Conspirituality

Matthew applies three interlocking frameworks to the conspirituality phenomenon—and to the podcast itself. Drawing on Jodi Dean's theory of neofeudalism, Yanis Varoufakis's technofeudalism, and McKenzie Wark's vectoralism, he argues that conspirituality is an epistemic crisis—a problem of bad information spreading through inadequately critical communities—but also a structural product of platform capitalism's feudal logic.

Dean's four elements (parcellated sovereignty, new lords and serfs, hinterlandization, and catastrophic anxiety) explain why certain populations are rendered susceptible before they encounter any specific piece of misinformation. Varoufakis names the extraction mechanism as  cloud rent. Wark shows what this means for the producer: a hacker class worker who owns every tool except the vector that makes the work valuable. 

Matthew then turns the analysis on himself, exploring what it means to have spent six years building critical content inside the infrastructure he is criticising.

Show Notes

Dean, Jodi. 'Neofeudalism: The End of Capitalism?' Los Angeles Review of Books, May 2020.

Dean, Jodi. 'From Neoliberalism to Neofeudalism.' Emancipations, Vol. 3, Iss. 3, 2024.

Dean, Jodi. 'Neofeudalism: The Messy Political Economy of Transitioning to Something Worse.' Emancipations, Vol. 4, Iss. 3, 2025.

Dean, Jodi. Capital's Grave: Neofeudalism and the New Class Struggle. Verso, 2025.

Dean, Jodi. 'Communism or Neo-Feudalism?' New Political Science, Vol. 42, No. 1, 2020.

Varoufakis, Yanis. Technofeudalism: What Killed Capitalism. Bodley Head, 2023.

Wark, McKenzie. Capital is Dead: Is This Something Worse? Verso, 2019.

McIntyre, Lee. How to Talk to a Science Denier. MIT Press, 2021.

Heron, Kai. 'Are We Witness to the Disintegration of Capital's Laws of Motion? A Review of Jodi Dean's Capital's Grave.' Emancipations, Vol. 4, Iss. 2, 2025.

Gane, Nicholas. 'Capitalism is Capitalism, Not Technofeudalism.' Journal of Classical Sociology, 2024.

James W. 'Worse than Dead: A Critical Response to McKenzie Wark.' Cosmonaut Magazine, October 2020.

Freedom Socialist Party. 'Book Review: Techno-Feudalism: What Killed Capitalism.' Socialism.com, 2024.

Beres, Derek, Matthew Remski, and Julian Walker. Conspirituality: How New Age Conspiracy Theories Became a Health Threat. PublicAffairs, 2023.

Wark, McKenzie. A Hacker Manifesto. Harvard University Press, 2004.

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A decade ago, JP Sears built a large following poking fun at yogis and wellness types with his “ultra spiritual life” videos. Then Covid came and Sears took a hard right turn. In fact, he credits the pandemic with “opening his eyes” to many of the world’s problems—in his eyes, that means Anthony Fauci, vaccines, and transgender “ideology.”

Sears is one of the very first people we covered on this podcast six years ago, and was one of the influencers we featured in our 2023 book about the wellness-to-right-wing radicalization pipeline. Turns out he’s turned again, this time into a flavor of Christian nationalism with an antisemitic bend.

Lately, Sears has been pumping out tons of Israel commentary, even turning against his former favorite president, Donald Trump. In fact, a number of right-wing influencers have soured on Israel. Is Sears sniffing out opportunities again? How is he balancing legitimate critiques of the genocide with blatant antisemitic rhetoric? And how does he fit into the growing diagonalism occurring in the right-wing attention economy?

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Listen to the full episode

Influential right-wing pundit turned celebrity conspiracy-peddler, Candace Owens, just visited Russia for the St. Petersburg International Economic Forum. While at “Russia’s Davos” she marvelled at the cleanliness and beauty of Moscow, explained that Americans were never given any real reason why Putin invading Ukraine was bad, and deflected questions about her potential presidential run.

