Conspirituality

On July 1, 2026, the Society of Saint Pius X consecrated four bishops at its Écône seminary, defying Pope Leo XIV's direct plea to "turn back." Within 24 hours, Rome declared the SSPX's bishops and roughly 750 priests excommunicated and schismatic — invalidating confessions and marriages going forward. 

Matthew traces SSPX's origins through Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre's formation in the shadow of Action Française's antisemitic integralism, his fight against Vatican II, and the movement's namesake, Pope Pius X's anti-Modernist crusade. 

It’s a wild ride: from Juan Fernández y Krohn's 1982 assassination attempt on John Paul II, through Holocaust denial among SSPX clergy, domestic abuse testimony from ex-member Cassandra Hackstock, and Xavier Lopez's 2022 weapons arrest. 

Will the schism of a right-wing Catholic sect born out of antisemitism and anticommunism bolster American and global resistance to Leo XIV’s progressive agenda? Is this the form of Catholicism that JD Vance has been looking for? Or will it shift the Overton Window rightward, emboldening Vance and other TradCaths in their lowkey contempt for Leo—because at least the Church should be grateful that at least they’re not full schismatics?

Show Notes

Vatican declares SSPX in schism, excommunicates bishops — AP/NBC News

SSPX ordains four new bishops in defiance of Pope Leo and the Vatican — America Magazine

Thunderstorm interrupts SSPX episcopal consecrations — Catholic Herald 

Vatican declares SSPX bishops, priests schismatic, says lay faithful risk excommunication — National Catholic Reporter

Second Attempt on a Pontiff: The Little-Known 1982 Attack on John Paul II in Fatima — Gaudium Press

Rise of 'new Catholics' hardens battle lines between US and the Vatican — Irish Times

Inside the Schism Threatening the Catholic Church — Jacobin

Seven Years in the SSPX — Where Peter Is

Catholic Traditionalism After Francis — Commonweal Magazine

Analysis: SSPX excommunications show what Pope Leo means by "unity" — America Magazine

Pope news: SSPX | Magnificast

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With so much emphasis on global politics and the World Cup in recent weeks, we’re going to focus on the somewhat quieter but intensely important bureaucratic dismantling of expertise occurring in health and science.

First, Derek looks into a recent 412-page OMB proposal that hands political appointees veto power over federal science grants, effectively killing peer review, blocking research on health disparities, and walling off American scientists from the rest of the world. Matthew counters with Canada’s own corrosive behavior.

Then we dig into the contradiction of MAHA: the pro-health movement running cover for the EPA quietly approving new forever chemical pesticides mere days after the Supreme Court gutted Americans’ ability to sue Monsanto (by way of their parent company, Bayer). Again, there’s a Canadian parallel: Bill C-30 hands cabinet the power to override Health Canada’s own scientists and approve pesticides they’ve already ruled unsafe.

Finally, Julian removes gravity from the situation by covering congressional UAP hearings where unverified whistleblower claims about alien bodies and secret programs get treated with peer-reviewed science seriousness.

Only, as with everything else in Trump’s America, the science is thin and the theater, thick.

Show Notes

The war against ‘woke’ could end US science as we know it

Carney's government is cutting hundreds of environment and science jobs

Departmental plans fuel concern over federal job, program cuts

Environment Canada disbands radar research team amid cuts to weather services

Weather experts concerned about public safety as Environment Canada disbands radar research team

Carney government passes law allowing authorization of banned pesticides

Pesticide regulation changes raise questions in Northeastern Ontario

Amendments buried in Bill C-30 weaken environmental protections

Former Haiti prime minister Smarck Michel dies at 75

Omnibus I: the EU concludes CSDDD and CSRD reforms

EU scales back corporate due diligence and reporting rules

Australia: Labor-Greens deal to fast-track mining and military projects

Task Force Tackles MK Ultra

UFO Disclosure Movement Goes To Washington

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Three events converge—everything is connected. 

