Conspirituality, Charismatics and RFK vs. ChatGPT || Derek Beres

07/11/23 • 79 min

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/

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/

Previous Episode

Embracing Your Inner Bitch || Susan Stephens

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.

Next Episode

"Am I Dying?" || Mira Simone Etlin-Stein

In early 2019, Mira's life was entirely blown apart, when her partner Brian was diagnosed with an unbelievably aggressive cancer. He died seven weeks later, leaving her alone with their almost three-year-old daughter.

The experience forced Mira to explore the grieving process and she has turned that exploration into New Moon Mira, a grief coaching business that supports widows and grievers in more intimate group containers and provides grief literacy training for grief-support people and healthcare professionals.

In this conversation, we talk about the experience of having a life partner pass on, how to support someone who is going through the process of, or soon to be, grieving, how the medical profession fails to support people in the dying process and, ultimately, how grief can help us evolve.

If you're interested in learning more about Mira and her work, check out:

https://www.instagram.com/newmoonmira/