Cultish - Unraveling The Complex World Of Psychedelics & Mental Health

I do believe that there's a transcendent ethic and I do believe that it touches on the metaphysical

I believe that people experience that because people are perfectly capable of having Unutterably profound religious experiences and the naturalistic materialists don't know what the hell to do with that They have no idea what to do with that fact say well, it's delusional

It's like well, hang on a sec people who have those experiences appear to be more successful and healthier

It's like so in exactly in what manner is that delusional and if you induce it in the lab with psilocybin

For example among people who are dying of cancer their fear of death goes away It's like that's you're gonna just lay a delay that out there as delusional

Are you the quit smoking 85 % success rate with one mystical experience on psilocybin produces 85 %?

cessation rate and smoking it's completely and with MDMA ecstasy the

Three treatments with MDMA, that's what the current research indicates produces a 72 % cure rate for intractable post -traumatic stress disorder

It's like those are miracle cures and no one and they have to be accompanied by the mystical experience

No one knows how to account for that. And so So it's a very physical thing.

I mean in a case like that you talk about ayahuasca or any of these things, right? You're eating something you're ingesting something smoking it whatever it is.

It's physical It's here and now but the experience is metaphysical is metaphysical That's a place where the biological and the transcendent touch and we don't know what to make of that yeah, well, that's why psychedelics through our whole culture into such a such a

Flip this upside down. No one not knew what to do with them You know I mean the Indians regarded psilocybin as food of the gods for a reason and when people have encountered psychedelic substances

Throughout human history. That's always how they've been characterized. That's right food of the gods

It's like beware of them, but they're they open the door to the transcendent All right.

Welcome back ladies and gentlemen to cultish entering the kingdom of the cults. My name is Jeremiah Roberts I'm one of the co -hosts here.

I'm here as always with Andrew the super sleuth of the show Man, it's trippy, but this is the last time you will be recording as A resident living in Arizona.

We are getting ready to I'll be trekking off with you to help you move Just like City, Utah So it's gonna be almost like cultish embedded 2 .0.

Yeah, so super excited for that We are here as well. If you guys remember last year, it's hard to believe it's been a year so much has happened last year

But we are here with Dr. Robin mine hunter hall

We did a Charles Manson true crime podcast You are back How are you?

Excellence awesome. Yes. I'm not pregnant anymore either. So that's oh, that's right That's totally but you were but you would you were a mom with Tobias but now you are still a mom still a mom with Tobias with He is growing a lot.

He's getting bigger. So He's probably keeping you busy and sometimes making you wake up early and experience all the glories of being a new parent

How does he know? Seven and a half months Wow, isn't it like what's been like the most, you know

What's been like the most amazing thing just about like motherhood and just having a parent having this thing that you made like staring back at you like just What's that?

Like just tell me? I Don't know that there are words for it.

Mm -hmm. Truly. It's got to be I Believe very much that that experience at least recreates in some way

The love that God feels for us. I know it would only be like a fraction, right? But it's this like I mean

I get happy when he poops, right? Right. Yeah, you know, he's working he laughs and it's like, okay.

Do you want a car? Whatever? Yeah, whatever you want Yeah, it is really this amazing experience extremely sanctifying and revealing definitely

I've had a lot of God's been like working on me a lot through it.

So yeah. Yeah awesome, it's the most amazing thing and I'm a big sap now like Even my like true crime stuff has taken a little bit of a hit

I don't listen to much that involves kids or anything anymore. So yeah, I can make sense of that It's hard not to You know

Well good I got you I got yeah Well, I'm sure a lot of the coldest audience is good to have you back and also we are here with Nick We want to I guess

I guess we give a nickname for you slick Nick slick Nick Yeah, people been calling me that my whole life good man.

Well, it's good to have you on cultish Yeah, let's go ahead and just enter. This is your first time on people are familiar with Robin You guys have a brand new podcast it's been out for a couple months

Called a couch divided there are people that who follow us on our social media Who have found out about you guys and really enjoyed about it, but just tell us a little about it

I mean, I know that the idea is to get a kind of a Christian perspective on mental health

You know and just kind of talking about different aspects of psychology and just different things

That's a big thing Eric Holder, especially with just all the discussion Passionate discussions surrounding

Simone Biles in the Olympics. It's just a big topic, but just tell us just a little bit about the podcast Well, I mean,

I'm Robin's co -host. It was kind of her brainchild and well, I'm not pregnant either But I don't have a children

I don't have a child or anything like that But I so I get to vicariously watch the joy of parenthood between her and her husband who happens to be one of my best friends

We were actually talking one night about covenant theology Yes, and we were debating credo and pedo and that's what you know, that's what

Calvinists do right now So that you know, that's what the Reformed guys do Then all of a sudden we started talking about Freud and Jung and she realized that had some kind of knowledge and when we started talking about the podcast and Just what about six months later.

We we started that Um Yeah, I actually don't know. I don't know it was in the works

Yeah, I've been thinking about this for a really long time But I was

I wanted a co -host sure Yeah, and so I was just kind of praying about one and looking for one and then yeah so I mean she's she's kind of the the the puppet master of the of a couch divided as far as her brainchild what she wanted to You know emulate to an audience about the importance of mental health

But then she's a Christian and she wanted a theological side So she goes well, I'm gonna take somebody that knows something about behavioral health and know something about theology, too

And and here we are new medically psycho dynamically psycho analytically Producing a podcast, right?

So both of you have had a passion and have been involved in the fields of mental health both and so you can do

I just tell us just a little bit about that about what you're Just experiences are That makes you like this really where did this come from as far as being a passion topic for both for the both of you

Sure. Yeah, I mean as far as a passion topic at all is root if sometimes you have to draw from self -experience

You know, I have a history with drug abuse And history with psychosis and in that leaves you curious for why these things, you know

We're a part of your life and basically in society we can draw conclusions You don't necessarily have to be a psychologist to understand maybe why you've done something cause -and -effect

But I wanted to go deeper into academia from that and I found the heart the brain intriguing But then coupled with biblical anthropology that kind of even exploded it even more

To the depths of what human sin does to our minds and what it does to our hearts and I think that's what we try to convey in this podcast is that we are fallen creatures of Adam, you know rooted in Adam and How, you know distorted that can actually make us being and and so that's where it started

I pursued academia Coupled that with theology. I found new FedEx very intriguing, but then

I Also wanted to go a little deeper and then what is the empirical scientific data?

that's a you know of our behavioral patterns, which is specifically why I chose behavioral health and not Psychotherapy Man I started like What what was my like original like motivation

Yes, so I've always been super fascinated with human behavior I used to get in trouble a lot throughout my childhood for staring at people

I would just kind of check into my own little world and and Watch and observe and try and understand their behavior and their history.

So I've always just kind of been fascinated by behavior and then it was in my first abnormal psychology class as an undergrad at Community College that I Knew this is at least the area that I wanted to be in.

I wasn't sure at that point I don't I don't think like what it would turn into Yeah, but I graduated with a

Bachelor of Science in psychology in 2009 and then I graduated from Midwestern University in 2016 with my doctorate in clinical psychology, so I've worked in all

Like imaginable areas of psychology, but my primary focus was trauma treatment of post -traumatic stress.

Yeah Okay. Well, this is I'm excited because we are gonna be talking about a topic that is we wanted to do a crossover

Come explore different ideas. I definitely know as much you guys have such great content

Definitely cat cat will have links in our social media. Definitely. Check out the couch if I had podcast Like like us.

Yeah with us. We love that. Yes our whole goal for the podcast is to bring a biblical worldview to issues of mental health because we feel like there's a giant vacuum vacuum

Especially like within the church and how this kind of stuff is understood how it's responded to and managed treated

So, yeah, we want to be the voice there that's needed So yeah, check us out.

Awesome. So we're talking today about psychedelics really microdosing

DMT just really a broad variety of topics that is really becoming just Just a almost a stuff that was very fringe and taboo almost similar to UFOs is now a reg just a typical

Discussion abundance amongst the intellectuals of the world amongst the Joe Rogan's amongst different Hollywood celebrities

You know before a couple years ago I had no idea even what ayahuasca was when Steve actually

I was telling I Andrew earlier I think I told you or someone else back when we had our initial episode with Stephen bankers.

He mentioned ayahuasca I had no idea what the even was and so I was going. Oh, okay It's interesting and now it's now the sentence become we'll talk about how it's becoming a lot more of a household name

It's a fad and it's a fascination. So the reason why we're talking about it here today at cold at Coltish on this episode is because Psychedelics have a unique history if you just look at there was actually a documentary by the

History Channel That was done a while back that would feature Dean Norris from Breaking Bad who played agent

Hank Schrader he happened to interview our pastor and Jeff Durbin and He this is back in our infancy of a woman an apology of baby days

And he was a chaplain at Calvary addiction recovery center and at that point in time, you know

Jeff was talking about pharmachea something that is would be referred to in the book of Galatians Either these are the deeds of the flesh some sort of substance really to get you into an altered state of consciousness

And typically it's one of those things in the same way how when we've had our conversations about UFO phenomena you can't escape there's it always goes part and parcel with transcendental experience crossing over to the other side

Getting in contact with something We just heard we opened up the and this isn't talking about the world of mental health

Now is that this isn't just some weird some hippies out in the middle of nowhere that are trying to you know

Experiment on some weird plants or mushrooms or what have you? This is the opening clip we play was

Jordan Peterson He's on the Rubin report talking to him and Ben Shapiro so Talking in the very last moment when

I cut it off he talked about how this is sort of referred to as I think it's the plant of the gods and just Trent you can't separate the

Transcendental experience with it. So this is just something that as our culture becomes more secularized

I think there's just a lot more of a vacuum where people just have that insatiable hunger to Experience to try and reach out beyond and you know

I think biblically as part of what God says, you know, God has written an attorney on the hearts of men But I just want to get maybe just give me all your thoughts real quick.

Look what what why do you see this fascination both in?

Psychedelics and why do you think it's also kind of starting to you know, Jordan Peterson's a very unique figure

He's a very popular figure He can also be polarizing to many people but he's someone who's outspoken on a lot of issues of mental health and even ones

I think they're good. He's an image bearer of God. He I pray that he gets to know the Christ of Scripture But you know talking about, you know important topics like depression

Anxiety suicide something that so many people struggle with but here he is Talking about this.

He would be considered sort of like one of those just known intellectuals in the digital the digital areopagus

So yeah, just give me your thoughts and then I'll just whoever wants to go first I want to just kind of get your ideas of like why you think that is why

It's popular. Yeah, what's the what's the thing? What do you think this movement is? I feel like it just happened so fast.

So I'm gonna go ahead and disagree with that actually That I mean as a movement this has been going on since the beginning of I mean documented history

Yeah, I do agree that we've got some like flair more flair for it.

Sure So in the 70s, it became illegal to do any they became a controlled substance

Psychedelics did so for 30 years. There was almost no research being done.

It was like Made into this really really like taboo drug type thing

But then in the early 2000s they started researching with it again So I think timing has a lot to do with it like it has just been in the last 20 years that we've really reignited research into this

But we love Like altering our mind state. Yeah human beings love that We hate reality and we like to escape and avoid it and we also are looking

I believe Constantly for the God of creation because that's what we were created for it was to be in Relationship for with him right ultimately to glorify him and be be in relationship with them and enjoy him.

So When I'm when I'm not a Christian when I don't have Jesus to fill that Part like that was really made to fit perfectly.

I start looking for Other gods and as you like mentioned the transcendental part of this is something you can't really divorce

When you're talking about that, so I think people come here for religious experiences Enlightenment Personally when

I experimented with psychedelics I've done like MDMA psilocybin

LSD I was not looking for any kind of spiritual experience whatsoever I was looking to see the floor breathe like I was curious about the hallucinate like Hallucinations with the like a visual perceptual disturbance would be like so but I know

Nick Experimented with that motivation of trying to like understand yourself.

I was a full -blown scientist in it Yeah, that was my so very different experiences that way

Yeah, I actually want to go back to your original question Maybe I'll give you some experience in that too as well or my experiences in that I think about this in an anthropological sense and me and Andrew were talking about this way before the mics were on of And Robin just pointed it out is that human beings want to dissociate from reality

We want to get away from our suffering and then in the light of now We're in you know

We're on cultish and we always talk about secret knowledge and secret this and and I have something that is one up culture

Maybe somebody has thought about this before but the general society doesn't know and I now know kind of thing Yeah, and you see this compelling nature in psychedelics the self -explained self -exploratory atmosphere

Getting to know say things in the uncertainty. That is what people love to do

That's this goes back to the garden I mean, they called it the the tree of good and evil the knowledge of good and evil for a reason

There's something that that man wants to know And we want to fill that void and it's dichotomous because we are built to submit to something in a world

That seems out of control. It's the whole beat up. You know, you can't beat him join them You cannot control your atmosphere environment no matter how much you want to so if something gives you enlightenment in that environment

Then you can submit properly. We were made to submit we were made to submit to the Almighty, but we reject him

And so we're going to submit to something else that maybe we can rule over and then gain some enlightenment, too

And we want to try to dissociate ourselves from anything that would cause us to submit to to God and really that's that's really the

Anthropological sense of why we find these kinds of things intriguing whether they're good or bad and we'll get into that You know a little later on and then as far as my experience goes in this

I did kind of the opposite Robin wanted to see the floor breathe now. I certainly saw the floor bleed a breathe, you know

I was actually talking to somebody about Christ and they go. Oh, I believe in God I just took mushrooms and I met him right and I go.

Well, my sock was going to eat me one time I'm not worshipping at the Temple of Haines right now

I was high But I I wanted to be intrigued

I was an atheist and every hit of acid every drop of psilocybin In every toke of a blunt.

I was also into methamphetamines, which is really not a psychedelic but can create a hallucinations for sure

Confirm that there was no God and all I had was what I know and what I'm going to know and so I wanted to pursue that knowledge

And which was weird because everybody else that I would do drugs with they confirmed that there was a God on it, right?

So really led me to you know to conclude that whatever you're bringing into psychedelics

It's just going to be enhanced whatever you already believe and whatever you already think that you know will be enhanced with maybe some nuance

But you're bringing yourself into it and you think about this logically, you know what you know And you're never gonna know anything outside of that until you gain that knowledge now, here's the thing

Are we producing secret knowledge? Is there a professor? Is there a book that you're reading and this is when we get into pharmacheia because they want to now use these psychedelics

What not only to mitigate depression but counsel you on it to give you a new knowledge and give you a new perception

And that's exactly what I wanted on psychedelics. I didn't care about God I wanted to be You know a genius and I look at you and I look at your shirt and I look at your glasses and I go

Hannah is Thompson. Yeah, that's exactly what you think That's it was what I did, but he Jerry also told me that he had some hunter -ass -thompson.

Okay, so I'm wearing this just for fun Yeah, the only thing

I'm micro dosing on today is some you're a lot saying I wanted to be hunter -ass -thompson.

I dressed up like him twice for Halloween two years in a row I watched all the movies I watched his documentaries or read his books his book on Hanging out with the the

Hells Angels is very very compelling. I would recommend that book to anybody In seeing what they were involved with but he was a drug user and he promoted peace and I'm like listen

He's promoting virtue and wisdom and knowledge and I wasn't you know, I wasn't a precept theologian then So today

I was just borrowing from the Christian worldview of why that would be important But that's what

I wanted out of life and if you were going to a trip with us you take your frat boy mentality outside because if you we're in here solving world problems

Exactly no burping no farting. No bubble noses. Don't try to scare me get out of here

If you don't want to solve something, yeah, that was it. Oh my gosh. I never took myself Yeah Well, it is it is interesting too just because I mean just with your past is that like you you becoming a

Christian Was you coming into Calvary addiction recovery center as an angry atheist wanting to?

Wanting to are with Jeff, but you know and you came from a background of that too. So it's just um, right

I just wasn't looking for I Was looking for experience. Yeah, so I guess in that way

Still pursuing knowledge, but you wanted the chemical reaction. Yeah, I wasn't I was curious about what it would be like to experience it

I wasn't looking for the like divine answers of the universe So well, so I remember our staff retreat we were hanging out and you were kind of talking a little bit about your past Yeah, it's like before Christ and and your interest kind of in that And so I think

I think you just share that because I think it's also just kind of indicative of sometimes The reason behind the reason like why this isn't an allure for people

But it's something that wasn't just it wasn't just getting your bio You know your neurology or just having some sort of biochemical reaction that you just wanted and that's what's fascinating too because when you talk about working in the field of mental health, you know if a psychologist is talking with a patient is very different if I Get in a car accident and I break my arm.

I get rushed to the hospital I'm probably going to be placed with someone who is familiar with and let's just say it's a break

Whatever this bone is. I don't know this bone right here. It's probably a painful break It's going to be

I'm gonna be placed with someone who's Medically has studied knows that bone knows Yes, they know the sinew and the tissue and everything that entails and what to sew together

So, you know, hopefully my my arm would be as best as possible fully functional but when it comes to somebody who is a therapist or a psychologist and you're trying to diagnose, you know, but we're behavior health you're kind of Dealing with this weird cloud of something.

You can't necessarily see and you're doing all the hand movements, right? Yeah, that's exactly what we're doing

I'm just in that mood but you know, I think to like with with psychedelics you kind of have this sort of a similar a

Similarity in the sense that there is something tangibly going on that's affecting, you know

Your biochemistry and your neurology and how your brain is neurons are firing off But there's also something we can't see that Jordan Peters was also talking about in that lecture.

So all that being said You know, just give me something your thoughts so people can kind of understand that I was just yeah

Go ahead and do that. So in in terms of what I'm hearing from a Jordan Peterson, even the culture at large

It's like what we can see what is going on is people aren't satisfied with this material existence that they have, right?

We have a culture of people who are the generation after the generation of the secular people being indoctrinated in the school systems that we have saying, you know, you're nothing but What I'll phrase what pastor

James always says ugly bags of mostly water, right? so they're not getting the fill but what better way in the society that we live in and just to take a pill and download

That secret revelation of your existence, right? Like so we always want that special revelation the

Christian says well actually we have it in the material realm because God has Preserved his word throughout for us throughout time to give us this special Revelation of who we are why we're here who

God is and what our purpose is in life But once you reject that you can go take you can go smoke frog

Saliva that's been dried up on a cup and have a trip and download secret information within the matter of of a five or six

Minute trip where you come back and now, you know all the secrets of the universe. Yeah, you know, it's it's quick. It's fast

It's downloadable. It's fun. It's repeatable. Yes So it wasn't just you're trying to escape and tune out you were trying to tap into something deeper

Oh me me personally. No, I wanted to see the floor breathe and I also go at the same time of my life

I I claimed Christ. So when I was doing these things I knew it was wrong and I knew the information that I would get from it is not something that is good

But the person that I was at this time is I wanted to hurt the God who made me. Yeah, and I Ended up just hurting myself

I mean, but um, it was yeah like mind you

Yes, it was fun But I never came into it thinking that the information that I'm going to receive here is

Better essentially than what God has already given me in this word. I was just a What what is the word for it?

I was just a teenager. Yeah, right like I was making really dumb decisions and Yeah, it's it's hard for me to understand in a sense and maybe we'll go into this further

How you think and I'm gonna try to think about a Gnostic term saying you need to separate from the material realm take a substance

To get to a transcendental plane in order to receive this revelation That's apart from the material when you're literally going through the chemical reactions of a material object

Poisoning your brain to actually think of these things. It's because of something material that you're in this other realm

It makes no sense to me. It's philosophically inconsistent. You're basically saying you're high, dude. Yeah Exactly.

Yeah But it's compelling. Yes, I don't want to throw people under the bus and say those things I understand the allure and the draw for you

Yeah, so let's just jump into this and I think just to clarify earlier when I was talking about the most recent I feel like it has had a just sort of a surgence just with social media and yeah, people like Joe Rogan Yes attention a

Russell Brand. They're people like Russell Brand You know just a broad variety of guests even on the

Joe Rogan experience and and it's almost I think recently there was these funny Joe Rogan memes where he's like interviewing people.

I even kind of share with them They're kind of dark humor where he's like interviewing Simba, you know when scar dies It's a little dark humor

But in a couple of the ones I saw on this page I was following like the joke they made their own interviews

Where there's where Joe Rogan brings up DMT Like, you know the guys like anything DMT might be something to do to cross over and it's almost like Joe Rogan and DMT almost

Go hand in hand. So it's just something that has been popularized Recently with different influencers and whatnot

Sure, so I think some of that is just like the social media. Yes that we live in Yes, but we have information to us immediately which kind of feeds that you know addicts.

I want what I want what I want it now Mentality. Yes, but you are absolutely correct that there is nothing new under the

Sun Historically since the beginning of time these Pharmakia these mind -altering substances have consistently been something to tap into deep deeper secret hidden knowledge this was depicted in the movie 300 when the priest

Goes to get an answer You know about from whatever the answer from the priest and the priest ends up getting a girl who is not inappropriately

Dressed very promiscuous and they get her on some mind -altering substance and she taps into something and they get this revelation from the other side

And that's and again, if you look cross -culturally, there's the in that documentary the stoned ages they talk about that So yeah, it's just something that historically has been the case and that's what we're gonna talk about and go ahead

Give me a thought Yeah I think it's good for the listeners to think about Some assumptions as well from the Jordan Jordan Peterson when he talks about the transcendental

In terms of those religious experience number one is the assumption is that it's a good thing, right?

Number two is that it's not delusional, right? So I just want I just want to keep those things in mind as we're as we're going throughout this

Episode are you tapping into something good? And is it good for you? Yes one thing to remember.

Okay, so before we jump into this I'm gonna play this clip this it's just an example of the resurgence in popularity

Like I said two years ago when I was first talking to Stephen Bancars he mentioned ayahuasca because we're doing an episode on the new age and the occult had no idea what that even was and now something that It's being normalized.

So this is an interview from the actress Megan Fox She is on Jimmy Kimmel and I believe

Arsenio Hall was actually taking the plate was the one conducting the interview But this is her on the

Jimmy Kimmel show Talking about her experience taking ayahuasca with her boyfriend machine -gun

Kelly So let's just listen to what is said here and I want you to live and as you listen in we're going to unpack why?

This matters like why as Christians we need to have an answer because worldview comes as a byproduct of this

We have to give an answer for what these experiences are. We can't just Wave it off with a broad brush.

So let's go ahead and play this clip and let's say let's now let's analyze this So we went to we went to Costa Rica to do ayahuasca like in a proper setting like with indigenous people and we were in the middle of the jungle and I was thinking because the place we went there's a lot of people like I don't know if LeBron James has ever gone but it's like a place where like they're like these kinds of people go here to do ayahuasca so I was

Thinking it was like glamping or something like that still gonna be like a Some kind of five -star experience and you get there and you really are in the middle of the jungle and you don't get to eat

After like 1 p .m. You have to walk a very far distance to get your water You can't shower because they're in a drought.

So you can't use the water obviously like you need to respect the rainforest Nothing glamorous about it

It's all a part of sort of making you vulnerable so that you surrender to the experience and the entire thing

Start to something called vomitivo. I hope I'm allowed to divulge this. It's okay that I share but I'm encouraging it

So you go and we were with 20 other strangers and you all line up at like the edge of the rainforest over this weird fence and you go three by three and you drink lemongrass tea until you

Like by not your own volition just vomit everything out of your body

So you have to vomit there's no way around that get out of it and you have to own a certain amount before they let

You get back with everybody. So you're like cheering on everyone as they like And as like what we do, obviously, we were like,

I don't know I'm not am I ready to just like throw up in front of all of these people, but it's such a good bonding experience

I know it sounds crazy But but that gets you ready to then go into the ceremony that night because you're like I my vanity is gone

I've just done this in front of all of these strangers and like now I'm ready to like really open up So we did it for three nights.

It was incredibly intense. I went to Everybody's journey is different the second night. I went to hell for eternity

Yeah, and to just knowing eternity is Like torture in itself because there was no beginning middle or end.

So you have like a real ego death. Okay That Is something that it's you know, some people is like that's just so crazy.

That's so ridiculous but there's part of me that my hair stood on end when I heard that because if you think about the reality as a

Christian you thinking about the gospel is that God sent his son

Jesus Christ to save us from hell And that Walter Martin also has a quote when he he talks about the world world of the occult

He basically said that if hell's dimension what whatever is on the other side that if hell's dimensions required

God like to protect us from that and I'm paraphrasing it if if it caused his if it

Required God to send his only son to die on the cross Whatever hell's dimensions may be like it needs to be avoided at all costs

So there is a real seriousness as a Christian because the Bible is a dimensional book

And and this is something that you know, the Bible talks about there's a there's a there's a physical realm

There's a real physical reality. There's a spiritual realm. There's an unseen realm There are the heavenly places, but we also had the

Prince and power of the air We have we have a basis and framework what while we can't see with our eyes and maybe

I can use these these fear -loathing Las Vegas glasses as a metaphor, but really

The Bible gives us the worldview and a lens to look through where I believe that as Christians I think we can make sense of what

Megan Fox is Experiencing this is not anything special. It's new. It's kind of repackaged, you know, it's being she's talking

She's this actress, you know from the Transformers movies or whatever else. She's bet she's been in on This popular night show and she's experiencing something and I think we need as Christians We need to have an answer for that.

Give me your thoughts Well, yeah, I kind of wanted just to point something out that actually made me laugh

She goes I go through a process called vomit EO and then she ends up explaining that process, but I go

We already know what you're getting ready to do vomit EO Okay, you're you're you're throwing up right now.

Okay, go on to the spiritual experience and from an entertainment standpoint She is bombing right now in the host didn't know how to engage

However, she said that she had her own Personal hell and that were really intrigues me when you when you when you think about person personal

I mean, she's reinterpreting it based off of herself Now hell according to the

Bible is a place that the wickedness goes in in a in a rightly deserved Punishment is at but if it's personalized, it's actually internalized to what you fear the most not what you think you deserve

Mm -hmm. So this personal hell of hers. She's like I would hate going here because it's my worst fear

And so I really I really think that the human condition right here is showing us what she fears the most not what she thinks

That she deserves the most and an all -encompassing thought this spiritual experience that she could have had now wants to justify herself so that she can get away from her worst fears and And Continue to walk, you know it with the heart that she's that she has completely a staying away from judgment

Which if you realize that there's a judgment you could be born again right And so I heard no compelling nature that would want me to do psychedelics

I already know my worst fears and so I don't have to go through a process called vomiteo

And I already know an all -encompassing thought a personal hell would be vomiteo.

Oh, yeah And in fact, there's a lot of disorders that would say that when we talk about Bulimia in that in that sense, but I get it.

It's not the same But I would I would see her experience as what she personally fears and not what she personally deserves mm -hmm,

I Immediately likened it like the process that she explains they go through to like a domestic violence relationship

You are isolated you are like stripped hmm of your

She called it. What did she call it? Like an ego? Yeah you are it's probably dehydrated and Maybe not starved isn't the right word, but you stop eating.

She said after a certain point so like there's sensory deprivation stuff happening And then you ingest a substance that allows you to be brainwashed

So to me that sounds like very much the way that an abuser Breaks down and manipulate somebody in a domestic violence relationship

What Manson was doing? using you know Those things are separate things, but I feel like the similarities, you know worth pointing out

Mind control. That's basically what's going on, you know Yeah, so it it

I think first and foremost is important to recognize like it's a real experience that she is having I don't mean that she actually was transported a metaphysical way to hell

What I mean is she is perceiving this happening because like you said this is about a chemical reaction

That's happening in the brain that produces a certain set of effects For whatever reason all that personal psychology stuff and her, you know lived experience came together

To manifest as like a personal hell But so the experience when you hallucinate when you have delusional delusional ideation

When you become psychotic whether it's from a psychedelic or something else It's a real experience

You can taste it. You could touch it It's real, but it's not and so in my experience in and drugs and not necessarily psychedelics in you know

Holistically, but methamphetamines to as well which you can get a lot of euphoria and hallucinations out of that Well, right

So just to say like the the psychotic parts of methamphetamine usually occurs as a result of sleep

Yes So it isn't necessarily that like the chemicals the dopamine that you're really messing with and that is causing a hallucination

It's that you haven't slept for five days. Sure. Yeah, and and and I loved the auditorial Hallucinations on there to as well.

We've discussed this on our pad cat. I have a podcast podcast Professional radio guy

I used to go into the bathroom all the time and flip on the fan because I would hear a baseball game and I go and I would go in there and go who's winning today and I would do that however me bringing that up I was

We talked about that personal stuff. You said he sounds like a domestic abuse. I agree with you

It's just a pattern. Yeah, it's just a pattern in and when I heard that word personal Personality it really is internal desires in which you either a joy or fear

I'm not sure if she joys enjoys hell didn't sound like it. So right I predicate that up on fear

I lived that life as well I always lived by the what -ifs on methamphetamines

What if there's a cop what if they know what if my neighbors are looking at me? What if somebody's following me and You know

That is probably not but the risk of it being there is so high you will react to that every single time

It's your worst fear. And so and you're completely stripped down and vulnerable With these things you talk about having the mind open to vulnerability

That I would make decisions based off of what I knew logically probably wasn't happening.

But what if yeah, and so I I start to you were paranoid.

It's paranoid. I mean, that's basically what it is And my paranoia was a reaction to what I feared the most

Wow So I think it I mean since we're discussing this I think we could argue

Abuse of any substance especially especially like Daily use of a substance is gonna

I believe open you in a way that makes you more susceptible to negative influence and I mean specifically negative influence not just from what's like Tangible in your physical environment, but in this other like realm that we are kind of dancing around talking about I do believe it makes you more susceptible and open to Demonic attack to spiritual attack.

Oh, yeah it it makes so much sense that if like a person can have a transcendental experience and Believe that they know all the like secrets answers to the universe

They would like why would they look any further than that? I mean it would what a great tool the enemy could use

To dissuade people right and I say that of course acknowledging God's sovereignty, you know

Satan does nothing without permission from the father, but I Do believe that more in my experience personally and then in my observational experience

People who are using especially like chronically using anything psychedelic

Stimulants, whatever it is Are just more open more susceptible to that.

Yeah I mean even in her Situation when you're going down to Central America to do ayahuasca you have someone guiding you through the process

So you're ultimately submitting yourself to an authority like you said in terms of the abuse

Situation but what blows my mind too is how much people how far they're willing to go to sacrifice the health of their own body

Sacrifice their sanity in order to achieve some type of Self -understanding or peace when the beautiful thing about the

God of the Bible is he says no you can never sacrifice yourself To understand who

I am and why you're here It's actually me who comes and I sacrificed myself for you, right so you could have peace with God But men we or humanity goes such the opposite direction and I and I believe she she had a spiritual

Experience, but again, the question is is was it good? Like Jordan Peterson said well, they can't be delusional because these people who are doing these types of psychedelics

They end up not having the fear of death, right? So that must that must not be a bad thing Well, I mean the

Bible says Romans 318. There's no fear of God before their eyes That's a bad thing to not have a fear of God before your eyes

I think a healthy fear of death is a is a wonderful thing to have Yeah, I think it's delusional not to I would argue the exact opposite So right

I think that Jordan Peterson is speaking to this idea that somebody who is dying knows they are going to die

Does and I missed if you like talked about micro dose or macro dosing but?

Experiences relief from that anxiety over their imminent death coming

The problem like so I mean for a Christian or not Christian, I don't really have any problem with trying to Provide somebody comfort and care in their final moments my issue with it is if you are like removing somebody's fear of death, which like then potentially completely

Shut them off. Well, I mean what you don't need the cross, right? If you're not afraid of dying and what will happen when you do

Why would I mean why would you continue to look for like look more exactly I'm saying yeah, so I mean a cognitively

Apathetic disposition towards anything could be damaging right? I've had this experience. Yeah, I know it's real

Yeah, so I don't have to look any further. I don't have to challenge that Yeah, I don't have to like evaluate it hold it up against anything

Which is what I mean, we're on cultish. We talked to the LDS people all the time I've had personal revelation.

Well, God spoke to me. I know that the church is true. Here's my testimony The heart is deceitful above all things do not be making decisions about anything based on how you feel about it

Seriously, it is the wrong reason to make a decision about something, you know And that brings me to a point and I hope you don't mind me continuing here

So good stuff here. We appreciate this. We talked about pharmacheia in the beginning of it And of course that is the elephant in the room when are we going to talk about kind of pharmacheia, but well

I think that actually Maybe that I think that is something I want to is that where you're gonna you want that's what

I'm gonna go down yeah, let's do this when we talk about pharmacheia because we are kind of gonna get into the elements of the different types of Psychedelic people how people ingest them how people take them just because you know

This is just something that is this is a conversation a cultural conversation whether you like it or not

So even if you're not familiar with this, I think as much exposure this is getting even if you are parents you have young kids

I would not be surprised if you may have someone who goes over to your friend's house You know who's 12 13 years old and it's like hey, do you want a micro dose?

You know, I had I remember I was 12 years old and I had my friend Ben Fry I lived in Prescott, Arizona And he said

I started telling me about his Ouija board that he was doing and he was seeing, you know different Lettering that was being written across his wall

You know, he was seeing it wasn't real but look like things are being written in his room and written in blood And so I just it was one of those times where this kid was like would tell tall tales

I just knew as a kid He wasn't lying in the same way so in the same way how I Experienced that I think there's a lot of people, you know

If you have kids who are gonna be exposed to this stuff and it's I think you know when I have kids This is something you're gonna have to Like disciple them and just be have them be aware of but not shelter them prepare them to give an answer there's just one one particular example, but what we want to do is

Let's talk about pharmacia, but let's give some let's make a basis. First of all, let's talk about there are good

Medicinals out there, especially when it talks to you, especially in the world of mental health, which is what your podcast focus on It's you know, there's there's a reality of certain medications that sometimes are needed for depression

Anxiety, you know, what have you and that's something that Sometimes is needed just given the take so there is a proper place.

Some people will abuse the Passage of pharmacia to say no, you can't take medication.

You just have to trust God so let's talk talk real quickly about What are what is something that's good and then give examples of that make it let's make a basis for that and then we'll kind Of go into what crosses that Dividing line from something that's been that's truly

Authentically medicinal into something that be pharmacia Okay, so I don't think that has anything to do with the substance itself.

I think has to do with Your heart's the intention through it But go on them, right

So that's not to say that there aren't certain substances that pose higher risk when you use them than others because that's true but I don't think that anything inherently is

Like good or bad in that way. It's are you sinning or are you not being sinful? yeah, and that I think it like there is a range there of Gray area not in the like sense that God is unclear about what sin is or what it isn't but like a

Spectrum where people fall differently, right? So like what is Like rips the conscious and what conscience and one person might not in another right?

So that's really what I'm speaking about So psychedelics,

I feel like we should probably define What that is, right since that's what we're talking about and Just like I find this is so funny in all research

Whenever you go to answer a question, the answer is pretty typically and we're not a hundred percent. Yeah Chemical processes the compounds and the

Mechanisms of action vary across this group of substances, but typically

We're talking about Okay, ready, I'm n theogen

Right. They are n theogens. So this is a Greek word. That's supposed to mean generating the

God within Okay, so these are substances or compounds that promote quote and this is from the leafly website

If anybody's not familiar with leafly you can look it up They're understood as compounds that promote life -altering experiences

Encourage profound insights into the nature of life and consciousness and then the term also like acknowledges the spiritual aspect of the substance itself, so Psilocybin, so you find that most commonly in mushrooms like magic mushrooms would be the kind of a colloquial way we talk about that LSD MDMA DMT Ayahuasca and mescaline so we were talking before we started recording

Jerry about cannabis and cannabis can produce some psychedelic effects, but it's not typically considered a

Psychedelic for the most part, although there are people that would argue you should put it in that category, too So anyway, that's what we're talking about when we say psychedelics

We're talking about these substances and variations of them and regarding cannabis It would be just how you're taking in edibles or ingestion would produce some of that psychedelic

I mean you can have you can have a psychotic response and After you ingest it in any way smoke it eat it

Whatever. Yeah Yeah, that's good. No, that definitely that definitely makes sense.

And I think so so like just like Doug Wilson always says like I'm gonna smoke this cigar to the glory of God, right?

Yeah, like so that's the attitude that we should have if Christ sets you free like we are free indeed, right?

Where is your heart behind it? Are you worshiping this like an idol? Like are you coming down and bowing before it and polishing it when you should be worshipping

Jesus. So I Mean, how can you make even a general statement about that?

Being good or bad inherently. Do you understand what I'm saying? Yeah, that definitely makes sense. So Now if you are using substances like the psychedelics that we just named in order to promote that spiritual experience

Even if you're not like abusing it, that is a really bad idea. Mm -hmm my opinion

I mean, especially the way they do it. We'll talk about a little bit It's much more like pharmakia ask then even kind of what you would assume right from that And then and so they're really predicating upon, you know psychedelics upon, you know health benefits and fitness benefits and Psychological benefits and things like that and we don't deny the existence of those things.

However, it's like maybe physical medical things such as cardiovascular disease or or Cluster headaches psilocybin has been proven to mitigate the symptoms of that if not totally just wipe them away, especially cluster headaches

But there is no pursuit of knowledge or self -discovery or worshipping other gods in controlled environment

Instead of taking 10 liters of oxygen to the head to clear your cluster a cluster headaches. You take a half a gram of psilocybin

Mushrooms or whatever form that they give them all of a sudden you have no cluster headaches Well, right and depending depending on if you're doing like if it's a micro dose or a macro dose, it's actually a micro gram

Yeah, and those seem to help and I have actually no problem with that except Here's the thing the biological responses to those things could open you up and susceptible

But we do live in a society with opioids and everything else I can do the same thing. So it's always with caution

Yes, always with caution, but notice and I'm gonna go back to the Jordan Peterson thing where he says that beware

These are the you know The the fruits of the gods and things like that you right and notice the only time that you can actually be

Cautionable or you know be aware of something is in the lucid mind. And so it takes lucid

You know, yeah lucidity to actually make an informed decision. You don't go into illucid

To make sense of the lucid, right? Right, which is I think one of the reasons why I never expected to have any profound experience on any of these substances

Yeah, I knew I was gonna be high Like no, I don't want to I'm not gonna give a dissertation on anything in that state of mind

Or like my you know experience of it, but Ben Greenfield is kind of popular right now

He's a fitness guy. If you go to Ben Greenfield Fitness calm he talks about all kinds of drugs that he's benefited from in health

And I just wanted to give a little statement. He goes my personal experience with compounds such as LSD Psilocybin mushrooms

Even ketamine he mentions because these compounds have spanned several years of quarterly

Heavy psilocybin and DMT dosages for personal self -discovery.

So we have self -discovery LSD micro doses for creativity and productivity and then iboga micro dosing which is a plan in South Africa for pre -work workout boost and I'm willing to discuss the pre -workout boost

And and what do you mean by that? But the personal self -discovery in creativity and productivity though We did not would not as Christians deny those as important would see probably that as pharmakia and in taking these substances because Christ Upon regeneration and following him shows you all of that if you really if you really read the word

Creation comes from the Creator. So why wouldn't he help us in creativity and now your

Psychological goal is not self -discovery because you have the ability to put yourself in the right like Perspective position to Christ.

So it isn't this like you don't have the same motivation for Spiritual experiences and self exploration are you

I mean you shouldn't hopefully through in sanctification, right? Because your focus is no longer you you are not at the center of your story the crosses

I mean just look at church history and with all of the brilliant minds the philosophers and the theologians that Christianity is produced

It's always been a thinking and wisdom religion and faith that has produced more art more

Anything that psychedelics have done We just like you know colors nowadays I was gonna say if you get a free workout boost from anything else.

Why wouldn't why wouldn't you do that? Yeah, I'm not eating pizza usually does it so the last time

I did any of this it was definitely pre salvation But the last time I did any of this

I remember thinking I think I'm like day three of the just like coming down hangover from all of it

You know, I had it was acid Like I'm never doing this again, it's exhausting

I can see how people do really messed up crap on it like Just out of your mind.

It was like it was so it was so exhausting So why you would like choose my opinion to like put yourself through that?

Unless there was some significant medical benefit like what you're talking about there there is a lot of research right now supporting the

Met like medicinal effects of Psilocybin specifically but variations of in the treatment of things like migraine cholesterol headaches

Because it's chemical composition is very very close to serotonin. Okay, so anything just real quick and describe

What is Mila is psilocybin psilocybin psilocybin, right? So that's that would be the ingredient the chemical compound that's in magic mushrooms that makes you

Hallucinate people still call it magic mushrooms. Yeah, we are we just went shrooms. I just said shrooms. Yeah Mmm, we don't want that magic stuff in there.

We're guys. Okay, so yeah females would say magic mushrooms, right? Well, it's so I may be like, you know even in the future we can spend because I have a full like history of so like our you know,

Our longest to go evidence for use of these kinds of substances in Rituals, especially which is kind of what we're talking about.

Like at least what Megan Fox did was absolutely a ceremonial, right? Yeah Yeah, absolutely.

It absolutely was There's nothing that she was shown that Christ cannot show you on a deeper and a more objective level

I just just don't see it, you know You know upon regeneration The exposure like when

I was taking psychedelics, I was exposed. I'm like, I'm this I'm that I was very self -deprecated I've become more self -deprecated which was the product of I used to do stand -up comedy, which is the product of my writing

But then I remember coming to Christ and I'm on the moment of regeneration that was the definitive moment

I am a man of unclean lips. I was just like Isaiah. I was exposed I was so joyful that a

God loved me but when I I felt that joy and that all of a sudden I took a step back and I realized how much

I was Making fun of Christ in my comedy how much I rebelled against him what I was doing to other people

No, no amount of mushroom ever did that for me because the worldview that I had was nihilistic

So I brought that into my psychedelic experience, right? But he took me out of that and gave me a better experience

You're a sinner and I love you Mm -hmm and that was so profound because when you're exposed objectively and you know that you don't deserve these things and He gives you something that you don't deserve his grace his mercy his love by way of exposure.

That was just That was more profound than any kind of suicide. Yeah, so it's almost like we when we're doing mind -altering substances in the forms of Hallucinogenics and psychedelics the

God that you tend up you end up worshiping and magnifying is the God you already been creating yourself in your mind

Personal health self -discovery all of these things are predicated upon who yeah So so what

I find interesting too about the God of the Bible The true and living God is the fact that he's not at people's beckon women call

You don't just take a pill and God's here to show himself to you. No, it's the exact opposite in the

Bible It's actually on his terms on his time and he reveals himself to his people not

There's no special ingredient, right to have God Reveal himself to you mean you don't have to walk through the jungle in Costa Rica and vomit in front of 20 strangers, right?

Well, and instead actually through through the gift of the Holy Spirit I can have communion with God by actually praying and presenting myself before him pleading through the righteous robes of Christ, right?

Like it's a beautiful thing that I have constant communion with God I don't actually have to put my body through crazy amounts of stress, which is one thing

I don't understand how that's not necessarily being talked about in these circles the very the very fact like you said when you were doing

LSD that's stressful on your body. It's not you're good for you in the long run. It is exhausting.

It's exhausting I'm not sure about the whole micro dose scene or anything like that But I'm just yeah just from years of my own personal drug use

I can tell you my body suffers because of it Yeah, yeah, just the one thing I want to compliment. I appreciate you like that's the thing

I love about you dude is that like you just I think it's one thing we have both have in common You both wear our hearts on our shoulder.

Oh, yeah I think the fact that You brought up Your relationship with Christ and how

God saved you and and the real and how you compared it versus the times you would try and find that peace and that meaning and that knowledge

Through these different substances is that both the really the part and partial the same thing there you are trying to Cross over Into into another dimension in order to obtain what we are created for because we're image bearers of God God's created eternity as he has created

Eternity in our hearts, but the Bible says there's only one way to cross over in a way

Which you will have truly have peace and that is the mediator between God and man and between God the head how to cross over Properly into the heavenly places and that is the

Lord Jesus Christ and what he did on the cross So that is really if we could speak of this one way this that's the ultimate

Trip like this. Yeah, that's the ultimate trip of the soul like Walter Martin talked about that because that is something you don't

You don't have to Find peace through puking your brains out for three days through drinking lemon water

You don't need to think you're going to hell like Christ He's the one who bore

God's wrath and you can avoid hell Like you don't have to deal with that because that beautiful man has been paid for Why don't we talk about that more and I appreciate the compliment to as well, you know,

Jordan Peterson talks about you know It's revolutionary that psychedelics have shown us the immaterial world

And if they really are it's revolutionary and then we found some kind of substance to bridge the gap between the material and the immaterial

But you just described the mediation of Christ already doing that in man into where in that lens you experience

Christ in all of things in this podcast in your writings in your eatings in your conversing with people he is preeminent in omnipresent in both the material and immaterial world and and I go

Nothing nothing just is ever given me that experience to where now the material in the immaterial

They're not at odds, yeah, they're not at odds They're they're working like parallel lines in new tyranny

I'm anything and I am in the middle with Christ and in all of it for all of eternity

Wow And it's because of him why this is even exists in the first place Which gives me more compassion for people because that's a part of the order that I'm in And and it's all started with the love of Christ and of course if he didn't love his first we would refuse him

Yeah, let me ask me ask this too Maybe we could there are a lot of people who asked some really good questions

In our social media and maybe I could kind of direct this one as you too because we're just happening This is literally there's so much to this whole discussion

I mean, I feel like we're only going to scratch the surface. They've already been in an hour We have like 30 roughly little over 30 minutes left

But is it because it's it's crossing over both into just Spiritual, you know people being trying to be spiritual because we will have that vacuum

It's being normalized as we talked about but in regards to the field of mental health There is someone by the name of Donna Walter She asked this question on our social media and I just said what quite and this is a post

I did said what questions Do you have about psychedelics? DMT in its relation to mental health

And she didn't I don't know what study this is but it's probably indicative of a lot of different universities that are coming out with These studies so there is a study considering whether one dose of a psychedelic could help someone with severe

PTSD to relieve symptoms for years The thought is that it could reset the brain so no flashbacks intrusive thoughts or whatever

I forget where I saw it, but I think you know Jesus is giving an example and this is a case maybe your thoughts because I remember when you first sent me what your

Thesis was when your doctor it was just kind of like what I feel I feel like I became that gift like I kind of like it was that guy

If you know I'm talking about the redhead guy, you know you you understand Trauma that your specialty you've done a lot of research on it.

And I think one of the things too. I love about Your podcast again, please if you want to check out just listen to all the episodes you did one

I think on trauma on PTSD on PTSD. Yes, and so I think Pete like just the whole concept of trauma and PTSD.

I think the Christian worldview is the only really worldview that can make sense ultimately of PTSD because all it's almost a presuppositional apologetic for the nature of reality and how we are to view the world is

Presupposing a way things should be a way we should view the world when through goodness and wholeness and Everything else, but we don't do that We see one thing and then we have something that affects us you know if someone's molested as a child when they're younger or if they are a veteran and you know,

I know a story of someone who This guy I know he was a local guy in a

KTAR here in Phoenix I think his name is Daryl and Carlo and he had a story of his son who

I don't know if he was an army Ranger, but there was an operation in Iraq where he had a whole platoon of his buddies

They were gonna go on this operation. They went in Majority of his platoon went in this

Chinook helicopter for some reason last minute you're going over here That Chinook helicopter crashed with the majority of his people

He survived so while he didn't see the IED he didn't see that it was all this severance trauma survivors guilt all of that.

I know you have that's something you're passionate about you come from Military family you've have it.

You know, you have a huge love and passion for Military veterans, you know veteran suicide is such as something as such an astronomical rate

And it's such a huge needs for Christians to be able to have resources for that so Yeah, just give us some my thoughts like what do we do with?

PTSD and and like how do we how do we unpack this help us out with that? So I think we should set the stage a little bit for the different types of research that have been conducted

Yeah, and define some stuff. So we've been using the term Microdosing Things are getting real right now pension.

Yeah So we've mentioned micro dosing a couple of times so Primarily and yeah, maybe we can do like follow -up episode where we get into the history of it because it's just interesting.

Yeah but Renewed interest in research and psychedelics started in the 50s and 60s in the 70s

Psychedelics were made controlled substances So research stopped essentially in the United States and then it picked back up again in the 2000s

Like that's the rough timeline of it So that being said like we've used these

Substances, like I said earlier from like the beginning of time. Okay, so since we started doing research again

We've looked at how people respond To large doses of psychedelics and small doses so like mega dosing

That's my term. That's not a clinical term and then micro dosing which is kind of the pop culture term that's going around.

So I Can send you if you're interested in the actual studies that I looked at but something that I was

Interested to learn and did not know The studies that look at Individuals and their reaction to psychedelics being dosed with psychedelics

When they get given a large dose or a macro dose, right? Any somewhere around 25 milligrams of the substance?

one or two times we see like crazy significant effect like results in the positive for Reduction in anxiety depression post -traumatic stress symptoms like you see tons and tons of positive effects with a macro dose

Every single study that I found every paper that I found So like shows no statistically significant effect in micro dosing.

Okay, so a micro dose would be one or two anywhere from like one to four times a week a

Few weeks of a dose between 0 .5 and 1 .25

Micrograms, so that's one millionth of a gram, right? So the reason

I emphasize that is it's a very desperate Difference between a micro dose and then these like mega or macro doses that are happening across research

So for the most part I mean I could not find a single study that indicated clinically significant results with micro dosing for anything related to mental health or Any of the medical stuff that we talked about like migraines cluster headaches that kind of stuff however, there is significant positive effect in individuals who experience one or two large doses of Psychedelic so for everybody out there that's interested or curious about micro dosing

That's just what the research says so far there haven't been You know tomes and tomes of studies, you know

Especially good studies double blind studies with placebo control because we just haven't

I mean And there's doing it long enough the last 20 years or so and there's so many variants and you know anybody, you know

Any clinician or even doing statistics worth their salt will never predicate anything upon a single variant cause

We'll also do further sampling you have gender to take in account you have environment you have

Socio -economic status you have what their prior knowledge to the study before they go in You never know within these studies that you're going to you're going it when you like Okay, you look at the study and go.

Okay now it's safe You never know how you're going to react because this conditions are not going to be the same with inside of the study to your personal experience

And so you really have to do a long -term history in case studies with these things before you make any kind of Definitive answer.

Yeah, right a lot of the studies talk about They kind of phrase it different like the semantics or change from study to study

But essentially what's like a positive effect bias? So if an individual goes into like a micro dosing session, let's say and Expects that this is gonna provide some kind of insight some kind of relief some kind of positive experience

That typically happens So, right,

I mean but it is technically Like it's a version of a placebo effect, right?

so yeah, so that's Where the research kind of lies right now so to answer her question specifically

Or I guess to more impact the unpack the statement Theoretically if the idea is to induce what would like ultimately be a seizure like a chemical reset an electrical reset of the brain in any disorder as a

Platform to I Don't know help you like a race experience

Integrate experience. I'm not really sure what the hypothesized mechanism is behind that I will say however, that's it's not that's not a new idea people have been playing around with interrupting somehow

Like consciousness and post -traumatic stress disorder for a very long time with regard to being able to yeah combat symptoms

That's what I was toying over with like I don't maybe the question just wasn't asked right or something like that because like Eliminating fat flashbacks.

That's what I that's what I heard and I go. Well, then you would have to eliminate a memory I think she was just using yeah. Yeah, like as an example, these are symptoms somebody with PTSD can have

Yeah, and what she had heard was that? You know for the most part symptoms are totally gone after a dose of whatever.

Yeah Basically, that's transforming your mind We know how well therapy and counseling and Romans 12 one says to be transformed by the renewing of your mind

Will cause significant less systems Symptoms when you build up resilience, and so basically

I you know, if they're testing psychedelics with PTSD They're they're looking to build some kind of resilience or even ignorance to the situation to where I Would be afraid of that.

I would probably want objectivity to build up the reason Yeah, like like what I was thinking is, you know at first lobotomy sounded great.

You know what I mean? Medically you can say that they saw a bar going through your eye all types of things from happening

But I mean even like shock therapy in a sense. It stops things Like that's what I'm almost thinking in the sense of this.

It's almost like a mental spiritual shock therapy Forgetting and and things of that nature.

So my question is it's like where how do we conduct research? I I understand it's in the least the

United States American Western civilization. It's a purely like biomedical Research. Mm -hmm. What about the spiritual aspect of the person who's taking these?

What are the effects all that stuff for the most part is getting cataloged in these? Experiments too.

So they're you know subjective experience what they report is You know taken and analyzed and you know, depending on what metrics they're focusing on for their study

It's either like the primary emphasis or it's secondary or not included at all, but it's all getting

Recorded I mean if you're a good researcher, you know How many inches your table is from the ground at any point in the room?

so because you have to you have to Account for all of that when you're doing a study.

Oh, yeah I think We don't know long -term effects of any of this stuff

God is very very clear in scripture about What we can expect when we become

Christians, right? I think I mean I say this all the time so I'm gonna say it again We get

Christ and we get suffering Okay now Please don't hear me say that you should suffer more when the

Opportunity to experience relief is there. I don't think I'm not saying making that blanket statement

But I am going to posit that the avoidance of suffering is

Perhaps like the one suffering we could ultimately avoid We aren't getting out of it

Suffering draws us closer to Christ, right? Because it brings us back to the beginning The thing that we faltered on right right at the the beginning of time in the garden

Yeah, all I need is you and I don't ever have to doubt that. Yeah, right, so Ultimately if you are

Erasing from memory experiences, even though those memories might cause suffering

Should like should you be doing that? I guess is my What I'm asking.

Yeah so like if there is a bio like a biochemical interruption that Helps mitigate some of the really debilitating symptoms of PTSD and you could achieve that effect by dosing them with some type of psychedelic

That doesn't like not enough to induce that full hallucinatory experience If you're not trying to do any kind of weird like guided meditation or lead through which is how most of this is done right

Like I would make the argument that Okay, like in that circumstance you're talking about taking it like insulin the way a diabetic would

If you're dosing because you can't function because you have cluster headaches and one small dose that doesn't mess with your

Like psychological properties your ability to test reality gets rid of those for months on end.

I would say amen Oh my gosh, mercy do it. Yeah, like yeah do it. Please do it. Yeah If you are using hallucinogen like any type of psychedelic any substance whatsoever to draw you closer to God You're missing the point

Okay, Christ is the mediator and you're not going you're just not going there Like there would if Christ is the answer to that the separation right between us and God.

Why would there be another? Answer. Yeah, I had a thought on that too. And you know, you just just I'm just thinking

I mean You guys are a lot more versed in this than then I am and I feel like I'm just sort of drinking from the fire

Hose a little bit but in a good way I'm just thinking through Jim Wilson's book how to be free from bitterness

Yeah, you know he kind of deals with a memory like he talks about memory in it

And he talks about for example, how the one he says the one thing for certain is that bitterness remembers details

Like, you know and all of a sudden Not necessarily accurately though, right right because you could at a point and he usually bitterness is is depicted by for example

The level of the closeness of the person so if someone cuts you off in the middle of traffic

It might be like, oh, you know and you try and bite your tongue and not say things that are not the words

Please and thank you or whatever But um, you know, it's just it's just kind of one of those things where it's like, but you know

Five minutes later you forget about it, but in a situation, let's just say you're close to someone

It's a marriage that person cheats on you Goes through a divorce that moment.

There's a memory of being somewhere at a Sunset, you know, whatever it is that new

Level of where you're at in the nature of that relationship. There's a new filter There's going to a new lens in which and how you're going to view that.

Yeah, I view that experience so Like the one thing too is that in that particular instance the the goal is not

Getting rid of the memory. It's it's about understanding that Like trusting

God that he's using that like God has used suffering. He's used Like me sometimes he's used certain relationships to put me into like the woodchip like sandpaper

I would have not been where I am today if it wasn't for those trials

And that has made me a better person and I never would have become the person

I if I am today if I somehow Just you know, like I'm like you've been erased, you know have that like memory erased

So I think it's a good point. And I think this is just one of those things too. Is that And this is why we're kind of just really bring into all these different topics that there are fundamental

Assertions of what people are trying to do they're trying to use these psychedelics as a sort of mediator to Accomplish healing from that and I'm thinking of like Hebrews 5 verse 8

It was says that Jesus he learned obedience from what he suffered You know, there's a funny meme

I saw where it says Lord give me a sign the sign the sign just said suffer I don't know if it was misspelled if there's a glitch or something

But yeah, those are just those are just some of my thoughts as far as I was concerned Andrew what's on your mind? Yeah I think it it highlights the differing the difference between Suffering and grace and suffering through the wrath of God like if we look at Romans 5 it says this it says through him

We also obtained access by faith into this grace in which we stand and we rejoice in hope of the glory of God Not only that but we rejoice in our sufferings knowing that suffering produces endurance and endurance endurance

Produces character and character produces hope and hope does not put us to shame because God's love Has been poured into our hearts through the

Holy Spirit who has been given To us for while we were still weak at the right time Christ died for the ungodly

Right, like honestly as a Christian We have the ability to make sense of our suffering through the ultimate good that God has prescribed for us part of our medication of our spiritual condition condition is to humble us right and it's his discipline and through his love that we suffer whereas The ungodly in his wrath don't have loving discipline from a god

But they're facing the judgment and the consequences of their actions. You can't escape that and any Substance that would take away the endurance needed in suffering

I want to ultimately reject unless it is unnecessary suffering. So there is categories of suffering, right?

Yeah, the God -ordained I'm giving you this because I create adversity and you need to consider that joy and adversity come from me

Fine that's the book of Ecclesiastes, but then there is um, you know, I've done drugs and of course,

I'm gonna suffer But then do I really want to take another substance to mitigate or to take away that Suffering that God can ultimately form in shape for good to build you up and to form you and in his image

Jerry just gave me a compliment. You're where your heart on your sleeves, you know Why because my heart's been broken and ripped out so many times

Because of my own sin and when you said bitterness remembers details,

I yeah I I I thought of a conversation me and Robin had I was talking about a few trips that I've been on and I'm like this is when she goes how do you remember those so much and I go because There were defining moments of my life and with the heart that I have now

I take a look back and it was utterly wicked and sinful and I Don't like it and it's so sort of the similar ways of bitterness

I remember details because I remember what I do not want to be the book of Job says this

I've got to speak in the job and he says lay a hand on it. Remember the struggle never do it again

Yeah, I'm glad that I have my memories though. They burn they sting and I don't like them, but I know that it's producing an eternal weight of glory that far as our ways

And for me like my past when I have things in ways where I've had failures when

I've sinned against other people and and You know God put me through some situations to kind of like break me of that where it's like I realize that I'm not

I'm not My past like I'm me and you know, I'm not the person who's made these mistakes

I'm the person who's learned and that is still there. I'm aware of it. But now it's like fuel to say never again

You know, and I'm also like obviously I could do that again But I feel like I'm a lot more self -aware

My weaknesses and my tendencies and you know, and again we're when we're talking about from you know a psychological

Therapeutic standpoint. We all have our families of origins. We people have their traumas, there are different things that Explain all of us all of us have had our own individual traumas

But those things as Christians though those things can on some level explain us

But they do not ultimately define us. I think that's that's what I think that's really what differentiates between people even secularism is that people look at their trauma or these or Things that happen to them and that becomes who they are and they can and it's a vicious cycle

There's no way to get out of it It doesn't just become part of their identity it becomes their entire identity.

Yeah So one other question that was a really good and I'm trying to find the exact quote, but she's basically saying

Like how do you? differentiate between Let me find it.

So Craig who? Commented on our Facebook. He said and then we can't talked about this a little bit and maybe we can kind of Broadly deal with that because there are questions here that literally could be another podcast

But he says why are why are many Christians so set against psychedelics and marijuana?

But pro antidepressants strong painkillers anti psychotic medication, etc. After all

Don't they alter the mind perception and therefore have an effect on sobriety or like what about? drunkenness or you know

They mean people doing alcohol abuse like sometimes people who are an alcoholic like that. It's almost like that Sort of really brings out who they really are

And you know, we've dealt with that being at Calvary and there's people, you know who do abuse You know the different opiates and people there's people who have come out of apology

You've had to detox off of that And then you know they get into to and they got kind of get into the cultural panic that created the war on drugs

Which is that's a whole nother that's literally a whole nother thing Like is that is it a just is a just government under the authority of Christ?

Should they be doing a war on a substance and throwing people image bears in prison? That's a whole nother subject.

But um, how do we how just real quickly and like how do we differentiate between? Psychedelics and some of the antidepressants strong painkillers

Like just just kind of maybe address that very briefly because we're just doing a broad overview. I don't so I don't at all

I think that and I don't think that we should I think it goes back to the point that I made originally made originally

Which is you can have like make anything an idol. Yeah, literally anything so like My like fervent belief around this is

It isn't sin until it's sin, right? If you are abusing opiates that sin if you are taking an opiate because you have to manage your pain that way

That's not sinful. Okay, it's the same thing when you're talking about like, you know, any run -of -the -mill

Antidepressants anti -psychotic anything that's in the psychotropic category for medications We way over prescribe.

Yeah, the Like pharmaceutical industry owns the world No joke, they own that like rights to the active ingredients and plant compounds.

Like that's how insane it is It's a like it really incalculable

In terms of money wise the industry, right? We absolutely over prescribe we over pathologize we make things disordered when they're just normal reasonable reactions to things so Do I think that there are a lot of folks on regular ordinary antidepressants that probably don't need to be?

Sure. Sure. Are there people that absolutely need them? Yes, you know So like my the challenge for me would be am

I using this as a mechanism for avoidance? Am I using this to keep me from?

like plugging through the suffering from suffering well, or Am I talking about something that's actually related to brain chemistry that I need help with?

Yeah, right. So most depression is situational. Most anxiety is

Situational most of the time it isn't disordered, right? So do

I really need a pill or am I just looking for the quick fit fix? Which is very cultural and I mean human beings don't like being uncomfortable.

We do not like suffering want to avoid it at all costs Well, but we aren't and we can't so it isn't about avoiding suffering.

It's about suffering Well, but I would say that there isn't a difference. I think you can become sinful regardless of what you're using

There are people that absolutely cannot be off those medicines. Mm -hmm, right? I think that that group is far smaller than what you know

Looking at anybody is a Walgreens roster would have us believe like the general population But so please don't like we're not giving any medical advice

I'm not telling anyone to get off their medicine like do not hear that do not hear that for me what I'm saying is we have a tendency in this country to over pathologize and over prescribe and Maybe instead of using medication

We could lean on Christ Right had to make sense with outside of that our worldview

Anyway, there is no meaning to suffering and you know, that goes back to that the first question that you read

I think that's one of the reasons that a post -traumatic stress and everything related to it is so Connectable to like the gospel message, right in a secular world where evolutionary

Like evolution reigns, it doesn't matter that that helicopter went down Full of his brothers.

It doesn't matter. It's broccoli like cry me a river But God says that each one of the people on board that boat helicopter

Was an image bearer and had a value. Yeah, right. So we know it matters

But outside of that Yeah, no meaning Yeah, that's huge.

And I think when it comes down to it, it's really how do you ultimately deal with?

Suffering because again, I feel like we've only had This is really just a broad Introduction, this is the opening.

These are the opening credits to the whole this whole discussion. So we will we will be doing follow -ups You know just a couple of thoughts we were up up here again couch divided podcast

You guys have just you put out some just great episode as small as a podcast as you guys are

Do you guys have a website yet? We're working on it. Yeah, we're working on that Okay, I was hoping to get that launched by the time this episode launched

Okay, if it doesn't it's it's gonna be shortly after that. Okay, but yeah, definitely check out the social media

Facebook Instagram Spotify Instagram was there podcast catcher

Yeah, it reminds, you know, I think it's interesting to just that You know, I'm thinking about like CS Lewis in the screw tape letters when he is talking about you know, it's like these fictional letters between screw tape and his

Nephew Wormwood and there's a moment where he is talking about suffering I'm hoping

I can remember because it's been forever since I've read it but in it he talks about He goes kind of a guide of how to deal with suffering and it's funny because he refers to The people he wants to and he first to God is the enemy and then refers to the people he wants to inflict spiritual attack upon as their patient It's very it's very unique but in it when he talks about suffering

He said you have to be very very careful because while suffering sometimes can inflict pain and harm which we love to do we have to be very very careful because that in of itself will typically

Draw them to seek out the enemy in a sense and I think there is something about suffering as a

Christian that we can then that We have a we have a message

We have a message of hope and we have a God Who is not far from each one of us who would truly became fully

God fully man Christ come in human flesh Who you know says the son of you know, the foxes have places to you know, lay

Have their holes in which they lay in I'm paraphrasing it, but the Son of Man has no place to lay his head So you have

Jesus who is homeless yet. He is who was Abandoned who was shunned by his

Closest of kin right you have Jesus who was experienced all sorts of traumas, you know, you

Have you talking about abandonment? I mean he had the ultimate abandonment on the cross my god my god, like why do you forsaken me?

Yeah, and it just goes and you have like physical abuse. I mean you had some of the worst physical abuse possible

You know and those who are closest to you said like, you know I literally cursing and saying I don't know you if I had like a close friend

You know and then they were like swearing saying I don't you know him like that would hurt that would just hurt and I would just be like shook and You know, it's it's sometimes it's interesting too because you look at someone like Peter how he weeps bitterly

When Christ stares at him, but like it doesn't really talk about how did Jesus actually feel it doesn't yeah

I count to that what his human experience. Yeah, you know and in that and that's deep and I think that when you when you look at this is that This whole issue of psycho like a mental health.

It's there's a there's a bite There's an end result. This is the result of the result of how do you authentically deal?

With suffering and I think this is something that ultimately as a Christian that this is a tool

That God uses us to make us more conformed to the image of Christ And if this is something that is new to you if you're you're just kind of thrown off by this

I mean, I just want to say that, you know, if you're not a believer like we love and we care for you And we are intentional, you know, we're not neutral and how we proclaim

This we want to tell you that you know, there is hope in That you will never be able to find through Some sort of substance or or getting in into an altered state of consciousness.

There is again. There is a true hope to experience the ultimate Transcendent experience

To cross over in a way that God has provided through Christ and what he did on the cross

And we do that is you have to repent turn from your sin and believe in the gospel that Christ He died.

He bore the wrath of God. He experienced the ultimate abandonment and He and he died for our sins on the cross and because of that we now have

Ultimate peace we have the ultimate What do you call the crossing over that all the

Joe Rogans the Russell Brands all are talking about we have that Through the God -man from 2 ,000 years ago off my soapbox.

What are the last thoughts you guys have? Yeah, so right the veil was torn.

Yes, so we don't need like a special spaceship to get to Essentially, I think ultimately for most people it comes down to looking for Creation to satisfy what our

Creator only can and so this is the experience that you ultimately get from that you vomit in a

Costa Rican rainforest of Amitia in front of a bunch of people Yeah, I'm excited to keep talking about this because it's definitely it's important.

It's a good conversation to have And Christians need to be thinking about this stuff.

It We have to talk about it, yeah, yeah, you know and just in response to that question, you know

And she's like why are Christians, you know against this or against, you know, but not against this and I loved what

Robin said Well, hold on. I'm not you know what I mean, which which is there is a blanket statement So that should wake

Christians up that are thinking about this to provide him an answer and I hope we did that here today Yeah, but as far as a final thought goes with the profound nature of regeneration

You can bridge that gap or he can bridge that gap for you between the material in the immaterial world to where you go on a trip of a lifetime to glory to to serve him in eternity with everything every

Increment every particle every mineral going along with you in this world he's a part of it all and you're not going to get a transcendence a

Transcended experience anywhere else, but Jesus Christ. Mm -hmm. That's good. That's good

Well, if you guys enjoyed this episode again, that says This is also the last episode the super sleuth will be be talking as Arizona resident taking a trip

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Utah. Yeah. Yeah So yeah, it's just that we are going through a lot of transitions So again, if you guys we would really ask is that we're only just we're just Really sourcing we're ethnic with his like we're trying to ethically source out

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