Matthew Remski, Part 2 - Cult Hopping, Disillusionment, and Root Causes of Cults

Summary

Podcast Summary: Trust Me – Matthew Remski, Part 2

Episode Title: Cult Hopping, Disillusionment, and Root Causes of Cults
Podcast: Trust Me: Cults, Extreme Belief, and Manipulation
Hosts: Lola Blanc & Megan Elizabeth
Guest: Matthew Remski (author, co-host of Conspirituality podcast)
Date: April 22, 2026
Note: All times in MM:SS format are approximate.

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Episode Overview

This episode continues the conversation with Matthew Remski, focusing on his journey through multiple cults, his eventual disillusionment, and his current work on understanding the broader social and economic forces that make cults appealing in modern society. The discussion covers the allure and dangers of cultic groups, parallels between cults and economic systems, the role of conspiracy culture, and the critical need to foster healthy, democratic community spaces. Matthew also previews his upcoming book, "Antifascist Dad," sharing insights on how to equip the next generation to navigate a chaotic, manipulative information landscape.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Cult Hopping and the Allure of Ersatz Socialism

(14:13 – 16:39)

• Matthew describes his experience at the Endeavor Academy, noting that many members, like himself, came from other groups (e.g., Osho, ISKCON).
• Main Insight: Cults often offer a seductive sense of community and mutual aid—a simulation of socialism—that is appealing within the context of a harsh political economy.

  “One of the things that cults will offer is a kind of ersatz socialism that is so attractive within our political economy, of course. …That’s not how it actually works out. …But when I was able to reflect on that, I started to develop a political perspective on why I ended up there and what cults actually are…” — Matthew Remski (15:29)

2. Organizational Structure Mirrors Mainstream Systems

(16:39 – 17:33)

• Despite presenting as alternatives, cults often mimic the same hierarchical and exploitative structures found in broader society.

  “They're presenting as we share everything, but it's just the same as capitalism in that it's just a self-serving people at the top who are in control of everything.” — Megan Elizabeth (16:39)
  “Yeah. But the recruitment process tells you otherwise in a very forceful way. You are free, and the world and your needs will be provided for.” — Matthew Remski (16:51)

3. Disillusionment and the Breaking Point

(18:49 – 22:13)

• Matthew narrates his realization that the utopian promises of Endeavor Academy were hollow, culminating in a poignant moment observing the leader, Charles Anderson, questioning his own role.

  “I turn around the corner … he’s standing at the mirror, looking at himself with this expression of utter self-loathing … I watched him put his face back on… Like it was a crusty the clown makeup. …And I was like, oh, you don’t believe what you’re doing.” — Matthew Remski (21:10)

• Disillusionment brought relief—stepping away from the fantasy into a more grounded reality.

  “I was relieved, I think. I can't say that in either circumstance the disillusionment was… really shattering…there wasn't a lot of relief as well.” — Matthew Remski (24:46)

4. The Rise of Conspirituality and Cultural Patterns

(25:21 – 29:13)

• The Conspirituality podcast examines intersections between alternative spirituality and right-wing conspiratorial thinking, particularly during the pandemic.
• The merging of spiritual axioms (“nothing is what it seems, everything is connected...”) with conspiracy thinking makes communities particularly vulnerable during periods of stress.

  “So there’s this sort of parallel. If you’ve built into your spiritual expectations these three axioms…it would be very easy for those, under circumstances of political stress, to just curdle into a kind of paranoia. And that’s what we saw happen.” — Matthew Remski (28:34)

5. The Engine of Misinformation: Tech, Social Media & Audience Capture

(29:14 – 33:27)

• Focus is shifting from fringe charlatans to mainstream figures whose reach and legitimacy make their cultish influence more culturally dangerous.

  “The real sort of villains are the tech bros who wind up creating these ecosystems of gamified outrage and performativity in which misinformation is specifically made...sticky.” — Matthew Remski (30:19)

6. Diagnosing the Root Causes: Capitalism & Social Disconnection

(34:23 – 41:03)

• Matthew argues that cultic dynamics, conspiracism and susceptibility to manipulation arise in the context of capitalism’s failures.

  “Cults are hyper concentrated forms of capitalism that disguise themselves as socialist projects. And that tells us something about who’s attracted to them…why it's so difficult to leave. Because if you have some kind of experience for 6 months that your needs are provided for…and you know, believes in things like mutual aid, then you’ve never felt that before…that can be extremely attractive.” — Matthew Remski (34:44)

• Anti-Semitic or other scapegoating conspiracy theories are framed as “socialism of fools”—false answers to real suffering.

7. Building Healthy Resistance: Epistemology, Community, and Antifascism

(41:03 – 44:31)

• Practical tools for resisting cultic/control dynamics: learn self-regulation/co-regulation, media literacy, developing trust, fact-checking, and recognizing the emotional appeal of charismatic authority.
• His upcoming book, “Antifascist Dad,” offers these lessons for young people coming of age in a chaotic era.

8. The Chavez/Synanon Discussion: Cult Dynamics Beyond Ideology

(45:16 – 50:50)

• Matthew highlights that cultic patterns show up across the spectrum: left, right, spiritual, secular—everywhere.

  “Cult dynamics are just not about ideological content. They arise in all contexts. We have cults on the right wing…there’s left wing political cults, psychotherapy cults, there’s cults based on essential oils.” — Matthew Remski (46:32)

• Encourages social movements to scrutinize charismatic authority to prevent replicating cultic abuse.

9. Toward Hopeful Spirituality and Community

(51:31 – 54:37)

• Matthew urges not to dismiss all forms of religion or spirituality due to cult experiences; there are radical, liberatory traditions within every major faith. Material conditions determine whether faith supports or resists oppressive power.

  “Spirituality and religion are downstream of material conditions…you're going to have people who worship in ways that support power, …make apologies for power, and …resist power. And you can find people in that third group.” — Matthew Remski (53:16)

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• “The cult at the end of the cult room… we've seen the other places and how they fuck up. But like this one, totally free, you know, we can do what we want.” — Matthew Remski (14:35)
• “I was good at presenting [new-age spiritual concepts]. It was a very natural, like, ‘oh, I can do this for work.’” — Matthew Remski (18:35)
• “The moment which just haunts me to this day… he’s standing at the mirror, looking at himself with this expression of utter self-loathing, this expression of complete depression.” — Matthew Remski (21:02)
• “Nothing is what it seems, everything has a purpose, everything is connected—these are axioms of New Age spirituality and…conspiratorial thinking.” — Matthew Remski (28:05)
• “Anti-Semitism…is a kind of socialism of fools. That when people have to create a story for why they are immiserated…they are very vulnerable to being offered scapegoat answers.” — Matthew Remski (36:01)
• “[Spirituality/religion] downstream of material conditions… if you feel that locks you out of a part of yourself that you want to get back…you might find it again.” — Matthew Remski (54:37)

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Key Timestamps for Important Segments

• Matthew describes ‘cult hopping’ and the lure of cults: 14:13–16:39
• Disillusionment and final breaking point: 18:49–22:13
• Conspirituality’s rise and observations: 25:21–29:13
• Roots of mass manipulation—capitalism, tech, audience capture: 29:14–33:27
• Framework for resistance (from “Antifascist Dad”): 34:23–41:03
• Chavez, Synanon and cultic dynamics on the left: 45:16–50:50
• Final thoughts on spiritual hope and complexity: 51:31–54:37

---

Takeaways

• Cults appeal by promising community and purpose in a systemically isolating, unequal world, but often replicate mainstream hierarchies.
• Conspiratorial thinking is structurally similar to spiritual beliefs; both flourish in environments of stress, uncertainty and economic precarity.
• Charismatic leadership and audience capture are powerful engines—especially in the age of performative social media.
• Critical thinking, emotional self-regulation, and communal organizing are vital to safeguarding personal autonomy and building real alternatives.
• Cultic dynamics can emerge anywhere—left, right, mainstream or fringe; vigilance against them is necessary in all community spaces.
• Don’t relinquish spirituality or community—find healthy, democratic expressions that resist rather than reinforce authoritarian dynamics.

---

For more, listen to Trust Me: Cults, Extreme Belief, and Manipulation, or check out Matthew Remski’s work including the “Conspirituality” podcast and his book “Antifascist Dad.”

Transcript

[Lola Blanc]

This is exactly right.

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[Lola Blanc]

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[Megan Elizabeth]

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[Matthew Remsky]

Trust me

[Megan Elizabeth]

do you trust me?

[Matthew Remsky]

Would I ever lead you astray?

[Lola Blanc]

Trust me.

[Matthew Remsky]

This is the truth. The only truth.

[Megan Elizabeth]

If anybody ever tells you to just trust them, don't welcome to Trust Me the podcast about cults extreme belief and manipulation from two cult hoppers who've actually experienced it.

[Lola Blanc]

I am Lola Blanc and I am

[Megan Elizabeth]

Megan Elizabeth and today is once again Matthew Remsky Part 2. With him, he is an author and he is one of the hosts of the Conspirituality Podcast. And Matthew is going to talk to us about how he cult hopped from his first guru to his second, the moment that disillusioned him with the second one, and the cultural patterns, including a resurgence of the Satanic panic that are most alarming to him as he follows conspiracies and spirituality.

[Lola Blanc]

On the podcast he'll also talk about how his interests now Lie in addressing the root economic causes of why so many people are looking to snake oil salesmen for answers. Some pointers from his upcoming book, Anti Fascist dad, about how to navigate the fraught information landscape and why it's important to create healthy, organizing spaces since all sides of the political spectrum are susceptible to cultish behavior.

[Megan Elizabeth]

Amen, sweetie.

[Lola Blanc]

Amen, sweetie.

[Megan Elizabeth]

I don't know why that was the right thing to say. Megan. What? Before we get into it with Matthew, can you tell me your cult you sing of this week?

[Lola Blanc]

Yeah, mine's depressing. Are you ready?

[Megan Elizabeth]

I'm ready.

[Lola Blanc]

All right. We've talked on here before about the online cultish group 764 that's now being investigated by the FBI. It is a group that's targeting mostly kids online through video games, what have you.

[Megan Elizabeth]

Online spaces.

[Lola Blanc]

Online spaces, yeah. And I went home last weekend, and my friend's son got targeted by them. Oh, no. So my friend was calling me and she was like, he is? Well, number one, their entire household was getting swatted. So these people got nudes from this child. So now they're in possession of child

[Megan Elizabeth]

pornography because they were claiming to be a girl.

[Lola Blanc]

Like, yeah, yeah, that's what they do.

[Megan Elizabeth]

Okay.

[Sophia Donner]

So fucked up.

[Lola Blanc]

So then they said that he had a bomb and swatted his house.

[Megan Elizabeth]

Like, they called in to the. Like, they called 911 being like, there's a bomb at this kid's house. Oh, my God. So do we know, like, is. Is there a goal here other than just straight sadism?

[Lola Blanc]

Well, if you can get a kid to kill themselves, yeah, that seems to be the main goal because then you get kind of the, like, horrible person's Reddit star, you know, rating.

[Megan Elizabeth]

Ooh, yeah, yeah, yeah. Like, the goal is. Yeah. Oh, my God. That's like the final level. That's so crazy. That's so fucking crazy. Yeah, because, like, I feel like normally, like, I've seen it happen where someone online tries to solicit a nude and then tries to use it as a blackmail to get money.

[Lola Blanc]

Right.

[Megan Elizabeth]

And, like, money is a goal that, like, makes sense, at least if you're gonna be scamming people that way. But for this stuff, it's just straight.

[Lola Blanc]

Yes.

[Megan Elizabeth]

Cruelty, evil sadism. Like, I just, like, I can't. And for. And with children, like, I can't wrap

[Lola Blanc]

my head around it. This is like multiple people that I know now.

[Megan Elizabeth]

Really?

[Lola Blanc]

Yeah.

[Megan Elizabeth]

So I thought it was like, this, like, rare thing.

[Lola Blanc]

No.

[Megan Elizabeth]

Oh, my God.

[Lola Blanc]

I don't know. It's just. It's really bad.

[Megan Elizabeth]

So Awful.

[Lola Blanc]

Make sure to check on your kids when they're online. And I don't know. And maybe we can cut this out or maybe we can figure out how to say this correctly because, like, there is that fine line of normalizing. Like, hey, it's no big deal. It's just your body. Like, you don't have to kill yourself because that's kind of what pedophiles do. Like, you know, like, just show me your. Your body. It's no big deal. But also being like, hey, if you send a picture of your body, it.

