TrueLife - Clint Kyles - Money, Power, and Fame are like fleeting coins that pass from hand to hand

Episode Date: August 14, 2023

One on One Video Call W/George https://tidycal.com/georgepmonty/60-minute-meetingSupport the show:https://www.paypal.me/Truelifepodcast?locale.x=en_US🚨🚨Curious about the future of psychedelics? Imagine if Alan Watts started a secret society with Ram Dass and Hunter S. Thompson… now open the door. Use Promocode TRUELIFE for Get 25% off monthly or 30% off the annual plan For the first yearhttps://www.district216.com/http://linkedin.com/in/clint-kyles-6a99481bahttps://open.spotify.com/show/5FKiZXiPuTV7KOcVsmS2zq?si=xFlsEJZ8Qm2OxKVHAmpQYgExploring the intersection of faith & psychedelics with Clint Kyle’s…Host of The Psychedelic Christian Podcast…. One on One Video call W/George https://tidycal.com/georgepmonty/60-minute-meetingSupport the show:https://www.paypal.me/Truelifepodcast?locale.x=en_USCheck out our YouTube:https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLPzfOaFtA1hF8UhnuvOQnTgKcIYPI9Ni9&si=Jgg9ATGwzhzdmjkg

Darkness struck, a gut-punched theft, Sun ripped away, her health bereft. I roar at the void. This ain't just fate, a cosmic scam I spit my hate. The games rigged tight, shadows deal, blood on their hands, I'll never kneel. Yet in the rage, a crack ignites, occulted sparks cut through the nights. The scars my key, hermetic and stark. To see, to rise, I hunt in the dark, fumbling, fear. through ruins maze, lights my war cry, born from the blaze.

The poem is Angels with Rifles. The track, I Am Sorrow, I Am Lust by Codex Serafini. Check out the entire song at the end of the cast. Ladies and gentlemen, welcome back to the next best day of your life. I hope the sun is shining. I hope the birds are singing. I hope you understand that there's people. people around you thinking about you right now, hoping you have the best day in your life.

I hope you understand. There's a miracle. Boom. About to happen in your life. I got a great show for you today. I have an incredible guest. And we are going to get into some fascinating topics, at least in my opinion. And these ideas of religion and mysticism and power and authority and relationships and love.

And I'm so excited to talk to the one and only Clint Kyle. He is the host and the founder and the creation. of the psychedelic Christian podcast. He is in my mind a pretty good philosopher and a really fun individual to talk to. So Clint, I probably left out a ton of stuff in that quick little bio right there, but did you want to add anything? And how are you? I'm great, George.

And I couldn't be happier to be joining you today from the southwest corner of the state of Arkansas in the beautiful pine and hardwood forests here in which I, am fortunate to dwell. And no, I don't, excuse me, I don't have anything to add to that other than I am on the tail end of a horrible virus that is working its way through my family. So bear with me, you and your audience, please be gracious if I have to cut out, clear my throat, take some multiple sips of my mint tea to carry us through this beautiful journey that you and I are about to embark on.

And other than that, let's get rolling. Whatever you have, I'm an open book, sir. Well, fantastic. I love the idea. And, you know, I have been listening to some of the podcast that you've been doing. And I know that some of my listeners may have followed as well. And I think that some of our, I think our, I think we may both follow the path of the wounded healer on some way. But I was curious, if maybe you could.

start back somewhere and maybe do a little fill in a little bit of a back story, a little bit of origin story for people who may be wondering, who is this Clint Kyle's gentleman? Absolutely. So born and raised and still happily dwell here in southwest Arkansas. Raising a wonderful, wholesome, although not perfect, blue collar family, attended a Southern Baptist, a little small local Southern Baptist church throughout my childhood. Struggled with my relationship with God, especially as a teenager, as many people do, as you kind of becoming an adult, you start to wrestle with spiritual ideas and you start to decide what, you know, what part of your spiritual origin story do you want to hold on to

and what part of that do you want to further develop in your own way? And so honestly, I didn't stray too far from that, that religious origin story. To this day, I'm practicing Christian, Protestant, and I'm very happy in that spiritual abode. And that's the framework through which I interpret the world. but in my teens, I experimented with cannabis and psychedelics and had a lot of beautiful experiences, and we can go into that if you want to. But at some point, I recognized I wanted to have, I guess I wanted to live the American dream, you know, the picket fence lifestyle. I wanted a wife and children and a career.

And I thought all these psychedelic visions and the things that I've learned have been beautiful, but they don't seem compatible with that, you know, capitalistic, homeowner, responsible dad kind of thing. Or at least I didn't think they did. And that's what society told me that those things weren't compatible. So I kind of shelved all that, started working hard, going to church, married the woman of my dreams and you know we've raised a family together so and that's where I am today so I'm I'm a blue collar guy I work in a factory I go to church and but I also uh let's see I also have a podcast about psychedelics which is kind of awkward for most people so to about two about three

years ago um I was an avid podcast listener and I started listening to I've always had a wide, expansive, you know, a set of interests. And because I had interest in psychedelics as a young person, when I started hearing podcasters and I started reading audio or listening to audio books, and often people would comment on their psychedelic experiences, which sparked the memories in my mind of my. youth. And I struggled to incorporate that into my Christian experience because I was taught to believe those things should be somehow separate. And so after probably a year of struggling with that,

I thought maybe there's someone out there who's gone through this before me and maybe they have something to teach me. So I searched up and down through the internet and didn't find a lot. And I thought, wow, there's got to be other Christians who are in the same boat. Like they can't, they can't talk to their pastor about it. They can't talk, maybe even they can't talk to their spouse about it. So how do I find others who can relate to me or share my experiences or share their experiences with me? I just feel like there was a deep well to draw, to draw spiritual and water from here. But I didn't have a bucket.

And so aimlessly I looked around and finally I decided, well, maybe I need to be the person to reach out to others, which is kind of scary. When everyone else in your community views things with certain lens and you start questioning that or you pose opposition or, you know, it can be challenging to your relationships. So I was kind of on the down low for a long time, reaching out to people and message boards. And I finally just bit the bullet and thought, I'm just going to start my own podcast. I'm going to find other Christians who want to talk about it. And we'll just start talking about it. And I'll just put it in God's hands and let's see what happens. And that's been two years and it's been the best thing I've ever done because I found so many people who just like me,

They had experiences. They didn't have anybody to share them with. And they're good people. They're devout Christians. They're family people. But they also have had psychedelic experiences. And they're very meaningful to them. And they want to share them with others.

But in a context where they have mutual respect of those who they're sharing that information with. So that's the journey I've been on for the past couple years. and it's been nothing but enjoyable. I've received very minimal pushback. Honestly, people have been so open-minded and so open-hearted, and it's been a real joy to embark on this journey. It almost seems like you've gone up the mountain top and received your commandments. You know, and it's interesting to think about when we,

When we look at some of the lessons from the gospel, when we look at some of the lessons of our lives, and when we look at some of the lessons of psychedelics, isn't it interesting the Ariadne thread that weaves them together, this idea of being the change that you want to see in the world, like, hearing the call, whether it's Joseph Campbell's hero's journey. Like, you hear the call, like, hey, I'm looking for this thing. I don't see it anywhere. I guess maybe I should do it. You know, and so many people that I have spoken to on this podcast have found themselves searching for something, not finding it, and then realizing, well, maybe that's a sign for me to do it. And I think that that's like in some ways, I think that that ties to faith right there.

Like, is that a fair, is that a fair assumption to say that that that's a form of faith? Like hearing that call, moving on that action and then doing the thing you're called to do. Is that, is that too far of a bridge? No, not at all. When you're yearning for something and you can't find it, that's where the search begins. You know, because we, I mean, I do it every day. So I've got a problem in my life, no matter how big or how small. It could be my stove top is broken.

So what do I do? I jump on YouTube, right? And I see what is, what is the? what is the collective wisdom out there have to say about this? And then when you go to the source of, you know, collective wisdom and you don't find what you're, you don't find any answers. I think that's God whispering in your ear. This is this is your responsibility.

At least maybe. At least you should entertain that notion. that's that's the call you know that some i mean some people are fortunate or or rather unfortunate you look at you know the the new testament or even or the old testament as well for example um god's call is not always easy and it's not always it's certainly not comfortable you know this the story of jonah will teach you a lot about the comfort of god's call it's god usually doesn't call you to a hammock or a nap. God doesn't say,

maybe you need a nap, brother. Yeah. It's usually, it's usually a struggle. You know, it's usually an, an upstream swim or something like that. Because our natural tendencies is to,

is to try to find the easy path. And sometimes the spiritual, path is a bit of a rocky road. And so yeah, that absolutely resonates with me. I mean, that's what I found up. But oftentimes once you start following that path, you realize that oftentimes that your experiences in your past, God has already prepared you to walk it. And so those people show up at the right time and the right place. You know, the help you need, it's almost like everything falls into place. That doesn't mean it's not still a challenge.

But, you know, Moses followed that, you know, that desire to climb the mountain. And when he got to the top, that's where God met him. God could have just reached down and picked him up and moved him over and dropped him on top, but he didn't. It was probably a long walk. It was probably hot and sweaty and he probably ran out of water along the way. So don't assume that if you interact with challenges, that means you weren't destined to follow that path. I had never built a website. I'd never.

I didn't have a Twitter or a. LinkedIn account. You know, I was just, I was just an average joke. And I had to learn how to do those things. And so I spent many hours, you know, in front of this little computer in the wee hours of the morning, you know, trying to figure out how to, how to move a, you know, file from one, you know, one format to another. I mean, it's, it's, it's, those little challenges are just part of the journey.

Yeah, I agree. I'm fascinated by the mystical experience. And we see these particular experiences documented through the divine books of the past, be it through the biblical scripture, the Bhagavad Gita, or so many of these Sufi poets said such beautiful things, you know. It's just there's so much to be learned from the mystical experience. And I've found it in a way, and I don't mean to try and cheapen any of the beautiful experiences that came before me. But in a strange way, I think that that mystical experience is here for everybody.

And I hesitate to say everybody, but I think that that mystical experience is available to, today through the use of psychedelics in some ways. And I realize psychedelics may not be for everybody. But I have found in my life my own mystical experience. And while I don't claim to be the divine nature of Isaiah or Ezekiel, the transformation in my life because of psychedelics has been nothing short of a miracle to me, getting to see myself in a way that I never thought possible, getting to see a transformation happen in my life that seems a godsend. It's amazing to me. And I know that sometimes people say, listen, psychedelics are not a panacea, George.

And perhaps you should use your rhetoric in a way that is more responsible. But I can't help but talk to people and explain to them the possibility to transform your relationship with fear may lie down the road of psychedelics. What do you think? Yeah, I agree. I share that concern or the concern that others are trying to impose upon you, I should say. I impose that upon myself. Sure. It would be very easy for me to be a psychedelic evangelist. Of course. Because because of the beautiful experiences that I've had and the way that they've shaped my thinking. And maybe later in the conversation,

we can get to that four-letter word that you used that's so prevalent, fear. Yes. That's the worst four-letter word that I know. But fear is, it's one of the most toxic things in our lives. Yeah. It paralyzes us from loving each other,

other completely. It paralyzes us from taking action when we need to. And it's horrible. And those of us who've had positive psychedelic experiences, I don't want to diminish those who've had negative ones because psychedelics for many people can heap fear on top of the fear they already have. But for those of us who have experienced the opposite of that, which is a lot of I think you have and I know I have. It allowed me to to respect fear and appreciate it and walk alongside it because it's a beautiful fear.

Fear is a gift. It keeps you from doing really patently stupid things. Right? Yeah. It keeps you from driving way too fast. You know, it keeps you from just, you know, pouring your heart out in ways that are unhealthy. You know, it's like so fear is something that that we need to incorporate as a healthy part of our life. But all too many of us, our lives are just, we live under the thumb of fear, the oppressive, heavy burden of fear.

and and that's I do not believe that's the way God created us to live and my virus addled foggy brain might have lost the original point you were trying to make it. It's perfect. Let's stay there. I mean, sometimes I think that, you know, when I, I listen to a little bit of a podcast where you were talking about, when you were a teenager growing up and sort of pushing back on authority. And I think a lot of people have done that. And I think it's healthy to do that on some level. And I think it's natural to do that on some level. And I think that that's the beginning of pushing back on fear

or understanding the boundaries that is fear or maybe beginning this relationship with fear. But I'm going to take us back one step even further. Do you think that maybe on some level, the structures, the authority structures, being government or, you know, being religion or maybe it being circumcision for men, the very first form of you. Maybe we come into this world and part of us is cut off

and we're automatically thrown into fear. Like, we are very fearful people. Like, we're scared of everything. And what kind of world can you possibly live in when you're brought into a world of fear? It's like you're brought into a world of control. Part of me can't help but think, That's not a bug.

That's a feature. What do you think? A feature is though a way to guide the flock. Oh, yeah, for sure, for sure. Fear is a very convenient way of driving human behavior. Yeah. So we can be, I mean, we can be directed by fear. in ways that are healthy and in ways that are unhealthy.

You know, as a father, I can't, I can't say I've never used fear as a motivator for my children. I have. And I don't, I don't know if that's just integral to the parenting, to parent-child relationship, I mean, or not. I think it's just a package deal. because, again, fear can be a healthy construct within certain boundaries. So you should be afraid to stick your finger in the light socket. Like, that's a healthy fear. So parents have to provide structure and boundaries with which in children can learn

the natural and healthy do's and don'ts of life. And so I think likewise, if you view life through the framework I do, I think God provides that parental role for us, that spiritual parental role. And it's like when we go too far off the rails, we should feel fear because negative consequences will happen. You know, so getting too close to the light socket with the finger will result in pain and suffering, albeit temporal and probably not life-threatening. But that's a fractal, that's a picture of going off the rails in a bigger way.

