Brief: Eulogy for Joseph Baker, Faithful Listener

Summary

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Conspirituality – Brief: Eulogy for Joseph Baker, Faithful Listener

March 28, 2026 | Host: Matthew Remski (with Derek)

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Episode Overview

This special "Brief" episode is a heartfelt tribute by Matthew Remski to Joseph Willard Baker, a longtime and profoundly influential listener and contributor to the Conspirituality podcast, who passed away in February 2026. The episode moves beyond typical content to memorialize Joseph’s thoughtfulness, activism, and the unexpected but deeply impactful friendship that developed online. It also traces how Joseph’s ideas and character challenged Matthew to reconsider his views on spirituality, activism, and the intersections therein.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Remembering Joseph Willard Baker – Life and Loss

• Personal Context: Joseph was a passionate anti-capitalist Christian, social worker, and theology student. Matthew details knowing Joseph primarily through podcast comments, emails, and one interview, but never in person.
• Obituary Discoveries: Matthew shares the uncanny feeling of reading Joseph’s obituary and learning new personal details about a close online friend ([03:56]).
• Joseph’s Life: Born 1974, grew up in Troy, Michigan, became a social worker, did an Ironman, started theology studies and volunteered at a soup kitchen ([04:08]-[04:23]).
• Family: Joseph’s role as a father to Anneliese (Lise), his parents, partner Renee, and his extended family are acknowledged as Matthew extends condolences ([04:37]-[05:12]).

2. The Unlikely Digital Friendship

• Matthew’s Virtual Network: Reflects on the reality of forming deep relationships online (“Such is our online era.” [02:39]), including with podcast co-hosts he has never met ([02:54]).
• Expectation of Meeting IRL: Recalls near-misses for a real-world meeting, illustrates how online connections can hold as much weight as in-person ones ([05:46]-[06:32]).

3. Joseph’s Thoughtful Influence

• Patreon Participation: Joseph made 87 detailed, challenging comments from July 2023–November 2025 ([07:21]-[07:35]).
• First Personal Contact: Joseph wrote Matthew a long, sensitive email about “A Course in Miracles,” a contentious text for Matthew due to his cult background ([07:41]-[08:25]).
• Joseph’s Constructive Challenge: He respected Matthew’s trauma and critiqued how the book was often misused—setting a tone of generous, critical engagement ([10:23]-[12:09], [07:50]).

Notable Quote:

“Manipulation occurs because of the predominant ways in which the course teachings are used to communicate by people who fall into it with their whole self.”
— Joseph Baker (Matthew reading from Joseph’s first email) [10:27]

4. Radicalizing A Course in Miracles

• Personal Appropriation & Activism: Joseph turned “A Course in Miracles,” viewed skeptically by Remski, into inspiration for justice, anti-capitalism, and social work ([09:30]-[10:08]).
• Contrasting Experiences: Unlike Matthew, Joseph emerged from a cultic group without turning to constant criticism. He kept what was nourishing, integrating it with real-world activism ([14:45]-[15:21]).
• Accepting Spirituality’s Radical Flank: Inspired Matthew to see that any spiritual tradition can generate radical politics, not just cult-like escapism ([25:14]-[25:31]).

Notable Quote:

“He was able to take the book with him out of the group and not disown that part of him as I had that was first attracted to its lessons.”
— Matthew Remski ([15:12])

5. Challenging Blind Spots—Race, Spirituality, and Critique

• On Magical Thinking: Joseph confronted Matthew’s tendency to dismiss “Western” supernatural claims as pathological, yet defend indigenous or marginalized spiritualities ([16:38]-[18:08]).
• Interrogating Respect versus Patronization: Joseph used the framework of indigenous archaeologist Paulette Steeves to challenge the politics of whose traditions are granted respect ([18:13]-[19:11]).

Notable Quote:

“What are you actually saying about marginalized people? Is your respect for them… based on some idea of their benign ignorance? Aren’t you patronizing them?”
— Joseph Baker (as recalled by Matthew) [18:08]

• Spiritual Disenchantment: Matthew admits a kind of envy at being unable to access the kind of faith he detects in historical figures like MLK, Jr., and explores how Joseph’s gentle challenge led him to reconsider his own stance on faith and belonging ([20:44]-[21:48]).

