250: The Mercola Tapes

Summary

Conspirituality Podcast Episode 250: The Mercola Tapes

Release Date: March 27, 2025
Hosts: Derek Barris, Matthew Remsky, Julian Walker
Guests: Jonathan Jarry

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1. Introduction and Episode Overview

The episode begins with the hosts Derek Barris, Matthew Remsky, and Julian Walker welcoming listeners to another installment of Conspirituality. They set the stage for the deep dive into the leaked recordings known as the "Mercola Tapes," which reveal unsettling interactions between Dr. Joe Mercola and a spirit channeler.

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2. Discussion on Brad Schimmel's Parenting Clip

Timestamp: [04:04] - [12:42]

Summary:
Matthew Remsky introduces a contentious clip involving Brad Schimmel, the Attorney General of Wisconsin, addressing his parenting style. In a 2018 speech to a police chaplain's group, Schimmel recounts disciplining his eight-year-old daughter in a manner reminiscent of a "Perry Mason moment."

Notable Quotes:

• Brad Schimmel:
  "I got her back there, and I'm grilling her about this, and I rebut every fib. She piled on the fib, and I got her. She broke down. I just psychologically beat the daylights out of an 8-year-old in the backseat. That was great."
  [06:32]

• Matthew Remsky:
  "Not sounding like great dad work there. Perry Mason. Yes. Dad, no. But Maga really loves him."
  [05:27]

Discussion Points:

• The clip was originally shared by Midas Touch News, a Democratic PAC-turned-resistance news aggregator.
• Progressive commentators reacted strongly, interpreting Schimmel's remarks as indicative of an abusive and authoritarian parenting style aligned with MAGA ideologies.
• Upon further investigation, the hosts discover that the full context of Schimmel's comments reveals a more nuanced perspective, where he discusses personal challenges in balancing work and family life.
• However, Schimmel's broader political activities—such as defending the January 6th crowd, pursuing lawsuits against the ACA, and endorsing conspiracy theories—paint a picture of his alignment with extremist movements.

Analysis:

The hosts critique how selective editing and framing by partisan outlets can distort the perception of political figures, reinforcing narratives that may not fully capture the individual's character or motivations.

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3. The Mercola Tapes: Unveiling the Reality

Timestamp: [14:13] - [35:18]

Summary:
Derek Barris introduces the core topic: the leaked "Mercola Tapes," consisting of 200 hours of recordings between Dr. Joe Mercola and a spirit channeler named Christopher Johnson, who claims to channel an entity named Balan. These tapes expose Mercola's unorthodox wellness practices and his potential foray into extremist ideologies.

Notable Quotes:

• Derek Barris:
  "Mercola repeatedly discusses blowing carbon dioxide up his ass as one of his wellness protocols."
  [14:13]

• Julian Walker:
  "Using carbon dioxide instead of just straight up air because the air takes longer to disperse. Yeah, that's it."
  [16:44]

Discussion Points:

• Wellness Practices: Mercola endorses bizarre health practices like carbon dioxide enemas, which lack scientific backing.
• Financial Discrepancies: Tapes reveal Mercola's net worth is significantly higher than previously reported—over $300 million.
• Violent Rhetoric: Mercola discusses plans to recruit 80 million armed Americans to target veterinarians and the livestock industry, underscoring a potential descent into extremist actions.
• Anti-Catholicism: He plans to write an anti-Catholic book, positioning himself as a messianic figure.
• Security Breach: The tapes were leaked due to negligent security practices using platforms like Fireflies AI, allowing unintended access to sensitive recordings.

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4. Interview with Jonathan Jarry: Insights into the Mercola Tapes

Timestamp: [36:04] - [58:25]

Summary:
Jonathan Jarry, a science communicator from McGill University's Office for Science and Society, joins the podcast to discuss his investigation into the Mercola Tapes. He elaborates on how the recordings reveal Mercola's belief in pseudoscientific practices and his susceptibility to manipulation by Christopher Johnson.

Notable Quotes:

• Jonathan Jarry:
  "Joe Mercola is not somebody who is conning people. He's not lying to people. He really believes what he says and what he does."
  [36:04]

• Jonathan Jarry:
  "When you're somebody like Joe Mercola, who has spent his entire career being outside the mainstream... you've opened your mind up so much your brains fall out. And that makes you very vulnerable to exploitation."
  [55:17]

• Brad Schimmel:
  "We're doing a fourth round in three weeks, and then he will be able to go to really highly trafficked places like dog parks and woods and things."
  [21:32]

• Jonathan Jarry:
  "Mercola is talking to two different people, supposedly."
  [28:51]

Discussion Points:

• True Believer vs. Grifter: Jarry emphasizes that Mercola genuinely believes in his pseudoscientific claims, distinguishing him from mere opportunistic wellness grifters.
• Manipulation and Control: The tapes showcase how Mercola relies heavily on Johnson for decision-making, often receiving manipulated advice that aligns with his existing beliefs.
• Violent Plans: Discussions reveal plans to incite violence against veterinarians and the broader livestock industry, highlighting a dangerous shift towards extremist actions.
• Compound Plans: Mercola and Johnson discuss establishing a doomsday compound in Mexico, further indicating a move towards insular and potentially violent community building.
• Impact on Followers: The leaks expose the vulnerability of Mercola's followers, who may double down on their beliefs in the face of such revelations, viewing the tapes as orchestrated disinformation.

Analysis:

Jonathan Jarry underscores the peril of echo chambers where individuals like Mercola, entrenched in fringe beliefs, become susceptible to manipulation by charismatic yet unscrupulous figures like Johnson. This dynamic not only perpetuates pseudoscience but also sows seeds for potential extremist actions under the guise of spiritual authority.

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5. Conclusion and Reflections

Timestamp: [58:25] - End

Summary:
The episode concludes with the hosts reflecting on the implications of the Mercola Tapes. They discuss the broader impact of pseudoscientific leaders becoming entwined with extremist ideologies and the challenges in addressing deeply ingrained conspiracy beliefs.

