecraft Convention for almost 20 years. He channeled “Ashtar, ”a figure still popular in “Galactic Federation” conspiritualist circles today, and spent 25 years building a time machine based on telepathic communications with aliens. 

Julian unpacks the wild story of van Tassel’s airstrip, the Mojave Desert’s Giant Rock, and how the FBI may have been involved in his mysterious death and subsequent disappearance of his cellular rejuvenation equipment.

This is part of a series of free-standing episodes that excavates the history of pseudoscience and conspiracism beneath contemporary New Age spirituality.

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Journalist and author Josie Reisman says we can’t understand the Trump era without understanding his life-long pro-wrestling fandom, and his bonds with one of his closest friends, WWE tycoon Vince McMahon. 

Reisman argues that McMahon’s invention of “neokayfabe,” in which storylines and real life are purposefully and artfully confused, blurs the distinction between fact and fiction. It makes consumers, followers, and voters complicit in creating a spectacle of cruelty. 

It’s the kind of argument that once seen, can’t be unseen. It helps explain the contradictory and performative politics of Trump—and how, under his leadership, the administrative state may not be destroyed by fascism directly, but by a theatre of cynicism and catharsis that will allow the latent fascism of the American Empire to explode. 

Show Notes

Welcome to Neokayfabe 

Ringmaster: Vince McMahon and the Unmaking of America — Abraham Josephine Riesman // Writer

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British entrepreneur and investor Steven Bartlett launched his podcast, Diary of a CEO, in 2017. He quickly found an audience in the tech world, which gave him access to a wide range of celebrities and businesspeople from various domains. By 2024, the podcast became one of the top 5 in the world, netting Bartlett and his team a reported $25M this year alone.

Yet as Bartlett’s star rose, his guest list began becoming more and more suspect. Pertinent to our beat, contrarian wellness influencers and philosophers appeared, spreading Covid conspiracies and health misinformation. In his role as curious everyman, Bartlett rarely challenged their narratives, sometimes playing along with their conspiratorial hot takes to an audience in the millions.

We look at a few conspiritualist crossovers this week, and discuss what it really takes to become a top 5 podcaster—and the information and integrity that’s sacrificed along the way.

Show Notes

The Canonization of St. Luigi

Sacred Heart of Luigi hanging up at Vito's Pizza 

Extremist “Saints Culture”

Catholic ethicists condemn ‘indifference to suffering’ shown by those celebrating Luigi Mangione

41% of young voters say UnitedHealthcare CEO killing "acceptable" 

69% Blame CEO Murder on US Healthcare System 

Mainstreaming of Violent Accelerationism

December Wave 2 2024 AmeriSpeak Omnibus | NORC at the University of Chicago  

Steven Bartlett sharing harmful health misinformation in Diary of CEO podcast

What the Most Famous Book About Trauma Gets Wrong

Teal Swan Collection—Patreon

Bessel van der Kolk: Role in the Satanic Panic

He Built a Wellness Empire While Adventuring With Robert F. Kennedy Jr.

Only 7% of American Adults Have Good Cardiometabolic Health

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Happy New Year’s Eve!

The sixth installment of Matthew’s Five Big Questions Posed to an Extremely Thoughtful Person. 

Writer, historian, and activist Rebecca Solnit is the author of more than 20 books on feminism, western and indigenous history, popular power, social change and insurrection, wandering  and walking, hope and disaster.

Show Notes

Rebecca Solnit

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Ozempic might be all the rage among people who want to lose weight, but wellness influencers and MAHA acolytes are raging against the antidiabetic medication. Derek investigates recent statements by RFK Jr and Calley Means and holds up their claims to the data we can all see online.

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We've been highly critical of The Free Press in the past, but a recent memoir-article about grappling with a familial history of polio by Jana Kozlowski stood out. Derek and Julian take no issue with the piece, which was an emotional plea to understand the ravages of polio and the efficacy of vaccines. The comment section is another thing.

Show Notes

Polio Ravaged My Family. Forget Its Horror at Your Peril.