6. Joseph’s Political Commitments

• Anti-Zionism and Gaza: Joseph was a vocal and well-informed anti-Zionist; he contextualized Hamas, pointed to democratic complicity in genocide, and always situated political critique in deep historical research ([22:39]-[24:09]).
• Child Welfare Abolitionism: His practice as a child services worker led to championing Dorothy Roberts’ abolitionist analysis—the system as irreparable and steeped in racist logic ([24:12]).
• Nuanced View of Nonviolence: Joseph was critical of doctrinaire nonviolence, engaging with anarchist thinkers and arguing the legitimacy of armed resistance ([24:57]).

Notable Quote:

“…He always focused on systems rather than people, and watching Joseph navigate this reminded me of a Marxist dialectical principle, especially in relation to his love for A Course in Miracles.”
— Matthew Remski [25:14]

7. Lasting Gifts and Funeral

• Joseph’s Book: Sent Matthew a copy of his own unpublished work, This Time No: Exploring Jesus’ Vision for a Transformed World from First Century to A Course in Miracles. Matthew reflects on poignancy of reading it now ([26:09]-[27:47]).
• Funeral Program: The service was described as “the most beautiful and moving celebration of life I’ve ever experienced,” featuring Grateful Dead, Leonard Cohen, “Wade in the Water,” “This Little Light of Mine,” and readings from A Course in Miracles ([04:52], [28:08]-[28:25]).
• Lyrics and Readings: Included a reading of miracles as healing rain, and a group rendition of “Bella Ciao” adapted from Chumbawamba ([28:25]-[29:28]).

Notable Quote:

“Miracles fall like drops of healing rain from heaven on a dry and dusty world where starved and thirsty creatures come to die. Now they have water, now the world is green, and everywhere the signs of life spring up to show that what is born can never die. For what has life has immortality.”
— Read by Joseph’s daughter Lise at the funeral ([28:25])

8. Universal Connection & Closing Reflections

• Message to Listeners: Matthew connects his relationship with Joseph to all online relationships formed through the podcast, expressing hope for human connection in a “now more vivid, though sometimes distorted” online world ([29:32]-[30:17]).
• Joseph’s Enduring Presence: Expresses a sense that Joseph’s memory now inhabits the “ancestral” world of influences, shaping both Matthew and the community’s ongoing work on spirituality and activism ([29:32]-[30:17]).

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• “I think Jesus was hung on a piece of wood because he actually saw the ownership class vanishing tomorrow, not 300 years from now. And he was ready to take steps to mobilize crowds of laborers and poor people to make that happen… despite whatever kind of resistance you might have thrown at him.”
  — Joseph Baker ([01:45])

• “If religion, like any aspect of culture, was downstream of our political and economic conditions, there would always be a radical flank in whatever spirituality or religion you were looking at. Joseph was in the radical flank of A Course in Miracles.”
  — Matthew Remski ([25:14])

• “So look at that. I think I’m channeling Joseph Willard Baker now.”
  — Matthew Remski ([22:39])

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Timestamps for Key Segments

• 01:10 – Matthew introduces the tribute episode
• 01:45 – Excerpt of Joseph’s spiritual-political thinking (clip from interview)
• 03:19 – Joseph’s cause of death; obituary details
• 07:05 – The depth of Joseph’s influence becomes clear
• 08:25 – Matthew explains his past critiques of A Course in Miracles
• 10:23 – Matthew reads Joseph’s first email, modeling intellectual empathy
• 14:45 – Joseph kept what he could use from new age spirituality post-cult
• 16:38 – Joseph calls out Matthew’s inconsistency on magical thinking and race
• 18:08–20:44 – Examination of spiritual disenchantment and longing for faith
• 22:39 – Joseph’s comments on Gaza and anti-Zionism
• 24:12 – Joseph’s abolitionist stance on child welfare
• 26:09 – Joseph’s book and its significance
• 28:08 – Details from the funeral program and readings
• 29:32–30:17 – Matthew’s closing reflections to listeners and Joseph’s ongoing influence

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Tone and Language

The episode maintains Matthew Remski’s respectful, sincere, and deeply introspective voice throughout, punctuated by direct quotations both from Joseph Baker’s communications and Matthew’s own reflections. The tone is personal, vulnerable, and honors both the intense loss and the ongoing legacy of digital friendship and praxis.

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Summary

This episode stands out as both eulogy and critical exploration—a rare document in which the perceived boundaries between community, critique, and personal transformation blur. It’s a moving, thoughtful, and nuanced memorial not only to Joseph Willard Baker’s life of service and radical spiritual politics, but also to the power of online intellectual communities to change hearts and minds in unpredictable ways. Listeners are given a window into the complexity of recovering and repurposing spiritual traditions and the necessity—modeled by Joseph—of engagement that is both critical and gentle, activist and empathetic.

