#118 - How Conspiracy Thinking Hijacked the Psychedelic Community | Jules Evans

Over the past two years the optimistic spirituality of many within the psychedelic community has morphed into pessimism and paranoia. This synthesis of wellness and conspiracy thinking isn’t unique to the Covid pandemic. As today’s guest, philosopher Jules Evans explains, “Conspirituality” has been a feature of New Age thinking since its gnostic beginnings. Our conversations opens with Jules’ own spiritual experiences, including traumatic teenage drug use, a near-death experience, and an ayahuasca-induced spiritual emergency. We then dive into our current crisis of Conspirituality and how spiritual elitism and the dark specter of eugenics has been running through New Age thinking since its origins in mysticism and magic. Finally we discuss how we can obtain real spiritual insight and live life like a festival, while still maintaining good mental hygiene. Jules is a writer, speaker and practical philosopher who focuses on ideas which help beings suffer less and flourish more. He is the author of four books including Philosophy for Life and Other Dangerous Situations, The Art of Losing Control, Holiday from the Self, and Breaking Open: Finding a Way Through Spiritual Emergencies. His popular articles about Conspirituality on Medium have made him one of the most sought after critics of today’s crisis of meaning in the wellness community. So, level up your many-mindedness, and let’s give our magical lives a healthy dose of skepticism. Links: Philosophy of Life: https://www.philosophyforlife.org/ Jules Evans on Medium: https://medium.com/@julesevans ‘Conspirituality’ — the overlap between the New Age and conspiracy beliefs: https://julesevans.medium.com/conspirituality-the-overlap-between-the-new-age-and-conspiracy-beliefs-c0305eb92185 Breaking Open (2020): https://www.philosophyforlife.org/published-works/breaking-open Holiday from the Self (2019): https://www.philosophyforlife.org/published-works/holiday-from-the-self The Art of Losing Control (2017): https://www.philosophyforlife.org/published-works/the-art-of-losing-control-canongate-2017 Philosophy for Life and Other Dangerous Situations (2012): https://www.philosophyforlife.org/published-works/philosophy-for-life-and-other-dangerous-situations-rider-books-2012 Jules on Twitter: https://twitter.com/JulesEvans11 Timestamps: :08 - Why Jules started writing about Conspirituality in 2020 :14 - From teenage psychedelic use to a near-death experience :19 - Stoicism, Greek philosophy and rationality :26 - The search for ecstatic experiences :32 - Many-minded Aldous Huxley :40 - Spiritual Emergencies and the value of the funky gritty bits of life :55 - How optimistic oneness becomes pessimistic conspiracy thinking 1:00 - Charles Eisenstein and the strain of primitivism in deep ecologists 1:12 - How do we know we’ve obtained real insight 1:20 - How Spiritual Elitism leads to Spiritual Eugenics 1:28 - Class Privilege 1:32 - Don’t shame the unvaccinated 1:36 - How we can still make life like a festival