Bonus Sample: You Can’t Do Religion on the Internet

Conspirituality

Derek Beres, Matthew Remski, Julian Walker

Spirituality, Social Sciences, Religion & Spirituality, Science, Philosophy, Society & Culture

4.2 • 2K Ratings

🗓️ 8 July 2024

⏱️ 5 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Back in 2011, Ward and Voas wrote that conspirituality was a mainly-online movement, and they were right about that. They didn’t do fieldwork at events. They didn’t attend trainings and rituals. They combed the internet for evidence of what they were looking for. They found strange and anxious spiritual themes. But they also found evidence of what the internet does in all of its speed and dissociation, in its invitation to seize attention through contrarianism and amplify jagged anxieties and glittering pieties. In finding conspirituality, they may have proven that you can’t do religion on the internet. And maybe, that’s part of why conspirituality exists. Religious impulses are ancient and primal, centering communities as campfires do. But they also throw off sparks of narcissism and extremism, which the algorithms must capture to drive engagement. Show Notes MMMEATTT — “A newsletter about things that can’t exist on the internet” by Beau Brink Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Transcript

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0:00.0	Hello everyone. Welcome to
0:04.6	to Conspiruality where we investigate the intersection of
0:07.4	conspiracy theories and spiritual influence to uncover cults,
0:11.2	pseudoscience, and authoritarian extremism.
0:14.6	I'm Matthew Remsky.
0:16.3	We are on Instagram and threads at Can Spirituality Pod and you can access all of our episodes
0:21.7	ad-free, plus our Monday bonus episodes on
0:25.3	Patreon that's what this one is or just our bonus episodes via Apple subscriptions
0:30.8	we've also got a book out it's's called Conspirituality, how New Age Conspiracy
0:35.2	Theories became a health threat.
0:37.1	It's in print, e-book, and audiobook format narrated by me.
0:41.3	Okay, so today I'm going on yet another detour from my ongoing Patreon bonus
0:46.6	episodes of the listener stories and can spirituality in the imaginary children. This one is a lot shorter and it's more timely in the sense
0:54.3	that I'll be reflecting on a number of recent subjects that have brought me to a
0:59.1	provisional conclusion stated in my title which might seem obvious to you all but I think it's worth thinking
1:05.2	about closely.
1:06.8	You can't do religion on the internet.
1:10.8	If you've been listening for a while, you'll probably remember my interviews with Bo Brink in 143 called Trans Reality, Trans Possibility,
1:20.0	and then his return as a correspondent for Yoga Drag Race on episode 177.
1:26.5	Well, around the time we were collaborating on those pieces, Bo was also quietly working away on an essay project called Meet on Substack.
1:38.9	The tagline for the project is a newsletter about things that can't exist on the internet, written by
1:45.0	Bo's Sterling Brink. Bo is an SEO expert, a 10-year digital media veteran, and a 20-year
	...

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