Conspirituality

Last month, Russell Brand visited Jordan Peterson's podcast for “The Evolution of Theology.” Which, given these two figures, had to focus on topics like the unreligious impulsivity of gay people and why slaves should “just not be slaves.” Derek and Julian discuss.

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On June 14, Reuters published an article about the US Military’s clandestine program to discredit China’s Sinovac vaccine during the early days of Covid-19. Turns out the Pentagon hired an outside agency to purposefully spread FUD (fear, uncertainty, and doubt) about the Chinese inoculation program by flooding social media with anti-vax propaganda. It was a smack in the face for anyone—including us—who’s been calling for sound public health measures over the last four years. And it very likely killed people in Southeast Asia.

This week, we look at the harrowing reporting that revealed a shameful, interventionary program that began under the Trump administration and persisted at least a few months into the Biden presidency. We’ll also review the very few conspiritualists that have even covered the story—somewhat surprising, given that a good ol’ government conspiracy is their bread and butter. But what happens when anti-vaxxers are confronted with a government-led anti-vax program, enacted by the same military that some of them, like RFK Jr, want to drastically reduce? Let’s find out.

Pentagon ran secret anti-vax campaign to undermine China during pandemic (Reuters)

Pentagon Ran Secret Anti-Vax Campaign in Philippines, While Censoring Americans Who Criticized COVID Shots (Children’s Health Defense) 

Supporting military missions overseas (GDIT “Careers” page)

Companies Profiting from the Gaza Genocide

CONTRACT to GENERAL DYNAMICS INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY, INC.

DynPort Vaccine Company

Public Health

Vaccine Diplomacy in the Wake of COVID-19

Pentagon Orders Sweeping Review

Martin Luther King Jr.’s moral stance against Vietnam War offers lessons for the Middle East

Exclusive: Inside the S--tshow That Was the Trump-Biden Transition

The Scam at the Heart of the Mysterious Epoch Times 

End The Forever Wars | Kennedy24 

EXPOSED: Secret Pentagon MISINFO Campaign Spread LIES About COVID Vaccines (The Hill)

DISGUSTING! Glenn Greenwald GOES OFF On Pentagon Anti-Vax Psyop (Breaking Points)

Pentagon Opens Sweeping Review of Clandestine Psychological Operations

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What is the distance between spiritual practice and social action? Derek has weighed this question for decades. This unscripted meditation on the topic uses Aubrey Marcus's new "documentary," Anti-Cult, as a jump-off point. 

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A Deep Cut from January's Patreon.

Control the Court. Overturn Roe. Funnel anonymous donations and shady gifts. Deregulate for Jesus. Roll back the cultural clock. Celebrate. Rinse and Repeat.

Leonard Leo’s libertarian Catholic agenda has made him a preeminent power-broker in right-wing American politics. He’s reshaping society while enjoying the pipeline of cash and influence that connects billionaire GOP mega-donors and the SCOTUS judges he helped install.

Julian tracks how Leo’s Federalist Society used Trump as part of a decades-long systematic takeover of the judicial system that culminated in the current ethics and corruption scandal in the SCOTUS.

Show Notes

ProPublica “Friends of the Court” investigative journalism series

The Guardian Club For Growth GOP Insurectionist Support

Open Secret 2022 Donor List

Dark Money Spending After Citizen’s United

Senator Sheldon Whitehouse “The Front Group Swarms”

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Acclaimed actor Terrence Howard has a new role playing a heroic Galileo-like character on the YouTube and podcast stage, where he fearlessly points out the flaws in mainstream math and science.

Howard's recent appearance on The Joe Rogan Experience gave him three hours to explain how his dreams and spiritual visions, along with his own research and deep study of maverick experts, have revealed unique answers to the deepest unsolved mysteries of physics. Turns out that none of this is new, the actor actually unveiled his discoveries in a surprising lecture at the Oxford Union in 2017.

Today we'll break down these two cosmic events in space-time and discuss what it all means, and whether it's just a bit of fun or something more dangerous.

Show Notes

5 Craziest Moments from Terrence Howard on Rogan

Prophetic Charisma By Len Oakes: A Brief Overview 

Terrence Howard's Dangerous Mind 

Terrence Howard Patents Debunked

Howard Virtual reality Patent Claim

John Keeley and The Etheric Force Machine

Walter Russell Society, now named The University of Science and Philosophy

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Six chapters on approaches to prospirituality, now that we know (or think we know) what the hell conspirtuality is. This is a long episode, but there are evenly-placed breaks for you all to pause on!

Chapter 1: Positions

After 4 years, we’ve come to a natural question at the end of defining the problem of conspirituality. How do we orient ourselves towards possible answers?

Chapter 2: The Prospirituality Challenge

If you’re clear on how spirituality—including beliefs in the supernatural—can be medicine, you can be clearer on where it becomes poison.