She’s not alone. MAGA has increasingly found a warm place in its heart for Vladimir Putin and other strongman dictator-types (like Viktor Orban). Owens rubbed shoulders with accused sex traffickers, the Tate Brothers, fake martial artist and aging film star, Steven Segall, Trump’s head of the Commission of Fine Arts, and representatives of the Taliban, North Korea, Iran, and China.

In this reimagining of Russia—the same “evil empire” of GOP patron saint, Ronald Reagan—the post-Soviet dictatorship is poo-pooed as a danger to European democracies by a growing cadre on the right. Figures like Owens, Tucker Carlson, Megyn Kelly, Tim Pool, Nick Fuentes, and Marjorie Taylor Green all oppose US support for Ukraine and involvement in the war in Iran.

In another interesting turn, they now also all oppose US support for Israel—which makes for some strange diagonalist bedfellows with certain figures on the left, like Hasan Piker. 

Julian unpacks this story. Stay tuned for claims that Carlson and Green have been less harmful to Gaza than Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, as well as for erstwhile left-wing pundit Ana Kasparian’s come-to-Jesus moment on Owens’ show.

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In the first edition of the Conspirituality Book Club, Derek dives into Food Intelligence: The Science of How Food Both Nourishes and Harms Us by Julia Belluz and Kevin Hall, PhD.

First, he looks at how RFK Jr and Jay Bhattacharya forced Hall out of his nutrition research position at the NIH in 2025. Then he covers some of the book's most intriguing findings, including:

Why most people don't have "slow metabolism"

Why most of us don't actually need more protein

The origins of the wellness industry's fascination with products over science

Why ultra-processed foods are actually dangerous (it's not what MAHA claims)

The importance of calorie absorption

Those microbiome tests are more scam than science

Show Notes

Food Intelligence: The Science of How Food Both Nourishes and Harms Us

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A plague is coming. We don’t know when or which one, but we do know that since humans started gathering in groups numbering in the thousands, plagues became a consistent feature of existence. So a plague is always on the horizon, and public health is the response of a healthy society.

How healthy is America right now? Given that a recent NY Times investigation found that RFK Jr is laser-focused on vaccines and food dyes and not much of anything else, the news is not great. Today we look at candidates for the next plague, how unprepared the government is, and, in classic Conspirituality fashion, the wellness influencers selling products they just know will help your immune system stave off any little virus destined to become a plandemic.

In This Week in Conspirituality, Matthew checks in on someone else’s health: Donald Trump, and the online prediction market that’s emerged to appease a cultural wish fulfillment.

Show Notes

We’re Not Ready for the Next Pandemic

Hantavirus Conspiracy Theories Are Already Spreading Online

Ebola, hantavirus: Is the world prepared for the next pandemic?

‘It's completely out of control’: Scientists warn bird flu could spark a human pandemic in 2026

Ebola Spread Shows Deadly Cost of Aid Retreat

Ebola and hantavirus outbreaks raise questions about Trump’s health agency cuts

RFK Jr. cuts jobs at minority health offices at HHS

Trump admin plans to divert $2 billion in health funding to pay for USAID closure

US funding cuts have hampered response to the deadly Ebola crisis, aid workers say

RFK defends 25% cut to HHS budget in FY 2026 request after shrinking workforce

US Withdrawal of Global Health Funding is ‘Public Health Emergency of International Concern’

Amid Ebola, Hantavirus Outbreaks, Democrats Decry Trump's Health Cuts

Viral outbreaks are always on the horizon – here are the viruses an infectious disease expert is watching in 2026

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Matthew investigates whether Pope Leo XIV's appeals to Liberation Theology represent genuine solidarity with the poor or a sophisticated form of spiritual bypassing. 

