Love & Light Confessionals

The new-age & holistic wellness world is all about love, light, authenticity and wellness for all, right? Not always. Love & Light Confessionals, formerly Kumbaya Confessional, is the insider exposé on the bizarre epidemics of the crunchy hippie world: cults, spiritual charlatans, toxic positivity culture, illegal pyramid schemes, fad diets and more. Hosted by holistic wellness practitioner Katya Weiss-Andersson of the Queer Wellness Podcast, theme music by Will Shishmanian, logo by Nikkita Tetreault. To support this work, go to patreon.com/katyaweissandersson

The Fall of the Coaching Industry 07/26/2023

The Fall of the Coaching Industry Despite what most coaches would have you to believe, many of them are struggling to make the kind of money and bring in the kind of engagement, attention and enrollment they used to. Why is the coaching industry crumbling? To answer that question, we delve into several more: Why do people say the coaching industry is a giant pyramid scheme? What should people do if they feel that they've been scammed by their coach? And what's about ethical coaches? Clinical input and research courtesy of Mary Claire Ferachi (MA, LPC, LAC) and (MA, LPC, MFT-C) Theme music by /episode/index/show/kumbayaconfessional/id/27571785

The Wellness Perfectionism Plague 02/09/2022

The Wellness Perfectionism Plague What happens when spirituality and wellness-related tools end up giving us material for obsessive and unhealthy fixations? /episode/index/show/kumbayaconfessional/id/22081940

Uncanceled: Surviving Susun Weed 02/02/2022

Uncanceled: Surviving Susun Weed Susun Weed is a well-known herbalist living on a farm in Upstate New York. For decades, her survivors have told stories of being beaten, broken down, drugged and trafficked by her while paying for her courses and apprenticeships, yet Susun remains praised and platformed in the American herbalism community. How can this be, when so many (including law enforcement) have known about her abuse for so long? /episode/index/show/kumbayaconfessional/id/21992702

How the Grift is Grifted 01/21/2022

How the Grift is Grifted How exactly do new-age and wellness influencers successfully convince people to give them so much money? This episode explores nine specific sales tactics, from love-bombing to prosperity gospel /episode/index/show/kumbayaconfessional/id/21853163

The Sisterhood of the Sacred No Homo 01/06/2022

The Sisterhood of the Sacred No Homo Guess what- most of those divine femininity influencer ladies? sleep with each other. all the time. While simultaneously building brands off of content that only acknowledges the validity of heterosexual relationships. /episode/index/show/kumbayaconfessional/id/21700547

Homeopathy 12/15/2021

Homeopathy wtf is homeopathy? Does it refer to all holistic health practices, or one modality in particular? How is it different from herbalism? And most importantly, does it have any credibility? /episode/index/show/kumbayaconfessional/id/21497555

Culty Hot Yoga 12/08/2021

Culty Hot Yoga What drives someone to do vigorous exercise in a hot room packed with smelly, stinky people? Is sweating actually an effective form of detox, and does hot yoga really deliver the workout you think it does? This episode investigates three specific hot yoga brands- Bikram Yoga, Forrest Yoga and Baptiste Yoga- and explores the question of whether or not it's ethical to create your own trademarked yoga name brand in the first place. /episode/index/show/kumbayaconfessional/id/21423929

James Arthur Ray 07/06/2021

James Arthur Ray What happens when cultural appropriation becomes deadly? James Arthur Ray killed three people in October 2009, but has been able to successfully re-launch his career as a spiritual self-help salesman. How was he able to manipulate people to override their most hard-wired survival instincts, and how was he able to bounce back and even profit off of the story? /episode/index/show/kumbayaconfessional/id/19715279

A Cult Murder Mystery Dilemma 06/25/2021

A Cult Murder Mystery Dilemma This episode does two things: /episode/index/show/kumbayaconfessional/id/19609622

Holistic Pseudoscience Diets 06/16/2021

Holistic Pseudoscience Diets This episode delves into two particularly dogmatic and pseudoscientific diets within the holistic wellness world: raw veganism and the Weston A Price diet. We also revisit the Medical Medium as Katya reports back after doing his celery juice challenge /episode/index/show/kumbayaconfessional/id/19504580

The Twelve Tribes Cult 06/02/2021

The Twelve Tribes Cult The Twelve Tribes is a messianic cult with communities and businesses worldwide; they camouflage themselves seamlessly with hippie communities and recruit new people as actively as they can. Countless survivors have reported experiencing abuse, and no one quite knows who's died and been buried on their grounds. /episode/index/show/kumbayaconfessional/id/19324136

"I Am a Mirror of Your Unhealed Traumas" 05/22/2021

"I Am a Mirror of Your Unhealed Traumas" In the new-age world, one particular tactic is being used more and more frequently to dismiss and silence criticism. It's being used by Bauhauswife, Angela Sumner, The Holistic Psychologist, followers of the Love Has Won cult and its now-deceased leader Amy Carlson, and countless others. This episode identifies and takes apart this tactic. /episode/index/show/kumbayaconfessional/id/19197521

The Love Has Won Cult 05/11/2021

The Love Has Won Cult The Love Has Won cult has been preying on people, abusing their followers and drawing in money for years, but it looks like their leader, 45-year-old Amy Carlson aka "Mother God," has been found dead. This episode takes a closer look at this QAnon-aligned, Colorado-based spiritual group. /episode/index/show/kumbayaconfessional/id/19056047

Conspirituality 05/05/2021

Conspirituality Katya gives an uncomfortable and belated answer to a very popular set of questions and concerns regarding the Conspirituality Podcast /episode/index/show/kumbayaconfessional/id/18989288