In short: Joseph’s memory, teachings, and spirit will continue to inform the Conspirituality project, and through it, the lives of those who seek meaning at the troubled border of spirit and society.

Transcript

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foreign.

[Matthew Rimsky]

Hello everyone, my name is Matthew Rimsky. This is Conspirituality, where we investigate the roots and intersections of conspiracy theories and spiritual influence to uncover cults, pseudoscience and authoritarian extremism. You can follow myself, Derek and Julian on Blue Sky. The podcast is on Instagram and threads under its own handle. And you can support our Patreon. You can also find me on YouTube and TikTok.

[Anti Fascist Dad (Podcast Segment)]

NTIFascistdad.

[Matthew Rimsky]

This brief is called Eulogy for Joseph, Faithful listener.

[Joseph Willard Baker]

You know, I think Jesus was hung on a piece of wood because he actually saw the ownership class vanishing tomorrow, not 300 years from now. And he was ready to take steps to mobilize crowds of laborers and poor people to make that happen. And you hear the same thing in the the song of Mary and Luke's gospel, where you know, just the birth of Jesus itself talked about the fulfillment of a world where the rich and the powerful were brought low. And doing that despite whatever kind of resistance you might have thrown at him.

[Matthew Rimsky]

That was some of the anti capitalist Christianity of Joseph Baker, a longtime listener of the podcast, a prolific commenter on our Patreon, and someone who became one of my best personal friends that I've never met in person.

[Anti Fascist Dad (Podcast Segment)]

Such is our online era.

[Matthew Rimsky]

I have a lot of experience with virtual friends. I guess you might have even heard me say that. I haven't met Derek in person and we've Been working together almost every day for the past six years.

[Unspecified Foreign Speaker / Sam]

Now.

[Matthew Rimsky]

I'm 95% sure that Derek is a real guy who I hope I can hug one day. The 5% is the agnostic who holds out the possibility that this is all a dream. Because sometimes it sure feels like that. But I'll never be able to hug Joseph Baker. Or I guess, his earthly presence. He died back on February 4th of

[Anti Fascist Dad (Podcast Segment)]

complications from a rare cancer of the

[Matthew Rimsky]

appendix that he suffered with and survived for 14 years. He was 51 years old. For some reason, I thought he was older than me. I think I am still at that age where I default into thinking that people who die must be older than me.

[Anti Fascist Dad (Podcast Segment)]

I think I should adjust my expectations.

[Matthew Rimsky]

But with Joseph, it was also because he seemed very wise and settled in himself. Now, because my correspondence with Joseph was online when his friend Corinne sent me

[Derek]

his obituary, I had this uncanny experience

[Matthew Rimsky]

of reading about all of these basics of his life that I had no idea about. Joseph Willard Baker. Born in 1974, he grew up in Troy, Michigan.

[Derek]

And in college he studied social work.

[Matthew Rimsky]

He cooked, he biked, he hiked, he did an Ironman. In 2012, and last fall, Joe became a theology student at the United Theological

[Anti Fascist Dad (Podcast Segment)]

Seminary of the Twin Cities.

[Matthew Rimsky]

And he recently began cooking for the Soup Kitchen at St. Peter's Episcopal Church in Detroit. I learned the names of his people. His parents, Wally and Linda, two brothers, Travis and Brad.

[Anti Fascist Dad (Podcast Segment)]

A partner named Renee.

[Matthew Rimsky]

Hello to you all, by the way. If you're listening, I can't imagine how

[Derek]

much you miss him.

[Matthew Rimsky]

Corinne told me that the church was

[Derek]

packed for his service.

[Anti Fascist Dad (Podcast Segment)]

And that quote, it was the most

[Derek]

beautiful and moving celebration of life I've ever experienced.

[Matthew Rimsky]

And at the end, I'll tell you

[Anti Fascist Dad (Podcast Segment)]

what they read from and what they sang together.

[Matthew Rimsky]

Now, another thing that I knew a little bit about Joseph was the father

[Anti Fascist Dad (Podcast Segment)]

of Anneliese, who's 25, and he had

[Derek]

told me that she was part of his political journey.

[Matthew Rimsky]

In 2016, when she was 15, they had door knocked together for Hillary Clinton,

[Anti Fascist Dad (Podcast Segment)]

who ultimately lost in Michigan.

[Matthew Rimsky]

And he told me that after that,

[Derek]

he and Lise had followed a parallel arc of radicalization.

