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A weekly study of converging right-wing conspiracy theories and faux-progressive wellness utopianism. At best, the conspirituality movement attacks public health efforts in times of crisis. At worst, it fronts and recruits for the fever-dream of QAnon. As the alt-right and New Age horseshoe toward each other in a blur of disinformation, clear discourse and good intentions get smothered. Charismatic influencers exploit their followers by co-opting conspiracy theories on a spectrum of intensit ...
We all would like to think that we're immune to being persuaded, but were that true, advertising wouldn't work, the best candidates would always get elected, and our personal relationships would always be equitable. On Belief examines why, with so much information available to us to dissuade us from joining harmful groups. I ask people who have had first hand experience with harmful groups and sects how they were seduced, how they were tricked, and how they got out.
Embodiment Time is a podcast hosted by Magdalena Weinstein, and dedicated to the evolution of yoga, movement and somatic practices, interviewing a wide variety of contemporary yoga teachers, movement specialists, brain based trainers, coaches and other educators of embodiment practices like Yoga Nidra, Somatic Experiencing and Body work. The time for embodiment is now.
Explore the esoteric! Join Troy the Devil-Man as he interviews fascinating guests for thought-provoking discussions on topics from all corners of Western esotericism and the occult.The Scholomance Project strives to aid students of the occult arts in their exploration of Western esotericism. Experience and learn from some of the great minds in occultism. The broad range of topics examined will engage aspirants at all levels of attainment, whether newly curious or a dedicated practitioner. No ...
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Conspirituality
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Bonus Sample: Yoga & the Body in Time (Pt 2)
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As the crew is in the final stages of submitting their forthcoming book, Julian and Derek reflect on how yoga has evolved in their personal lives. In Part 2, they talk about yoga in aging bodies, the pursuit of philosophy, and leaving the damn cell phone out of yoga studios.By Derek Beres, Matthew Remski, Julian Walker
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Conspirituality
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103: Roe Against the Machine (w/Kiera Butler)
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Since day one, we've been covering medical disinformation on this podcast, always wondering where it would move next. Our collective breaths were stolen when learning about the seemingly inevitable overturning of Roe v Wade last week—and the extensive implications that could have for American society. Mother Jones senior editor, Kiera Butler, has b…
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Conspirituality
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Bonus Sample: Yoga & the Body in Time (Pt 1)
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As the crew is in the final stages of submitting their forthcoming book, Julian and Derek reflect on how yoga has evolved in their personal lives. In Part 1, they discuss the origins of their yoga practices, what led them to teaching, and some ideas about yoga philosophy in general.By Derek Beres, Matthew Remski, Julian Walker
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Conspirituality
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102: Conspirituality, Cancer, & Compassion (w/ Gavin Ryan)
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After we published episode 98 on “Placebo Joe” Dispenza, an Australian artist named Gavin Ryan posted a comment to Facebook in response: “My wife was full of this stuff, when she stopped taking all the treatments that had finally turned her breast cancer around, right up to the day she died of it. Still fully convinced she was going to heal herself…
Manifestation workshops. MLM downlines. The supplement grift. Cash is king everywhere in the conspirituality sphere, even—especially—when disguised in the jargon of spiritual-ese. Derek and Julian step back and discuss the cash grab impulse, as well as talk about their own feelings on money and its value.…
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Conspirituality
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101: Eugenic Pandemic (w/ Beatrice Adler-Bolton)
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In this conversation, Beatrice Adler-Bolton—disability justice advocate and co-host of Death Panel Podcast—says something twice: "Under capitalism, you’re only entitled to the survival you can buy." Her forthcoming co-authored book is called, provocatively, Health Communism. Part of its argument is that we have to imagine a society in which everyon…
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Conspirituality
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Bonus Sample: Taking the Con Out of Spirituality
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Derek and Julian discuss the literary influences and yogic practices that led them to yoga in the first place, while also discussing what spirituality in a post-pandemic world could look like.By Derek Beres, Matthew Remski, Julian Walker
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Conspirituality
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100: State of Disinformation (w/Imran Ahmed)
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In July 2020, just as we were finding our sea legs with this podcast, Imran Ahmed joined to discuss the state of disinformation occurring around the world. As the founder of the UK’s Center for Countering Digital Hate, he had just produced a report that found anti-vax organizations were reaching 58 million people on social media—and this was well b…
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Conspirituality
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Bonus Sample: Zach Bush and the Holy Sardines
