From the Supreme Court to Project 2025, reactionary Catholics are on the frontlines of this year’s war on democracy. Many of them bend the knee to an Italian redpilled Vatican diplomat: Cardinal Carlo Maria Viganò. 

Taylor Lorenz joins to discuss reporting in an age of conspiracy theories and online trolling, the challenges of covering long Covid in an age of overwhelming health misinformation, and what it’s like to be extremely online. 

Julian checks in on some of the legacy conspiritualists profiled in our book—Russell Brand, Dr. Christiane Northrup, Mikki Willis, JP Sears, and Lorie Ladd—to see what their online messaging around Christmas and the New Year tells us. 

Cat Bohannon joins to discuss her book, Eve: How the Female Body Drove 200 Million Years of Human Evolution.

Dr. Taslim Alani-Verjee discusses how it feels to see her community drawn into culture war territory over sex ed and gender issues.

To help us understand MAGA and beyond, we're joined by journalist, professor, and documentarian, Jeff Sharlet. His books, The Undertow: Scenes From a Slow Civil War and The Family: The Secret Fundamentalism at the Heart of American Power are field guides for understanding modern America.

David Lesondak breaks down what fascia is, how it functions in the body, and why fascia pseudoscience by the likes of Human Garage is so dangerous.

Matthew is joined by Esme Providence Brown to examine the history of and present-day ramifications of anti-trafficking movements—projects that often scapegoat women who are secretly desired but publicly hated.

Matthew runs down what we know about Del Bigtree and what he thinks this appointment with the RFK Jr campaign will bring. 

With 54 conservative and religious organizations signing on and over 450 contributors, as well as untold millions in dark money, The Heritage Foundation is leading the charge with Project 2025, an anti-abortion, anti-LBGTQ+, anti-DEI, anti-civil liberties game plan.

Friend of the pod and Straight White American Jesus host Brad Onishi joins Matthew for a New Year’s discussion of post-religious spirituality.

Mallory DeMille returns to talk about the coaches who coach coaches industry: marketing tactics, parallels to multilevel marketing, and the glut in the coaching industry.

Maya Lilly—a film, television, and digital media producer who focuses on activist documentary storytelling—joins Derek to discuss the challenging world of climate change activism.

In this annual meditation and reflection, the trio consider the past year's significant happenings in conspirituality, discuss their biggest influences, identify 2024's most pressing challenges, and offer what gives them each hope as we transition into 2024.

Julian and Matthew discuss HBO’s new docu-series, “Love Has Won: The Mother God Cult,” directed by Hannah Olson. They meditate on religious freedom, spiritual tragedy, and the ethics of big-budget cult documentary filmmaking.

Scott Kennedy’s new documentary, Shot in the Arm, details the deadly impact of these anti-vax kingpins, as well as the tireless counter-efforts of scientists, medical workers, and science educators like Peter Hotez, Paul Offit, Karen Enrst, and Blimi Marcus.

Julian unpacks the incendiary streams of far-right anti-government militia history and religious apocalypticism that our former president is tapping into as he faces legal jeopardy.

Our guest today, Mike Lewis of the Catholic news and opinion website, wherepeteris.com, walks us through the strange tale of the former Bishop of Tyler, Texas, Joseph Edward Strickland.

Journalist and producer Alice Hines discusses the “master Christ” young couple at the center of Twin Flames Universe and the alarming story that unfolds in the documentary based on her Vanity Fair expose. 

Today the trio discusses excerpts of an interview Matthew recorded with Stephanie Kemmerer, a former conspiracy theorist and now public educator. Stephanie is part of a newly formed non-profit called The American Information Integrity Alliance and co-facilitator of the support group DOUBT: Discussing Our Unusual Beliefs Together.