Podcast
Conspirituality
Hosted by Derek Beres, Matthew Remski, Julian Walker · EN
Dismantling New Age cults, wellness grifters, and conspiracy-mad yogis. At best, the conspirituality movement attacks public health efforts in times of crisis. At worst, it fronts and recruits for the fever-dream of QAnon. As the alt-right and New Age horseshoe toward each other in a blur of disinformation, clear discourse, and good intentions get smothered. Charismatic influencers exploit their followers by co-opting conspiracy theories on a spectrum of intensity ranging from vaccines to child trafficking. In the process, spiritual beliefs that have nurtured creativity and meaning are transforming into memes of a quickly-globalizing paranoia. Conspirituality Podcast attempts to bring understanding to this landscape. A journalist, a cult researcher, and a philosophical skeptic discuss the stories, cognitive dissonances, and cultic dynamics tearing through the yoga, wellness, and new spirituality worlds. Mainstream outlets have noticed the problem. We crowd-source, research, analyze, and dream answers to it.
241episodes
Episodes
Newest firstAll episodes
311: AI, Pope Leo, & The Antichrist
Yesterday01:21:19Summary readyLeo 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 Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
SummaryBonus Sample: Journalism In An Age of Fascism
4d ago00:07:09Summary readyDerek 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 Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
SummaryBrief: My Neighbourhood Data Center Conspiracy
6d ago00:38:05Summary readyMatthew 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 Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Summary310: The Bait & Switch Complex
1w ago01:06:01Summary readyIn the early 20th century, some retailers would advertise a product at an attractively low price to lure customers into the store, claim the item was out of stock or of poor quality then pressure customers to buy a more expensive alternative. The practice became known in the public vernacular as "bait and switch" in the 1920s. This week, we look at three modern bait and switches pertinent to our beat. First, Julian looks at “free speech patriot” Chud the Builder’s slimy social media tactics. Then Derek investigates RFK Jr’s SNAP benefits now you see them, now you don’t. Finally, Matthew looks at how Mark Carney is bait and switching the Canadian political body. Show Notes SNAP Restrictions Raise Prices for U.S. Retailers and Consumers, Rather Than Improving Diets State-Level SNAP Food Restrictions: Assessing Long-Term Profitability and Policy Risks for Grocery Retailers SNAP Enforcement Changes Risk Limiting Food Access for Vulnerable Communities USDA outlines retailer compliance for state SNAP waivers EBT, SNAP, and Food Retail Compliance: A Complete Explainer for Small Grocery and Convenience Store Owners FRAC Urges USDA to End Harmful SNAP Food Restriction Waivers Bank of England — Mark Carney biography UN — Carney Special Envoy appointment Council for Inclusive Capitalism — Carney Amnesty International Canada — Bill C-12 CBC News — Bill C-233 defeated Government of Canada — CERB eligibility CBC News — CRA COVID benefit clawbacks Parliamentary Budget Officer — federal housing spending CBC News — oil and gas emissions cap scrapped CBC News — F-35 contract review CBC News — Defence Security and Resilience Bank confirmed CBC News — Indigenous Services Canada budget cuts CCPA — Bill C-15 corporate exemption CBC News — Grassy Narrows, "I can outlast her" Guardian — Carney climate record Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
SummaryBonus Sample: Poetry As Resistance & Embodied Spirituality
2w ago00:05:49Summary readyAcross continents and centuries outsider poets have made a bold stand for the life of the body, contemplative ecstasy, sexual liberation, and the sacredness of nature, often in the face of religious and political repression. From Rajasthan to New York, Ancient Persia to London, and Swansea in Wales to Balkh in Afghanistan, ecstatic poets have broken taboos around sex, death, gender, social caste, and religious dogma. In a follow-up to last week’s interview with Britt Hartley of No-Nonsense Spirituality, Julian reflects on how poetry has always lit up his inner world as a form of embodied spirituality that transcends religious frameworks or supernatural metaphysics. He shares favorite pieces that span 800 years and three continents from Mirabai, Walt Whitman, Mary Oliver, Kabir, David Whyte, Dylan Thomas, and Rumi, along with stories from their lives, and his own. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
SummaryBrief: Living with Prediabetes