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The Sermon of the Sardines is etched into our very souls. Picture the scene, as dreamboat doctor Zach Bush recounts his shimmering story of swimming off the coast of Tulum with thousands of tiny heroic fish, for Rich Roll’s Tuscany retreat participants. In this week’s Bonus episode Matthew and Julian connect the dots between Zach’s quivering amphib…
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Conspirituality
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99: Conspirituality Goes to Therapy (w/ Rachel Bernstein)
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Listeners: there’s a revolution going on. Legions of Twitter counselors and Instagram therapists has risen up to offer unsolicited sermons on cults, cult leaders, and cult recovery. With COVID closing down the studios, every third yoga teacher has become an expert in trauma. They’re starting Facebook groups. They’re selling courses. They’re doing t…
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Conspirituality
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Bonus Sample: Watch What They Say, Watch What They Sell
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Since early on in this conspirituality experiment, Derek has been using the catchphrase that is the title of this week's bonus episode. Julian joins in to discuss exactly what the phrase means in the landscape of conspiritualists, who the most egregious offenders are, and the origin story of the term. If you think your coffee is moldy or those glas…
If you get treated by someone who says they’re a doctor, but they’re not, can they still have a placebo effect? That’s the question we’d like to ask Dr. Joe Dispenza, who’s not a doctor, but who plays one on the internet, treating one and all with the placebo of his bafflegab about Quantum healing and TimeSpace. Placebo Joe. Who is he? How do you t…
Matthew and Julian draw back the curtain to take you behind the scenes of the book-writing process. They step back to consider the pantheon of conspiritualists we’ve covered over the last two years; the kaleidoscope of themes they represent, and the key moments they’ve had on the big cultural stage as the pandemic has unfolded. Who among them is wo…
This week we’re “just asking questions.” You probably recognize that quip from Joe Rogan, of course, but today’s focus is another actor and comedian turned popular podcaster, Russell Brand. As with Rogan, who he recently said he loved being compared to, Brand is amassing an increasingly large following—trust us, he’ll remind you of that number at t…
Hey everyone... Matthew and Julian here with a more relaxed format. We'll be periodically checking in on feedback going forward, starting with a look at some shade thrown by Lissa Rankin at the pod. We're not entirely buying what she's selling, but it does give us pause to reflect on communication styles, satire, and empathy. Here's what Rankin had…
You might have heard some revolutionary news: germs don’t exist. Ok, they exist, but they only make you sick after you ruin your relationship with your environment—the terrain. Actually, the idea isn’t new. Initially floated in the 19th century, terrain theory was never proven in real-world experiments, and so fell dormant—until now. As with many t…
The world's top life coach has a new book, Life Force. Seemingly bulletproof to criticism due to connections in high places (and a litigious legal team), Tony Robbins's new book is a perfect example of the conspiritualist grift: mix science with sciencey sentiment and package it in a shiny revolutionary marketing package that promises much and deli…
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Conspirituality
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95: Aleksandr Dugin: Kali Yuga Chess
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The mystical politics of Aleksandr Dugin, the mercurial philosopher and geopolitical strategist hovering behind Vladimir Putin, is front and center this week. Last week, we covered the phenomenon of Western conspiritualists folding the Russian invasion of Ukraine into their fact-free claims about what's really going on. It turns out that once you'r…
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Conspirituality
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Bonus Sample: Conspirituality Timeline Stories (pt 1)
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Matthew brushes off and polishes stories and analyses we’ve only had the time to glance at in various episodes. A second or even 3rd instalment may be forthcoming. Presented in chronological order, dating from a year before the WHO declared the pandemic, up to just after they did. March, 2019: How JZ Knight, aka Ramtha, began forging alliances with…
After two years of being lied to about COVID, are you really going to believe the mainstream media about what’s happening in Ukraine? Didn’t you know that Ukraine is a child-trafficking hub? That it’s full of US-funded bioweapons labs? Do you really think Putin is evil, or do you just think what you’re told to think? Look at you, with your all-new,…
Professor Harbinger has been a student of occultism for more than 25 years. He blends a passion for gaming, popular culture, and graphic novels with a lifetime interest in esotericism. I find his particular viewpoints and original works to be quite innovative and highly recommend his website. Check out Professor Harbinger’s School for Villians at p…
Matthew takes a break from the news to expand on the possible origins of conspirituality—as being related to intergenerational trauma. What is conspirituality, if not the mobilization of forced, fragile, and ultimately empty spiritual aspirations, made to temper hypervigilance? It's also just a relief and a pleasure to spend time away from the feed…
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93: Roganomics (w/Daniel Latorre & Jessica Malaty Rivera)
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A few weeks ago, you couldn’t turn to a social media platform without seeing that Joe Rogan was trending. The diversity of topics boggled the mind: COVID disinformation; misogyny, pseudoscience; transphobia; and, of course, racism, thanks to the infamous N-word mixtape. Then a parallel argument came through: fair pay for musicians on Spotify. Given…