You know, so the finger in the light socket might just cause short-term pain and discomfort, but falling, you know, 30 feet off the cliff may provide a much higher and more significant level of discomfort and pain or even the loss of your life. So fear is healthy, but getting back to what you originally stated, fear can be used very effectively to drive individuals and societies towards very negative outcomes, I think. And I think that that's throughout history. We have examples of that. Many wars have been unnecessary wars have been started through fear. Many unnecessary forms of government overreach have been exercised through force, you know, imposing a sense of fear on society. So we have to keep fear and a balance.

Yeah. I believe. Do you think that I think it's plausible to say that some of the prophets like Ezekiel or Isaiah, they had mystical experiences and the parallel between a mystical experience in biblical times and someone having a mystical experience today. I think that they're pretty parallel. On some level, it seems that modern day, the modern day Christian church has decided on some level that the psychedelic experience should be away from the church. You know what I mean?

But there's all these echoes of it. Like if you think of the Eucharist, you take the flesh of God. On some level, doesn't the flesh of God sound like a substance you take that you would have a mystical experience with? And isn't it interesting that, you know, when you look at. look at the burning bush or you think about the virgin birth or these these experiences that Isaiah and Ezekiel had like people who have really intense heightened states of awareness to psychedelic experiences they commune with God we look at things like the Good Friday experiment like we see the mystical experience alive and well in modern day divinity but it's no longer

in the churches like what do you make of that? There's a lot of waste of address that. So just like other organizations within society and just like the role of the parent, you know, oftentimes the church or or any other religious institution throughout history, sometimes not only do they use fear to control and direct people, but the organization itself is possibly the victim of fear as well. Yeah. So we can we can experience fear in groups and that that will drive direction. So I don't know if this is where you're going, but I think right now the modern church, church's reaction and relationship to the concept of psychedelic substances is one of fear.

And so it doesn't surprise me that leaders within the church would teach and spread fear about psychedelic substances because they're probably unknowledgeable about those substances and they probably have taken at least a cursory examination of what little historical evidence was probably provided to them about psychedelic substances and they have they have assumed that there's a lot more danger there than there is something for the people of the church to profit through so so i don't think that's always a tyrannical impulse right You know, I think also oftentimes it's a very wholesome impulse. So, so there are things that my parents told me that today, as a mid-40s adult, I can look back and say, you know, I think they were wrong about that. But they meant that with the, with the most wholesome intentions. You know, they had, they weren't trying to deceive me or brainwash me.

They wanted to protect me. They loved me, you know. And so oftentimes, when I see. the church at large or individuals within the church speak strongly against things like psychedelics. I usually don't believe they're coming at that with a tyrannical impulse. I think they just want what's best for people, and they're fearful that good people are going to go astray and get harmed. And I really think that's where that impasse.

pulse comes from. It's very easy to view people who tyrannically impose their will upon others and assume that those people are just trying to extract money and attention from those people. And there are examples of plenty of that throughout history. I do not deny that. But oftentimes, they're just, they're just transatlantic. transferring their fear onto the people that they have responsibility over. And so, although it's not always right, I do think it oftentimes comes from a pure impulse to keep others safe. Does that make sense? Yeah, it does make sense.

And I, in some ways, I think that we can see that same sort of. path in the way the church has has kind of gone through reformations and changed along the way. Like there's been this ever-changing idea of what faith is and how we should celebrate it. And in some ways, like, I think that this movement now, and like my hope is that the people who do their research and have a comfortable relationship with psychedelics will be the new shepherds that try to recreate a stronger faith. in the Christian community. Like, I really think that there's an opportunity for people to explore divinity,

Christ, religion, God, and this higher power through psychedelics. I think it can be something that brings people together in a way that hasn't been done for maybe a few hundred years. Like, I really think that psychedelics, in conjunction with divinity, can bring about a new way to mind. model reality. And people who have had psychedelic experiences, they come up with these beautiful ideas and metaphors and understandings of, you know, I was able to see my life in a new way. And like when you do that, like that is nothing short of a miracle. You know, you had you had spoken

about a time in your life when when you were younger. And I think maybe you can share this story, but it was about taking mushrooms for the first time and coming upon some friends that were boozing it up on a half bottle of tequila. Maybe you could share that story because I think it reflects a transformation that not only you went through, but people go through today.

I think it's a powerful story. Would you mind sharing that? No, no, no. Yeah, that was the first, that was my first psychedelic experience. So, yeah, I don't know at what point in the journey that happened. you know, the time scale, even on that day is a little fuzzy, but after 20, 25 years later, trying to remember exactly what happened that day is even more fuzzy. But up until that point, from the, you know, for the couple of years previous, see that, let me back up just a little.

Yeah, go into the whole day's experience, but just to kind of set the stage. So we're talking probably the fall of 1995. So I would have been just about to turn the age 17. So, and we can talk about this later, but quickly, like, it's hard for me to relate to a person who had psychedelics for the first time in their 40s or 50s, you know, because even though I went many decades without psychedelics, like my whole life, somehow. was viewed through the lens of psychedelics because I had them at such a young age. So I don't know how that affected their trajectory in my life and thinking.

But that day, up until that day, I had been kind of a party kid, you know. And so I'd had a lot of plenty of booze, you know. There'd been a lot of beer, a lot of gym beam, a lot of keg parties. And I thought that was, I mean, I thought that was just. the bees, knees, man. I thought that was awesome.

You know, for better or worse, alcohol makes you feel great for a little while. And so I didn't question that. But under the effects of the mushrooms, you start to become very introspective, I guess if you're fortunate at least.

And so you start evaluating your own thoughts, your own processes, the way everyone else engages with the world. world, you know. You start questioning your driving habits, you know, and you're, you're reading habits, your diet. You're like, is that really good for me? And so I'm watching these two guys, and they were, they were joyfully intoxicated. And they were singing and dancing and just having a great time. But under the, under the influence of psychedelics, I was able to witness them as

this is dangerous too because one thing psychedelics will give you is almost like although you will kind of reckon with and sometimes

in a healthy way destroy your own ego you can also become very egotistical and you can be like oh now I'm a god you know above all the other

you know ignorant 17 year olds yep and that's not healthy but and so I don't think I was going there. But seeing those two guys, it made me look at them as though they were like little toddlers or like little innocent animals who were just acting silly and goofy. And I had a real like reckoning because I'd never viewed myself from the third person. So I thought, oh my goodness,

like when I'm drinking that to that extent, you know, and I've drink, I've consumed so much alcohol that I've become frivolous and negligent and silly. not even necessarily saying that's wrong, but there's some very unhealthy ways that can manifest. For the first, maybe the first time, I was able to say, maybe that kind of relationship with alcohol needs to be taken a little more seriously. Maybe it needs more investigation. Maybe living that way is not, you know, the road to, a happy and productive life, you know. Not that they were doing anything harmful necessarily in that moment to themselves that I witnessed.

But it just gave me a higher level of recognizing human behavior. So in that moment, I was kind of being a little playfully judgey of them because I viewed them almost as like children or little. animals playing like they didn't have like a full developed consciousness on those but I very quickly turned that mirror around yeah and said that's what you look like when you when you're drunk you're you're a fool you're a jester you know that's you know it's like so from then on I was never quite able to abstract myself from that like if you overindulgent alcohol, you're probably going to look foolish to those who aren't indulging in it. And so it definitely gave me a perspective shift on how substances can to some degree cloud your

mind in a way that you're no longer perceptive of the way the rest of the world is experiencing you. Wait, can you say that again? Say that part again. I don't know if I can. It was beautiful. So sometimes substances can cloud your mind to the degree that you're no longer cognizant of how the rest of the world is interpreting your actions. So often and some of us go through our whole lives without the ability to understand that. Because we only interpret the world as the way everybody's experience,

the way I'm experiencing everyone else. We need to also be in constant flow, understanding how the rest of the world is experiencing us. And so if we're being, if we're cognizant of how other people and other creatures are experiencing us, then that will produce this like cascade of events that are a cascade of thoughts and reactions within our own heart and mind that compel us to live in a way where other people will enjoy experiencing us.

So we want to enjoy our experience with the world and creatures. and other people. What if we also, in tandem, wanted the rest of the world to experience us in a beautiful way? So are we, are people enjoying us? Is our dog enjoying us? Are the trees in our front yard? Are they enjoying being in our presence? You need that reflection. You know, you need to mirror. And that's the beauty of having, sometimes having a spouse is, I mean, you think you've figured all this stuff out.

You're like, I'm going to do this, this and this. And your spouse goes, huh? You're like, no, I'm not doing that.

And so that's like a check. You have to like, that's that mirror being turned back in your face. And so if you're cognizant and if you're patient enough, like you can, you can take the time. and realize maybe the rest of the world isn't seeing this the way I'm seeing it. And God forbid, they might all be right.

Maybe I'm wrong. So psychedelics can definitely do that for you, in the best cases, at least. And they did it for me. They did it for me in that day because I was able to see these silly dudes, that's what drunk, Clint looks like. It looks like a dumbass. And that's like, that's a lot to think about.

You know, because if you've never, if you've been a dumb ass many times, that you didn't recognize it, and then you do, you get a big dose of humility. You're like, oh, my goodness, I'm so stupid.

You know, and I don't think you should, live in that in that like thought but sometimes it's healthy to be like man yeah i am dumb yes pomit his face palm it for a minute face palms are a gift they're a humble gift yeah um it keeps you it keeps you it keeps you from getting too egotistical i actually heard that that was the first of rodents artworks was actually like this instead of like this It would have been more accurate picture of my life. I spend much more time doing this. Yeah.

Yeah, exactly. You know, it's so beautiful. In some of another podcast, you had mentioned something. Actually, I think on the Christian podcast paragraph where you begin describing what it is that you do, you mention something about being, we're all fractals of God's love. And I want to tie that to the situation you just explained about seeing some of your young companion friends being a little bit sideways with tequila. And you seeing that as, hey, that's me. On some level, I think the psychedelic experience allows us to participate in the language of God.

And what I mean by that is you get to see the world talking through itself to you. You see these people. Hey, these people are drunk right now. But what the world is telling you is this is what you look like when you're drunk. And in a weird way, it's a fractal type of language. The world is constantly speaking to us through our interactions with other people. And if you can just step back for a minute and be like, oh, wow, these people are telling George, this is what he looks like when he's drunk. These people are telling George, this is what he looks like when he's weak.

These people, this tree is telling George, this is what it looks like when you're ready to bloom and these flowers will bloom. but the language is all around us. And it's so, it's very difficult for a fish to understand what water is. So too is it difficult for us to understand what the world is talking to us unless we step back. And psychedelics, it doesn't have to be psychedelics. It can be breathwork. It could be prayer. It could be a tragedy.

It could be any of these things. But there's these catalysts that allow us to see ourselves as part of God's language and God's creation. And when you spoke about that situation, it just seemed to go off in my head where, where, you know, boom, there is this experience. I want to share, can I share a story with you that's kind of similar? Absolutely. Please do. So there was a while back at my work where I had something similar happen where, you know,

I was a UPS driver for 26 years. And for lack of a better, a miracle happened. God spoke to me. This tragedy hit me. my world changed and it started off by my realization started off with me being super mean to somebody I was just a pick on this guy I never liked him and I always say mean things to him all the time like

you know like horrible things like you're a big baby but I would use much more colorful language than that and one time when my friend my coworker pulled me aside and I was like George why are you so rude and disrespectful to that guy I'm like, I'm just busting his, I'm just busting his balls, man. And they're like, no, you're being, you're doing more than that, George. And it's, it's really pretty off-putting. And I thought to myself, like, hmm, maybe they're right.

You know, the person was a friend of mine and I respected them. And that weekend I came home and I did a really like a seven-gram dose of mushrooms. And I just started thinking about it. Like, I wonder what is wrong with me. And I just started to see as and ask you, you know, you ask a question, you get an answer. And so I started thinking about, I was unhappy. in my life. I was unhappy what I was doing. I was working like 14 hours a day. I was away from my family. I was resentful for the life I was living. And it began to, as I began thinking about that, then I began thinking about, well, why am I mean to this guy? And it hit me like almost like a one two punch. Like the first punch was, I don't like that guy because he's weak. And as soon as I said it out loud, like you do on psychedelics, you say things out loud, you're talking to yourself. All of a sudden I realized you're weak, George. And then it, like, I started crying a little bit.

I'm like, I'm so weak right now. And I'm taking it all out on this person. But I should be thanking this person because this person showed me that I was weak. So I had to go and apologize to that person. I say, you know what? I have been treating you horrible. I'm sorry for that. I'm really weak.

And I don't have any courage. And I took it out on you because I'm weak, man. And I hope you forgive me. I'm really sorry for that. Like, it's a horrible thing. And I'm sorry for the things that I said. And then I laughed it off and there was really a good. great person. And he's like, oh, yeah, you are a knucklehead, George, but I forgive you, you know.

But from that point forward, I started thinking about, and with a lot of hope from psychedelics, I came to this point, like, I see that I have no, I'm like the scarecrow in the, in the Wizard of Oz. I got no courage, man. I got no courage. I'm afraid of everything. And so I thought to myself, okay, step one, I'm aware. And I'm thankful that I figured this thing out, like a light went off. And I'm like, okay, I figured it out. Now what? Well, maybe I should tell other people how not to be afraid. And I tried that for a while.

That didn't work because I was still afraid. And so I was like, you know what? I got to be the change. I have to be the person that's not afraid. If I want, if this thing that I'm seeing in the world is calling to me, this is something I got to fix it myself. And so I did. I started standing up for myself.

And when I was at work and I saw people getting yelled at, I would walk over and say, hey, is there a problem here? You know, and insert my. into these situations that were fearful. It was hard for me because I was scared. But the more that I did it, the better I got. And a few years go by. And all of a sudden, I find myself as like the shop steward.

And all of a sudden, I find myself standing up in front of 150 people in the building calling out people. Hey, this is wrong. And I'm not going to take it anymore. This person doesn't deserve that. And this feeling of strength begin to well up in me. And then the next challenge came where, you know what, I need to stand up for these things that are happening. And then, you know, I end up having a major confrontation with the center manager

and the district manager and you lose your job. And, oh, man, I can't believe I did this. What a dumb thing I did. It's like I'm following this path that I'm supposed to be on. I just lose everything, you know, and then you realize that, oh, that was a challenge. You know, you made it to the next level. You stood up for something so big in the face of losing everything. you still stood up, congratulations. You made it. But sometimes these promotions in life,

they don't feel like promotions, man. They feel like you lost everything. But only in those moments. And I think that God or the world or whatever it is, the greater power out there, it constantly is challenging you. And it's like, okay, you made it to this level. Now, will you stand up in the face of everything? Let's see. I'm going to give you this opportunity. and you do it. And then all of a sudden, you feel like you've lost everything, but you realize

the relationships around you have gotten better. You realize that the woman you fell in love with now respects you more than ever before. You realize that you have just done something, that your kid will look back and remember forever. And you realize you start getting phone calls from people, hey, thank you, George. Hey, thanks for doing that, man.

And this thing you thought was the biggest tragedy in your life, and you may not know the direction you're going, but you realize you have just given yourself to faith and the world is blooming around you. And so that was my idea and the similar thing of having a psychedelic moment where the world talks to you and the world is challenging you and the world is growing with you. And in doing so, you're helping the world grow along with you.

And that's some of the teachings that I think that intertwine the ideas of psychedelics and faith. And it kind of gets us back to fear. I think psychedelics on some level help us with the relationship to fear, the same way that faith does. Well, that's kind of way out there. But what do you think, man, about the relationship with fear and psychedelics and faith? Absolutely.

So many people, I don't know how many listeners of your show are Christians, but I'm going to speak a little bit from a Christian perspective, paradigm, for example. This is not the tradition that I enjoy celebrating Christianity in, but I kind of grew up in it. That's the tradition of like the altar call. Are you familiar with this concept? The altar, I'm not. Okay. Well, like in your kind of evangelical, maybe southern experience, and I mean that as in like your Baptist, your Methodist.

And I don't know what that community looks like in the rest of the world or in the rest of the United States even. But in the South, it's a very revival type culture. And so oftentimes at the end of a worship service, people are called to come up and repent of their sins publicly or come up and make this public stand before the whole congregation and profess your faith in Christ. Christ. And I'm not, I don't, I don't believe that's unhealthy. That's not the practice that I worship in now, but so many people are there present and they feel that call. They want to go up there. They want to repent. They want to, you know, publicly express their faith in Christ, but they don't. And it's, and you can see, if you've ever been in those circles, you see people in a heart, mind,

jujitsu match. I mean, they are, they are wrestling. They are fighting. The ego and the heart are in a death clinch. And

I've seen people have just enough strength to quell the fear and step out and make that walk. And it's like it's no wonder they call it new life or new birth because for those people, when you see them just shed that old skin, it is like they died to something they were and they are becoming something new. And it's easy to be skeptical of that because we've probably seen people, quote unquote, turn over that new leaf and it didn't last maybe. But it's the same experience you had when you, when you, you were, you saw, you were witnessing something that required you to act and you had a choice to make.

You felt a compulsion and you had to decide, do I step out or do I remain in my comfort zone? my physical, spiritual, monetary. I mean, how many times have we been, have we felt the need to just pull out our wallet and spend some money for God's sake, for somebody else's benefit? And we either did or we didn't, but either way we just wrestled with it.

Like, it was almost like physical pain, you know, to just give somebody $1,000. Because $1,000 isn't nothing. Yeah. I mean, even to the wealthiest of us, it hurts a little. But even for those who are just kind of like, you know, middle class people, you know, you don't just throw $1,000 away. But that $1,000 can change somebody's life, you know, and it's like, why are you being

so damn stingy, you know, but it's like you're just having that wrestling match with your heart. And so people do that for a multitude of reasons. in big and small ways. I mean, I felt it. So my boys are 20 and 18 now. But when they were like eight and six, we go to this little local elementary school.

They were interested in Cub Scouts. And I thought, oh, boy, Cub Scouts. That was what I was thinking. I grew up hunting, camping, fishing, tying knots. I'm like, we don't need Cub Scouts. I got this covered, fellas. Trust me. So we get there.

And, you know, they're going through their routine. And, you know, they're talking about all the things they're going to teach the boys to do, you know. And I'm like, yeah, I know all this. But my boys are excited. And they want to be a part of this group. And I'm like, okay, but okay, let's do it. But I was like, I'm not, I'm just going to be a parent. I'm not going to be a leader.

And someone volunteered to be the leader. They said, we got a leader, but we need a helper. Does anybody willing to be the helper? And so I'm having that wrestling match with the fear and the thing, the whole thing, you know. And so I'm like, okay, I'll be the helper. Great. We got a helper. Okay.

So he pair, they have pair me up with the leader. So leader and I talk, okay, you know, a week from today, we're going to meet and we're going to start the meetings. You know, we start teaching the kids the things. Pardon. Okay, so show up week later, or about an hour before the meeting. I'm texting the leader and he says, I'll meet you there. Okay, I'll meet you there. So I show up.

Guess what? Leader does not show up. I become the de facto leader. And I don't know anything about corraling. a dozen six-year-olds who have been drinking Mountain Dew and eating Skittles and I'm like, I don't know what I'm doing.

And my wife is a kindergarten teacher, but she didn't sign up for this. She didn't have any idea this is going to happen. And she looks at me like, you're on your own, my friend. And I'm like, oh, my word. And so I get up and give a speech that goes about six inches from my mouth.

I don't think anyone heard it. It was a bunch of blank staring faces at me. Somehow I managed to say, meet here next week and we'll all have it figured out. And that doesn't sound like a big deal. And in the grand scheme of things, it's not. But for me, it was a powerful moment in my life. Because I had to decide at this moment,

leader didn't show up. Do I cut and run? or do I step into that leadership? And I didn't want to do it, but I did it. And it was almost one of the most transformational positive impacts of my life ever. And I did that for like, I don't know, five or six years. You know, and it was great. But I never would have chose that path.

And so I don't know. It was a combination of God and the scouting. They had something, they had a little back. background conversation and decided to throw me out there and see how I'd react. I think it was a setup. That's all I'm saying. But I'm glad somebody set me up. I'm glad I was set up.

I'm glad God forced me into that challenge. And little things like that have happened to be so many times. I mean, I don't know how many people are listening to this. You may know. Please don't tell me. I've never done a live podcast. I've done a couple other podcasts of other podcasters, but I've never been on live video before in my life. But I've experienced enough of those circumstances.

And I think, honestly, I think psychedelics help me embrace these kind of moments. Because what's the worst that can happen? You know, I trust God. I trust you. Maybe I shouldn't. But I decided to. Definitely should. I had a choice to make, you know, and I chose to do it.

And I'm already grateful for it. So, yeah, step out there, meet God. Meet challenges. Yeah. Face fear and adversity with courage. You know, I don't know how. I think psychedelics have helped me do that. Yeah.

I think it, in my opinion, obviously, I can only speak to my opinion and some of the people with whom I've spoken. But there's something that happens in the psychedelic experience that is congruent with faith. And that is his ability to walk alongside fear. I love the way you said that when you get to walk alongside fear. And so many of us have been conditioned. And like you said, maybe our conditioning with fear is something that's innate to the human condition. Maybe parents use fear to keep people away from predatory beasts back in the days at cavemen and we've carried it with us forever. And maybe that echoes through institutions and governments and maybe that's just an echo. But the truth is, all of us on some level have been

conditioned to live with fear. And it's a good thing, but there are some irrational fears that we live with. And if we don't confront those fears, then that monster under the bed begins to paralyze us. But psychedelics, much like faith, allows us to stand next to fear and look it in the eye and say, you know what? You're big. You're scary. But so am I. Maybe you should, maybe you should have some respect for me, fear. And when you do that, the fear shrinks down or maybe the fear becomes your ally. You know, I talked to my daughter sometimes. And a while back, she was very fearful of the monster under her bed. But when I looked under there, he had moved to the closet.

And when I looked in the closet, he had moved behind the door. So I had to have the talk with her and be like, you know what? Her name's Sky. She's beautiful. And I love her to death. I said, you know what, Sky? It's time for you to learn. And she's like, what?

And I'm like, that monster's real. Oh. Oh. I'm like, but guess what? He's your friend. He wants to know you. And that's why he hides under your bed. That's why he hides in the closet.

because even though he's big and scary and has teeth and he can do these crazy things, you got to make friends with him. Because that same monster under your bed and in your closet behind your door, he's there to protect you. And if you make friends with him, he'll still hide under your bed, he'll still hide in your closet, and he'll hide behind your door. But now he's hiding there to protect you. Anybody that comes and he's going to get him.

No one can come in your room without that monster letting you know about it. He's your teammate now. But you've got to make friends with them. You have to be willing to look under the bed sometimes and tell them, hey, I'm going to sleep. I'm leaving it with you. Or if you see him in your closet, that means he wants to talk to you. Get out of your bed, open the closet, and tell him, hey, I'm going to bed now. I need you to do your watch.

But it's this idea of making friends with the monster that psychedelics allows you to do. And psychedelics do that because you can't run. On a high dose of psychedelics, there's nowhere to run. And that's where I think people get caught up That's why people have bad trips Like, ah, they stack fear on top of fear Because they're running. Like you can't run from it.

And I think that that's the lesson of faith. It's the lesson of psychedelics. Yes, there are horrible things that happen to you. Yes, they're not going away. Yes, if you try to block them out, they're going to beat you up. But just stop and embrace them from them. Hold them. Grab them and hold them.

You know, and don't let them get away. Let them say, what they have to say to you. It's not going to hurt you any more than it already has. But that's the lessons of psychedelics and the lessons of fear. And the more we become comfortable with our own fears, the more we can stand up at work, the more we can become a leader at Cub Scouts. And the more we can embrace fear, the more we can see the miracle of life allowing you these opportunities. Because that's what I think it is, whether it was me at work or you becoming the Cub Scout leader, I think life is constantly preparing opportunities.

for us if we're not afraid of them. And these fearful things, all of a sudden, they become opportunists for us to become the leaders that we're supposed to be. And I think that that is, that is what our friend Magic Micah talks about is Frankie fear. You know, it's this conditioning we've had all our lives, but that gets us back to God and religion and the relationships with fear. That was kind of a roundabout way of talking about not being able to run from fear.

And that's what the psychedelics and faith are kind of similar. Does that make sense at all? Absolutely. Good. That monster is God. Everything you said, people run from God. People are afraid of God. People don't want to, they don't want to see God's angry hand.

And I think it's because they haven't seen the loving side of God. They saw the scary side of God because some old preacher told them, you know, God's going to burn in hell. You know what else, though? God will love you and embrace you and protect you and keep hell at bay. You'll keep hell at bay. It's like you don't have to be afraid of God. We've been taught to fear God.

Yeah. God's the monster under the bed. He's the monster in the closet. He's also a shroud of unimpenetrable love around you. Like what could be more, what could make you feel safer? You don't want a weak, you don't want a weak protector, you know? You can't trust. I mean, I mean, everybody loves a golden retriever, right?

Of course. They're just love bombs. They're a little, just beautiful furry, they're happy. They're not a good watchdog. I mean, come on. If a burglar comes into your house, he's going to lick them to death. You know, it's like, I mean, you know, my God is a raw. whileer. I don't. I'm scared of him, but he's going to take care of me. That's kind of the way I view it.

Maybe that's not everyone's paradigm. But that, you know, my God is a monster, but he loves me. You know, and when we have a relationship, I have a relationship with that monster. It's a beautiful monster. Yeah. That's my God. So, I mean, we, we have to end. integrate because those fears that we have are a part of us. And so it's like, I think the degree to which we experience pain, suffering, anxiety in our life are the degree to which we haven't integrated the positive and negative experiences of our past and present.

So it's like, I mean, this week, George, I could have had 15 reasons to, to email you and say, brother, we got it. We can't do this. Wednesday night, when I got this virus, man, I was, first of all, my wife said, she's a teacher.

School started today. She's like, I love you. I cannot get sick. She banished me from the bedroom. She hasn't come within 10 feet of me. And I don't blame her. So I'm on the couch. I am bald up in pain and chills.

and fever cycling over and over and over again. Congestion moving down in my head. I cannot breathe. I cannot think. But in that pain, in those chills, I mean, chills so bad, I mean, my back still hurts. I was just doubled over in pain. At some point in that night, I don't know when, the wee hours of the morning, I started just deep breathing, just breathe.

I just told myself, breathe, breathe, breathe. And in that pain, in that suffering, I told myself, what can you learn from this? Like, you know, George, I have good fortune. I have enjoyed really good health throughout my life. And so it's one of the things that I struggle with is having a merciful, or I used to suffer. I used to struggle with this. I don't anymore.

I used to. I used to have the pull-up your bootstraps mentality. When I saw someone who was struggling or suffering or down on their luck, my reaction was, toughen up, Buttercup. You know, get your shit together. Get a job. Get off your butt.

You know, don't, you have depression? Well, here's something. don't be depressed. That was my mentality. Yeah, right. Just reach up, turn the depression switch off. I thought that you could do that. You know, but that's because I hadn't experienced diversity.

I mean, not diversity, adversity. I didn't experience enough adversity in my life. And so when you experience pain and suffering, that's a moment for you, especially if you're someone like me, who's been fortunate and hadn't experienced, that much pain and suffering. That's a moment for you to relate to people who experience that every day of their life. I know people who genuinely have trouble getting out of bed every day. And I do that without even thinking about it. So this illness has been a little gift for me.

it's allowed me to to walk a mile in their shoes. So now I can I can move forward from this and I can have more mercy, more love and be more helpful to people who that's their everyday reality. I'm fortunate that I only experienced it for, you know, five to ten days. That's someone's everyday walking reality. And so now I can be more compassionate. I can love them better. And I can, I can, I can, I can be a better Christian because honestly that's what I want to be in my life.