2w ago00:24:48Summary readyIn February, Derek and his wife, Callan, were surprised to discover she was diagnosed with prediabetes. They didn't know that Asian American adults are at a higher risk of Type 2 diabetes than others without the traditional risk factors. Callan joins to discuss how the diagnosis changed her life, her frustrations with the healthcare system, and how she's navigating her new reality. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Summary309: Crybully Christians in the White House
2w ago00:56:46Summary readyThe Trump DOJ's 565-page report from the Task Force for Eradicating Anti-Christian Bias is one of the strangest federal documents in American history. It’s a crybully tome, arguing that the most powerful religious majority in the United States is its most persecuted minority. Julian examines the FACE Act allegations, the FBI-Catholic surveillance controversy, and the selective history propping up the Christian-founding thesis. Derek traces the freethinker and secularist tradition the report erases. Matthew tracks the document's most telling absence: anticommunism. From Eisenhower to Reagan, Christian nationalism always came bundled with a Soviet enemy and a defense of free enterprise and private property. But the 67% of the doc that’s about sexuality, gender, and reproductive rights shows that the billionaire Jesus class thinks the class war is over, and so all that’s left to control is the body itself. Show Notes Freethinkers: A History of American Secularism SPLC: 12 Anti-Semitic Radical Traditional Catholic Groups AXIOS: Assaults Against Abortion Clinics Rose 128% in 2021 DOJ Says Biden Unfairly Attacked Anti-Abortion Groups Is Jane’s Revenge For Real? Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
SummaryBonus Sample: Liberals Punching Left
3w ago00:05:25Summary readyListen to the full episode In this contribution to an ongoing co-host conversation, Matthew argues that the liberal centre's habit of punching left is a historically conditioned class strategy. From FDR's New Deal—designed to inoculate capitalism against socialism—through Hayek, Buckley, the Birchers, Limbaugh, and the Obama-era "socialist medicine" smear, liberals have accepted the premises of Red Scare attacks, because doing so served their own interest in disciplining the actual left. The result is a Ratchet Effect that pulls discourse perpetually rightward, and a narrowing of the Overton window to convert anticapitalist politics into psychological pathology. When the liberal centre engineers conditions in which no structural challenge to capitalism is rational, it can caricature the resulting conflict as hysteria, cultishness, and immaturity. There’s also a gendered dynamic going on here, in which the leftist is unreasonable, nitpicky, always demanding too much, focused on minutiae but also big feelings, and always missing the “big picture”. Sometimes the only real division between right wing and liberal responses to the left is the difference between outright hatred and resentful dismissal. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
SummaryBrief: Spirituality After Atheism?
3w ago00:43:08Summary readyIt’s normal to feel lost after leaving a cult, transitioning out of fundamentalist religion, or abandoning conspiracy theories. Whether you’ve left behind, you may be asking, "What now?" Britt Hartley joins Julian to talk about her new book, No Nonsense Spirituality: All The Tools No Belief Required, and her recent run-in with the hardcore atheist community, which calls her work “nonsense.” The ex-Mormon practices Sufi mysticism, holds an MA in theology, and is writing her doctoral dissertation. A spiritual atheist, she advocates passionately for reclaiming awe, rituals, pilgrimages, and spiritual experiences from the monopoly of organized religion. Show Notes No Nonsense Spirituality: All The Tools No Belief Required Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Summary308: The AI Slop Machine is Worse Than You Think [feat Mallory DeMille]
3w ago00:58:23Summary readyTwo months ago, we recorded Episode 291: My Chinese Buddhist Israeli AI Guru, surveying the growing field of AI slopfluencers churning out wellness supplements via Amazon affiliate links. At the time, we weren’t clear on who was behind these accounts. Then Mallory DeMille went down a YouTube and TikTok rabbit hole and found the men making millions from these accounts. Today we’re going to look at what they’re doing, how they’re doing it, and the cultural and racial dynamics at play in their slop. Show Notes An Amish Avatar and an A.I. Monk Are Pitching Supplements on Social Media Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Summary