Notable Quotes:

• Matthew Remsky:
  "I think the point that I want to make is that there's no secret that the MAGA movement is packed with authoritarian parenting style dads... fascists are also banal and they're capable of acting and being reasonably perceived as good guys."
  [11:04]

• Julian Walker:
  "If you're somebody like Joe Mercola, who has spent his entire career being outside the mainstream, rejecting the mainstream... you've opened your mind up so much your brains fall out."
  [55:18]

Discussion Points:

• Normalization of Extremism: Pseudoscientific beliefs often serve as a gateway to more extreme ideologies, under the veneer of spiritual or personal empowerment.
• Challenges in Countering Misinformation: Addressing the root causes of pseudoscience and conspiracy theories requires nuanced understanding and strategic communication.
• The Role of Technology: The misuse of platforms like Zoom and AI tools in disseminating and reinforcing fringe beliefs illustrates the complex interplay between technology and misinformation.

Final Thoughts:

The hosts emphasize the importance of vigilance and critical thinking in an age where pseudoscience and conspiracy theories can rapidly spread and morph into more sinister ideologies. By uncovering and analyzing the Mercola Tapes, Conspirituality aims to shed light on the dark intersections of wellness cults, extremist movements, and the exploitation of spiritual beliefs for nefarious purposes.

---

Notable Quotes Throughout the Episode:

• Derek Barris:
  "Mercola calls for an uprising of up to 80 million armed Americans to protect our pets from damage. And if you're thinking he's talking about killing veterinarians, you're spot on."
  [18:43]

• Julian Walker:
  "Mercola is the apex predator in the pseudoscience food chain, even if he is a true believer."
  [46:37]

• Jonathan Jarry:
  "When you're somebody like Joe Mercola... you've closed yourself off completely to anything that is mainstream knowledge. And now he is reduced to believing into anything that would be thought of as fringe or not scientifically valid."
  [55:17]

---

Conclusion:

Episode 250 of Conspirituality presents a compelling examination of how deeply entrenched pseudoscientific beliefs can pave the way for extremist ideologies. Through the lens of the leaked Mercola Tapes, the podcast exposes the vulnerabilities and manipulations within wellness cults, offering listeners a critical perspective on the dangers of conflating spirituality with conspiracy-driven agendas.

Transcript

[Julian Walker]

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[Derek Barris]

Hey everyone. Welcome to Conspirituality where we investigate the intersections of conspiracy theories and spiritual influence to uncover cults, pseudoscience and authoritarian extremism. I'm Derek Barris.

[Matthew Remsky]

I'm Matthew Remsky.

[Julian Walker]

I'm Julain Walker.

[Derek Barris]

You can find us on Instagram and Threads Conspiracy Spirituality Pod Although we are all individually on Blue sky, which is where I spend most of my time, you can access all of our episodes ad free, plus our Monday bonus episodes over on [e-mail] conspirituality. You can also get our bonus episodes via Apple subscriptions if that is your platform of choice. As independent media creators, we really appreciate your support. And as a special bonus this week, if you sign up for Patreon, we will add you to our new National Defense Signal Group.

[Matthew Remsky]

Exactly when science communicator Jonathan Jarry saw the notification to join a chat group on Signal, he thought he was being trolled. RFK junior Seance Working Group had to be a joke. But as he quietly monitored the chats coming in He. He found himself eavesdropping on a whole quantum universe of alt health war plans. Bobby was channeling St. Francis. Christiane Northrup was babbling about a plan to install turmeric douche nozzles in every public school toilet. And Elon was there, too, with plans for a neuralink dewokification implant with beta testing on all new Columbia students. What would Jari do with all of this classified info? Wasn't this supposed to be on secure government servers? Actually, that's not what happened. But let's be honest, you were on the verge of buying it, because, of course, this timeline is just like that. Today we're joined by friend of the podcast, Jonathan Jarry, to discuss the leaked videos he really did get access to from the Galaxy brain enterprises of Dr. Joe Mercola. The Mercola tapes are 200 hours of Dr. Joe getting really crap advice from a spirit channeler on how to make even more money and on whether shooting CO2 gas up his butt will help his microbiome. But first.

[Derek Barris]

This week in conspirituality.

[Matthew Remsky]

Today, I've got a story about taking care to sort out politics from personality. I want you to have a listen here to Brad Schimmel, speaking to a police chaplain's group in Wisconsin in 2018. At the time, he was the Attorney General of the state. And now he's getting a lot of attention because he's up for for election to replace a retiring liberal judge on the Wisconsin State Supreme Court. Here he is talking about his parenting skills.

[Brad Schimmel]

We had picked up our oldest, Mackenzie, at a friend's house, and there'd been a fib. I don't know what the fib was anymore, but she had told a fib about something, and she was denying that she had fibbed. So this car ride home, I'm gonna get her on the witness stand. So she's in the backseat. I adjusted the mirror. So I'm looking right at her, and she's looking right at me. And every time she looks away, I said, look at me, and I don't think I looked at the road the whole way. And I got her back there, and I'm grilling her about this, and I'm rebutting every fib. She piles on the fib. And I got a Perry Mason moment right there in my car. She broke down. I did it. I did it, I did it, and I won my trial. She is next witness. You know, rest my case.

[Matthew Remsky]

Not sounding like great dad work there. Perry Mason. Yes. Dad, no. But Maga really loves him.

[Julian Walker]

Yeah, I mean, it sounds like he went to the Tucker Carlson Seminar on how to be an abusive dad to your young child. Right?

[Matthew Remsky]

Yeah, well, I'm getting there. It does sound like that, but it's a little bit more twisty than that. But let's just see who's backing him. There were Wisconsin Republican Party has given Schimmel nearly $1.7 million. A super PAC backed by Musk has invested 6.6 million. Trump endorsed him, calling on his supporters to vote early for him. Donald Trump Jr. Has stumped with Schimmel, saying that the race is critical to his dad's agenda because in a swing state they're going to have cases lined up on districting and voting rules. And when the election fraud BS hits the fan, they're betting on Brad. Everyone knows how important this race is and recent estimates of total combined spending ON it is $80 million with 75% going to Schimmel. So listening to what follows in this clip, his MAGA vibe continues to check out.

[Brad Schimmel]

She's in the backseat. She is just crying miserably. My wife's looking at me like I'm a monster and I was proud of myself. I just beat up on it. She was probably eight. I just beat. I just psychologically beat the daylights out of an 8 year old in the backseat. That was great.

