295: The Attia Files

Summary

Conspirituality Podcast Episode 295: "The Attia Files"

Release Date: February 12, 2026
Hosts: Derek Beres, Matthew Remski, Julian Walker

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Episode Overview

In this incisive episode, the Conspirituality team tackles the explosive revelations from the newly released Jeffrey Epstein files—focusing specifically on wellness influencer and "longevity guru" Dr. Peter Attia's involvement. The hosts dissect Attia's connections to Epstein, interrogate the complicity of media and wellness companies, and contextualize these developments within the larger ecosystem of conspirituality, class privilege, and media accountability. Using a combination of firsthand file analysis, critical commentary, and personal reflection, the hosts illuminate how the intersections of charisma, wealth, parasocial bonds, and pseudoscience have enabled abuse, cover-ups, and the grooming of public trust.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Peter Attia and the Epstein Files: Setting the Stage

• Attia’s Celebrity & Fallout:
  • “Despite basically every company that endorsed Peter Attia dropping him, his name appeared over 1700 times in the Epstein files…” (Derek, 04:23)
  • Attia found himself at the heart of the files as a member of Epstein's "influencer celebrity intelligentsia set," legitimizing Epstein through medical-adjacent social status.
• Bari Weiss and Media Defiance:
  • Free Press/CBS editor Bari Weiss kept Attia as a contributing expert, citing anti-cancel culture rhetoric, despite widespread sponsor and partner withdrawals.
  • “Barry Wise is said to be opposed to cutting Attia…does not want to be seen as reacting to the Epstein frenzy.” (Julian, 04:52)

2. Attia’s Defense and Medical Ethics

• Attia’s Non-Apology (Summarized by Derek):

  • Claims ignorance about Epstein’s crimes, saying he met Epstein (2014–2019) solely for research fundraising, and was “dazzled” by his wealth, not his criminal record.
  • Quote from Attia to Epstein:
    • "You know, the biggest problem with becoming friends with you, the life you lead is so outrageous. And yet I can't tell a soul." (Derek, 07:54)
  • Hosts’ Critique:
    • Attia’s excuses are flimsy—he shields himself within the “rich man’s code of honor” while admitting to intense parasocial attachment, e.g. “Epstein withdrawal” comments.
    • Attia denies being Epstein’s doctor but exchanged medical advice, sent biomarker kits, advised on medications, and discussed lab results in detail.
    • “In the US there are mandatory reporting laws…[Attia] gets to play loose with both laws and mores by using that MD…but skirting the responsibilities actual board certified physicians have to abide by.” (Derek, 12:13)

• Wellness Industry Accountability Gap:

  • “Influencers want so badly to be seen as medical and scientific experts without the responsibility of living up to their code of ethics.” (Derek, 12:13)
  • Longevity as a field is critiqued for elitism, eugenics history, and pretending that anti-aging is attainable for the wealthy but not the poor.

3. Parasocial Bonds, Charisma, and the Wellness Grift

• Cult of Personality Mechanism:
  • The hosts unpack the psychological and emotional attachment followers develop toward charismatic wellness influencers.
  • “The psychological mechanism…is rooted in this sort of religious impulse… Religions pretend that certain men are perfect and beyond reproach, and that likely primes us to then apply this to people we form these parasocial bonds with.” (Derek, 16:36)
  • “They want to be you. Like when they do your morning protocol with your products, they might be imagining what it would be like to have your wealthy, independent, powerful, vital life.” (Matthew, 17:50)

4. Wellness Industry, Media, and CBS News

• Sponsor Fallout:
  • AG1 and David Protein distanced themselves from Attia after the files became public, removing him from their sites—yet CBS (under Bari Weiss) stands firm.
  • “When pseudoscience companies have to fire brand ambassadors not over their pseudoscience, but because the charismatic glow that covers over the pseudoscience cracks apart…” (Matthew, 21:57)
• CBS & Free Press Dynamics:
  • Bari Weiss’s CBS hiring spree included Attia, Andrew Huberman, and Mark Hyman—all with wellness/functional medicine backgrounds (often critiqued as pseudoscience).
  • “Functional medicine is basically a brand name for what I call Medicine plus, which means you pay for all your regular prescriptions plus the off label ones with limited evidence and a bunch of unregulated supp pseudoscience treatments to boot.” (Julian, 25:23)
  • The media shakeups and company mergers are discussed, including the irony of ousting Stephen Colbert while welcoming Attia.

5. The Mechanisms of Power: Epstein’s Cultic Structure

• Sociology of Privilege and Abuse:
  • Matthew introduces Hannah Arendt’s “onion layer” model, explaining how complicity and plausible deniability are baked into elite networks:
    • Outer layer: bureaucracy, mundane contacts, plausible deniability.
    • Inner layers: increasing degrees of corrupt loyalty, criminality, and abuse.
  • “This spectrum is the thing that makes the files such an epistemological crisis, because the layers determine the difference between guilt by action or guilt by association…” (Matthew, 40:51)
• Intimate Bonds and Emotional Manipulation:
  • The files reveal how Epstein occupied roles as a confidant, therapist, and fixer for the elite—eliciting deep emotional disclosure and loyalty.
  • Example:
    • "You are the only person who knows everything about me. Don't go away." (Peter Mandelson to Epstein, 38:32)
  • These emotional bonds mimic cult leader–follower attachments, facilitating abuse and secrecy.

6. Wellness, Yoga, and Complicity

• Yoga in the Files:
  • Extensive mentions of yoga in Epstein’s correspondence—often as scheduling for private (often female) instructors, some possibly survivors themselves.
  • “Did you guys see the search for yoga in the files? And how many of the emails were about scheduling private yoga sessions with women?” (Matthew, 49:35)
  • Derek describes the personal shock of realizing Epstein had spent significant sums at the same studios where Derek once worked/trained.
• Privilege and Gig Economy Vulnerability:
  • The episode highlights how wellness gig workers (especially women) are vulnerable in elite service ecosystems, exposed to boundary violations under the veneer of spiritual practice.

