Conspirituality – Bonus Sample: “Antifascist (Autistic) Christianity — Simon(e) Weil (Part 2)”

Host: Matthew Remski
Date: September 22, 2025

Main Theme Overview

This bonus episode continues the “Anti-Fascist Woodshed” series, focusing on the life and ideas of Simone Weil (1909-1943)—a French philosopher, mystic, and activist known for her uncompromising ethics, radical anti-fascism, and spiritual vision. Host Matthew Remski contextualizes Weil within current struggles against conspiracist, cultic, and authoritarian spiritual movements, drawing parallels between her life, autistic perception, and the contemporary activism of Greta Thunberg.

Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Weil as Spiritual Anti-Fascist and Prototype for Modern Activism

• Framing: Weil is positioned as a "spiritual auntie to Greta Thunberg," whose activism and outsider perspective resonate with autistic traits: intolerance for contradiction, relentless honesty, and refusal to conform or mask discomfort.
  • “I suggested that Simon Weil was a spiritual auntie to Greta Thunberg as I framed their life and work through the lens of autism, anti fascism and resistance to capitalist norms.” — Matthew Remski [00:49]
• Parallels with Thunberg: Both demonstrate “uncompromising honesty and intolerance to contradiction,” traits often linked with autistic perception.

2. Life Stories: Personal Sacrifice & Solidarity

• Literal Solidarity: Weil embodied radical empathy from childhood, e.g., refusing sugar in solidarity with soldiers at age five, to working alongside farmhands and factory workers, and fighting with anarchists against fascists in Spain.
• Disgust for Hypocrisy: Weil called out both fascists and purported leftists/communists who “couldn’t admit their own inner fascistic tendencies”—signaling the importance of self-scrutiny in activism.

3. Weil’s Writing & Thought

• Notebooks, Not Treatises: Her influential writings are hypergraphic, intensely personal notebooks—products of “processing the overstimulation of life as she simply survived.”
  • “These were hypergraphic notebooks that she left behind through which she processed the overstimulation of life as she simply survived.” — Matthew Remski [02:51]
• Core Ideas:
  • Attention as Generosity: Weil sees deep, focused attention as a fundamental moral gesture—“attention as a form of generosity.”
  • Obligations over Rights: She places primary emphasis on obligations to others, rather than individual rights.
  • Decreation: A spiritual practice where one dismantles personal ego/identity to make space for others, countering both egoism and fascist absorption.
  • Rootedness vs. Nationalism: Weil distinguishes a vital human need for “rootedness” (genuine belonging and meaning) from fascist or ultra-nationalist perversions of belonging.
  • Capitalism & Uprooting: She warns that capitalism creates “uprooting,” fostering existential despair and opening the door to authoritarianism.

4. Weil’s Definition of Love: Belief in the Other

• Key Quotation (and its expansion):
  • “Belief in the existence of other human beings as such is love.” — Simone Weil (quoted by Remski) [03:49]
• Deconstruction:
  • Drawing from Richard Gilman-Opalsky’s book ("The Communism of Love"), Remski explains that true love means truly encountering others in their reality—not as projections or idealizations.
  • “Love is not merely recognizing other human beings, but that it demands belief in them as they really are. And this means rejecting the imaginary beings produced by projection or longing.” — Matthew Remski [03:58]
• Warning Against Projection: Loving the fantasy of a person is “more terrible than death.” Weil warns: relationships, activism, and spirituality must be rooted in actual recognition, not wishful or simulated bonds—a direct critique of the “hall of mirrors” in cultic and conspiratorial communities.

Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

| Timestamp | Quote | Speaker | |---|---|---| | 00:49 | "Simon Weil was a spiritual auntie to Greta Thunberg as I framed their life and work through the lens of autism, anti-fascism and resistance to capitalist norms." | Matthew Remski | | 02:51 | "These were hypergraphic notebooks that she left behind through which she processed the overstimulation of life as she simply survived." | Matthew Remski | | 03:49 | “Belief in the existence of other human beings as such is love.” | Simone Weil (via Matthew Remski) | | 03:58 | "Love is not merely recognizing other human beings, but that it demands belief in them as they really are. And this means rejecting the imaginary beings produced by projection or longing." | Matthew Remski | | 04:11 | "Loving an imaginary being in the place of an actual being is more terrible than death." | Simone Weil (via Matthew Remski) |

Highlighted Segments & Timestamps

• [00:03–01:45] – Introduction and recap of Part 1; framing Weil as "spiritual auntie" to Thunberg.
• [01:46–02:50] – Overview of Weil’s efforts: solidarity with workers, opposition to fascism, intense activism and writing method.
• [02:51–03:40] – Key notions: attention, obligations, “decreation,” rootedness vs. nationalism, critique of capitalism.
• [03:41–04:11] – Weil's radical definition of love, via Gilman-Opalsky, and its ethical implications for resistance movements.

Summary Tone and Flow

Matthew Remski delivers a thoughtful, impassioned synthesis of Weil’s relevance, weaving her biography with philosophical and ethical commentary, and connecting these insights to the podcast's broader anti-cult and anti-conspiracist mission.

The exploration is rich, philosophical, and serious, tackling not only the personal cost of resistance but also fundamental questions about human connection and the dangers of abstraction—especially pertinent in today’s disinformation and pseudo-spiritual landscapes.

For Full Episode:
This was a sample bonus episode; listeners are encouraged to support the podcast on Patreon for full access.

Recommended Reading:

• The Communism of Love: An Inquiry into the Poverty of Exchange Value by Richard Gilman-Opalsky

End of Content Summary