Conspirituality

For our inaugural bonus episode of Conspirituality Podcast, we feature a single interview: a deep dive into the demonology of QAnon and Xtian evangelicalism with Dublin-based Religious Studies scholar Jonathan O’Donnell (pronouns: they/them).

O’Donnell took Matthew through a tour of modern demons: how they show up and how believers relate to them. They also explore the amazing world of “spiritual warfare handbooks,” which have a history in US evangelicalism, are bestsellers in Q-land, and in some ways resemble new-age self-help manuals. They discuss prophecy, speaking in tongues, and the impacts of demonology on marginalized identities. 

Professor O’Donnell specializes in American Religious and Cultural Studies, with a focus on the religious right and systems of dehumanization. They study Islamophobia, antisemitism, transphobia, and religious nationalism. Their current research analyses the relation between evangelical demonology, authoritarianism, and “post-truth politics” in Trump’s America.

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Some wellness influencers offer compelling critiques of Big Pharma, factory farming, and psychiatric malpractice. What happens when their arguments become honeypots for snake oil? In this episode, Derek provides an overview of modern pharma practice and its discontents. Julian delves into the muddy culture of yoga and antidepressants—the bad advice, the stigma, the magical thinking. He also reviews the latest Q-adjacent content of Canadian self-help celebrity Danielle LaPorte, and checks in on Kate Northrup’s interview with Zach Bush.

Derek and Julian interview Matthew about his recent feature investigation on conspirituality power couple, Dr. Kelly Brogan and Sayer Ji. There’s lots of material that didn’t make the final copy, like how Brogan’s conspirituality could endanger the mental health of her online clients, and how her usage of Kundalini Yoga as a supplemental therapy is riddled with false historical and medical claims. Also: why didn’t Sayer Ji denounce QAnon when given the chance?

Finally, Derek digs into the podcast origin story with an interview of Jules Evans, who helped “conspirituality” become an almost-household term.

Show Notes

Inside Kelly Brogan’s Covid-Denying, Vax-Resistant Conspiracy Machine

Popular Health Guru Sayer Ji Curates the Scientific Literature with His Bachelor’s Degree in Philosophy

Matthew’s review of Brogan’s “review” of Yogi Bhajan survivor Pamela Dyson’s memoir

From Maharaj to Mahan Tantric: The Construction of Yogi Bhajan’s Kundalini Yoga

Cognitive Errors and Diagnostic Mistakes: A Case-Based Guide to Critical Thinking in Medicine

An Olive Branch Report on Yogi Bhajan, the abuser

White Bird in a Golden Cage: My Life with Yogi Bhajan

Trump Claims He Invented the Term “Fake News”—Here’ s an Interview With the Guy Who Actually Helped Popularize It

Lies, Damn Lies and Viral Content

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At this point, we can say for sure that American spiritual and wellness communities are not only vulnerable to conspiracy brainworms but they’re actively hosting and spreading them. Seane Corn joins us to discuss what to do when QAnon rhetoric and hashtags co-opts lurches through yoga communities.

But is this really unexpected from a historical point of view? Our second guest, cult researcher and historian Jared Yates Sexton joins us to talk about his new book, American Rule. He discusses the longstanding conspiracies that have influenced America since its very founding as well as the chronic problem of American exceptionalism.

We all add in our own reflections on 9/11: how close to home it came, how one of us was in a cult when it happened, and how we learn and manage fear.

Show Notes

Thread on Pastel QAnon

The Birth of QAmom

Wellness Influencers Are Spreading QAnon Conspiracies About the Coronavirus

Seane Corn’s anti-Q post swarmed by QAnons

Inside Kelly Brogan’s Covid-Denying, Vax-Resistant Conspiracy Machine

The Brightest Stars Shine In The Deepest Dark

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Yoga-crazed Hindu nationalists murder Muslims for eating beef, believing that the cow embodies the religious gift of India’s soil. American white supremacists chug gallons of local milk to prove their lactose tolerance and their claim that they alone should occupy the Global North.

Extreme examples aside: it’s clear that key elements of the alt-right and the New Age agree that the Earth is sacred. Bountiful and healing, the Earth preserves everything lost to industrialization, Big Pharma, and globalization. Home is where the soil is. But whose home? Who’s welcome here? Who can afford it? Who’s allowed to own it, and who has to slave-labor on it? For all the supposed concern for ecology, why aren’t we seeing conspiritualists and QAnon devotees marching against carbon emissions, celebrating the carbon drops of lockdown, supporting the migrant workers who pick their arugula, or starting community gardens in their food-desert cities?

This week Matthew reviews the soft-fascist “blood and soil” themes of conspirituality culture. Derek gives some background and context on the romanticization problem with agriculture. And Julian looks at the quasi-scientific premises and promises that podcast fave Dr. Zach Bush offers in response. We also bring you an interview with farming activist John Roulac, who’s incensed at how conspirituality is ripping up progressive foodie movements. In a recent article, he called out his old friends and associates (like Mikki Willis and Christiane Northrup) for what he calls their “body-snatching” beliefs. Matthew closes with a view from Manitoulin Island.

