About this item
Conspirituality takes a deep dive into the troubling phenomenon of influencers who have curdled New Age spirituality and wellness with the politics of paranoia - peddling vaccine misinformation, tales of child trafficking, and wild conspiracy theories. In the early days of the COVID-19 pandemic, a disturbing social media trend emerged: a large number of yoga instructors and alt-health influencers were posting stories about a secretive global cabal bent on controlling the world's population with a genocidal vaccine. Instagram feeds that had been serving up green smoothie recipes and Mary Oliver poems became firehoses of Fox News links, memes from 4chan, and prophecies of global transformation. Since May 2020, Derek Beres, Matthew Remski and Julian Walker have used their Conspirituality podcast to expose countless facets of the intersection of alt-health practitioners with far-right conspiracy trolls.
About the Author
Derek Beres is one of the leading figures in international music in America, working in numerous facets of the industry, from journalist and DJ to producer and presenter. He has published five books to date, and has contributed to dozens of magazines and websites regarding the traditional and digital realms of global music. He has toured internationally, playing alongside some of the most important figures in the scene today. Well versed in international music, he is equally adamant about world cultures, devoting his life to the path of yoga, Eastern philosophies, and world mythology. Alongside writer Dax-Devlon Ross he founded Outside the Box Publishing in 2005. Among their publications are Beres's own Sound Against Flame: The Process of Yoga and Atheism in America, Global Beat Fusion: The History of the Future of Music, and Mysterious Distance, a novel, as well as Tangled Web: The Best Music Tour You Never Heard Of, and a book of essays co-written with Ross, A Staircase of Words: Volume 1. He is currently working on his second novel, ShadowStone: The Breaking of the Vessels. As journalist, he has written for MTV Urge, Village Voice, Paste, Remix, Conscious Choice, XLR8R, Urb, Relix, Tricycle, Afropop and more, reviewing hundreds of CDs and conducting over 450 artist interviews. He spent 2.5 years as Managing Editor of Global Rhythm where he helped usher new strains of world electronica, as well as paying homage to the traditional folk sounds of the planet. He was the Content Creator for Musica Fresca, a national tour featuring Yerba Buena, Voltio, Akwid and Radio Mundial, sponsored by Yahoo! Telemundo. He is currently a world music columnist for National Geographic World and PopMatters, as well as Chicago's new monthly, Mindful Metropolis. He is also a regular contributor to the politically oriented blogsite, the Huffington Post, and Reality Sandwich, a progressive blogsite founded by author Daniel Pinchbeck. An archive of many of his articles is being collected and stored on Global Beat Fusion.
