47: Is An Ethical Cult Possible? (w/ Jamie Wheal)

Bonus Sample: Vanillaroma

We don’t get “well” until everyone has an opportunity to tap into the resources needed to live. This week, Derek reads a 2006 essay from one of his closest friends, Dax-Devlon Ross, about being pulled over twice in the same stretch of NJ highway in a manner of minutes—all due to an air freshener dangling from his rearview mirror.

47: Is An Ethical Cult Possible? (w/ Jamie Wheal)

How do we tease apart the gold from the dross? What can be salvaged from a subculture marred by charismatic con-artistry, power abuses, and the toxic ingredients that lead to conspirituality? Founder of the Flow Genome Project, Jamie Wheal joins Derek for a wide-ranging interview about his new book, Recapture the Rapture. Following up on his Pulitzer-nominated bestseller, Stealing Fire, Wheal makes an ambitious argument for a dazzling renewal of meaning and mystery through sacralized biohacking. Rapture can be recaptured, Wheal argues, through awe-thumping music, blessed sex, moderate psychedelic use, and conscious community, or as he puts it “ethical cults.” After the interview, we’ll discuss. In the Jab, Julian looks at clotting issues and emerging reports of vaccine impacts on women. In the Ticker, Matthew reviews the NY Times investigation of Alan Hofstetter’s wife and her January 6th adventure. Derek covers conspiritualism in fitness bro culture while Julian reports on Christiane Northrup’s latest junk science infomercial. 02:06 Ticker 31:36 The Jab 36:49 Interview with Jamie Wheal 1:56:32 Interview Discussion All music byEarthRise SoundSystem [https://open.spotify.com/artist/5UeZCWSQYhQZwLM4tZxyrf?si=ABgWllLRR86WaHE-J13UVw] Support Conspirituality on Patreon [https://www.patreon.com/conspirituality] SHOW NOTES New Jersey gym owners offer free membership [https://thehill.com/homenews/state-watch/545032-new-jersey-gym-owner-offers-free-membership-to-those-who-dont-get-covid] to those who don’t get COVID-19 vaccine What We Know About Ian Smith, the New Jersey Gym Owner [https://lawandcrime.com/covid-19-pandemic/what-we-know-about-the-new-jersey-gym-owner-defying-n-j-gov-phil-murphys-executive-orders/] Defying Gov. Phil Murphy’s Executive Orders Anti-mask gym fined [https://www.castanet.net/news/Kelowna/330846/Kelowna-gym-refusing-masks-and-vaccinated-patronsF5Ka8] Fitness centers are struggling to rebound [https://www.axios.com/fitness-centers-gyms-covid-a862f793-ec1c-4ef1-a89b-c440a6837616.html?fbclid=IwAR3nvU3VemjgQWwHL1FOXVV76uZQBf7LBtYm84XHG9ITWwJo1X8PvAqUWK0] from the pandemic A Teacher Marched to the Capitol. When She Got Home, the Fight Began. [https://www.nytimes.com/2021/04/10/us/politics/kristine-hostetter-capitol.html] White women’s role in white supremacy, explained [https://www.vox.com/2021/1/15/22231079/capitol-riot-women-qanon-white-supremacy] Recapture the Rapture [https://www.flowgenomeproject.com/recapture-the-rapture-book] — Jamie Wheal Cult Dynamics 101: a primer [https://conspirituality.net/cult-dynamics-101/] Hypnotic Da Free John — Svengali of the truth-seeking set [https://culteducation.com/group/802-adida/72-hypnotic-da-free-john-svengali-of-the-truth-seeking-set.html] (San Francisco Examiner, 1985) Guru hit by sex-slave suit [https://culteducation.com/group/802-adida/75-guru-hit-by-sex-slave-suit.html] (San Francisco Examiner, 1985) Original Oregonian investigation [https://www.oregonlive.com/pacific-northwest-news/2018/03/read_the_oregonians_original_2.html] into Osho and Rajneeshpuram

Bonus Sample: Gaia & The Map to Nowhere

With over a half-million paying subscribers, Gaia is the world’s largest spiritual media streaming service. Have they have played a role in redpilling the Q-Age demographic? With a little help from Ken Wilber, Lewis Carrol, Jorge Luis Borges, and Jean Baudrillard, Julian maps out their landscape of ascension narratives, UFOs, cryptozoology, conspiracy theories, channelers, and yoga classes. He also tells the story of being part of the early LOHAS social media website they gobbled up in 2007.