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The Scholomance Project
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Entheogens in Religious History with Chris Bennett
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Chris Bennett has been researching the historical role of cannabis in the spiritual life of humanity for more than three decades. His the author or co-author of four books including Liber 420: Cannabis, Magickal Herbs and the Occult (2018). Bennett’s research has received international attention from the BBC, The Guardian, Sunday Times, Washington …
The Left-Right political spectrum doesn't really capture the breadth of political sentiment in America. Derek looks at a 2021 study by Pew Research on political typologies—as well as Jean-Pierre Faye's horseshoe theory—to better understand the multivariate dynamics at play, as well as its implications for democracy in America moving forward. Show N…
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92: The Quiet Part, Loud (w/Sara Aniano and dappergander)
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"Freedom Convoy" leader, Pat King, recently live-streamed his arrest on Facebook. His racist public incitements to violence belie claims that the convoy was non-partisan and peaceful. As with other conspiracy-based events, inner circle communications and public relations messaging prove to be contradictory. From RFK Jr appearing at a Far Right rall…
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On Belief: A Podcast About Cults
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Episode 318: Neurodiversity and Cults
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In this episode, we discuss: Why she found herself in a high demand group How she felt targeted racially and because she was neurodivergent How decision making played into why she stayed What it was like to go from one group to another And more... Priscilla's website: https://whova.com/web/icsaa_202207/ The ICSA website: https://www.icsahome.com/ S…
They couldn’t be more different: the self-made, self-help guru to the stars, the antisemitic Black-separatist, the blue-blood anti-vax lawyer, and the founder of a science-fiction religion. But in the cult-conspiracy economy, strange bedfellows are often the norm. For this week’s Bonus, Julian investigates how—underneath cultural, racial, political…
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Conspirituality
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91: We Need to Talk About Stephanie
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When Stephanie Sibbio, owner of Glowing Mama Fitness in Toronto, livestreamed herself harassing workers in her local health food store over COVID policy, the world was introduced to a now-familiar archetype: the petulant anti-masker who cares as little about science as she does about others. Sibbio has since developed this role with gusto, becoming…
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Conspirituality
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Bonus Sample: Spiritual, Um—Sorry—Canadian Bypassing
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"An essential pleasure of white liberal identity in Canada is the schadenfreude of looking down our noses when we consider what’s south of us. It’s an unearned pride that says: “We’re not like that.” It’s delusional. We are absolutely like that, with tougher gun laws and the moderating effect of the Parliamentary process—but absolutely like that. W…
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Conspirituality
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90: The Convoy is an Occupation (w/ Elizabeth Simons)
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We cover a lot of ground in this episode. But to introduce it in seed form, we want to draw your attention to a 15-second video we’ve posted to our Instagram. It shows a little boy, clearly stressed, sitting in the cab of an expensive black pickup truck with the window open, holding his ears against the incredible noise of the air horns as his moth…
Despite the binary conversations around vaccinations, healing has never been an either/or dependent on one factor. What works for one person isn't necessarily the correct course of action for someone else. One criticism of modern health care certainly stands out: the ritual of healing has been sacrificed for the convenience of scripts and hasty dia…
Mary joins Matthew for an extended interview about the last year of her husband’s life. Louis died of pancreatic cancer almost exactly a year ago, at the age of 45. Mary—who has asked that her last name be kept off the record for privacy concerns—loved him and cared for him throughout that journey. It was hard, not only for the reasons we all share…
Last week’s Defeat The Mandate March in Washington D.C. saw a who’s-who of conspiracists address thousands from the steps of the Lincoln Memorial. Live-streaming and mic’d up— some fresh from massive exposure on the Joe Rogan Experience—they complained about censorship and tyranny, and compared vaccine mandates to the Holocaust. They present themse…
Snap. Crackle. Pop. That’s the release you’ve been waiting for—the ecstasy of small gas bubbles being “cracked” along your spine. While it’s debatable how much good chiropractic adjustments are doing for your body—there’s some evidence that it alleviates lower back pain, alongside a litany of unsubstantiated claims—what’s not debatable is the numbe…
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The Scholomance Project
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Cults, Conspirituality, and Critical Thinking with Matthew Remski
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This episode was recorded at an open meeting of the Vancouver Lodge of Education & Research entitled “Cults, Conspirituality, and Critical Thinking”. Master of the Lodge Wes Regan was facilitating and our guest was none other than Matthew Remski. Matthew Remski is a New-Age cult survivor, activist, and researcher focussed on new religious movements…
