The Sacred Speaks

Interview begins @ 8:08 Today Dr. Miles Neale and Dr. John explore “ego death”, and a few issues with this language, we continue discussing the nature of the ego, the Buddhist frame for soul, returning from the mountaintop or a break-through experience, nondualism, Miles reveals several of his transcendent experiences and also a personal experience with death, “cheap” nondualism, addiction to the nondual, spiritual bypassing, grief, experiencing death, trauma and the unconscious, the healing relationship between teacher and student, holding suffering, the ego’s avoidance, guru devotion, pilgrimage, psychedelic experience, sacred journeys, and we finish with Tibetan Buddhism and the infrastructure of the return from the “mountaintop”. Bio: Dr. Miles Neale, PsyD, is a Buddhist psychotherapist in private practice, founder of the Contemplative Studies Program, international speaker, and host of the Wisdom Keeper Podcast. He has taught psychology and meditation at prestigious university hospitals including Harvard, Columbia, and Cornell. Author of Gradual Awakening (Sounds True, 2018) and co-editor of Advances in Contemplative Psychotherapy (Routledge, 2017), Miles is currently writing his next book Return with Elixir: Journey of Conscious Death and Rebirth (Inner Traditions, 2023). With more than twenty years integrating the mind science of Tibetan Buddhism with psychology, trauma research, neuroscience, and mythology, Miles is a forerunner in the emerging field of contemplative psychotherapy, and leads pilgrimages around the Buddhist world. https://www.milesneale.com John’s Esalen Workshop: https://www.esalen.org/workshops/portals-and-pathways-ecstatic-experience-music-and-the-red-book-022723 Website for The Sacred Speaks: http://www.thesacredspeaks.com WATCH: YouTube for The Sacred Speaks https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCOAuksnpfht1udHWUVEO7Rg Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/thesacredspeaks/ @thesacredspeaks Twitter: https://twitter.com/thesacredspeaks Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/thesacredspeaks/ Brought to you by: https://www.thecenterforhas.com Theme music provided by: http://www.modernnationsmusic.com

Conversation starts @ 4:36 In this episode I meet with Dr. Stephen Gray to discuss his latest book, How Psychedelics Can Help Save The World: Visionary and Indigenous Voices Speak Out. We begin by noting the cultural and individual issues that that psychedelic medicine is positioned to treat, we continue with the ways that we have lost our mythic and symbolic root and religious systems, overpopulation, planetary sickness, the universality of change and transformation, the Dunbar number and social systems, the nature of these reality revealing medicines, explore indigenous traditions as revelatory to the hegemony, healing cultural wounds, cultural dynamics exposed by psychedelic practice, psychedelic capitalism, medical and pharma intervention with psychedelics, the lost Mystery Schools, trusting what is, surrender as an attitude nourished by working with entheogens, and more. Bio: Stephen has been involved in spiritual work and psychedelics for 50 years. This includes more than 20 years as a student and occasional teacher of Tibetan Buddhism; a dozen years actively involved with Native American Church peyote prayer ceremonies; “guest” membership in the ayahuasca-using Santo Daime Church, and experience with a number of other entheogens. He is also the author of Returning to Sacred World: A Spiritual Toolkit for the Emerging Reality, and editor as well as one of 18 contributors to the popular Cannabis and Spirituality: An Explorer’s Guide to an Ancient Plant Spirit Ally. Stephen teaches people about the spiritual benefits of intentional cannabis use and conduct cannabis meditation and sound-journeying ceremonies. Perhaps most relevant to the mission of StephenGray Vision, for the past 10 years, he’s co-organized the influential Spirit Plant Medicine Conference in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada. That work has connected him to dozens of remarkable spokespeople on behalf of the skillful understanding and use of psychedelic/entheogenic sacramental medicines. About the book: Exploring the way forward for humanity in the face of unprecedented crisis, more than 25 contributors show how the wisdom of Indigenous peoples and the power of psychedelics can help us enact the radical shift in consciousness necessary to navigate the collapse of the old world order and the birth of a new consciousness centered on awakened-heart interconnectedness. We hear from psychedelic visionaries Christopher Bache, Zoe Helene, Wade Davis, Chris Kilham, Laurel Sugden, and others on the promise of psychedelic medicines for spiritual and healing work. We learn about Indigenous stories to support our transformation from Native American leader Solana Booth, ancestral memory from Grandmother Maria Alice Campos Freire, cannabis’s role in world building from Minelli Eustàcio-Costa, the ritual roots of talking plants from Michael Stuart Ani, and alchemy across the arc of time from shaman Ya’Acov Darling Khan. We also hear from cannabis grower The Dank Duchess; Bruce Damer, a “mystic scientist” working on the question of life’s origins and its future in space; Tyson Yunkaporta, Australian Aboriginal artist and scholar; visionary artist Martina Hoffmann; professor of religious studies G. William Barnard; activist Duane Elgin; Kohenet Rachel Kann, ordained Jewish priestess and ceremonialist; and several other wise leaders for our time. https://www.stephengrayvision.com John’s Esalen Workshop: https://www.esalen.org/workshops/portals-and-pathways-ecstatic-experience-music-and-the-red-book-022723 Website for The Sacred Speaks: http://www.thesacredspeaks.com WATCH: YouTube for The Sacred Speaks https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCOAuksnpfht1udHWUVEO7Rg Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/thesacredspeaks/ @thesacredspeaks Twitter: https://twitter.com/thesacredspeaks Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/thesacredspeaks/ Brought to you by: https://www.thecenterforhas.com Theme music provided by: http://www.modernnationsmusic.com

Conversation starts @ 5:47 Hermes Trismegistus was believed to be one of the wise men of his time, and a study of his texts reveals, not a general philosophy, but a spiritual path for initiates who seek to achieve gnosis by direct acquaintance of the true nature of reality as we experience it. Dr. Wouter Hanegraaff begins this analysis by guiding us into the four-core dimension of his book, Hermeticism, spirituality, historical imagination, and altered states of knowledge. All of this knowledge circulated through small groups of people beginning in the first century A.D. Wouter explains how he landed a position as The University of Amsterdam chair of Hermeticism, and then began to “map” the field of esoterism, the two poles of his academic interests are Hermeticism and esotericism. We discuss the nature of esotericism, rejected forms of knowledge, monotheism and exclusion, the shadow of the collective, Isaac Newton’s heresy, Western exclusion, nonduality, the experiential nature of spiritual practice, Diotima - the female visionary who taught Socrates, drugs in the ancient world, The East and the irrational, academic ideological orientation to Greek as rational, misunderstanding and misinterpretation of antiquity, gender, the spiritual nature of rebirth, life and death, immortality and “The Flip,” shoutout to Miles Neale and Jeff Kripal, music and the cosmos, tones and chanting, initiation, apprenticeship, magic, therapy, and more. Bio: Wouter J. Hanegraaff is Professor of History of Hermetic Philosophy and Related Currents at the University of Amsterdam, the Netherlands, a member of the Royal Dutch Academy of Arts and Sciences, as well as past President and now honorary member of the European Society for the Study of Western Esotericism. Alongside numerous articles, he is the author of New Age Religion and Western Culture: Esotericism in the Mirror of Secular Thought (Leiden 1996/Albany 1998); Lodovico Lazzarelli (1447-1500): The Hermetic Writings and Related Documents (Tempe 2005; with Ruud M. Bouthoorn); Swedenborg, Oetinger, Kant: Three Perspectives on the Secrets of Heaven (West Chester 2007); Esotericism and the Academy: Rejected Knowledge in Western Culture (Cambridge 2012); and Western Esotericism: A Guide for the Perplexed (London 2013). He has (co)edited eight collective volumes, including the 1200-page Dictionary of Gnosis and Western Esotericism (Leiden 2005) and Hidden Intercourse: Eros and Sexuality in the History of Western Esotericism (New York 2011; with Jeffrey J. Kripal). His most recent monograph Hermetic Spirituality and the Historical Imagination: Altered States of Knowledge in Late Antiquity is forthcoming with Cambridge University Press in 2022. His current projects are focused on the history of consciousness in German Idealism and Romanticism, and the role of the imagination in Western culture. https://www.wouterjhanegraaff.net Website for The Sacred Speaks: http://www.thesacredspeaks.com WATCH: YouTube for The Sacred Speaks https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCOAuksnpfht1udHWUVEO7Rg Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/thesacredspeaks/ @thesacredspeaks Twitter: https://twitter.com/thesacredspeaks Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/thesacredspeaks/ Brought to you by: https://www.thecenterforhas.com Theme music provided by: http://www.modernnationsmusic.com

Conversation starts @ 6:31 We begin with a discussion of Sean’s shift of consciousness during a psychedelic experience at a young age wherein he could map his experience onto what the traditions of chaos theory and Aldous Huxley’s perennial philosophy explained. Following this experience and at the suggestion of a professor of mysticism, Sean followed the thread to help with his integration. With a deep history as a psychonaut combined with Sean’s interest is in music and pop culture he therefore approaches the material of psychedelic experience from a different lens than one that we hear from traditional academia. Sean integrated his personal experimentation in both magic and psychedelics into a particular ceremony inspired by the archetype of the magician as imaged by David Bowie. Sean notes that when working with the medicine of mushrooms he experienced an archetypal messianic shift and worked to make sense of what Jung called, “holding the tension of the opposites” – not fully identifying with this experience, though not writing it off either. The middle path. We offer a disclaimer for the healthy use of psychedelics, noting how overwhelming these substances can be and the necessity to approach the use of these sacramental substances with care and reverence. We discuss cancel culture, anti-fragility, high-dose psilocybin practice, ceremonial magic, repurposing the energy of popular culture to help bring in awareness of the sacred, and more. Bio: Sean Manseau was born in Boston, MA, the son of a married Roman Catholic priest and a former Sister of St. Joseph. At various points he has been a mall janitor, a lounge act guitarist, a failed paratrooper, a San Francisco bike messenger, a video game animator, a Muay Thai instructor, homeless, an East Village NYC bartender, a failed novelist, a gym owner, and a video game industry executive. In addition to A.P. Psychedelics: Going Beyond Set and Setting to Achieve Visionary Virtuosity, he is the author of the spiritual autobiography Spotify the Gnostics, Here's the First Church of David Bowie, the coaching manual By the Numbers: A Practical Method for Instructing Multi-Modal GPP Training, the novel Lapdance, and the short story collection You Are Not a Planet and Other Stories. He lives in Portland, OR, with his dog Jones. to purchase book: https://www.amazon.com/P-Psychedelics-Setting-Visionary-Virtuosity/dp/B09X35NDQF/ref=sr_1_2?crid=34QIVK0FPWPW8&keywords=a.p.+psychedelics&qid=1664877430&qu=eyJxc2MiOiIwLjAwIiwicXNhIjoiMC4wMCIsInFzcCI6IjAuMDAifQ%3D%3D&sprefix=a.p.+psychedelics%2Caps%2C87&sr=8-2 Website for The Sacred Speaks: http://www.thesacredspeaks.com WATCH: YouTube for The Sacred Speaks https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCOAuksnpfht1udHWUVEO7Rg Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/thesacredspeaks/ @thesacredspeaks Twitter: https://twitter.com/thesacredspeaks Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/thesacredspeaks/ Brought to you by: https://www.thecenterforhas.com Theme music provided by: http://www.modernnationsmusic.com