Chapter 3: I did not expect to be friends with Joseph Baker

I never thought I would be friends with a student of A Course in Miracles: maybe my judgments about its inevitably bad impacts are misplaced. Also: it’s not a good idea to dismiss anyone on the basis of religious belief if you don’t know how that belief actually operates, and you won’t unless you talk to them. 

Chapter 4: Buddhist Tolerance, Buddhist Repair

Conspirituality is right at home within high-demand groups or cults. Paranoid and controlling social structures feed on paranoid and dissociative emotions and ideas. For members and observers alike, it can become difficult to tell whether the content of the religious group is intrinsic to its cruelty, or whether these can be separated. Surprisingly, some high-demand groups can foster reforms from within, with members reframing the very concepts that had been weaponized against them to liberate themselves. In that sense, the doctrines and beliefs can be part of the problem, but also part of the solution. 

Chapter 5: Eve Sedgwick

Cynicism about religion is an occupational hazard of this beat. It’s also popular. At times it’s worth questioning the critical economy focused more on deconstruction than on generating ideas and solidarity. 

Chapter 6: The Trouble and Joy of Belief and Silence

“You will know them by their fruits. Do we gather grapes from thornbushes or figs from thistles?”

Matthew 7:16

Show Notes

Charter for the Protection of Children and Young People

Survivors of an International Buddhist Cult Share Their Stories

Paranoid Reading, Reparative Reading

Baylor Religion Survey: 3 graphs

On the Relation Between Religiosity and the Endorsement of Conspiracy Theories: The Role of Political Orientation

Anxious attachment and belief in conspiracy theories

There are higher levels of conspiracy beliefs in more corrupt countries

The impact of economic inequality on conspiracy beliefs

To trust or not to trust in the thrall of the COVID-19 pandemic: Conspiracy endorsement and the role of adverse childhood experiences, epistemic trust, and personality functioning

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Terrence Howard recently made waves (again) when appearing on Joe Rogan’s podcast to discuss “Terryology,” a language of logic which he claims proves one times one equals two. Since he announced his theory in 2015 (and published it on Twitter in 2017), he’s been repeatedly criticized. In this latest round, that criticism is coming from Eric Weinstein, who appeared on physicist Brian Keating’s podcast to discuss Howard’s math. As usual with Weinstein, the conversation went in a million directions. Derek and Julian discuss.

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Are you ready to “live beyond 180? That’s the tagline of the 10th Annual Biohacking Conference, which went down in Dallas two weeks ago. The brainchild of Dave Asprey, the conference focused on numerous “hacks” to help you live not only longer, but better and longer. This has been a decades-long goal of Asprey, who you might know as the founder of Bulletproof Coffee—you know, despite mountains of clinical evidence stating otherwise, this tech entrepreneur is certain that melting a stick of butter in your coffee every morning is the key to longevity.

Was the key, that is. Dave is now behind the supposed “mold-free” coffee company, Danger Coffee, alongside a whole bunch of other sciencey gimmicks, like his “Wasabi Method,” which was launched at the conference. The key to longevity, it seems, is knowing that your sales funnel always depends on there being another key. That’s the vibe our returning correspondent, Mallory DeMille, got when reviewing the many reels and videos that surfaced from the conference rooms at the Fairmont Hotel.

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QAnon’s “Great Awakening,” influencers claiming to channel spirits or aliens, prophecies of a glorious Christian apocalypse—all aspects of the modern phenomenon that we call “conspirituality.” A sign of our crazy times?!

Not quite. The roots of this passionate delusion can be traced to an eventful time in American history: the mid-1800’s. In this episode of his pseudoscience series, Julian covers the relationship between famous Spiritualists who talked to the dead on stage, the emerging science of parapsychology, early formulations of New Age beliefs, and the passionate Christian revivalism centered in New York State’s “burned-over district.” 

Show Notes

Doomsday Prophecy and Spiritual Porn (earlier episode on 19th century Great Awakening)

Hearing Voices, Seeing Colors, & Fighting Phantoms (earlier episode on temporal lobe epilepsy)

New Yorker: Why Did So Many Victorians Try To Talk To The Dead 

PBS: William Miller and The Second Great Awakening

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It’s all just a show, and sometimes that makes it all the more real. Playwright and theater scholar Hank Willenbrink joins Matthew to look at the spectacle of Trump through the lens of performance studies. 

From his childhood listening to Norman Vincent Peale, to his lifelong fascination with Broadway, to his TV celebrity, to the tableau vivants of evangelicals gathered round him to sanctify his holy mission, Trump hits his marks so well he doesn’t even need to remember his lines. Now he has a new role to play: the framed felon. 

Show Notes

Performing for the Don: Theaters of Faith in the Trump Era

About Me – Hank Willenbrink 

Bread and Puppet Theater — Glover, VT

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