Steven Spielberg releases his new sci-fi film Disclosure Day

The American government’s UAP Disclosure Act drops three waves of declassified UFO documents

Well-known 2012 prophecy-popularizer, Disclosure movement advocate, and History Channel’s Ancient Aliens host, David Wilcock, tragically ends his own life

In the 16th installment of his Roots of Conspirituality series, Julian looks at the how everything inevitably led to this: 

How Spielberg got alien-pilled into being a true believer

How 2012 prophecy had to end with David Wilcock holding a gun

How the MAGA conspiracy chasers now find themselves standing on the steps beside David Grusch as he tells the media about non-human biologics and alien plasmoids

Deeper than that, Julian asks if perhaps we are re-enacting a pattern from the mid to late 1800s, when social upheaval in America’s Northeast led to new religions, failed prophecies, the rise and fall of charismatic heroes, and good people quit booze but got intoxicated on some quite bizarre beliefs. 

Correction: This recording states that David Grusch lost his security clearance. That is incorrect. In The Intercept article, Ken Klippenstein wondered how he was able to keep his security clearance after his psychiatric holds. Grusch left his job to become a whistleblower. 

Show Notes

White House Goes All In On UAP

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“I do not love America, and never have, especially now.”

With an opening sentence like that, you know you’re in for a ride, and Eddie Glaude Jr does not disappoint. Derek discusses touch points from America, U.S.A.: How Race Shadows the Nation's Anniversaries, with a slight diversion into the surging online activism that purports to be about justice for all yet time and again refuses to acknowledge race as a foundation of our distress.

Show Notes

America, U.S.A.: How Race Shadows the Nation's Anniversaries

Author Talk: Eddie S. Glaude, Jr. — America, U.S.A. - with Jonathan Capehart

An African-Centered Critique of Marx’s Logic

The war against ‘woke’ could end US science as we know it

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Wellness for everyone. That’s how virtually every wellness event pitches their offering. If the everyman and woman did these practices or ingested these products or adopted these mindsets, we’d all be better off as a species.

Yet what happens when the wellness event in question is hosted in an expensive resort town on the French Riviera and features top-tier celebrities like Oprah Winfrey speaking to guests who paid thousands of dollars to attend? Does it really remain “for everyone?”

Show Notes

The Impact of the TOMS Shoe Donation Program in Rural El Salvador

Shoeing the Children

Is Blake Mycoskie of TOMS an Evangelical

Do in-kind transfers damage local markets? The case of TOMS shoe donations in El Salvador

Instagram — @millennial.therapist

It's On Me

Sara Kuburic official site

Notes From My Phone

Alfried Längle's website 

Cold Intimacies: The Making of Emotional Capitalism

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JD Vance calls Catholic Social Teaching (CST) a "fully integrated theory of a good human life" — and he's not wrong that it sounds good. So how’s he going to weaponize it?

Matthew traces why CST's moral critique of capitalism, innovated by Leo XIII in Rerum Novarum (1891), is tailor-made for Vance's political project. CST may be sincere about human dignity, but it actively suppresses structural analysis, while opening two dangerous doors of moralism: scapegoating powerful enemies above, and blaming the poor for their own immiseration below. 

Show Notes

Rerum Novarum, Leo XIII (1891)

Humanum Genus, Leo XIII (1884)

Purusha Sukta, Rigveda 10.90

B.R. Ambedkar, Annihilation of Caste (1936)

JD Vance, Communion: Finding My Way Back to Faith

David Kertzer, The Popes Against the Jews

Canadian Food for Children

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Has former Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard’s career been scripted and controlled by the strange leader of a breakaway Hare Krishna group? Chris Butler formed the Science of Identity organization in the seventies. Gabbard’s parents joined when she was two years old.

Gabbard claims Butler has no influence on her political life, yet bombshell reporting by the Washington Post piece unearths 25,000 leaked documents to reveal that her guru may have been pulling the strings all along. The kicker? Gabbard resigned two days after journalist Jon Swaine let her team know the article would be published.

Meanwhile, another cult-leader story concerns American-born Abdullah Hashem. Claiming to be the “true and only legitimate pope” (as well as successor of Jesus, Saint Peter, and Mohammed), Hashem and 150 followers took over a former orphanage in England—and have been building a significant online following ever since. On April 29, hundreds of police raided Hashem’s headquarters, charging the holy man and eight others with human trafficking, sex crimes, and forced marriage.