[Matthew Remsky]

So I came across this clip on Blue sky from the Resistance clickbait poster Patriot Takes. They got it from Midas Touch News, which was founded by three brothers in Long island as a Democratic party PAC in 2020. It's now a resistance news aggregator. So the headline and subhead on Midas Touch News was Brad Schimmel admitted to having psychologically beat the daylights out of his eight year old daughter. And a lot of progressive commenters bought into that and stopped right there. The first comment that shows up for me under the Patriot Takes post is climate activist Bill McKibben saying he's boasting about this to chaplains. And that pulls on a kind of insinuation that this guy is laughing about being abusive to children in front of a bunch of religious folks. Know, it's a common theme. And another subtext I didn't read, but I'm betting is resonant is that here we have a MAGA judge hounding a girl about lying and winning. And I think this has some post MeToo resonance for certain people. But there was also something about the Midwestern self deprecating irony in the clip that gave me pause and so I went to the source. I found the longer Excerpt and there's kind of a different picture because the setup to the story is that Schimmel is getting called out by his wife as an absentee dad. And the context is then discussing whether she's in favor of him running for attorney general. And he's actually confessing something about himself that will be broadly familiar with in nuclear families across the political spectrum.

[Brad Schimmel]

She said, you come home from work, you don't talk to anybody for half an hour. My girls were little. They wanted to tell me about what happened at school or what they did with their friends. They were excited. My youngest one especially, she runs. She runs out to the garage to greet me as I'm getting out of the car and stuff. But I needed my time to decompress, to construct my wall that separated what I did during the day from my family. That was not fair to my kids.

[Matthew Remsky]

So what was the wall for? He's working as a DA and he's prosecuting crimes he doesn't want to bring home. Schimmel is Catholic and the audience is chaplains. And these are people who hear confessions for a job. And he's making what sounds like a frank confession. And he explains that taking on his wife's feedback earned her support for running for ag. Now, of course, if she doesn't oppose his politics of restricting their daughter's future reproductive rights, that's a plus as well. Now none of us know Brad Schimmel's private life. Could this be a self serving, strategically transparent tale he's crafting for his like, I'm one of the good guys audience? It's possible. I know a lot of Catholic dads who cover their asses with performative mea culpas. I mean, he might have always been, he might still be an asshole to his kids, but that's not what's in evidence here. But the thing is, we know he's an asshole in so many verifiable ways. And Midas Touch News knows this, too. He's defended the J6 crowd. He led a 20 state lawsuit trying to overturn the ACA. He offered a dodgy plea deal to a guy charged with possession of child sexual abuse materials. And that guy's lawyer just happened to have donated to his campaign the year before. He's a Catholic anti abortionist in favor of rolling back LGBTQ rights, and he's endorsed conspiracy theories about 2020 Electoral fraud in Milwaukee. And now he's stumping with Charlie Kirk.

[Julian Walker]

Matthew, there's some of what you're saying here about it being confessional. I Get that. But I couldn't help but notice that there was a lot of laughter in the audience. It was a lot of little chuckles and guffaws and the sense. I also hear a performative sense of like, I'm someone who stands up for the truth and Even with an 8 year old girl, I'm not gonna let her fib because this is the kind of person I am. And I just beat the daylights out of her. I was proud of myself. So on the one hand he's saying, well, that was not very nice. But on the other hand, he's also parading something he's proud of.

[Matthew Remsky]

Unless the self deprecation is communicated and shared throughout the entire audience. Like, unless there's a bunch of guys in the audience saying, oh yeah, I do that too when I'm an asshole.

[Julian Walker]

Yeah, you know, it made me think too. I don't know if you guys followed this. Natalie Cuomo is a comedian who's, who's got a big following on Instagram and she's been getting death threats for the last few weeks because of a show in which she was getting heckled and she crouched down and looked at the guy who was heckling her and said, look me in the eye. Look me in the eye. This is not okay what you're doing. There's a lot of positivity here. People are here to support me and you're just bringing all this negativity. And there's been this massive backlash from men for her doing that whole, look me in the eye, I'm going to tell you something you don't want to hear, which is very similar to what he's saying. I can't help but notice the sort of cultural double standard there.

[Matthew Remsky]

Yeah, well, I think the point that I want to make is that there's no secret that the MAGA movement is packed with authoritarian parenting style dads. We know from George Lakoff and others that like overbearing patriarchy as a hallmark of and a permission structure for fascism. But fascists are also banal and they're capable of acting and being reasonably perceived as good guys. And so when men like Schimmel are given personality traits that we expect from cartoon villain dads, but they may not really have them, we might miss the more normalized and ennobled forms of structural misogyny that are sustainable in red states because they look like good guy stuff. So I'm pretty sure that this crowd took his confession as a sign of self deprecation and humility. And now if they watch him get punished for it. I think it's going to feed their victim complex and of course his as well.

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[Derek Barris]

Monday we received a press release about an embargoed video from Miguel University's Office for Science and Science Society. We were given access to an hour long documentary that was going to drop the next day. It was called the Psychic behind the World's Richest Anti Vaxxer. It was written and produced by friend of the pod and McGill University science communicator Jonathan Jerry and we immediately hopped on a call to discuss what to do with this and I don't want to go through a play by play of it because I think you should watch this documentary. Jonathan joins Julian and I in the next segment to talk about why he decided to release these zoom calls between Joseph Mercola, who we've covered extensively over the years. We devoted a chapter to him in our book. You know, he's an exceptionally wealthy alt med salesman and then his friend who goes by Kai Clay and who Jonathan uncovers through the work of another journalist as well. His real name Appears to be Christopher Johnson, but now he channels as an entity called Balan. Jonathan watched over 50 hours of these calls. We said 200 earlier. And that is true. He was given access to that much. But can you imagine 200 hours of this? So so far, he's gone through 50s. He's done some more. I'll update that in a moment. And they were given to him by former employees of Mercola. And the implications of why Jonathan decided to publish some of what he's calling the Mercola tapes will be discussed with him from a 30,000 foot view. Though there are a few reasons why I wanted to discuss what he's put out. And first is rather unsurprising. Mercola repeatedly discusses blowing carbon dioxide up his ass as one of his wellness protocols. And while this is disturbing, if that's not your thing, and it sounds a bit odd, look, we've covered so many videos of people giving themselves coffee enemas. I mean, Mallory DeMille does most of that, but, you know, we see them and share them. We've also covered eating raw fermented beef on camera and talking about the diarrhea that follows is some sort of rite of passage. I mean, there's a lot of shit out there, literally and figurative. So the fact that Mercola actually believes in the type of alt med protocols that he sells isn't that surprising to me.