The First Five Errors in the Moth in the Iron Lung Book

The First Five Errors in Dissolving Illusions by Suzanne Humphries

Amazon Won’t Take a Stand in War Over Anti-Vaxxer Book

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A special Patreon bonus unlocked episode as we enjoy the holidays with our families and friends.

Matthew got The Question on the morning after the election. At that moment, he came up with nothing but a hug. But then he chewed on it for days, and came up with eleven things to consider. 

So here are some notes for possible conversations with tweens about anxiety, bullies, fascism, friends, mutual aid, and love.

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“If you grow up with it, religion is real until you realize it is also imagined. And after a period of disenchantment or even depression that associates imagination with lies, you might then sense that the imagined part was also real, but because it’s imagined, you know you can change it.”

Matthew reflects on how Santa becomes more real in the home after the kids know he’s just a story, but a story of unbridled love and causeless generosity they can now participate in telling.

Happy holidays, everyone!

Show Notes

A Christmas Carol: Dedicated to Scrooge, And His Art Collection—McKenzie Wark

Ringmaster: Vince McMahon and the Unmaking of America — Abraham Josephine Riesman

Welcome to Neokayfabe—Jodie Reisman 

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Jeffery Tucker is the founder of the MAGA thinktank Brownstone Institute. In 2020, Brownstone published The Great Barrington Declaration, with lead author Jay Bhattacharya—now the nominee for head of the NIH. 

Jeffrey’s daughter, Julia, joins Matthew to discuss her dad’s rise through the punditocracy, through decades of fringe libertarian publishing, working for Ron Paul, boosting anarcho-capitalism and crypto, writing for the Epoch Times, and asking such daring questions as: “What’s so wrong about child labour?”

Show Notes

Patreon: Post-Catholic Music (w/Julia Tucker)

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The murder of United HealthCare CEO Brian Thompson has set off shockwaves across America. This week we look at the story’s online impact, people mythologizing the alleged killer, its intersection with conspirituality, and the healthcare system in America writ large.

Show Notes

Jen Gunter on insurance denial for her premature babies' oxygen needs 

Exclusive: Luigi's Manifesto - Ken Klippenstein 

Savings: Quarter of Americans Have Few, One in 10 Have None | Statista 

The Burden of Medical Debt in the United States

View of U.S. Healthcare Quality Declines to 24-Year Low

MDVIP/Ipsos poll shows Americans are struggling with the healthcare system

UnitedHealthcare CEO gunned down in Manhattan sold company stocks just before DOJ probe made public | The Independent 

Conservatives Face Backlash From Followers Over UnitedHealthcare Murder - Newsweek 

Before fatal subway chokehold, Jordan Neely was on NYC’s list of homeless individuals with dire needs | CNN 

Kaiser Study on Health Insurance Satisfaction

NIH Debunks Myth that 60% of Bankruptcies are Medical in Nature

Luigi Mangione’s Anger Wasn’t Neatly Ideological 

Gallup Poll on Health Care Satisfaction

Ipsos Poll on Health Care Satisfaction

Mental Illness is 13.5 times More Likely In Lone Wolf Shooters 

Narcissism, Fame Seeking and Mass Shootings

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The fifth installment of Matthew's Five Big Questions Posed to an Extremely Thoughtful Person. 

Dr. Annie Kelly joined us in Episode 61 to lay out her research on the manosphere-to-conspirituality pipeline. Today she joins me to discuss the trouble and joy of balancing extremism research with stories of hope and solidarity.

Show Notes

Annie Kelly  

Vaccine: The Human Story - YouTube

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Extremely online, bearded, Millennial pastors in tailored suits want to repeal women’s suffrage, criminalize gays, and Make America Christian Again. These “TheoBros” even have a guy on the inside: JD Vance. Trump’s Dept of Defense nominee, Pete Hegseth, attends an affiliated church. 

Julian tracks their genealogy and ugly ideas, as well as their parallel reactionary theocratic visions wreaking havoc elsewhere in the world today. Stay tuned for conversational reflections and wholesome holiday wishes at the end!

