Conspirituality

Derek talks with Dr. Ali Haider about being on the frontlines of COVID-19.

Dr. Haider is an Assistant Professor of Medicine at Tufts University Medical School. He received his medical degree from Albert Einstein College of Medicine in New York. Dr. Haider is board-certified in Internal Medicine, Cardiovascular Diseases, Echocardiography, Nuclear Cardiology, Interventional Cardiology, and vascular ultrasound. He is well versed in all aspects of cardiology, and his areas of interest include coronary angioplasty and interventions, and the treatment of peripheral vascular disease as well as structural heart disease.

Show Notes

Doctor Responds to COVID Over-Diagnosis Claims by White House

Ali Haider on YouTube and Instagram

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When we started this project six months ago, we could feel the cliff-edge of the election on the horizon. We could sense that our footholds of community, reasonable conversation, and consensus reality were eroding. As veterans of spirituality and wellness spaces, we’ve always known that the reality has never lived up to the hype. But the intensification of conspirituality themes, incubating during lockdown into the peak fever-state of QAnon, has made this period especially demoralizing. What do we need now, on the eve of uncertainty? What will we need going forward?

This week, we take some time to explore thoughts and feelings about this menacing week, and how we’re contemplating and committing to the long haul through our work, relationships, and self-care. We’re joined by special guests Hala Khouri, Tara Stiles, and Lissa Rankin, who all offer their wisdom.

Show Notes

Lissa Rankin takes a stand with Rebekah Borucki

Heal at Last: the nonprofit aimed at democratizing healing

Alchemizing Uncertain Times Through Writing

10 New Age Beliefs We Need To Debunk If We Want To Be Social Justice Allies

The Psychology Of People Who Believe Conspiracy Theories

Mind Over Medicine — Lissa’s book

QAnon’s Predictions Haven’t Come True; So How Does the Movement Survive the Failure of Prophecy?

The Republican strategy for every Supreme Court nominee: Hide what you believe

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Coming off of Conspirituality 22 with Rebekah Borucki, Matthew casts a wider net over Hay House’s cultural influence in two parts: a brief survey of some of their top authors, and then an examination of a root text in the Hay House world: A Course in Miracles.

ACIM’s corrupt and emotionally manipulative philosophy is the basis for the work of authors Marianne Williamson and Gabby Bernstein, overlapping almost perfectly onto “The Work” of Byron Katie. Louise Hay, for one, was fond of quoting it. Matthew proposes that A Course in Miracles is the unacknowledged in-house bible for Hay House. He has a lot to say about it as a former member of a cult called Endeavor Academy in Wisconsin Dells, which used A Course in Miracles as its core text, and primary tool of psychological abuse.

Show Notes

Louise Hay quotes A Course in Miracles

Wayne Dyer quotes A Course in Miracles

How Byron Katie emotionally dominates

Bryon Katie on feeling God as babies die and how Hitler maybe brought people to enlightenment (pp. 37-39)

Julian’s open letter to Northrup

Jivana Heyman on Louise Hay (and more)

Louise Hay and AIDS

Applying “The Work” of Byron Katie to the Pandemic

At the heart of ACIM’s influence on New Age wellness is the absurd contempt for the process of becoming sick expressed by “Jesus” in Lesson 136

Letter from Centre for Science in the Public Interest to the FDA detailing Joseph Mercola’s fraudulent COVID cures

An early marked version of A Course in Miracles

A history of A Course in Miracles editing

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Author and publisher Rebekah Borucki joins the Conspirituality team as our first co-host for this episode. She’s got a story to tell: the culture of her publisher, Hay House, was so resistant to taking a position on the racist attitudes of some of their leading cash-cow authors that she ditched her contract and her job with the company as a diversity mentor.

We’ll be talking about the money and politics of New Age media, as well as editorial standards, ghostwriting, cult apologetics, and the responsibility of publishers to deplatform authors that are hurtling toward QAnon. New Age media isn’t all love and light—it’s a pathway into consumers’ vulnerability, and sometimes a recruitment gateway for cults.

Also this week: Derek interviews Dr Jay Mohan on his gruelling COVID front-line work as an interventional cardiologist in a Detroit suburb.

Show notes

Rebekah on toxic White Women Wellness

Rebekah on the silence of Hay House authors

Rebekah on leaving Hay House

A Critique of Abraham Hicks & the Law of Attraction

Celery Juice: The big problem with a viral Instagram ‘cure

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More than 20 years ago, Richard Vaughan wrote Matthew a very kind and perceptive letter, asking him to reconsider whether his participation in a Buddhist cult would forever alienate him from the real world, and his real friends. Matthew reads this letter here.

It’s on his mind not only because there are so many people who are now struggling with having lost friends and family members, but also because Richard—only 55, and a hero of Canadian queer literature—has been missing for a week.

Show Notes

N.B. writers and LGBTQ community ‘very worried‘ about missing mentor Richard Vaughan

The Seven Good Reasons Why the Boys in the Band Could be a Musical or, I am the Dollar in the Dolorosa

QAnon Casualties

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We still can’t believe alt-health Bali retreat rockstar Sacha Stone called for the “evisceration” of public officials last week. Are conspiritualists really crossing over into militancy? Are the products of wellness so boring, and are the markets so saturated, that messianic influencers have no choice but to up the ante? Stone’s recent interview guest, Christiane Northrup, recently invoked the sacred power of the Sheriff as the highest law in the land for anti-lockdown folks who believe they’re being oppressed. That argument was first made by the white nationalist Posse Comitatus in the 1970s — the seed group for many of today’s militias.