[Matthew Remsky]

Well, but do we know what the rationale is for the anal CO2? Like, can we get to the bottom of that? What's the real fire in the hole there? Can we pull apart? You know, everything is in the way, and stare right at the puckered truth, guys. Like, what is it? What's going on?

[Julian Walker]

Well, it's about him being a turmeric douche nozzle, but the basic idea is that your gut bacteria are anaerobic, which means they thrive in a carbon dioxide rich environment. It looks like he may have gotten the idea from carbon dioxide being used in colonoscopies and other surgical procedures, but there's really no good evidence for suggesting that blowing CO2 up your butt is beneficial.

[Matthew Remsky]

So when it's legitimately used, what is it? Like, create space or something like that so the cameras can get more access or something like that to what they need to see.

[Julian Walker]

Okay, yeah, using carbon dioxide instead of just like straight up air because the air takes longer to disperse. Yeah, that's it.

[Matthew Remsky]

Oh, my gosh.

[Derek Barris]

So skeptical, Julian. So Mercola is not skeptical, and that man is worth $300 million. But previously there have been reports that he was worth a Hundred million. So that was one of the revelations from the tape as well. And I, I don't care that much about net worth, but I do think it's relevant given what he's selling. The man has made a ton of money pushing supplements and a range of alt med products, some of which have gotten him in trouble with the law. He also discusses this on the tapes and you can see it in Jerry's documentary. So those are two things that jump out. And again, not, not surprising, but two other things came out as very relevant to me. First, he calls for an uprising of up to 80 million armed Americans to protect our pets from damage. And if you're thinking he's talking about killing veterinarians, I think you're spot on. That's what's being presented though. Mercola himself says that these people will quote, march with weapons on these creatures. And second, he discusses an anti Catholic book that he's writing because Mercola believes that Catholics are, quote, the heart of the global cabal. Mercola and Balan agree the book is going to be bigger than the Bible and Mercola will assume the role of Jesus when that happens.

[Matthew Remsky]

So I find this to be somewhat hopeful because these alliances are really fragile within this, within this group. I mean, there are a lot of Catholics in Maga and Maha and the Opus A crowd is not going to like this guy because they're not into CO2 buttplay. I don't think they've. They're strictly barbed wire garter guys. Right?

[Julian Walker]

They have limits on their snf.

[Derek Barris]

Them.

[Matthew Remsky]

Yes, right, right.

[Derek Barris]

I just wonder why everyone always defaults to Jesus. There are so many other deities that are just up for grabs and that might be cooler.

[Matthew Remsky]

And that might be cooler in the circumstance. Yeah, right.

[Derek Barris]

Yeah way. I mean just the Hindu pantheon alone is just so rich. I actually love a lot of the Shinto deities. So come on people, be a little more inventive. Now. The vet thing is pretty extreme, but I've also covered the anti vax pet scene before. I did a brief a few months ago about this and these people, fucking horrible. Especially because, as you guys know, because I talk about all the time. I have a three month puppy at home now and I have to deal with protected him, protecting him from Parvo because there are tons of idiots out here who don't vaccinate their dogs.

[Matthew Remsky]

Okay, so for non dog owners, what's Parvo?

[Julian Walker]

That's that highly contagious and often deadly virus that spread between dogs through contact with feces. I mean, the mortality rate is over 90%. You have to be really careful when you have a new dog.

[Derek Barris]

The mortality rate specifically is 92%. And basically it's spread through feces, but it can also be, it can be direct contact with feces, but it could also be left behind. So it's washed away because Parvo is it. It just doesn't like. It can survive in moist climates for years after the feces have been there.

[Julian Walker]

Wow.

[Derek Barris]

It's pretty much only because. Not exclusively, but pretty much because people don't vaccinate their dogs. If everyone vaccinated their dogs, if they did the boost the three rounds or up to four rounds before when they're pupp, and if they did a yearly booster, we wouldn't have a problem of Parvo. But because people don't do that, we have to worry about that. And if your dog gets infected and you catch it early, the dog will likely survive, but he's going to have to be put in a veterinary hospital because he will likely die of dehydration before the virus kills himself.

[Matthew Remsky]

So. So just to be clear, you, you've got to keep tempo sort of away from any kind of trouble areas until all of the boosters are complete. But then he'll be fine, correct?

[Derek Barris]

Yeah, I mean, it's not bulletproof, but the vaccine mostly works. He had his third round a week ago, so we can now walk him around the neighborhood. We are doing a fourth round in three weeks. And so then he will be able to go to really highly trafficked places like dog parks and woods and things.

[Matthew Remsky]

Like that and then attack all of the anti vaccine dogs.

[Derek Barris]

I mean, this dog was bred to hunt lions and owls, Africa. So we can definitely train him to. He is, he is a sighthound, not a bloodhound. He's a sighthound, but we can show him what they look like. All right, so why again, why does this matter to us? The biggest reason this matters is because Mercola has the ear of Bobby Kennedy, RFK Jr. And there is speculation that he may even get a role in this administration. So back in July 8th of 2023, I published a brief called RFK Health Propaganda Roundtable. And I've linked to in the show notes if you want to go back. Shortly after Bobby announced his presidential run, he appeared on Rumble with a number of friends to discuss what he would do to health agencies if he became president. And that included cutting funding for researchers who helped get FDA approval on pharmaceuticals for seven years now alongside people like Mickey Willis and Sergi and Sherry Ten Tenpenny was Joe Mercola. And he expressed during that call some of the most impassioned rhetoric in the entire program.

[Matthew Remsky]

I just gotta say that, like you picked that up off of Rumble. And I remember the video sort of screen divided up into about six and Sherry Tenpenny's down in the corner and then Mercola is up somewhere in the corner or something like that. And it's funny because all of those people might get drawn into government, or a lot of them are now. But instead of using government video chat channels, they might keep that shit on Rumble and we might have access to it.