And so now I can be. And so I got the gift of a virus to teach me a lesson. And other people might not view it through that lens. But in that moment for me, that was comforting. Not only was it comforting, but it was growth as well, it was spiritual growth. And so to kind of compare that to psychedelics, I never had a, quote, bad trip. But two nights, the first two nights of this little virus have been my bad trip.

I promise you. I had nightmares of being suffocated by vines. You know, all the things, all these horror stories that people tell about their ayahuasca journeys. I didn't need ayahuasca. All I needed was a flu because I had those nightmares. And at first I questioned whether that was real or not. I was like, yeah, that's a bad dreams. but now that my son has the virus he told me this morning dad i'm having horrible nightmares

and i was like wow okay so maybe this virus you know is i don't know maybe there's an evil spirit working its way through our house that we got to get rid of you know i don't know um i tend not to interpret things that way but people in the past have interpreted uh an illness as like a spirit or an omen, right? So what are we going to do? How are we going to purge that? We have, you know, throughout history, you have people using plant medicine to purge, quote, evil spirits from dwellings and buildings.

You know, all these, all this stuff is present in liturgy as well, in the Christian experience. You know, if you walk, if you go into a high church, which is kind of what my experiences right now. You'll see, you'll hear music and bells and smoke. How different is, is sensing the altar with incense different from smudging a room with sage in a, in an experience? You know, these are, these rituals are more than just theatrical practices. These things aren't theatrics. These things are poor to human traditional experience. There's a reason why we would smudge a room with sage smoke or something of that nature.

You know, these are purifying agents. These are things that drive away the negative embodiments that feel some of our homes, our institutions. How much better would our schools be if we smoke them with incense every morning? I don't know. Might we drive out the evil spirits that encourage kids to harm themselves or harm others? I'm going down on a crazy rabbit trail here. Not at all, man. It's beautiful.

Look, I see us in some sort of, I think Terence McKenna called it like an archaic revival. And it seems to me what's falling away is the corruption of the institutions. You know, and maybe it is this lack of ritual. this lack of sacrifice that we have had for the last 200 years that has led us down this path of, you know, emptiness, spiritual emptiness in some ways. You know, and I, on some level, I do, I think that we're spiritually devoid

not only of faith or a collective faith, but, you know, of rights of passage and rituals. You know, I've said it before, but, you know, there's echoes of a quinceaniera or a bar mitzvah, but where is the ceremony for the young adolescent becoming an adult? Is that being 21 and getting wasted? Is that, is it prom night? Like, is that the ceremony that we have fell to? Is that the rights of passage that we have degraded into?

What is there where? we speak of the dignity and grace of becoming a full-fledged, fully acknowledged, authentic human being. Where is that right of passage? Where is the right of passage where the community gets together and questions, who is this young wizard or who is this young maiden? What are their gifts? Let us sit and ponder. What is this miracle these kids are going to bring us?

Where's that in the schools? Like, you know, it seems that we have just bowed down to the idea, of obedient workers. And, you know, I understand the Prussian school system was put in place at a time when we needed people to create widgets for, you know, robber barons and things like that. But look, I think we're going through a rebirth. And part of it comes with this new definition of our spiritual nature. And I think psychedelics play a part in that. Like, I forecast a time when I sit down with my doctor.

And we have a mystical experience together through psychedelics. I think that, you know, one of my favorite books is The Island by Aldous Huxley. And they talk in that book about a child at age of 12 sitting down with a mentor on a church on a hill overlooking a sunset and having their first psychedelic experience. Like, why shouldn't kids at the age of 12 or puberty begin to understand what the human mind is capable of? like we're we're we're we're blunting their growth we're blunting what their possibilities could be by trying to force them into this box of normality trying to force them into this tight fist of you know one dimensionality like there's so much more kids could be it and if i'm honest with myself and i listen to my kid and her friends talk a million times smarter than i was at that age you know the the the world that we are handing off to them is one of beautiful imagination, and we should be willing to give them the tools to sculpt a world that is more beautiful than we can imagine.

And on some level, I think that's what's happening. Like, if you look at the echoes of the wars of Ukraine or this world of, we've got to extract all the resources now. We're just extracting to extract. Like, there's no shared sacrifice. There's no shared goals. And when I hear people talk about millennial slackers not showing up to work, I want to cheer. Like, yeah, yeah, they get it, man.

It's kind of a rant there. But what do you think about in the not too distant future, there being rights of passage for kids going through puberty, having a mystical experience with their parent or a mentor? Well, that didn't scare me. I understand why it scares. the powers that be, be they government or be they church or whatever. Because once you've risen to a place of power and influence, you have kind of become the spokesperson for status quo. And you had to fight to get there.

It was not an easy road. Most people aren't handed the keys to the kingdom. them. And so that's why companies often die because they refuse to innovate, right? Right. And so like Kodak. Wow, man, Kodak. Like who, like I grew up in a world where Kodak was, was everything that involved imaging, you know, like images. And now it doesn't, I don't even know if it even exists in any manifestation. You know, Blockbuster video, they were on every corner in America.

And now they do not exist. You know, these are examples of power structures that refused to learn or innovate. That doesn't mean you have to alter your core principles. Right. But for those in power, it feels that way. And so I think that's why power structures become so insular and fearful. Again, that word fear. It's like, there you go.

The power structure fears change because it might no longer remain the power structure. But when we start to view ourselves as part of a whole that, that, that, that as we exit, others will pick up those responsibilities and carry them forward. And we should view that through the lens of like stewardship, you know. And so power structures start to become insular and fail. I think when they know, when they lose sight of stewards, well, then lose sight of leadership. So leadership and control. overlap to a large degree, but they are not the same thing.

You know, a true leader exercises control, but that is not their end game. A true leader's goal is stewardship and education, whereas a tyrant is someone who focuses on control. And so when leadership becomes tyrannical, and that breeds fear because they fear the loss of power. And I don't think the church has to fear losing influence because of psychedelics. Yeah. I think that the church needs to fear losing influence because of psychedelics.

needs to fear itself being tyrannical. Loving stewardship is not an embodiment of fear. And I think so many have been turned off to the church or otherwise good institutions because people within those institutions have become tyrants and not leaders. I don't know if that answered the question. I think back to what you're saying about,

about coming of age transitions and ceremonial embodiments of adulthood and embracing responsibility for young people. Like if we, I don't know, George, I think we might need a collective ethos in order to, in order to to carry out that, that function. You know, we live in a materialistic society. One, we, we, everything is quantifiable. You know, one plus one equals two.

We have suppressed everything non-quantifiable to the realm of myth and legend. Forgery, fairy tales. It's fairy tales. If you can't put it in a box, then it's a fairy tale. And that has sadly warped the minds of humanity. And it may, it may, and it gives birth to things like that Prussian school system where we're all just taught to be cogs in a wheel. So I agree with you. And it's like, I, so I work in this, you know, blue collar factory environment.

And I'm Gen X. I'm kind of like young Gen X guy. I'm with you. So yeah, I'm like, you just get your butt up and you go to work every day. You know, that's what you do. Yeah. But these guys that are coming on now, they're my kids age. And they don't mind taking a two hour break and like just scrolling through their phone.

You know, and the guys my age and older are looking at these kids like, what is wrong with these youth? They're all idiots. You know, they're all lazy. But like, you may be right. Like, maybe grinding away for 12 hours, you know, for eight days straight is a stupid thing to do. Like, what are we doing? Like, well, maybe not stupid, but at some point in time, the game was no longer worth the candle.

Like, I don't mind that. Like, look, I did it 14 hours a day. And up at five, you know, make breakfast for my family, leave the house by 630, drop my kid off at school, go to work from seven, work till 10, come home, everybody's sleeping, do it again. Like, I get it. And I've done it for 26 years. Like, my uncle did it, you know, and I, but at some point in time, where was the feast we were promised? Where is it at? I don't see it.

You know, at some point in time, the game was. no longer worth the candle. And we figured it out. You could say that that may have happened in 2008 when there was this giant push. When that push on Wall Street, remember the Wall Street riots? And all of a sudden, the money's worth nothing. And all of a sudden, your pension's gone. And all of a sudden, the middle class is failing.

But guess what? CEOs are making a thousand times what the average worker is. And there's the same way that people don't get in trouble for cocaine, but they go to prison for life for crack cocaine, is the same way the CEO on Wall Street gets away with their crimes. They can rob banks, but the guy with a gun can't rob a bank. At that point in time, like, okay, you know, I figured it out. Okay, what am I doing?

Well, yeah, I don't mind working hard, but you got to pay me. Oh, no, we're not going to pay you as much anymore. You know, inflation kicks in. And all of a sudden the, even though you may get a raise with inflation, inflation, the living standards are still declining. So the kids of the millennials, they see their parents. They see them getting divorced. They see their dad drinking into oblivion because the feast he was promised never showed up

because he was supposed to be able to get a gold watch and at least live out the last 10 years walking instead of having two knee surgeries, not making it. So our society, and you can argue that we played a part, has failed us. So we as the last generation of Xers still have this mentality of like, God damn it, you're supposed to get up and work 15 hours a day. But look at these millennials like, why? Why should I do that? Society left me behind.

They left my parents behind. I'm going to sit here and scroll on my phone for three hours. What are you going to do? You're going to do? You're going to fire me? Go ahead. I'll get another job. You know, and on some level, I look at it and I praise them because I wish I had figured it out earlier.

And I'm not saying they're not, some of them might not be lazy. But it's not worth it. Society has no, has left so many people behind. it's no longer worth it. And the same thing you said about picking up, picking yourself up for your bootstraps. Like on some level, you've got to have the ability to work hard and sacrifice.

But what are you working hard and sacrificing for? Is there anything for you? Or are you just being hollowed out and left to work on the plantation? And I think so many of the young kids today, look at that and like, I'm going to do the very bare minimum. I'm going to embrace this quiet quitting because I'm going to do with the bare,

bare minimum. And I think like I have been on the other end of that where I looked at people very judgmental. And I think it echoes what you said. Like, look at this person. Oh, you're depressed. Oh, you don't hate your life. Oh, you don't want to do it anymore. But on some level, I'm like, yeah, I mean either. I don't want to do it anymore either.

Maybe I should have standing up for myself. Maybe I should stand up for that guy on the corner that's having a tough time. Maybe I should go talk to him. Hey, what's up, man? Oh, you came back from war and you treated like garbage. yeah, I could see that. You know, what are we doing? Like, we're failing ourselves by not standing up. And when we look at the next generation,

there are echoes of us. Like, they don't want to do it. And maybe they figured something out. You know, maybe society owes us more than we're getting. Maybe we need to hold the people in positions of authority to a higher standard. And if we talk about, if we go back to this idea of fractals, like look at what's happening all over the world, whether it's the yellow vest in France,

whether it was the Middle East uprising. I know that's not the right term for it, but the thing that happened there, look at our country in Baltimore. Look at our country that not too long ago before COVID, there was uprisings everywhere. And it doesn't matter if you're gay or straight or black or white or trans. All these are distractions.

What's happening in our country and throughout, the world is that the middle class has been hollowed out all the money's being kicked upstairs we're no longer abiding by the social contract that was given to us thank you hank fully the arab spring and it's a new spring that's happening and it's a new thing that's being born and like you said the power structures i think are very very nervous because a lot of them find themselves clutching the pearls of power after struggling their way to the top and they see the masses unhappy. Hey, where is our feast that we were promised? Why am I working 15 hours and not getting anything? You know, and if I put on my conspiratorial hat,

like I see the world erupting facing their fears and people in positions of authority don't know what to do. And I don't know that I would know what to do if I was in a position of authority. but I find myself burning with the flame of anger. I find myself burning with the flame of revolt. Like this is garbage. We're being treated like garbage. We're being treated like slaves. And so many people have so much.

And it's weird because I look at myself on that level. Like, you know what? A lot of people look at me like, I'm the person with so much. So I try to have empathy. I'm like, well, what do you do? you know and I don't know that was kind of a roundabout rant right there but I think that the millennials might have an idea you know of what's going on or at least they're acting out how other people feel what do you think is that is that too far out there I think that was a beautiful rant so thank you I got to give in the same rant yeah probably less eloquently than you so that that's but here's the problem like so the people who are a part of the truck revolt in Canada a couple years ago, you know, that were that we're concerned about oppressive, you know, government virus regulations.

Yeah. Are not dissimilar from the Arab Spring. Not at all. They're not, they're not dissimilar from college campuses in the 1960s and 70s. It's very easy to pit these groups against each other because they don't look like each other. other. They don't share a religion. They don't share economic, you know, uh, ethoses. They don't have, you know, they don't have the same color skin. They don't, uh, you know, dress the same. So you assume they're different. They're all reacting to negative power structures and they don't have a

healthy route to express their grievances. So you get there, it's like volcanoes. You know, you get like these tectonic pressure and it builds and builds and builds. And instead of finding being healthy, creative ways to express our grievances and work on the challenges that we all share, instead the power structure tries to put a cap on those things. And anytime you've resisted the imp, the necessity of dealing with a problem in your life, you realize that that problem usually only festeres and becomes worse. And so that's what we experience every time these things happen. And so

the power structure pits the people in the experience against one another in order to diffuse blame from itself. And so the problem never gets dealt with because eventually one of those two facets of the war fails or loses, but the power structure remains in place. And I don't, I don't personally do not have an answer to this perpetual problem. Others, than that we don't share a common ethos and we don't have a common method for airing our grievances and coming to cohesive conclusions that are in everyone's best interest. But part of that, I don't know, George, I don't know if we can escape it. Part of it's the cycle of life.

I mean, it's almost like saying like, how do we stop death? Yeah. If you stop death, you stop life. You know, it's a, it's a, from a thousand miles away, it's a beautiful cycle, you know. But when you're down on the ground, you see the subtle pain and suffering, you know. So I try hard to maintain both a view from the ground, but also this cosmic view. And sometimes, that sometimes there's a tension there that I can't reconcile as just an average guy. Yeah, it's well said. And I do too. I find myself oscillating between the passions of wanting to embrace the fire and the destructive nature that is being a human. and the other part about building boundaries around it to harness it and use that power to create something beautiful.