Conversation starts @ 8:25 How can we understand traditional accounts of visionary experience in terms of the neurophysiology of our brain? What are the scientific bases for shamanism and healing, cross-culturally, throughout history beginning with the Byzantine era to today? These are several questions posited by Dr. Winkelman within the first few minutes of the interview. We continue exploring the void experience of introverted mysticism and the narratives expressed in extroverted mysticism (and what are the differences?), spiritual practice and psychedelic use in youth, recreational vs. religious use of these substances, a session with the Mazatec healer, Maria Sabina, in his youth, we discuss the tendency toward reductionism when using a physiological lens to explain the phenomenology of consciousness, describe the neurophenomonological experience of the spirit world, extrasensory perceptions and the brain, what is real?, naive materialism, group consciousness and the development of religion and the religious impulse, belonging, religion and social control, symbol use and group dynamics, religious groups and social connections, western medicine, ritual in healing, placebo effect, cross-cultural analysis of shamanism, priests & witches. Bio: Michael Winkelman, PhD, University of California–Irvine; MPH, University of Arizona, retired from the School of Human Evolution and Social Change at Arizona State University in 2009. Winkelman has engaged in cross-cultural and interdisciplinary research on shamanism, psychedelics, and altered states of consciousness, focusing principally on the universal patterns of shamanism and identifying the associated biological bases. His publications on shamanism include Shamans, Priests and Witches (1992), which provides a cross-cultural examination of the nature of shamanism; and Shamanism: A Biopsychosocial Paradigm of Consciousness and Healing (2nd ed., 2010). Shamanism provides a biogenetic model of shamanism that explains the evolutionary origins of spiritual healing in ancient ritual capacities. This biogenetic approach is expanded in an assessment of the evolutionary origins of religion in his co-authored Supernatural as Natural. These approaches provide a framework for understanding the contribution of psychedelics to the evolution of the human mind and social relations and their continued application in healing. Winkelman served as an expert witness for the defense in the Santo Daime case against the U.S. federal government, which won their right of religious freedom to use of ayahuasca as a sacrament. Winkelman received a Fulbright Fellowship for research on the health of ayahuasca church members in Brazil during 2009 ( https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyt.2018.00136 ). Winkelman is currently living near Pirenopolis in the central highlands of Brazil; he may be reached through his website: https://michaelwinkelman.com Articles: https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Michael-Winkelman to purchase book: http://www.abc-clio.com/ABC-CLIOCorporate/product.aspx?pc=A2593C Referenced resources: https://www.ligare.org Website for The Sacred Speaks: http://www.thesacredspeaks.com WATCH: YouTube for The Sacred Speaks https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCOAuksnpfht1udHWUVEO7Rg Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/thesacredspeaks/ @thesacredspeaks Twitter: https://twitter.com/thesacredspeaks Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/thesacredspeaks/ Brought to you by: https://www.thecenterforhas.com Theme music provided by: http://www.modernnationsmusic.com

Conversation starts @ 4:15 The Santo Daime, a syncretistic tradition including parts of indigenous South American religion, African folk traditions, and Catholicism, is a new religion as of the early 20th century. All of this to say that in this conversation, we are invited into a deep dive to explore the nature and formation of religion in general as we look at the specifics of a sacred ayahuasca-based new religious tradition. We begin with Dr. Barnard’s first-person experience within The Santo Daime, which is a real treat given that, as a professor of religious studies, he is quite experienced evaluating, comparing, & exploring religion and religious traditions from the third person, though in Liquid Light we benefit from his history as a comparativist, who analyzes his own tradition. In modern studies we often learn of first-person experiences with ayahuasca – the images, the process, the purging, though we do not often get a glimpse into the religion itself. Today’s conversation explores these dimensions of ayahuasca and more, including the formation of the religion, the institution, the preparation of the sacramental substance, philosophical interpretations, metaphysics, an exploration of religious studies and comparativism, divinity with The Santo Daime, Christ Consciousness, panpsychism, William James, & mystical experiences - we end by briefly questioning the ontological nature of the Other, though read the book and take a deep dive into mediumship and encountering the More. Bio: G. William (Bill) Barnard is a Professor of Religious Studies, as well as a University Distinguished Teaching Professor, at Southern Methodist University, in Dallas, Texas. His primary areas of research interests are the comparative philosophy of mysticism, religion and the social sciences, contemporary spirituality, religion and healing, and consciousness studies. For over 15 years (including his ongoing study of Portuguese), Professor Barnard has researched the Santo Daime tradition, a syncretistic, entheogenically-based new religious movement that emerged in Brazil in the mid-twentieth century. Professor Barnard is the author of Living Consciousness: The Metaphysical Vision of Henri Bergson as well as Exploring Unseen Worlds: William James and the Philosophy of Mysticism, both published by State University of New York Press. In addition, Professor Barnard is the co-editor of Crossing Boundaries: Essays on the Ethical Status of Mysticism. Professor Barnard has also written many journal articles and book chapters on a variety of topics, such as pedagogy in religious studies, the nature of religious experience, issues in the psychology of religion, and most recently, entheogenic religions and spirituality. https://liquidlightbook.com Website for The Sacred Speaks: http://www.thesacredspeaks.com WATCH: YouTube for The Sacred Speaks https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCOAuksnpfht1udHWUVEO7Rg Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/thesacredspeaks/ @thesacredspeaks Twitter: https://twitter.com/thesacredspeaks Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/thesacredspeaks/ Brought to you by: https://www.thecenterforhas.com Theme music provided by: http://www.modernnationsmusic.com

Conversation starts @ 7:26 This conversation begins with a discussion of the banisteriopsis vine (ayahuasca) featured in the background. We explore Dr. McKenna’s first adventure down to South America to study and explore psychedelics used in the Amazonian medico-religious process. This endeavor would eventually connect him with several elder medicine men who created mixtures for Dennis to study – “We want to learn everything that you know about ayahuasca.” We discuss how the indigenous folks of the Amazon responded to the scientists who sought to investigate their sacramental plant, the rubber boom of the early 20th century, lost aspects of the Amazonian ethnomedical tradition, the hard problem of consciousness, the limitations of reductionism, the value of science, limitations of science, an overview of the journey to La Chorrera, building the temple for “spiritual” experience, or ecstatic/mystical experience, the body as apothecary, theories of consciousness, the molecule and the “trip,” scientific bias of the west, the Default Mode Network, the value of psychedelics to the scientific community, and the McKenna Academy. Bio: Dennis McKenna is an American ethnopharmacologist, research pharmacognosist, lecturer and author. He is a founding board member and the director of ethnopharmacology at the Heffter Research Institute, a non-profit organization concerned with the investigation of the potential therapeutic uses of psychedelic medicines. Dennis also serves on the Advisory Board of the American Botanical Council; as Founder and Executive Director for the Institute for Natural Products Research; as an Independent Research Consultant to the Phytomedicine and Nutraceutical Industry; was formerly on the Editorial Board of Phytomedicine, International Journal of Phytotherapy and Phytopharmacology; and is an adjunct professor in the Center for Spirituality and Healing at the University of Minnesota. In that role, he has taught graduate courses in Botanical Medicines and Ethnopharmacology and an inter-session ‘intensive’ in Hawaii each January called Plants in Human Affairs. He has also taught summer field courses in Ecuador for the University of Arizona, and courses in the Amazon and Andes for Pharmacy doctoral students at the University of Kansas and the Albany College of Pharmacy and Health Sciences. Dr. McKenna received his Master’s Degree in Botany from the University of Hawaii in 1979, his Ph.D. in Botanical Sciences from the University of British Columbia in 1984, and continued into post-doctoral research fellowships in the Laboratory of Clinical Pharmacology, National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH), and in the Department of Neurology, Stanford University School of Medicine. His research has included the pharmacology, botany, and chemistry of ayahuasca and oo-koo-hé. He has also conducted extensive ethnobotanical fieldwork in the Peruvian, Colombian, and Brazilian Amazon. Since 2019, he has been working with colleagues to manifest a long-term dream: the McKenna Academy of Natural Philosophy, a non-profit organization founded in the spirit of the ancient Mystery Schools and dedicated to the study of plant medicines, consciousness, intelligence in nature, preservation of indigenous knowledge and a re-visioning of humanity's relationship with Nature. Dr. McKenna is author or co-author of 6 books and over 50 scientific papers in peer-reviewed journals. https://mckenna.academy Website for The Sacred Speaks: http://www.thesacredspeaks.com WATCH: YouTube for The Sacred Speaks https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCOAuksnpfht1udHWUVEO7Rg Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/thesacredspeaks/ @thesacredspeaks Twitter: https://twitter.com/thesacredspeaks Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/thesacredspeaks/ Brought to you by: https://www.thecenterforhas.com Theme music provided by: http://www.modernnationsmusic.com

Conversation starts @ 4:31 We begin our conversation exploring José’s background, and with the likes of Dr. Andew Samuels and Dr. Clarissa Pinkola Estés as mentors, his intellectual, professional, and spiritual orientation ranges from depth psychology and meditation to attachment and spiritually integrated psychotherapy. First up is one of José’s papers on spirituality and psychotherapy wherein he takes a critical look at “Jungian” approaches and identifies some of the dangers of both ungrounded psychotherapy and spirituality. We discuss the nature of therapy, ways psychotherapy can support and transform suffering, the nature of the relationship in therapy, meditation, development of a private spiritual process, religion and defining related terms such as spirituality and mysticism, the taxonomy of healers and therapists, the shadow side of spiritual work and healing professions, shamanism, fairytales, the archetype defined, inflation in healing work, differences between mythology and fairytales, we analyze the fairytale “Sleeping Beauty,” or “Briar Rose,” and the importance of inviting the unexplored psychological aspects of self. Bio: José has an M.A in Jungian and Post-Jungian Studies from the University of Essex, where Andrew Samuels was his academic supervisor, and an MSc in Systemic Psychotherapy from the Milton Erikson Institute from Monterrey. Since 2013, he has trained with Dr. Clarissa Pinkola Estés. He works as a psychotherapist in private practice and writes the column ‘The Spiritually Ambivalent Therapist’ for Thresholds, a Journal of Psychotherapy and Spirituality, from the British Association of Counseling and Psychotherapy. Class: https://junghouston.org/theevents/the-seven-gates-to-the-underworld-the-descent-of-inanna-online/ Journal: https://www.bacp.co.uk/bacp-journals/thresholds/ Sleeping Beauty: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sleeping_Beauty https://sites.pitt.edu/~dash/grimm050.html Website for The Sacred Speaks: http://www.thesacredspeaks.com WATCH: YouTube for The Sacred Speaks https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCOAuksnpfht1udHWUVEO7Rg Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/thesacredspeaks/ @thesacredspeaks Twitter: https://twitter.com/thesacredspeaks Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/thesacredspeaks/ Brought to you by: https://www.thecenterforhas.com Theme music provided by: http://www.modernnationsmusic.com

Conversation starts @ 6:29 “Ecstasy, trance, and soul flight … these powerful and potentially transformative elements of ancient experience have long been left to the fringes of archaeological research.” Dr. Sarah K. Costello and John begin with a question exploring the often unconscious issue of projecting modern perspective onto antiquity to support a current argument. As an archeologist, anthropologist, & art-historian, Dr. Costello’s peak into antiquity is through the lens of the material content. We continue exploring the contributions of Dr. Costello’s various disciplines, challenges of evaluating art in antiquity, symbols, Gobekli Tepe, interpretation of antiquity, carefully approaching one’s intuitive assumptions about antiquity and the risk of projection and bias, the Transcendent as a cultural universal, challenging the idea of universals, narrativization of consciousness, cross-cultural studies, universals and the particulars, we discuss her creative process for the book, “The Routledge Companion to Ecstatic Experience in the Ancient World,” defining ecstatic experience, we discuss, The Immortality Key, & cultural containers for alternate states in antiquity. Bio: Sarah Kielt Costello, Ph.D., has taught art history at UHCL since 2014. She teaches graduate and undergraduate courses in the humanities and the history of ancient art. She was the recipient of the UH Provost’s Teaching Excellence Award in 2012. Dr. Costello’s research focus is the visual culture of the early periods of the Ancient Near East. In her writing, she investigates the social contexts of visual culture, especially how people store and communicate ideas, and how imagery relates to religion. She is a project leader of a collaborative research initiative with Houston’s Menil Collection, focused on the art of the ancient Mediterranean world. She has conducted field research in Cyprus, Turkey, Israel, and Greece, and in 2013 studied in Greece as a Fulbright Fellow in the summer session at the American School of Classical Studies. https://www.routledge.com/The-Routledge-Companion-to-Ecstatic-Experience-in-the-Ancient-World/Stein-Costello-Foster/p/book/9780367480325 Website for The Sacred Speaks: http://www.thesacredspeaks.com WATCH: YouTube for The Sacred Speaks https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCOAuksnpfht1udHWUVEO7Rg Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/thesacredspeaks/ @thesacredspeaks Twitter: https://twitter.com/thesacredspeaks Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/thesacredspeaks/ Brought to you by: https://www.thecenterforhas.com Theme music provided by: http://www.modernnationsmusic.com