[Megan Elizabeth]

It is still worth living. Your life will go on. It will be okay. Yeah, 100%.

[Lola Blanc]

I'm trying to find that middle ground up me. I'm trying to find it for. For the FBI, for them to tell kids.

[Megan Elizabeth]

No, it's true. Obviously, no one wants to normalize any of that, but also, like, if that happens, it's fine. Yeah.

[Lola Blanc]

It's like, my friend and I were talking. She's like, I've seen him naked since he was a baby. You don't have to kill yourself.

[Megan Elizabeth]

Oh, that's so sad.

[Lola Blanc]

Anyway, I guess what I was trying to say is that the FBI had to come to her house, talk to her about it. They're like. They're just very advanced. They have dead people's phone numbers. They're like, yeah, we track the number. It's like a.

[Megan Elizabeth]

So they don't know how to catch them. So they're evading justice.

[Lola Blanc]

Yes.

[Megan Elizabeth]

Wow.

[Lola Blanc]

Yes. They're like hackers, dude. And it's not even hard to be a hacker anymore.

[Megan Elizabeth]

Can we get vigilante hackers to take down those hackers? Like, where's Anonymous when you need them? It's so evil.

[Lola Blanc]

There's so many. There's so we need.

[Megan Elizabeth]

But they're obviously operating within a community.

[Lola Blanc]

Yes.

[Megan Elizabeth]

It's not. These aren't just random. Like, it's because they can go back to their friends in their community and be like, look at this fucking thing I did. So, like, obviously, whoever's leading those communities, which I know they've taken down a couple of them, but.

[Lola Blanc]

Yep. It's just interesting that the FBI has now started calling this a cult.

[Megan Elizabeth]

I mean, it makes sense.

[Lola Blanc]

Yeah, Absolutely.

[Megan Elizabeth]

Makes sense. What a. It's the most modern horror horror show. Yeah. Like, the most modern version of a. Of, like, the Manson Family or something. Like, It's. Yeah. Very 2026.

[Lola Blanc]

The cool thing about my friend is that she was able to convey to him, like, these images. Don't send them anymore. And, like, stop but it's okay. By the time I left, I was only there for a few days. They were, like, going to baseball games and.

[Megan Elizabeth]

Oh, good.

[Lola Blanc]

You know. So the son is seemingly handling it well. But I'm gonna check back in with them. Of course.

[Megan Elizabeth]

Yeah. But thank God.

[Lola Blanc]

Yeah, yeah, yeah. And thank God he wasn't, like, isolating with it and hiding it and.

[Megan Elizabeth]

Oh, my gosh.

[Lola Blanc]

You know? So. Yeah.

[Megan Elizabeth]

Few.

[Lola Blanc]

Few. So rumor has it you have a lighter cultiest thing today.

[Megan Elizabeth]

It's the opposite cultiest thing.

[Lola Blanc]

I think that's for the best.

[Megan Elizabeth]

That's really stupid.

[Lola Blanc]

Okay. All right.

[Megan Elizabeth]

I went to see a movie the other night. It's called Exit 8.

[Lola Blanc]

Cool.

[Megan Elizabeth]

It's a Japanese horror film, I guess is the genre kind of thriller, kind of horror based on a video game called Exit 8. None of this is relevant to what

[Lola Blanc]

I'm about to say. I think I know what you're gonna say, and I don't know how this.

[Megan Elizabeth]

It's not relevant, but it's a very tense movie. There was a moment in the movie where, like, things kind of were really quiet, and the whole theater was really quiet, and someone started cracking their knuckles really loudly.

[Lola Blanc]

Oh.

[Megan Elizabeth]

And I kind of, like, reacted verbally because I was like, ew.

[Lola Blanc]

Right?

[Megan Elizabeth]

And then another person started cracking their knuckles really loudly, and I'm, like, gasping. And then, like, three other people were, like, group thing. Well, I'm gonna start cracking. And then the person next to me starts cracking their neck and their back. And I cannot tell you in a horror movie where it's silent other than, like, I can't do it. My knuckles don't crack.

[Lola Blanc]

You don't like that sound?

[Megan Elizabeth]

Ew. No. It's disgusting.

[Lola Blanc]

I like it.

[Megan Elizabeth]

Will you do one for us right now?

[Lola Blanc]

I think I already.

[Megan Elizabeth]

You got them all out.

[Public Ad Announcer]

Ah, no.

[Megan Elizabeth]

You got them. So cute. But I was just, like, amazed. No. I've never witnessed anything like that, where something spreads in an audience like that. That something is obviously, like, kind of gross and weird, but everyone's like, I'm gonna make the squeamish people uncomfortable by also cracking.

[Lola Blanc]

My body definitely wasn't conscious for sure. They just were cracking their.

[Megan Elizabeth]

No, I mean, I was audibly gasping. Okay. And going, no, no. Oh, no.

[Lola Blanc]

You're just making me need to crack my back so badly.

[Megan Elizabeth]

It was a small enough theater that, like, everybody could hear. Like, everybody knew. It wasn't like, a. There's just no way. Wait, what is. What am I thinking of? Oh, like a yawn. It wasn't like a yawn. Like, it was like a chorus of cracking all at the same time.

[Lola Blanc]

Okay.

[Megan Elizabeth]

Really horrifying sound.

[Lola Blanc]

Okay. Okay.

[Megan Elizabeth]

Yeah. Anyway, I was like, wow, the instinct. If those people are all like, hey, they're being gross and it's making people feel weird, I'm gonna do it too.

[Lola Blanc]

I think. I think a crack is a yawn.

[Megan Elizabeth]

You think a crack is a yawn?

[Lola Blanc]

Yeah. And honestly, I think I miss my calling to be a chiropractor because I can crack people's necks.

[Megan Elizabeth]

Oh, my God.

[Lola Blanc]

Like, you've never, like, I can just look at somebody and be like, take their, like, head in my hands and just crack the shit out of their neck and.

[Megan Elizabeth]

Are you scared of, like, hurting someone? No.

[Lola Blanc]

And I used to do it when I was a drinker.

[Megan Elizabeth]

Oh, drunk Meghan, cracking your neck? No, thank you.

[Lola Blanc]

A story about me leaving the Black Cat in Silver Lake. I'd taken an Ambien while I was out drinking. There was eight men sitting on bar stools outside. I cracked all of their necks, got in an Uber and drove away. And my friends were like, are you guys okay? And they're like, honestly, it felt good.

[Megan Elizabeth]

That's amazing.

[Lola Blanc]

So I'm lucky I never got sued.

[Megan Elizabeth]

Weirdest.

[Lola Blanc]

Yeah. Yeah.

[Megan Elizabeth]

Interest and skill.

[Lola Blanc]

Yeah. Yeah.

[Megan Elizabeth]

I have no interest in that, nor do I have skill.

[Lola Blanc]

Well, we can't all be chiropractors. DL chiropractors.

[Megan Elizabeth]

That's so true.

[Lola Blanc]

Well, do you know who else?

[Megan Elizabeth]

Let's. Can't wait to hear where the sentence is going.

[Lola Blanc]

Do you know who else spreads news?

[Megan Elizabeth]

Wow. Pretty good. Who? Megan?

[Coldwater Creek Ad Announcer]

Matthew.

[Megan Elizabeth]

Wow. Maybe we should talk to him.

[Lola Blanc]

Let's do it.

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Support for the show comes from Public, the investing platform for those who take it seriously. On Public, you can build a multi asset portfolio of stocks, bonds, options, crypto, and now generated assets, which allow you to turn any idea into an investable index. With AI. It all starts with your prompt. From renewable energy companies with high free cash flow to semiconductor suppliers growing revenue over 20% year over year. You can literally type any prompt and put the AI to work. It screens thousands of stocks, builds a one of a kind index and lets you back test it against the S&P 500. Then you can invest in a few clicks. Generated assets are like ETFs with infinite possibilities, completely customizable and based on your thesis, not someone else's. Go to public.com podcast and earn an uncapped 1% bonus when you transfer your portfolio. That's public.com podcast paid for by Public Investing Brokerage Services. By open to the Public Investing Inc. Member FINRA and SIPC Advisory Services by Public Advisors, llc. SEC Registered Advisor Generated Assets is an interactive analysis tool. Output is for informational purposes only and is not an investment recommendation or advice. Complete disclosures available at public.com disclosures this

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[Matthew Remsky]

When I arrive at Endeavor Academy, talk about cult jumping. I would say that probably half of the participants, half of the members had come from other places. I was with Osho, like I was in iskcon. That didn't work out. I was in this place.

[Lola Blanc]

So they all had come from other,

[Matthew Remsky]

not all of them, but enough of them had. And the weirdest part was that that lent Endeavor Academy a certain kind of status. Like this is the cult at the end of the cult room, right? Like we've seen the other places and how they fuck up. But like this one, totally free, you know, we can do what we want. We're just, you know, so funny. And to be honest, while Charles Anderson, I believe, commanded everybody's time in ways that wasted a lot of labor hours and that he might have been personality disordered in terms of his narcissistic needs, I can't really say that this group was, you know, well, it wasn't a violent group, as I've said before, but there were a lot of benefits to participating in it. And you know, it started when I, when I was able to get over the resentment of the lost time and the endless demand for money and labor and resources and all of the disruptions to one's social life and to parenting and, you know, all kinds of things. I was able. It was really from that experience that I was able to understand that one of the things that cults will offer is a kind of ersatz socialism that is so attractive within our political economy, of course. And they set themselves apart from the regular world in a way that seems to be generous, that seems to be based on mutual aid, that seems to be based on the notion of the fraudulence of private property. And I think that's incredible. It's. That's not how it actually works out. That's not what's actually going on. But when I was able to reflect on that, I started to develop a political perspective on why I ended up there and what cults actually are and what kind of cultural work they perform.

[Megan Elizabeth]

Right. They're presenting as we share everything, but it's just the same as capitalism in that it's just a salt serving of people at the top who are in control of everything to begin with.

[Matthew Remsky]

Right. Yeah. But the recruitment process tells you otherwise in a very forceful way. You are free, and the world and your needs will be provided for.

[Lola Blanc]

Right.

[Matthew Remsky]

And the number of people who came into those groups who were in deep financial distress or, you know, who had been alienated from their families or who were situationally vulnerable in a bunch of different ways, there was a lot. Right. The thing about Michael Roach is that he wasn't that interested in those folks. Right. He was much more interested in sort of high value clients.

[Sophia Donner]

Yeah.

[Megan Elizabeth]

Russian oligarchs use it.

[Matthew Remsky]

Exactly, exactly. I mean, he made a big deal of like, you know, we're doing Dharma in Hell's Kitchen, but, like, you know, he wanted nice hotel rooms in Singapore more than anything else.

[Megan Elizabeth]

Right.

[Matthew Remsky]

Yeah.

[Megan Elizabeth]

So what was your, like, final disillusionment with this type of community? I mean, you. You end up practicing yoga very seriously for very. It's not like you left spirituality altogether.

[Matthew Remsky]

Yeah, well, I think I left Endeavor Academy at the same time that yoga was becoming a gig work phenomenon that was ideal for marginally employed and partially educated people like myself. So basically, it was like I had a bunch of new age spiritual, orientalist language and concepts on board that I could pretty easily inject into this physical practice in a performative way. And not that I didn't actually mean it, but I was actually good at, you know, I was good at presenting it. I was pretty successful as a teacher, but it was a Very natural, like, oh, I can do this for work.

[Megan Elizabeth]

Mm.

[Matthew Remsky]

And it is actually a bridge back into the quote, unquote, normal world through the Precariat. You know, it's not like having a profession that has institutional support and benefits and whatever, but it's a place to become part of society again. Like, you could actually work at a fitness club or you could.

[Megan Elizabeth]

Right?

[Matthew Remsky]

Yeah.

[Lola Blanc]

What prompted you to want to go back to normal society?

[Matthew Remsky]

I think that I had reached a point where I could see that the utopianism of Endeavor Academy was hollow, that I had enough objective material distance from it to be able to say, most of you who are here, and this includes me as well, are very broken people at the end of their rope with nothing else to do. And you are trying to survive on who gets the next set of credit cards. This is not sustainable. And when Charles Anderson dies, there's not gonna be anything here. So I could see that it was a failing kind of dream. And I think the moment which just haunts me to this day, that I realized that this was true for him. And I think you actually kind of unconsciously gave me a gift by showing me this is that every day after he gave his sermons, he would go up to his sort of green room in this old resort that we were using, and he would take private meetings, and if you got up there, you could get in line. Usually it was packed, but for whatever reason, one day I went up because I wanted to ask him a question, and there was nobody there. He was in his room. And it's in this old resort, so they're all hotel rooms. And so you come in the door.

[Lola Blanc]

Fascinating.

[Matthew Remsky]

Very poetic, too. Right? Like, almost like a. There's a movie about some weird hotel that's like this. It's a Coen Brothers movie. Do you know the one that I'm talking about?

[Megan Elizabeth]

Oh, Barton Fink.

[Matthew Remsky]

Yes. Anyway, it was abandoned. It was probably used by the mob in the 1930s or whatever. But you come in the door, and you turn to the right, and there's the ensuite bathroom. And he's in the bathroom. And I said, master, teacher, are you there? And he says, nothing. And I turn around the corner and I look, and he's standing at the mirror, looking at himself with this expression of utter self loathing, this expression of complete depression. Like, if his internal monologue was audible, it would be like, what the hell am I doing here? What am I doing with my life? Why am I doing this? Why am I doing this? He's looking at himself, and I said master teacher, can I talk with you? And then I watched him put his face back on. So he turned to me and he it's like he crusty the clown makeup, like googly eyes.

[Megan Elizabeth]

Wow.

[Matthew Remsky]

Like it was a crusty is good like because you know how he can like be collapsed and you know, have a cigarette hanging out of his mouth. But then like when he's on the tv, lights are on, he sort of brightens up. That's what it was like. It was that sharp. And I was like, oh, you don't believe what you're doing.

[Lola Blanc]

You're pretending.

[Matthew Remsky]

You're pretending. This is not true. This is not a thing.

[Megan Elizabeth]

Foreign

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[Lola Blanc]

I mean, what does the that feel like? That. Were you just shattered on the spot or did you try to.

[Matthew Remsky]

I was relieved, I think.

[Megan Elizabeth]

Really?

[Matthew Remsky]

I was relieved. Yeah. So I can't say that in either circumstance the disillusionment was. Was really shattering. Yeah, I was filled with resentments, but it wasn't like. And shame because, like, oh, I spent this much time doing this, but it's not like there wasn't a lot of relief as well.

[Lola Blanc]

That makes sense. Yeah.

[Megan Elizabeth]

And then you went on to construct an entire career out of talking about gurus.

[Matthew Remsky]

Yeah.

[Megan Elizabeth]

And power dynamics within communities. Bring us to your podcast. You guys cover so many people, groups, topics, conspiracies, like, such a wide range of stuff on the podcast.

[Matthew Remsky]

Yeah.

[Megan Elizabeth]

What patterns do you see emerging culturally right now? What are you finding alarming? Tell me your perspective as a fellow cult podcaster who's, you know, with slightly different perspective.

[Matthew Remsky]

Yeah, I mean, I think that in the first, like, I've been doing conspirituality for about six years with Derek and Julie and my colleagues. And I think that in the beginning we were similarly focused on the incredibly disruptive effect that this kind of wave of spiritual influencers and guru types were having on just the basics of public health communication during the first part of the pandemic. And so I think our first couple of, within our first couple of episodes, we were talking about the kind of conspirituality overtones within Mickey Willis's plandemic. We were talking about, you know, Kelly Brogan and her kind of Kundalini mysticism explaining, you know, why you shouldn't take vaccines. And we saw very clearly this intersection between alternative and high demand group based spirituality and a kind of political transgression that was very interesting. And we could see that it was also tracking towards the political right. We could also see that, you know, QAnon was infiltrating a lot of yoga and wellness spaces and becoming very current and very sort of monetizable as content.

[Lola Blanc]

Well, it was very surreal because these were the kind of people that I was good friends with. And it was like the pipeline from, you know, Kundalini Yoga to suddenly not trusting the government at all was a very quick slide for people and it was quite jarring.

[Matthew Remsky]

I think we had enough background between the three of us that we had a pretty good instinct about why that was happening. And that when we came across Charlotte Ward and David Voss's article from 2011 called Conspirituality, When Ward pointed out in particular, because Ward did most of the work on that paper, the backstory on her is that like she was actually a believer in this stuff. So that's a whole other thing. But yeah, it was very strange. But she pointed out that the sort of three pillars that Michael Barkun identifies as being central to conspiratorial thinking, that, you know, nothing is what it seems, everything has a purpose, everything is connected, and are actually axioms of New Age spirituality and thought and a lot of Eastern philosophy as well.

[Megan Elizabeth]

Interesting.

[Matthew Remsky]

So. So there's this sort of parallel. If you're, if you've built into your spiritual expectations these three axioms around like, you know, illusion and karma and, you know, interconnectedness, then it would be very easy for those under circumstances of political stress to just curdle into a kind of paranoia. And that's what we saw happen. But your question was like, having looked at that for so long, like what patterns are you most interested in or alarmed by? Is that on? Right. Is that correct?

[Megan Elizabeth]

Yeah, yeah.

[Matthew Remsky]

I mean, we have covered so many strange, irritating, corrosive, you know, grifting personalities that, you know, and I have a lot of sort of personal, visceral reactions to many of them. My pain points in particular have to do with, you know, spiritual influencers who, you know, monetize children's issues or maybe even their own children or they turn their, you know, super fertility free birth stuff into content that is, I don't know, resonating with trad wife ideals or whatever. So I have personal things. I also personally can't stand the satanic ritual abuse copy paste. Yeah, you know, process that, that gets transferred onto each new over and over, difficult to understand thing. So like, you know, this is not an appropriate literature to use when you're trying to understand the Epstein files. Right. Like that's, that's not going to help the victims of sex trafficking. This is just not an appropriate thing. So I do have these sort of personal alarm points. But I think at this point, and maybe this is, I don't know if this is me like moving beyond the material or just giving up or something. I think that it's really More interesting to me to look at the overall systems in which this material emerges. And in that case, the real sort of villains are the tech bros who wind up creating these ecosystems of gamified outrage and performativity in which misinformation is specifically made or it is incentivized and made sticky. And then there are these principles of audience capture and value capture that make a whole bunch of the worst aspects of charismatic bullshit just totally frictionless and easy to profit from. So I would say that the weirdos that I've spent a lot of time covering are fringe and minoritarian and that there's no bottom to where they go. I remember having, you know, about four years in this distinct feeling of like, do I really need to know what the next piece of bullshit Christiane Northrup is putting out is about? Is there anything at a certain point I can feel like I am kind of parasitizing a kind of outrage at a kind of.

[Megan Elizabeth]

At like the symptom.

[Matthew Remsky]

Yeah, at the symptom. And that's the best word, is that there's something that it's all coming out of. And that's where I just sort of step back and I have a much more political analysis with regard to individual figures, though I'm a lot more interested in the less weird people now. Like there are large scale, borderline grifter personalities, like for instance, Scott Galloway, who is extremely successful because he has many hallmarks of legitimacy. And if you look more carefully though, he is really offering a kind of content that is manosphere, light and gender essentializing. And it continues to be misogynistic. And he does it while convincing liberal parents that he has a vision for their wayward sons. And I think that type of stuff that has enormous reach, that gets onto CNN and that gets, you know, back slapped in major reviews, that's a lot more I. I would say culturally dangerous than the fringe material. At this point.

[Megan Elizabeth]

I feel like that I have like five questions at the same time. Let me try to pick one. Okay, so like, the three of you on the podcast, I think are doing a really excellent job at navigating some very amorphous cultural moments that are hard to parse, like what's real and what isn' and promoting a really healthy kind of critical thinking. You have a book coming out about being a father, anti fascist dad. Right, that's coming out soon, which is obviously like a slightly different topic. But I guess I just wonder, do you have thoughts on a framework for how to navigate this?

[Lola Blanc]

What's the answer?

[Megan Elizabeth]

Information landscape. I Mean, yeah, like, honestly, like it's so difficult. Incredibly intelligent people are just finding it impossible to figure out what's true and what isn't, which is making us all more vulnerable to people like this who are, I believe you're correct, symptoms of this greater thing. But like, what the fuck do we do?

[Matthew Remsky]

Yeah, okay, well, first of all, I'll say that I've taken on a second project because I think that for me anyway, to spend enough time recording symptoms had to bring me to some kind of diagnostic point.

[Lola Blanc]

Yes.

[Matthew Remsky]

And I can't see any of these dynamics evolving or developing or accelerating or becoming as impactful as they are without the sort of baseline crises of capitalism at play. My sense now is that as kind of mentioned before, cults are hyper concentrated forms of capitalism that disguise themselves as socialist projects. And that tells us something about who's attracted to them. It tells us something about why they persist. It tells us something about why it's so difficult to leave. Because if you have some kind of experience for 6 months that your needs are provided for and you're actually in a community that's supported and you know, believes in things like mutual aid, then you've never felt that before that, you know, that can be extremely attractive. And I also have really come to the conclusion that, you know, was first iterated by Marxists in the 1930s, that, that anti Semitism or forms of any form of conspiracism that we can point to is a kind of socialism of fools. That when people have to create a story for why they are immiserated, why their world is burning, why there's a genocide going on and they can't do anything about it, why they don't seem to have any voting power, why nothing seems to change and you know, your actions politically seem to be meaningless. When people realize that that is their condition, they are very vulnerable to being offered scapegoat answers.

[Lola Blanc]

Us versus them 101.

[Matthew Remsky]

And the conspiracy theory that scapegoats Jews or trans people or Muslims or people of color or queer people or whatever, these come to the foreground.

[Megan Elizabeth]

Or socialists. Yeah, yeah.

[Matthew Remsky]

Or socialists or communists.

[Megan Elizabeth]

Right.

[Matthew Remsky]

So I think, you know, just anti Semitism is a socialism of fools. Is the, is kind of like a guiding light for me that when I look at the content that we review for conspirituality, that's my lens now. It's like this weirdo is offering something, but what is it the wrong answer for? Because there's probably something about what they're saying about for profit medicine or you know, surveillance capitalism or border control, that makes some kind of sense with regard to being a working person who is just trying to make a living. And so, yeah, I just try to take that analytical frame and that's what brought me to. Okay. Also, I think we've crossed over through Trump's second election into a fully fascist era. And I don't think that sort of, for me, tracking the, I think tracking the daily devolution of institutions is very important. I think tracking how that's being carried out by fascist ghouls is really important, but that takes a lot of time. And I felt that especially because I'm a parent, I need to put my time into what is the history of anti fascism and what does it have to offer to this particular moment? So that's how I started. And so to speak to your question, I really tried to begin from what would I tell my now 13 year old and now 9 year old about what it will mean to grow up in a fascist era and what it will mean to grow up in the conditions of continuing and heightened capitalist crisis that even once, you know, Trump implodes and, you know, Gavin Newsom becomes president, are not really going to change that much. Right. Like, what am I going to say? And I think you're absolutely right that it begins with epistemology. And so the way I laid out this upcoming book is that, you know, the first thing I said was, you know, all of the things that I learned in these cults around self regulation and co regulation, around, you know, being able to do breathing practices or being able to find some sort of emotional peace or being able to meditate in some way, that those are really actually important starting points. You know, so, so I can't, I can't actually say that, that I, I, I regret anything because I feel like I got boot camp experience in a number of spiritual environments, you know, and a couple of them were really, really toxic. But that gave me the kind of starting point of what I would say to the, to the 12 year old, which is, which is, okay, you're not going to be able to think about this unless you can touch grass. And you're not going to be able to think about this unless you touch grass and unless you figure out who you can trust with regard to how you're looking at the world. And so what was cool was I was able to take kind of the media studies aspect of conspirituality and how misinformation is spread through sort of charismatic methods that are not guardrail, that are not fact checked, that are driven by the personalities of the presenters and to say, you know, these are the clear signs of bullshit that you can look for. And then there's a discussion of, well, how is actual knowledge created in a sort of horizontal and communal network. And from there, because my diagnosis for conspirituality is basically Marxist, the rest of the book is, well, the middle part of the book is let's figure out what is baking everybody's minds in this capitalist world and why it is so easy for people to feel exploited. And not just feel exploited, but actually be exploited.

[Lola Blanc]

Right.

[Matthew Remsky]

And for that to be the governing logic of the way we're organizing our lives. And then from there there's like, stuff on friendship, there's stuff on, you know, scapegoating various groups and why that happens. There's stuff on gender relations and you know, what it means to actually navigate your way through a hyper objectified and sexualized world. And. Yeah. And then there's stuff on spirituality in there as well.

[Megan Elizabeth]

That sounds awesome. I'm not a parent, but I hope to be at some point and I will read your book about being a dad either way.

[Matthew Remsky]

Yeah.

[Megan Elizabeth]

There's so much in what you just said. First of all. Yes. It frustrates me so much sometimes when I'm. We are identifying that there is a problem correctly, we are misattributing the source of the problem because when we attribute it to these, like, nefarious amorphous forces that have this, you know, power over all of us.

[Lola Blanc]

Invisible. Yeah.

[Megan Elizabeth]

Then. Then there's nothing we can do at all. But when we actually, like, look at the structures and look at the symptoms and assess, like, where those oppressions are coming from, where that inequality is coming from, who. Who is actually exploiting us, like, there are steps that we can take. You know, there are ways that we can engage politically and resist and whatever. And like, obviously the conspiracy theory stuff comes with so much hate and so much scapegoating and blaming, whatever. But also it's like, it's not actionable. It renders people to like, feeling powerless, alone in their rooms, just like scrolling on their phone, when there are actually, like, things that we could do together to build power.

[Lola Blanc]

Well, I think it's. I see a lot of people online being like, epstein was a vampire. And it's like, easier to think that than he's a man who's not that different from a lot of people. It's easier to say, you're a vampire

[Matthew Remsky]

and if it wasn't him, it would be somebody Else.

[Lola Blanc]

Exactly.

[Megan Elizabeth]

Yeah, yeah.

[Matthew Remsky]

That we actually live in a system that selects for apex predators. And why not? Right. Like, it's one of a number of scenarios that can emerge. And is there going to be any accountability? No. Is there going to be full reporting? No. Are we going to. Are the victims going to be compensated or even known or found? No. That is symbolic of peak capitalism. And it's not unique. Right. It's not out of the ordinary. And in a way, it's like the fascination with metaphysical explanations. Not only, as you say, both of you are saying this, I think you're quite right, that when you turn to metaphysics, you actually create an answer that you can't do anything about. But also, I think you lose contact with the building blocks of where Epstein gets to where he is. And that's in your everyday politics. It's on your city council, it's on the media that you put into the world. Yeah.

[Megan Elizabeth]

When we let politicians be put into office by billionaires, it creates a system where billionaires have all the power and not the people.

[Lola Blanc]

Yeah, yeah.

[Megan Elizabeth]

We're almost out of time. I feel like I could talk to you about so much. I wondered if we could quickly touch on again. We're just kind of going all over the place here. But you did go viral recently for your explainers on Cesar Chavez's ties to Synanon, and I would like to just briefly touch on that, if we can. For folks who don't know, Cesar Chavez was a very revered historical labor leader, really an icon of the left. And it has now come out that Dolores Huerta and other women were very severely abused by him. And it's been this, you know, a big blow to the left. And obviously, I mean, what I'm seeing on my end is complete denunciation of him. But you talk in your videos about the lessons that we can learn from this. And I. And I wondered if you could talk about that quickly.

[Matthew Remsky]

Well, first of all, I kind of made a white guy intervention into a very deep Mexican American cultural phenomenon that I'm not that familiar with. And I just want to acknowledge that. And I got some feedback. I got some criticism on that. I went forward with it because the New York Times article sort of had these three or four waving red flags that before the news cycle was going to close off on them. I wanted to point out, to say these are things that anybody doing social movement organizing can look out for. These are the clear sort of aspects of Chavez's charismatic authority. Here are the clear aspects of his usage of disorganized attachment to push and pull people towards him and away from him and punish them, but love them at the same time. And then there's this stunning moment in which it looks like he's applying kind of new age bodywork, healing stuff to a 13 year old girl who he then goes on to assault criminally. And so I wanted to flag these things because cult dynamics are just not about ideological content. They arise in all contexts. We have cults on the right wing of the political sphere. There's left wing political cults, there's psychotherapy cults, there's cults based on essential oils. And I just wanted the sort of, the very obvious generalizable details to be, to be clear. Now, Chavez is also very complicated because he actually had a number of racist ideas about immigrants coming over the border. He was viciously anti communist. He appropriated really the work of the Filipino workers who instituted the great boycott, which was actually his sort of first rise to prominence. Very complicated figure that people have complained about and criticized for a long time. But nonetheless, in general terms, he was identified as a leftist icon. And I thought it was important to show that it's really, really good for people who want to do any kind of social movement work to be able to identify and start to learn about cultic dynamics. Because they show up and they show up in soft ways, they show up in hard ways. I would say, like on the soft left or white feminist progressive side, there's a lot of kind of emotional coercion and you know, a kind of intensive, lucrative workshop economy that builds up around people like Robin d'. Angelo. On the hard left side, there are groups of, you know, legit Marxist Leninists who, they idealize the notion of the intellectual vanguard who will lead the workers towards revolutionary consciousness. But that really relies on this notion that a couple of people or maybe even one person would have some kind of mastery of Marxist theory when Marxism is actually really diverse. And then because it's also a utopian ideal that really, if you're gonna be in a, in a tendency like that, you really have to be careful because, you know, we're talking about a group that believes in a kind of utopianism that's going to be precipitated by a crisis. And the structure there is similar to apocalypticism. Right. Just full stop. Even though, even though, and this is to say nothing of the logic or the sensibility of Marxism, Leninism, just to leave that to the side, because I think they might actually technically be right about a number of things, but there's a lot of Pressures there that have to be dealt with really carefully. And I have not seen many people use the tools of cult theory to look at that material clearly. So one good thing about cultic dynamics as they emerge on the left is that at least sometimes to a fault, leftists can be obsessive about self criticism. And the notion of charismatic control and coercion has been an open struggle. Well documented by black feminists, for example, well documented within struggles within the Black Panther Party. There's a number of communities that have dealt with this quite directly. And it's not like anybody's come up with an answer, but at least it's not sort of taken as part of human nature and swept under the rug. But I would just say that the world is on fire and we need people to be in social movements and movements for economic and environmental renewal that are robust, that are horizontally organized, that are democratic, and we can't afford for the problems that arise when we treat each other like shit. And so if we have some tools to figure out how to prevent that from happening, then we really have to take advantage of them because, you know, otherwise the glue that fascists have is a lot stronger than, you know, than the left's ability to survive its own cultic problems.

[Megan Elizabeth]

Right, right. It comes back to something that we've been saying from the very beginning, which is that all people are susceptible to cults. Yeah, all ideology, all religion, all frameworks, like all of these things can become cultic. And it is our responsibility to be mindful about those dynamics when we do enter community spaces so that if it starts happening, we catch it instead of letting it run rampant and evolve into 12 other offshoot cult scene, as tends to happen? I wish we had more time. Maybe we can have you on again anytime. Is there anything you would like to conclude with or anything we didn't hit on that seems important?

[Matthew Remsky]

I would just say that, just going back to the beginning of the conversation, that I believe that people who have had intense but perhaps conflictual experiences in religions and spiritual communities, everybody will heal and find recovery resources in their own ways. There's a lot of, of luck and chance involved with that. But I want people to be aware that within religious traditions there is always a radical flank. You know, we have plenty of examples of Christians who have aided and abetted fascism or they've been, you know, squishy liberals. But then we have lots of Christian traditions that are anti fascist or revolutionary or that have been central to the attainment of civil rights. We have the same thing happening in Judaism we have an Islamic socialist tradition. I would just say that because of the work that I've done over the last six years, I think that I have contributed, unfortunately, to a general perception that religion and spirituality is kind of hopelessly conflicted and dysfunctional, or it will generally lead towards bad places. And I want to say that that's just not necessarily so. That what I've come to study and believe and understand, even though I've had so many negative experiences in spirituality, is that spirituality and religion are downstream of material conditions. And so that means it's just like politics, whatever the material conditions are. You're going to have people who worship in ways that support power, worship in ways that make apologies for power, and worship in ways that resist power. And you can find people in that third group. So if you feel like you have been cut off from some sort of religious impulse or intuition, if you're missing something, if you feel that you have lost some sort of connection, that you mourn, you might find it again. Right. And the example from my life is that, you know, the Catholic Church is a shit show of imperialism, colonialism, fascist apologies, fascist enablement, and it's also the home of liberation theology. And it's kind of like the Democratic Party that way.

[Megan Elizabeth]

Right.

[Matthew Remsky]

Like, it is Gavin Newsom to The intern in AOC's office who's doing the most radical thing in the party. Right. And so just don't paint everything with the same brush, especially if you feel that locks you out of a part of yourself that you want to get back.

[Megan Elizabeth]

I love that so much. It gave me chills. Thank you. I tend to get black and white about these things as well. And it is nice to remember that there is room, there is a place for you to still have connection to your spiritual life without it becoming some abusive situation. So thank you.

[Lola Blanc]

I appreciate it.

[Matthew Remsky]

Yeah, you're welcome.

[Megan Elizabeth]

Yeah, exactly. And thanks for joining us. This has been so awesome.

[Matthew Remsky]

Yeah.

[Lola Blanc]

Where do people find you?

[Matthew Remsky]

I am on Blue sky under my name. I'm under my name at Instagram, where I try to do a reel every day. I'm on TikTok NTIFascistDad. I'm on YouTube @AntifascistDad. If you just Google my name, you'll come up with a substack. And the books that I've done and stuff like that. My book is coming out on April 26th. It's called Antifascist Urgent Conversations with Young People in Chaotic Times. And I'm really grateful to my publishers at North Atlantic Books for supporting that. And yeah, I'm around. I try to answer all of my communications.

[Megan Elizabeth]

Awesome.

[Lola Blanc]

Perfect. Thank you.

[Megan Elizabeth]

All right, that is all we have with Matthew Remsky. And I did already ask Megan the question last week, so I think, I think we all know.

[Lola Blanc]

Would I join Michael's cult? Was last week's question.

[Megan Elizabeth]

And there was a second guru, this Would you also join the second guru's cult?

[Lola Blanc]

Probably.

[Megan Elizabeth]

Yeah.

[Lola Blanc]

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[Megan Elizabeth]

All right, well everybody listen to Matthew's podcast, Conspirituality. Go get his new book, Anti Fascist dad and Absolutely.

[Lola Blanc]

And listen to us. Right in touch. Stars. Come back next week and as always, remember to follow your gut. Watch out for red flags and never ever trust me.

[Megan Elizabeth]

Bye. Bye. This has been an exactly right production.

[Lola Blanc]

Hosted by me, Lola Blanc and me, Megan Elizabeth. Our senior producer is Ji Ha Lee.

[Megan Elizabeth]

This episode was mixed by John Bradley.

[Lola Blanc]

Our associate producer is Christina Chamberlain and our guest booker is Patrick Cotner.

[Megan Elizabeth]

Our theme song was composed by Holly Amber Church.

[Lola Blanc]

Trust Me is executive produced by Karen Kilgarith, Georgia Hardstark and Danielle Kramer.

[Megan Elizabeth]

You can find us on Instagram USTME podcast or on TikTok usmeculpodcast site your

[Lola Blanc]

own story about cults, extreme belief or manipulation. Shoot us an [e-mail] Listen to Trust

[Megan Elizabeth]

Me on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts.

[Sophia Donner]

This is Sophia Donner from OK Storytime this summer. Find your next obsession on Prime Video and listen. We're not saying you need another obsession, but there could be a lot worse than ones. Steamy romance, addictive love stories and the book to screen favorites you've already read twice. So why not watch them a third time off campus? Elle, the Love Hypothesis and more Slow Burns Second chances chemistry you can feel through the screen and it makes you wish you were actually in that movie. We've got binge worthy series can't miss movies perfect for when you're ignoring your own problems or procrastinating as one does. Your next obsession is waiting. Watch only on Prime.

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Reynolds here from Mint Mobile with a message for everyone paying big wireless way too much. Please, for the love of everything good in this world, stop with Mint. You can get premium wireless for just $15 a month. Of course, if you enjoy overpaying. No judgments. But that's weird. Okay, one judgment anyway, give it a [e-mail] Switch upfront payment of $45 for

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three month plan equivalent to $15 per month required intro rate first three months only, then full price plan options available, taxes and fees extra.

[Megan Elizabeth]

See full [e-mail].