7. Epistemic Crisis and the Revival of Satanic Panic

• Disinformation & Accountability Crisis:
  • The data dump’s ambiguous, incomplete, and sometimes sensational details fuel both legitimate research and conspiracy spirals.
  • “There is so much missing information…this dump is perhaps the most intoxicating invitation to do your own research that we've seen in the last six years.” (Julian, 46:26)
  • Hosts warn of renewed waves of Satanic Panic/Pizzagate hysteria, with recycled content from the 1980s–1990s—conflating real abuse with wild, evidence-free allegations.
• The Real vs. the Fantastical:
  • Matthew:
    • “It seems like no one is being held accountable, but they're not being held accountable for a completely wild set of fantastical allegations. Meanwhile, actual horrific abuse is happening in much more ordinary and ugly ways.” (Matthew, 48:41)

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• On Bari Weiss and Cancel Culture:

  • “It's really incredible that a moral panic around cancellation has helped to completely eliminate the notion of accountability…accountability is now unknown.”
    — Matthew Remski (05:09)

• On Medical Responsibility in Wellness:

  • “He gets to play loose with both laws and mores by using that MD on his handle, but skirting the responsibilities actual board certified physicians have to abide by.”
    — Derek Beres (12:13)

• On Charisma and the Parasocial Bond:

  • “Most of the charismatic influencers we know rely on the branding of their personhood more than their content…If ATIA is attacked or called to account in that scenario, it's going to feel personal. If the identification is very strong. Attacking the charismatic exposes the possibility that the follower has neglected or abdicated their own own sense of self.”
    — Matthew Remski (17:50)

• On the Arendt “Onion” Model:

  • “…Players can shift between layers, but there are veils of obscurity between them. Like everybody is set up to never exactly know what's going on upstairs, or to pass the buck if they find out and often people on the outside will have scant information on the core.”
    — Matthew Remski (42:05)

• On Yoga, Class, and Complicity:

  • “When I was a yoga gig worker and despite my politics, I was on the lookout for lucrative clientele…I'm not ashamed of this…But, you know, I was a white CIS male and was not likely to have been harassed…”
    — Matthew Remski (51:22)
  • “There is this carrot that seems to be dangling out there, this, this sort of mythic sense of like you can, you can become the provider, whatever the services that you're offering in this kind of wellness world to, to wealthy and famous people. And somehow that is evidence of being really good at what you're doing.”
    — Julian Walker (54:36)

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Key Timestamps

• [03:09] – Introduction to the Attia/Epstein connection; episode themes
• [04:23] – Mainstream sponsor/brand fallout; Bari Weiss’s defense
• [07:54] – Attia’s “I can’t tell a soul” quote and problematic justifications
• [09:41] – Analysis of Attia–Epstein emails: sexualized banter, medical advice
• [13:28] – Dr. Jen Gunter’s critique of the longevity movement
• [17:17] – Discussion on parasocial relationships and influencer charisma
• [21:57] – Wellness companies (AG1, David Protein) cut ties with Attia
• [24:20] – Bari Weiss’s new “outsider” CBS News direction and contributor list
• [26:35] – Explaining “functional medicine” and insurance trends
• [32:28] – Matthew’s field notes on researching the files and methodological challenges
• [38:32] – Mandelson to Epstein: “You are the only person who knows everything about me. Don't go away.”
• [40:51] – Introducing the Hannah Arendt “onion” model for understanding complicity
• [44:34] – Resurgence of Satanic Panic–style content in response to the document dump
• [49:35] – How yoga and wellness labor become entangled with elite exploitation
• [51:22] – Derek’s personal ethical shock: Epstein frequenting his former yoga studio
• [54:36] – Reflection on aspirations/pitfalls of service work in the wellness industry

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Conclusion

This episode offers a dense, critical, and sometimes personal tour through the cracks in the wellness industrial complex and its toxic intersections with elite privilege, media institutions, and conspiracy subcultures. The hosts argue for accountability, transparency, and a rejection of both simplistically punitive “cancel culture” narratives and uncritical celebrity worship—while warning of the very real dangers in letting charismatic gurus, broken institutions, and conspiracy dogma direct public health and ethical debate.

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The above summary preserves the hosts’ critical, wry tone and draws directly from their in-depth discussion and quotations. It is structured to help non-listeners grasp the rich, multi-layered analysis of the episode.

Transcript

[Julian Walker]

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[Matthew Rimsky]

Too easy.

[Julian Walker]

Think something's up? You tell me. They got thousands of options, found a great car at a great price, and it got delivered the next day. It sounds like Carvana just makes it easy to buy your car, Hank. Yeah, you're right. Case closed. Buy your car today on Carvana.

[Matthew Rimsky]

Delivery fees may apply.

[Julian Walker]

Comedy fans, listen up. I've got an incredible podcast for you to add to your queue. Nobody listens to Paula Poundstone. You probably know that I made an appearance recently on this absolutely ludicrous variety show that combines the fun of a late night show with the wit of a public radio program and the unique knowledge of a guest expert who was me at the time, if you can believe that. Brace yourself for a rollercoaster ride of wildly diverse topics. From Paula's hilarious attempts to understand QAnon to riveting conversations with a bona fide rocket scientist. You'll never know what to expect, but you'll know you're in for a high spirited, hilarious time. So this is comedian Paula Poundstone and her co host, Adam Felber, who's great. They're both regular panelists on NPR's Classic Comedy Show. You may recognize them from that. Wait, wait, don't tell me. And they bring the same acerbic yet infectiously funny energy to Nobody listens to Paula Poundstone. When I was on, they grilled me in an absolutely unique way about conspiracy theories and yoga and Yoga Pants and QAnon, and we had a great time. They were very sincerely interested in the topic, but they still found plenty of hilarious angles in terms of the questions they asked and how they followed up on whatever I gave them, like good comedians do. Check out their show. There are other recent episodes you might find interesting as well, like hearing crazy Hollywood stories from legendary casting director Joel Thurm or their episode about killer whales and killer theme songs. So nobody listens to Paula Poundstone is an absolute riot. You don't want to miss. Find no Nobody listens to Paula Poundstone on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you listen to your podcasts.

[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 Rimsky]

I'm Matthew Rimsky.

[Julian Walker]

I'm Julian Walker.

[Derek Barris]

You can find us on Instagram and threads at Conspirituality Pod as well as individually over on Blue sky. And you can access all of our episodes ad free, plus our Monday bonus episodes on [e-mail] conspirituality or you can just grab our Monday bonus episodes via Apple subscriptions. As independent media creators, we really appreciate your support.

[Matthew Rimsky]

Conspirituality 295 the ATIA files we know from the reporting of Julie Brown at the Miami Herald and many others that at the center of Jeffrey Epstein's operation were potentially over a thousand children and women victims of trafficking and sexual abuse. It's not clear how deeply Peter Attia was enmeshed in Epstein's core activities, but we do know he belonged to an important tier of his operation, the influencer celebrity intelligentsia set that legitimized Epstein as a sophisticate across a wide range of disciplines. So today we revisit the story of Peter Attia, starting with Derek running down Attia's response to his 1700 plus appearances in the Files. Julian will explore how the free press to CBS News pipeline is processing the news. And I'm going to offer an analysis of the Epstein class pecking order using Hannah Arendt's onion layer model of totalitarianism.

[Derek Barris]

Well guys, let's take a moment at the beginning here to cheer for the Freedom Warriors. Despite basically every company that endorsed Peter Attia, dropping him, his name appeared over 1700 times in the Epstein Files as you flagged. Barry Weiss has kept him on as a CBS News expert, citing her fear of caving to cancel culture as the reason. As reported in the LA Times, Barry.

[Julian Walker]

Wise is said to be opposed to cutting Atia, according to two people familiar with her thinking. As founder of the digital news site the Free Press and as an opinion writer, Weiss spoke out against so called cancel culture and does not want to be seen as reacting to the Epstein frenzy.

[Matthew Rimsky]

It's really incredible that a moral panic around cancellation has helped to completely eliminate the notion of accountability or whatever was left of it. Like the right wing is all for revenge, but like accountability is now unknown.

[Derek Barris]

Well, let's be fair because a global child sex trafficking ring is definitely just a frenzy, right? Barry Weiss considers it.

[Matthew Rimsky]

Yeah, you want to keep things in perspective.

[Derek Barris]

I know we're going to discuss the media more in segment two. So let's just go over the basics here. To begin, we actually just covered longevity guru Peter Attia a few months back on episode 285. Let me let me be clear because some people got pissed about that. He is not in the Brian Johnson. I'm going to live forever. Or Dave Asprey. His whole thing is live really well until you just drop dead, basically. So I want to, you know, be clear on what his exact lane and health is.

[Julian Walker]

Yeah.

[Derek Barris]

But if you're interested in his and our contentions with his longevity science, that link is in the show notes. I'll also preface this by saying that our focus on Atiya and soon it seems Deepak Chopra in no way means that we shouldn't be talking about Donald Trump being mentioned over 30,000 times in the Epstein files, or the fact the DOJ has still not published 3.5 million of those files or the six main characters who have been redacted everywhere. That's getting a lot of news. So there's a, there's a lot of other stuff happening. We're just going to pull it back today to look at these files through the lens of Atia. I'm going to go over some of their exchanges, including replies from Atiya's non apology on Twitter on February 2. So, first, Atiya claims he was introduced to Epstein in 2014 through a prominent female health care leader. While fundraising for scientific research for the next five years, he met with Epstein on approximately seven or eight occasions at his New York City home regarding research studies and to meet others. While Epstein was first convicted as a sex offenders for child prostitution in 2008, Atiya claims that he never knew about the child part, at least not until 2018. What was his excuse? He says he, quote, had little exposure to prominent people. And that level of access was novel to me. Everything about him, Epstein seemed excessive and exclusive, including the fact that he lived in the largest home in all of Manhattan, owned a Boeing 727 and hosted parties with the most powerful and prominent leaders in business and politics, which of.

[Julian Walker]

Course meant I couldn't Google the guy.

[Matthew Rimsky]

I was dazzled, dazzled, couldn't believe it.

[Derek Barris]

So right away you have a doctor who never finished his residency, instead choosing to charge six figures to help ultra wealthy people age better. And he's just starstruck. Seven years after his conviction, Atiya writes to Epstein, you know, the biggest problem with becoming friends with you, the life you lead is so outrageous. And yet I can't tell a soul.

[Matthew Rimsky]

Oh God, come on.

[Derek Barris]

Atiya claims this has to do with a supposed rich man's code of honor. I guess some Eyes Wide Shut shit where you don't talk about who you meet in private settings that had nothing to do with the child stuff.

[Matthew Rimsky]

Yeah, but there's this whole history of Epstein being given These glowing kind of fawning reviews. Like the New York piece, New York magazine piece in 2002, where it's like international man of mystery. Yeah, yeah, yeah. There isn't really. There's no code around that he was, he, he. Everybody knew who he was and what he represented around the tops.

[Julian Walker]

There's nothing top secret about him being super wealthy and having a lavish lifestyle and famous friends.

[Matthew Rimsky]

Damn it. No, I know, but there are things that they kept secrets about Atiya.

[Derek Barris]

Well, the comments getting the most traction have been Atiya saying that pussy is low carb, that he goes into Jeffrey Epstein withdrawal when he doesn't see him, and a note about a fresh shipment which he says was Metformin. I'll. I'll take him at his word on that. But I have to point out that it's here claims he was not Epstein's doctor, but quote, I answered general medical questions and recommended other providers to him.

[Matthew Rimsky]

I do not take him at his word because nobody puts eating pussy is low carb in an email without some kind of easy in person familiarity on the subject. Like I met.

[Derek Barris]

Met Foreman. So let me be clear. I just met the Metformin one, not the other one.

[Julian Walker]

Sorry.

[Matthew Rimsky]

Yeah, okay. I mean, I mean, let's just zero in on that because we know a ton from the birthday books and the emails about like, frat boy sex humor being Epstein's native tongue and the sort of like permission structure by which everybody's, you know, communicating with each other and probably the key way he indicated to his clients and his toadies what they might have access to.

[Julian Walker]

Yeah, absolutely. I mean, all over these email exchanges there's this nod and wink style of banter which is characteristic of the boys club attitude in which women and girls are reduced to only being sex objects, possessions, conquests. It comes across to me like these men who wanted the financial opportunities and self importance of being led into an exclusive jet set saw Epstein's sick little jokes in this vein perhaps as evidence of intimacy with him, that they had to mirror back rather than rejecting or critiquing or setting a boundary around that ugly stuff. They're all too willing to play along and, you know, it's hard to believe that they wouldn't have been aware of his criminal history.

[Matthew Rimsky]

Well, there's also the question of the layers of involvement. And that's what I'll get to in the third segment.

[Derek Barris]

Speaking specifically about Atiya's claim that he was not his medical doctor. That's where a glaring problem emerges to me. Because a number of emails are ensuring that Epstein received biomarker kits that Atia was mailing him in. In one 2016 email, Epstein asks for an explanation of test results and Atia says they should take time to go over the full set of those results. Other topics they discuss includes gabapentin and nerve blockers for back pain, stat MRIs, Clomid, which is for women's fertility but is used to boost testosterone and sperm production in men. You have blood draws, metformin and an in person examination of Epstein's quote leg issue. This is quite a list of topics to discuss with someone who's not your patient.

[Matthew Rimsky]

And in person I think is key because seven or eight trips to the Manhattan townhouse and he really sees nothing. He sees nothing. Nothing. No red flags at all.

[Julian Walker]

Absolutely. But you got to remember, consultants get paid the best, right? Right. The the casualness, I think is emblematic of the elitism. And if you're just swinging by the townhouse at the behest of the lord of the manor, we can't know for sure. But it's hard to believe that the outrageous life he cannot talk about doesn't include a suspiciously young parade of women that others have reported witnessing going in and out. Right?

[Matthew Rimsky]

Right.