Maybe that's the duality of life. In some ways, it speaks to why I love the psychedelic experience because it allows you to feel the non-duality. Maybe that's the ability to learn. And maybe that's what's beautiful about being a human being is that we get to achieve. experience this. And in a certain age in your life, you are given that maybe the scales are somewhat pulled from your eyes and you get to see that, look, it's beyond good and evil.

It just is, you know, and maybe that's what's so heartwarming and embracing and fearful and beautiful about the psychedelic experiences that you get to understand it. Maybe that's the gift is seeing it all for what it is and realizing that you're playing a part in it, you know, like that's pretty magnificent to understand that not only can you play a part in it, but you can choose how big of a part you want to begin playing. Would you like to play a bigger role? Hey, would you, I can give you a nice, I think it was Pink Floyd who said, will you trade a walk on part in the war for a lead role in the cage?

You know what I mean? Like it's on some level, that's the beauty of God, the gift of faith, and the magic of tragedy is that you can choose to play all of those parts. And I love to embrace it. I love conversations like this. And I love having the privilege of getting to use my language and my time to experience it, man. And I hope other people will choose to embrace it and read and learn, but more than read and learn. continue with their lived experience and leave their mark on the world around them, right?

Like I said, we're really, really thankful. I'm really, I have so much gratitude for being able to have this much passion. No. I feel like when you turn a corner, we went dark there a little bit. We have to, man. We got to go dark. But, yeah, it's, man, to be able to participate in this crazy cacophony of love, and madness and insanity.

It's a gift. It's a gift. And I value it. You know, it's like, and I think what you're doing and what I'm doing, having these conversations with people that, that's how we play our part. I don't know what else to do. You know, the more we,

the more we share each other's experiences, the more we understand each other. Like, maybe the less we'll fight with each other. Maybe the less will be willing to kill each other. over over subtle, very subtle differences oftentimes. Yeah. And man, I'm finding, I wouldn't say, I start saying nothing but love since I've started this.

But I haven't found, I have found a little bit other than love. But oftentimes it's like I find people like you, man. And so many of our mutual acquaintances, you know, it's funny. You know, I got on, I'm so glad I got on LinkedIn. And I resisted it forever because I thought, first of all, I'm kind of a blue collar guy. You know, I'm not like a corporate job hopper. And that's kind of what it seemed like to me. I just thought this is a place for people who are, you know, trying to level up their career and go up to corporate ladder.

And this is how they find connections. And that's cool and all. But that wasn't, that wasn't my stick. And so I thought, you know, I probably need to get on there just so I can make some connections and find some like-minded people. And so instead of choosing the perfect, you know, corporate headshot of myself, I flipped through my phone and found the most esoteric, weird, you know, long-haired Jesus picture of myself. This will pretty much explain to people, like, I'm not here, you know, for the corporate stuff. And so I posted that and it was like, I thought, I'm not going to find any friends on. on LinkedIn.

But here they come. You know, it's just like all these mutual acquaintances and so many, so many goodhearted people. Maybe not from my tradition or my perspective, but, but that's fine. You know, it's like, it's just been, it's been like a little love fest over there almost crazy. I've enjoyed it.

And I probably never would have met you had on like going on there. And it started throwing in my two cents into the conversation. and I try to keep it positive, you know. I recognize when I interact on social media that not everyone shares my perspectives on life or spirituality or family or economics or politics and that's okay, you know. I'm not going to let their views upset me and I hope they can not get too upset with me if I occasionally share something that ruffles their feathers. Let's have a little mutual love and respect. and I'll be so reactive, you know, and I think psychedelics taught me to be less reactive and more contemplative, you know, it's like if you hear something that doesn't immediately

resonate with you, you don't have to react. Maybe you just, just chew on it. Give it some time. Think about it. Pray about it. Talk about it with maybe someone in close proximity to you. Talk to your spouse about it. talk to your best friend about it.

You don't have to go on a tirade on social media and make a complete ass of yourself in front of the world and, you know, create enemies unnecessarily. I wish people wouldn't do that. And I'm well acquainted with the impulse. I have the impulse, but I try to restrain it, you know. And if you do, if you restrain it, you're always grateful for it. It's kind of like the, what's that? saying no one ever regretted not eating too much, you know, if you leave the table with that pleasantly full feeling, you'll be glad you did that, you know, but you'll only enjoy

overeating for a few short moments. And then the misery kicks in. So that's kind of the way I, I view social media the way I view my food intake a little bit. like if you if you over indulge in that, you're going to have, you're going to have a poor digestion, both figuratively and literally. Yeah. I think it, so this is, this is, this is an interesting fork in the road that I have seen happening in my evolution of consumption of media. And it's this idea that the way in which.

we are consuming our information fundamentally changes the way we model reality. And there's this book I always quote, I've been doing it a lot lately, and it's Marshall McLuhan's the Gutenberg Galaxy. And in that book, he speaks a lot about the way in which typographical print has changed our worldview. You know, when you think about the idea of printed books, it wasn't that long ago that this was entered into our world. And when you, like, think about the phonetic alphabet. Like, you see a letter and then letters make up words. And then words make up sentences.

Sentences make up paragraphs. Paragraphs make up pages. Pages make up books. Books make up volumes. And so if you just under, you begin to understand this linear way in which we use our language, how can that not perpetuate a linear way of thinking? So all of a sudden we are looking down this road where we just see ourselves as a letter in a word, in a sentence. And it becomes very predictable and very unimaginative.

And it leads to, you know, revolutionary ideas like productivity. You know, just all these silly things that like, I guess help us move forward, but are really, really boring. and they minimize the human condition and they lead to ideas like employee numbers and things like that. And so I think what we're moving to now and I think psychedelics and spirituality are going to play a fantastic role

in the that's happening right now. As you and I are talking, we are seeing an explosion of creativity, explode under the scene. And that's doing done by the same way I can move my hands and use my words and talk to you on a different part of the planet. People are engaging in this.

Hank's in the comments and he's commenting and he's watching me use my hands, my words, my facial expressions, and he's seeing you react in a certain way. So we're almost seeing a different dimension of communicatability if that's a word. And I think that that leads to different dimensions of expression, artistic especially.

And I think we're going to see this play out in the world and it's going to radically propel the world we live in into a much better existence through artistic expression and whatnot what what do you think is the future for or do you see something similar that I'm talking about this about the future of or the intersection of faith psychedelics and artistic experience Do you see that playing a role in the future going forward? I do, but I'm cautiously optimistic. Okay. Good.

There's so many potential errors, you know? Like, we're probably going to get this wrong in a lot of ways. There's going to be problems. There's going to be mishaps. There's going to be people who, overdo it and underdo it, you know. And we're seeing that right now. People are incorporating psychedelics, in my opinion, they're hanging too much on it.

And then we have people who are resistant and view it through it only a negative lens. And I think it's somewhere in the middle. And the middle between, I wish I could quote C.S. Lewis directly, but I can't now. He said something to the effect of the middle between two extremes does not always mean you're right. You know, oftentimes people like to describe themselves as a centrist as though that makes them correct in something. Maybe not. I mean, like if, for example, for example, last night I come home and my daughter's not here, but I expect her to be here. Turns out she was, she had taken a ride with one of my older sons.

I was, I was prepared to go extreme, you know, had I need to. Like, where is my daughter? I will find, you know, I'll burn this town down looking for her. You know, that's like, that was like my mentality. And I don't know. I think for me that I felt like that was a healthy response. Like, you know, I'm going to, I'm going to take care of her, you know, to the best of my ability. So sometimes life demands of us extremes.

So sometimes when we're in this situation, I don't know. Maybe the extreme is a healthy response, you know, or maybe the people who are trying to crush and quail this, maybe they're closer to the truth. I don't know. I don't think so, but maybe. Also, what I constantly tell people is I reserve,

the right to be wrong. I'm navigating life the best I can with the best of intentions, but I may still get it wrong. So I have a healthy questioning of my own motives, intentions, desires, all of those things. And so I don't know. I do I do know that something about the modern world, in my opinion, deeply represses artistic expression. Yeah. So if you look throughout history, like the great works of art and poetry and theater and all these things,

they weren't developed in this two by four, you know, boxy, ugly, you know, like, I mean, I grew up in the 80s. I have a certain nostalgia for it. The 80s were gross, man. It was like everything was squares. and cubes and right angles. And it was ugly.

It was terrible. But that wasn't just like a manifestation of art in the absence of everything else. That art was the fruit of thought processes. So when we look at the beautiful works of art in history, like the Renaissance or the Middle Ages, like someone, someone, someone, recently posted two pictures. It was two churches. One was this medieval cathedral and one was like a Lutheran church from the 1970s in Sheboyganville or whatever. And the contrast was stark. Both of these things were the product of a living thinking culture. One was, looked like a beautiful castle and the other looked like something out of a communist gulag.

You know, so culture informs art and culture is informed by the thoughts, beliefs, and experiences of the people that embody it. So beauty in art is born out of the individuals and the collection of individuals from which it springs. And so I think that psychedelics can definitely play a role in inspiring culture to become more spiritual and more artistic. Because I think modern life and modern thinking abstracts us from the spiritual. It drives us, it drives us far too into. And it's not that it's not that two by fours and and one plus one and and all these right angles are wrong. It's just that they're, they're a part of a whole. But when we make the part, when we find one thing and we, we try to steer, we try to bend reality around that.

Yes. Yeah. That's where we lose sight of. And we lose the inability to. incorporate not only, not only everything we, we see in nature, but, but people, you know, some people get repressed because their aptitude does not fit the times. Does that make sense? It does. Maybe you can unpack it a little bit more to maybe make it more palatable. I hope so. I'm not sure I can. I think you can. Okay. So, So if someone explained it to me this way, I was listening to a person who spent probably 20 to 30 years of their life in Africa as a missionary.

They say time in the West is not the way time is experienced in Africa. And I asked them to unpack that a little bit. And they said, if someone tells you, they'll see you tomorrow. at noon, to us, that's very specific. You know, you and I made an arrangement to meet at a certain time. To us, that's not vague. But if you had sent out that message that you and I were going to meet at a certain time for a live program and XYZ, like, everyone expected us to be there at that moment. You and I expected to see each other here at that moment. In another culture, that is a far more nebulous and relative construct. Like noon may mean 9 a.m. to 3 p.m.

Somewhere in that range. And I don't even know how I'm at a loss for a way to explain that because I can't even think that way because I've grown up in this, in this, you know, very structured Western framework. And it's not that it's wrong. It's just different. And I may need your help because I don't know how I don't, I'm at a loss for a way to even explain this. So maybe if we have a little back and forth, maybe we can come to some understanding of what I'm, what I'm trying to get at even. I love this idea of time and structure because it really shows how we're drowning.

in abstraction and how can anything really get done in this world of abstraction. And so I think that because it is so abstract and because this idea of time is so nebulous, we have decided that we will live in a world of scientific measurement because let's not talk about the abstract. We can't control time. We can't control God. So let's just merge everything down to what we can measure and we'll call that science and that's all that matters. You know what? You know what matters? Production matters. And you know what else matters? Is efficiency matters. Yeah, that's it. Efficiency and production. These are things we can measure and so therefore they're real. And that's the society we'll use and we'll build things in these squares because, you know, it's much more efficient to transport these two by fours than it is these other things, you know, even though like a circle is a much more, you know, that's the re,

That's the reason we have, that's the reason manholes are in circles, because you can dig a circle hole better than you can, a square hole. You can move circles, you can roll them, you can put them on top of a manhole cover. But somehow we just had to go with squares because maybe that's a much more efficient, particular type of thing to build in a factory. But yeah, I think that what we're getting to is this idea that we live in a world that's undescribable. and that language fails. And so the thing we reduce it to is consistency.

We reduce it to the ideas of efficiency and production. And that leads to a very unimaginative lifestyle. That leads to a sort of prison that we have built around ourselves, a prison devoid of art, a prison devoid of imaginative, a world devoid of the sacred. Because in order to embrace the sacred, you have to be willing to give back faith and religion. And you have to give back. And I think that what we're going to is this idea that science and spirituality are actually opposite sides of the same coin.

And for so long we've been living in a world that has given science the upper hand. And we have thrown spirituality out with the baby and the bathwater. Like, okay, we don't need God. We don't need spirituality. We can't measure it. We don't have the tools to measure non-Euclidean space. Therefore, non-Euclidean space doesn't exist. But the problem is it does exist.

The problem is we need imagination. The problem is we need artwork. The problem is we need all of the humanities if we want to live a life that's worth living. And what we've seen since the Industrial Revolution is the exit of all of that in the name of productivity, in the name of feeding the poor, in the name of making the world. better. We have decided that science is all we need. But we have come to where we are now, and that's a world devoid of spirituality. And we have learned that we need science and spirituality. And it's amazing that you bring up this idea of different countries having different ideas of time.

You know, one of my favorite books is Marseilles, Mercea Iliads, The Sacred and the Profane. And he talks about time in there. And here's a time that you and I, even though you and I have never met, you and I have shared time together because we've both been married and that's a sacred time and even though i wasn't at your wedding and you weren't at mine we have engaged in the exact same time we had a representative of a higher power be there to observe this matrimony this union of love and we've shared that time and even though i don't know anything about your wedding i know it was beautiful i know you probably get goosebumps when you talk about it i know that if you talk about it in front of your wife you will see this wry smile show up on her face and yours,

and your cheeks will probably get flushed. And your kids are probably like, geez, I've heard this story a million times. I'm sick of hearing it. You know what I mean? Because I've shared that time with you. And so it was my dad and his dad and my cousin and their cousins. Like we have all shared this time together,

even though it's not this, it's not a profane time. It's a sacred time. And we experience time different like that. So yeah, I guess that's my way of trying to bring together. this idea that we need the we need to refill the container of artistic expression with spirituality. What do you think? You did it. I knew you could do it. I knew you could do it. We did it together. Reduction. That's what that's what I couldn't get to, George. Reduction. You can't encapsulated it. Like we we we think we're getting somewhere if we reduce everything to like a capsule that, you know,

know that we can count and it's like that may be efficient to serve a purpose short term right but it's hindering us from yeah um from being who god put us here to be we're we're bigger than that our experience is bigger than that and i've never heard anyone describe shared experiences as a shared time because we almost we almost adamantly divorce those things from a shared time space because my experience from getting married was 24 years ago my son's experience of getting married is a year from now so he has a marriage planned I had a marriage 24 years ago there's no way how ever would have considered those things being unified in time. Yeah, they are.