Conversation starts 5:45 Growing up within a family lineage of community herbalists and healers, Dr. Hobbs leads us through his orientation to healing and medicine starting with an overview of medical and healing systems, in particular the intersection between eastern and western medicine. The central question that Dr. Hobbs asks is: “What is medicine?” This, an obvious question that, sadly, is not often reflected upon. Dr. Hobbs urges us to cultivate and source our own medicine within our daily lives. As a young man, Chris spent his time in the old forest looking for mushrooms and, given his family history and knowledge of healing modalities, he became acquainted with medicines that grow naturally. We continue with subjects ranging from the community of mycologists, mystical states through a scientific process, the religion of science, food as medicine, issues with modern medicine, factory farming, food tax, food as source of healing, medical response to Covid, vaccine rollout, the role of viruses in our biological network, humanity living out of balance, the dual split of the vaccine, understanding a vaccine and a virus, the scientific method, publication and interpretation of data, medicinal mushrooms, inviting mushrooms into your diet, the microbiome and the gut, fungi and the immune system, nutritional benefit of mushrooms, visionary mushrooms, value of subjective experience following many mushroom journeys, and the lack of cultural and ritual process to fold psychedelics and religious experience into a sacred practice. Bio: Dr. Christopher Hobbs is a fourth-generation, internationally renowned herbalist, licensed acupuncturist, author, clinician, botanist, mycologist, and research scientist with over 35 years of experience with herbal medicine. Christopher has a doctorate from UC Berkeley in phylogenetics, evolutionary biology and phytochemistry. He is also a founding member of the American Herbalists Guild. https://www.christopherhobbs.com https://www.facebook.com/chrisrhobbs https://www.tellurideinstitute.org/telluride-mushroom-festival/ Website for The Sacred Speaks: http://www.thesacredspeaks.com Information for Mark Plotkin: www.markplotkin.com WATCH: YouTube for The Sacred Speaks https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCOAuksnpfht1udHWUVEO7Rg Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/thesacredspeaks/ @thesacredspeaks Twitter: https://twitter.com/thesacredspeaks Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/thesacredspeaks/ Brought to you by: https://www.thecenterforhas.com Theme music provided by: http://www.modernnationsmusic.com

Conversation starts 8:36 We begin by exploring Dr. Kastrup’s history with Jung and philosophers in the 19th and 20th centuries and very quickly move into antiquity through the classicist Peter Kingsley. We discuss the layers of meaning in writing throughout our cultural history, common misunderstandings of texts, positivism of the 19th at 20th century, assumptions within systems of thought and belief, the problem of abstractions and interpretations of reality, Aristotelian logic and conflicts with abstractions, quantum systems, maps and logic, intuitionism, maintaining mystery, Pauli & Jung, synchronicity, meaning, myth and language, & reality as mind. Bio: Bernardo Kastrup is the executive director of Essentia Foundation. His work has been leading the modern renaissance of metaphysical idealism, the notion that reality is essentially mental. He has a Ph.D. in philosophy (ontology, philosophy of mind) and another Ph.D. in computer engineering (reconfigurable computing, artificial intelligence). As a scientist, Bernardo has worked for the European Organization for Nuclear Research (CERN) and the Philips Research Laboratories (where the 'Casimir Effect' of Quantum Field Theory was discovered). Formulated in detail in many academic papers and books, his ideas have been featured on 'Scientific American,' the 'Institute of Art and Ideas,' the 'Blog of the American Philosophical Association' and 'Big Think,' among others. https://www.bernardokastrup.com https://www.essentiafoundation.org https://www.scientificamerican.com/author/bernardo-kastrup/ https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCeDZCa3VrRQvzBlVR-oVVmA John’s Workshop: https://www.esalen.org/workshops/exploring-the-shadow-and-the-psychology-of-fame Website for The Sacred Speaks: http://www.thesacredspeaks.com WATCH: YouTube for The Sacred Speaks https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCOAuksnpfht1udHWUVEO7Rg Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/thesacredspeaks/ @thesacredspeaks Twitter: https://twitter.com/thesacredspeaks Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/thesacredspeaks/ Brought to you by: https://www.thecenterforhas.com Theme music provided by: http://www.modernnationsmusic.com

Conversation starts @ 8:15 What happens when the place where expansive, meaningful, transcendental, and just simply weird conversations becomes just as important and meaningful as the conversations that began there? Esalen. We begin our conversation exploring the birth and development of The Esalen Institute and then the boundaries of the geographical container dissolve and the ideas emerge to the foreground – religion, psychology, mysticism, & psychedelics. Jeff and I discuss the founders and the origin story of Esalen, religious comparativism, the counterculture in America, Russian & United States relations through the Cold War, diplomatic solutions through psychic research, the psychological and the social/political, the influence of Asian philosophy, Tantra, plant medicine, psychology, somatic process, Aldous Huxley, Abraham Maslow, social justice, sameness and difference, cancel culture, the need for unifying language and shared understanding of difference, and the 5-times jacket prize. Bio: Jeffrey J. Kripal is the Associate Dean of the School of Humanities and holds the J. Newton Rayzor Chair in Philosophy and Religious Thought at Rice University, where he chaired the Department of Religion for eight years and helped create the GEM Program, a doctoral concentration in the study of Gnosticism, Esotericism, and Mysticism that is the largest program of its kind in the world. He is the Associate Director of the Center for Theory and Research at the Esalen Institute in Big Sur, California, where he also serves as Chair of the Board. Jeff is the author or co-author of eleven books, seven of which are with The University of Chicago Press, including, most recently a memoir-manifesto entitled Secret Body: Erotic and Esoteric Currents in the History of Religions (Chicago, 2017). He has also served as the Editor in Chief of the Macmillan Handbook Series on Religion (ten volumes, 2015-2016). He specializes in the study of extreme religious states and the re-visioning of a New Comparativism, particularly as both involve putting “the impossible” back on the academic table again. He is presently working on a three-volume study of paranormal currents in the history of religions and the sciences for The University of Chicago Press, collectively entitled The Super Story. https://jeffreyjkripal.com/life/ https://impossiblearchives.rice.edu/registration/ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8MG5gFtZ3U8&t=9428s John’s Workshop: https://www.esalen.org/workshops/exploring-our-shadows-through-the-psychology-of-fame www.junghouston.org Website for The Sacred Speaks: http://www.thesacredspeaks.com WATCH: YouTube for The Sacred Speaks https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCOAuksnpfht1udHWUVEO7Rg Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/thesacredspeaks/ @thesacredspeaks Twitter: https://twitter.com/thesacredspeaks Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/thesacredspeaks/ Brought to you by: https://www.thecenterforhas.com Theme music provided by: http://www.modernnationsmusic.com

Conversation starts @ 5:38 Dr. Miles Neale offers us his breadth of knowledge about psychology, Buddhism, suffering, and psychedelics. We begin this conversation with Miles describing his early training, teachers, and practice as he traces the path of his development as a psychotherapist and teacher of Buddhism. Dr. Neale emphasizes a multidisciplinary dialogic process that is necessary to address the suffering of our time. We discuss The Four Noble Truths, a foundational insight and scaffolding of Buddhism, and use this frame to describe the problem, the cause of the problem, the potential for a solution, and the path for the solution, we explore materialism as a worldview that is the problem, define materialism and nihilism, the limitations and value of materialism and the overwhelming reliance on the scientific worldview – to the exclusion of religion, Tibetan history and practice, oracles, the confluence between easter and wester traditions, the Holy Grail, the Jungian Self and Buddhist no self, metaphysics, a spiritual path, the Three Jewels, and more. Bio: Dr. Miles Neale, PsyD, is a Buddhist psychotherapist in private practice and founder of the two-year online Contemplative Studies Program. Author of Gradual Awakening (Sounds True, 2018) and co-editor of Advances in Contemplative Psychotherapy (Routledge, 2017), Miles is a faculty member of Tibet House (US) and Weill Cornell Medical College. With more than twenty years integrating the mind science and meditative practices of Tibetan Buddhism with psychotherapy, trauma research and neuroscience, Miles is a forerunner in the emerging field of contemplative psychotherapy, and leads pilgrimages around the Buddhist world. milesneale.com John’s Class: https://www.esalen.org/workshops/exploring-our-shadows-through-the-psychology-of-fame www.junghouston.org Website for The Sacred Speaks: http://www.thesacredspeaks.com WATCH: YouTube for The Sacred Speaks https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCOAuksnpfht1udHWUVEO7Rg Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/thesacredspeaks/ @thesacredspeaks Twitter: https://twitter.com/thesacredspeaks Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/thesacredspeaks/ Brought to you by: https://www.thecenterforhas.com Theme music provided by: http://www.modernnationsmusic.com

Conversation starts @ 7:50 This conversation begins by exploring the ground-level of psychedelics and it broadens to other aspects of the relationship between religion and psychedelics, continuing through the psychedelic renaissance, science and the sacred, consciously bringing these sacraments into the broader culture to heal and support those who seek out these transformative, a brief history of psychedelics in the U.S., mystical experiences setting the stage, the Perennial philosophy, social control and religion, misinterpretation and the birth of harmful aspects of religious dogma, a life trajectory of ritual, death and ritual, death and psychedelics, the nature of suffering, transpersonal psychology, agape and meaning, a report from the psychedelic field, and training clinicians for psychedelic. Bio: Mark Arey, born in Richmond, VA (1954) and raised outside Washington DC, Arey converted to Orthodox Christianity from the Episcopal Church when he was 22 years old. He graduated in 1975 from the University of Maryland (cum laude, Phi Beta Kappa) with a BA in Latin Language and Literature. In 1976, he matriculated at the Holy Cross Greek Orthodox School of Theology in Brookline MA. He graduated in 1979 receiving a M.Div. (with distinction) and was subsequently ordained both deacon and presbyter in October 1979. In the intervening 34 years, Arey served six parishes (last as interim Dean of the Archdiocesan Cathedral in New York City), as well as parishes in Baltimore, MD, New Haven, CT, Nashville, TN (twice), Frederick, MD and New York City. In 2006 he was awarded the rank of Economos and in 2007 that of Protopresbyter. In 2013, he asked to return to the ranks of the laity in order to marry, and did so, marrying Lyn Cameron Hayes on December 9, 2013. Arey has one grown daughter, Zoë Arey, who lives in New York City with her three daughters, Lillian, Beatrice, and Evelyn. https://www.thehellenicinitiative.org Anthony P. Bossis, Ph.D. is a clinical psychologist and clinical assistant professor of psychiatry at NYU School of Medicine conducting FDA-approved clinical research with the psychedelic compound psilocybin for over a decade. Dr. Bossis was director of palliative care research and co-principal investigator on the 2016 landmark clinical trial demonstrating a significant reduction in emotional distress from a single psilocybin session in persons with cancer, specifically, a rapid decrease in depression, anxiety, hopelessness, and demoralization along with improvements in spiritual well-being and quality of life. He is study director and lead session guide on a clinical trial evaluating psilocybin-generated mystical experience upon religious leaders. His primary psychedelic research interests include the treatment of end-of-life existential distress and advancing our understanding of consciousness, meaning, and spirituality. Dr. Bossis is a training supervisor of psychotherapy at NYU-Bellevue Hospital Center and co-founder of the Bellevue Hospital Palliative Care Service. He is a faculty member for The Center for Psychedelic Therapies and Research Certificate Program at the California Institute of Integral Studies and for The Art of Dying Institute in NYC. He has a long-standing interest in comparative religion, mysticism, and the interface of psychology and spirituality. He maintains a private psychotherapy and consulting practice in NYC. www.esalen.com www.junghouston.org Website for The Sacred Speaks: http://www.thesacredspeaks.com WATCH: YouTube for The Sacred Speaks https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCOAuksnpfht1udHWUVEO7Rg Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/thesacredspeaks/ @thesacredspeaks Twitter: https://twitter.com/thesacredspeaks Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/thesacredspeaks/ Brought to you by: https://www.thecenterforhas.com WATCH Get Centered https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCdbeVcDXWXezYMkHJg-2duw Theme music provided by: http://www.modernnationsmusic.com