[Derek Barris]

Well, the women obviously a big part of this, but I want to drill back and focus on the medical aspect because it it gets to the heart of the problem with wellness culture that we've discussed for years on podcast. Influencers want so badly to be seen as medical and scientific experts without the responsibility of living up to their code of ethics. In the US there are mandatory reporting laws if physician if physicians suspect child abuse or neglect. When Atia claims he's not acting as a doctor, that law just goes out the window. And what's worse is that he went to medical school and he knows this. He was even named Resident of the Year at Johns Hopkins before he quit the program. Why he chose that path will never, never really know because he went into the corporate world at McKinsey and Sapphire Energy before he opened his longevity clinic in 2014. Bigger point, he gets to play loose with both laws and mores by using that MD on his handle, but skirting the responsibilities actual board certified physicians have to abide by. Dr. Jen Gunter wrote a passionate article for her substack in which she does not hold back on her disgust of Atia and I've linked to it in the show notes. In it she writes, I have long.

[Matthew Rimsky]

Had a discomfort with the concept of longevity as a medical specialty. I think it stems from the fact that Longevity as a cultural movement has an uncomfortable history of attracting extreme ideas, obscene wealth and awful people. Early longevity efforts overlapped openly with eugenics, promoting health, vitality and extended life for those deemed biologically fit, while ignoring or excluding others. Shorter lifespans for the poor were attributed to weakness rather than social and environmental factors. Wealth was seen as a marker of biological or moral superiority. The modern version of longevity also largely ignores well known factors that shorten lifespan and affect quality of life, such as poverty, violence against women and environmental hazards, and instead frames longevity as a reward for discipline, which is a code for wealth. I think Dr. Gunter absolutely nails that like no notes. And yeah, it brings up a lot of thoughts. I've got some of them coming up.

[Derek Barris]

Well, her last sentiment, the code for wealth. That's exactly what Atiya admits when he says he was overwhelmed by the access to both wealth and influence that Epstein afforded him. And that's just not how a doctor should act. No matter how much that doctor wants to claim he's not playing doctor, he was obviously being paid to offer medical advice. You don't get to skirt around that. Dr. Gunter also notes that public health and community health experts are actually people who deal with longevity and we should add gerontologists to that list. I saw one flash by on social media defending her profession as a gerontologist. I apologize for not writing down this woman's name when I saw it, but I do remember what she said in this, in the, in the thread and it was brilliant. The only anti aging protocol is death, you know.

[Matthew Rimsky]

Dr. Gunter and others also make the point that as much as Atiya is enamored with Epstein's wealth, he's also being used, used for legitimacy and networking as a master fixer and networker. Epstein really did use a lot of his contacts as toady's or social leverage with other contacts, which in Attia's case might look like, oh, you've got a health problem. I got this guy. Let me introduce you. And through that exchange, both Epstein and the Todi are exposed to larger circles of influence.

[Derek Barris]

One other aspect of this debacle that keeps coming up is the absolute dedication some people have to Atiya. And this observation is not limited to him. I've personally been thinking about the parasocial bonds that some people have with certain figures in the media or wellness or and you know, across the board, really, Atiya admitted as such with Epstein, some humans have long been enamored with wealth and power. That that to me is how we even have a President Trump. But when we criticized Atiya 10 episodes ago. We received some comments from people who couldn't believe we were actually critiquing him. And I'm not saying we shouldn't be criticized for anything we do, we absolutely should. But I'm in this case talking about the blind devotion to someone because you happen to like that person and sometimes at the extremes affording them a near godlike status. And I can only think that this psychological mechanism that makes some people believe others can't do any wrong is rooted in this sort of religious impulse that we have. The very concept of infallibility is itself a problem. Religions pretend that certain men are perfect and beyond reproach, and that likely primes us to then apply this to people we form these parasocial bonds with. And to use a word we cover often here, toxic. If that were to ever be an issue, to me, it's with holding up someone with such unreflective regard.

[Julian Walker]

Yeah, there's that charismatic sort of cognitive and emotional phenomenon here. I think that translates across religion and conspiracism and pseudoscience, which we talk about every week. And politics, politics too, which is that those self enhancing claims that are accepted from the charismatic figure who's speaking to your personal problems and helping you to feel better creates a double sense of specialness, but then also defensive insecurity. Like, I know something that all the normies don't, but if you push me on it, I don't really have any convincing evidence, so I'm just gonna get mad at you.

[Matthew Rimsky]

Yeah, I think the idealization is super thick. I think there's, there's a religious element in there. I mean, it's like, how do you even describe the power, the godlike power of Jeffrey Epstein. But I think another element involved in the parasocial bond is like self identification. Because most of the charismatic influencers we know rely on the branding of their personhood more than their content, which can be pseudo scientific and unoriginal all at once. So when your brand is yourself, I think followers not only fantasize about the power of your guiding wisdom and see themselves safe in your protection, they also identify with you. They want to be you. Like when they do your morning protocol with your products, they might be imagining what it would be like to have your wealthy, independent, powerful, vital life. So if ATIA is attacked or called to account in that scenario, it's going to feel personal. If the identification is very strong. Attacking the charismatic exposes the possibility that the follower has neglected or abdicated their own own sense of self. Like when the idol's clay feet are broken, you totter as well.

[Derek Barris]

Well, speaking of, I've really been enjoying your Wake up with Me videos lately. Get me through my morning I've always.

[Julian Walker]

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[Matthew Rimsky]

Yeah, I mean, when pseudoscience companies have to fire brand ambassadors not over their pseudoscience, but because the charismatic glow that covers over the pseudoscience cracks apart.

[Derek Barris]

I do want to be fair, David. Protein isn't really pseudoscience. They're sort of the in the just eat a lot of protein camp.

[Matthew Rimsky]

Yeah, okay.

[Derek Barris]

AG1 is absolutely pseudoscience.

[Matthew Rimsky]

All right. Okay.

[Julian Walker]

Okay. So it turns out that just two days before Peter Attia's email exchanges with Epstein became public knowledge, Bari Weiss had announced a new slate of paid contributing experts at CBS News. And both Atiya and Andrew Huberman were on that list.

[Derek Barris]

And Mark Hyman.

[Julian Walker]

Yeah, Weiss has had a pretty rocky start at her new job after her substack based company, the Free Press, was acquired by paramount CPS for 150 million. That deal, it seems, was in line with the reshaping of CBS after the huge merger between their parent company, Paramount and Skydance. FCC approval of which appears to have hinged on CBS paying Trump a $16 million settlement over the frivolous lawsuit about how a 60 Minutes interview with Kamala Harris was edited.

[Matthew Rimsky]

I love the settlement stuff because, I mean, just that sentence alone makes me think that. But it's like if you just brought like a briefcase full of cash into the Oval Office and you just stuck it in his hand, he'd say, all right, okay, go on.

[Derek Barris]

You know, I love that Colbert is out, but Atia stays. That's just incredible.

[Matthew Rimsky]

Right?

