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June 17, 2024 - Conspirituality
05:42
Bonus Sample: 6 Chapters on Prospirituality

Six chapters on approaches to prospirituality, now that we know (or think we know) what the hell conspirtuality is. This is a long episode, but there are evenly-placed breaks for you all to pause on! Chapter 1: Positions After 4 years, we’ve come to a natural question at the end of defining the problem of conspirituality. How do we orient ourselves towards possible answers? Chapter 2: The Prospirituality Challenge If you’re clear on how spirituality—including beliefs in the supernatural—can be medicine, you can be clearer on where it becomes poison. Chapter 3: I did not expect to be friends with Joseph Baker I never thought I would be friends with a student of A Course in Miracles: maybe my judgments about its inevitably bad impacts are misplaced. Also: it’s not a good idea to dismiss anyone on the basis of religious belief if you don’t know how that belief actually operates, and you won’t unless you talk to them.  Chapter 4: Buddhist Tolerance, Buddhist Repair Conspirituality is right at home within high-demand groups or cults. Paranoid and controlling social structures feed on paranoid and dissociative emotions and ideas. For members and observers alike, it can become difficult to tell whether the content of the religious group is intrinsic to its cruelty, or whether these can be separated. Surprisingly, some high-demand groups can foster reforms from within, with members reframing the very concepts that had been weaponized against them to liberate themselves. In that sense, the doctrines and beliefs can be part of the problem, but also part of the solution.  Chapter 5: Eve Sedgwick Cynicism about religion is an occupational hazard of this beat. It’s also popular. At times it’s worth questioning the critical economy focused more on deconstruction than on generating ideas and solidarity.  Chapter 6: The Trouble and Joy of Belief and Silence “You will know them by their fruits. Do we gather grapes from thornbushes or figs from thistles?” Matthew 7:16 Show Notes Charter for the Protection of Children and Young People Survivors of an International Buddhist Cult Share Their Stories Paranoid Reading, Reparative Reading Baylor Religion Survey: 3 graphs On the Relation Between Religiosity and the Endorsement of Conspiracy Theories: The Role of Political Orientation Anxious attachment and belief in conspiracy theories There are higher levels of conspiracy beliefs in more corrupt countries The impact of economic inequality on conspiracy beliefs To trust or not to trust in the thrall of the COVID-19 pandemic: Conspiracy endorsement and the role of adverse childhood experiences, epistemic trust, and personality functioning Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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Time Text
Hello, everyone.
Welcome to Conspiratuality, where we investigate the intersection of conspiracy theories and spiritual influence to uncover cults, pseudoscience, and authoritarian extremism.
I'm Matthew Rebski.
We are on Instagram and Threads at ConspiratualityPod, and you can access all of our episodes ad-free, plus our Monday bonus episodes on Patreon, or just our bonus episodes via Apple subscriptions.
We've got a book out, just passing the one-year mark since publication.
It's called Conspirituality, How New Age Conspiracy Theories Became a Health Threat, and it's in print, ebook, and audiobook format.
Okay, today I'm going on a detour from my other ongoing Patreon projects of The Listener Stories and Conspirituality and the Imaginary Children.
I'm going to add to a dialogue of thoughts offered by Derek and Julian on the positions we take on religious belief and practice in relation to the socio-religious movement we've reported on over the past coming up on four years now.
So this is going to bring together a bunch of interconnecting influences, thoughts, and arguments.
And so I'm breaking it up into chapters with abstracts for each so there will be good listening resting points.
I considered breaking this up into separate bonuses, but I felt there was more value in having it all in the same place.
So I hope the headings and the abstracts provide, as I said, pausing points, but also easy reference points for you to toggle between in the comment section, which I expect to be as dynamic as ever.
I'll also be throwing in a few open questions here and there that you can pause on and consider.
Now several of these chapters will be tangential to the issue of atheistic versus agnostic approaches to a spiritual social movement.
They're going to dive into what I see as some of the downstream issues like the affect of debunking, questions of stigmatization versus whitewashing, how to imagine the spectrum of believers to non-believers in our listenership and what they each need to hear.
And how to understand the different needs of former cult members or people who are still on the inside of high demand groups.
So I've written abstracts for each of the chapters and those are in the show notes for reference.
But here's a little preview of the chapters.
So first, we've got a chapter called Positions, which is a synopsis of different instincts and approaches on the atheism agnosticism to person of faith spectrum.
Secondly, there's a chapter called The Pro-Spirituality Challenge.
Now this is where the title of this bonus comes from and it builds on a comment from a listener named Joseph Baker who basically argues that if we aren't clear on what generative forms of spirituality are, our criticisms of toxic forms will be thin.
Now he didn't come up with a term pro-spirituality, I did and I don't think it's great.
I think it sounds like a tech bro biohacking app like pro spirituality optimize your soul like Dave Asprey is going to hear this and copyright the term but I think it's useful for now.
Third chapter, I did not expect to be friends with Joseph Baker.
So this is where I start to get into some influences that have pushed me to look carefully at my own skepticism towards religious believers.
Joseph is a huge A Course in Miracles student, but he's also a whip-smart social gospel activist.
And that combination, it kind of broke my brain.
Chapter 4, Buddhist Tolerance, Buddhist Repair.
A key influence in pushing how I look at high-demand groups and their members and survivors in a more well-rounded direction is Dr. Ann Glag.
And here I'll describe how her balancing of cult theory and a more religious studies ethnographic approach softened my attitudes on how to do cult journalism and what it means to not foreclose on healing.
Chapter 5, Eve Sedgwick.
Anne also introduced me to the philosopher Eve Sedgwick's essay on Paranoid vs. Reparative Reading.
And I explain why I think this is really important reading for everyone in the debunkosphere Because it really forces a reckoning with the burdens of cynicism and irony.
And I think this is especially important when considering religion, where critical discourse is necessary for exposing abuse, irrationality, and hypocrisy.
But it can also foreclose on the vulnerable ways in which people meet their needs.
Chapter 6 is the last chapter and it's called The Trouble and Joy of Beliefs and Silence.
And it looks at where will the research lead us?
You've been listening to a Conspirituality bonus episode sample.
To continue listening, please head over to patreon.com slash conspirituality, where you can access all of our main feed episodes ad free, as well as four years of bonus content that we've been producing.
You can also subscribe to our bonus episodes via Apple subscriptions.
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