Conspirituality

When Stephanie Sibbio, owner of Glowing Mama Fitness in Toronto, livestreamed herself harassing workers in her local health food store over COVID policy, the world was introduced to a now-familiar archetype: the petulant anti-masker who cares as little about science as she does about others. Sibbio has since developed this role with gusto, becoming a minor celebrity in the Canadian antivax movement. Recently, she threw her support behind the Occupation of Ottawa.

But everyone comes from somewhere: a family, a network, a circle. Beneath a persona hardened by the social media spectacle, there’s a person to be known, remembered, and perhaps welcomed back.

Today Matthew sits down with four friends who have known and loved Stephanie since junior high school. They share stories of the bonds they nurtured growing up, and how quickly and violently antivax ideology and social media smashed their circle.

An honest and transparent discussion about the emotional and social costs of conspirituality.

Show Notes

Glowing Mama Anti-Masker. Toronto Influencer Socially Toilets in…

The Unbearable Feelings of the Anti-Masker

Oppression Fantasies of White Anti-Vax Moms

That Time When I Was in a Cult and Got a Loving Letter from a Friend

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"An essential pleasure of white liberal identity in Canada is the schadenfreude of looking down our noses when we consider what’s south of us. It’s an unearned pride that says: “We’re not like that.” It’s delusional. We are absolutely like that, with tougher gun laws and the moderating effect of the Parliamentary process—but absolutely like that. We want to say “QAnon  wouldn’t find a foothold here.” and it does. We want to say “We’re a long way off from Jan 6,” but we’re not. Democracy is as fragile as the human body."

An editorial piece from Matthew on a harsh awakening in the Great White Liberal North.

Show Notes

Land acknowledgments meant to honor Indigenous people too often do the opposite – erasing American Indians and sanitizing history instead

Harsha Walia on historical continuity

Ottawa police discover children living in protesters' trucks | The Star

Land Acknowledgement – City of Toronto

Toronto Cops Say They Did 'Tremendous Job' After Beating People, Destroying Homeless Camp

Nearly $2 million spent on clearing encampments should have gone to housing, advocates say

300 people trapped. 4 hours. Pouring rain. The day I was kettled by police in Toronto.

'We regret that mistakes were made': Toronto police acknowledge 'unacceptable' mass arrests at 2010 G20 protests

Lawsuit filed against convoy organizers, seeking damages on behalf of downtown Ottawa residents

We're not Tragically Hip fans — and yes, we're Canadian

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We cover a lot of ground in this episode. But to introduce it in seed form, we want to draw your attention to a 15-second video we’ve posted to our Instagram. It shows a little boy, clearly stressed, sitting in the cab of an expensive black pickup truck with the window open, holding his ears against the incredible noise of the air horns as his mother takes a triumphant pan-shot video of a convoy rally.

The clip encapsulates the surreal chaos of a deceptive, astroturfed, funded-from-outside, social-media-driven catastrophe that is right in line with the worst of the conspirituality world. A torrent of misinformation, co-opted trauma, and “freedom-fighters” LARPing, in which children are weaponized by super-pilled parents, in which we can witness the cycles of social neglect and psychic violence turning in real time.

We open today with a review of the Occupation of Ottawa and what we know so far, and a discussion of how our conspirituality friends are co-opting and distorting events in ways that are not only craven, but will increase the chances that this event will end in violence. Finally, Matthew interviews Elizabeth Simons of the Canadian Anti-Hate Network on the deep background, the big picture, and the horizon.

CORRECTION: Matthew incorrectly stated that The Branches Yoga in Kitchener Waterloo hosted a workshop by Selam Debs. They did not host it, but they did promote it to their community.

Show Notes

Canadian Anti-Hate Network

New Age Healers and Right-Wing Militants Come Together in Ottawa

Canadian Yoga Teacher and Anti-Racism Educator Targetted

The 'Freedom Convoy' Is Nothing But A Vehicle For The Far Right

Mayor of Windsor: “Some occupiers are willing to die.”