You might have broken my brain, George. Like, it's going to be a while before I can come to grips with that. Okay, let me, let me drop it back and do another fractal that I help. Let's do it. Anything. Okay. So the same way, okay, imagine, imagine we have a right of passage like where, okay, there's a, I'm going to tell you about this. of passage and then I'm going to tell you why I'm going to tie it back to this and I think I can do

without getting lost so here we go there's this right of passage that happens in I think it's Papua New Guinea where there's this at least I read about it somewhere and it's this there's this tribe and they the kids from from zero to 10 they are greeted throughout their youth and in the school and in the village by people wearing masks. Some of the people wearing masks have a very sad mask. Some of them have have a very frightening mask. Come up them have an angry mask. Come up, I'm a happy mask. And throughout their years from zero to ten, they are greeted throughout their schools in the village with all these people with masks. And the masks will come up and they will taunt the kids if they're the angry mask, they'll shake them. And they will evoke the emotion that the mask wears. And the children

are told these are the spirits that live among us. And so the children, from zero to 10, they become comfortable, fearful, sad when they are, when the spirits come up to them and they, you know, they evoke that emotion that is the mask. But then something strange happens on their 11th birthday. On their 11th birthday, that night, the people wearing the masks, all the emotions, they break into the home of the child on their 11th birthday. And the parents are totally in on it. and the masks go in and they grab the child out of their room. And the child is, ah, they're fearful. Because they kind of, you know, they've been told the thing's going to happen.

But when it comes time for them, the masks, the people wearing the mask grab the child and they take them out of the room. And, of course, the mom and the dad make a great show of, no, don't take our kid, you know. And it's a big theatrical thing. And then they take the kid at midnight, and they take them out in the street. And all the people in the masks, all the different emotions surround the kid. And the kids huddled up crying. And the first person comes with their mask and they make the circle around them and the angry emotion comes up to the kid.

And the kid's crying in fear and the guy's whewa! And he's shaking. And then he takes the mask off and he shows the kid. Hey, it's Uncle Johnny. And the kid's like, whoa. And then Uncle Johnny takes the mask and he puts it on the kid. And then every other mask does that. And it's someone they love and the kid sees that.

But then every person takes that mask and they put it on the kid. And the kid learns, hey, you're the spirits, your anger, your sadness, you are, you know, anger, anger, happiness, you're all these things. So when you see them out in the world, those are people wearing masks, but you too are all those people. And the child learns this integrative way to understand emotions and masks. Now, how do I tie that back into sacred time and all of us sharing time? Well, the child becomes the person who's in the circle that becomes the,

so the first stage is you're the child and you're not aware of anything except the spirits coming to you and tricking you and shaking you from zero to one. You remember that time. Then you remember the time of being in the circle and being the initiate where your grandpa comes to you and your uncle comes to you and you learn the secret. And then later in life, you become Uncle Johnny with the mask doing it to your nephew. Okay, so on some level, you share all those memories. You share all those times with everybody. The same way you and I shared our marriage, the same way that you and your son will share that moment. And this is what rites of passage do.

They allow us to not only participate in the experience, they allow us to view the experience from a juvenile stage, the initiate, and the elder. And like, that's what we're missing. Like, that's what I mean by shared sacred time. Lived experience is shared sacred time. And it blows away the Julian calendar. Gone are the hours. Gone are the atomic clocks.

And back is. is this existence that we are one having different experiences in different times, although shared experience. How'd that? Did that work a little better? That was my chance to try to bring it together. That's amazing. That's so beautiful.

I'm never, see, I'm constantly, I'm constantly interfacing with the ways that these thought constructs have captured my own thinking. You know, it prevented me from being able to see a bigger, more beautiful world. We all live in these constructs, and they're helpful because they give us a framing by which to navigate life's challenges. They're helpful. But they can become very repressive and restrictive and prevent us from growing. And we don't have those routes of passage in Western society anymore.

Yeah. And I think, I think it's incumbent upon us to develop them because you're right. I mean, what do we have other than, uh, rights of passage now are, yeah, prom night, your driver's license, turning 21, uh, getting married, getting divorced, getting married and divorced and again, again, those are our rights of passage. And it's like it's it's it's it's crumbling the base structure of our society. And I don't believe Western society has everything right. But I think I think it had a lot of things right. Yeah. There was a lot of healthy structure there. But somehow we've lost it through reductionism, materialism,

and efficiency, we lost. And George, I know you can see this in your own lifetime, just like me. When I was a child, George, when I was 10 years old,

I would sit on the back porch in the summertime and shuck peas with my grandma. No one does that anymore. No one. Like, maybe in a third world country, you do that. But I'm talking about like 1985,

you know, we'd sit on. on the back porch and we'd shut peas and we'd listen to the radio like we'd listen to Elvis or something. I don't know. People don't do that anymore. I'm not saying that was a noble thing that everyone needs to do. I'm just like we're detached. We're detached from from reality because of our attachment to time and efficiency. The fact that someone, it's almost, it's almost taken for granted that if you tell someone this is faster, that means better. I mean, right? Like if someone said, I like it, you can do your laundry and half the time. What would you think? Oh, well, that's good.

Maybe not. Yeah. I mean, maybe with that. Maybe it doesn't get clean. Yeah. I can do it in a minute. Doesn't mean it's clean. Exactly. And so it takes sometimes there, everything is a trade off. And I do often tell my kids this. I was like, you can do. that at the expense of this now make a choice and they're like uh because like they wanted to they wanted it to be a very like bifurcated easy decision but it's not when you put it in that context it's not because you can say you can have a career that surpasses all of your peers at the expense of having a family it's like wow Can I have both? Not really. I mean, you really can't. You know, it's tradeoffs.

Nope. You know, so what tradeoffs are you comfortable with? And, and, and I think maybe if we frame things that way, maybe we'd make more wholesome decisions, you know, because the, the big lie out there is that you can have it all. As long as you stay up to date with technology and everything you have is Uber efficient. And then, then you can have it all. But you're having, quote, it all at the expense of something. And that something may just be peace of mind. It may just be the ability to relax. It may be the ability to have enough freedom and enough lack of constraint on your chest to take a deep breath and enjoy a quiet moment.

you know so often i find myself just jumping from one task to the next and at the end of the day i i filed all the benchmarks of being productive but at 10 p.m i certainly don't feel very productive i feel like i went through a gauntlet of self-imposed misery um yeah and i I don't know if anybody else benefited from it. So so often when I consciously take the time to say, and I, when I have a rare day off, I do this intentionally. And I have to tell, you know, Mr. Reductionist Efficiency to step out of the room. You know, and I pour up a, I'll make a French press of coffee. I pour up a cup.

I sit down. I do some reading because that's a whole. time I ever give myself the opportunity to read. And it's like, what's so silly is the struggle of feeling guilty about that? Why would you feel guilty about taking a few quiet moments to read? That seems like one of the most valuable things a human could do with their life, to me. But at the same time, I feel like I'm not accomplishing something. I don't know what, that I'm supposed to be accomplishing. So I think we have to give ourselves the liberty of imagination,

the liberty to examine our preconceived notions and re-examine some of the traditions that have been handed down to us, whether they be positive or negative. let's let's let's explore everything that God gave us here to explore and understand you know let's not do that foolishly let's do that with wisdom discernment love and joy let's have fun doing it let's not let's not be caught up in our own egos and and worried about what the neighbor is going to say you know let's I don't know I probably sound like a hippie now, you know, we're just not good.

Maybe it is good. Yeah. There's a great book called The Fourth Turning. And in that book, I find myself drawn to the chapter of Generation Xers because it's, obviously it speaks to what you and I are doing. And it, you know, it talks about being a bridge between the greatest generation, the boomer generation, and the millennials. And like, if you just, if you just step back for a minute and think,

about what you just said about shucking peas with your grandma. You know, I sit like, not only does not, not only does nobody do that anymore. No one only knows how to do it. And no one knows the joy it felt to sit there and just relax and watch what they're doing and ask questions and feel the comfort that is the warm embrace of the felt presence of the other, just sitting there relaxing, you know. But the tragedy is perhaps if you and I, I don't relay these messages, then that dies.

You know, maybe the job of the excerpt, and according to this book, the fourth turning is that, like, we're the bridge. Like, we're the bridge to tell the, the boomers like, hey, they're not dumb young and slackers. They got, they got dished a raw deal. And how dare you talk to them like that? It's not what they're doing. Like, you know how many advantages your older generation parents gave you?

You lived off your parents, man. Mr. Me Generation Boomers, don't you talk about them like that? Those are us. And you know what? I'm not going to let them talk about you that way either. But like that's our job is to tell the boomers like, these millennials, they're not slackers. They don't have anything. You guys took everything on some level. And what? Should they just sit there and like, should they just sit there and work for 60 hours a week and get paid nothing and they can't afford a house because the average house is a million dollars? Yeah, give them some credit, man. Like they're not. And to the, to the The millennials, we tell them like, look, I know, but they actually have some good ideas. Some of the structure we need. You got to have a work ethic, you knucklehead, you know, like, it's both. And we are the bridge that has seen both worlds. We're the last generation of feral kids in a way, you know, and like, it's up to us. Like in a weird sort of way, Clint, we are becoming the firekeepers.

You know what I mean? Like there's not that many Xers, really. You know, like when you. look at the grand scheme of the two different generations, like, we're a small band of wisdom keepers in a way. And like, we are radically becoming the people holding all the wisdom, what by hook or by crook, whether you want to or not. That memory you have of shucking peas is a golden gem that I hope you pull out and polish sometimes and show people. Because if it dies with you, it may die. You know, and it's up to us as, as this generation.

generation of people. And isn't it interesting that both of us have found ourselves trying to reach the largest audience possible. You know, maybe that's us being called to it or maybe that's something calling through us. But for whatever reason, I think these conversations are very important. And maybe that's my testament to my ego. I hope not, you know, but I mean, I hope that the message we're getting out there resonates with people because I want both generations. to understand that we love them both and we're part of them. And if we look at ourselves, here's an interesting thing that the fourth turning book does too. And it's an interesting way that coincides with the idea of sacred time and psychedelics and the third person view.

What if the human being on earth, what if we humanity is one sort of, of human being. You know, and you can see the boomers. Like so many boomers are knocking on death's door. Maybe so much of this stress and anxiety and, wow, we're going to war. We're all going to die. We're going to be our nuclear war. How much of this anxiety that we are collectively experiencing is the unrealized dreams of a generation about to die?

You know, when you start looking at it like, wow, there's a lot of boomers that are in their 80s that hold seats of power. No wonder the world is going through such turmoil. Like, these people are knocking on death's door. They don't know how to handle it. They're in desperate need of a psychedelic experience. You know, and on the other end of the spectrum are these kids that are like, these people, they're freaking crazy. What are they talking about?

Like, why do you have to have fossil fuels? Don't you care about the planet at all? You know what I mean? Like, if you just look at it from that spectrum, be like, wow, you can gradually see the death and the real. rebirth happening. Like part of us, a large part of us is dying quickly. Like, look at your parents. Look at your grandparents. Like, they are fearful of death. I see it in my own life when I, when I, I love my mom and my dad and my stepdad and my stepmom. But so often in our conversations,

I hear them talk about like, oh, man, I hope I live longer than my cat. What? What do you just say, mom? You hope you love your cat. You know, what are you talking about? And like, I can just hear in their voice as like, oh, your Aunt Loretta is just in the hospital. She's only a few years older than me. I can hear the echoes of desperation of dreams unlived. And it, like, it saddens me. And if I hear that in my own life of my parents, then collectively, the world's got to be saying. Because your parents' voice is an echo of their society.

Like, that's what's happening. And no wonder there's so much despair. No wonder there's so much anger and. animosity and there's so many unrealized dreams that are dying. And I hope that myself, the lesson I'm trying to take from this and the lesson I want to preach to the younger generation is that at the end of life, it doesn't matter how much money you made. The people that are dying are not talking about going to Costco or buying Teslas or being an influencer or they're not talking about the empire that they made. They're talking about, I wish I was a better mom. I wish I was a better dad

I wish I was a better son I wish I would have taken that one more vacation I wish I would have quit that job I hated I wish I wouldn't have taken out on my wife I wish I would have listened to my kid when they wanted to go play tennis listen to these songs of those that are dying because you too one day

will be knocking on that door but if you listen to what your parents are saying if you listen to the people that are taking their last breath you can start doing it now If you're at a job you hate quit Walk out have the courage to let go Well this is exactly what you were talking about

Having the courage to let go This idea that you can't read for a minute This idea that your boss needs to call you on a weekend This idea that something's more important than playing Uno with your daughter Nothing is Nothing is more important than that I don't care about the mortgage payment Go move in with your parents

Be the dreaded millennial that lives in the basement with their parents. That's awesome. It's awesome, man. Do it. If you have a choice between being that and working 90 hours a week, live in the basement. Huddle around your parents' stories.

You know, build a fire of warmth that is the shucking of peanuts on the back porch, man. Have more of those. Because that's all that matters to the most part, to those that are dying. At least in the biographies I read. least in the songs of the books that I read about the tribes of people talking about their elders. Or when I talk to death doulas, they tell me all the time about like, man, you know, these are the things people talk about. And I think that that's what we should be worried about right now is trying to create a better life. And that doesn't come from productivity.