[Julian Walker]

Perfect. Perfect barometer. In her January 28 address to staff gathered for a town hall style meeting at the CBS Broadcast center, the LA Times characterized Bari Weiss as reaching out to those unimpressed with her performance so far. Her complete lack of experience in forecast news combined with her aversion to annoying the Trump administration. And this was on full display in her last minute polling of an already widely promoted 60 Minutes episode on the abuses at the Seacot prison in El Salvador where ICE had sent detainees without due process. She claimed it was due to a lack of adequate reporting, despite it having been researched for months and approved by the Standards Department. She made a case for appealing to a younger audience, emphasizing greater digital reach and switching to a streaming mentality to keep pace with competitors.

[Matthew Rimsky]

Yeah, they didn't get the statements from Kristi Noem that would have made it a well rounded report.

[Julian Walker]

Yeah, about Secote. It's just Unbelievable. Weiss had also, along the same lines, touted the recent appearance of former NRA spokesperson Dana Loesch on the morning show as something to be proud of with regards to fostering conversations from a wider range of viewpoints on the network. She promised the staff that she would earn their trust and also argued that CBS News, as part of the mainstream media, had to earn back the trust of the public, which I found ironic, if predictable, given the role she's played in sowing distrust in reputable journalism over the course of her career so far.

[Matthew Rimsky]

Yeah, it's such a deep irony because so much of our future now hinges on whether we have and believe we have access to reliable information. And it really seems that installing Weiss at the top of that pyramid, like as the final boss of reactionary bias, just hacks away at whatever's left of democracy expressing itself in mass media.

[Julian Walker]

Yeah, and one of her, one of her first classic kind of populist statements when she first got installed in that role was to say, we're gonna report the fucking news like she's riding in on a white horse. But that's the story. Now the maverick outsiders have taken over the institutions. The trend is visible in her list of 19 new paid contributors, which includes RFK Junior Pell, as you chimed in there, Derek, and fellow vaccine misinformation peddler Mark Hyman. He's, in case you don't remember, that functional medicine doctor who founded the same type of membership based high end concierge diagnostics company that ATIA is involved in. Functional medicine is basically a brand name for what I call Medicine plus, which means you pay for all your regular prescriptions plus the off label ones with limited evidence and a bunch of unregulated supp pseudoscience treatments to boot. All in the name of holistic, cutting edge preventative health. The fact that Hyman, Anatia and Huberman are the three only medical experts on that list tells you a lot about Bari Weiss's understanding of medical science. Now Hyman and Atiya, as it turns out, are also contributors to the free press. So at least she's consistent, I guess.

[Matthew Rimsky]

Julian, I just clocked something. You guys have probably made this clear a thousand times and it's gone over my head. So functional medicine does use evidence based care, but it uses it as a Trojan horse for wellness products because wellness products have a higher profit margin or something?

[Derek Barris]

A little bit, yes. Sometimes. So the thing about functional medicine is it's not its own field. It's a, it's a sort of certificate you can Put on top of whatever else you do.

[Matthew Rimsky]

Yeah.

[Derek Barris]

The problem is you can be a legitimate dermatologist or dentist or physician and do the program, but you can also be a wellness coach and do the program. So in a sense. Sense, the, the term has no actual meaning. Like my old dentist in LA was very into functional medicine, but she was a dentist and she got a little woo. But in her actual practice it didn't affect what she was doing at all. But if you're a wellness coach and you say I'm like Will Cole, you know, is a chiropractor, but he positions himself as a sort of physician because he has a functional medicine certificate, but his only actual training is in chiropractic. So it's. It's a very loose term that everyone can sort of exploit in whatever ways they. They want to.

[Julian Walker]

Yeah, yeah. Pretty deceptive. Yeah. And then the products and services, you know, that, that I was just listing are not covered by insurance for the moment.

[Matthew Rimsky]

Right, right.

[Derek Barris]

Well, that's what I covered on Saturday's brief, if anyone wants to check that out, because that could change very soon.

[Matthew Rimsky]

So wait a minute. They're expanding insurance company for bullshit but not people is. Am I getting that right? Right.

[Julian Walker]

Yep.

[Derek Barris]

Yes. Yeah. So just briefly, you know, my Saturday brief on the West Virginia State House is trying to mandate that supplements are covered by insurance. Now that is up to the insurance board of the state, but that will have national effects if it goes in. And then the actual House of Representatives, the federal House, is trying to get homeopathy to be completely exempt from any sort of regulations whatsoever. And that's def. They're both MAHA influenced bills that are going on right now.

[Julian Walker]

Yeah.

[Derek Barris]

But yeah, nothing about social specialized medicine to your point, Matthew. Nothing about actually helping people afford insurance.

[Matthew Rimsky]

It's kind of perfect. Like you give the accommodation to the productivity, to the industry, but not to the people. Like that's what it's for. That's what we're doing here. Okay.

[Julian Walker]

Yeah. Supplement companies get a place at the table. It's called equity and inclusion.

[Matthew Rimsky]

Right. Well, they're. They're persons actually under the Constitution.

[Derek Barris]

Exactly.

[Julian Walker]

And they have free speech to disseminate whatever pseudoscience they like.

[Matthew Rimsky]

Exactly.

[Julian Walker]

Someone like Jaime, women, the whole concierge, like elective and exhaustive blood work service is also this, this thing in spades. Barry also remains consistent in her inclusion of anti woke historian Niall Ferguson, often criticized for revisionist views on colonialism on that list, as well as conservative think tank fellow, University of Austin visiting professor and contrarian Anti Woke podcaster Coleman Hughes alongside former Trump, NSA and Army Lt. Gen. H.R. mcMaster, who defended the president's disclosure of highly classified information with Russian officials in 2017. The same guy has called critical race theory a form of racism, and during his tenure he ignored policy procedures involving officers under investigation for sexual assault. Speaking of which, removing Peter Attia from this list of contributors due to his presence in the Epstein Files is something that Barry again, according to the LA Times and we've flagged this already, sees us going along with Cancel cult culture. So he stays Interesting thing though, it turns out that Barry and her wife Nellie Bowles, are also in the Epstein Files with Jeffrey asking Nelly, when are you and your babe back in New York City? She had met him for an interview and they talked about her new romance. And he also asked, how did it go introducing your partner to your mom? In this case, Capitalism may well have the last laugh though, because insiders at CBS News say they doubt that AT will appear on the air because segments about health typically come with sponsors attached and they will probably object to being associated with a friend of Epstein's.