Inspired by a recent discussion on psychoanalysis and politics with Pat Blanchfield on Know Your Enemy, this brief meditation focuses on two aspects of the conspirituality landscape that have lurked in the unconscious of the pod: People do not make sense. There are conflicting impulses and voices within us all. One objective of our project is akin …
When we left our Austin conspirituality heroes in the last episode, Charles Eisenstein, New Age Q, was locking in his position as the philosopher—or jester—in the court of Aubrey Marcus. But what of this court? Matthew’s scene by scene analysis of some prime Marcus marketing porn will give us some clues. The video in question is for Marcus’s life-c…
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Conspirituality
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Special Drop: Red-pilled Poet, Charles Eisenstein
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Charles Eistenstein has had quite the pandemic. Essays read by millions, retweeted by Jack Dorsey, quoted by Ivanka Trump, held up as the poet philosopher of conspirituality—hell, he’s even been on the podcast! Given the response to this bonus episode, we've decided to release it into the wild as an important companion to Conspirituality 86. Julian…
In 2017, Charles Eisenstein addressed the SAND (Science And Non-Duality) Conference on our "obsession with measurement." A clip of that talk, published in 2019, put forward the question Is Science a Religion? Charles answered yes, offering a number of supposed parallels. Only—most of them don't hold water. Derek responds to his talk, breaking down …
Up to this point, we’ve understood Charles Eisenstein as the poet-philosopher of conspirituality, lending his Burning Man ritual workshop chops to the antivax faux-freedom movement. Out of deference to his apparent sensitivity and respectable writing skills, we’ve given him the benefit of the doubt—we even invited him on this show for two episodes …
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Conspirituality
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Bonus Sample: Red-pilled Poet, Charles Eisenstein
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Charles Eistenstein has had quite the pandemic. Essays read by millions, retweeted by Jack Dorsey, quoted by Ivanka Trump, held up as the poet philosopher of conspirituality—hell, he’s even been on the podcast! Julian tracks the transformative arc of malformed ideas garnished with spiritualized language that has made Eisenstein the romantic mascot …
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Conspirituality
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85: Gaia Buys Yoga International, Stocks Rise on Uranus
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On the day after the Winter Solstice, as the world tucked in for an Omicron staycation, a news flash came over the wire. Yoga International—one of the largest yoga media companies in the world—had been acquired by Gaia—one of the largest pseudoscience, pseudointellectual, conspiracy theory platforms in the world. While the CEO of Yoga International…
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The Scholomance Project
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Ask Baba Lon with Lon Milo DuQuette
2:02:56
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Lon Milo DuQuette is an occultist, author, lecturer, musician and humourist popular amongst students of western hermeticism and Thelema. Lon has published more than twenty books on these subjects and has written many, many more introductions for other contemporary authors. His irreverent style and unique approach to very serious subjects keep Lon b…
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Conspirituality
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Bonus Sample: The Inventor of Yoga Teacher Training Was a Rapist Obsessed with UFOs
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In 1969, Swami Vishnudevananda pioneered what has become a life transition ritual for the GenX and Millennial precariat: the Yoga Teacher Training (YTT) Programme. He was a cult leader rapist who thought yoga would help the world understand messages sent by UFOs. Not exactly confidence-inspiring. Not every YTT programme is bad—today's bonus host Ma…
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Conspirituality
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84: Red State Christians (w/Angela Denker)
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"When we don't avoid people who think differently than we do, we gain an opportunity for growth and national renewal." So opens Red State Christians: Understanding the Voters Who Elected Donald Trump, a fascinating and insightful book by Lutheran pastor and journalist Angela Denker. Denker spent years on the road talking to Christians who voted for…
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Conspirituality
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Bonus Sample: The Language of Conspiritualist Merchants
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Derek investigates the origins of language through thinkers like David Crystal, Michael Corballis, and others, to investigate how two popular figures—Deepak Chopra and Rick Warren—sell their spiritual wares. Their patterns reveal the model many conspiritualist influencers use today.By Derek Beres, Matthew Remski, Julian Walker
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Conspirituality
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83: Climate Solstice (w/George Monbiot)
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The global pandemic response is a microcosm of the global climate collapse response. In both we get to see what’s really under the hood when the pressure is on. In the face of endless and relentless odds and near-constant demoralization, what stories do we turn to, what bonds do we form, and who do they help? Climate journalist emeritus George Monb…
Moka Only is a hip-hop legend with over 110 album projects released, countless music production and performance collaborations, and a dedicated global fanbase. He is known for his surrealist lyrics and unique musical compositions. What is not as well known is his interest in Freemasonry and esotericism. This episode was recorded late in 2018. Moka’…