A better life doesn't come from efficiency. A better life doesn't come from how many ones and zeros you have in a bank account. That's all arbitrary, man. And what matters is crucial conversations about how to live a life worth living. Like, that's what's important, man. And I think faith, spirituality, psychedelics, family, honor, dignity. These are the things that we're beginning to rally around. And I hope that both of our podcast can reflect that in the lives of the people listening, man.

That's what I want our message to be. I think it's happening, George. Me too, man. It's just a little slower than we want, you know. We're blowing on the embers. Yeah, yeah. But the, and we have a, we, we're blessed to have this opportunity. We are.

So those, those aging boomers, they didn't have that. All they had was Walter Cronkite or whatever, Saturday Night Live or whatever. Right. They, you know, they, it was a one way street for them. Yeah. We have the benefit of, of commuting, communicating, you know, up and down this, this paradigm that they didn't have. Right. So every day I feel fortunate for that because as much as people, you know,

consider social media toxic, you know, it's how you use it. Right. It's like you and I could use this tool right here today to air our grievances, complain, talk about how horrible things are. But instead, we're using this as an opportunity for growth to support and encourage one another and the people who are listening to us today, I pray that everyone's enjoyed this as much as I have and gleaned from it. I mean, your energy, George, is so infectious, you know. Thank you, man.

I mean, today I'm kind of weighed down with this cold, but even on my best days, I'm probably not near as excited as you are. Or at least I don't appear that way on the outside. I can see it in you, man. It's a mirror. I'm feeding off you. Same way you're feeding off me. So we have benefits that those people didn't. And hopefully, if we are that bridge that you speak out, and I think that's true. This medium allows us to advance that in a way that previous generations never could have imagined. So let's be good stewards with this medium here. Let's use that advantage to help others.

Through my media, through my paradigm, I see it as a way to glorify my creator, you know, by sharing my ideas with the rest of his children. And it's a beautiful opportunity. And I'd never take it for granted. And so I hope people watching this reach out to us. Tell us what they think. Yeah. I've enjoyed a lot of the recent kind of, you know, I'll, only I guess I heard about your show a few months ago.

I don't know. I've been so bombarded like every day now. It's just it's like drinking from a fire hose, you know? Yeah. And so I hear names. I hear podcasts. I lose track of them. I rediscovered them later and forgot that I even discovered them in the past.

And that's great. That means we have a wealth of, of information so, so large that you lose track of, you know, So as long as we don't take that for granted, I think it's a beautiful thing. And I think society will benefit from it. I think the church will benefit from it.

And that's my goal. That's where I'm coming from. I love it. Any other trains of thought, any other ideas, anything that I failed to clarify or mention? I don't think there's any sort of. failure to clarify or ever mention. I love having the opportunity to explore new ideas. And I really think that we are going to see a new dimension of faith,

a new dimension of spirituality emerge in a way that we had never imagined before. A more pure form of love, I think, is upon us. And it's really, I feel really thankful to bear witness to what's about to happen. Like in some ways, in some ways I look back on my life and think to myself, I've been being prepared for this my whole life, you know? And I think that that's just not my story. That's your story. That's anybody who's willing to step outside themselves for a moment and look at their

life in the trials and tribulations. I hope you see it as a series of preparations that have gotten to. you to where you are right now. I think we are currently, as of right now, and we are in a time of accelerated change. And just like our parents could never think about podcasting, so too will we have no concept of the next dimension of media that is about to unfold faster and faster. And in doing so, it creates a bit of fear, but I hope people don't give into that fear. And they see that what's coming is a shift from scarcity to abundance. And that's what I mean.

I'm so thankful to be here because that's what I see happening. And that's what I mean by this new dimension of spirituality, is that we're moving into this world of abundance. And it's frightful because we have never, we've been trained to see things that we don't understand as a threat, but they need not be a threat. So that's what I got, Clint. That's what I'm excited for, man. Well, I guess the reason I ask that question is because sometimes when I speak to people, it appears it's like I'm being vague about like the contrast or coupling of psychedelics and Christianity. I'm not intentionally being vague. It's just I don't have a prescriptive, you know,

format for it. You know, I don't have any, I don't have something to sell you or tell you or preach to you. I'm not saying I'm not telling anyone to use psychedelics. I'm not trying to compel anyone to go to church other than hopefully the evidence that it's made in my life. I feel like it's made me a healthier, better, more loving person. And to me, it's, way higher than that. It's not about me, but I hope that what I'm conveying to people is that these two things don't have to be at odds with one another. If a Christian might benefit or might not from a psychedelic experience, a psychedelic experience might lead someone who does not have a spiritual connection or does not have a relationship with God to find that

relationship. So I don't want to put too much, I don't want to say hope. Psychedelics are a tool. You know, we can use them the way we use other medicines or other tools. I think all too often. Christians are afraid of psychedelics because they've seen negative things manifest in human history. But I don't believe those things were united to those particular substances. I think maybe those substances were just used in a context and in a way that was unhealthy. And that's why it manifested in an unhealthy way. So I think there's a lot of positive potential for psychedelics in mental health, in spiritual health, in preparing a person for death, in alleviating anxiety and fear.

But that doesn't mean you should do them at a rave. At least not necessarily. Maybe that's where some people find them useful. That's certainly not, if I were to give prescriptives, that certainly wouldn't be one. But that's me. I don't know. I know that my experiences with mushrooms in my youth

took me from a young man who believed in God in a very, Well, in that box again, it was God was in a box. You know, I knew God in a box on paper. But I never could have had a relationship with a God on a piece of paper. Not me. I had to have, I had to have something grab me and wake me up to a more tangible experience with my creator. for some people psychedelics might not do that but for me it certainly did and that's why i can't rule them out as a potential attribute to someone's life and because they didn't lead to fear despair and

negativity in my life either physically or spiritually so why should i assume that they're going to do that for anyone else. So yeah, the road before us is unknown. So let's traverse it with wisdom and contemplation and and let's be discerning, but let's not be fearful. The church should not fear psychedelics. The church should investigate psychedelics. Okay, so maybe Maybe the road isn't unknown. You know, I've been speaking with one of the foremost scholars on medieval mystics and manuscripts. And we've covered like Marjorie Kemp. And, you know, we've spoken a little bit about the Dark Night of the Soul, John.

And so, you know, there seems to be evidence. You know, there's a manuscript called The Cloud of the Unknown. And it seems to me that the problem with the mystical experience, be it in the middle ages, or perhaps Clint Kyle is having a psychedelic experience in the church now, is that you have the ability to interpret your own relationship with God. And while you and I may see that as something that's very beautiful and rewarding, it alleviates the authority of the person at the head of the church. In some ways, it dissolves the necessity to have someone translate the word of God

when you can have your own relationship with God. And I'm bringing this up because it does seem to me that in the past, you know, a lot of the church had relied on the person, closest to God, translating the word of God to the people and the people following the rules. So in some ways, psychedelics may allow the individual to circumvent the need of that. I could see that being something that would cause the church to kind of tighten up a little bit and maybe build walls around this. Like, hey, it's not that we don't want people to have our own relationship with God.

It's just that we don't want them to get the wrong interpretation. and we actually have the right interpretation. You know, and it comes back to that paternal loving idea of like we care about you. We don't want this to go off the rails. Maybe we've addressed this a little bit, but, you know, if the best predictor of future behavior is past relevant behavior, why wouldn't that happen again? Well, for me, I think both is good. I mean, I think having someone in your life. who has spent their entire career studying in an advanced way, the very particular essences of your

religious path, you can learn a lot from that person. I mean, more than you ever could on your own in your own little enclave, studying your own religious path. Like, what if instead of like pitting those things against each other and thinking in terms of circumventing that person, what if you incorporated those two things together? You know, you could have a psychedelic experience, and you can also have an ongoing spiritual, religious experience, not only with a figurehead in that religion, but also with a community of people in that tradition. It's like, it's not either or. It's a both. You know, it's like you can, you can be,

in a relationship with that individual and that community that is in harmony with your religious practice. And you can also have a psychedelic experience, which actually augments and supports that. They need not be at odds with each other. Now, very oftentimes, because of that structure you speak of and because of that fear, people have a very, a very regimented way of viewing and defining their religion. And oftentimes the psychedelic experience exposes the unseen negativities within that structure. And that causes a person to have a lack of faith in the structure because they, they see, maybe they see that the weakness is in the structure now that they didn't see before

because they were, they never looked behind the curtain. But the psychedelic experience very often doesn't give you the option of looking behind the curtain. It just takes that curtain and yanks it, yanks it to the floor. And then you see the wizard back there, right? And he's just a dude like you. And he, but he's got a big microphone. He's telling you, do what I say, or I will judge you. you know and and when you see that if you can't if you don't have the the mechanism and the love and

the understanding to recognize that everyone's playing a role here and that that if you if you contextualize it properly it can actually all be for your own good and sometimes people are in very unhealthy religious communities. And so it may require you, and this is where the pain and the fear comes in, and that need to possibly change or step up, or in your position you had to start speaking out, you no longer live with yourself, you know, in that tension.

And so people will go through their life, living this religious experience, never questioning it. but then they have the psychedelic experience. And because there's no one there, well, first of all, they did not, and it's not their fault. There aren't cultural supports for these things. So they didn't take the right precautions to guard their hearts and minds, to have a trusted person that they would be able to share these new ideas and experiences with, either within or outside. of their religious context. Probably just on a Saturday night, someone said, take this, you'll have a great time.

They thought it was just going to be a buzz or whatever. The next thing, they're doubting the fabric of their reality. So now they have no one to share that with, no one to bounce those ideas off of, especially the person within the religious hierarchy. So now they're just left. they're like in the ocean clinging to some chunk of a ship that that they you know that was obliterated in their psychedelic journey and now they're just holding onto a piece of the mast like some little crumble of what they used to believe like that can be very disorienting so i think

proper preparation for the psychedelic experience and giving yourself time and space to integrate a new frame of reference. You do not have to dispense with your religious practice. It doesn't necessitate that you upend your entire life. But don't expect that you can have a psychedelic experience and that everything is going to return to status quo because there's a good chance that it won't. You know, you won't be able to see things through the same lens anymore. And that can be beautiful and or it could destabilize you.

And I hope what I'm saying now doesn't make people fearful, but I do want people to be prepared. You know, if they've never had a psychics experience, you need to be prepared. It's not something you should enter into lightly, in my opinion. But you will see your life, the lives of your life. your friends and family, your coworkers, your enemies, everything, your entire world, chances are you're going to get a rotation and you're going to be able to see it from other viewpoints, other vantage points. And you are going to question some of your previous held beliefs.

That's not always a bad thing. It doesn't mean you have to dispense with them. It doesn't mean that they're not true. anymore. Questioning something doesn't make it true or untrue. It just means that you've achieved a point spiritually or mentally where you have the capacity to entertain a new perspective. And that maybe that requires a little more responsibility than some of us are ready for. I hope that's not too heavy Does that make sense?

Wow, that's beautiful It's really well said First off, I love the way You actually rotated Because I think it's a great metaphor For seeing the world that way I love the idea of the lens Because you

Once you see It's like a slow motion train rack Like once you see something You can't unsee it a lot of the times I use the reference of a lot of people have seen those 3D posters like you had to squint your eyes and then that image pops out at you. Once you've seen it, you know, but if someone is walking by who's never noticed it, you're like, well, there's all a scrambles on that piece of paper.

That's ridiculous. But you're like, don't know, watch. If you come over here and you tilt your head this way or you squint your eyes, this image pops out at you. And what a great way to understand how we perceive the world. Like once you see something, you can't unsee it. You know, but that, you know, earlier in the conversation, you had said, it's difficult for you to begin to imagine what it would be like to see the world through a lens at 40

because you've already seen through that lens at the age of 16. So, you know, you've had 35 years or 30 years of seeing the world through a different lens than somebody else. And, you know, if you and I start off in a boat and we're both on Los Angeles, if you just turn a little bit this way and I turn a little bit that way, we're going to end up on different sides of the world. Right. So it's fascinating to think about the responsibility that comes with choosing to see the world differently. And I say choosing. Some people don't have, some people maybe were slip something or something like that. Right.

You know, I think there's another responsibility that comes. too with building a relationship with that lens. Because I think that you can, whether you're a mentor at a church and you begin helping people that come to you, you know, you're helping shape that person's worldview, whether you do it through psychedelics, it's seeing that lens. But I too can't imagine the heaviness of seeing all your actions, the last 40 years are new for the first time. Like that's an awakening.

That is a transformative thing that happens. And look, I mean, you could wake up from that experience, divorce your wife, leave your kids and go live in another world. You know, you could commit suicide. You know, I'm not saying those things happen all the time, but I could understand how that can happen. You know, if one day you woke up and you figured out you've been living alive for 40 years, what are the consequences of that?

What are you prepared to do? You know? And maybe that's, you know, on some level, I think, like, wow, maybe there should be some sort of framework built around these medicines. But who are we to decide what framework should be built up when the world has already decided? Like the world, the medicines are there for everybody whenever they want if they feel called to them. You know, and as much as rhetoric as we hear, is about like these things everybody should do or no one should do these things. I love the idea that they're in almost every plant and they're free.

And people that try to build a financial powerhouse around them or build a financial framework around them often fail. I think there's a poetic beauty in that because they're here for everybody. I think everybody's best life is waiting for them. and the tools to develop that life are all around you. And the teachers will show up when you need them. There's something so beautiful about that. But yeah, I don't think it's too heavy, man.

I think it's awesome. I love the way you described it. I thank you for doing that. I didn't rehearse that. I just, I don't know. You know, that's the thing about these conversations. I never plan them. I never have an agenda.

And so because you don't need one. Right. Like all you need is two people to discuss. a topic and and generally the the it just flows I mean some sometimes people make mistakes or weird things happen technological difficulties but for the most part we just need to be willing and and able to discuss these things openly and it's but but it took me a long time to get there you know even after I started the podcast I wasn't comfortable doing it I just knew that I needed to

or felt like I had to or at the very least I wanted to even though it wasn't comfortable but that's because I had fear of I don't know what people might think I guess I think we got to get beyond that there's a stigma there's a stigma about it right

you look down upon and stuff like you're a drug addict you do though you're man you probably do all kinds of other horrible things too You know what I mean? It's such garbage, but it's true. Like, we're all judgmental. And like, we all think that. And there's people often say, oh, you, oh, did you come out about psychedelics?