Polarity Part 2: Mars & Venus Edition 04/30/2021

Polarity Part 2: Mars & Venus Edition Today's new-age polarity scene not only shares an alarming overlap with Conservative Christian "Traditional Gender Roles" culture, but also owes much of its origins to the 1992 relationship self-help bestseller Men are from Mars, Women are from Venus by fraudster and scammer "Doctor" John Gray. /episode/index/show/kumbayaconfessional/id/18918572

The Polarity Trend 04/22/2021

The Polarity Trend Is it the hottest trend sweeping the new-age and self help world, helping people hack their lives and relationships with a fundamental law of the universe, or is it just centuries-old recycled misogyny? /episode/index/show/kumbayaconfessional/id/18829241

The Natural Birth Extremists 04/15/2021

The Natural Birth Extremists This episode dives into the controversial "Freebirth" movement and their views on everything from birth to surrogacy to COVID to race to...porn and the rights of transgender people? /episode/index/show/kumbayaconfessional/id/18732638

Not Your Studio's Token Black Yoga Teacher 04/07/2021

Not Your Studio's Token Black Yoga Teacher After many years of experience, Davidia Turner was tired of being used as the “token Black teacher” at yoga studio after yoga studio. So in the midst of a wild 2020, she walked away from studio teaching. On this episode, Davidia tells her story in her own words. /episode/index/show/kumbayaconfessional/id/18630920

The Whole Foods Façade 03/29/2021

The Whole Foods Façade What happens when a corporation puts on a performance of values and makes a brand out of wholesomeness, but carries out a very different reality behind the scenes? /episode/index/show/kumbayaconfessional/id/18515210

Bonus: NXIVM & New-Age Predation ft: Doe Paoro 11/22/2020

Bonus: NXIVM & New-Age Predation ft: Doe Paoro This episode tells the story of the sex trafficking cult NXIVM, and how devastatingly NXIVM's story of abuse parallels existing groups and leaders in the new-age and wellness world. Doe Paoro features in a powerful guest interview telling her own story of experiencing woo-sphere predation, and the factors that enabled it. /episode/index/show/kumbayaconfessional/id/16909631

Bonus: Essential Oil MLMs 11/09/2020

Bonus: Essential Oil MLMs Delving all the way into the spicy past and present of the two biggest multi-level marketing corporations in the spiritual and holistic wellness world: Young Living and doTerra. A story about fake certifications, bogus product lines and a guy named Donald Gary Young. /episode/index/show/kumbayaconfessional/id/16730834

Pseudoscience ft: Mercola & Medical Medium 10/15/2020

Pseudoscience ft: Mercola & Medical Medium This season finale episode tackles the woo-sphere's epidemic of bad medical advice- featuring alternative health superstars Joseph Mercola and the Medical Medium- and the question of how exactly do you figure out what health advice is trustworthy when you can't trust the Western medical establishment either? /episode/index/show/kumbayaconfessional/id/16412633

Is Cancel Culture Unspiritual? 10/10/2020

Is Cancel Culture Unspiritual? How do you gently, firmly and effectively "call someone in" when they're doing harm...and what happens when it doesn't work? Is it ever ethical or spiritually sound to call someone out, or even "cancel" them? /episode/index/show/kumbayaconfessional/id/16349780

10 Questions with Katya 10/02/2020

10 Questions with Katya Listener-submitted Q&A featuring why we tell spiritual women to stop competing with each other, how to balance not being a charlatan with not being driven by impostor syndrome, how the show almost made Katya break up with woo, and "What's the deal with The Holistic Psychologist?" /episode/index/show/kumbayaconfessional/id/16243631

Yoga & Vegans 09/25/2020

Yoga & Vegans Two woo-sphere hallmarks and the antics that come with them. /episode/index/show/kumbayaconfessional/id/16150916

The Purity Obsession 09/18/2020

The Purity Obsession While purity culture is usually associated with Christianity, the woo-sphere has its own pretty intense purity culture around sex, bodies, food, water, healthcare, thoughts, emotions, EMFs...we've got detoxes and diseasemongering all day long. What's more toxic: toxins, or obsessing about toxins? /episode/index/show/kumbayaconfessional/id/16059464

Cults & Kool-Aid 09/11/2020

Cults & Kool-Aid Cults are fascinating, horrifying and in the woo-sphere, popular. But how do we know what's a cult and what isn't? This episode discusses the Landmark Forum, a mystery school cult from the eyes of a survivor, MLMs and...Mormon fortune telling? /episode/index/show/kumbayaconfessional/id/15968480

Good Psychics & Bad Psychics 09/03/2020

Good Psychics & Bad Psychics With intuitive modalities such as astrology, tarot, runes, spirit communication, etc., there are two ways readings go badly: the person doing the reading isn't actually as skilled in that modality as they think they are... and/or the person goes about doing the reading in unethical ways. /episode/index/show/kumbayaconfessional/id/15867872

Guru Culture and the Divine Masculine 08/31/2020

Guru Culture and the Divine Masculine Why does the woo-sphere have such an epidemic of predators masquerading as gurus? What is divine masculinity work and how does it tie into all this? /episode/index/show/kumbayaconfessional/id/15814526

Spiritual Selective Empathy: Human Trafficking 08/20/2020

Spiritual Selective Empathy: Human Trafficking Why are so many people on your social media feed posting about child trafficking and #savethechildren lately? Why are so many of these anti-child trafficking activists also anti-Black Lives Matter? Why is this such a big trend in the woo-sphere in particular...and what do Mormons have to do with all this? Most importantly, is this kind of activism effective in doing the important work of fighting human trafficking? /episode/index/show/kumbayaconfessional/id/15686312

Love & Light Confessionals

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