Conspirituality

I got to the end of the first section and found myself bored. The premise is sound and interesting enough but it's one of those “everything but the kitchen sink” books, where the authors include every single thing they know rather than paring it down to the most essential and deliver the clearest message. (Perhaps with three authors, they thought it needed to be three times as long?) Consequently, I decided to listen to the podcast and I found that to be a lot of pointless chatter in between relevant points (as many podcasts are, imo) but, frankly, it was more engaging. So, in conclusion, I wouldn't recommend this book but the podcast is interesting enough that I will be listening to it occasionally.

Thank you to whatever publisher it was that sent me this advance copy for review.

I will preface my review with the fact that I am not a listener of the podcast produced by the authors and had absolutely no awareness of their existence until I read this book so my review is based solely on the content of this book.
I really enjoyed the perspectives offered in this book, the authors have unique experiences with cults and cult adjacent groups which confers them a particular understanding of how people end up falling for ideas that might seem ludicrous and of how insidiously these ideas are often presented (often side by side with actually valid information). The book is very humane in its approach, and I really appreciated that (especially as I have family members who fall/fell at various places on the conspirituality spectrum without being lacking in intellectual capacities or humanity but maybe in media literacy).
There is a section about influencers and media people who peddle “conspirituality” ideas and it was really interesting for me to read what happened with JP Sears after I stopped following him (I was a fairly early YouTube followed but at some point his brand of humor stopped feeling a bit self-deprecating and started feeling mean spirited so I dipped and didn't keep up with him at all). They resist the urge to simply demonize people at every turn so even when discussing figures such as Teal Swan and Joe Rogan (which they describe as an enabler more than an active peddler) their tone is one of understanding.
I was especially fond of how they described the clash between vaccination being one size fits all and the need to be unique, to have things be bespoke, I had never thought of it that way and they expressed it succinctly and eloquently.
Extensive sources are listed at the end of the book and the style made for an agreeable reading experience even for someone who never listened to the podcast.
I received an eARC of this book from PublicAffairs through NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.