E126. Julian Walker On The Overlap Between Magical Thinking And Conspiracy Theories

Walk-Ins Welcome with Bridget Phetasy

Conversations with people from all walks of life.

Society & Culture, Comedy Interviews, Comedy, News, News Commentary

4.8 • 1.3K Ratings

🗓️ 29 April 2021

⏱️ 117 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Julian Walker is a yoga instructor, writer, and co-host of the podcast Conspirituality. He and Bridget discuss the growing overlap between new age spirituality and conspiracy theory culture in the last few years, how QAnon-influenced ideas started to take hold in the yoga space, the growing trend of anti-intellectualism and shying away from science, the difference between freshman skepticism and healthy skepticism, and why he’s committed to the principle that politics should be boring. Julian talks about growing up in South Africa amid the dismantling of apartheid and the perspective it gave him about reality bubbles, authoritarianism, propaganda, and what a charismatic candidate that arouses a passionate response in their followers means in a society. They talk empathy, morality, purity, cults, gurus, political stability, and why we should give people the benefit of the doubt in conversation rather than going from zero to calling them a Nazi in two seconds.

Transcript

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0:00.0	This is Watkins, welcome with Bridget Pettasy, I'm Bridget Pettasy, and you are welcome.
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1:01.0	This week on the podcast I have my very long time friend and brilliant yoga instructor as well as podcast host and writer Julian Walker.
1:11.0	Julian Walker is a writer, yoga teacher, DJ, and co-host of Conspirituality Podcast which covers the intersection of new age spirituality and conspiracy theories.
1:22.0	He grew up in South Africa and lives in Los Angeles.
1:26.0	Julian writes about mind body practices in relation to philosophy, neuroscience, and psychology, as well as pervasive problems with magical thinking, pseudo science, cults, and toxic gurus.
1:38.0	I'm with Julian Mark Walker, my old friend, everyone. Welcome.
1:43.0	Thank you so much. It's great to be here.
1:45.0	I'm so excited. I've been trying to get, I feel like I've been trying to get you on for a while and you're a very busy man.
1:51.0	It is finally happening.
1:54.0	We get to hang out.
1:55.0	Julian is my most favorite yoga instructor in Los Angeles and we go way back now over a decade I would say.
2:06.0	And I loved his yoga because it was grounded in the moment in the body and not in the woo that often infects our yoga community.
2:18.0	Because I got certified in 2005 and it's still I felt like it had already kind of jumped the shark but it really hadn't at all.
2:27.0	It was really just the dawn of of the real yoga as a lifestyle.
2:34.0	And then came to LA in 2007 and you had a really I went to a lot of other classes and it was like aggressive competitive yoga.
	...

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