Show Notes

Is the Wellness Movement Being Tainted by QAnon and the New Age Right?

John Roulac tangles with Mikki Willis

John’s projects: Kiss the Ground | Nutiva | Rebotanicals

Matthew’s feature on Pattabhi Jois, yoga guru and serial sexual abuser

When The U.S. Government Tried To Replace Migrant Farmworkers With High Schoolers

A reflection on the lasting legacy of 1970s USDA Secretary Earl Butz

Why factory farms are a “perfect storm” for disease pandemics

Brian Rose on Zach Bush

Our COVID-19

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For decades, Neo-Tantra has focused on sex workshops and orgasmic bliss, overlooking the fact that the Kama Sutra is effectively a patriarchal instruction manual as well as Tantra’s grassroots origins in the lower castes in Indian society, which were responding to lofty metaphysical ideas with practical rituals everyone could partake in. From that perspective, a modern industry marketed with Shiva-Shakti figurines is yet another example of capitalist yoga in a privileged society.

Derek opens this week discussing a redpilled-lite video by Danielle LaPorte, while Julian discusses an intensely personal story related to Tantra; he also explores the role of the Aghoris. We break from Tantra talk during Matthew’s interview with Alex Auder, a veteran yoga instructor who uses comedy as a relief mechanism from the QAnon craziness in the yoga world. Matthew ends this week’s episode with a reflection on his history with Tibetan Buddhist Tantra, and how he sees echoes of its archaic elements showing up, in undigested form, in the QAnon imaginarium.

Show Notes

Danielle LaPorte’s video

How tantric sex trains people to have more intense orgasms, and why it’s so controversial

The Mysterious Death of a Tantric Sex Guru

Sex Messiah: A Tantric Odyssey

Not for the Faint of Heart: The Aghori and Their Unorthodox Path to Enlightenment

Reza Aslan (almost) loses his head

Yoga: An Evolving Story Of Cross-Cultural Innovation

Julian Feeld at the Hollywood Blvd QAnon rally

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This week we announce and discuss a refinement in our podcast’s direction. Real talk: conspirituality has clearly become both a front and a gateway for the fever-dream of QAnon. As mainstream news outlets wake up to the sordid reality that independent journalists have been tracking for two years, we find neither stream truly conceptualizing answers or methods for recovery and healing. Going forward, we’re going to concentrate not only on critique, but also offering solutions.

Our guest this week is Lorna Liana, publisher of Entheonation. She tells Matthew about the insurgence of conspirituality in the plant medicine and ceremony world. Some neo-shamans, she says, are redpilling plant worshippers during vulnerable states. Julian and Derek chime in with their own experiences of psychedelics.

Show Notes

Plants of the Gods: Their Sacred, Healing, and Hallucinogenic Powers

How to Change Your Mind: What the New Science of Psychedelics Teaches Us about Consciousness, Dying, Addiction, Depression, and Transcendence

What Are the Coronavirus Risks with Ayahuasca Ceremonies?

Can Ayahuasca Protect You From Coronavirus?

Is Tobacco Antiviral (& Can It Treat COVID-19)?

Plant Ceremonies and Your Safety in the Midst of a Global Crisis

COVID-19 Denialism is Rooted in the Settler Colonial Mindset

A Neuroscientist Explains What Conspiracy Theories Do To Your Brain

The Danger of Manipulative Love-Bombing in a Relationship

The Certainty Bias: A Potentially Dangerous Mental Flaw

Dopamine, cognitive biases and assessment of certainty: A neurocognitive model of delusions

The Dopaminergic Midbrain Encodes the Expected Certainty about Desired Outcomes

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Dr. Theodora Wildcroft joins us again to take us through the basics of contemporary Religious Studies. She discusses how the discipline approaches issues of ritual, value, meaning, charisma, and role-playing, while also leading us through the process by which objects, places, and people become sacred. Spoiler: it’s more about what we do than what we believe.

Wildcroft also dissects the chronic problem of conspiritualists weaponizing myths of rebellion and recovery.

Matthew gives a brief rundown on the trainwreck of Mikki Willis’s “Plandemic 2,” and also talks about the Q-map as an artistic (if delusional) landscape of comfort and connection. Derek contemplates the chemicals we don’t question while putting onto or inside of our bodies, while Julian homes in on one particular chemical: the pyramid scheme propped up by Big Essential Oil.

Show Notes

The QAnon map

How to spot a conspiracy theory – Expert guide to conspiracy theories part one

Mandala Offering – Ring Set Version

Lotsawa House: Mandala Offering

Deep State Mapping Project

Was Lewis Carroll a Pedophile? His Photographs Suggest So

Travis View on Twitter

2019 Plastic Surgery Statistics Report

Risk Associated with Bee Venom Therapy: A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis

Class Action: Young Living ‘Nothing More Than an Unlawful Pyramid Scheme’

Multi-Level Vaccine Refusal

Very simplistic visual example of how conspiracy theories can become transnational

Deconstructing the placebo effect and finding the meaning response

T

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Last week, we started to explore how the real issue of child trafficking is being weaponized by bad-faith actors. This week we’re joined by two experts that explain the overt and subtle impacts involved.

