The Shady Side of Wellness - Spiritual Thinking & Conspiracy Theories
Wellness: Fact vs. Fiction
Danielle Belardo
4.6 • 1.4K Ratings
🗓️ 25 May 2022
⏱️ ? minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Join Dr. Danielle Belardo and her expert of the week, multi-faceted author, media expert, and co-host of the Conspirituality Podcast, Derek Beres. Derek is pulling back the curtain on the wellness industry and exposing the harmful trends, tactics, and patterns of pseudoscience influencers that have turned spirituality into paranoia. Today’s eye-opening episode will leave you with the tools to weed through spiritual disinformation and recognize a “wellness” opportunist when you see one.
Danielle and Derek discuss:
- The meaning and origins of conspirituality
- How the wellness industry has been taken over by conspiracy theories and fake progressive wellness utopianism
- How charismatic influencers exploit their followers and tips to avoid scamfluencers
- The horseshoe effect in wellness and why it is a major red flag
Derek Beres is a Los Angeles based writer and the Senior Editor at Eco. Currently, he is co-writing Conspirituality: How New Age Conspiracy Theories Became a Public Health Threat with Matthew Remski and Julian Walker. He has been featured in over forty publications, including Rolling Stone, Women’s Health, Big Think, Yoga Journal, and National Geographic. He is also the co-founder of EarthRise SoundSystem and has produced records for Six Degrees Records and Vieux Farka Toure.
Thank you so much for taking the time to contribute to a generation that values fact over fiction! Be sure to rate, review, and follow on your favorite podcast app and let us know which not-so-wellness trend you’d like to hear debunked. Follow your host on Instagram @daniellebelardomd and the podcast @wellnessfactvsfiction. Learn more about Derek at derekberes.com.
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | This podcast is brought to you by Podcast Nation. |
| 0:08.2 | Unfortunately, we live in such a culture that if a lot of these influencers were to come out and say, |
| 0:15.3 | you know what, maybe the vaccine is helpful for some people. |
| 0:18.1 | They would get lambasted. |
| 0:19.9 | Their following would just immediately disown |
| 0:22.5 | them and they know they can't do that. So they've become prisoners of their own communities. |
| 0:32.2 | Welcome to wellness, fact versus fiction. I'm Dr. Danielle Bellardo and I'm a cardiologist who loves |
| 0:40.1 | evidence-based medicine and nutrition science. But as a millennial, I've watched endless wellness |
| 0:45.2 | vads take over social media. It's my mission to get to the bottom of things by bringing on the top |
| 0:50.3 | expert physicians and scientists to help us determine what is fact versus fiction when it |
| 0:55.4 | comes to your health. It's time to leave the pseudoscience behind and become empowered |
| 1:00.0 | when it comes to our wellness. |
| 1:29.5 | Hey everyone, it is my pleasure to bring this week's episode with Derek Bears, who is not only an incredible human, but is a multifaceted author, media expert, accomplished journalist, and yogi. He is the senior editor at Eco and co-host of the Conspiratuality Podcast. He's been published as a journalist in numerous publications, including Rolling Stone, Women's Health, Big Think, Yoga Journal, National Geographic, |
| 1:35.1 | and much, much more. He's currently co-writing Conspiruality, how New Age conspiracy theories |
| 1:40.9 | became a public health threat by Random House in May 23 with Matthew |
| 1:45.9 | Remski and Julian Walker. In today's episode, we deep dive into all things, conspiratuality. |
| 1:51.4 | We discuss how the wellness industry, including the yoga world, has been taken over by conspiracy |
| 1:55.8 | theories, faux-progressive wellness utopianism, and attacks on public health efforts in times of crisis. |
| 2:02.2 | We discuss how charismatic influencers exploit their followers by co-opting conspiracy theories on a spectrum of intensity, ranging from vaccines to supplements to functional medicine and more. |
| 2:12.8 | In the process, spiritual beliefs that nurture creativity and meaning are transforming into memes of a quickly |
| 2:18.2 | globalizing paranoia. As the altarite and the New Age horseshoe toward each other in this blur |
| 2:24.0 | of disinformation, clear discourse, and good intentions get smothered. Derek's podcast and spirituality |
... |
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