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Journalist Talia Lavin joins Derek to discuss her recent book, Wild Faith: How the Christian Right is Taking Over America. 

Show Notes

Wild Faith: How the Christian Right is Taking Over America

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As we ride out the aftershocks of the election and prepare for Trump 2.0, it’s as if nothing is bolted down. Trump’s cabinet appointments signal a disregard for competence or temperament as he seems to prioritize fervent deep state conspiracism and anti-woke aggression in his choices. The chattering classes (both legacy and new media) are on the front lines of having to adapt in real time. 

What to do? Double down on anti-fascist resistance, turn the disinformation detection devices up to 11, chart a course for sanguine neutrality, normalize the chaos as the world burns, or maybe give this rag-tag group of billionaire outsiders a chance to move fast and break things—in the hope that some of it was not working anyway? 

We look at three different modes of damage control currently ripping through American discourse.

Show Notes

There’s a conspiracy theory that the CIA invented the term ‘conspiracy theory’ – here’s why

87: The Aubrey Marcus Spectacle

107: An Open Letter to Aubrey Marcus

214: Aubrey Marcus is Totally Not a Cult Leader

Winning the Fight for Reproductive Rights in Mexico - Open Society Foundations  

Madres de Plaza de Mayo | Learning for Justice 

Adweek article on Rogan and MeidasTouch

Kash Patel QAnon Appearances

Kash Patel Seal Team 6 Endangerment

So Marianne Williamson Really is the Peace Candidate—Patreon 

“You Feel Like You Are Subhuman”: Israel’s Genocide Against Palestinians in Gaza | Amnesty International USA 

NLG and Other Legal Groups Send Letter to ICC Urging an Investigation into Potential War Crimes Committed by Israel and US in Gaza under “Operation Protective Edge”

Russell Tribunal on Palestine, 2014  

Friday 17 November: Twenty thousand Palestinians believed to be killed in Israel’s genocide of Gaza 

Campus Protests Led to More Than 3,100 Arrests, but Many Charges Have Been Dropped 

Harris campaign rejects claim vice president thinks there is a genocide in Gaza 

A Study Reveals CNN and MSNBC’s Glaring Gaza Double Standard | The Nation 

Morning Joe: Dems’ Favorite Show, Blatant Pro-Israel Propaganda 

The Intercept: Israel-Palestine Coverage 

US MSM downplays Amnesty report 

TIME on Iranian Foreign Influence Methods

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Researchers in California recently warned that just one mutation in H5N1, the bird flu virus, could make the disease transmissible between humans. While the virus was first identified in 1959 (and became globally significant in 1996), they’re also concerned that increasingly damaging effects of climate change could make us more susceptible to such viruses. The same week, California-based raw milk manufacturer, Raw Farm, was forced to recall its products due to third-party testers discovering it contained H5N1.

Derek looks at these converging trends—the wellness-driven fervor over the safety and health benefits of raw milk and the chances of another pandemic—with an investigation into why this matters from a public health perspective. Along the way, he’ll define the three often-confused forms of health in public discourse—individual, population, and public health—and why influencers often confuse them.

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Exvangelical author Tia Levings joins Matthew to discuss her harrowing memoir of indoctrination, abuse, recovery, and advocacy, The Well-Trained Wife: My Escape from Christian Patriarchy. It’s a wild GenX journey that tells us a lot about the logic of evangelical support for Trumpism, and how those caught within it can see their way clear the gender terror, rape culture, and fantasies of retribution. 

Show Notes

Tia Levings 

This season, Patreon is checking some big things off your wish list

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If you’ve spent one minute on social media in the last few months, you’ve probably heard that seed oils are extremely toxic, food dyes are the reason for rising obesity rates—oh wait, that’s glyphosate—and vaccines are still causing autism. Nevermind the fact that the supposedly criminal preservative, thimerosal, was removed from almost all vaccinations in 2001. Clinical research is irrelevant in MAHA, RFK Jr’s Make America Healthy Again MAGA ripoff.

