TrueLife - Faith, Family, and Psychedelics: The Seraphim Schwab Story

Episode Date: December 24, 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/Ladies and gentlemen, it is with great honor and enthusiasm that I introduce our esteemed guest, Seraphim Schwab. A Navy Veteran who triumphed over adversity, Seraphim embodies the transformative power of resilience and self-discovery. Guided by the profound belief that "God is Love" and inspired by the wisdom of Peter the Apostle, he has not only conquered addiction but also dedicated his life to guiding others on their journey to healing.From the depths of addiction on the streets of Chicago to a decade of sobriety, Seraphim's story is a testament to the healing potential found in unconventional paths. Steering away from conventional medications, he embraced a holistic approach—changing his diet, embracing exercise, and finding solace in the healing wonders of creation. His journey led to restoration, reconnecting with faith, family, and forging a new career in Telecommunications.A beacon of hope, Seraphim delves into the realm of psychedelic education, harm reduction, integration, and healing. Armed with a Masters in Human Services: Addiction Therapy and a B.Sc in Management and Christian Leadership, he now serves as the Director of the Pikes Peak Psychedelic Professionals Meet Up, The Healing Tree Therapeutic Services, and H.E.R.O.E.S—an organization linking veterans with psychedelic services.Seraphim's mission extends beyond personal triumph; he offers education, harm reduction services, and expertise in psychedelic therapy. As the director of a non-profit, he's pioneering initiatives connecting veterans with psychedelic treatments and training them to contribute to this transformative space.A captivating speaker and advocate for awakening to the beauty of life after suffering, Seraphim invites you to join him on a journey of restoration, psychedelic exploration, and the rediscovery of the profound beauty within existence. Welcome, Seraphim Schwab—a beacon of hope, healing, and inspiration. 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. Hears 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 Seraphini. Check out the entire song at the end of the cast. A little thing in the corner. Oh, yeah, you can. All right. I want to see if I can mess with this real quick. Yeah, see if it'll work.

Let's see here. Oh, no, too much work. All right, no big deal. We'll do it on the next one, man. Right. Yeah. All right. Ladies and gentlemen, welcome back to the True Life podcast.

Afternoon edition. I hope everybody's having a beautiful day. I hope the sun is shining. I hope the wind is at your back and the birds are singing. Got an incredible guest for you today. I'm going to let my friend Sarah Ph. Give his own introduction today. I think that, you know, I had some things planned out,

but it feels like this is just more of a conversation with a couple of guys talking. So I'll throw it back to you, my friend. Maybe you could lay out a little foundation for everyone to see the way in which you want them to see you. Yeah, that's kind of hard because I have a poor filter and I wander all over the place. So you might have to direct me a little better. I'll bring you back. My name's Serafim, Schwab, live in Colorado. I've been working in the psychedelic space for about four or five years now, veteran experienced my journey through PTSD, through addiction. 15 years of undiagnosed PTSD kind of left my life in a pretty serious chaotic state.

And when you don't know what the problem is, then it's really hard to figure out solutions to, you know, to cure it or to fix it or to even address it or to even be aware of it, right? Which awareness is the first step. And so that was a really, really hard journey. But back in 2015, you know, I was tell people 10 years ago, I was a homeless heroin addict. That's where my PTSD took me was to the streets of Chicago. And, you know, fortunately during that time, we didn't have. have the fentanyl crisis. It was just around the corner, but I think if I would have been in that

state during that time, I'd most definitely be dead. Most of the people I know from that period are dead, or they've, you know, sought me out for, you know, trying to figure out how I, how I stayed off dope. But even after, you know, which anybody that's been in recovery or any kind of rehab understand that even when you're committed to changing and you're committed to sobriety, and healing the people around you don't necessarily have that same journey, right? And so even if you get sober, you run into a lot of walls, roadblocks, you have to learn how to kind of relive life over. And so 2012, I got off the dope, but then by 2015, my marriage was falling apart. The good news was I was working for the Department of Veteran Affairs. And as I helped veterans get services and kind

to learn about benefits, I had stayed away from the VA because I didn't want anything to do with the military. I didn't want anything to do with the VA. I just wanted to forget that part of my life. But when, you know, the VA and other government agencies really start hiring veterans, that helped take me off the street. You know, I got a job working for the federal government, like from homeless heroin addict working for the federal government. It was kind of surreal, right? Like, well, what's happening to my life? But, you know, the journey of healing opens up doors that we would never, you know, get previously because we stay trapped in our cycles. And so while I'm helping these veterans, I start recognizing patterns. And I'm like, this is my story. And I completely

understand what you're talking about and your frustration and your anger and, you know, the ways that you react to stress and went to see the VA docs. And they're like, yeah, man, we're going to, we're going to rate you. And that's where I really started working on it. Like, oh, you know, I do have a reason for these cycles I keep going into where I would do really well, white knuckle it for a period of time. You know, I'd start a business. I'd be very successful. Stress and other things would cause me to have a complete another breakdown, meltdown,

start running away, hiding, disappearing into, you know, dope houses and a really hard period for my family and my wife. But that began the kind of healing journey. But through that process, you know, our family came under attack. My wife and I separated. My kids got basically kidnapped. And I started a three-year custody battle with the state over that. And during that time period, all of that pressure that I had to learn to cope with pushed me into really looking at my weaknesses and, you know, the cycles of depression and how,