[Derek Barris]

Yeah, that is very possible. And the irony is, you know, Bobby saying he's going to cut funding for these specific researchers for seven years is almost quaint given what's happened in the last month under hhs. Right. Because we're seeing tons of damage being done. I've included another link in the show notes so you can read for yourself the hundreds of HHS grants that have been terminated in, in the past month. And it goes far beyond the researchers that Bobby cited two years ago. So a few studies, for example, that have been ended because of maha prenatal risks and screenings, statins influence on dementia, COVID vaccine outcomes and disparities, improving HIV care. And of course, any study that has anything to do with gender affirming care has been canceled. So on one level, Mercola has Bobby's ear. And the videos Jonathan Jerry shared shows that the Centi millionaire is willing to use his fortune to weaponize his beliefs. We don't know how or if that's going to play out, but we can't say we haven't been warned. And since I worked on this whole, you know, the interview in this section there is an update because Jonathan emailed me this morning in terms of Tuesday. We record on Tuesdays. And he's been watching more of the tapes, as I said. And he talks about the possibility that Mercola has spoken about creating some sort of compound for his followers in the past. And he starts to explore this in a documentary. But he found further evidence. So here's what Jonathan told me, quote, before Mexico, which was the site of the initial compound there was Costa Rica. Mercola wanted something built there, then pulled out and did the same thing in Mexico. Well, the CR contractor, a Costa Rican contractor, is currently suing Mercola in the county where Mercola lives, which is how I found the paperwork. But with this is really important. It's an end of days compound that Mercola had been planning.

[Julian Walker]

Well, yeah, there's that.

[Matthew Remsky]

Yeah, that tracks wow. Well, you know, we'll hear Jonathan in the interview coming up, reference a colleague of his saying that the Johnson, Chris Johnson, Balon channeling thing, and just to be clear, like, this is 200 hours of him talking to a guy who is pretending to channel a disembodied spirit, but Jari compared it to elder abuse, given that Mercole is 70 years old. Julian, in the interview, you remark on how vulnerable he obviously is to this charlatan who's feeding him exactly what he wants to hear. And the whole thing, I have to say, really takes me aback because now we're thinking about how a central player in the entire movement we've followed for so long has such clear cognitive and emotional challenges that he's not picking up on what's happening. And, you know, we followed and written about so many people in this field who have bonkers beliefs. You know, Christiane Northrup, Sasha Stone, Mickey Willis, and I really struggled over this question of, like, how do you debate insanity?

[Julian Walker]

Yeah, I mean, it's even worse than that. Right? Because he's the tapes. In the tapes, the channeler is alternating back and forth between being himself who pretends to really know nothing about what Balon is saying is like, oh, that's really interesting. And then being Balon, where the supposed channeled entity is advancing the agenda of Christopher Johnson.

[Matthew Remsky]

Right.

[Julian Walker]

I mean, in terms of insanity, I mean, you and I have talked a lot about this over the years. I would say these are crazy beliefs, but there is a coherent worldview. It's just divorced from facts and evidence. And these are. These are people who are able to be competent enough to run thriving businesses and, you know, do PR campaigns and go on podcasts. They presumably have employees and professional relationships, and they definitely have an impact on the world.

[Matthew Remsky]

I mean, coherent worldview. Yes, but I mean, we also. I mean, he's spending hundreds of hours feeding this guy the answers to his own questions, and nothing is wearing off. Right?

[Julian Walker]

Yeah.

[Matthew Remsky]

Like, I guess the length of time is kind of extraordinary for direct, you know, channeling, counseling, communication. Like, I can imagine being taken in by somebody who is very good at cold reading for 10 hours. Right. But 200 hours with prediction after prediction. And Jonathan, in the documentary details how many things Balon gets wrong.

[Derek Barris]

I don't know the difference between when he's talking to Johnson and Balon, but one thing that becomes clear and. And Jonathan does draw this out a little bit is that they're friends. Like, Joe and Christopher have become friends. They've done events together in real life. Yeah, you can see it's like when we're talking, it's like this kind of rapport we have. They have.

[Matthew Remsky]

Thinking like, what if I just like flipped into channeling for you guys?

[Jonathan Jarry]

Right.

[Julian Walker]

Very seriously.

[Matthew Remsky]

For how long though? For how long?

[Derek Barris]

So I don't. What would be interesting is to know how much of that time on the zoom calls. And to be clear, Johnson is an employee of Mercola. He's paying him.

[Matthew Remsky]

Yeah.

[Derek Barris]

So I don't know how long he's bantering as compared to Blonde steps in. And in the, very early in the video, Jonathan actually shows how he switches.

[Matthew Remsky]

Yeah.

[Derek Barris]

And he did a really good production job on that because he, he uses multiple examples at once. But, but you know, it is, it is not just a, hey, the channelers here, there's a whole other thing going on. And he's. Mercola is talking to two different people, supposedly.

[Matthew Remsky]

Yeah. I wonder if he's cutting two different checks. Right. I mean, what I really appreciate about Jari's approach is that, you know, he sidesteps a lot of this complexity to really present to anybody who would be taken in by Mercola to say, look, look, this is not a reliable source of medical information. But I don't know, what do we think, like what percentage of Mercola subscribers are going to ditch him over revelations about Balan versus what percentage are going to double down by saying that Jari is offering fake news or that Jari himself is AI generated or he's channeling somebody, or that the process of real research is just as hidden or magical because of course it's hidden behind all kinds of credentials. Right?

[Julian Walker]

Yeah. I mean, it's hard to imagine that the channeling will be a bridge too far for the customers of Mercola. They already think that the answers lie beyond the scientific method and it can't be trusted. They're already primed to see any takedown of Mercola as a fake news conspiracy. So to me, this is kind of central to a lot of the work we do because I think once someone crosses over a specific line of escalation and commits psychologically to stigmatized knowledge, normy ways of distinguishing fact from fiction are suspended. And we know that research shows belief in one conspiracy theory is predictive of belief in others. I think it's the same when you become invested enough in anti scientific beliefs about health and medicine, the style of thinking tends to translate into other areas. And in Mercola's case, his vibes based approach to medicine by genius revelation fits with conspiratorial rationalizations. For why he's marginalized and with then thinking that ultimate metaphysical truths about the world can be available through trans channeling.