Conversation starts @ 4:10 This conversation begins by exploring the Dr. Laz’s early history with dreams and lucid dreaming, hypnagogic dreams, why we dream, how to approach dreams and dream work, Tibetan Buddhism and dreaming, lucid dreaming and heightened consciousness, lucid dreaming and ego control, the paranormal and dreaming, symbolic and literal interpretation, archetypes and dreams, process to lucid dream, mysticism and dreams, leaning lucid dreaming, wake induced lucid dreaming, overwhelming images in the dreamscape, psychopomps, inner guides, dream and symbol dictionaries, Jung and dreams, and more. Bio: Athena Laz is a depth psychologist, dream teacher and 4th generation intuitive. Her debut book, The Alchemy of Your Dreams is out in the world on August 31st 2021. Having spent over a decade working one-on-one with clients in her practice, she moved online to create her heart’s desire, which translated into www.athenalaz.com. During her time in practice, she worked extensively with trauma victims, as well as couples and individuals from all walks of life. She trained psychoanalytically with a particular interest in depth psychology. Her love has always been towards the transpersonal and symbolic aspects of life. As a natural intuitive and avid lucid dreamer; she feels the psychological aspects of life must be incorporated with the spiritual aspects of Self. To disregard one over the other is to be incomplete, and so, with any artful practice of wellness—we look to that which is wholesome—that which is whole. https://www.athenalaz.com Website for The Sacred Speaks: http://www.thesacredspeaks.com WATCH: YouTube for The Sacred Speaks https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCOAuksnpfht1udHWUVEO7Rg Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/thesacredspeaks/ @thesacredspeaks Twitter: https://twitter.com/thesacredspeaks Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/thesacredspeaks/ Brought to you by: https://www.thecenterforhas.com WATCH Get Centered https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCdbeVcDXWXezYMkHJg-2duw Theme music provided by: http://www.modernnationsmusic.com

Conversation starts @ 3:01 In this episode, John interviews author, book editor, meditation teacher, and psychotherapist, Dr. Connie Zweig. We begin by exploring Connie’s history with meditation and the value and importance that she places on maintaining a practice in order to be present with the often overwhelming affect of inner work. She cites the necessity of body practice to work with the shadow – the content, traits, memories, and affects that does not fit into the ego-ideal. Why do this? Because, as she states, “Shadow work is the process of development.” We can learn to become aware of these inner figures by personifying them to relate to them in ways that provides us an opportunity to integrate the content rather than act it out. We continue the conversation with the ways in which we identify with the shadow, the structure of the psyche, the origins of the shadow character, the protective aspects of shadow, ego development, family of origin, agism, the body/mind relationship, repression, consequences of shadow repression, identification with roles, becoming an elder, rites of passage, age as our curriculum, life completion, and more. Bio: Connie Zweig, Ph.D., is a retired therapist, co-author of Meeting the Shadow, Romancing the Shadow, Meeting the Shadow of Spirituality, and the novel, A Moth to the Flame: The Life of Sufi Poet Rumi. Her new book, The Inner Work of Age: Shifting from Role to Soul, extends shadow-work into late life and teaches aging as a spiritual practice. Connie has been doing contemplative practices for 50 years. She is a wife and grandmother and was initiated as an Elder by Sage-ing International in 2017. After investing in all these roles, she is practicing the shift from role to soul. https://conniezweig.com Website for The Sacred Speaks: http://www.thesacredspeaks.com WATCH: YouTube for The Sacred Speaks https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCOAuksnpfht1udHWUVEO7Rg Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/thesacredspeaks/ @thesacredspeaks Twitter: https://twitter.com/thesacredspeaks Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/thesacredspeaks/ Brought to you by: https://www.thecenterforhas.com WATCH Get Centered https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCdbeVcDXWXezYMkHJg-2duw Theme music provided by: http://www.modernnationsmusic.com

Conversation starts @ 5:00 In this episode, Dr. Price interviews Dr. Mark Ryan, and we begin with a quote from Dr. Ryan’s book defining transpersonal psychology. “Our individual ego, our sense of a personal self, and the psyche that sustains it, is imbedded in an interconnected cosmos; our personal psyche reaches into, and is penetrated by, a collective consciousness, a natural ambience, a spiritual foundation and context” (p. 127). Through this conversation we explore the definition of transpersonal thought, meaningful perspectives at the root of religious and spiritual values, constructivism and perennialism, William James, Ken Wilbur, and other luminaries of religion, psychology and spirituality, North American thought and the history of mysticism in the United States and how this influences modern thought in the west, the science of the psyche, the influence of behaviorism and Freudian thought on religion and spirituality, cosmic consciousness, the science of the paranormal, psychical research, psychological reduction, materialism, a review of the founders of modern psychology and spirituality, the conscious and the unconscious, mystical experience, panpsychism, & psychedelics. Bio: An historian of American thought and culture, Mark Ryan was Dean of Jonathan Edwards College and a teacher of American Studies and history at Yale University for more than twenty years. Subsequently he was Titular IV Professor at the Universidad de las Américas in Puebla, Mexico, where he also served as Dean of the Colleges, Regente (Head) of José Gaos College, and Coordinator of the master’s degree program in United States Studies. He holds Ph.D. and M. Phil. degrees from Yale, an M.A. from the University of Texas at Austin, and a B.A. from the University of St. Thomas. Mark is author of A Different Dimension: Reflections on the History of Transpersonal Thought (Westphalia Press, 2018), A Collegiate Way of Living (Yale University, 2001), articles in various journals on higher education, and articles in The Journal of Transpersonal Psychology and related publications on the history of psychology. He is certified by Grof Transpersonal Training as a practitioner of Holotropic Breathwork, served for fourteen years on the Board of Trustees of Naropa University, is past chair of the Board of Directors of Wisdom University, and past chair and current trustee of the Jonathan Edwards Trust at Yale. Living now in his native city of Houston, Mark teaches and lectures at the C. G. Jung Educational Center and other venues, and is a principal facilitator of Holotropic Breathwork Houston. https://www.holotropicbreathworkhouston.com Website for The Sacred Speaks: http://www.thesacredspeaks.com WATCH: YouTube for The Sacred Speaks https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCOAuksnpfht1udHWUVEO7Rg Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/thesacredspeaks/ @thesacredspeaks Twitter: https://twitter.com/thesacredspeaks Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/thesacredspeaks/ Brought to you by: https://www.thecenterforhas.com WATCH Get Centered https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCdbeVcDXWXezYMkHJg-2duw Theme music provided by: http://www.modernnationsmusic.com

Conversation starts at: 6:57 Dr. Price and Dr. Smith begin the conversation with the definition of shamanism, and continue with Carlos Castaneda’s influence of shamanism in North America – noting the controversy surrounding the word of Castaneda, the mystical in the literary, Toltec principals and lineage, the complexities and ultimate mystery of reality and the universe, the layers of the “knowable” and the “unknowable,” brujerio/a: sorcery from the Oaxacan and Mazatec traditions, the Spanish and Catholic influence in Mexico, psychedelics, “consciousness creating technologies,” direct perception, “seeing,” the process of socialization and the ways in which these models obstruct our direct perception of the unseen world, we discuss Michael’s history, his calling, and his initiation, precognitive visions, Jung’s Red Book as an example of a shamanic initiation, Jung’s daemon, treatment of psychotic possession, differentiating Jungian and shamanic process, prognosis of illness, and treatment, and more. Bio: C. Michael Smith is an internationally recognized Jungian psychologist, medical anthropologist, and shamanic teacher who has developed a foundation for life-mentoring drawing upon his synthesis of these traditions, originating with his book Jung and Shamanism in Dialogue. Michael draws from the best of the disciplines of Jungian psychology and cross-cultural indigenous shamanism. From them he has creatively synthesized a powerful philosophy and system Archetypal Heart Psychology which is the foundation of his work, and which employs the most potent techniques and assessment instruments for clarifying your life calling and potentiality, and has tools such as “Archetypal Diagnosis and Assessment” through a psychoshamanic technique he developed of guided “Four Archetypal Journeys” to get you cooking on all burners, so you can bring your Gifts to the world, realize your vision, or bring your creative idea into the market-place, and share it with the world. Along with this, he has developed a technology for “Locating the Little Devils,” those self-defeating tendencies and limit patterns that can disempower and keep you from manifesting your dreams. Once identified through Core Questions and Collaborative Insearching. Michael shows you how you can transmute these “little devils” into allies and resources rather than self-defeating forces that troll your best intentions. For Info on C. Michael Smith’s Crows Nest International Seminars, Retreats and Workshops, Go to: www.crowsnestshamanism.com http://www.cmichaelsmith.com Website for The Sacred Speaks: http://www.thesacredspeaks.com WATCH: YouTube for The Sacred Speaks https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCOAuksnpfht1udHWUVEO7Rg Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/thesacredspeaks/ @thesacredspeaks Twitter: https://twitter.com/thesacredspeaks Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/thesacredspeaks/ Brought to you by: https://www.thecenterforhas.com WATCH Get Centered https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCdbeVcDXWXezYMkHJg-2duw Theme music provided by: http://www.modernnationsmusic.com

Conversation starts at - 6:25 In this episode, Dr. Price interviews Dr. Mark Plotkin, one of the world’s renowned ethnobotanists who has studied traditional indigenous plant use with elder shamans (traditional healers) of Central and South America for much of the past 30 years. In this conversation we explore traditional Amazonian medicine, the great ethnobotanist Dr. Richard Schultes, shamanism, the modern psychedelic renaissance, the ethics of entheogens, ethnobotany 101, Western and Indigenous medicine and spiritualty, the placebo effect, culture, Covid, building relationships with the indigenous community in the Amazon, conservation and the Amazon, Western prohibition on alternate states of consciousness, a brief history of substances and alternate states, and many other practices that the world may gain by studying those who have learned to live with the earth, not dominating it. https://markplotkin.com https://www.amazonteam.org Dr. Plotkin’s Podcast: Plants of the Gods https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/plants-of-the-gods-hallucinogens-healing/id1549464922?i=1000532364213 Bio: Dr. Mark Plotkin is a renowned ethnobotanist who has studied traditional indigenous plant use with elder shamans (traditional healers) of Central and South America for much of the past 30 years. As an ethnobotanist—a scientist who studies how, and why, societies have come to use plants for different purposes—Dr. Plotkin carried out the majority of his research with the Trio Indians of southern Suriname, a small rainforest country in northeastern South America, but has also worked with elder shamans from Mexico to Brazil. Dr. Plotkin has a long history of work with other organizations to promote conservation and awareness of our natural world, having served as Research Associate in Ethnobotanical Conservation at the Botanical Museum of Harvard University; Director of Plant Conservation at the World Wildlife Fund; Vice President of Conservation International; and Research Associate at the Department of Botany of the Smithsonian Institution. Dr. Plotkin is now President and Board member of the Amazon Conservation Team (ACT), a nonprofit organization he co-founded with his fellow conservationist and wife, Liliana Madrigal in 1996, now enjoying over 20 years of successes dedicated to protecting the biological and cultural diversity of the Amazon. ACT has been a member of the United Nations Environment Programme Global 500 Roll of Honour since 2002, and was recognized as using “Best Practices Using Indigenous Knowledge” by UNESCO, the United Nation’s cultural organization. Website for The Sacred Speaks: http://www.thesacredspeaks.com WATCH: YouTube for The Sacred Speaks https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCOAuksnpfht1udHWUVEO7Rg Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/thesacredspeaks/ @thesacredspeaks Twitter: https://twitter.com/thesacredspeaks Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/thesacredspeaks/ Brought to you by: https://www.thecenterforhas.com WATCH Get Centered https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCdbeVcDXWXezYMkHJg-2duw Theme music provided by: http://www.modernnationsmusic.com