[Matthew Rimsky]

You know, two things stand out for me that give insight into how the Epstein class operates. And I'll just qualify this by saying this is based on your know, I would say a good amount of research and scrolling around in jMail, which if you haven't seen, is an incredible tool for being able to access all of the DOJ files as though it was a Gmail folder. But I'd also have to say that anybody out there right now who's making really strong definitive statements after they say something like, I've been through all of these files, I gotta say, you have to really, really ask yourself, have they had the time to do that? Because one of the things that I've noticed I don't know if you saw this guys, but like if you try to track down in the number of returns that you get on a particular search word, you know, you'll come back. Like with yoga it's over a thousand, but there are a thousand emails there. But you know, maybe what 40% of them are are reply threads. So there's duplications, there are lost threads and broken threads. It's actually can be very difficult to put the timeline together. So anyway, I'm just saying anybody making claims about like how well they've researched this stuff, they, they have had to have spent a full time, you know, week looking into this stuff. And so I think it's going to take a while for, you know, a lot of things to become really clear.

[Julian Walker]

A full time week looking into maybe just one.

[Matthew Rimsky]

Exactly. That's what I. Yeah, that's a great distinction. Right. So anyway, just two things, and I think that this is sort of going to be open on my desktop for the rest of the year and bit by bit I'll try to figure things out. But two things that really stand out so far with regard to our beat and that give a little bit of insight into how the Epstein class operates are that first of all, first of all, the extent to which Epstein played a kind of cult leaderish, pseudo therapeutic role in the lives of the powerful and what that says about his charisma and the neediness of that whole lot. And then secondly, coming back to Attia and longevity, I'll get to this at the end. Why Epstein seems like a peak client for longevity treatments and wellness products and the longevity protocols that, as Dr. Gunter points out, are tinged with eugenics, like, not to mention meditation tips from Deepak Chopra. And that's another episode. Maybe next week. So Atiya at one point says to Epstein that he goes into withdrawal if he doesn't see him. Now, I've had some very close friends and I can't imagine describing my fondness for them in those terms like it would make sense in speaking to a lover or about a lover or to a drug dealer. Occasionally I've run into people who are so charismatic that they just hold court wherever they go. Like everyone wants to be around them at the cafe and you might say, oh, I need my fix of so and so or whatever. Now, in that email, he is writing to Epstein's assistant, Leslie Groff. And maybe it's meant to be a jokey way to describe for her that he's really into her boss. And so maybe she'll keep that in mind when juggling the schedule of conference calls and private yoga and traffic sex massages afternoon. But then there's a more haunting comment that comes from Baron Peter Mandelson, who's not in the wellness sphere, but I think the emotions involved here are really salient. He's the senior British New labor figure who acted as one of Tony Blair's austerity officers. He's been an mp, an EU trade commissioner. Later on he was business secretary. And then I think now he still is a life peer in the House of Lords, although he might have resigned recently, I think, and. And as best pal to Jeffrey Epstein, as he described himself in the early 2000s, they had a close and constant relationship. Now, that was before the acosta deal in 2008. And I would just for listeners who are still kind of foggy on the timeline here, keep 2008 in mind. Because in every discussion of how people are interacting with Epstein, that's really the dividing line. Before and after. After their potential awareness of him being convicted of child sex trafficking after 2008, everybody should have known what this guy was up to. Now, after that, emails in which Epstein helps Mandelson network and gives him political advice in which they chat, fiscal policy also show poorly explained financial transfers and benefits. Now, we don't know if they're payments, if they're gifts or they're financial assistance, but the money is coming from Epstein during periods when Mandelson held senior public roles. Now, the Brits are about to investigate him, actually, because they're worried he was passing Epstein insider training info or state secrets. Mandelson has denied anything like that. And he says he doesn't recall any improper payments of like, $75,000 at a time from Epstein. So the Met police have launched a criminal probe, but he hasn't been charged. Now, the comment that Mandelson makes, this is all preamble to this is, you are the only person who knows everything about me. Don't go away. Now, this is in May of 2009, when Epstein is under house arrest in Florida. And here's the thing about the files, just another bit of guidance for anybody who wants to go and look at this stuff and why this dump of documents is going to catch fire with speculation and baking, just like the Q drops, there is so much missing information, like, beyond the redactions, many of which are just enraging after the DOJ announces that the case is dead. But in Mandelson's case, this plaintive, evocative tribute could refer to anything. It could refer to his being gay. It could refer to them participating in illegal sex, or, you know, as we'll come up in a bit, it could refer to confiding in Epstein his desire for the Prime Minister, which was always unlikely, but they spoke about it. Now, the statement that he makes, you know, you know everything about me, comes in a thread of seven emails over three days in which it appears that Mandelson and Epstein are discussing whether Mandelson should wait for an unnamed person in London. And Epstein is saying he should come to New York, maybe for the same meeting. And then there are brief exchanges, arranging a phone call. It appears that between the sixth and the seventh email, which is where Mandelson makes his plea. Don't go away. Epstein has secured Mandelson's phone number. And then there's about two hours between that email and the don't go away email. And so it appears to me that you are the only person who knows everything about me. Comes after a phone call, maybe a long one. And of course, we're never going to hear any of that right now. Whatever that statement is referring to, it is intimate, way beyond financier and minister. And it lines up with the extensive reporting from Julie Brown and others about the constant role of empathetic ear that Epstein played often, often offering therapeutic advice or even romantic tips. He played confidant to post White House Clinton to Les Wexner. He advised Bannon on public scrutiny and reputation, probably not on wardrobe, though. And he offered supportive listening for Woody Allen and life change advice for Ehud Barak, who was transitioning out of the Knesset. Now, six months later, Epstein is emailing with Mandelson about the possibility of his succeeding Gordon Brown as Labor leader in pm. And there's a famous email in which Epstein is giving him very direct advice in a way that any government would see as meddling. But I want to point out something else. Quote, this is Epstein writing, my advice is to take a breath and deal with it up front. Tell Gordon the whole truth. And he goes on to talk about how his position is untenable. You in capital letters are super strong. Tell the truth. And then a few months later, Mandelson writes back, he cannot take the truth. He needs five years of therapy, which is a little interesting, as in, you know, well, if he had someone as caregiving as you to talk to, maybe, you know, he could work this out now, a little later, Epstein says in his thread, quote, let's not dwell on him. I am only interested in how this plays out for you. So the prior reporting, as I said, emphasizes this high, highly personalized and sometimes intimate pseudo therapeutic caregiving attention. And so one thing that's become clear for me is that the emotional and effective bonds in the network, with all the focus turned towards the center, are really, really strong. And we're familiar with this from cult structures where the center or the top is endlessly mystified, but everyone wants to get close to it. And the leader is able to flip between playing the therapist with a mark to abusing women and girls.

[Julian Walker]

Yeah, it's incredible. It makes me think of what I said earlier about the Nelly Boy Bowles email, right? Like, oh, by the way, how did it go with introducing your parents to your new lesbian lover? And it's like this. This all seems to weave together this, this intimacy, the sense of very quickly becoming a confidant, the sense of getting people to open up. And it's opening up both a bit, both about their emotional and career and intimate lives, but it's also the, the opening up piece around like, oh, let's, let's banter about our like, perspective, perverse sort of sexual proclivities that you're not supposed to talk about what we do because we're bad boys on the inside, right?

