The Ronan Levy Podcast

Derek Beres is a multi-faceted author and media expert based in Portland, Oregon. He has served in senior editorial positions at a number of tech companies and has years of experience in health, science, and music writing. He is the co-host of the Conspirituality podcast and co-author of Conspirituality: How New Age Conspiracy Theories Became a Health Threat.

In this episode, Derek and I talk about his conspirituality, what it is, where it comes from and why it demands that all of us take the word of influencers and charismatics with a healthy sense of skepticism...especially when they are trying to sell you something.

We also explore the unlikely alignment between the alt right conspiracy theorists and left-wing hippies when it comes to vaccines, the origins of modern yoga, some big name podcasters and RFK Jr.

It might blow your mind. Or piss you off.

Joe Rogan, Russell Brand, you better watch out. Derek shows us what real journalism looks like.

Timeline:

3:53 - What is conspirituality?

8:36 - Who in the world is Charlotte Webb?

12:11 - Conspirituality through the modern age.

22:32 - Dave Asprey and the early days of the modern conspirituality.

26:22 - How indigenous practices are being co-opted by conspiritualists.

28:47 - a discussion of AI and intellectual property law.

30:35 - How even real scientists like Andrew Huberman can get caught stepping out of their lane.

31:55 - Russell Brand is NOT a journalist.

38:39 - Why charismatics and conspiritualists try to make you feel like you're on the right side of history.

40:45 - The roots of modern yoga are not what you think.

48:17 - How the rise of modern yoga predicted the conversation around transgendered people.

1:05:47 - a conversation about Robert F. Kennedy Jr.

1:10:49 - RFK Jr. vs. ChatGPT in a battle for the truth.

If you'd like to order a copy of the book, Conspirituality: How New Age Conspiracy Theories Became a Health Threat:

https://www.hachettebookgroup.com/titles/derek-beres/conspirituality/9781541702981/?lens=publicaffairs

If you're interested in learning more about Derek's work more generally, check out:

https://www.conspirituality.net/

https://twitter.com/derekberes

https://www.instagram.com/conspiripod/

Susan Stephens is a Registered Holistic Nutritionist and an Intuitive Counsellor, and the founder of Liberated Living in Hamilton, Ontario where she specializes in helping people to overcome addictions, trauma, negative recurrent patterns, depression and anxiety. Over the years, Susan has helped thousands of men and women to transform emotional pain, elevate health, cultivate conscious relationships and connect to the divinity within and without.

In this episode, Susan and I open up about some of the experiences in our lives that put us on the not-always-pleasant paths that we have found ourselves on. We talk about childhood trauma, feelings of self-worth (or lack thereof), the traps of success, why many therapists are too shallow (and that's a good thing) and embracing our inner bitch.

This episode gets vulnerable very quickly so there are a number of stretches of silence and some sniffles to choke back some tears. What can I say? No one ever said Evolving is easy. Or pretty.

But it's the first of a few episodes that will feature Susan as I will continue to work with her over the coming weeks and months to go deeper, both for physical health as well as emotional health.

If you want to learn more about Susan's work, check out www.liberatedliving.ca or join her private Facebook Group: https://www.facebook.com/groups/561484324447592.

4:03 - Susan's shares about her past and alcoholism.

11:19 - Susan shares about her experiences with therapy and AA.

15:32 - overcompensating and a discussion about orthorexia.

16:35 - the quest for success.

23:16 - manifestation is now a thing.

26:45 - a conversation on doing vs. being.

33:34 - the more woo, the better.

34:16 - the spiritual journey is not for wusses.

38:33 - a conversation about divorce.

40:08 - from zero to one and back to zero again.

43:06 - the biggest issue in our culture.

44:57 - a conversation about heartbreak.

49:17 - Ronan's first spiritual realization.

53:41 - this sh*t is bananas.

59:24 - compassion as betrayal.

1:06:31 - anger as an act of self-worth.

1:09:14 - the law of attraction.

Father's Day is a great day to celebrate and honour all of the fathers out there. But it's also a good day to reflect on what it is to be a father and a man in our society. As much as "it's a man's world," men suffer the effects of chauvinism too and if we want to break the cycle of it, it starts (in part) with dads.

Happy Father's Day everyone!

Jere Simpson is an entrepreneur with a beautiful rags-to-riches story. He's known for his prophetic vision in tech, having built landmark companies in SaaS, mobile and cybersecurity and worked with the CIA, FBI, NSA and Pentagon. He's been recognized by Forbes Magazine as "one of the top minds in tech" and by Entrepreneur as "one of the best entrepreneurs in the world". Now he's turning his sights on AI with his company AtlasUP.

In this conversation, we dive deep into AI, what we can expect from it, how we change our attitudes toward it and work to ensure it doesn't become an apocalyptic nightmare. And we stumble upon two of the most terrifying conclusions about artificial intelligence I've ever considered. But we end on a very optimistic note about how to make this a beautiful life.

28:00 - deep wisdom from Alan Shore (James Spader) that leads to the scariest realization I've had about AI.

32:00 - a surprisingly thoughtful insight from an AI model.

35:00 - post-scarcity world and the age of abundance.

38:00 - marketing and deception

41:00 - the 6 people who can end everything

45:00 - Sam Altman, Elon Musk and politicians

49:00 - if we can't figure shit out over psychedelics, how are we going to do it over AI?

53:00 - the magic of human machinery

Do you remember the first time you truly felt alive?

While we wait for some of the first interview episodes to be finalized I thought I'd start by sharing some short reflection pieces and the first one I'm sharing is on this very question.

The first time you feel truly, emphatically alive is usually a moment in your adolescence, sometimes called The Eternal Youth. It's one of 7 Faces of the Soul that all humans go through as part of the experience of being human.

This is the story of my first feeling of The Eternal Youth.