Wellness acolytes have found a champion in Kennedy, who’s going to immediately end chronic diseases and reduce obesity rates by…checks notes…making sure every American has a gym membership. We’ve covered Bobby a lot on this podcast, so today our fearless correspondent, Mallory DeMille, returns to investigate one very vocal and very relieved cohort, the MAHA Mamas. They just know Kennedy is going to truly save the children, science be damned.

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An essay from Matthew on how MAGA religiosity obscures the religious nature of liberalism, and how both obscure the underlying religion of capitalism. 

Inspired by Walter Benjamin, who in 1921 wrote:

One can behold in capitalism a religion, that is to say, capitalism essentially serves to satisfy the same worries, anguish, and disquiet formerly answered by so-called religion. Capitalism is a pure religious cult, perhaps the most extreme there ever was. Within it everything only has meaning in direct relation to the cult: it knows no special dogma, no theology.

Show Notes

Mutual Aid Hub 

Martin Luther King Jr: Dialectics, Materialism, and the Black Radical Critique of Racial Capitalism with Andrew J. Douglas and Jared A. Loggins 

230: How Did We Get Here?

Walter Benjamin, "Capitalism as Religion [Fragment 74]," 

Max Weber and Walter Benjamin

Without Dream or Mercy 

Has Capitalism Become Our Religion?

On the Concept of History - Walter Benjamin 

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The Free Press founder, Bari Weiss, recently hosted Peter Thiel on her podcast. While The FP markets itself as as a return to independent and non-partisan real journalism, Julian and Derek point out that's not the case at all—especially when the organization's $15M in funding comes from rightwing and libertarian VCs. Will Weiss factcheck Thiel's misinformation in real-time, as a "non-partisan" outlet should?

Show Notes

Lapdogs Of The "Counter-Elite" Authoritarians

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Since the election, Democratic voter disbelief and despair has alternated between grief and rage. We watched some erstwhile vociferous critics of Trump in the legacy media, like Joe Scarborough and Mika Brzezinski, kiss the ring and bend the knee, while others adopted a contorted posture of seeming legitimization, like NPR hosting Leonard Leo for a nice long sit-down interview. 

Meanwhile, the big egos of MAGA 2.0 seem to rise like Soviet propaganda banners over the American landscape. Trump has named his cabinet picks at lightning speed. His list includes a pro-wrestling executive, a Hare Krishna cult member, a tech billionaire, an anti-vax conspiracy peddler, a FOX News host with far-right tattoos, an alt-med snake oil salesman, two sex offenders, a COVID-contrarian doctor—and, contrary to his claiming to know nothing about it during the election, prominent Project 2025 authors. 

What most high profile nominations all have in common is being completely unqualified for the job. Maybe that’s the point. We look at the cabinet picks that intersect with our beat, as pseudoscience conspiracism now completes its journey from the social fringes to deciding White House policies—and all the consequences that entails.

Show Notes

Conspirituality’s Project 2025 coverage

Everything You Need to Know About Donald Trump’s FDA Pick

No, Medical Errors Are Not the Third Leading Cause of Death

Dr. Oz Shilled for an Alternative to Medicare

Trump picks former Florida Rep. Weldon to lead CDC

13 things everyone should know about Pete Hegseth 

Trump reportedly plans to kick trans troops out of the military within days of inauguration

Transgender Military Service in the United States

Did RFK Jr. eat McDonald’s in that viral pic aboard Trump’s plane? Here’s the answer 

Part One: Vince McMahon, History's Greatest Monster - Behind the Bastards

C-03-CV-24-004019 — John Does suit against WWE, trigger warning. 

Case 3:24-cv-00090 Document 1 Filed 01/25/24 — Janel Grant suit, trigger warning. 

152: Tulsi Gabbard’s Krishna Consciousness (w/Nitai Joseph)

Tulsi Gabbard's ties to the Science of Identity Foundation, a controversial religious sect that some call an abusive 'cult'

Tulsi Gabbard Had a Very Strange Childhood

What Does Tulsi Gabbard Believe?

Tulsi Gabbard’s ties to secretive cult may explain her perplexing political journey

Islamophobic World View of Tulsi Gabbard's Guru Revealed in Unearthed Recordings – Can she Still Run for President?