Like, I feel shunned sometimes too. Like I, I know that in my community, like, I'll never stop doing what I do. I love it. And I love talking to people. And I love exploring the ineffable. I love the mystical experiments. I love spirituality and religion and the role that's played in my life. And how much richer my life is because of it.

And for that, I'll always be welcoming everybody with open arms that wants to explore any sort of conversation or territory. But there are like some parents at my kid's school are like, stay over here. Hey, don't talk to her, you know? And like, I've had other people say, like, kids can't come over or something like that. And I'm like, why not? Oh, so-and-so says that I'm a bad influence. It's kind of devastating. Like, on some level to hear like another kid tell my kid that, you know, because of me.

And I'm like, oh, my God, what am I? doing, you know? And but I think that that should be something that said to everybody listening. Like it's not, it's not without stigma. But neither is anything else. People judge. But if you have the courage to do it, right? And you mentioned those Christian mystics of the past.

Yeah. Those people were not appreciated in their society. I don't know. You know, St. Francis of Assisi was. read about his life. He was not like, you know, he wasn't the local choir boy or the deacon who, you know, picked up trash on Sunday afternoons. He was a different kind of, he was a different kind of fellow. Yeah. A little bit extreme, a little bit out there on the fringe, you know. And God calls us in fascinating and bizarre ways sometimes. And although we need to restrain,

negative impulses. We have to couple that with following the heart that God gave us. I think our passions, whatever they are, they can find a healthy trajectory, not only for us, but a way that serves others. And so instead of trying to repress ourselves, maybe we find a healthy way to use that passion to benefit ourselves and everyone else in our community. You know, there are people who have, for example, sexual passions that drive them to do things that society defines as very negative. And you can even view it from just like a basic human lens and be like, that's negative.

but what if they were able to channel that in a way that instructed others about sexuality? You know, what if they didn't have to repress it, but they could discuss it and like make sense of it, even within their religious paradigm in a way that helped other people understand it. Yeah. And, you know, food. Some people have such an impulse for food that it destroys their life. What if they, instead of like, hiding their impulse for. for food and then like indulging in it in this like dark way in the closet and intoxifying

their bodies and and mismanaging their health and their weight. What if they like, I don't know, maybe they need to become a chef and like teach people how to eat, you know, eat healthy food or something. It's like God gives us these impulses and passions. And I think if we don't find a constructive outlet for them, that's where they go dark. you know, because God created all these things. He created food. He created sex.

He created cannabis. So instead of boining, you know, like banning it and like spraying herbicide on it, maybe we find like what's the best use for this for humanity? You know, mushrooms grow whether you plant them or not. Yeah. So instead of demonizing them, why don't we come together. and find out what the best purpose these things can serve and use these things to serve humanity

and serve God. Instead of like repressing, demonizing, you know, all these things are created. Everything we see is a created blessing. We just have to figure out how to use it in a way that best serves us and others. And we can either be destructive with God's gifts or we can use them for the best of humanity. And I don't know what those conclusions are, but I'm seeking them. I'm seeking to discuss it with people like you.

And we have all the resources. you know, we have, we have, we have villagers in the darkest recesses of the planet that have been using these things for centuries and they have a take on it. And then we have scientists who study the brain and then they have a take on it. Like, let's collectively, you know, get our hands and our minds around all this stuff and make sense of it. Let's, let's compare it to our religious texts, you know. What does it, what does it mean to live a sober life? Does that mean you never touch a substance? Or does that mean that we would incorporate substances into our lives in ways that make sense for the benefit of

humanity and for the glory of God? I don't have an answer to any of those questions, but I'm searching. Yeah, I think it echoes back to the story that you spoke about when you got to see your, when you were a young man and you saw your friends drinking tequila and you realized, hey, these are some silly young kids. I think that that story speaks to me and everybody now that, like, as humanity, we're still silly young kids. We don't thoroughly understand that everything here is part of us. Whether it's tobacco or weed or mushrooms or violence or sex or food, like that's all part of us. Like everything you see is you or a reflection there of you. And if you can do that, like if you can begin to understand that, it'll change the way you move throughout the world.

It'll change the language you use. It'll fundamentally transform your relationships. you know, and you begin to understand that. It's all us. You and I and God and books and mushrooms. Like, it's all us. Like, we're all part of it, you know. And when we begin moving in unison like that,

then we begin to move past the juvenile stage. And here's something that I can see happening. Like, you know, when we were growing up, I would score some Maui-Wawe, like a dime bag, and you would pay like $10 for it because it was a dime bag. I'm sure at some point in time it cost a dime. That's called a dime bag. You know what I mean?

And it would be the name of the wheat. Oh, yeah, it's a Maui, man. But now you can see our relationship to cannabis change because all of a sudden I can buy an edible. And on the back, it'll show me the Terps. It'll show me the THC content. And so it's no longer something that has a mystical name. even though it may, now there's a list of ingredients that help me interpret what it is that's

helping change my state of mind. Even though that's just a mountain of words, it shows a maturing relationship with the substance with which I'm having a relationship to. And I think that that is happening, you know, much like the change of pace I spoke about earlier and everybody can look in their own life and see that the change of pace is quickening. So too is our relationship with the environment around us. And I wouldn't be surprised to see the framework of all our isms and ideologies fall away. And what is left is the burning of incense and the smudging of things on there.

Like the true aspects of who we are are going to remain the pillars on which we build a new foundation of spirituality. But, man, I feel like this has been an incredible conversation, Clint. I really love talking to you. And I really am thankful and blessed that you would spend some time with me to help me understand the world around us. And let me explore some of your ideas, man. I really appreciate it. Is there anything else we haven't covered that you want to dig into?

Yeah, but we probably ought to find a healthy stopping point because George, you and I could probably go on. Yeah. Probably have like a seven week series where we just chattered on here endlessly. Okay, let's do it. Let's meet. Let's meet. Let's do a once a week or a once a month.

We'll talk after the show, but let's set something up because I feel like we're just scratching the surface here. Yeah, I do too. And I feel like every time I have a conversation with someone, it's scratching the surface. But yeah, yeah. So yeah, maybe we shouldn't view it as a once and done. And I try to do that. I try to make every conversation like even if I never see that person again. I try to view it as this is the first of many conversations.

Many cups of tea. I once read a travel book. And I think it was maybe Rick Steves. I'm not sure. He said, anytime you visit a location, travel as though you'll come again. You'll be there again. that reduce and you may never.

This may be your one trip to Paris. You never get to go back. But if while you're in Paris, you experience it as though, I'll see that next time, you may have a little regret, but it would be better than having that trip

where you were lock on a 19 hour, I'm going to see it all and do it all, kind of experience. So I try to have conversations that way. I love it. If you and I never talk again, I'll feel like the conversation we had was marvelous and we both said what needed to be said

and hopefully everyone out there gleaned something from it. But yeah, maybe we'll set up something on a schedule. Let's talk about that. That might be a lot of fun. Yeah, I can't see how it wouldn't be a lot of fun. But before I let you go, where can people find you? What do you have coming up and what are you excited about? People can find me at the website, the psychedelic Christian podcast.com.

It's probably easier and probably easier on the eyes. It's a pretty basic, rudimentary website. I'm in no way a web designer. It's just a landing page where I could build a podcast, maybe a couple of blog posts on there. But the easiest way is just go to your favorite podcatcher, you know, iTunes, Spotify, Apple Podcasts, Amazon podcast, Audible, all those things, and just search the psychedelic Christian podcast.

And anyone who wants to reach out to me, they can do that on some of the social medias I'm on, like LinkedIn or Twitter. That's where I'm probably most active. But the best way would be email, contact at the psychedelic Christian podcast.com. That would be the most effective way to reach me. And I welcome that. And what am I excited about? George, there's so much I'm excited about. Like when it comes to psychedelics and Christianity,

those are two things that people don't seem to have much relationship to each other. But every day I'm exposed to dozens of people who are. are eager to learn about this topic. And I have no doubt that in the future, just like there was this massive conference in Denver this year that centered around the science and technologies and the various ways psychedelics are manifesting in society today, I have no doubt that in the future, there'll be conferences where Christians are gathering together and discussing the pros and cons of psychedelics, the incorporation of psychedelics. There'll be people who focus on counseling and healing and ceremonies and things where these things are explored and discussed.

And I don't know about the rights and wrongs of all that, but we'll figure all that out. I'm not scared of it. I mean, I think that in time and with, wisdom. We'll thoughtfully engage with those topics and we'll make some sense of it all. And I hope to be a part of that in some way. Well, they say the best way to predict the future is to create it. Maybe we could meet with our friend Ben Grinswig and with momentum and, you know, start getting the ball rolling. I'm sure Hunt. Hunt. I'm sure he would be involved in it. There's no doubt in my mind, the incredible, wonderful Mr. Hank Foley would definitely want to be involved in something like that.

So I think there's a lot of people that would love to have a sort of revival in a way, you know, a sort of experience that could help so many people find renowned faith in so many ways and not be afraid of it, you know, and embrace it. Yeah, I think there's a great place for it. And I have no doubt on my mind that that event will be happening. I would love to be a part of it as well. And I think that maybe just talking about it right now is something that helps speak it into existence. So maybe we're doing a part of it right now.

Yeah. I think you're right. I think you're absolutely right. It's amazing. And shout out to everybody out there. I want to say again, thanks to Hank Foley, the one and only. Man, I don't even know where I'd be without Hank Foley. That guys helped me do so much on this podcast.

And he's such an inspiration. And I love the fact that, you know, I guess seems to always be there. I love you, Hank. Thanks, Matt. I think Hank is probably one of the first people that reached out to me on LinkedIn. Yeah. He's just, he's like that, he makes connections.

You know, he's like, you need to talk to this person. You talk to that person. Totally. Just a great guy. Yeah. So I'm so amazed at the way in which this LinkedIn community, too. Like, there's so many different people that I have met in this community. some ways, there's this new concept. Maybe it's not a new concept, but it's one I've recently

heard. And it's called building in public or something along those lines. And it's about all these entrepreneurs that are beginning to build their business in the public forum. And I can't help but think all of us in some way what we're doing is we are kind of showing the next generation how to build something in public. And here's a paper trail of how we've done it. Here's the first one. Here's this thing. And in some ways, we're building a structure or a sequence that other people can follow and hopefully achieve the same amount of success or hopefully far surpass anything that we're doing. But in some ways, if you look at like, if you look at the world of podcast,

and you look at what Joe Rogan did, you can go back and look at all his podcasts. And you can go back and listen to something from 10 years ago. If maybe people like Tim Ferriss, I like Tim Ferriss. to, but it doesn't matter which structure or person you use, you can go back and look at their framework and almost all of it's available online now. And you can see it as a scaffolding, like, oh, at five years they were here, at two years they were here. And in some ways, you can gauge yourself there. And if you're where they were, maybe it takes you, maybe it takes me five years to be where they were at two. But if that's true, there's no reason why you can't follow that same

trajectory, right? It's kind of inspiring to think about that way. Yeah. And it's, you know, this is still a new medium. It's hard, it's hard to imagine that. And, you know, if you look at statistics, the average podcast only has like, what, like seven episodes or something. Yeah. You know, and so it's it's still a niche that I think people can get into, you know, at some point, I mean, at some point cable television is going to go the way of the Dodo Bird, you know, and, and something's going to replace it. I think that's podcasting. I think that's YouTube. And think back of all the absurd, ridiculous, mindless programming that was on all those networks for all those years. You know, and not all of that was great content, but some of it was.

And the stuff that was good endures to this day. So, yeah, just if someone has some interest, doesn't have to be psychedelics, doesn't have to be psychology or. or anything. I mean, just if you're interested in, I have, I have a friend just talked to her yesterday. Yeah. She has a podcast about food, you know, and she discusses recipes with other Christian women. And they talk about how to make your home a hospitable place for for people to come and feel God's love. I mean, that's amazing. You're like, if that's your, if that's your thing, start a podcast, start a YouTube channel, start a product line. Yeah. And you don't have to be all caught up in the capitalist. mentality of it. If it pays your bills, that's awesome too. And we shouldn't we shouldn't look down

on people who find a, you know, a monetary stream through the content we create. That's, that's awesome. If we could all do that, that'd be great. Yeah, I agree. I'm not there yet. I don't know if I'll ever be, but we'll see what happens in the future. It'd be great if I could do this full time. I would, I'd love nothing more than just to hang out with people like you all day, George. would be awesome and get paid to do it you know i think it's just a matter of time i think you're very talented i love your message and i think that it's just a matter of time before you find yourself on maybe you should be careful what you wish for you might get it you know that's i i i don't know i guess i never had this could be bad i never really had a plan you know um

And God seemed as worked it all out. So I'm just going to keep doing the things I enjoy and living in community with God and his people. And I just assume that the path will be lit as I go. I need not forecast and make predictions. And there's an old saying of men make plans and God laughs. So I just decided to quit making plans. And just keep following my heart and sharing it the time I have with people like you who are falling theirs. It's a beautiful way to enjoy a couple hours.

Yeah, it really is. And I hope everybody finds the courage to investigate and become the most authentic version of themselves. I think you'll be rewarded and your relationships will bloom and your... The world is conspiring to help you. It may not seem like that, but I promise you to those who believe it is. If you have faith in yourself and the world and your creator, then there's nothing you can't accomplish. I believe that wholeheartedly.

And I send my love to everybody listening. And that's all we got for today. Hold on one second, Clint. I'm going to talk to you a little bit after the show. But everybody, I love you guys, man. Thank you so much for starting this Monday with me. And if you stuck with us this long, I'm really truly thankful. I wish nothing but the best for everybody.

I have a beautiful blessed week. And I'll see you guys again tomorrow. Aloha.