Conspirituality

We didn't have tracking BDSM Easter eggs in fashion shoots or Ye’s Jew-hating Christofascism on our bingo card. But here we are, covering a cluster of cursed images and hypomanic clips.

We’ll stare right at the train wreck this week, but we refuse to feel hopeless. Because we can always learn—in this case about how the psychic and bodily impacts of this churn of bizarre hatred relate to the function of propaganda. And we can always be inspired by people who slow down and do the hard work of understanding the spectacle.

From our side of the progressive aisle, it's easy to assume that consumers of Ye and conspiracy theories are gullible cultural dopes. But our guest today, sociologist and media scholar at UNC, Chapel Hill, Francesca Tripodi says "not so fast!" To understand how right-wing propaganda functions, she spent months consuming a conservative digital news-diet and went undercover in hard-right circles.

Show Notes

Kanye "Ye" West—The Emperor w/No Clothes (TimbahOnToast)

Balenciaga and the long history of "shockvertising"

Jewish Allies  Denounce Trump's Dinner w/Antisemites

Masked Ye West Praises Hitler on Alex Jones' InfoWars

Proud Boy Founder Gavin McInnes Hosts Ye West

QAA 210: Balenciaga, Ye, Club Q

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Those who fly high, fall hard. Pole dance company S-Factor crashed and burned in 2021 amidst a stack of complaints. Detractors said the company was conducting unlicensed group therapy, cosplaying enlightenment by co-opting the labour of sex workers, and whitewashing issues of racial equality.

Created by former actor Sheila Kelley, S-Factor monetized pole dancing as a path of feminist and spiritual awakening.

In this second installment of Listener Stories (part 2 next week), Matthew speaks to Jessica Hopper about her 13 years learning and teaching in the now-defunct company. Hopper paints a picture of a confusing, high-demand group, and tells us how she made her way out.

Show Notes

Stripped Down: The Undoing of Hollywood's Favorite Pole-Dancing Studio —Hollywood Reporter.

"Strip Down, Rise Up" | Official Trailer | Netflix

Faces of Fierce Femininity—online conference organized by Kelly Brogan

Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema—Laura Mulvey, 1975

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Matthew checks in with investigative journalist Alexi Mostrous on his fantastic work digging up the Hampstead Hoax.

Show Notes

Hoaxed — Tortoise Media

Re P and Q (Children: Care Proceedings: Fact Finding)

Jacqui Farmer's "Hampstead Research"

Charlotte Ward’s conspirituality.org About page

Hoaxtead Research

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Did you know, right now, as you sit there listening to this, your body is filled with parasites that need to be cleansed? Of course, that’s if you live in America, since every other country on the planet cleanses four times a year. Seriously. We heard it on TikTok.

Scrolling through the gutters of TikTok is challenging for us Gen Xers, and so our TikTok correspondent, Mallory DeMille, has done the dirty work for us. After laying out an all-too-common supplement scam, she looks at the shitty world of parasite cleanses where budding influencers snap strange shots of their feces before scaring you into their downline. I’ll also preview a bit of my upcoming conversation with dietician Kevin Klatt, who’s been tracking this TikTok trend with dismay as well. He’ll bring the science while Mallory breaks down the techniques.

Show Notes

Mallory DeMille on Twitter

Kevin Klatt on Instagram

Parasite cleanses are ‘modern snake oil.’ Experts explain why.

Mason Kuhr on TikTok

Stampede Network on TikTok

Kim Rogers on TikTok

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Are you ready for the bestest, purest immunity-boosting supplement in the history of the world? No, not that one. Only I have discovered what really works, and I'll share it with you this week.

Ok, not quite, but Derek looks at a recent JAMA study that found many of the top 30 supplements sold on Amazon don't contain what they claim. He opens by looking at Mikki Willis's latest best supplement ever, as well as a naturopath and her binder filled with detoxing supplement protocols.

Show Notes

Wellness influencers don't understand history

Does Z-Stack multivitamin work to boost the immune system, and is it safe?

Analysis of Select Dietary Supplement Products Marketed to Support or Boost the Immune System 

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Well jeez. What can we say? We're totally honored to host and learn from Aubrey Gordon, author and co-host of Maintenance Phase. She gives us the rundown on anti-fat bias,  its links to racism, the soft eugenics of the BMI, the insincere "concern" of the slender, and the intellectual and moral dead end of "being fat is a choice." We also get into some psychothinalysis. Oh yes we do.