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Matthew here with the fourth installment of Five Big Questions Posed to an Extremely Thoughtful Person. 

Rob Schenck joined me in Episode 199 to discuss his deradicalization from the Evangelical anti-abortion movement. Today he joins me to discuss some things he’s learned about hope, faith, resilience and building community in hard times.

Show Notes

Costly Grace - Rob Schenck 

199: Inside Anti-Abortion Christian Nationalism (w/Rob Schenck)

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The climate denialist who exposed the so-called “censorship industrial complex” returns, this time at another congressional hearing. Michael Shellenberger has come to blow the whistle on Big Government’s UFO cover-up. 

Nancy Mace, Lauren Boebert, and Anna Paulina Luna alternate between showing off their knowledge of fantastical History Channel “documentaries” and playing bad cop interrogators.

Reverse-engineered UFO’s! Recovered alien “biologics!” Interdimensional beings! Organic machines that defy the laws of physics! 

Shellenberger and his fellow “witnesses” provide precisely zero evidence for any of these earth-shattering claims.

Welcome to the Government Oversight and Accountability Committee circus.

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AG1 built a billion-dollar brand in large part by tapping into the fitness and wellness podcast and YouTube markets. Recently, AG1’s founder, Chris Ashenden, resigned after a decades-old real estate scam in his native New Zealand came to light. While Chris has mentioned it in passing, he’s always claimed to have paid full reparations for his crime—and it was a crime.

Turns out that he hasn’t paid it all, as uncovered by New Zealand journalists Jonathan Milne and Mike Wesley-Smith. They join Derek to discuss their year-and-a-half long investigation that resulted in a billionaire founder leaving one of the most well-known supplements brands in the world. They also talk about why journalism still matters in a world seemingly run by billionaires. 

Show Notes

AG1 founder Chris Ashenden resigns amid scrutiny of NZ criminal history

DELVE: Powder Keg podcast on Apple Podcasts | Spotify | iHeart

Trump sues for billions from media he says is biased against him

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Josemaria Escriva founded Opus Dei, an ultra-conservative, high-demand, secretive Catholic organization in Madrid, Spain, after receiving a supposed vision from God in 1928. His small inner circle initially initiated university students into strict obedience, celibacy, medieval practices of self-flagellation, and deceptive recruitment techniques to convert their friends. 

Operating outside of the mainstream church, Opus Dei rose to prominence under Spain's authoritarian dictator, Francisco Franco. Escriva was eventually canonized as a saint while the group amassed enormous wealth and influence around the world. 

Today, their reactionary religious and political mission has established a foothold in Washington DC through the Catholic Information Center—the tabernacle closest to the White House.Bill Barr, Leonard Leo, and Project 2025 mastermind, Kevin Roberts, all visit for spiritual guidance. Meanwhile, scandals and lawsuits involving child sex abuse, money laundering, and human trafficking plague Opus Dei's reputation. Gareth Gore joins us to discuss his controversial new book on the past and present of this secretive organization, Opus.

Show Notes

Pew Research Center: America’s News Influencers

How Opus Dei Converted DC

Gareth Gore Author page for his book, Opus

Opus Dei Paid $900K to Settle Sexual Misconduct Claim

Argentine Prosecutors Accuse Opus Dei of Human Trafficking

Maria del Carmen Tapia Book Summary on Opus Dei

Financial Times on Opus 

Biblical omen uncovered in aftermath of Hurricane Helene | Daily Mail Online

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A personal journey through health describing what led Derek to focus on health, science, and healthcare as a career and, eventually, this podcast.

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The post-election online chaos has a lot in common with what can go wrong in online survivor groups. Matthew tracks how opportunities for connection and solidarity can crater into gravity wells of recrimination, trauma-dumping, moral outrage porn, and the rise of new influence hierarchies. Not just because of differences in politics and values and temperament—but because of inequality and privilege. 

A meditation on the difference between building a boat to sail in vs. a boat in a bottle, on considering the second arrow, and on when to log the fuck off. 

Show Notes

Mutual Aid Hub

MORAL OUTRAGE PORN C. Thi Nguyen and Bekka Williams

The Second Arrow — Sutta Central  

Log the Fuck Off with Amber Frost, Matt Christman, & Ben Fong

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Once upon a time, there was a golden age. A time when the news media was fair and balanced, unbiased and honest. But we've lost all that to the corrupting influence of big money, political correctness, and woke censorship. Blame the radical left.

Not to worry: the online charisma of heterodox new media figures like Bari Weiss and her plucky, centrist, truth-telling little start-up, The Free Press, has come to Make Journalism Great Again.

Yet their supposed heterodoxy is neither neutral nor journalistically rigorous. It's pure culture war contrarian sensationalism that wastes little ink critiquing the rise of right-wing authoritarianism.

We trace these tangled threads by listening in to the supposedly non-partisan The Free Press election night livestream, which giddily praised Trump for being the consummate bullshitter that will take an ax to Democratic institutions.

The evolution of France’s left and right politics, from the 1789 French Revolution to this year's election 

What to Know About the Origins of ‘Left’ and ‘Right’ in Politics, From the French Revolution to the 2020 Presidential Race 

Our American Zion 

When a Terrorist Comes to Your Hometown

Columbia's Own Middle East War

Bari Weiss’s Unasked Questions

TFP latest round of funding

Thiel/Lonsdale and UATX funding

UATX huge cash injection after pro-palestine protests

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Matthew got The Question on the morning after the election. At that moment, he came up with nothing but a hug. But then he chewed on it for days, and came up with eleven things to consider. 

So here are some notes for possible conversations with tweens about anxiety, bullies, fascism, friends, mutual aid, and love.

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Derek discusses Tucker Carlson advocating for corporal punishment as a way to discipline children in his appearance at the Turning Points USA MAGA rally.

This is an unlock from a recent Patreon bonus, with a new intro from Matthew.

Show Notes

Stephen Colbert: Tucker Carlson’s Weird Daddy Issues

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Rapid-response electoral punditry is not our lane. So, while we gather our feelings and thoughts, Matthew hosts novelist Sheila Heti for a discussion of her encounter with A Course in Miracles, and what she discovered when she investigated its origin story for Harper’s Magazine.

Was Helen Schucman, the book’s “scribe”, mentally ill? Was she unduly influenced by her boss at Columbia Medical School, William Thetford, who once worked for the CIA’s MKUltra programme, and with whom she was clearly in love, even though he was gay? Were they dropping acid on assignment from Langley? Why was the initial dictation of the book so radically altered by its first editors? Why did Helen Schucman curse A Course in Miracles so soon after publication? Why did she keep writing trite poems to Jesus before dying in bitterness?

Heti was the ideal gumshoe for this project, because as a novelist all-too-familiar with internal voices and the feeling of “channeling,” she was able to feel her way into Helen’s life. Matthew asks her what she found.

Show Notes

The New Age Bible — Sheila Heti 

Sheila Heti — website

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Having lived under Apartheid in South Africa, voted in the UK, and now staring down this terrifying US election, Julian reflects on the political differences between the three countries.

Stay tuned for some hopeful poetry at the end.

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Recently, “holistic veterinarian” Marcie Fallek, whose latest book, “Little Miracles Everywhere: My Unorthodox Path to Holistic Veterinary Medicine," is the #1 bestseller on Amazon in the Alternative Holistic Medicine category, appeared on Children's Health Defense's daily morning show.

During “Pet Vaccines and Holistic Vet Care" she spreads the same sort of vaccine misinformation and fear-mongering that RFK Jr's nonprofit has become infamous for. All of which made Derek realize that yes, they're actually coming for our pets.

Show Notes

Private Equity Is Killing Your Pets

Nearly 70% of veterinarians have lost a colleague or peer to suicide, study finds

The acute suicide crisis among veterinarians: 'You're always going to be failing somebody'

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With days left before the most consequential US election in our lifetime, we reflect on the last 4.5 years of this podcast while expressing our hopes–and our own reporting goals—for the future.

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