Regan Williams, CEO and founder of Seen & Heard, a nonprofit that provides youth in foster care with professional and personal development via the performing arts, offers a ground zero perspective of trafficked children and teens (and the people that actually care for them) being made even more invisible by conspiratorial clicktivism.

Religious Studies scholar and trauma-sensitive yoga consultant, Dr. Theo Wildcroft, joins us from England to discuss the consequences of trauma histories being hijacked for political and emotional manipulation. She offers insight into the mythic elements of conspirituality-to-Q that cannot be ignored if we want to understand how trauma is both stored and resisted.

On This Week in Conspirituality, Matthew considers the absurdity of David Wolfe accusing the medical community of not doing anything about cancer. Julian investigates anti-Semitic blood libel themes in QAnon and Derek discusses the chronic dangers of seeking utopia.

Show Notes

To report abuse/neglect, call the child abuse hotline: 800.540.4000 (LA county) / 800.422.4453 (National)

Epstein is a real pedophile. Why are QAnon and Pizzagate so focused on fake ones?

The Dark Virality of a Hollywood Blood-Harvesting Conspiracy

Just how anti-Semitic is QAnon?

QAnon isn’t newly anti-Semitic—it’s always been that way

Q supporters are incorrectly doxxing journalists who report on QAnon as Jewish

Nearly 600,000 people have voted for candidates who support QAnon

Here are the QAnon supporters running for Congress in 2020

QAnon Supporter Who Made Bigoted Videos Wins Ga. Primary, Likely Heading To Congress

Prominent Republicans back a conspiracy theory-promoting congressional candidate in Georgia

Argentino on

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Two of this podcast’s hosts have been involved in destructive cult dynamics. Matthew’s three years with Michael Roach and three years at Endeavor Academy are at the root of his cult research and journalism. Julian’s six years in the inner circle around what he describes as Ana Forrest’s incendiary and manipulative approach to yoga left him with repressed memories. Those experiences also left his family deeply scarred by some of the same Satanic Panic themes prevalent in the QAnon movement. His ongoing work advocating for critical thinking and community health is part of his recovery.

Derek describes himself as being “cult-adjacent”—not uncommon for a lifelong wellness industry professional. In this episode, he’ll interview Julian and Matthew about their cult experiences, the recovery process, and cultic dynamics in modern yoga, Buddhist, and New Age communities informing the growing field of conspirituality.

They’ll also discuss cultic organizations being ideally positioned to sell “Disaster Spirituality” (props to Naomi Klein) in times of crisis. Cult leaders understand the power of charisma, the attractiveness of transcendental ideology, and what it takes to make vulnerable people feel like every question is answerable with jargon, intrusive eye contact, and deeply deceptive shit. Matthew will ground the discussion with a synopsis of cult research, basic concepts, and useful definitions.

Show Notes

The David Wolfe video about pedophilia and Trump

United States of Conspiracy | PBS documentary

QAnon Casualties: stories on Reddit

Steven Hassan’s “Influence Continuum,” which is helpful for assessing the health of influence

Great podcast about James Arthur Ray and the question of undue influence

Tony Robbins’ PR defends him when people are injured at his firewalking events

Excellent podcast series on Heaven’s Gate

The conviction of Keith Raniere

Peter Georgiades on the legal barriers to cult litigation

Daniel Shaw on “Traumatic Narcissism“

QAnon Anonymous

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A recent report by the UK’s Center for Countering Digital Hate found that anti-vaxx organizations reach 58 million people on social media. The total amount of money spent by anti-vax groups and advertisers targeting their followers on Facebook, Instagram, and YouTube is roughly $1 billion. The majority of the money funding the most prominent anti-vax groups is by just two men: osteopath Joseph Mercola and fund manager Bernard Selz. All of this makes you wonder: Why is so money being used to target anti-vaxxers?

Derek interviews Imran Ahmed, founder of the Center for Countering Digital Hate, about how anti-vax leaders and groups are using social media to target and recruit followers. The stakes are higher than ever, as the vaccine argument has transcended autism and is threatening to endanger public health during the pandemic.

Julian considers the vaccine fears of parents as well as the shadow of the Tuskegee Syphillis Study, and how anti-vax alliances are targeting black communities, which could be a disastrous Trojan Horse for COVID-19, while Matthew serves up his This Week in Conspirituality segment in the epilogue, looking at how the leader of the high-demand group he was indoctrinated into over 20 years ago, led by Michael Roach, is rebooting old content as a COVID-era grift.

Show Notes

History of Vaccines

A History of Measles in the United States

Measles Cases and Outbreaks

MMR Vaccination | What You Should Know

Mercury, Vaccines, and Autism: One Controversy, Three Histories

Aluminum in vaccines

Human papillomavirus (HPV) vaccines

CDC Global Health – Polio – Our Progress

Christiane Northrup: Triangulation, regret, Gardisil, civil disobedience

How the Public Learned About the Infamous Tuskegee Syphilis Study

Anti-vaccination leaders fuel black mistrust of medical establishment as covid-19 kills people of color

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