This week, we investigate the means by which religious cults and conspiritualists rattle sabers and poison people. Derek reviews Japan’s AUM cult as a prelude to Julian’s riveting interview with AUM expert Sarah Hightower. Julian reports on the Northrupian intersection between militia movements and alt-health ideas of “sovereignty.” Matthew discusses violence in ISKCON as the Hare Krishnas parade mask-free through Glastonbury.

Show Notes

Rajneeshee leaders take revenge on The Dalles’ with poison, homeless

Cult Leaders & Psychopaths: Power Beyond the Grave

We Need to Talk about the Rise of White Supremacy in Yoga

Epic Yoga San Clemente

Alan Hostetter playing a singing bowl in a Trump t-shirt

Reddit thread on Q Casualties Dating App

Sex and Death on the Road to Nirvana

Amy Coney Barrett uses her children in different ways

What the Second Amendment really meant to the Founders

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Who’s right, who’s confused, who’s noble, who’s the bad guy?

Nothing exists in a cultural vacuum. The emergence of yoga as a hugely popular and lucrative phenomenon in the West is no exception.

In this bonus episode, Julian discusses a recent article that was posted, and enthusiastically liked, shared, and commented upon in sincere solidarity by yoga folks contributing to the conspirituality zeitgeist.

This despite the article being written by a respected brown scholar and activist and posted by an earnest white yogi—and being about a billionaire with some questionable history.

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The reality of a second COVID wave started back in the Spring. Now that With over half of American states are experiencing increased cases, the conspiracy theories are surging. At least 32 White House staff and allies, as well as the president and his wife, have tested positive, likely originating in an unmasked close-quartered super-spreader Rose Garden celebration of Supreme Court nominee Amy Coney Barrett.

As Trump poses for wheezing conquering hero propaganda following his questionable return from Walter Reed, another type of second wave is being led by brandwashed conspiritualists. Yoga and wellness loyalists are pushing back against criticism of their use of Q hashtags while reveling in mask opposition, anti-vaxxer agendas, and a distorted slacktivist approach to child trafficking that forms the foundation of QAnon. Pastel Q is surging.

This week, Julian investigates the terrifying Line In The Sand online conference, which featured friends of the pod, Mikki Willis, Zach Bush, Christiane Northrup, and many others. Matthew focuses on the chaos of charismatic leadership, weighing Trumpian tactics with the likes of Chogyam Trungpa and Yogi Bhajan. Derek explores the importance of creativity in the time of quarantine, leading into his interview with musician and former cult member, Ben Lee.

The entire crew also discusses Yoga Journal following the lead of the NY Times and Rolling Stone by reporting (and then bearing the backlash) on yoga community leaders taking a stand against QAnon—and getting trolled by Q devotees in the process.

Show Notes

Julie Salter describes Swami Vishnudevananda, abuser.

NewEarth Haven bio-resonant investment pitch

Trump Supporter Wears ‘COVID Diaper’ to Prevent Coronavirus Farts

Episode 94: The New Age to QAnon Pipeline by QAnon Anonymous

The Case against Swami Rama of the Himalayas

Future Self Summit

Reclaim Your Lives Conference

Leaders in the Yoga Community Speak Out Against QAnon

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Bill Gates is unknowable—except to close and estranged friends, family members, his therapist if he has one. His empire sprawls; his philanthropy is tangled. He’s clearly not any one thing. But what is the one thing conspiritualists fantasize him to be? What archetypal role does he play for those who hate him?

In this meditation, Matthew zeroes in on the briefly-mentioned biographical datum that Gates was bullied as a boy to unfold his symbolic power as neuroatypical scapegoat. If we listen carefully, he argues, we’ll hear something very high-school-ish, laced with homophobia and latent violence, in the lazy defamations slung at Gates. 

Is it a surprise that Trump graduated from the New York Military Academy in 1964—the same year that a horrific hazing incident cost several administrators their jobs? Is it a surprise, given what we saw in that so-called debate, that Trump’s school had written hazing into their cadet manual? No, it’s not. And when Biden pauses and smiles, and shakes his head, and his gaze falls, is he remembering what it was like to have had a stutter in an all-boys school? 

We spend a lot of time on this podcast unravelling the shoddy thinking at the heart of our conspirituality and political landscapes. These 24 minutes tackles primal cruelty that is up to men to address—if they can remember it, and challenge that sad assumption that it’s simply the way of the world.

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Thirty-two days out from the election and every hour reveals another layer of intensity. The more widely conspirituality and QAnon spreads, the more normalized mundane political violence becomes.

In this episode, Derek looks at how the virus of conspiracism is now overtly threatening the basic premises of voting, as Emperor Trump projects a fiction about electoral fraud, even as he loses his clothes. Matthew looks at a crucial part of this normalization: how Q himself, whoever he is, is now brandwashing, advising followers to abandon familiar Q-words. How then are resisters like Seane Corn to address this brainworm as it shape-shifts, co-opting the visuals of wellness and even the jargon of social justice? Julian steps back for a broader look, reviewing the pod’s discoveries and themes so far, and visualizing where they might lead.

We interview Mike Rains, one of the brave moderators of the 25K member subreddit QAnonCasualties, who has a lot to say about what the Q-hole feels like when it rips up hearts and homes.

Show Notes

Q suggests going stealth

r/QAnonCasulties

Donate via QanonCasualties SubReddit to a real charity that does real work to help combat child trafficking

Insights into the Personalities of Conspiracy Theorists

Why Do Some People Believe in Conspiracy Theories?

People Drawn to Conspiracy Theories Share a Cluster of Psychological Features

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