[Matthew Remsky]

You know, this, this image that you have of crossing over a line, a threshold of no return, and then things will pile upon each other. I, I get it. And I think my previous question about like, okay, well, how long would somebody be taken in for? And isn't 200 hours a lot really? So of relies on the notion that there's a kind of intact pre believer self that is going to win out in the end. But I'm really kind of mystified and very interested almost in a poetic sense of like, well, where is that line? What does it feel like for the person when they actually trip over it? Is there some incredible pleasure involved in like, oh, I'm being given an answer and I'm going to just keep following that because it feels really good to outsource, you know, my intelligence to this guy.

[Julian Walker]

Yeah. And I know you're going to talk about this in a moment, but I think it fits with this kind of efficiency and laziness in the sense of like, okay, I've tapped into, I've got this hack now. I've got this guy who can tell me the ultimate metaphysical truth from a higher vantage point. And I'm basically just going to, you see in the tapes, I'm just going to run all of these different questions by him and then sort of answer them myself and wait for confirmation. So it's. So he's, he's not actually in any kind of reality testing process. He's just, he's in confirmation bias to the max.

[Matthew Remsky]

Yeah. And you know what? Maybe that makes the 200 hours make a lot more sense because yeah, I do want to flag this laziness theme, which is related to the fetishization of productivity, because you know, Jarre's going to describe that the reason these tapes exist is that Mercola wants to feed the transcripts of every piece of shit video call he does into an AI that will churn out books. And he keeps saying, I can publish a book every two weeks. So I don't know. I think that there's a deep spiritual fantasy at the heart of that to be omnipotently productive and omnipotently profitable while not doing a fucking thing. Like not doing anything at all except keeping your rhythm.

[Julian Walker]

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See for yourself at botoxcosmetic.com Jonathan Jarry.

[Derek Barris]

Is a science communicator with McGill University's Office for Science and Society. He has a Master's degree in Molecular Biology and brings his experience in cancer research, human genetics, rehabilitation research and forensic biology to the work he does for the public. Jonathan was the co creator and co host of the award winning podcast the Body of evidence for 10 years and for 5 years his work has proven invaluable to us on this podcast. This is the fourth time he's joined us as a guest. All right Jonathan, Jerry, can you tell us how the story of the Mercola tapes came about and what your initial thoughts were upon viewing the recordings?

[Jonathan Jarry]

So our office has been Covering Joe Mercola for many, many years, since before I was even hired. And I noticed at some point that there was no really good video that I could find on YouTube, sort of criticizing Mercola. So I decided to make one. We released it last fall, and that video caught the attention of a whistleblower inside of Joe Mercola's company. And so I received an email from this whistleblower with links to these videos. I knew the videos existed, they had never been released publicly. And so I started going through these videos and watching them. And of course it was. It was really interesting from my perspective, because it is so rare that we get an opportunity to be inside the mind of one of these health gurus, right? We only see what they say publicly, what they choose to publish, but we're not usually privy to conversations that they have with people from their close entourage. And so this was really interesting to see. In fact, that as far as I can see, Joe Mercola is not somebody who is conning people. He's not lying to people. He really believes what he says and what he does. So that was quite interesting from that.

[Derek Barris]

From that perspective, in the documentary, you position Mercola as a true believer, as you just referenced, meaning that he really does believe and also practices what he preaches. How do you personally distinguish someone like him from your run of the mill wellness grifter?

[Jonathan Jarry]

Well, you know, motivation is a complicated thing. And so when I say that Mercall is a true believer, from what I can see, I'm not saying that, for example, money has nothing to do with what has motivated him over the years. I'm sure that played a role. I mean, we now know through those Mercola tapes that he is worth over $300 million. And this is money that he has made not seeing patients, because he hasn't seen patients in decades, as far as I know. But through his website, through the supplements that he sells, all that kind of stuff. So I'm sure that that has played a part in what motivates him. But, you know, it's always very, very difficult to answer the question of is somebody a true believer or are they a con artist or are they bullshitter? Meaning that they just don't care if what they say is true or not because it's valuable to them. And again, you know, people's motivations are complicated. They can be multifactorial. But in the case of Mercola, he really does believe what he says to the point where he is blowing carbon dioxide up gas up his bum on a daily basis because he thinks that it will feed his. His m. Microbiome and protect him from 5G radiation. So that, to me is a clear signal that he really believes the kind of weird alternative stuff that he peddles on a regular basis.

[Julian Walker]

Yeah, the. The carbon dioxide therapy is definitely a testimony to. To commitment to these beliefs. Another thing that he seems to very sincerely believe has to do with veterinary medicine. And there's a theme in these tapes that really made my jaw drop. Tell us about that.

[Jonathan Jarry]

Yeah, so tapes, for the most part, it was quite boring because there's a lot of very banal stuff being discussed. As I mentioned in my video, he, you know, Mercola has been reduced to asking Balon for every single decision that he has to make. And so a lot of it is quite tedious. But then once in a while you hear something that you. That you disbelieve and you have to rewind because you go, wait, hold on a second. Did I. Did I get this right? And that was one of those things. And one of the early videos I watched was this, this massive call to violence. Because Mercola, in multiple videos will say that he wants to destroy the veterinary industry, but that in and of itself is not necessarily violent. But at some point he goes, you know, I've. My. My guys. Because he thinks he has spiritual guys who put ideas into his head. My guys came up with a plan. And the plan is we will recruit millions of. We have. We'll have a campaign. We will recruit millions of people, maybe 70, maybe 80 million people. People and, and who are committed to this, who are full on, on board with protecting our pets, and they will march with weapons on these creatures, he says, meaning veterinarians. And what is particularly chilling to me is that Balon, AKA Chris Johnson, closing his eyes, goes, yes, but also, don't forget the industrial side of this, presumably meaning the livestock industry. So not only is he agreeing with Mercola's call for massive violence, but he says, hey, but also, don't forget the livestock industry. Don't just, you know, march with weapons on the vets, but think of these other people as well. That really I found horrifying. Absolutely horrifying.

[Derek Barris]

You talk a bit about how Mercola sells all these natural supposed cures, but he also loves technology and always has. He was very early adopter of using video and the website to promote his business, which probably is why the man's worth $300 million now. But you do note in the documentary that his love of technology became his Achilles heel. Can you unpack that a little bit?