A Holocaust Denier Is Travelling Across Canada Building Up The Country's Newest Far-Right Militia Movement - Canadian Anti-Hate Network

Canada's “Freedom Convoy” Is a Front for a Right-Wing, Anti-Worker Agenda

Ottawa police discover children living in protesters' trucks | The Star

Freedom Convoy Brings the Far-Right 

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Despite the binary conversations around vaccinations, healing has never been an either/or dependent on one factor. What works for one person isn't necessarily the correct course of action for someone else. One criticism of modern health care certainly stands out: the ritual of healing has been sacrificed for the convenience of scripts and hasty dialogues between doctors and patients. 

Derek looks at the intersection of healing and ritual through the lens of placebo studies and psychedelics, arguing that regardless of the discipline, "therapy" is a holistic endeavor. 

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Mary joins Matthew for an extended interview about the last year of her husband’s life. Louis died of pancreatic cancer almost exactly a year ago, at the age of 45. Mary—who has asked that her last name be kept off the record for privacy concerns—loved him and cared for him throughout that journey. It was hard, not only for the reasons we all share, but because Louis spent his last months under the influence of quantum chiropractor Joe Dispenza. At one crucial point, he was on the verge of stopping his chemotherapy treatment, believing that a Dispenza meditation technique might be more effective.

Mary is an Applied Psychologist with a science background and an evidence-based mindset. She didn’t share Louis’s beliefs or ideals, and at points was terrified that his death would be hastened by conspirituality. But of course, she loved and served him nonetheless. And it seems he had a good death, perhaps blessed by beliefs that made Mary wonder if they might provide relief for her as well.

If we’ve learned one thing over the course of this project, it’s that we’ll be living and dying together for a long time at the crossroads of data and imagination, science and spirituality, evidence and the unknown. We’re grateful that Mary has shared this love story of how she navigated it all.

Note: If you have recently lost someone close to you, you may find this episode difficult to listen to.

Show Notes

John-Roger, New Age Spiritual Leader in California, Dies at 80 - The New York Times

ARCHIVE Cult Leader John-Roger, Who Says He's Inhabited by a Divine Spirit, Stands Accused of a Campaign of Hate 

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Last week’s Defeat The Mandate March in Washington D.C. saw a who’s-who of conspiracists address thousands from the steps of the Lincoln Memorial. Live-streaming and mic’d up— some fresh from massive exposure on the Joe Rogan Experience—they complained about censorship and tyranny, and compared vaccine mandates to the Holocaust.

They present themselves as bold outsiders who reveal forbidden knowledge and stand up against the corrupt establishment. But scratch the surface of anti-vax celebrity and Covid-conspiracism and you’ll find the well-oiled machinery of affiliate marketing and global quack-medicine sales networks.

Julian reports on Robert F. Kennedy Jr., Simone Gold, Pierre Kory, and Sayer Ji. He follows the money and asks, “What’s the difference between a misguided activist and a cynical grifter?”

Show Notes

Kennedy Xmas Party Hypocrisy

Ravens’ Theory of Mind Research

Primate Theory of Mind

Goldfish-Broccoli Study

$1M in PPP Loans for Anti-Vax Groups

CCDH Pandemic Profiteers

Grandview Research on CAM Global Market

NCCIH Spent $2.5 on Failed Alt-Med Studies

Skeptical Inquirer Report on CAM Grants

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Snap. Crackle. Pop. That’s the release you’ve been waiting for—the ecstasy of small gas bubbles being “cracked” along your spine. While it’s debatable how much good chiropractic adjustments are doing for your body—there’s some evidence that it alleviates lower back pain, alongside a litany of unsubstantiated claims—what’s not debatable is the number of anti-vax, pseudoscience-prone chiropractors clogging the conspirituality pipeline these days.