This is the story of how these two cult operators are influencing minds across the pond.

Show Notes

British Police Raid Abdullah Hashem’s Compound

Slavery and Trafficking Risk Orders Granted in AROPL Case

Religious Sect Immigration Visas Investigated

Patreon Bonus: The New Age Muslim Apocalyptic Prophet

WaPo Piece on Tulsi Gabbard’s Mysterious Guru’s Influence on her Political Career

Hare Krishna Guru Sought Political Power Starting in the 1970s

New Yorker: What Does Tulsi Gabbard Believe?

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Recent reporting in the Washington Post found that Tulsi Gabbard has been taking policy guidance from her guru. We revisit our episode from May 2023, where we lay out Gabbard's lifelong involvement in this cult:

What does it mean for a prominent American politician to come into power as the sleeper cell of an eccentric Hindu-American cult? Does she act independently, or has her God-man got her on speed-dial? Can she bridge the divide between left and right with the radiant glow of Krishna consciousness?

Joining us today to help answer these questions is Nitai Joseph. He shares some heritage with Gabbard, because he also grew up in a Hare Krishna sect. He holds an MSc. in the Psychology of Coercive Control and has worked across a range of issues connected to ideology and manipulation, including cultic awareness, child sexual abuse prevention, adverse meditation experiences, and organizational ethics and accountability. 

Show Notes

Tulsi Gabbard, her guru and the mysterious messages that helped shape her political career

Gopala Govinda Rama Chant by Jagad Guru Siddhaswarupananda Paramahamsa Chris Butler

QAnon Anonymous Episode 211: Tulsi Gabbard P1 (The Cult) feat Mike Prysner

QAnon Anonymous Episode 212: Tulsi Gabbard P2 (The Fascist Turn) feat Mike Prysner 

Tulsi Gabbard Had a Very Strange Childhood

What Does Tulsi Gabbard Believe? | The New Yorker

Chris Butler Siddhaswarupananda Paramahamsa: on “freedom”

An Insiders Perspective on Tulsi Gabbard and her Guru | by Lalita | Medium 

Tulsi Gabbard 2016 Janmashtami Message 

ISKCON Abuse Timeline

Definition of Betrayal Trauma Theory

Archived ex-Hare Krishna message board

Nitai can be reached via LinkedIn

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As the gases slowly leak from Trump’s orifices and IV holes, the bright flame of his inspiration to MAGA Christians is fading. Did he drain the swamp? Prosecute the pedophiles? Save the Holy Land? Lower gas prices? Give all the grill dads better health care? What was all the speaking in tongues for?

JD Vance has an answer for the MAGA faithful: another memoir, another rebrand that turns to the device that made Hillbilly Elegy a smash hit, and the worst book ever: the gall to turn his personal and familial despair into the diagnosis of an entire culture, in Appalachia. 

With Communion: Finding my Way back to Faith, Vance plays the same narcissistic trick: turning his lifelong journey through rightwing American Chrisitianity—with a short and shameful detour into New Atheism—to land in the Catholic faith of Leonard Leo, sketching out a redemption plan for every bro seeking their way home. 

Show Notes

Rerum Novarum (1891) — Pope Leo XIII

Elizabeth Catte, What You Are Getting Wrong About Appalachia

Appalachian Reckoning — Anthony Harkins and Meredith McCarroll, eds.

Battle of Blair Mountain — West Virginia Encyclopedia

Hurricane Helene federal aid gap — Associated Press

PolitiFact — Springfield "Lie of the Year" 2024

Institut Montaigne — JD Vance analysis

Randall Balmer, "The Real Origins of the Religious Right" — Politico

Know Your Enemy podcast — episode on René Girard with John Ganz

Laudato Si' — Pope Francis

Magnifica Humanitas — Pope Leo XIV

Mike Fox, "JD Vance's Memoir Communion Performs Catholicism for Evangelicals"

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RFK Jr has been one of the loudest champions of the Trump's work requirements for Medicaid and SNAP recipients. While he frames it in the language of health, he's really just reviving a generations-old argument first made by Ronald Reagan.

Derek digs into the archival tapes to deliver the goods.

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