He built a lucrative seminar empire in the 80s, owned an Italian Villa, founded a “spiritual university,” and travelled the world with a harem of handsome young initiates. Roger Hinkins claimed to be inhabited by another consciousness that he called “John the Beloved” and the “Mystical Traveller,” which taught the secrets of out-of-body experiences. As he copied those teachings from elsewhere, his lies eventually caught up with him. But he told his loyal followers that critics and defectors were infected with an infectious demonic energy called “The Red Monk.”

For this self-contained installment of his popular Roots of Conspirituality series, Julian tells the fascinating story the Movement for Spiritual Inner Awareness, and how its leader fooled devotees into thinking he was clairvoyant.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

What dangers does an RFK Jr HHS pose to Americans, really? Derek dives into science writer's Laurie Garrett's work, who spoke to the dangers we're facing today in 1994—and who has raised an alarm about the consequences of destroying public health ever since.

Show Notes

The Coming Plague — Laurie Garrett

Betrayal of Trust — Laurie Garrett

Laurie Garrett on This Week in Virology

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

takeover—legacy media and Democratic strategists have the same question on their lips: What is going on with young men? Though Kamala Harris won the overall 18- to 29-year-old demographic, Trump improved his share by 9 points. Men in this age group voted for Trump by 16% more than women did. What explains this?

Perhaps this is due to the right inflaming the anxieties and resentments of young men online. Red-pilled, hyper-masculine, anti-woke conspiracy influencers are filling the gap created by the “meaning crisis.” Maybe the left needs its own Joe Rogan!  Not to worry: top political consultants Ilyse Hogue and John Della Volpe have pitched a new research initiative to the Democratic Party donor class. 

Their response, the widely derided SAM (Speaking with American Men), comes with a proposed $20M budget. No cap, bro, they'll low-key give center-left corporate politics the rizz it needs to slay the MAGA simps and cape for democracy.

Politico: Dems set out to study young men

RS: Dems $20M Plan to Win Young Men

Less Engaged Voters Were Key To Trump’s Victory

Kamala Underperformed with Three Demographics

Nation: What Caused Dems No-Show Problem

Cooke Report: A Comprehensive Analysis on Why Harris Lost

Do Not Split: An Illuminating Look at Hong Kong’s Pro-Democracy Uprising - Human Rights First

Show Notes

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

In October 2020, three contrarian medical professionals published The Great Barrington Declaration to great applause by the pro-business, anti-closure crowd. One of them, Jay Bhattacharya, now runs the NIH.

Things are not going well under his watch. Last week, he was grilled in front of Congress about the $18B in proposed cuts to NIH funding. This happened a day after over 300 people under his guard published The Bethesda Declaration, a document filled with issues occurring under Bhattacharya's leadership.

Derek discusses this new declaration and listens in on the Congressional hearing.

The Bethesda Declaration

An Uproar at the NIH

The Disappearing Funds for Chronic Diseases

Show Notes

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Cable travel channels are filled with haunted houses and other paranormal activity, beyond History Channel’s Ancient Aliens and cryptozoology content. The more radicalized Gaia TV has close to a million paid subscribers gobbling up content about yoga, meditation, and psychedelic consciousness alongside accounts of inter-dimensional cryptids, Q-adjacent vampire reptilians, and channeled messages from benevolent ETs.

Julian’s talk with Pulitzer-nominated journalist Matt Hongoltz-Hetling about his new book, The Ghost Lab, How Bigfoot Hunters, Mediums, and Alien Enthusiasts are Wrecking Science. In it, he explores the history of ghost hunting and asks if failing trust in educational, religious, and government institutions is fueling a burgeoning obsession with the paranormal.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

From 1999-2002, VH1 ran a show called “Where Are They Now?” The irregularly produced series wondered aloud what happened to former cultural icons like eighties hair metal bands, kid actors, and one-hit wonders. While some people remained surprisingly relevant, most were confined to, at best, appearing at VFWs and regional summer festivals in parking lots or, tragically, gripped by an addiction and dreams of a better time that they couldn’t make last. 

Two years ago this month our book, Conspirituality, was published. We called one section Rogue’s Gallery to highlight a range of figures we’ve covered on the podcast. One of those chapters was dedicated to a man named Robert F Kennedy, Jr—don’t say we didn’t warn you. How about the other nine?