This isn’t a “chiropractor takedown” episode, as both Derek and Julian have benefited from treatments in the past. Indeed, there’s a whole realm of “mixers” that try to follow best practices and clinical science. Yet there’s a strong conspiritualist lean among a number of chiropractors and we want to know why. To that end, Derek offers a history of the practice, which is, perhaps unsurprisingly, rooted in an anti-vax, anti-medicine strain of 19th-century vitalism. Julian discusses some of his experiences while Matthew questions consent and harm in the industry. The team then breaks down chiropractor Melissa Sell’s discussion of the antisemitic Germanic New Medicine, which she recently championed on the pseudopalooza of online disinformation conferences, The Event 2021.

Show Notes

U.S. Judge Finds Medical Group Conspired Against Chiropractors

Chiropractors Charged in Insurance Scam

Can Indecision Cause Hemorrhoids?

Goodbye to All Yoga Bullies. | by Matthew Remski | Medium  

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Inspired by a recent discussion on psychoanalysis and politics with Pat Blanchfield on Know Your Enemy, this brief meditation focuses on two aspects of the conspirituality landscape that have lurked in the unconscious of the pod:

Matthew looks at how the contradictions of Kelly Brogan and JP Sears make sense. Brogan rails against "mommy medicine" while installing herself as "mommy shaman." Sears tells us "Don't outsource your truth," while he absorbs data from Bitchute and Rogan.

Brogan's followers are attracted by the simultaneous rejection and reconstitution of authority. JP Sears is a hollow husk of a man, telling his followers to look inside.

But when you meet a contradiction or a defence that is harmful, you can’t just argue it away. You have to work towards a better answer to the condition the defence is trying to ease.

Show Notes

Freud and Politics (w/ Pat Blanchfield)

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When we left our Austin conspirituality heroes in the last episode, Charles Eisenstein, New Age Q, was locking in his position as the philosopher—or jester—in the court of Aubrey Marcus.

But what of this court? Matthew’s scene by scene analysis of some prime Marcus marketing porn will give us some clues. The video in question is for Marcus’s life-coaching programme, which is called “Fit for Service.” The visuals centre around what looks like a haka ritual dance, through which customers release their inner warriors, nurture their affiliate links and jazz up their socials.

On point for the influencer age, the ritual plays out in a narcissistic hall of mirrors, choreographed for performance by programme participants in order to promote the programme they are performing in. Naturally, Matthew will be using the analytical frameworks of spectacle and simulation from Guy Debord and Jean Baudrillard to make sense of it. He’ll also apply Renato Rosaldo’s concept of “imperialist nostalgia” to explore the ugly conflicts in Marcus’s indigenous cosplay.

Show Notes

Fit for Service homepage

fit.for.service:  A Dandelion In A Field Is Un-killable

A poet’s plea to save our planet | IN-Q | TED Institute

"Revolution": The FORGOTTEN Voices of The Pandemic Will Have You In Tears

The 5 Desires: Marcus on FFS promises

Aubrey Marcus - Fit For Service Mastermind - Review – Max Hug

The Wellness Pornographers. Gamifying intimacy, abusing public… | by Matthew Remski | Medium

Heresy Labs on Heilung

Renato Rosaldo: Imperialist Nostalgia

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Charles Eistenstein has had quite the pandemic. Essays read by millions, retweeted by Jack Dorsey, quoted by Ivanka Trump, held up as the poet philosopher of conspirituality—hell, he’s even been on the podcast!

Given the response to this bonus episode, we've decided to release it into the wild as an important companion to Conspirituality 86. Julian tracks the transformative arc of malformed ideas garnished with spiritualized language that has made Eisenstein the romantic mascot of anti-vax, Covid-contrarian wellness. This is how he finds himself now poised to become the mythic storyteller-in-residence of an emerging Austin-based cult of psychedelic bro science and “medical freedom.”

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