I respond to pressure or conflict or triggers. And it was actually a tremendous period of healing in my life. Now, come 2019, Denver had decriminalized psychedelic mushrooms. And I'd been hearing about it. And but, you know, like my wife's take was if you touch anything like that, you're just trying to get high. I'll divorce you. Like I'm not going down this road again.

but she had allowed me what one of the things that got me off the VA meds was I had started using medical cannabis that's also what started the custody battle with the state and all this other crazy stuff but um that got me off all my VA meds and kind of gave me an awareness of natural medicine and how it could help so I went from like I would say stage one to stage two which was stabilizing you know not going into these cycles getting a new career finishing my master's degree and in counseling like being able to provide for my family because I'm not sabotaging jobs. But I felt stuck. I was in a good career.

I'd been in the same job for years, which was a miracle in and of itself for me. I mean, we had moved every year for the majority of my marriage. I've been married almost 20 years. I'd say 15 of that. Every year, six months, two years, we'd be moving somewhere else. Very hard on my family and my kids. So there was a level of stability, but I felt like I was just stuck. right like i was okay and i was functional but i was plateauing i was no longer i felt like getting

better and you know and part of that was due to i would say you know my approach to recovery and my understanding of my own spirituality and how that played a role and not having certain resources at that time that i understand now that would have been helpful but as I began to see the reports about psilocybin, and I volunteered to be the phase three trials in the MAPS MDMA study. Nice. Excuse me, but I was turned down for it, and that's when I got introduced to mushrooms and started microdosing,

and from there I could say that it went from, you know, maintaining and healing where I could be stabilized to actually what I felt it was like becoming a person again. that's the short story. Man. First off, thanks, man. Thanks for sharing the story. Sure.

It's such a, has such a mythological structure to it. You know, when we look back at the stories that define who we are, oftentimes those stories are things that we see as kids about, you know, you can look at Star Wars or these myths that happen in our life where all of a sudden we're called under this journey and just the stuff. hits the fan, man, and we lose it. Part of us dies, it seems like. And then it's that road back to normality, whatever the heck that word is supposed to mean, normal. I don't know what it is, but it's this road, this road to redemption, maybe the road to Damascus, if you will. You know,

and I'm always enamored when people begin to tell their stories. And you hit on something that I think a lot of people who find themselves looking at plant medicine hit on. It's this idea of recognizing patterns, man. Maybe you could talk about that. Like you talked about going from stage one to stage two with cannabis and then a little bit about about mushrooms and stuff. But what are some of the patterns that you began to notice and how did you interrupt those patterns with the medicine part of it or was it just a realization of it, a perspective?

Or maybe you talk about patterns and changing patterns. Sure. Yeah. And, you know, I would say I wouldn't call it normalcy, you know, just to step back a minute because there is no such thing. right. Gabramonte put out that book, The Myth of Normal. What is normal? Right? We all have trauma. We all have these journeys. And I've yet to find someone that I look at and go, yeah, you're normal, right? None of us I think are, you know. And the ones who think they are probably

the ones that are not normal the most. But I would say a road to health, right? That's my gauge. Or spiritual improvement or spiritual progress is how the 12 steps would put it. right the 12 steps are not a recovery program they're a spiritual program whose goal is spiritual progress and someone put that to me once they're like you know you're a thief and you feel five you know you still five candy bars a day tomorrow steal four right next week still three make progress and and as you make progress you begin to strip away the things that are causing you know unnecessary pain because life is pain we're going to suffer But there's some of that pain that's unnecessary.

We bring it to ourselves through our behaviors, through our thinking, through our relationships, through our interactions, through our triggers, through our blind spots, right? And eliminating some of those so that we can, A, actually become the people that we want to be in our own mind. Like, everyone has an image of their ideal self, right? This is what, if I could be here, and this is funny because, like, when I was on the street, I used to say, and people are going to laugh by this, I'd be like, if I could just make $2,400 a month, right? Then I'd feel like I'm stable. And I'm like, I look at that now and I'm like, that's just crazy thinking, man.