In our own version of “Where Are They Now,” we’re going to turn back the clock and revisit those other nine chapters. We’ll do it over three episodes in the coming weeks. This week, we begin with famed women’s health expert turned harp-playing conspiracy peddler, Christiane Northrup; self-proclaimed philosopher king, Charles Eisenstein; and former model turned middling new age filmmaker turned anti-vax documentarian Mikki Willis.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Matthew continues the Antifascist Woodshed series with a two-part analysis of an extraordinary cultural event: rebellions within rebellions—or how a ragtag band of writers and worldbuilders Trojan-horsed an antifascist masterpiece into the Empire of streaming content.

Seven chapters: 

(This past Saturday, main feed:)

Space Wizards or Antifascism?

Star Wars Culture Wars

A Post-Fragmentary Left

(Today:)

Hope and Love  

Tony Gilroy’s Antifascist Field Manual

The Used Future

Antifascist Parents Are Better than Jedi Parents

NB: There will be spoilers for Andor!

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Matthew continues the Antifascist Woodshed series with a two-part analysis of an extraordinary cultural event: rebellions within rebellions—or how a ragtag band of writers and worldbuilders Trojan-horsed an antifascist masterpiece into the Empire of streaming content.

Seven chapters: 

Space Wizards or Antifascism?

Star Wars Culture Wars

A Post-Fragmentary Left

(Monday on Patreon:)

Hope and Love  

Tony Gilroy’s Antifascist Field Manual

The Used Future

Antifascist Parents Are Better than Jedi Parents

NB: There will be spoilers for Andor!

Show Notes

The Mythology of Star Wars with George Lucas and Bill Moyers

Special Interview: Nostalgia for the Superego (w/Sam Binkley) — Conspirituality 

Movie Review – THX 1138: The George Lucas Director's Cut – A Sci-Fi Geek Looks at George Lucas' First Film

8 women accuse screenwriter Max Landis of sexual, emotional abuse - National | Globalnews.ca

'Star Wars' Actress Amandla Stenberg's 'White People' Remark Sparks Fury - Newsweek 

'The Acolyte' Star Amandla Stenberg Cracks Up at 'Gayest Star Wars' Moniker: It's 'So Gay Already!' | Video 

Amandla Stenberg Slams Anti-‘Woke’ Attacks And ‘Intolerable Racism’ Over ‘The Acolyte’ 

Sorry, haters, Star Wars: The Force Awakens’ new characters more than make up for the movie’s sins | Vox

Star Wars: The Bad Batch Season 2 - Official 'Omega & Tech' Clip (2023)

The Bad Batch: Tech’s death and the neurodivergent community

Why Our Autism Community Loves Star Wars - Kerry Magro

Virtue Hoarders and the Rejection of Liberalism (w/ Catherine Liu) | The Chris Hedges Report 

The problem with identity politics | Counterfire

Transcript: Andor: Tony Gilroy on Oppressive Regimes and Popular Revolutions - The Peabody Awards 

Star Wars: A New Heap 

Music:

Brief: Star War fan-made music from Luis Humanoide: Trust Only in the Force 

Bonus: Star War fan-made music from Luis Humanoide: Dark Ruins Exploration

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Megamillionaire supplements and New Age life coach tycoon Aubrey Marcus recently claimed the goddess Isis told him that he must impregnate both his wife and the third member of their throuple while doing spiritual tourism in Egypt.

During a nearly three-hour podcast, the three explain their polygamous plans and heartaches while their on-call guru, Marc Gafni—an old-school spiritualist most famous for the long list of sexual assault and misconduct allegations against him—frames their drama as a sacred crisis.

We pick apart the spectacle, assessing how badly Marcus is getting his ass beat.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Support Conspirituality on Patreon.

Does the word protestor conjure a masked figure in black clothing smashing windows and lighting fires or a weekend liberal ineffectually following rules while sipping on a creamy latte along the state-permitted protest route?

A popular media narrative is that peaceful protest works best, but has the power of nonviolent resistance been debunked? 

Julian responds to Matthew’s interview with political sociologist, Benjamin Case.

In the context of anarchist activism, Case points out that successful “nonviolent protest movements” have always featured property damage, street-fighting, and window smashing. His ethnographic research shows that rioting can also be personally transformative and empowering, as the participant experiences “contentious effervescence.”

His interview (and book, Street Rebellion) included a pointed critique of celebrated nonviolence advocate and academic, Erica Chenoweth, and their towering predecessor, Gene Sharp—who, inspired by Mahatma Gandhi, practically created the field of nonviolent resistance studies. Case has some excellent points, especially about how often Chenoweth’s work is misinterpreted.

But was Gene Sharp really a tool of American imperialism? Is Erica Chenoweth a willing lapdog to status quo liberalism and capitalist power? What kinds of protest strategy might serve us best in our terrifying authoritarian moment?

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices