Conspirituality

On Monday, May 29, Danielle Smith, the leader of the UCP of Alberta, seized the reigns of majority government power with the help of a right-wing antivax group called Take Back Alberta. Jeremy Appel, founder of The Orchard, joins Matthew for a masterclass on how things got so bad in Alberta, and how conspirituality played a key role.Show NotesThe Orchard — Jeremy Appel Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Medical Medium, aka Anthony William, gained many of his 4.4M IG followers thanks to his declaration that celery juice can heal you from many ailments that science hasn’t figured out. William proudly displays his numerous celebrity endorsements and hundreds of anecdotal healing stories on his library-esque website. Yet when one reporter—Vanity Fair’s Dan Adler—had the audacity to report on one now-deceased confidante of William, the self-proclaimed medium went on the defense, releasing a four-part podcast series and posting on social media in a frenzy about how there’s a plot to “take down Medical Medium.”Yes, William speaks of himself often in the third person, and wears his lack of any medical training whatsoever as a badge of honor. Today, we look at some of the most outrageous claims that he’s made and discuss the rhetorical techniques that have made him an alt-health celebrity. We’re also joined by Dan Adler to discuss his in-depth reporting on the man who claims angels give him medical advice decades ahead of modern science—and somehow gets away with it.Show NotesThe Medical Medium and the True BelieverMedical Medium SurvivorsMedical Medium: Miracle Healer or Quack? (The Celery Juice Guy)Why Is Everyone Drinking Celery Juice as if It Will Save Them From Dying?The Truth About The Celery Juice CrazeEveryone Is Drinking Celery Juice — But Is It Healthy? We Dive Into The Science Behind The TrendAlex Ebert on ConspiritualityMatthew’s reply to AlexAlex’s follow-up Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Marianne Williamson—New Age matriarch and popularizer of A Course in Miracles—is polling at 9%. Muscular Catholic antivax entrepreneur Bobby Kennedy Jr is polling at 20% or more: Rasmussen has him in a dead heat with Biden. And Mr. “Coronavirus is a Coronation for all,” Charles Eisenstein, has just disclosed that he’s working on Bobby’s campaign as Director of Messaging. Holy shit.It’s like our book is so accurate that Steve Bannon fed a digital ARC into a LLM to spit out AIs of all the characters in it so he could play them like chess pieces across the 2024 electoral map.Matthew and Julian take stock of this new stage: the routinization and institutionalization of conspirituality.Show notes available on Patreon. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Another Kennedy is running for President. But discussion of his anti-vaccine activism often overlooks how it affects people with autism. Julian talks to Eric Michael Garcia, political correspondent for The Independent, and author of We're Not Broken: Changing The Autism Conversation, about the human cost.Show NotesWe’re Not Broken: Changing the Autism Conversation — Eric Garcia Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

What "really" happened during the pandemic? Conspiracists have decided to take a victory lap. They were right, you see? The vaccines failed, and besides, they were super dangerous. COVID obviously came out of a lab. Masks were useless, and the lock-downs were completely unnecessary forms of totalitarian oppression. The authors of the Great Barrington Declaration, who were censored on social media, were right all along.Not so fast.Our guest today is Dr. Jonathan Howard, who not only did grueling service at Bellevue Hospital in NYC (as the first wave raged, and corpses were stacked in meat trucks) but has put in the time to create a comprehensive document of how contrarian doctors shaped cultural perceptions during the pandemic. He takes the title of his new book, We Want Them Infected, from a quote found in a series of emails from July 2020.Trump-appointed science-advisor to the HHS, Paul Alexander, urged officials there and at the FDA, and the CDC, to pursue a herd immunity strategy for COVID-19. "There is no other way," he wrote. "We need to establish herd, and it only comes about when we allow non-high-risk groups to expose themselves to the virus. PERIOD. Infants, kids, teens, young people, middle-aged with no conditions have zero to little risk. So we use them to develop herd. We want them infected." Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

In 1970, farmer, writer, and environmental activist Wendell Berry published his essay, "Think Little." In it, he writes about the dangers of not making your public causes private causes as well, depending too much on outside organizations to make decisions, and—this is key—of how autonomy should lead to the greater good and the recognition of interdependence.Many of these messages resonate in the conspirituality world. Derek frames the essay before reading it in full.Show NotesThe World-Ending Fire — Wendell Berry Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

In the post-truth world, journalists who report facts are disparaged as perpetuating the narrative while candidates who hold the appropriate qualifications are smeared as deep state operatives. Likewise, a career spent studying terrorism, online conspiracy theories, and digital propaganda becomes "evidence" of opposing free speech and the American way.Our guest today became the "main character" on Twitter in April, subject to information requests from Congress and labeled the "leader of the Censorship Industrial Complex" from her perch at the center of a conspiracy web in which Big Tech, government intelligence agencies, and woke university think tanks secretly silenced free speech online.Her name is Renée DiResta, and Julian talks to her about her extensive study of online propaganda. She tells us about the unfolding digital information crisis, of which the Twitter Files is just be the most recent example. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

What the hell happened between the Dalai Lama and that Indian boy? The internet served up a raft of painfully inflammatory takes, so I took a month to talk with Tibetologists and review the literature on sexual abuse in Tibetan Buddhist contexts. This is a deep, tangled dive. Content warnings apply. Chapters: Why cover this, and why now? Summary The Clip Virality Two Orientalisms Outrages and Pilled Mindset What do Tibetans and their allies say? Kazi Adi Shakti, Thi Nguyen, Becca Williams Full Show Notes on Patreon Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

We've seen it over and over again: somehow, in some way, globalists are involved. George Soros is pulling the strings. Jews will replace us, with other minorities, or fund the interests that are against "us."Derek talks with The Banter founder, Ben Cohen, about the modern state of antisemitism. They also discuss Russell Brand's meteoric rise into right-wing celebrity, as well as Aubrey Marcus's uninformed takes on vaccines and politics.Show NotesThe Banter Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Did you know that it’s not the sun that causes cancer, but sunscreen? Or that sunscreen is actually a Big Pharma creation to keep you from receiving the sun’s magical healing properties? How about the fact that sunscreen molecules can be found in your brain 10 years after application? And don’t even get me started on the life-changing effects of exposing your asshole to direct sunshine. Ok, I promise that’s the last time I’m going to mention asshole sunning during this episode. As for the rest of those equally-absurd claims, I’ll be talking to cosmetic chemist, Michelle Wong, aka Lab Muffin Beauty Science, to dispose of the gibberish and give me a serious 101 on sunscreen. Before that, I’ll be talking to disinformation analyst Sara Aniano about the connection between the anti-sunscreen movement and antisemitism—because yes, that’s a thing, too.Show NotesSara Aniano on TwitterMichelle Wong on Instagram | TikTok Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices