Conspirituality

We still can’t believe alt-health Bali retreat rockstar Sacha Stone called for the “evisceration” of public officials last week...

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...

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...

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...

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...

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...

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...

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...

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...

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...