46: Back to the Vax (w/Lydia Greene & Heather Simpson)

Our EP10 guest, Center for Countering Digital Hate founder, Imran Ahmed, has been bringing the heat. His “Disinformation Dozen” white paper made a huge splash, prompting a conference call with Nancy Pelosi’s team ahead of their biannual grilling of Zuckerberg and Dorsey. Ahmed’s paper spotlights the fact that 65% of anti-vax content originates from just 12 social media figures. Conspirituality superstars Sayer Ji, Kelly Brogan, and Christiane Northrup hold positions 8, 9, and 10. Ahmed wants them deplatformed—and he’s making it happen. In response, the Dozen are raising money and having themselves caricatured as superheroes. Who have they been deceiving and emotionally abusing? This week Matthew interviews Heather Simpson and Lydia Greene from Back to the Vax, an anti-disinformation think-tank they founded after fleeing the online cult of anti-vax propaganda. In their first interview together, Simpson and Greene recount how mother-centered anti-vax social media spaces drew them in and exposed them to all manner of anxious conspiracism—and what it cost them to leave. They’ve got a very clear message about how public health communications can meet this entrenched challenge. In the Ticker, Julian tracks the Dozen’s emerging strategy, Derek finally addresses the English elephant in the room, Russell Brand, and Matthew takes an early look at the big reveal of Cullen Hoback’s Q: Into the Storm on HBO. 02:43 Ticker 1:12:54 The Jab 1:18:18 Interview with Lydia Greene & Heather Simpson All music byEarthRise SoundSystem [https://open.spotify.com/artist/5UeZCWSQYhQZwLM4tZxyrf?si=ABgWllLRR86WaHE-J13UVw] Support Conspirituality on Patreon [https://www.patreon.com/conspirituality] SHOW NOTES What “Causes” Covid? The Virus or The System [https://www.instagram.com/p/CNVWqZfF2hI/]? Decoding the Gurus: Russell Brand: Spiritual Transcendence and Anarchic Revolution is Praxis [https://decoding-the-gurus.captivate.fm/episode/russell-brand-spiritual-transcendence-and-anarchic-revolution-is-praxis] Mike Rothschild [https://twitter.com/rothschildmd/status/1378951237027000322?s=20] on Hoback’s Q: Into the Storm Episode 136: Into The Storm feat Cullen Hoback by QAnon Anonymous [https://soundcloud.com/qanonanonymous/episode-136-into-the-storm-feat-cullen-hoback] I’m Cullen Hoback, the guy who made that QAnon series on HBO Max. AMA! : television [https://www.reddit.com/r/television/comments/mkr4qm/im_cullen_hoback_the_guy_who_made_that_qanon/] Rothschild on the HBO reveal: Ron Watkins QAnon: The Truth Has Always Been There [https://www.dailydot.com/debug/qanon-documentary-ron-watkins/] Back to the Vax [https://backtothevax.com/] Lydia on NPR: She Resisted Getting Her Kids The Usual Vaccines. Then The Pandemic Hit [https://www.npr.org/2021/01/22/956935520/she-resisted-getting-her-kids-the-usual-vaccines-then-the-pandemic-hit] Heather on CNN: Why this former anti-vaxx influencer is getting the Covid vaccine [https://www.cnn.com/videos/business/2021/03/26/anti-vaccine-mother-covid-19-misinformation-orig.cnn-business]

Bonus Sample: Pray & Work

Matthew offers a meditation on Brandolini’s Law — “the amount of energy needed to refute bullshit is an order of magnitude bigger than to produce it” — and accepting the hopelessness of altruistic reporting, whether on disinformation or climate change. With a haunting clip from ex-journalist Dahr Jamail. Also: a memory of visiting a Benedictine monastery, where there were no screens, and where the ancient rule understood that because work is never done, it only becomes sustainable through contemplating time itself. SHOW NOTES Primer [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hSyQ25UJ-FA] on Extra Corporeal Membrane Oxygenation (ECMO) Brandolini’s Law [https://twitter.com/ziobrando/status/289635060758507521] Cuomo covers up [https://www.nytimes.com/article/andrew-cuomo-nursing-home-deaths.html] nursing home deaths Sexual harassment allegations [https://www.nytimes.com/article/cuomo-sexual-harassment-nursing-homes-covid-19.html] against Cuomo Dahr Jamail and Barbara Cecil [https://soundcloud.com/lastborninthewilderness/cecil-jamail] on Last Born in the Wilderness Abbaye [https://www.abbaye.ca/en/] de Saint-Benoît-du-Lac