[Matthew Rimsky]

So what I find very interesting is that even just starting to read the files shows this huge spectrum of involvement of various figures from regular business meetings to fixers procuring trafficked girls for oligarchs. And it reminds me of Hannah Arendt's onion metaphor for totalitarianism in her famous book Origins of Totalitarianism. And it's this spectrum is the thing that makes the files such an epistemological crisis, I think, because the layers determine the difference between guilt by action or guilt by association. And then within that layer of guilt by association, how many people aided and abetted and laundered because their contact came after or extended beyond the acosta sentence in 2008? Like this seems to be that, as I said before, the acceptability threshold folks are establishing, like you can wave off association before 2008 but not after. So Hannah Arendt says that in every totalitarian organization there's an outer layer of bureaucracy. Like this is the largest group by numbers and its mundane business contacts. It's mainstream media, it's civil society. It's all of the things that firstly look familiar to the rest of the world or boring, but secondly are how the organization maintains plausibility and respectability. Some of that tier will migrate to the inner layers with more tighter contracts of benefits and compromat, but other people will stay on the outside ring or layer, you know, indefinitely. The other key insight from Arendt is that each layer has two sides to it. There's an inward facing and an outward facing layer. If you are outward facing in the outer layer, you're not really trying to get further in. So the emails in which Elon presents as a dork trying to find the party, they have the vibe of the guy who is trying to jump layers, so he's in the inward facing layer. But this baroque spectrum of access and secrets means that players can shift between layers, but there are veils of obscurity between them. Like everybody is set up to never exactly know what's going on upstairs, or to pass the buck if they find out and often people on the outside will have scant information on the core. Now, with this email dump, we get the entire onion flattened all at once, right into, like, there are no layers in the dump. And so skilled researchers are going to have to take months to. To recreate the map of layers. And in the meantime, I think a tsunami of online researchers will build their own, like, onion hybrids.

[Julian Walker]

Yeah, these, these metaphors are really, really well applicable to this situation. I don't know about you guys or listeners, but my Instagram feed is suddenly filled with two types of pretty melted reactions. First is left of center people who are kind of allies of ours in terms of critiquing Maga and ha. But they're saying that they owe the conspiracy theorists an apology because it was all true. Right? Or Maybe Pizzagate and QAnon were manufactured by Epstein Co. As a way to distract from what they were really doing. And then there are the accounts popping up that are just straight up resurrecting and recirculating Satanic Panic, Pizzagate, QAnon, content about Adrenochrome, frazzle drip, child sacrifice, how the powers that be have always been worshiping BAAL and enacting pedophilic rituals.

[Matthew Rimsky]

Yeah, so you sent me one of those in Slack, and literally somebody has reposted Geraldo Rivera from what, 1985 or something like that. Interviewing. Well, interviewing in quotes, five kids sitting in the front row of his show in the studio to get them to disclose their satanic ritual abuse details. And it's, it's like, it's, it's like, it's like people are finding a. I don't know, I don't know, like the archive of truth or something like that. And so the cultural amnesia around, oh, there was this thing called the Satanic panic is so incredibly thick. You know, it's like, it's not like we know everything about it, but we know a lot. And you don't want to post Geraldo Rivera as somebody who knew the truth about Jeffrey Epstein in 1985.

[Julian Walker]

It's a big reminder for how many people on any given topic like this, that requires some study. It's new information.

[Matthew Rimsky]

They need a 101 or something. And the three of us are at such. Well, I'll just speak for myself. I feel like I'm at such a disadvantage at trying always to sort of reimagine myself back at the start of something so that whatever we communicate here or on social media about this doesn't come off as, you know, I don't Know like dismissive, dismissive or school, army or, or, or, you know, you've got the, you're, you're the hall monitor or something like that. But like, but it's, that's really hard when you're watching people post Haraldo Rivera. Right.

[Julian Walker]

Yeah, yeah. And get, getting a kid to say, well, these terrible things happened to me and oh yes, they were dressed up in capes and then, and then the babies and blah, blah, blah.

[Matthew Rimsky]

Yeah.

[Julian Walker]

So it looks like we're in for a fresh wave of all of this. I'm not happy about it at all. It's, it's coattailing on the latest Epstein files because as you were saying, Matthew, you can connect the dots any number of different ways through 3 million emails and phone tip line allegations and text messages and financial records and photos and videos and internal FBI documents where they're saying, oh, maybe it's this or maybe it's that. True to form with who's in charge of our institutions right now, this dump is perhaps the most intoxicating invitation to do your own research that we've seen in the last six years.

[Matthew Rimsky]

Yeah, and, and I, I, to add something which is that there's a premise behind how we're talking about this. You might disagree with this, Julian, but that in time the researchers will figure it out or that it will be possible for the reconstruction of the onion to happen or something like that. But I think what is on the horizon, or it's here, it's overshadowing everybody, is the accountability crisis. The fact that even when things are sorted out, nothing happens, nobody is punished. Right. It's like getting people to respect some kind of investigative process that over and over and over again yields no accountability. Right. I mean, and so I think I leave open in my heart the fact that there's going to be a lot of people once they hear that the DOJ is not going to investigate this any further, they feel compelled to, to take it into their own hands and do what they can. And yeah, I think that's the way it's going to go.

[Julian Walker]

And you have the, the other side of that coin, which is the, what was it, 14,000 cases during the Satanic panic where people were in some cases jailed and in some cases went through some of the longest and most expensive trials in American history, where at the end of it all there was not a single case that had any corroborating physical evidence that, that, you know, at the end of the, it's, it's like it seems like no one is being held accountable, but they're not being held accountable for a completely wild set of fantastical allegations. Meanwhile, actual horrific abuse is happening in much more ordinary and ugly ways.

[Matthew Rimsky]

Very ordinary, Very, very common. So the last thing I want to say is a little bit galaxy brained, but it's about why Jeffrey Epstein might have been so interested in yoga. As I said, like a thousand returns on that search in jmail. And I think if you gathered up all of the naive, selfish, individualistic, smug self, certain incentives just lurking in the discourse and marketing of for profit wellness, and you boiled them down into an essential oil like that would have been Epstein's favorite scent. Like he was the perfect clean client. You know, he wants optimization so that he can optimize his domination of others and maybe sort of keep some sort of peace of mind as he does it. Did you guys see the search for yoga in the files? And how many of the emails were about scheduling private yoga sessions with women?

[Derek Barris]

I spent a few hours looking at yoga last week, just purely out of curiosity. First, a lot of them were actually his assistants just telling him they were going, he was going, they were going to yoga. And, and that was just a schedule. So, you know, there's probably a few hundred that we can say we're on that. In terms of the private yoga, I actually looked up some of the studios that he was going for and the teachers and, you know, it just seems like I don't know if there's anything nefarious. Living in New York during that time, private yoga was very important. So I can't really tell there. But I did find it interesting that I was looking through his credit card receipts because they're in there too. And two of the places where he spent a lot of money were Equinox, which was my main place of employment in New York and Los Angeles, and at Atmananda, which is where I trained to be yoga instructor. And I don't want to make my own cork board here, but what really jumped out at me was he spent $3,800 in two days at Atmananda. I don't know how you do that at a yoga studio, but I do know, I do know that when I was in teacher training training, the owner of that studio was arrested for sexually assaulting one of the students who was in the program with me.

[Matthew Rimsky]

Yeah, that's not a corkboard, Derek. Yeah.

[Derek Barris]

And I know there was massage services at that studio. It was in a different location at the time. So that really was kind of a gut punch to me, thinking that I Most of the receipts were from when I just moved to Los Angeles. But knowing that he could have been in some of my classes really just kind of, you know, gives me that feel. I mean, you never know, you see hundreds of people every week, but it, it's just really disturbed me. It kind of made me have to turn off my computer and walk around outside for a little while after that.

[Matthew Rimsky]

Well, you know, whatever private yoga he's getting, some of the women's names are redacted. It might be that some of them are survivors and their identities are being protected and they, you know, were recruited into the belly of the beast as service workers. But what I wanted to say is that I think the service industry might have pointed them in the direction of rich people to kind of begin with. And I had this memory, you know, from my own years of teaching, because when I was a yoga gig worker and despite my politics, I was on the lookout for, for lucrative clientele. And when I scored a teaching job at the Yorkville Athletic Club in the heart of Toronto's wealthiest district, you know, this is like a club with, I don't know, like poofy towels and all of that stuff. I knew the real money would be made through private lessons with the wealthy and often bored clientele there. Now I wasn't, I don't think I was serving anybody who was any more criminal than a wealth hoarder. You know, as far as I'm aware of, I needed money like everyone else. I'm not ashamed of this. The club was there to find my labor and match it with whatever the client wanted. But, you know, I was a white CIS male and was not likely to have been harassed. And so I wasn't. And maybe that contributed to the time that it took me to reflect, reflect on what it meant that I had some interesting knowledge that would comfort rich people and that poor people couldn't afford it. Was. And then there was the cognitive dissonance of sort of associating that with spirituality. There was some weird thing about finishing the private yoga session and then, I don't know, being handed the poofy towel and the specialized hand products or something like that. And so, you know, now all of the cooling, oldest yoga teachers I know are much more aware of that pattern, that sort of kind of service that the industry has at times performed. And they're, you know, they're making different choices. I know people who are teaching in healthcare settings, you know, rehab centers, domestic violence shelters, poor neighborhoods.

[Derek Barris]

Yorkville still exists, right? Oh, yeah, that's good. I Mean, one of the biggest complaints I've heard in my decades of yoga was how hard it is to get good paying gigs while teaching yoga. And from my experiences like at Equinox, so many of my students and private clients were doctors on their break from the emergency room. They were definitely not bored. So I think it's a balance. Finding good pay in a very difficult industry for people who need that sort of work, I think is very important too.

[Matthew Rimsky]

Yeah, I don't think that Yorkville would ever go out of business because it's like surrounded by zillion dollar condos and stuff like that. But I have no idea what they're paying people or what the yoga program is. That is like years and years and years ago.

[Julian Walker]

Yeah. It also makes me think about having, you know, all of us have been in this industry for a long time. The, the vulnerability of the kind of self employed entrepreneurial gig where there is this carrot that seems to be dangling out there, this, this sort of mythic sense of like you can, you can become the provider, whatever the services that you're offering in this kind of wellness world to, to wealthy and famous people. And somehow that is evidence of being really good at what you're doing.

[Matthew Rimsky]

Yeah.

[Julian Walker]

Of having a kind of charisma that they appreciate, but then you're also coattailing on their charisma and that makes you able to charge more money.

[Matthew Rimsky]

And.

[Julian Walker]

But then, but then I think especially for women, I've thought this again and again over the last 30 years, who end up in a position where they are dependent on the patron and the patron then has them at a disadvantage where it's like they have to be sort of at their beck and call. They're getting paid much better than they could be paid for anything else anywhere. And then where does that leave you in terms of the boundaries and the vulnerability to exploitation?

[Matthew Rimsky]

I'm remembering too that in training programs, when discussing taking private clients, if this ever came up, maybe not in a formal class, but maybe around the lunch table or whatever, you know, so, you know, who pays for private lessons? And are there very wealthy people who do that? If people are sort of whispering about that, There was this rationalization that came up which was, which was, you know, they're very powerful people in the world, they really need to do yoga. And if they do, maybe they will become better capitalists. Right. Maybe they will, maybe they will turn to the light. Maybe they will, they will recognize this.

[Julian Walker]

Is how we change the world.

[Matthew Rimsky]

This is how we change the world.

[Julian Walker]

The world.

[Matthew Rimsky]

And wow. Holy. That's an amazing thing to, to remember.

[Derek Barris]

That's a really unfortunate mindset. I mean, to me, one of the things that I loved about my circles was that yoga was just something that everyone could benefit from in some capacity. And if that just means stretching your hamstrings, that's, that's wonderful. I will say though, I am very glad that my one interview to be Diddy's trainer did not come through. And that was partly because they told me that if at 2am he wanted a training session, I have to come. I was like, nope. So that, that is a bullet I definitely dodged.

[Matthew Rimsky]

Was it implied though that if you came out at 2 in the morning, you'd get like a thousand dollars or something like that in your hand.

[Derek Barris]

I would have been an actual full time employee of him.

[Julian Walker]

Yeah.

[Matthew Rimsky]

Oh, shit. Okay. Right. Yeah, yeah. On call. Yeah. Amazing. Yeah. Well, Derek, you know, you have repeatedly described this kind of, hey, I just did yoga in New Jersey and we were like normal guys and we never. It wasn't a big deal and there wasn't a lot of spiritual clap trap. But I think Julian and I were in a bit of a different zone.

[Derek Barris]

No, I was in it, but when I got hired at Equinox, I was, I was then for most of my career around, like I said, a lot of doctors, a lot of company employees, people who just wanted stress relief and to feel good more than anything else. So early in my career I was around a lot of that shit and thankfully I didn't have to spend a lot of time in it. But I think it also gives me a different perspective in terms of like, people who can make a sustainable living working in fitness broadly, rather than this very sort of almost precious spiritual practice that some of those studios that I started in portrayed it as. And I just think that's a much healthier relationship to these practices because it, it avoids, it avoids a lot of what you're discussing.

[Julian Walker]

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