Tara received a doctorate in theology from Trinity college, Oxford, where she was a Clarendon scholar in 2017.

Her first nonfiction book was Strange Rights: New Religions for a Godless World, also published by Public Affairs.

She really has been quite prolific. She has published essays in such outlets as the New York Times, The Atlantic, Current Affairs, Literary Hub, Vox, The Plough and many, many more.

It would appear that Lululemon-wearing Yoga teachers are worlds apart from gun-toting, far-right Trumper conspiracists. Yet, during the Covid-shut down, when revenues from brick-and-mortar yoga studios dried up - many prominent yoga instructors, as well as wellness influencers who saw big bucks could made in the midst of the vaccine paranoia – these strange bedfellows warmed up to each other!

I had the good fortune of speaking with Derek Beres, co-founder of the Conspirituality podcast, which I am a fan of…about his new book by the same name, Conspirituality: How New Age Conspiracy Theories Became a Health Threat, published this month by Public Affairs.

In this episode, we barely scratch the surface of this timely and eye-opening book. Derek was deeply immersed and personally invested in yoga communities for many years, and not only this, but health and wellness has been his beat as a professional journalist. 

From anti-vaxxers and vaccine misinformation, to the paranoia of child-trafficking and the Satanic Panic, to the body fascism of modern yoga and obsession with body purity in the wellness industry,  to the pseudoscience, magical thinking of New Age channelers – we unpack some of the main themes that have contributed to the frauds, con artists, hucksters and charlatans – many of which now thrive on social media, with millions of followers.

Derek Beres is a multi-faceted author, speaker, and media expert based in Portland, Oregon. He has served in senior editorial positions at a number of tech companies and has years of experience in health, science, and music writing. He regularly speaks on science and media literacy. Derek is the co-host of the Conspirituality podcast.

Big Think article.

Since the release of OpenAI’s ChatGPT earlier this year, there has been a media frenzy – with AI suddenly becoming of mainstream interest and concern. In this episode, I spoke with Peter Hershock, a prolific scholar trained in Asian and comparative philosophy, who has had a long-term interest in the ethical dimensions of our relationship with technology. His latest book, Buddhism and Intelligent Technology: Toward a More Humane Future, is another example of Peter’s creative and penetrating way of approaching a very complex subject – where he draws from the deep well of Buddhist thought – with its rich histories of cultivating ethical intelligences, grounded in attention training, an understanding of karma, and the importance of developing a responsive virtuosity – for the purposes of eliminating value conflicts and suffering. Our conversation sheds light on why we need to see the ethical issues surrounding AI as a demand for more enhanced human capacities of predicament resolution, not as mere technocratic problems to be solved. Resolving such values conflicts, Peter tells us, requires clarity in understanding how we got to where we are, and a commitment to be present as in order to respond to in ways that are superlative – an improvisational.

 We touch on a number of themes – why we should view AI more as a synthetic form of intelligence - which can helps us to see with more clarity how our own wants and desires are feeding a karmic loop, in effecting colonizing our consciousness;  how our reliance on so-called smart services could inadvertently have unintended consequences in the forfeiture of our own social intelligence and capacities for open creativity and embodied presence – and much more.

 Peter Hershock, Ph.D. is Director of the Asian Studies Development Program (ASDP) at the East-West Center at the University of Hawaii in Honolulu. Dr. Hershock is also the Director of the Center’s initiative on Humane Artificial Intelligence, with a focus on the societal impacts and ethical issues raised by emerging technologies.  Trained in Asian and comparative philosophy, his research and writing draw on Buddhist conceptual resources to reflect on and address contemporary issues of global concern. His books include: Liberating Intimacy: :Enlightenment and Social Virtuosity in Ch'an Buddhism(1996); Reinventing the Wheel: A Buddhist Response to the Information Age (1999); Buddhism in the Public Sphere: Reorienting Global Interdependence (2006); Valuing Diversity: Buddhist Reflection on Realizing a More Equitable Global Future (2012); Public Zen/Personal Zen: A Buddhist Introduction (2014); Value and Values: Economics and Justice in an Age of Global Interdependence (edited, 2015); and Philosophies of Place: An Intercultural Conversation (2019).