Drawing on Ole Jakob Løland's analysis of Francis's papacy, Remski traces how Rome has metabolized Liberation Theology into compatibility with 135 years of Catholic Social Teaching by absorbing its pastoral language while suppressing its structural conclusions. This involves a close reading of Cardinal Ratzinger's 1984 rebuke of Gutierrez et al. 

Ratzinger’s framing of empathy as temptation prefigures the "toxic empathy" discourse of our present moment. Francis's eulogies for Oscar Romero and Gustavo Gutiérrez honored their sacrifice but erased their politics.

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The FDA is bleeding out Covid contrarians. Marty Makary, Vinay Prasad, Tracy Beth Høeg—all gone. Jonathan Howard returns to discuss why so many RFK Jr's friends have reached the end of their bureaucratic road.

Show Notes

FDA Swaps Top Drug and Vaccine Regulators in Staff Overhaul

F.D.A. Commissioner Marty Makary Resigns After Weeks of Pressure

No One Should Care About or Trust Anything Dr. Marty Makary Says Ever Again

My Sincere Message to Dr. Jay Bhattacharya: Welcome Aboard and Good Luck. We Are Rooting for Your Success.

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Leo the XIV wrote a big letter about a hyperobject. Many thoughts and debates are triggered. Today we’ll look at what the hell an encyclical is, the Vatican's decade-long conversation with Silicon Valley about coding morally-sound AI, and the broken and laundered echoes of Liberation Theology in Leo’s text.

Show Notes

Rerum Novarum, Leo XIII, May 15 1891

Catholic Church largest non-governmental landowner

Magnifica Humanitas full text

Paragraph 177: memory of past complicity in slavery

Thiel’s Antichrist Framing Collides with Church Doctrine

Why Silicon Valley is Turning to The Catholic Church

Gustavo Gutiérrez, A Theology of Liberation (1971/1973)

Medellín Conference 1968, CELAM documents

Camilo Torres Restrepo, ELN Colombia

Ratzinger CDF investigation of Gutiérrez, 1984

James Martin SJ, "A capitalist priest reads Magnifica Humanitas," America Magazine

Word on Fire publishing Magnifica Humanitas in hardcopy

Brief: US v. Liberation Theology (Part 1) — November 1, 2025

Bonus: US v. Liberation Theology (Part 2) — November 3, 2025

Conspirituality Episode on Leo XIV vs Trump (Leo's immigration remarks through Good Friday) — April 2026

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Derek reports on the role of journalism after attending the News and Documentary Emmy Awards in New York City last week.

Show Notes

2026 News & Documentary Emmy Awards | NEWS NIGHT (LIVE)

You Might Have Already Fallen for MAHA’s Conspiracy Theories

Student awarded CBS News scholarship explains why he called out network at event: ‘I had to do it’

Jorge Ramos, who's anchored the news for nearly 4 decades, is leaving Univision

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Matthew investigates the under-construction STACK data centre at 3650 Danforth Avenue in Scarborough, two miles from his home, tracing what he finds through concentric circles of capital, neglect, hype, and deception.

When complete, the 56MW hyperscale facility will draw the power of 50K Ontario homes. But it was built without public consultation, environmental monitoring, or any info on who the tenants will be. Its financing and ownership details track back through a web of investment firms with connections to both the Ford (provincial) and Carney (federal) governments.

Show Notes

STACK Infrastructure — About

National Observer — One data centre or one million homes? Mapping Ontario's proposed hyperscaler boom

Dirty Data — Environmental Reporting Collective

ASME — Data Centre Ambient Heat Study, May 2026

Environment Canada — Heat Warnings

City of Toronto — R.C. Harris Water Treatment Plant

Ontario Environmental Registry — Bill 40

Toronto City Council — Motion MM39.47

Democracy Now! — Karen Hao Interview

AI Resist List

Data Center Watch

Indigenous Insider — Kevin O'Leary and Wonder Valley

Parksville Qualicum News — BC Greens oppose Nanaimo data centre

AI is Capital - Jodi’s Substack

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