Conversation starts at: 5:05 In this episode Dr. Price interviews Dr. Claire Villarreal. Claire is an expert in teaching Tibetan Buddhism, meditation, and Tantra. We discuss the relationship between the social self and the self empty of all that is not self, the connection between spiritual practice and psychedelics, what happens when the threads of our ordinary reality are “cracked open,” attachment, issues with translation in religious traditions, peak experience, obstructions and the spiritual path, repetition in spiritual practice, Dzogchen, directly looking into inner energies through Tantra, Buddha nature, Shamanic practice, and spiritual practice. Bio: Raised as a fundamentalist Christian in a small town in North Texas who, by the time she left for Rice University in 1995, knew that the religious tradition of her childhood did not suit her. When she stumbled across a course on East Asian civilizations co-taught by Anne Klein, she signed up with a deep curiosity of Asian religious culture. When Anne assigned Buddhist texts for the class reading, Claire was immediately hooked on the dharma and added a Religious Studies major. When Claire started meditating with Ajahn Ken of Wat Buddhavas and sitting with Anne’s sangha, Dawn Mountain, she obsessed over Tibetan history and did a Tibetan Studies semester abroad with the School for International Training. After graduation, Claire taught secondary English for a couple of years, trained in Wing Chun and tai chi chuan at Authentic Kung Fu for seven years, and left in 2003 for a long trip to Asia, and after returning home began formally teaching meditation. In 2007 Claire joined the doctoral program in Rice's Department of Religion and spent the next eight years learning, writing, and teaching about Tibetan Buddhism, contemplative ways of knowing, and how those can enrich modern Western life. After earning her PhD in 2015, she joined the staff of Dawn Mountain Center for Tibetan Buddhism, where she became the Programs Director before leaving in 2019 to offer meditation and spiritual instruction online and in person. You can learn more about Claire’s offerings at: https://www.clairevillarreal.com https://rice.academia.edu/ClaireVillarreal Website for The Sacred Speaks: http://www.thesacredspeaks.com WATCH: YouTube for The Sacred Speaks https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCOAuksnpfht1udHWUVEO7Rg Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/thesacredspeaks/ @thesacredspeaks Twitter: https://twitter.com/thesacredspeaks Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/thesacredspeaks/ Brought to you by: https://www.thecenterforhas.com WATCH Get Centered https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCdbeVcDXWXezYMkHJg-2duw Theme music provided by: http://www.modernnationsmusic.com

Conversation starts at: 5:38 We begin this conversation acknowledging the dynamic between biological reductionism and mystical experience within the ever-growing field of psychedelic assisted therapies. The conversation continues by exploring consciousness, spirituality, the nature of religion, the expanding field of end of life care and psychedelics, mystical experience, the history of psychedelics as a healing modality, integration of mystical experience, Aldous Huxley’s influence, death as a spiritual process, the medicalization of healthcare, we discuss Tony’s recent chapter, Utility of psychedelics in the treatment of psycho-spiritual and existential distress in palliative care: A Promising new paradigm, the research history of psychedelics, constructivism and perennialism, legalization of psychedelics, and addressing the concern for the medicalization of psychedelics. Bio: Anthony P. Bossis, Ph.D. is a clinical psychologist and clinical assistant professor of psychiatry at NYU School of Medicine conducting FDA-approved clinical research with the psychedelic compound psilocybin for over a decade. Dr. Bossis was director of palliative care research and co-principal investigator on the 2016 landmark clinical trial demonstrating a significant reduction in emotional distress from a single psilocybin session in persons with cancer, specifically, a rapid decrease in depression, anxiety, hopelessness, and demoralization along with improvements in spiritual well-being and quality of life. He is study director and lead session guide on a clinical trial evaluating psilocybin-generated mystical experience upon religious leaders. His primary psychedelic research interests include the treatment of end-of-life existential distress and advancing our understanding of consciousness, meaning, and spirituality. Dr. Bossis is a training supervisor of psychotherapy at NYU-Bellevue Hospital Center and co-founder of the Bellevue Hospital Palliative Care Service. He is a faculty member for The Center for Psychedelic Therapies and Research Certificate Program at the California Institute of Integral Studies and for The Art of Dying Institute in NYC. He has a long-standing interest in comparative religion, mysticism, and the interface of psychology and spirituality. He maintains a private psychotherapy and consulting practice in NYC. Bossis, A.P. (2021). Utility of psychedelics in the treatment of psycho-spiritual and existential distress in palliative care: A Promising new paradigm. In: C. Grob & J. Grigsby (Eds.), Handbook of Medical Hallucinogens (pp. 441-473). Guilford Press. Bossis, A.P. (2021). Psilocybin, Spirituality, and Palliative Care: Research and Implications. Alternative and Complementary Therapies, v 27(1). Website for The Sacred Speaks: http://www.thesacredspeaks.com WATCH: YouTube for The Sacred Speaks https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCOAuksnpfht1udHWUVEO7Rg Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/thesacredspeaks/ @thesacredspeaks Twitter: https://twitter.com/thesacredspeaks Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/thesacredspeaks/ Brought to you by: https://www.thecenterforhas.com WATCH Get Centered https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCdbeVcDXWXezYMkHJg-2duw Theme music provided by: http://www.modernnationsmusic.com

We begin the interview by exploring Mark’s work as a translator and the artfulness of translation by grounding our discussion in one of his books, Apocalypse: The Book of Revelation, originally written in Greek. Within minutes, Mark states that religion fulfills one or two purposes: to control or to transform – our conversation explores the latter. We discuss the psychedelic nature of the Book of Revelation, the nuances of translation, living texts, Mark’s unpublished translation of the entire new testament, modern Christianity, defining “truth” (as in, “the way, the truth, and the life”) …” – a/letheia: non/forgetting, the Answer to Job found in The Book of Revelation, the conflict in dualism, reconciling dualism, critique of the institutional church, Dionysus and Christ, love, ritual, and more. BIO: Born in Richmond, VA (1954) and raised outside Washington DC, Arey converted to Orthodox Christianity from the Episcopal Church when he was 22 years old. He graduated in 1975 from the University of Maryland (cum laude, Phi Beta Kappa) with a BA in Latin Language and Literature. In 1976, he matriculated at the Holy Cross Greek Orthodox School of Theology in Brookline MA. He graduated in 1979 receiving a M.Div. (with distinction) and was subsequently ordained both deacon and presbyter in October 1979. In the intervening 34 years, Arey served six parishes (last as interim Dean of the Archdiocesan Cathedral in New York City), as well as parishes in Baltimore, MD, New Haven, CT, Nashville, TN (twice), Frederick, MD and New York City. In 2006 he was awarded the rank of Economos and in 2007 that of Protopresbyter. In 2013, he asked to return to the ranks of the laity in order to marry, and did so, marrying Lyn Cameron Hayes on December 9, 2013. Arey has one grown daughter, Zoë Arey, who lives in New York City with her three daughters, Lillian, Beatrice, and Evelyn. IN 2014, Arey was invited to be Executive Director of The Hellenic Initiative, Inc. (https://www.thehellenicinitiative.org), a global venture philanthropy organization that does economic development in Greece. In 2019, Arey took a six-month sabbatical to travel on pilgrimage to India, after which he began working as a private consultant in both the fields of venture philanthropy and communications. https://www.thehellenicinitiative.org NANINE EWING INTERVIEW https://soundcloud.com/thesacredspeaks/17-the-body-the-unconscious-life-death-a-conversation-with-nanine-ewing CLASS: http://junghouston.org/program-offering-detail/?id=dfb2b6b6-4eb0-11eb-b993-02dbb43a0b10 Website for The Sacred Speaks: http://www.thesacredspeaks.com WATCH: YouTube for The Sacred Speaks https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCOAuksnpfht1udHWUVEO7Rg Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/thesacredspeaks/ @thesacredspeaks Twitter: https://twitter.com/thesacredspeaks Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/thesacredspeaks/ Brought to you by: https://www.thecenterforhas.com WATCH Get Centered https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCdbeVcDXWXezYMkHJg-2duw Theme music provided by: http://www.modernnationsmusic.com

Through this conversation, Thomas and John discuss ego loss, a historical overview of witches, the sociological aspects of witches, the science of history, anachronism, the history of the devil, interpreting ancient texts and techniques to filter modern bias, demons of antiquity, illness and the spiritual, syncretism defined, goddess worship in antiquity, the shift from polytheism to monotheism, and more. Bio: Thomas Hatsis is an author, lecturer, and historian of witchcraft, magic, Western religions, contemporary psychedelia, entheogens, and medieval pharmacopeia. https://psychedelichistorian.com www.psanctum.org www.patreon.com/m/psychedelichistorian CLASS: http://junghouston.org/program-offering-detail/?id=dfb2b6b6-4eb0-11eb-b993-02dbb43a0b10 Website for The Sacred Speaks: http://www.thesacredspeaks.com WATCH: YouTube for The Sacred Speaks https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCOAuksnpfht1udHWUVEO7Rg This episode: https://youtu.be/9SclEixv4rI Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/thesacredspeaks/ @thesacredspeaks Twitter: https://twitter.com/thesacredspeaks Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/thesacredspeaks/ Brought to you by: https://www.thecenterforhas.com WATCH Get Centered https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCdbeVcDXWXezYMkHJg-2duw Theme music provided by: http://www.modernnationsmusic.com

Through this conversation Dr. Rigoglioso and John discuss subjects ranging from the myth and history of immaculate conception, the goddess and the underworld, the autonomy of the archetype, various consciousnesses, living the archetypal journey of the gods, the literal and the symbolic, the ontological reality of the gods, the nature of divine birth, how “Mother Mary” became a lesser known character in the bible, the campaign to disempower women, The Mysteries, the sacred and the secret, lineages of female healers through antiquity, medicated dildos in Mystery rites, initiation of priestesses, and more. BIO: Marguerite Rigoglioso, Ph.D., is the founding director of Seven Sisters Mystery School and a scholar/practitioner of the ancient Mediterranean mystery traditions. The foremost authority on the history of virgin birth, she is the author of The Mystery Tradition of Miraculous Conception: Mary and the Lineage of Virgin Births, as well as The Cult of Divine Birth in Ancient Greece, and Virgin Mother Goddesses of Antiquity, pioneering books that explore women's shamanic abilities in a (r)evolutionary new light. A speaker at conferences and numerous public venues around the world, in 2009 she delivered a James C. Loeb Classical lecture at Harvard University on her research. She is also a featured interview guest on Regina Meredith’s Open Minds show on Gaia TV, as well as in the films The Vanishing of the Bees and The Search for Local Honey. Dr. Rigoglioso's research on female deities and women’s religious leadership in the ancient Mediterranean world and beyond has appeared in anthologies and journals, including Feminist Theology, The Encyclopedia of Religion and Nature, Societies of Peace, She Is Everywhere, Trivia, and the Journal of Feminist Studies in Religion, where her paper on the cult of Demeter and Persephone in Sicily received an honorable mention for the New Scholar Award. Dr. Rigoglioso combines lifelong study of the religious history of the ancient Mediterranean world and beyond with her own spiritual growth work and intuitional skills, which have been cultivated through years of ceremonial practice as well as intensive study at the Foundation for Spiritual Development in San Rafael, CA. FOR MORE ON DR. RIGOGLIOSO & SEVEN SISTERS MYSTERY SCHOOL: https://www.sevensistersmysteryschool.com/ PURCHASE HER NEW BOOK: https://www.amazon.com/Mystery-Tradition-Miraculous-Conception-Lineage/dp/1591434130/ref=sr_1_1?crid=3L8NZ0UFBWS1B&dchild=1&keywords=the+mystery+tradition+of+miraculous+conception&qid=1616551223&sprefix=the+mystery+tradition%2Caps%2C155&sr=8-1 CLASS: http://junghouston.org/program-offering-detail/?id=dfb2b6b6-4eb0-11eb-b993-02dbb43a0b10 Website for The Sacred Speaks: http://www.thesacredspeaks.com WATCH: YouTube for The Sacred Speaks https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCOAuksnpfht1udHWUVEO7Rg This episode: https://youtu.be/9SclEixv4rI Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/thesacredspeaks/ @thesacredspeaks Twitter: https://twitter.com/thesacredspeaks Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/thesacredspeaks/ Brought to you by: https://www.thecenterforhas.com WATCH Get Centered https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCdbeVcDXWXezYMkHJg-2duw Theme music provided by: http://www.modernnationsmusic.com