But to me, my money was so sporadic and in and out of systems and rehabs and getting help from the state, you know, that it was like, if I could just have a stable income of this much, you know, and God is able to take us exceedingly abundantly way far beyond our image. But it's good. We all have that first kind of image. of this is what healthy looks like to me. And as we grow and we reach those stages, there's a shedding that occurs, like you say, every change there's a metamorphosis. Something sheds away. And then we get to that next step up and we go, okay, I'm going to keep going, right? And now this is my ideal image. And so that progress is where I would say, because we're either making progress or we're going backwards, right? And,

and backwards goes into the grave, right? We're either embracing life or we're embracing death. And sometimes we do that without our knowledge. So when I would say patterns, it was like I said before, you know, I would get these amazing jobs because even though I was an addict, I was like many of us addicts, you know, fairly functional. I was on heroin for three years. My wife didn't even know, right?

And people could say, well, she was an idiot. No, I'm like seriously. I was so successful and busy at that time, you know what I mean, when I started going downhill that she never even noticed. I mean, I could drop $300, $400 a day and it didn't miss the bank account, right? So when I had that level of blessing, and I'd get these opportunities, I'd really do it, you know, become a business owner, do these other endeavors. And then I would start using because of the pressure, the triggers, you know, just to keep myself going, to maintain what I had. and not knowing how to deal with stress or knowing how to deal with my coworkers or my employees or, you know, the people that I'm contracting through until it became out of control.

And then I would just give up, right? And then everything would come crashing down. My wife would lose everything, you know, move to her mom's separate from me. And then I would go through a cycle of just shame, you know, drug abuse. You know, everybody that's been an addictive cycle know what I'm talking about. You know, you get in that shame and you just say, I'm done. You know, this is the fifth time I've tried and I'm back in the crack house, right? So I might as well just stay here.

But fortunately, I had, you know, there had been a spiritual awakening in me to per se to where I could never stay in that place. But that's almost like a worse living hell, right? Because you know you're in a bad spot and you can't be comfortable there anymore. Like I'd be sitting in a bar just miserable, just like, I don't want to be here. There's nothing here beneficial for me, but I couldn't find nowhere to go, right? I couldn't find my way out of that. And I think that's what the mushrooms did, as we know with the research on neuroplasticity and how it begins to create new neural pathways from my research and study and from my own work

and therapy work. I'm going to put this as best as I could explain it. It may not be scientifically accurate, but I think it's what's proving out. It's like basically as we're traumatized or as we live in addictive or unhealthy lifestyles, like, for instance, pornography. A lot of people don't realize. Panography causes your prefrontal cortex to atrophy. When you're addicted to pornography, it's the same physiological process in your brain as if you're addicted to cocaine.

They've found this through tests. that even the withdrawal is similar to withdraw from cocaine. Because cocaine, you don't really get physically addicted, but there is this mental biological process that happens when you're addicted to cocaine when you try to get off. And they found porn even does that, right? Because it's that dopamine. And it begins to atrophy parts of your brain.

Or you get people that have been a meth in a long time, and their adrenal system is shot. And, you know, they say someone that's been on meth for many years, it takes almost an equal amount, if not double years, to fully physically recover from poisoning themselves for that long, right? And they've aged and, you know, their body isn't the same. And so you're decaying. Like I said, you're going backwards.

You're walking into the grave. And they've found that meditation can change that, right? Diet, exercise can change that. Cognitive therapy can change that. But it takes a tremendous amount of effort. So people that are already really broken, people that, people that don't have a lot of hope to begin with that, you know, once they start hitting some hurdles, they're like, I'm just done. I can't handle the stress. I can't function. That mushrooms accelerate that process, right? Because for one, they do what, you know, researchers didn't know what was possible was create a neuroplastic episode, if you want to call it that, to where your body begins to build new neural pathways as you experience stimuli, right? So I'd love to see some research of artists or art therapy with people that had like traumatic brain injuries to see on mushrooms as they're doing this new skill, how it affects and remolds the brain.

Nobody's doing that yet. But I'd love to see research like that because I really believe from what we're seeing that's what's happening. And so people like me stuck in these addictive cycles, PTSD, you can tell a person that has severe PTSD by brain scans, right? You can see it. but as the psilocybin triggers your brain, not only psilocybin, I mean like ibogaine creates that plasticity, even the longer period of it than mushrooms do. I think they say mushrooms can create it for like one to six weeks

is the last research that I heard. And so as we're doing these things and beginning to feel alive again, right? I tell people it's like a defibrillator for the spirit in the mind. like, and all of a sudden, you come to life again for a second, and you, you remember what it feels like to be alive. And then that process goes for a while, and you begin to learn new skills. And that's where you start breaking those patterns because you start seeing them. You start seeing that every time I get a vendor that does me wrong, I end up screaming in