[Matthew Rimsky]

Now, he told me enough about it that I asked him to see if Lise would want to join him for an interview for my other show called

[Anti Fascist Dad (Podcast Segment)]

Anti Fascist dad, because that's kind of what it's all about. It's about the intergenerational learning curve of radical politics. We were in early discussions on that.

[Matthew Rimsky]

So Joseph was a virtual friend, but someone I always expected to meet. He once mentioned he sometimes drove up

[Anti Fascist Dad (Podcast Segment)]

through Toronto to meet with friends or

[Matthew Rimsky]

I think a part of his family in the summers, and maybe he would

[Derek]

stop by next time.

[Matthew Rimsky]

And last fall, I almost managed to schedule a trip to Windsor on a

[Anti Fascist Dad (Podcast Segment)]

mission to find my grandfather's grave.

[Matthew Rimsky]

I want to know what he went

[Anti Fascist Dad (Podcast Segment)]

through in World War II, because whatever that encounter with fascism was has shaped my family's life in a lot of ways.

[Matthew Rimsky]

But I need a photograph of his gravestone to prove kinship and to access

[Anti Fascist Dad (Podcast Segment)]

his military records through the Canadian government.

[Matthew Rimsky]

Now, had I made it to Windsor, I definitely would have crossed the bridge

[Anti Fascist Dad (Podcast Segment)]

to meet with Joseph.

[Matthew Rimsky]

And I would have attended his service

[Anti Fascist Dad (Podcast Segment)]

in Detroit just a couple of weeks ago if it didn't mean crossing the

[Matthew Rimsky]

border as a Canadian running a podcast

[Anti Fascist Dad (Podcast Segment)]

with the word anti fascist in the title, which at this point could very well lead to arrest and detention. So that's what I know about the in real life, Joseph, which means I

[Matthew Rimsky]

can't really eulogize him from a close perspective. What I can do here is give

[Anti Fascist Dad (Podcast Segment)]

a eulogy based on our virtual lives and describe how his thought really changed my life.

[Matthew Rimsky]

I'm just now grasping how deep his influence is and how far reaching it is. Whatever I go on to do in this line of work for as long as I have in this world will

[Anti Fascist Dad (Podcast Segment)]

in part be shaped by my dialogue with him.

[Matthew Rimsky]

So Joseph showed up in our Patreon

[Anti Fascist Dad (Podcast Segment)]

comments in July of 2023, and between

[Matthew Rimsky]

then and November of last year, he left 87 quite long, rich, thoughtful, nuanced,

[Anti Fascist Dad (Podcast Segment)]

exploratory comments for our consideration.

[Matthew Rimsky]

And I'll get to what he focused

[Anti Fascist Dad (Podcast Segment)]

on in a bit.

[Matthew Rimsky]

But my deeper story with him really

[Anti Fascist Dad (Podcast Segment)]

begins with how he reached out to me personally. This was in March of 2024. So almost exactly two years ago, he

[Matthew Rimsky]

sent a long email addressing the fact that I had regularly published critical articles

[Anti Fascist Dad (Podcast Segment)]

and podcasts about A Course in Miracles. This is the New Age Bible from the late 1970s that made Marianne Williamson a very famous person through Oprah and

[Matthew Rimsky]

and which happened to be the source book used by the high demand group

[Anti Fascist Dad (Podcast Segment)]

in Wisconsin called Endeavor Academy, where I spun my wheels for a number of years.

[Derek]

Three years, actually.

[Matthew Rimsky]

So this is the book that recasts

[Anti Fascist Dad (Podcast Segment)]

Christianity through the psychology of new thought.

[Matthew Rimsky]

It says that reality is pure, unified spirit. The physical world is an illusion born

[Anti Fascist Dad (Podcast Segment)]

of fear and separation.

[Matthew Rimsky]

Miracles are acts of love that restore

[Anti Fascist Dad (Podcast Segment)]

the memory of our shared divine nature,

[Derek]

and that forgiveness is the doorway to every miracle.

[Anti Fascist Dad (Podcast Segment)]

Now, when Joseph wrote to me, and for many years before that, I really hated this book.

[Matthew Rimsky]

And I had constructed an elaborate but also valid critique of it, I think

[Anti Fascist Dad (Podcast Segment)]

as a dissociative apologia for the neoliberal Self project.

[Matthew Rimsky]

You can look back through our archive

[Anti Fascist Dad (Podcast Segment)]

and just, you know, search A Course in Miracles and you'll hear me ranting about it just like Joseph did.

[Matthew Rimsky]

I also took this book and its

[Anti Fascist Dad (Podcast Segment)]

pure idealism personally because it had been used against me.

[Matthew Rimsky]

But Joseph, who had picked up A

[Anti Fascist Dad (Podcast Segment)]

Course in Miracles in 1993, this is seven years before I did.

[Matthew Rimsky]

He cherished this book and bafflingly to me, found in it the prophetic inspiration

[Derek]

for his political activism.

[Matthew Rimsky]

He used it to understand and orient

[Derek]

himself as a social worker with nearly two decades at Michigan Child Protective Services.

[Matthew Rimsky]

So this was a person who did way more hands on helping work than I'd ever done.

[Derek]

And somehow this book had brought him

[Anti Fascist Dad (Podcast Segment)]

closer to earth when what I had seen was that it could take so

[Matthew Rimsky]

many people into outer space. And so I wanted to know what

[Anti Fascist Dad (Podcast Segment)]

the difference was between us, that our paths could diverge so sharply and yet

[Matthew Rimsky]

intersect again in this time. Let me read how he opened this first letter because I think it says

[Anti Fascist Dad (Podcast Segment)]

a lot about Joseph.

[Matthew Rimsky]

Quote to start, I want to acknowledge

[Derek]

that in your earlier life, decades ago,

[Anti Fascist Dad (Podcast Segment)]

most of your previous correspondence with course people in involved manipulation, whether intentional or not. Manipulation occurs because of the predominant ways in which the course teachings are used

[Derek]

to communicate by people who fall into it with their whole self.

[Anti Fascist Dad (Podcast Segment)]

So this is a pretty sensitive way to start to acknowledge my associations with a book, to give reasons for why it's often used the way it is. And I also think that he's describing that for some the book just becomes all encompassing and it erased every other

[Derek]

form of learning and insight for them.

[Anti Fascist Dad (Podcast Segment)]

And that's not what happened with him. Because he was working in social work, he goes on.

[Matthew Rimsky]

A lot of my dialogue with course

[Derek]

students, even some in my own group,

[Matthew Rimsky]

leads to unsettling feelings.

[Anti Fascist Dad (Podcast Segment)]

I walk away often quite puzzled at how people process their trauma and grievance

[Derek]

through a coarse lens and come out sounding so obviously spiteful and self absorbed.

[Matthew Rimsky]

In my professional life, I am expected to have the most well calibrated attunement

[Anti Fascist Dad (Podcast Segment)]

to abuse, neglect and exploitation. I arbitrate any dispute on criteria for

[Matthew Rimsky]

field assignment across an entire state when

[Anti Fascist Dad (Podcast Segment)]

those questions are debated. I like to think I do a

[Matthew Rimsky]

good job at that.

[Anti Fascist Dad (Podcast Segment)]

Yet I am a course student, an

[Matthew Rimsky]

aspiring teacher, and I'm sure setting me

[Anti Fascist Dad (Podcast Segment)]

apart from those previous experiences for you is not something I take for granted. It's not done lightly based on your previous exposure.

[Derek]

So he does a lot here.

[Anti Fascist Dad (Podcast Segment)]

He acknowledges my cult history. He says, you know, there are these ways in which this book can be weaponized and how I might be rightly

[Matthew Rimsky]

skeptical of him writing in. But then from there he went on

[Derek]

to unpack how he understands this book that I found so weird and irritating, so apolitical, if not reactionary, not to mention condescending and often boring. And he did it in a way that expanded my view and my mind.

[Matthew Rimsky]

Our email dialogue continued from that point for about six months until I finally

[Derek]

asked him to come on the show and discuss it.

[Matthew Rimsky]

I was running a series at the

[Anti Fascist Dad (Podcast Segment)]

time called Listener Stories in which I'd interview listeners who had written in about their experiences in churches, cults or New age wellness.

[Matthew Rimsky]

And so we sat down in front

[Derek]

of our screens, myself in Toronto, Joseph in Detroit. We recorded for over two hours.

[Matthew Rimsky]

And that clip at the top of

[Anti Fascist Dad (Podcast Segment)]

the episode came from that interview, which I'm currently editing, to post in full to our patreon in a few weeks.

[Matthew Rimsky]

And it's surreal to edit it now. We had actually put it in the

[Anti Fascist Dad (Podcast Segment)]

can and agreed that we would rerecord it and try to be more concise.

[Matthew Rimsky]

So we did have plans for that, but no date.

[Anti Fascist Dad (Podcast Segment)]

So now I'm just going to make

[Derek]

this original recording work and I think it does.

[Matthew Rimsky]

And as I'm listening to it, I just realized that that afternoon was a

[Anti Fascist Dad (Podcast Segment)]

kind of turning point in my work on this podcast.

[Matthew Rimsky]

Listening to Joseph carefully, I realized not

[Derek]

only how much we shared in common politically, but also that I had a number of conflicts to look at in my cynicism towards the uses of spirituality in this age. I had a disposition framed by the vexing and humiliating time I had lost to cults.

[Matthew Rimsky]

I had little instinct to move beyond

[Derek]

that framework, which was essentially paranoid and self protective. Always looking for the cognitive error or

[Anti Fascist Dad (Podcast Segment)]

moral hypocrisy in a person's spiritual creed

[Derek]

without really looking at what else it offered their lives.

[Matthew Rimsky]

By January of 2024 I was into my 10th year or so of researching

[Anti Fascist Dad (Podcast Segment)]

and doing journalism on toxic religions and high demand groups. I woke up every day and girded myself to go out and just sort things out like some kind of cop.

[Matthew Rimsky]

And then along comes Joseph, who was

[Derek]

still a seeker as I had once been.

[Matthew Rimsky]

But he wasn't naive. In fact, he also had been roped

[Anti Fascist Dad (Podcast Segment)]

into a toxic group that was constellated around a self centered teacher of a course in miracles.

[Matthew Rimsky]

And like me, he had left it behind. But Unlike me, he didn't convert that

[Anti Fascist Dad (Podcast Segment)]

experience into a life of constant cultural criticism.

[Derek]

He was able to take the book

[Anti Fascist Dad (Podcast Segment)]

with him out of the group and

[Derek]

not disown that part of him as I had that was first attracted to its lessons.

[Matthew Rimsky]

So I came away from my cult

[Derek]

experience in tatters, but he didn't.

[Matthew Rimsky]

And so I wanted to understand what

[Derek]

was different between us. Temperament, sure.

[Matthew Rimsky]

But there was also the balance of

[Derek]

his social service work, which never, as I suggested above, let the book become all encompassing or some final answer to the intractable problems of daily justice in this world.

[Matthew Rimsky]

Now, in our discussion, Joseph also pointed

[Derek]

out an uncomfortable blind spot of mine. It was related to my spotlighting of

[Anti Fascist Dad (Podcast Segment)]

A Course in Miracles as being a

[Derek]

channeled text, as a slam dunk on its fraudulence.

[Matthew Rimsky]

Now, for those who don't know, A

[Derek]

Course in Miracles was the product of alleged channeled writing by a New York City psychologist named Helen Shookman, who said she heard the voice of Jesus for

[Anti Fascist Dad (Podcast Segment)]

seven years during the 1960s and early 70s.

[Derek]

Impossible, right?

[Matthew Rimsky]

Now, if I were simply an atheist,

[Derek]

Joseph wouldn't have spotted anything or reached out or thought he could reach out. But I'm not an atheist, and he could tell.

[Anti Fascist Dad (Podcast Segment)]

And so he picked up on a contradiction on how I handled that particular issue.

[Derek]

Issue?

[Matthew Rimsky]

He pointed out that I had a

[Derek]

tendency to label Western or white, for lack of a better term, supernatural beliefs as pathological.

[Matthew Rimsky]

But I wouldn't do the same thing

[Derek]

in relation to indigenous or shamanic practices or the practices of marginalized people to which I granted a special epistemological status. So magical thinking was a label that I could apply to white people, but I wouldn't do it with brown people. Now, I was aware of this contradiction

[Anti Fascist Dad (Podcast Segment)]

from having argued about it with my colleague Julian, who is a very consistent

[Derek]

atheist, and he would correctly say, matthew, you are applying these standards based upon your political values. And he was right.

[Matthew Rimsky]

Of course, people of all cultures are

[Derek]

vulnerable to magical thinking. What I was concerned about, from a leftist point of view, was that it is a failure of solidarity to be condescending about the spirituality of marginalized people when it was obviously so important to their politics of liberation.

[Matthew Rimsky]

Like, who was I to question the

[Derek]

faith or rationalism of the black Baptists at the center of the civil rights movement. But when it came to the ghoulish leaders of white Christian nationalism, I had no problem dismissing them as frauds.

[Matthew Rimsky]

Joseph was pointing out the same contradiction

[Derek]

that Julian was pointing out, but he was coming from the opposite direction. He basically said, if you are saying that Marginalized folks can channel voices or commune with spirits, but white people should know better. What are you actually saying about marginalized people? Is your respect for them in this area based on some idea of their benign ignorance? Aren't you patronizing them? Aren't you pretending that you know this is respect or deference? He pointed to the indigenous archaeologist Paulette Steeves, who argues that dismissing oral traditions because they lack Western scientific evidence cannot be separated from other attitudes within society. Systemic racism. Steves was the one who challenged the dominant short chronology model that places human arrival in the Americas at 15,000 years ago. She drew on indigenous oral traditions and archaeological evidence to argue for a human presence of 100,000 years or more. And so Joseph asked, what do you think Steves would say about the erased oral traditions of Europe and how far back they go and what they might tell us? So Joseph exposed this inconsistency in me, but then he took it a step further. It seems you believe, he said, that if you're white and you're a Westerner and you're adopting mystical ideas, you really can't do that in a healthy way, that it's ultimately going to lead to some type of pathology or dysfunction. And he's saying this to me, who's a guy who goes every year to, you know, a powwow on Manitoulin island and listens to the drums and smells the sage and stands in reverence before the people as they talk to their ancestors.

[Matthew Rimsky]

And so it made me wonder, how

[Derek]

deep is my alienation or disenchantment if I believe those mystical experiences are for them but not for me? Have I been holding myself back from something I remember from long ago? Didn't I grow up with Catholic saints and angels? Didn't my people before me long ago find their gods in the forests? Did they really go anywhere? Have I shriveled in their absence? Where is my heritage of wisdom?

[Matthew Rimsky]

And then it went a little bit

[Derek]

deeper again, because I realized in talking with Joseph that when I listen to Martin Luther King Jr. Speak, for example, a part of me really does believe that he has some kind of otherworldly strength and blessing, and that his invocation of Jesus really does carry something from beyond what we know. Now, that part of me is small, and it's generally overwritten by the part that knows MLK Jr was just a man like any other, using the best materials at hand to help his community.

[Matthew Rimsky]

But the part of me that believes

[Derek]

in King's belief is overshadowed by this feeling that I can't join him in that that I could never take joy and faith like he seemed to. It was beyond me. I was too disenchanted. I knew too much to be faithful. Now, I never got to share this

[Anti Fascist Dad (Podcast Segment)]

observation with Joseph, but I'm just going

[Derek]

to close my eyes now and imagine that he's here and what he would say. Matthew, you think you are a modern and rational person, and yet I know you feel something that flows through King or Cesar Romero or Simon Weil, that God is love, that no matter what you are loved. Isn't that yours as well? Isn't that something that belongs to you? Do you really think you are unworthy of it? Can you forgive yourself for this unworthy feeling? So look at that. I think I'm channeling Joseph Willard Baker

[Matthew Rimsky]

now.

[Derek]

Joseph's radical application of A Course in Miracles shone through in his public comments on the podcast content, especially as the genocide in Gaza accelerated.

[Matthew Rimsky]

He was an anti Zionist one state

[Derek]

advocate who grounded his position in historical scholarship and personal experience. He'd traveled through Israel and Palestinian territories as a student, and he'd lived in both Zionist and Palestinian communities.

[Matthew Rimsky]

And he drew on writers like Pape Mizrahi voices Jabotinsky's own words to argue

[Derek]

that Zionism was structurally colonial and irreformable. He was always quoting Palestinian sources and Arab historians that I had to go and look up.

[Matthew Rimsky]

He rejected the reduction of Hamas to terrorism alone.

[Derek]

He contextualized their governance and armed resistance within a framework of colonial response.

[Matthew Rimsky]

And the guy who once door knocked for Hillary identified democratic complicity in the

[Derek]

genocide as a defining political betrayal.

[Matthew Rimsky]

And remember, he's writing back and forth

[Derek]

with me from Michigan, where the uncommitted movement is making its stand.

[Anti Fascist Dad (Podcast Segment)]

During the run up to the 2024

[Derek]

election, Joseph's work in child services transformed him into an abolitionist who believed the totalizing forces of capitalism and carceral logic

[Matthew Rimsky]

couldn't be reformed from within.

[Derek]

He applied Dorothy Roberts child welfare abolitionism as a guide. In his work across Michigan, Roberts argued the child welfare system is a racist institution that surveils and destroys black families under the guise of protection. The answer, Joseph thought, was abolition and community investment, not reform. Now, most surprising of all, maybe for someone who shared a favorite book with Marianne Williamson, is that Joseph was also skeptical of nonviolence as a doctrine. He drew on critics of Gene Sharp and Erica Chenoweth as well as anarchist texts to argue that armed resistance had legitimate strategic and moral dimensions.

