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Conspirituality

How New Age Conspiracy Theories Became a Public Health Threat

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Conspirituality

Written by: Derek Beres, Matthew Remski, Julian Walker
Narrated by: Matthew Remski
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About this listen

Conspirituality takes a deep dive into the troubling phenomenon of influencers who have curdled New Age spirituality and wellness with the politics of paranoia—peddling vaccine misinformation, tales of child trafficking, and wild conspiracy theories.

In the early days of the COVID-19 pandemic, a disturbing social media trend emerged: a large number of yoga instructors and alt-health influencers were posting stories about a secretive global cabal bent on controlling the world’s population with a genocidal vaccine. Instagram feeds that had been serving up green smoothie recipes and Mary Oliver poems became firehoses of Fox News links, memes from 4chan, and prophecies of global transformation.

Since May 2020, Derek Beres, Matthew Remski and Julian Walker have used their Conspirituality podcast to expose countless facets of the intersection of alt-health practitioners with far-right conspiracy trolls. Now this expansive and revelatory book unpacks the follies, frauds, cons and cults that dominate the New Age and wellness spheres and betray the trust of people who seek genuine relief in this uncertain age.

Each of the three authors has witnessed firsthand the use of fear-based political agendas to manipulate the human desire for spiritual fulfillment. They throw a spotlight on the telltale signs of cult dynamics and expose how influencers have stoked suspicion of public health initiatives. And they show how charlatans and pseudo-doctors encourage their followers to oppose mainstream advice as a form of spiritual quest.

With analytical rigor and flashes of irreverent humor, Conspirituality offers an antidote to our times, helping listeners recognize wellness grifts, engage with loved ones who've fallen under the influence, and counter lies and distortions with insight and empathy.

©2023 Derek Beres, Matthew Remski, and Julian Walker (P)2023 Random House Canada
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What the critics say

"This is a book for right now! So timely. So needed. Conspirituality takes us on a fascinating, engaging, and empathetic journey through the many ways in which harmful pseudoscience and misinformation have seeped into our world. . . . The authors provide a compelling argument as to why the toleration of conspiratorial rhetoric closes minds and erodes critical thinking. I highly recommend this book to anyone who is curious—and we all should be!—about the history and the social and cultural forces behind our current pseudoscience-filled mess.”—Timothy Caulfield, author of Relax: A Guide to Everyday Health Decisions with More Facts and Less Worry

"Conspirituality brilliantly exposes the fusion between conspiracy theories and wellness, while emphasizing the ‘con’ aspect at the heart of both. . . . And far from seeing themselves as too smart to fall for this nonsense, the authors mine their own experiences in cults and coercive movements, having seen them from the inside.”—Mike Rothschild, author of The Storm is Upon Us and Jewish Space Lasers

“Intelligent and compassionate, Conspirituality is full of insight rooted in direct experience and rigorous analysis. The authors are deeply familiar with and curious about their subject. An essential and unique book that captures both the yearning for and devastating effects of conspirituality as a phenomenon and way of life.”—Julian Feeld, co-host of the QAnon Anonymous podcast

What listeners say about Conspirituality

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A Guide Through the Mud of Our Age

I've been listening to the Consprituality podcast only for a few months before purchasing the audiobook. It has helped me move through the confusing landscape of health and wellness influencers, online political extremism, and the seductiveness of new age spirituality.

Great narration.

Thank you so much for this book. It is well timed and well needed.

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Really important work

A must for anyone who has watched a loved one get sucked into conspiracies.

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How we got here

This book is an important look into how human beings become vulnerable to belief systems. Up until quite recent I had consumed most of the grifters’ messages without question from the health and wellness world highlighted on the podcast. Both the podcast and this book have helped me tremendously, as in to question where these leaders, influencers and bio hackers get their information and what they’re selling. When you peel back the layers, most are selling eugenics and the idea that with enough hacks, discipline and good intention, we can rise to the top of the biology hierarchy and be the moral chosen ones. I am so grateful for the work of Matthew, Derek and Julian to be a counter narrative to all the health, wellness and spiritual BS we’re bombarded with through the algorithms.

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A very important read. The writing is beautiful, the research is impeccable,

The narration by Matthew Remski is so beautiful I can listen to him for hours. I have been a fan of the ConSpirituality podcast since it began and the book doesn’t disappoint. The authors have done a remarkable job. Anyone who knows someone drawn into wellness/new age spiritualism, the anti-vax movement and Q Anon will have a much better understanding of the key players and leaders, the different movements’ origins, modern incarnations and how these movements have converged, showing up in our modern political arenas. Absolutely a must read.

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Great Listen

A fascinating and empathetic dive into a world I knew little about. Cannot recommend enough.

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Must read!!

This book helped me free myself from my thoughts. 100% recommend to anyone on a spiritual/wellness/ health journey.

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A serious analysis leagues above the rest

Unlike the countless authoritarianism on the rise non fiction takes after the 2016 election, the countless cultish turn in wellness op eds since the pandemic, this is a critique decades in the making and a solid piece of investigative journalism deeply read in its subject matter.

I had been a fan of their podcast already, but did not realize the extent of their own immersion in the alt health world. Some of their descriptions of the concoctions they drank and the contortions they practiced are gut wrenching. Remski’s own journey stands out: the pain in his account of wasted decades in the world of two cults and then years more in traditional medicine, is - forgive my cringe - really fucking brave. Not many a person could be so wrong and so honestly interrogate and speak out about what they were so deeply invested in.

It’s hard not to read in his sympathy for the more generous and literary side of the social sciences a compensatory impulse, or maybe even the same impulse that led him astray. But his left wing politics seems very honestly and critically arrived at, even if it is very Gen X and try-hard. Very sympathetic and fascinating guys all three of them.

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Excellent narration, a powerful book, important!!

Excellent narration by Matthew Remski.

Conspirituality the book - and the Podcast - contains much needed information to help lead us out of an arena that has for far too long extracted from, deceived and harmed many.

This book is an effective, insightful, powerful tool to assist us to see the many cons that we may have unwittingly bought into and believed to be true. It contains interesting, organized and well presented information to effectively show how we have been duped and lied to.

If you want a way out of the corrupt maze .... here it is. Not to be missed!

Educational, informative, effective and clear.

Thank you to Matthew, Derek and Julian.

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Essential reading for the times we live in

A thorough and entertaining exploration into the roots of conspiracy theories affecting current events. Despite the subject matter, I was left with a deeper sympathy for those affected and with increased motivation to offer safe harbour to those possessed by the false promises of conspirtuality.

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An insightful and illuminating listen

I particularly appreciate the inclusion of non-american experiences in this book. I was unaware of how deeply the roots of the wellness industry are intertwined with the toxic history of eugenics, facism, ethnonationalism, and misogyny. At heart all of these grifts proport to offer their adherents a path to salvation by trading away money, human decency and political agency.

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