their face and then going and getting drunk. That's a pattern, right? Like, you don't realize you do it. Everybody knows you do it. They don't even tell you do it. And you're like, oh, screw you, shut up. you don't know me yeah but then as you become to get this this awareness of when this happens I do this and you know I think me just sabotaging this job is because my boss was a jerk but

when I start peeling it apart I start seeing how my responses behaviors attitudes work effort contributed to the whole mess and then that gives you the opportunity to begin to relearn and replace those skills right so you realize you're eating terribly every day all you do is drink you know, energy drinks and eat McDonald's. You're going to be depressed. I'm sorry, right? Your body's being poisoned by toxins. And then you're going, I don't know, I don't have any energy.

I don't know. And you start seeing those patterns. Oh, wow, I'm nutrition deficient. I have a sedentary lifestyle. I don't go hiking. I don't get out in the sun. I have no divitamin. You know, those are the cycles you begin to break.

And then you start learning new patterns, new healthy patterns, new healthy diets. which is kind of how I work with my clients. It's a holistic. And I don't like that word because there's a lot of new AG. When I say holistic, I mean a lot of people, when they're depressed, they go into a counselor or a psychologist. They say, I'm depressed. I want help.

And the psychologist goes, here, take this pill. They don't even look at anything else. Right. And some of them, I've been told if they try, if they're like, hmm, maybe you have a nutrition, you know, deficient. Maybe you have a B12 deficiency, which can mimic psychosis. and other mental health problems. They don't even look at that.

And I've been told that some that have tried, actually, as they achieve success, would get in trouble for operating outside of their scope, right? Like, you need to, they don't have a system that integrates all of these aspects of our humanity. So when people come in, okay, you're depressed. Let's look at your diet. Let's look at your levels of exercise. Let's look at your nutrition. Let's actually do some labs and see if you got some imbalances biologically through a doctor,

you know, and look at the whole person. They just, they compartmentalize it. Oh, you have a headache. Go to this doctor. Oh, you're depressed. Go to this counselor instead of, let's look at the whole picture. So that's what I mean by holistic of. And I think psychedelics are doing that.

And they're not only doing that, but they're raising the awareness that are outdated models of mental health. and mental health treatment and theories are failing, you know, which everybody knows, right, that the relapse rate in the inpatient treatment is somewhere. I've heard anywhere from 86 to 96%. And I think, you know, would anybody go to a heart doctor that had a 96% failure rate or even a mechanic? If you went to mechanic and they're like, well, nine and a half out of 10 cars you bring to me are going to break right as you, as soon as you get out of here. No one would use those people, but we let them get away with it in the medical professions. Why? Why aren't we looking at that going, okay, maybe this isn't

working? And I think psychedelics are doing that because, you know, I don't know how much you dug into my LinkedIn and some of the things I'm doing in my area, but with our professional groups that we hold, we get a lot of practitioners that are burned out. They're only in the profession because that's how they've built their career and they really wish they could be doing something else because they're not seeing people benefiting from what's going on. And then they're watching what's happening in the psychedelic community and they're showing up in droves going, I want to know more. Matter of fact, I want this for myself.

And they're starting to see how these things need to be approached in that whole person manner, you know. Yeah, I love it. I think that there's a revolution or maybe an archaic revival in that people don't heal other people. The healing happens inside you. And there's no one that does the healing for you. Like, you've got to do the healing, you know, on some level. What about the relationship between, I've found that when I use psychedelics, it allows me to approach things I'm ashamed of in a way,

without judging. You know what I mean by that? Like, I don't have to, I don't, there's sometimes when I get like in a negative thought loop, I don't even want to think about it and I'll suppress it or I'll just like, you know, I'll clinch up and I'll be like, ah, I don't want to think about that right now. But those are the things that are trying to express themselves. And psychedelics has a way of allowing me to kind of tip-top up to it and play with it a little bit and be like, you know what?

It wasn't even my fault, man. And if it was, like, I didn't mean to. I wasn't coming from a bad spot. Yeah, I was messed up, but I was messed up. And it allows me to have a new pursuant. perspective on the shameful feelings that have made me act abusive in some ways. How would you describe the way in which psychedelics allow you to change the way you think about things that you have done?

Yeah. Well, I mean, thichotene, which I know some people don't like classifying that as a psychedelic, but it kind of fits in these new medicines that people are exploring, especially with the neuroplasticity and stuff. But it's a disassociate, right? So you're disassociating specifically from yourself, which, you know, psilocybin can do the same thing to where you're able to step back and observe. So like my clients that I work with with Ibo game, I had one about a year ago. And his experience, each one's different, really like uniquely different.

But his was, he was like watching a film. And there were these beings that were with them. He couldn't see them. He was communicating with them. I'm getting mauled by a fly here. It's because it's warm over. That's crazy. Anyways.

And that's kind of how the I-Belgain experience can be. But it was like they were sitting in a theater watching a movie. And he saw his whole life from beginning to where he was in. And it would go for a ways, like fast forward, and then it would stop. He would see a scene from his life, and they would analyze the scene. You know, like, why did you respond in this way? How did you feel at this time? Almost like it was a weird, like, spiritual therapy or something.

Yeah. But he was able to step outside of that and see. So that's one of the ways is the dissociative nature of these medicines, allow us to step away from ourselves for a minute, right? They have what they call the Rebus model, you know, which is our top down, how we categorize information in our brains based on familiarity, threat level, you know, kind of like when you walk into a room and you smell a bad odor and you really smell it. And then after like five minutes, you don't smell anything. Someone else comes in like, oh, that's so terrible. And you're like,

I don't know what you're talking about anymore because your brain is like filtered it out. It's like, this isn't a threat. It's a weird smell, not a threat. Back to that top down. management and the way that did you hear that digital kung fu i know that thing came at me again so the the way it shifts the way we process information in reality and in removing that top-down control from the way different areas of our brain begin to fire up and work together you know and that was one of things that concerning so like when i started microdosing and i don't recommend anybody follow my methodology. Mine was kind of like

just taking handfuls at a time and seeing what happened. I believed in moderate dosing. I didn't microdose. I would always dose to where there was a discernible effect and not intoxication, but to where it would shift my cognition

just a little bit. And things would become a little brighter and my peace levels would be it. And I would stay at that place, right? Yeah. But I started thinking, if because I did that for two years um like I didn't do like two days on three days off I would do like one month off two days off you know like it was so random and I kind of went as my body was talking to

me and when there come to periods where it was like I wouldn't touch anything and now I'm at a phase where I rarely rarely uh take any kind of psilocybin or anything but um at that time something was needing processed in me and so I was up and down and all over the place with this stuff but I start thinking myself, you know, if this really changes the way that our brain processes information, right, to where different sections of our brain are firing, you know, in a more unified manner, if I'm like this for two years, what if it sticks? You know what I mean? What if it never goes back? Am I going to, you know, so I could say my personal experience can be a determinative that at least for my DNA, I recovered from two years of that.

It didn't alter me permanently, I don't think. But we're still figuring that stuff out. You know what I mean? But it allows us to, again, regrow those neural pathways. I've seen people come out of a heroic dose that would say things like, I forgot what it was like to feel alive. Like I can smell the air. I can feel the sun on my skin.

Having those experience again begins to allow us to reinterpret because most of what we have as memories in my opinion is lies, right? There are perception of what happened, but if we gathered everybody in that moment, everybody would have a, you know, as you get older like me, I don't know how many times my wife or kids are like, Dad, do you remember when this happened? And I'm like, no, I don't even know what you're talking about, man. And it was like this huge impactful thing on their life. And I'm like, are you sure that's not a false memory?

Because I don't have any recollection of what you're talking about. Right. So we filter stuff. And then our trauma comes through our perception. Yeah. And so what we're traumatized by is our perception of what happened. Right. And then that's why sometimes we get older and we talk to our parents as adults and they

get a stare aside and we go, I don't think it played out that way. Right. And then healing starts to happen because the perceptive starts to. change. Well, mushrooms and some of these psychedelics can do that rapidly, which is part of their danger, right? Because I do want to warn people. I also have had clients that came to me because someone had given them, you know, 5MEO DMT and never warned them about the intensity of the experience and it traumatized them. That is actually the trauma they were trying to get healing from because it so shifted their reality so quickly that they, they, they, they,

couldn't they they have a name for it it's a disorder um you get what it's called offhand but i don't even think it's a disorder i think it's a cognitive shift that happens so rapidly they can't unexperience it and then they're trying to realign their life back to who they used to be and it's it's very challenging so i always encourage people to really don't jump in with both feet with this stuff and be very cautious because while that's that's the bonus of the medicine right like i have someone come to me and they're like if if something doesn't change I'm going to commit suicide and then in one experience with the psychedelic substance they all of a sudden say I want to live I I understand why I'm sad I am going to change some things what else does that what else can I I've not seen

anything but God do that you know what I mean so it's it's very powerful medicine yeah it's so true it's it's interesting too because there is sort of the you know that that shift in somebody can be like every now and then you'll hear stories about someone it was way way down in the dumps and they do a giant dose of 5mEO and then all of a sudden they want to go out and give everybody else 5 in the oh you know what I mean and like what do you how do you work with maybe you can Talk about some similarities between your relationship to psychedelics and the way in which you help others. So your relationship to psychedelics and your relationship to helping others with psychedelics. Is there some similar, you know, your relationship to psychedelics versus helping people?

Like what are some of the lessons that intertwine those two things? Sure. So, and I'm very vocal about this because I want people to understand that my worldview about psychedelics and mental health and mental illness may not align with. the APA or the DSA. So I'm just going to put that out there. But I am an Eastern Christian. My church is, the Patriarch is out of Antioch, Syria, which most of our church has been destroyed through civil war.

And they're in all spread all over the world right now in our main headquarters is in Lebanon. But it's a very, it's a suffering church. And they have very ancient. and clear ways of healing the human heart and mind and healing the inner man of the person, which the Greeks called the noose. It's the element of us that connects to God, that through, you know, these traumas, through what happens in our life is, is constrained as dying, right? And so revitalizing that. And so from my perspective, the goal when it comes to psychedelics is just like, in a sense with 12 steps.

The purpose of the 12 steps is that you will have a spiritual experience. Not that you'll quit using drugs and alcohol. It doesn't say that anywhere. It says that you'll have a spiritual experience. And by that, be cured of your spiritual malady. That's what 12 steps call alcoholism. That's what they call drug addiction, a spiritual malady. Now, it pisses some people off, and I understand that.

I'm just sharing my perception that I agree with that. And so for me, the medicine. is not an end of itself. And I was talking to a panel of priests because I'm in seminary right now and I don't know if I'm going to go into the priesthood in Eastern Christianity.

You can be married and have kids and be a priest. But they wanted to sit me down as a dean of my school and the head of the counseling program. And they were like, whoa, what are you doing? You know, because I'm pretty open about it. And I was telling people, you know,

that's why you're doing Colorado. Yeah. And they were going over. this stuff with me for like two hours last night and you know throwing questions at me and I told them they're like yeah but how are you carrying drugs with the drug and I was like okay well we do that already for one yeah you know you get people off opiates with uh suboxone suboxone and methadone and then you yeah so like you know you get people that are depressed you guys even in the church send him to go get on antidepressants so that's a bad argument to begin with right but I told him

it's like this. If someone's coming into my church for spiritual counsel and on their way in, they get hit by a car, my first step is not going to be to talk to them about spiritual things. I'm going to get them to the hospital because they're not even going to be able to process spiritual things. They're going to be like my foot's broke, my, my, I'm bleeding. Like no more conversations right now about, except maybe just pray for me, right? Because you have to fix the immediate suffering. You have to fix the pain. And then you bring them back in and you can have those conversations. And so I see these medicines as giving people the choice again to begin to feel life again

and to actually begin to look at their life again. So you've bound up the wounds, you've set the bones, you've washed them all off and they're there again, right? They're no longer beat up under a car on the ground. And so that's how I approach my medicine work, is that primarily I don't think everybody needs to do this. And as a matter of fact, I think some medicines are potentially dangerous and people are not taking it serious. I do not support ayahuasca tourism. I think that is the dumbest thing that's happening right now almost. My wife is Chippewa, and when I was going to do ayahuasca with some veterans,

I didn't really research it too much. This is when I was first so excited. Like you said, I'm in the psychedelic realm. I'm like, man, I'm healing. Oh, here's a new psychedelic. Let me try it. And she sat down with me, and the next day I was like, so are you going to go to this ceremony with me?

And she said, no. And I said, why? She said, I am not doing anything that requires a shaman to protect me from possession. And I was like, what are you talking about a lady? And she was like, you go do what you want to do, but I ain't doing it. So I started looking at it and research and I was like, okay, right? This is a little different. And we need to really look at truly how these medicines have been used indigenously.

When people want to talk about like colonization of psychedelics, the worst colonization is, is Westerners telling shamans, well, it's not really demons. It's just mental health problems. and you're like, yo, come on. These people are going to tell you what's happening here. Right. And you're going to come back in your Western mind and say, well, I don't believe in the devil. I don't believe in spirits. I don't believe in brujos and sorcerers and magic.

Yeah, well, these people do. And that's why they're there to protect you. And so not having that understanding or at least saying, you know, we're more enlightened to your bunch of indigenous people that think, you know, mental illness is demons. That's real true white supremacy in my opinion. and that we need to take these things more seriously. So these are great medicines, right?

And we do need to take the indigenous cultures and how they've been using them and talk to them and get wisdom from them. But I don't think people, you know, I always tell my clients, it is a very dangerous thing to be a tourist in the spiritual world. Wow. You don't want to do that, right? You don't want to do it. And I've seen it. I've seen people get utterly destroyed by ayahuasca and not even know it, right? They're calling me going, I am so enlightened.

And I'm like, bro, your wife just left you. You're in the middle of a divorce. You got fired from your job. You're homeless and you think you're more enlightened than six months ago. You know, something else is going on. Your life is getting ripped apart. Now, sometimes that happens with psychedelics and it's not a negative thing, right? Sometimes our lives need to be ripped apart.

We've built terrible foundation, right? But I think some of these things just need to be approached more gently. Yeah. We got people doing like six-hour DMT trips interveniously. I'm like, y'all playing with some stuff. You might not want to find the answers to at the end of this. But I understand like they're exploring. This is scientific.

You know, CIA's going, are you really talking to entities? We want to know. Right. Like we want to exploit this. Yeah. We got to be careful, man. So it's double-edged sword. I think everything that's happening right now with the awareness and the

growth and the real true and honest genuine change. That's why I'm probably one of the few, if not only Orthodox Christian therapists that work in this realm, but I hope I am the first of thousands, right, as we all begin to recognize, even seeing the VA, you know, the VA still has it that I have a cannabis use disorder because I tell them I will not take any of their pharmaceuticals. If I need any kind of pharmacological intervention, I'm going to take cannabis or natural medicine. They're like, are you ready to go to rehab? Are you ready to go to rehab? And I'm like, but to see them doing research on on psychedelics so quickly shows me they're looking at the data and going, we need to do something different, right? So we have huge opportunity,

but I think in some things we need to slow down. I don't even know if to answer your question. See, I told you, I just go on these tangents. I didn't even take any muchrooms. I think a lot of them. And my relationship with them has really transformed my life. But I think you're right. I think at some level, you know, you got to be careful because it can fundamentally rip your part, rip apart your life in ways that you didn't even know possible.

You know, you can, I think there's a real potential for getting really strained. You know, and being, the more time you spend in a spiritual state or a spiritual realm, the less regular people can identify with you. And it's like this self-isolation that happens. And, you know, it can put you back in a spot where like, that guy is fucking out of his goddamn mind. You know, you're talking to that guy. He's pretty interesting, but I don't want to be around them. You know, you start putting off this weird vibe.

I'm just speaking about me, obviously, you know, but like it can happen. It can happen. But I think it's important for every individual to have their own unique understanding of the relationship that they have with this particular medicine. And you do build a relationship with it. And it speaks to you on a level that is, you know, it's like the burning bush. I think those metaphors and biblical stories really mean a lot more after you start having your own relationships, like a deep spiritual connection. You're like, wow, there's some real next level communication happening here. So that's why I always ask that question.

You answered it perfectly. I'm glad that you did. And also, just on a caveat, and I don't tell people what to do. When people come to me and they say, what do you recommend? I tell them, I don't recommend anything. You are ultimately, and this is the one thing I've seen in all of my experiences, you are ultimately your own healer, and that's what you're going to discover. Yeah.

You always had the ability to change your life and where you were at. There's the healing right there. You just didn't know how to. And this is going to give you that download, that information. And then you're going to put people around you that are going to help you put that into action. But, you know, I don't know how many people have been when I've been, you know, like an ayahuasca clinic, or not ayahuasca, but like I've gained like, hey, you really got to sit with this medicine. I tell them, I don't want. to. I mean, I don't think you have to to work with the medicine. I think that once you get to a place

of healing, these are disruptors, right? And you may not need to be disrupted, right? I do think it's important to have a real strong knowledge of the medicine, but there seems to be this way that, you know, if you're going to work with this medicine, you should at least experience it. I don't think that's necessarily true, but that people need to know in themselves, right? That I know. Like if someone came to me and they said, I know that I know that I know I need to sit with the ayahuasca and I want you to help me with the beginning and after, then I would say, okay, I'm here for you, right?

Even though I'm not a big fan of it, right? Because they know what they need. And that's kind of the tactic that I take is, why do you want to do this? and how can I help you be safe and then move forward, right? Yeah, it's interesting. I know we're kind of coming up on like 45 here. I got one more than a, what do you think about the, you know, there's a really interesting phrase that says when the person's ready,

the teacher shows up. What do you think about that? Yeah, I think that's true in everything. Not only in psychedelics, right? The scripture says that we are made in the image and likeness of, God. And there's been 2,000, 3,000, 4,000 years of arguments about what that image is. And what I truly believe that image is, is that unlike animals, which I'm not trying to irritate anybody, but please just hear me out, they live according to their nature. And they have souls and they have

emotions. But, you know, dogs are easy to control because they're controlled by their dog nature. right and once you learn a dog you can train a dog they don't really deviate from that much humans are the only created mammal on this planet that not only live beyond their nature but can even manipulate their nature and change their nature and not only physically and scientifically but through the power of our thought and our speech we can truly create new realities and i believe that you look at subatomic physics and the waveform collapse theories about how observation changes reality this you don't need psychedelics to understand this stuff that clearly our observation and interaction with this universe that we were placed in we have creative power

that no other creature has because we're in the imaging god so when you're ready if there's something and you say this is what i want i know this or this is where i want to be or this is where i want to be or this is who I want to be or this is what I want to go. If you set your heart and your prayer and your intent on that thing, you will have it unless something outside your power stops it, you know, like an accident or something. But even in that, when you're ready, you can begin to change whatever reality you're in,

no matter how horrible it is or hopeless it looks or difficult it may be. You have that creative power. And that's what makes you in the image of God. We can actually create while the rest of creation just exists, it doesn't create. We either create life or we create death in ourselves and in others and in our surroundings. And yeah, when you're ready, it will show up. And then you'll make it happen, right? It makes me want to cry, man.

It speaks to my heart in so many ways. And for everybody listening to this, look, the things that are happening are necessary. What can you learn from them? What is it teaching you? Where is it pulling you? It's pulling you where you want to go. Understand it. Create it.

Like, man, we just got warmed up, man. We're already at the 45 minute. We just got warmed up. I started thinking about in the beginning there was the word. But anyways, you've got to come back, man, because there's so much more. Yeah, I will. It's holidays and I know. I'm still not done shopping and my wife is waiting on me.

But, yeah, I definitely would love to come again and share some more. Okay, well, before I let you go, where can people find you? What do you have coming up and what are you excited about? Yeah, where can they find me? I don't know, because I'm all over the place. LinkedIn, for sure. Yeah, LinkedIn, Seraphim Schwab. If someone on a professional level wants to get in touch with me,

yeah, you can find me on LinkedIn under Seraphim Schwab. I have a podcast. It's called The Last Days Emergency Podcast. It's very focused on the church, though, and it's for people that are interested in the Eastern faith. And that's kind of what, I'm up to over the next year. I was doing a podcast with the psychedelic medicine and was building up a professional community here in Colorado. But right now I'm really waiting on the direction from the

state. We want to open healing centers. And until they give us that criteria, I'm kind of taking a break because it's kind of the Wild West here right now with that. And there's a lot of weirdness, like you said. It's like, I'm just really focused on seminary in my church and taking the clients that come to me. So if you're interested in working with someone that comes from more of a Christian modality or a, you know, a therapeutic modality, maybe not the shamanistic or, you know, or other type of spiritual practices, then feel free to get a hold of me through LinkedIn. I do have the psychedelic therapist.org is my website. I'm not really doing a lot with it right now, but it does have my contact information on there.

And then, of course, I do the weekly podcast. Over this next year, I'm going to be putting a lot of money into it and really working to develop it because I think, and the one thing I'm learning now, which is new for me, is that the only thing I really want to do over the next couple of years is continue to spiritually build in my own life and in my family's life and actually disconnect more from everything. I used to think I wanted to be in everything.

And it's like I'm taking my house off the grid. I live in the mountains. I'm building a chapel on my property where I can just spend time in prayer and meditation. And just trying to be available for people that want help. Or I've also went and spoke at events and different conferences. So people can get a hold of me that way as well. And yeah. I'm available if anyone has a podcast topic.

They want me to come on and talk about this. Even if you disagree with me, I love those the most. Yeah. Boy, that three hours or two hours last night, I was nervous because they called me up. And it was my dean. It was the head of the counseling department. And it was the head of my practicum. And they were like, we need to talk to you.

And I was like, they're going to kick me out of school, man. Here we go. They finally understand what it means when I say psychedelic. Because, you know, they're all from Syria. So they're like psychedelic, that's cool. Then someone told him what it meant, I think. And they were like, wait a minute. What?

What is he doing? But the amazing thing was, is they recognize this, you know, because they work with a lot of families. And they're seeing this explosion of mental health crisis that we're having like nobody's ever seen. I'm telling you, I get more therapists that contact me than people that need help that are, they just want to quit. They can't handle it anymore. they're being burned out, overloaded. Something needs to change. But it was pretty interesting sitting them down for those couple hours.

And sometimes I do that work too. So maybe someone is in a field or they need discrete help. They need someone to talk to their doctor, their parents, or whatever to really talk about this stuff and say, look, they want to use this as a treatment modality. Here's all the information on it so that, you know, I can help be an advocate for them. Yeah. That's how you find me. Find mushrooms. You'll find me.

Fantastic. Ladies and gentlemen, go down, check out the show notes. You heard the podcast today. Go check out his own podcast. You should be able to get to his links via the show notes down below. Well, hang on briefly afterwards, sir. I'm going to one or two things I want to talk to you about. And ladies and gentlemen, I hope you have a beautiful day.

Happy holidays. I hope the world is singing for you. And it's all we got. Aloha.