[Jonathan Jarry]

These Sessions, what I refer to as the Mercola tapes. These recordings of him, you know, speaking to Balon, they were done over zoom. They were recorded, but not only were they recorded, but they were attended by a pair of bots that were hired for this job. Because what is happening is that Mercola wants to produce a number of books, and he thinks that he is going to be writing these books in the following way. Either him or some ghostwriter will sit down with Balon over zoom. They will ask Balon a bunch of questions based on an outline. Balon will answer through his infinite wisdom. The AI bot will capture the entire conversation, will transcribe it. Mercola will do a bit of editing, and then, boom, there's your book. And so those sessions have been attended to by these bots, one of them from a company called Fireflies AI. And the reason why I was able to view these videos in the first place is that Mercola was sending links to these recordings to many, many employees that he has, because, again, and he wants to turn those things into books. And so it's a little bit like when you have a YouTube video and you're sending a link with a particular time code on it. The person who receives the link will be taken to that particular spot in the video, but they have access to the entire video recording. That's what happened. So these employees were told, hey, check out this particular spot in the video. This will be important for this thing that we're working on. But they had access to the entire thing. And so they started to watch those things, presumably quite aghast at what they saw. And so I was sent links to that platform, and there's no password there. These things are not protected in any way. You just need to create a free account with Fireflies. And there you go. You have access to the video, you have access to the AI generated transcript and an AI generated summary as well.

[Julian Walker]

Yeah. And of course, Johnson has told him, yeah, the security of this is very high. At some point, he's sort of calculating within the akashic records, that 12% or 8%.

[Jonathan Jarry]

Yes. And, yeah, that is of the two platforms they were using, the one with the lowest risk, the lowest security risk was Fireflies, according to Balon, who then says it's quite low, things are running smoothly, everything's fine. And of course, that's where the leak ends up coming from.

[Derek Barris]

It's almost like Balan doesn't know what he's talking about.

[Jonathan Jarry]

You know, Derek, you need to have more faith in Balon. He is a high, high Frequency, vibrational, being from the causal plane. So, you know, that should be the end of it.

[Julian Walker]

Look, if we live in a meritocracy, he's making more money than any of us.

[Jonathan Jarry]

So, yeah, yeah, he's making a lot of money doing this. It's incredible.

[Julian Walker]

So one thing you unpack in your analysis, and which is clearly present in the footage you share, is how much Mercola seems to be just relying on Johnson to confirm what he already believes. Some of it is almost solipsistic, right? He's like, saying the thing he wants to hear. And then Balon just goes, yes, yes, indeed. And also that he's looking to have grandiosity inflated is part of, you know, I think what we can safely say here. Can you talk about that and how it relates to broader concepts that I know you're familiar with in your work, like confirmation bias that are at play in these kinds of dynamics?

[Jonathan Jarry]

Well, motivated reasoning is a very, very strong thing in our brain of, you know, wanting to. To get the answer that we're looking for, for using what we already believe in and asking the kinds of questions that will lead us to the answer that we want. Rejecting evidence that goes against our beliefs, looking at embracing evidence, even of low quality, that already agrees with what we want. And so what Chris Johnson is doing here is it's not even good cold reading, because that's what a lot of psychics and mediums will do, is that they will. There are techniques that you can read. I even have a book about this somewhere in my bookshelf on cold reading, on how to get the person to reveal certain things by asking very general questions. And basically your client reveals things to you that they then think you are the one who unveiled those things. But what Mercola is doing is so much easier for Johnson than that, where he will. Will ask a question. And because they're on zoom, and because Balon takes a long time to think, Mercola will often just suggest an answer. So he asks a question, would it be 8 million, 10 million? And then Balon will say, yes, looks like it. And so, you know, and so at the end of these sessions, I can imagine Mercola going like, wow, Balon told me so many things. No, he just agreed with your preferred answer. So it's something that if you're not aware that you're doing this because you're already sort of bought into the whole game, then it will look as if this person you're speaking to really has these amazing powers of prediction, but you're just feeding them the Answers that you want to hear.

[Julian Walker]

Yeah. And one thing that's really good about being a genius is that the person with access to the ultimate truth of the universe actually confirms everything. You already think.

[Jonathan Jarry]

It's so good to be a genius, Julian. It's so good. I mean, that's what Balon says. Just repeating what he's saying. But it's so good to be a genius.

[Julian Walker]

Yeah, it's wild. And as I'm watching your reporting on this story, I can't help but see a deep irony here, because I see Mercola as being, like, the apex predator in the pseudoscience food chain, even if he is a true believer. And here he is, to my mind, being taken in by a brazen charlatan to whom he actually does seem quite vulnerable. I mean, we're laughing about it a little bit, but he's vulnerable to him. How much influence do you see evidence of Johnson having over Mercola?

[Jonathan Jarry]

A lot. When I was talking about this story to somebody, they mentioned that this looked like elder abuse, which really took me aback, because I don't think of Joe Mercola as I do the kinds of people that you think of when you think of elder abuse. But he is a man who is about 70 years old now, and, you know, I have questions about his mental health these days. And so, yeah, there is. There is this. This angle to. Is. Is this elder abuse, in a sense?

[Derek Barris]

And.

[Jonathan Jarry]

And I mean, we do see a. I see a lot of. Of Johnson sort of, you know, controlling what Mercola thinks and how he thinks. I think the clearest example of all of this, and which. Which I point out in the video, is his cfo, his chief finances officer, Amy Legaspi Gatsby, who was fired. And in the course of one video session, you see exactly how this is done. And so at the beginning, he is speaking to Chris Johnson and saying, oh, by the way, CFO Amy flagged a payment for you by mistake because she didn't understand the whole arrangement that we have. So I just cleared it, just to let you know. And then Chris Johnson goes into his trance. His alleged trance becomes balanced. And then at some point during the conversation, Balon says, yeah, about that CFO Amy of yours, you know, you should keep an eye out on her because, you know, her energy is a bit frazzled these days. She's having a crisis of the soul because Mercola wasn't able to get a hold of her one weekend, and he was wondering why that was. And so now. Now Balon is saying, keep an eye on her. And so, but. But Mercola, to his credit, says, no, look, I really trust her. She's my guard dog. She's the equivalent of my dog, Joy. She's my Joy. I've known her for 15, 20 years. I trust her. And Balon replies, well, yeah, you can trust her up to a point. And that's when Mercola makes the link that, oh, is she aligned with my CEO, Steve Rye? He thought that Steve Rai was mounting a mutiny against him just before Steve Rye was dismissed. And so at the end of the session, Mercola tells Johnson, who claims to not know what happened during when he was possessed by Balon, says, you know, Amy might not make it. And Johnson says, oh, that sucks. So, you know, if that's what happened with all of the other people in Mercola's C suite, then, you know, we see how this is done, is that you start with Mercola saying, I really trust this person. And Balon starts to create a seed of doubt in Mercola's mind that gets nurtured until Mercola says, oh, are they aligned with Steve? In which case they're the enemy. And then. And they are let go of.

[Derek Barris]

See, this is why I just decided never to make hundreds of millions of dollars. It always makes you paranoid.

[Jonathan Jarry]

It seems it's a very wise decision, Derek. I've made the same choice.

[Derek Barris]

After I watched your documentary that night, I decided to go on Twitter just to see what was going on. And I noticed that Mercola's ex partner, Aaron Elizabeth, was defending him, saying that the videos were private. How do you respond to that?

[Jonathan Jarry]

That there's a lot that I want to unpack about that tweet, because the logic at play is fascinating to me. But before. Before we go there. Yeah, this is interesting. So. So the videos were. Were not private. They were being shared widely within his business. The platform that they were using was. Was unsecure. The. And. And of course there is. There's precedent for a whistleblower within an organization to release documents because they're in the public interest. And Mercola is worth over $300 million. He has made this money by selling books and selling supplements and publishing on his website on a daily basis. A ton of misinformation, and people need to know that this information is not reliable. I already had a pretty good idea that most of what is published on his website is written by ghostwriters who are completely unqualified for the task. And I showed that in my first video on Mercola. But now, not only does he admit to using ghostwriters, but also, ChatGPT and Balon are sources of medical and health information. People need to know these things. Right? What I found fascinating about Aaron Elizabeth's tweet is that she refers to me as somebody who works for a Bill Gates funded university. And this is really interesting because when I started making waves as a science communicator, the people that I was criticizing had to figure out a way to dismiss me because they rarely want to engage with the arguments. And so either I'm a shill or I'm very stupid. There has to be something that they can use, they can point to very quickly and go, oh, he can't be relied on. And so somebody figured out that some researcher at McGill University had received a grant from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. And so.

[Julian Walker]

Aha.

[Jonathan Jarry]

And so by their logic, it means that everybody on campus, campus is now under the control of Bill Gates. And so I'm still waiting for the footage of the Blackhawk helicopters over campus with the men rappelling down from the helicopters, knocking on every door, handing out talking points to everybody on campus, saying, okay, now that this guy has our money, you have to be pro vaccine. You have to say the following things. So that's always very funny to me that this is how I'm being dismissed because somebody that I don't even know once got a grant from the Merlin Milligan. I mean, these are people who don't understand how grants work in a university. Right. But that's, that was the, that was the excuse to dismiss my, my video.

[Derek Barris]

I would argue they don't know how a lot works.

[Jonathan Jarry]

True. Yeah.

[Julian Walker]

As a skeptic, as a prominent critic of pseudoscience, I think those are probably ways, descriptors that you, you agree with. How do you think about this? You know, from, from a sort of pulled back level, the relationship between the kinds of beliefs, sources of spiritual authority, and then how this might motivate or influence their actions in the world.

[Jonathan Jarry]

So what comes to mind is that, you know, I agree with your interpretation. I don't believe that Christopher Johnson is channeling anything, not even acting skills. I, it does look to me like this is a scam on his part. And the lesson from all of this is that, you know, when you're somebody like Joe Mercola, who has spent his entire career being outside the mainstream, rejecting the mainstream, buying into these grand conspiracy theories and promoting them. He wrote a whole book about COVID 19 and every conspiracy theory about the pandemic is in that book. When you're somebody like that, you've closed yourself off completely to anything that is mainstream knowledge. And then you've also completely opened your mind up to anything that is an alternative to that. You've opened your brains up, so you've opened your mind up so much your brains fall out. And it makes you very vulnerable to people who are actually scam artists and con artists. And so that, to me is the lesson that I took from watching all of this footage is, you know, here is a man who is, is, is who believes that this other guy who is just closing his eyes and speaking in a monotonous voice is channeling some all knowing entity who somehow refuses to predict the future because that would make Mercola's life boring. And he believes all of this because he has spent his entire life refusing to accept mainstream knowledge about how the world works. And so now he is reduced to believing into anything that would be thought of as fringe or as not scientifically valid. And that makes you prime for exploitation.

[Julian Walker]

Yeah. And one of the things that really comes through in your short film is that he's making decisions about the structure of his company and who is in different positions. He's making decisions about how the money is organized. He's making decisions about NDAs, he's making decisions about what kinds of claims he's going to make about the products he sells based on what this channeler is telling him. And together they're talking about really disturbing plans that involve violence. As if this is part of some sort of way of viewing the world that has a stamp of spiritual authority.

[Jonathan Jarry]

Yeah, I mean, they, they've decided. I don't know how the idea originated, I suspect it came from Balam. But they've decided that the Catholic Church is the great cabal, that Mercola is the new Jesus. I have him on tape Talking about this 31 year old woman that he hires whom he says will be his first disciple. They have a plan to escape to Mexico. They bought some land over there. They want to build schools. But at first Mercola's been worried because there's Catholicism in Mexico. But then Balon says, aha, no, Catholicism was dropped from the sky. And Mercola realizes, oh, oh, it's Mayan. We escaped the Catholic stakes. Great. That whole part of the story, which is how I end my video, that's what I find really deeply worrying. Because on the one hand, there is a possibility of Mercola finding himself a position within HHS. He's good friends with RFK Jr. They're both leaders in the anti vaccine movement. And I have heard rumors that some people position was offered to him, that he was debating it. That's a very disturbing potential scenario. But then there's the other scenario of the doomsday cult scenario of he moves to Mexico, he builds a compound, some people follow him there, and then who knows what happens. There's a bit where he brandishes a handgun on, on camera. And I understand it's the United States, everyone has a gun. But he says, you know, I haven't taken this gun out of my drawer for two years. Years has got a laser scope. I need to figure out how it works. And, you know, a lot of law enforcement officers, they miss. Their, their, their target is 5ft in front of them. They miss. I'm not gonna miss. There's no fear in this brain. That degree of paranoia and, and, and, and all that, that makes me really worried about what could happen in, in the.

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