[Matthew Rimsky]

So I learned a lot from Joseph,

[Anti Fascist Dad (Podcast Segment)]

and I think a lot of people

[Derek]

on our Patreon did, whether they agreed

[Anti Fascist Dad (Podcast Segment)]

with him or not.

[Derek]

He certainly provided a lot of material

[Anti Fascist Dad (Podcast Segment)]

that was really well studied and well

[Matthew Rimsky]

reasoned, and I learned from him not

[Derek]

only in these content areas, but also in the balance that he struck between sober criticism and a kind of gentleness and patience and forbearance that seemed just tireless. He was direct but never insulting. He always focused on systems rather than people, and watching Joseph navigate this reminded me of a Marxist dialectical principle, especially in relation to his love for A Course in Miracles. If religion, like any aspect of culture, was downstream of our political and economic conditions, there would always be a radical flank in whatever spirituality or religion you were looking at. Joseph was in the radical flank of A Course in Miracles. And why shouldn't there be one? Early in 2025, I got a book

[Anti Fascist Dad (Podcast Segment)]

in the mail from Joseph.

[Derek]

It was his book. It was called this Time no Exploring Jesus Vision for a Transformed World from First Century to A Course in Miracles. It's been by my bed since then, but I've only looked at it a few times. Now that he's gone, I feel conflicted about picking it up because I know it would just make me want to talk with him again. But here's a short passage that I think captures the prophetic hope the course filled him Jesus message, quite unexpectedly, spread across the ancient world from Egypt to Rome and the coast of India. It spread as a house church movement, not with grand cathedrals. I think the course will have its own breakthrough one day, but there must

[Matthew Rimsky]

be a way of doing that within

[Derek]

horizontal leadership, with the direct and full democracy that curbed the tendency toward power abuse without the priests, bishops, and cathedrals. This time it will resemble the house church movement of the proto church, where you read, eat, sing, and pray together in larger egalitarian society with others who may or may not be into your path. So I'm definitely going to read the book, because who knows how much more of my younger self might be healed by understanding this text that had confounded my life through the eyes of someone I admire so much

[Matthew Rimsky]

now.

[Derek]

As for the funeral, part of me is glad I didn't get to go to it because I was afraid of being arrested by cbp. I would have been a mess throughout the whole thing, and for days after,

[Matthew Rimsky]

Corinne emailed me a PDF of the

[Anti Fascist Dad (Podcast Segment)]

program and it was off the hook.

[Derek]

Grateful Dead, Leonard Cohen Wade in the Water this little light of mine, I'm

[Anti Fascist Dad (Podcast Segment)]

going to let it shine.

[Derek]

And of course, plenty of readings from A Course in Miracles, including this first one that Lise

[Matthew Rimsky]

miracles fall like drops

[Derek]

of healing rain from heaven on a dry and dusty world where starved and thirsty creatures come to die. Now they have water, now the world is green and everywhere the signs of life spring up to show that what is born can never die, for what has life has immortality. And then at some point they sang Bella Chow and they used the lyrics from Chumbawamba. The world is waking outside my window Bella chau drags my senses into the sunlight for there are things that I must do Wish me luck Now I have to leave you Bella chow Bella chow Bella chow chow chow with my friends now up to the city we're going to shake the gates of hell

[Matthew Rimsky]

So I never got to meet Joseph,

[Derek]

but I can feel that he's kind of everywhere now, sharing space with my ancestors inside me. Also people crucial to me who I never met. So turning to you, dear Podcast audience, if we have communicated in ways large or small, I have a similar relationship with you in a way.

[Matthew Rimsky]

And so I'm thinking of you, whoever you are.

[Anti Fascist Dad (Podcast Segment)]

And whenever you hear this, I'm thinking

[Derek]

of all the people whose hands I would grasp and shake if I could see you in person.

[Anti Fascist Dad (Podcast Segment)]

And the thought has me wavering between melancholy and peace.

[Matthew Rimsky]

Because somehow I think we must all

[Derek]

connect the small circle of our embodied relationships with the impossible expression expanse of the human family, now made more vivid, though sometimes distorted, in our online life. I think Joseph Baker's religion and service gave him a skill for doing that, and I will never forget it. Thanks for listening, everybody. Take care of each other.

[Unspecified Foreign Speaker / Sam]

Sam.

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Hexperience.