It's super inspiring to interview someone with a deep command of crucial material, plus the ability to pivot in startling directions, plus the skill to listen as fluently as they speak, plus all that warmth and welcome and empathy and accessibility. Thanks Aubrey!

Show Notes

Your Fat Friend website

What We Don't Talk About When We Talk About Fat

“You Just Need to Lose Weight” AND 19 OTHER MYTHS ABOUT FAT PEOPLE—Preorder

Maintenance Phase

Correction section: The NHS was limiting care for fat people and smokers *before* the pandemic (The Guardian), but backed off of that stance *during* the pandemic (NYT) before naming weight loss as one of its primary COVID strategies (Time Magazine).

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Matthew and Julian sit down for the second of a two-part examination of the 1988 bestseller at the heart of the recovered memory movement.  This is episode 10 of the Swan Song Series.

Show Notes

Controversy Behind the False Memory Syndrome Foundation

The Courage to Heal: A Guide for Women Survivors of Child Sexual Abuse

Truth and reconciliation

Cases That Have Resulted in Convictions

Why The Courage to Heal Isn't on My Recommended Reading List

Creating Hysteria

25 Years of Trauma Treatment Networker 2014

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The homestretch of our study of Michelle Remembers zeroes in on the literal symbols—and symbols gone literal—of the Satanic Panic. (This is episode 6 of  the Swan Song Series.)

Archetypes, gore, anxieties about sex and babies and filth: Lawrence Pazder mined it all, using modes of abstraction and dehumanization as old as religion itself to weave a story he claimed was all about Michelle—but was really an exercise of his own fetishes.

Michelle Smith could have received proper care for her understandable stresses. She could have offered up her feelings and sensations and images from dreams for discussion and contemplation, and an actual therapist would have held that material safely for her to explore. But in Pazder, Smith found someone who wasn’t interested in common human complexity. He was interested in cosmic warfare, and the role he could LARP within it.

But Pazder was so blind to his craven narcissism that he couldn’t help but tell on himself. In the final passage we analyze, Pazder records Smith demanding to end therapy. “If I could tear out my tongue,” she says, “I would never have to speak again.” But in the very next paragraph, the man who is forcing her to “remember” symbolically tears out her tongue, rejecting her plea to end the sessions, interpreting her demand as though it were coming from Satan himself.

She imagines herself getting in a car and driving and driving, anywhere. Away from this psychiatrist who wanted to be an exorcist, away from his story, perhaps to find her own.

Show Notes

HIGHEST GAME IN TOWN

‘I See His Blood Upon the Rose’

How to Lose Weight (Weight Loss and Obesity) - Teal Swan

The Cause of Obesity - Teal Swan Articles

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American-style white Christian Nationalism tells of a promised land given by God to the Puritan settlers. Their divine mandate for political dominance sanctifies a violent history that stretches from the 1690's all the way through to modern right-wing politics.

Our interview today is with sociologists, Philip Gorski and Samuel Perry, authors of The Flag and The Cross. We discuss their study of Christian Nationalism as a white supremacist phenomenon that has always leaned into conspiracism and a primordial obsession with blood purity and blood sacrifice.

With the dreaded midterm elections now in our rearview, Derek covers the Muscular Christian masturbation rules of bro-science influencer Ben Greenfield, while we reflect on the prophesied red wave that never crashed.

Show Notes

The Flag and the Cross—Gorski and Perry

Is Christian nationalism growing or declining? Both.

Most Republicans Support Declaring the United States a Christian Nation

Rally Urges US Midterm Voting Connected to Christianity

Ben Greefield: How I Practice The Spiritual Disciplines, Practical Ways To Build Your Spiritual Muscles, Listener Q&A On God, Religion, Reincarnation, Masturbation & Much More.

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Antisemitism is in the news again, as Candace Owens defends Kanye West and Kyrie Irving, while her boss, Ben Shapiro shakes his head in dismay. In this Bonus special report, Julian looks into the Assembly of Yahweh family, which funds conservative new media giants, The Daily Wire and PragerU.

How do we make sense of the racial and religious tensions created by the strange bedfellow alliances of right-wing propaganda?

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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

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