65: Carl A. P. Ruck – The Road to Eleusis; The Myth of Christ Dr. Carl Ruck and I begin our conversation discussing the book The Road to Eleusis, wherein “the classist” Dr. Ruck and coauthors R. Gordon Wasson, “the mycologist,” and Dr. Albert Hoffman, “the chemist,” released a controversial theory that psychoactive entheogenic sacramental ceremonies are often discovered at the root of many religious and spiritual traditions throughout history – and especially within the Greek Eleusinian Mystery tradition that lasted around 2000 years. Throughout the interview we explore subjects including classical sources, interpretation of ancient texts, religion and consciousness, entheogens and psychedelics, the political difficulty of the psychedelic sacrament, academia and censorship, drugs and cult ritual practices, the nature of myth, drugs and addiction, polyethnicity, myth and metaphor, consciousness, and our symbiotic relationship to the earth. BIO: Carl A.P. Ruck is an authority on the ecstatic rituals of the god Dionysus. With the ethno-mycologist R. Gordon Wasson and Albert Hofmann, he identified the secret psychoactive ingredient in the visionary potion that was drunk by the initiates at the Eleusinian Mystery. In Persephone’s Quest: Entheogens and the Origins of Religion, he proclaimed the centrality of psychoactive sacraments at the very beginnings of religion, employing the neologism “entheogen” to free the topic from the pejorative connotations for words like drug or hallucinogen. Check out Prof. Ruck’s latest project: https://www.dropbox.com/s/cgiwjbne3bj7c24/CarlRuck.mp4 Research Interests: Greek drama, Dionysian festivals and rituals, ancient Mystery religions, Orphism, Zoroaster, Mithraism, ancient Christian heretical sects, the role of entheogens in the evolution of human consciousness and religions, Mythology, secret sacraments in medieval and Renaissance art, ancient and medieval eschatology, fairy-tales and European folklore, secret societies and craft guilds, prehistoric rock art, Greek epigraphy, structural linguistics, Latin and Greek grammar, Mesoamerican shamanism. https://www.bu.edu/classics/faculty-profiles/carl-ruck/ http://wassonwest.com https://entheomedia.net CLASS: http://junghouston.org/program-offering-detail/?id=dfb2b6b6-4eb0-11eb-b993-02dbb43a0b10 Website for The Sacred Speaks: http://www.thesacredspeaks.com WATCH: YouTube for The Sacred Speaks https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCOAuksnpfht1udHWUVEO7Rg Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/thesacredspeaks/ @thesacredspeaks Twitter: https://twitter.com/thesacredspeaks Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/thesacredspeaks/ Brought to you by: https://www.thecenterforhas.com WATCH Get Centered https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCdbeVcDXWXezYMkHJg-2duw Theme music provided by: http://www.modernnationsmusic.com

Join John in his interview with Mackenzie Amara - known to many as the “inked shrink” - as they explore the relationship between trauma and healing, psychedelics and psychosis, and dreams and the underworld. Mackenzie, an early initiate into both psychedelics and psychosis, endured a challenge to her worldview, which subsequently opened the next stage in her life. We discuss Jung’s struggle with psychedelics, repression of moment-to-moment authenticity and spontaneity, psychoanalysis as an acid trip, psychedelic assisted psychotherapy, dreams and waking fantasies, Mackenzie provides a personal example of taking a dream seriously and the impact of that attitude and decision making, rational thinking as a means of defense, trigger warnings and cancel culture, the underworld, and the rational, irrational & reason. Bio: By trade Mackenzie is a writer, coach, & 5Rhythms® teacher. By vocation she is a Jungian analyst-in-training & Clinical Psychology doctoral student. By design she is a collection of fractal, holographic cells dancing around some strange attractor for the sake of who knows what to live an insignificant, mythic life reflective of the mysterious vital spark within her. She identifies as a series of memories & unverifiable subjective experiences of self-hood to which she is rather fondly attached. She has a penchant for scholarship, the occult, pedantic erudition, morbid humor, grandiosity, nihilism, & semi-responsible hedonism. Born in the shadow of New Age culture into a fractured family system & the subjective experiencer of (arguably) extreme early childhood trauma, her life’s work is to heal psychic wounds—her’s & other’s—that she & others become strong enough to contend with the unconscious quicksands & transpersonal abysses which lap at the periphery of developing consciousness. She is an emergent property of Being playing at becoming sovereign. She really, really loves butter. https://www.mackenzieamara.com Makenzie’s YouTube lecture: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sYR9JtlWCHE&t=23s CLASS: http://junghouston.org/program-offering-detail/?id=dfb2b6b6-4eb0-11eb-b993-02dbb43a0b10 Website for The Sacred Speaks: http://www.thesacredspeaks.com WATCH: YouTube for The Sacred Speaks https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCOAuksnpfht1udHWUVEO7Rg Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/thesacredspeaks/ @thesacredspeaks Twitter: https://twitter.com/thesacredspeaks Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/thesacredspeaks/ Brought to you by: https://www.thecenterforhas.com WATCH Get Centered https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCdbeVcDXWXezYMkHJg-2duw Theme music provided by: http://www.modernnationsmusic.com

This is one of the most controversial podcasts in the history of The Sacred Speaks; though controversy is familiar territory for the participant, Dr. DAC Hillman. Dr. Hillman began his doctoral research in the middle of a controversy that threatened him with a conflict between the choice of censuring his research to graduate with his doctorate or not pass. So, he did what any self-respecting doctoral student would do - remove the controversial work from his dissertation, and the write a book about it. The Chemical Muse is the book whose central thesis circulates within and through the heart of the “offensive” content – the recreational and sacred use of drugs in classical antiquity. Though his advisors denied that people in classical antiquity used drugs both recreationally and within religious rites, the evidence currently underway confirms his censured thesis. But he did not stop there. Dr. Hillman’s research investigates practices by religious Mystery cults in the classic age who participated in the unimaginable, by modern standards. Have you ever imagined that the human body could or would be used as a pharmacy to produce antidotes to drugs and venoms administered to initiates of sacred Mysteries traditions; and that without those human produced antidotes, the initiate’s body would begin to fail? What if the bodies of both adults and children were used in such ways? Dr. Hillman and Dr. Price discuss ancient religion, translating ancient texts, hidden language, image, magic, witches, sexual abuse of children, Jesus and St. John, obscured practices within ancient Mystery cults, Magi, the body as pharmacy, Gnostics, heresy, censorship by those in power, homosexuality, the patriarchy, priestesses, myth, & Magic. Bio: Dr. DC Ammon Hillman earned his MS in Bacteriology and Ph.D. in Classics from the University of Wisconsin Madison, where he specialized in Ancient Greek and Roman medicine and pharmacy. His first book, The Chemical Muse, was published with St. Martin’s Press immediately after his dissertation committee forced him to delete all references to recreational drugs from his thesis. Dr. Hillman also wrote Original Sin, a work about the use of drug-induced child rape in early Christian ritual. The publication of The Chemical Muse inspired the production of a lengthy History Chanel documentary on the history of drug use in the ancient world. After an official inquiry by the Catholic Church into allegations of demon possession, Dr. Hillman was fired from St. Mary’s University of Minnesota. He continues to write about the use of drugs in ancient mystery cults and tutors ancient Greek online. https://www.amazon.com/Chemical-Muse-Roots-Western-Civilization/dp/0312352492 CLASS: http://junghouston.org/program-offering-detail/?id=dfb2b6b6-4eb0-11eb-b993-02dbb43a0b10 Website for The Sacred Speaks: http://www.thesacredspeaks.com WATCH: YouTube for The Sacred Speaks https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCOAuksnpfht1udHWUVEO7Rg Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/thesacredspeaks/ @thesacredspeaks Twitter: https://twitter.com/thesacredspeaks Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/thesacredspeaks/ Brought to you by: https://www.thecenterforhas.com WATCH Get Centered https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCdbeVcDXWXezYMkHJg-2duw Theme music provided by: http://www.modernnationsmusic.com

What is a religious experience? Really. How does one define a religious event? Why do we keep reading from figures who report life-affirming, transformation-inducing, and worldview-shattering experiences that we, if we are honest, evoke the tension between both fascination and anxious avoidance? Today’s episode may provide a life raft - though the storm approaches regardless. Tune in as Dr. William Richards, a psychologist in the Psychiatry Department of the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, and Dr. John Price discuss the definition of terms such as mystic and religious events, they explore subject ranging from the early application of psychedelics in a clinical context, the current and historical government regulation of psychedelics - or entheogens, if you will - clinical examples of the transformations that many have experienced during and after the use of these medicines, current studies, the collective unconscious, the embarrassment felt by the military’s attempts to use these substances, morality and entheogens, identity, the ethics of entheogens in a clinical setting, getting “high,” spiritual by-passing, the nature of nature summarized in the familiar refrain that love is underneath it all, and more. Bio: William A. Richards (Bill) is a psychologist in the Psychiatry Department of the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, Bayview Medical Center, a consultant/trainer at sites of psychedelic research internationally, a teacher in the Program of Psychedelic Therapy and Research at the California Institute of Integral Studies, and also a clinician in private practice in Baltimore. His graduate degrees include M.Div. from Yale Divinity School, S.T.M. from Andover-Newton Theological School and Ph.D. from Catholic University, as well as studies with Abraham Maslow at Brandeis University and with Hanscarl Leuner at Georg-August University in Göttingen, Germany, where his involvement with psilocybin research originated in 1963. From 1967 to 1977, he pursued psychotherapy research with LSD, DPT, MDA and psilocybin at the Maryland Psychiatric Research Center, including protocols designed to investigate the promise of psychedelic substances in the treatment of alcoholism, depression, narcotic addiction and the psychological distress associated with terminal cancer, and also their use in the training of religious and mental-health professionals. From 1977-1981, he was a member of the psychology faculty of Antioch University in Maryland. In 1999 at Johns Hopkins, he and Roland Griffiths launched the rebirth of psilocybin research after a 22-year period of dormancy in the United States. His publications began in 1966 with “Implications of LSD and Experimental Mysticism,” coauthored with Walter Pahnke. His book, Sacred Knowledge: Psychedelics and Religious Experiences was released in English by Columbia University Press in 2015 and has since been translated into four additional languages. https://hopkinspsychedelic.org/richards https://hopkinspsychedelic.org https://clinicaltrials.gov/ct2/home The Jung Center Houston https://junghouston.org CLASS: http://junghouston.org/program-offering-detail/?id=dfb2b6b6-4eb0-11eb-b993-02dbb43a0b10 Website for The Sacred Speaks: http://www.thesacredspeaks.com WATCH: YouTube for The Sacred Speaks https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCOAuksnpfht1udHWUVEO7Rg Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/thesacredspeaks/ @thesacredspeaks Twitter: https://twitter.com/thesacredspeaks Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/thesacredspeaks/ Brought to you by: https://www.thecenterforhas.com WATCH Get Centered https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCdbeVcDXWXezYMkHJg-2duw Theme music provided by: http://www.modernnationsmusic.com

In this episode, John interviews Brian Muraresku, author of New York Times Bestseller, The Immortality Key: The Secret History of The Religion with No Name. On an average day back in 2007, Muraresku’s life changed after reading the Economist’s article reviewing the research underway at Johns Hopkins investigating the clinical use of psilocybin mushrooms. Thus, Brian’s twelve-year study of a controversial theory was born. The theory positions psychedelics at the root of early the Christian Eucharist, and beyond that, at the root of religion as a whole. Through this conversation, Brian and John explore the psychedelic theory of religion, “graveyard beer” - a psychedelic brew used as a sacrament to commune with the dead 10,000 years ago, the mysteries of Eleusis – a Greek religious, esoteric tradition, literalism, the need for all of us to study the classics, healthy skepticism, Christ as a Dionysus figure, the relationship between blood and wine, the kingdom of heaven (not in the afterlife, but present day), the technology and science that is providing insight into our religious traditions, and the powers that seek to erase those histories – spoiler alert: for the Roman Catholic Church this was women and drugs. Referencing The Immortality Key, Jeff Kripal writes, “Buckle up tight, Toto. You were never in Kansas. It’s Oz everywhere and always." BRIAN C. MURARESKU graduated Phi Beta Kappa from Brown University with a degree in Latin, Greek and Sanskrit. As an alumnus of Georgetown Law and a member of the New York Bar, he has been practicing law internationally for fifteen years. He lives outside Washington D.C. with his wife and two daughters. In 2016, Muraresku became the founding executive director of Doctors for Cannabis Regulation. Their work has been featured on CNN and ESPN, as well as The Washington Post and San Francisco Chronicle. In arbitration with the NFL in 2018, Muraresku represented the first professional athlete in the United States to seek a therapeutic use exemption for cannabis. The Immortality Key is his debut book. https://www.brianmuraresku.com/author Website for The Sacred Speaks: http://www.thesacredspeaks.com WATCH: YouTube for The Sacred Speaks https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCOAuksnpfht1udHWUVEO7Rg Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/thesacredspeaks/ @thesacredspeaks Twitter: https://twitter.com/thesacredspeaks Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/thesacredspeaks/ Brought to you by: https://www.thecenterforhas.com WATCH Get Centered https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCdbeVcDXWXezYMkHJg-2duw Theme music provided by: http://www.modernnationsmusic.com

One valuable question for us all to ask ourselves is: When does the performance stop? For you, really. Maybe a more specific question is: When are you not performing? Dr. Sara Schneider is interested in questions about the human body, the way it moves, how people adorn their bodies, how we express, and what is the road less traveled when it comes to expression of the body, be it acting, singing, etc. She began exploring these questions more deeply as she contemplated the window displays on 5th avenue in NYC circa 1988, one artists romantic nights on the town with a mannequin, when art and life flow together in a seamless whole. We discuss death and dying, death and cultural differences, the relationship between grief and love, how we attend to the sick and dying as a culture, anticipatory grief, hospice care in Western culture, the healing nature of story and storytelling, we explore how Dr. Schneider maps Joseph Campbell’s Hero’s Journey into gaming theory, storytelling, end of life transition, and the meaning making mechanism in groups. This process helps family and other systems experience conversations that would otherwise not typically happen. Bio: THE HUMAN JOURNEY® Founder/CEO Sara K. Schneider, Ph.D., is a performance anthropologist, theatre maker, and organizational consultant and facilitator, with degrees from Yale and NYU, who calls herself “an artist whose medium is groups.” Sara’s books on human performance have been published by Yale University Press, Cuneiform Books, and Pendragon Press. She has published chapters in education, design, anthropology, and medical training books, and her insights have been featured on a variety of NPR programs and television and video productions. She consults on organizational and leadership strategy, program development, and learning design to nonprofit, healthcare, and corporate clients and offers experiential training and workshops on professional skills, and bringing spirituality into professional life. Offering: THE HUMAN JOURNEY® would like to extend a special opportunity to John's listeners -- $100 off THJ®'s complete professional training package when you use the code SEEKER at our Eventbrite training registration site or this direct link: https://www.eventbrite.com/e/the-human-journey-conductor-training-packages-tickets-104484417706?discount=SEEKER For learn more or to reach out, please see: Website: https://The-Human-Journey.com EventBrite Training Registration Site : https://bit.ly/2XHm3iM And you're welcome to follow THE HUMAN JOURNEY® on social media: \LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/the-human-journey/ Twitter: @thehumanjourne1 The Sacred Speaks is brought to you by: https://www.thecenterforhas.com Theme music provided by: http://www.modernnationsmusic.com Website for The Sacred Speaks: http://www.thesacredspeaks.com Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/thesacredspeaks/ @thesacredspeaks Twitter: https://twitter.com/thesacredspeaks Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/thesacredspeaks/ WATCH Get Centered https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCdbeVcDXWXezYMkHJg-2duw

What are the milestones that you feel you need to reach before your life feels complete and ordered? How would you like to be remembered after you are gone? What would you risk if you could achieve the life you imagine that your heroes live or lived? Kate asks questions such as these, and more, so that she keeps the inevitability of death close enough to challenge and push her into a more full and aware life today. Following the death of several friends, Kate experienced grief, fear, anxiety, and then liberation from the weight of these feelings by opening herself to death. What are the messages that Kate want you to take away from this conversation and reading her book? 1. Enjoy your life and have fun every day; 2. Remembering your death is the ultimate deadline to motivate you; and 3. Remember that we are souls and we can live the life we desire, if we begin that journey. From a natural curiosity that sent her into a professional work life at the innovation and idea hub of Google, Kate departed the road that many desire into the life that brings her a sense of empowerment, discovery, and wholeness. Though the whole shift emerged from a confrontation with her grief and the motivation to make life matter. We discuss the path to mortality awareness, the cultural issues with framing death, the need to explore other cultures to understand the blessings of the culture of your birth and the limitations, post-traumatic stress & post-traumatic growth, the practice of mortality awareness, and enjoying your life. Bio: Kate Manser is the creator of YOU MIGHT DIE TOMORROW, a radical movement to inspire people to really live before they die. Kate’s work as an artist, author, and speaker has touched millions of people around the world, inspiring people like you to embrace death, create meaning, and live for the joy of being alive today. Her new book, also titled YOU MIGHT DIE TOMORROW, was lauded by NYT Bestselling author Brad Montague. She’s spoken at Facebook HQ, appeared in Oprah Magazine, and all that jazz. Most of all, Kate is just so happy to be alive. RESOURCES: Kate’s Site: https://www.youmightdietomorrow.com Deathbed Meditation https://www.youmightdietomorrow.com/deathbed-meditation/ Top Five Regrets of the Dying https://bronnieware.com/blog/regrets-of-the-dying/ BROUGHT TO YOU BY: https://www.thecenterforhas.com Theme music provided by: http://www.modernnationsmusic.com Website for The Sacred Speaks: http://www.thesacredspeaks.com Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/thesacredspeaks/ @thesacredspeaks Twitter: https://twitter.com/thesacredspeaks Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/thesacredspeaks/ WATCH Get Centered https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCdbeVcDXWXezYMkHJg-2duw

Apocalypse tends to be a vision of justice for people who are experiencing an injustice. For Dr. Erin Prophet, the chaos and uncertainty in the world with both the pandemic and the collective anger about harmful and ineffective policy, just might provide us all with hope for change. In this conversation we discuss religion, the symbol of the apocalypse, her experience living in a religious group that prepared for the apocalypse, the need for systemic change to address issues associated with race, what we can learn from our history, how we need to be reflective during times of intense unrest, and the ways in which religions can help us, during times of crisis, and how they can also hurt. Bio: Erin Prophet is a scholar of religion with interests in alternative spirituality and medicine. She has a master’s degree in public health (epidemiology concentration) from Boston University and received her PhD from Rice University in May 2018. Her master's practicum looked at characteristics of long-term survival in non-small cell lung cancer. Her dissertation examines the nineteenth-century appropriation of “evolution” as a form of personal improvement and self-transcendence. It is entitled “Evolution Esotericized: Conceptual Blending and the Emergence of Secular, Therapeutic Salvation.” http://www.eprophet.info Brought to you by: https://www.thecenterforhas.com Band of the Week: Cut Throat Finches http://www.cutthroatfinches.com Music Page: https://music.apple.com/us/artist/cut-throat-finches/1108799727 Theme music provided by: http://www.modernnationsmusic.com Website for The Sacred Speaks: http://www.thesacredspeaks.com Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/thesacredspeaks/ @thesacredspeaks Twitter: https://twitter.com/thesacredspeaks Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/thesacredspeaks/ WATCH Get Centered https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCdbeVcDXWXezYMkHJg-2duw

As a science writer with The Scientific American, a primary concern for John Horgan is how science both supports the evolution of human understanding, and he is also very interested in exploring the shortcomings of science as a methodology and the limitations of the scientists whose conclusions have a direct impact on the world. In this conversation, we discuss the current pandemic and how crisis and trauma shift innovation and the scientific ideas that inform the zeitgeist. One of John’s primary interests is the limitations of science, with emphasis on how much time and energy we need to be investing in discovering what might be, unanswerable questions about reality and the universe. He proposes that we would be better served to solve the problems of war, diseases, and inequality – to name a few. Balancing optimism and realism, how humanity may approach the aftermath of the current COVID crisis, the nature of positivity and pessimism, we explore a few political and social outcomes from this crisis, the importance of addressing climate change and the overwhelming expenses designated to national defense and military spending, terror management theory, crisis and the spiritual attitude, times when people are more attracted to authoritarian leadership, the ways in which the awareness of death influences an individual’s core philosophies, spirituality and nihilism, mysticism, consumerism, and social control, politics and society, the value of paradox in our psychology, the value of measured skepticism and doubt to transcend fundamentalism. Bio: John Horgan is a science journalist and Director of the Center for Science Writings at Stevens Institute of Technology, Hoboken, New Jersey. A former senior writer at Scientific American (1986-1997), he has also written for The New York Times, National Geographic, Time, Newsweek, The Washington Post, Slate and other publications. He writes the "Cross-check" blog for Scientific American and produces "Mind-Body Problems" for the online talk show Bloggingheads.tv. He tweets as @horganism. Horgan's most recent book, Mind-Body Problems: Science, Subjectivity and Who We Really Are, takes a radical new approach to the deepest and oldest of all mysteries, the mind-body problem. Published in September 2018, it is available for free online at mindbodyproblems.com, for $5 as an Amazon e-book and for $15 as a paperback. Horgan's first book was The End of Science: Facing the Limits of Science in the Twilight of the Scientific Age, which was republished with a new preface in 2015 by Basic Books. Originally published in 1996, it became a U.S. bestseller and was translated into 13 languages. Horgan's publications have received international coverage. He has been interviewed hundreds of times for print, radio, and television media, including The Lehrer News Hour, Charlie Rose, and National Public Radio's Science Friday. He has lectured at dozens of institutions in North America and Europe, including MIT, Caltech, Princeton, Dartmouth, McGill, the University of Amsterdam, and England's National Physical Laboratory. http://www.johnhorgan.org Band of the Week: Quaker City Nighthawks https://quakercitynighthawks.com Music Page: https://music.apple.com/us/artist/quaker-city-night-hawks/536022674 Theme music provided by: http://www.modernnationsmusic.com Brought to you by: https://www.thecenterforhas.com Website for The Sacred Speaks: http://www.thesacredspeaks.com Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/thesacredspeaks/ @thesacredspeaks Twitter: https://twitter.com/thesacredspeaks Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/thesacredspeaks/

56: Sacred Stress. A conversation with George Faller. George is an outstanding person to connect with during this virus crisis because while when it comes to whether or not the virus is here, we do not have any choice in the matter. However, we can choose how to respond to the chaos and sense of disconnection that it brings. George’s role with the New York City Fire Department positioned him as a first responder to the Twin Towers on 9/11/2001. In the aftermath of this trauma, through education, training, and personal exploration, he began to understand his mission and purpose to be supporting others through crisis and trauma. Currently, as a marriage and family therapist, speaker, and writer, George works to bring his message to others. The most simplified form of this message is that we usually find the sacred within the stressful. But first, we need to find out which kind of stress we are talking about in the first place. In this conversation, George and I explore the two different kinds of stress - distress and eustress- the value within the function of the various ways in which we approach stress both approach and withdrawal, the hidden costs of our attempts to protect and defend ourselves, misconceptions surrounding our interpretation of stress, the influence between our individual perceptions of stress and the physiological consequences to that stress, the science behind coming together for support even when the larger part of our defenses are oriented to retreat, post-traumatic growth and the meaning that often accompanies the most devastating moments of our lives. Bio: Prior to a career in the field of mental health, George spent 20 years as a NYC Firefighter and NYC Police Officer. George received his M.S. in Marriage and Family Therapy from Iona College, where he graduated at the top of his class. He holds a B.A. in Political Science from Queens College. His experience as a FDNY Peer Counselor, particularly following the events of 9/11, sparked his passion to help those impacted by trauma. He is a certified Trainer/Supervisor/Therapist in Emotionally Focused Therapy (EFT) and founder of the New York Center for Emotionally Focused Therapy where he serves as President. He is a Supervisor with the American Association for Marriage & Family Therapy (AAMFT) and teaches classes at the Ackerman Institute for the Family in Manhattan. He is a Licensed Marriage & Family Therapist currently practicing in Connecticut and New York. George is the director of training at the Greenwich Center for Hope & Renewal in Connecticut and is on the Board of the Porter Cason Institute at Tulane University in New Orleans. George brings a unique and varied experience to his practice. Whether he is providing marriage therapy to Wall Street executives, leading a conference for the United States Military or equipping therapists from around the globe, his ability to inspire is far-reaching. George is also committed to bringing EFT to underprivileged populations and pushing the leading edge of effective therapy. https://www.georgefaller.com https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/foreplay-radio-couples-and-sex-therapy/id1083324677 Band of the Week: Keanu Leaves https://www.facebook.com/Keanuleavesband/ Music Page: https://music.apple.com/us/album/antigravity-machine-single/1475012751 Theme music provided by: http://www.modernnationsmusic.com Brought to you by: https://www.thecenterforhas.com Website for The Sacred Speaks: http://www.thesacredspeaks.com Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/thesacredspeaks/ @thesacredspeaks Twitter: https://twitter.com/thesacredspeaks Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/thesacredspeaks/

In this episode Dr. Stuart Kauffman and I discuss human population, creativity, the consequences of the exponential growth of the modern economy, consumerism and consumption: a model for overwhelming our environment, the choices “asked” of humanity within a consumerist culture, reductionism and the center of our humanity, increases of GDP and the relationship to individual identity, creating meaningful tools and goods that sustain, shifting our understanding of work and widgets, the modern notion of a well-lived life, comparing COVID with other viruses, solutions to the pandemic, efficacy of our responses, definition of a virus, several theoretical options to cure COVID currently underway including: phage display, monoclonal antibodies, and the repurposing of other known drugs, combinatorial models for creative solutions to disease, ways to understand systems and biological networks, self-reflection in a time of chaos, the axial age and pivotal changes in humanity through different stages of civilization. Band of the Week: Tycho https://tychomusic.com Music Page: https://music.apple.com/us/album/weather/1461523692 Theme music provided by: http://www.modernnationsmusic.com Brought to you by: https://www.thecenterforhas.com Website for The Sacred Speaks: http://www.thesacredspeaks.com Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/thesacredspeaks/ @thesacredspeaks Twitter: https://twitter.com/thesacredspeaks Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/thesacredspeaks/

Like many of you, I watched Dr. Jill Bolte Taylor’s TED talk back in 2008 with astonishment and excitement – so this conversation is a long time coming. Dr. Taylor’s personality is without pretense, and her gift of switching between a scientific worldview to the view of an experiencer sets her up as both an accomplished observer of the measurable and an excitably playful experiencer of the miraculous. She holds this tension well and I only wish that we had more time to talk. Thankfully, she agreed to share another conversation once her next book hits the bookstores. This conversation explores the evolution of Dr. Taylor’s thoughts following her stroke 20 years ago. She is currently working on her forthcoming book that is preparing her to speak about the more practical and theoretical application of how she views various archetypes that each relate to specific aspects of our brains. From Dr. Taylor’s perspective, we each possess 4 distinct characters within our psychological and neuroanatomical self, that are each capable of interacting with each other. At times this can be overwhelming and full of conflict, or we have the ability and power to source these personalities to support each other. She states that we can purposefully and intentionally transform and shift the patterns of our psychological, spiritual, behavioral, and relational lives. Bio: Dr. Jill Bolte Taylor is a trained and published neuroanatomist. Her research specialty was in the postmortem investigation of the human brain as it relates to schizophrenia and the severe mental illnesses. Because she has a brother who has been diagnosed with the brain disorder schizophrenia, Dr. Taylor served for three years on the Board of Directors of National NAMI (National Alliance on Mental Illness) between 1994-1997. On December 10, 1996, Dr. Taylor woke up to discover that she was experiencing a rare form of stroke, an arterio-venous malformation (AVM). Two and a half weeks later, on December 27, 1996, she underwent major brain surgery at Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH) to remove a golf ball size blood clot that was placing pressure on the language centers in the left hemisphere of her brain. It took eight years for Dr. Taylor to successfully rebuild her brain - from the inside out. In response to the swelling and trauma of the stroke, which placed pressure on her dominant left hemisphere, the functions of her right hemisphere blossomed. Among other things, she now creates and sells unique stained glass brains when commissioned to do so. In addition, she published a book about her recovery from stroke and the insights she gained into the workings of her brain. The New York Times bestselling memoir is titled My Stroke of Insight: A Brain Scientist's Personal Journey and spent 17 weeks on the NY Times Bestseller list. In February 2008, Dr. Taylor gave a presentation at the prestigious TED Conference. A video of that presentation was posted on the TED website which was immediately viewed by millions of people around the world. The response to the video launched Dr. Taylor into becoming a highly sought-after public speaker. She was chosen by TIME Magazine as one of the 100 Most Influential People in the World for 2008, and was the premiere guest on Oprah's Soul Series web-cast. In addition, she was interviewed by Oprah and Dr. Oz on The Oprah Winfrey Show in October, 2008. http://drjilltaylor.com https://www.ted.com/talks/jill_bolte_taylor_my_stroke_of_insight Band of the Week: HiFi Drowning Music Page: https://music.apple.com/us/album/rounds-the-rosa/1494697284 Theme music provided by: http://www.modernnationsmusic.com Website for The Sacred Speaks: http://www.thesacredspeaks.com Brought to you by: https://www.thecenterforhas.com Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/thesacredspeaks/ @thesacredspeaks Twitter: https://twitter.com/thesacredspeaks Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/thesacredspeaks/

How each of us takes in, and adapts to, the experiences of our lives create various preconceptions about the world and our place in it. Dr. Winborn, psychologist and Jungian psychoanalyst, works as a psychotherapist a vocation that he believes helps to free us from those preconceptions, or limitations to our lives. In the conversation we discuss: the nature of our psychological experience and how psychotherapy, in particular, psychoanalytic therapies aid in the integration and assimilation of aspects of the unconscious; the value of everyday language so that concepts are not reified and thereby extracted from their context; the concept of reverie as a state of mind that gets out of task mode, wherein we direct out thinking, and into a state that allows the images, affects, perceptions, memories, etc. and more. Bio: Dr. Mark Winborn is a licensed clinical psychologist, Jungian psychoanalyst, and nationally certified psychoanalyst with over 30 years of clinical experience. He provides individual psychoanalytic psychotherapy and psychoanalysis for adults in Memphis, Tennessee. Dr. Winborn is a training/ supervising analyst of the Inter-Regional Society of Jungian Analysts. He has served as the Training Coordinator of the Memphis Jungian Seminar, is on the faculty of the C.G. Jung Institute of Zurich and the Moscow Association for Analytical Psychology as well as visiting faculty at a number of institutes and seminars both in the USA and internationally. He is available for clinical psychoanalytic supervision and speaking engagements. http://www.drmarkwinborn.com Theme music provided by: http://www.modernnationsmusic.com Band of the Week: Juke Jones Music Page: https://music.apple.com/us/album/bluff-city-breakdown/1495562311 Website for The Sacred Speaks: http://www.thesacredspeaks.com Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/thesacredspeaks/ @thesacredspeaks Twitter: https://twitter.com/thesacredspeaks Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/thesacredspeaks/

In this conversation Dr. Erik Goodwyn and Dr. John Price discuss the foundation of Jung and his place as both a mystical thinker and an empirical thinker; the structure of the psyche; how evolution and structures of language and literature connect; the philosophy of mind – where Jung fits in the analysis of how mind and matter interact; where science and religion interact; ways brain physiology shapes and informs subjective experience, symbols, and stories; cross-cultural links between similar stories; definition of terms such as archetype and collective-unconscious; the nature of reduction and this tendency influences mind and the body; qualia; the genome; epigenetics; dreams and their structure; and more. Bio: Dr. Goodwyn received his undergraduate degree from Western Kentucky University in 1996, where he graduated Summa Cum Laude. He received his Master's Degree in Anatomy and Neurobiology from Western Kentucky University in 2000, where he published two articles. In 2005, Dr. Goodwyn received his Medical Degree from the University of Cincinnati. He completed his Psychiatry residency at Wright State University in 2009, where he received a "superior" ranking in every category from Academic/Clinical Evaluation covering residency training. Dr. Goodwyn has Post-Residency in Psychodynamic Training Psychotherapy and Supervision, which is ongoing 2-4 hours per month (since 2008). Topics include psychodynamic methods, analytical psychology, dream analysis, and relationship between spirituality and psychology. He also has formal accredited post-graduate training in Cognitive Processing Therapy and Prolonged Exposure Therapy for PTSD. Presently, Dr. Goodwyn is an Instructor at the University of Louisville, Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences. He supervises long-term psychotherapy for psychiatric residents, is an instructor for medical students and residents, provides clinical care (including medication management and psychotherapy for diverse populations) and completes research and academic writing. His previous work history includes Clinic Chief at the Minot Air Force Base Mental Health Outpatient Services in North Dakota. He was a supervisor and manager for Mental Health, Family Advocacy, Alcohol and Drug Abuse Treatment Clinics. He was a Quality Assurance Provider, which supervised, evaluated, and monitored civilian contractors (including mental health technicians, licensed social workers, and clinical psychologists). He was Chief of the Traumatic Stress Response Team at the Minot Air Force Base. He led Mental Health programs for 11,000 beneficiaries at the largest Personal Reliability Program base in the military. He evaluated hundreds of pre- and post-deployers for mental health symptoms or illness, thereby increased Air Force readiness and reduced risk of trauma. He also performed Sanity Boards for service members under investigation at Whiteman AFB and Grand Forks AFB. University of Louisville profile: https://louisville.edu/medicine/departments/psychiatry/faculty/faculty-1/erik-goodwyn-m.d Theme music provided by: http://www.modernnationsmusic.com Band of the Week: Ansley Instagram: @ansleytxmusic Music Page: https://music.apple.com/us/artist/ansley/546947596 https://open.spotify.com/album/3lY9YTCjI21vd4ztnkJv7i?si=IEKHRLuqQuuNXPi12D4nQA Website for The Sacred Speaks: http://www.thesacredspeaks.com Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/thesacredspeaks/ @thesacredspeaks Twitter: https://twitter.com/thesacredspeaks Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/thesacredspeaks/

51: The Body and Soul. A conversation with Debbie Mills. How much time do you allow for awareness of how your body speaks? Probably not much. And definitely not as much as today’s participant does. In this episode of the podcast, Dr. John Price speaks with Debbie Mills, a healer who works with psycho-emotional energetic integration. Debbie’s life experience and practice place her in a unique position to connect with each person that she touches, and they change and transform. In the conversation today, John and Debbie bring awareness to the body as a container, the limitations of the intellectual and thinking mind, how often we oppose the nature of our nature. We each, hopefully, spend ample time learning how to communicate with others by both speaking and refining our thinking so that we make sense to others and working to coordinate with others so that they make sense to us. With that said, we may find that learning to listen to how our body communicates with us is a more daunting task given the nature of the times. Bio: Teaching yoga is a passion for me and I love being able to aid my students in bringing more awareness to every aspect of their lives. I began my private practice in bodywork and energetics in 1993, and started my yoga therapy practice in 1995. I later founded the Lotus Center for Yoga and the Healing Arts in 1998 to work privately with students on asana, cikitsa (therapy), pranayama, sensory withdrawal, chanting and meditation. There is very little that I can say regarding my teaching ability that does not directly reflect upon my teachers and their teachers before them. It is through grace and their guidance that I am able to share my experience. I am grateful and have been blessed to study and sit with many gifted teachers. Following are those who have influenced me in a deep and profound way, and enabled me to impart yogic and ayurvedic teachings: Kumar Palana, Dr. Robert Svoboda, Sri Srivatsa Ramaswami and Swami Sundaranand. Through them I have learned by study as well as transmission; Yoga Philosophy, The Yoga Sutras, Samkhya Philosophy, Ayurvedic Principles, Meditation, Chanting and Sanskrit. These teachings have impacted my entire life and how I live on a daily basis. Like my teachers, I hope to help each student to integrate these teachings in an organic and holistic way, so that they eventually flow out of the student. Respect and Love are primary to my method of working with each student. For it is through deep respect and love for ourselves that we learn the discipline to develop a personal practice. http://www.yogaanddharma.com Theme music provided by: http://www.modernnationsmusic.com Learn more about this project at: http://www.thesacredspeaks.com Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/thesacredspeaks/ Twitter: https://twitter.com/thesacredspeaks Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/thesacredspeaks/

In this episode of The Sacred Speaks, John Price speaks with Dr. Thomas Moore. Through the conversation, they discuss Dr. Moore’s early development, James Hillman and Carl Jung’s influence upon him, and his work with soul as an author and psychotherapist for most of his life. Throughout the conversation, it becomes clear that the psychotherapeutic approach that Thomas grounds himself in is not typical of modern psychology. What he seeks is to broaden how each of us views our lived experience. His approach is one that works to expand how each of us imagines our psychological experience. Thomas speaks less from the perspective that many of us have come to expect from a modern psychotherapist, as he draws more from the wells of philosophy and religion. From his perspective, the psychotherapist is tending to the nature of soul. In modern psychological approaches, the movements of our psychological, social, spiritual, and biological selves are often reduced to pathologies. One consequence: we each may interpret our inner experience in a negative and undesirable way, as opposed to relating with those parts of ourselves in a deeper and more imaginative way. Tending to the soul is a way of noticing that how we imagine our world and ourselves has enormous power in our lives. Therefore, Thomas seeks to help those with whom he works, reimagine themselves and their world. Bio: Thomas Moore is the author of the number one New York Times bestseller Care of the Soul. He has written twenty-four other books about bringing soul to personal life and culture, deepening spirituality, humanizing medicine, finding meaningful work, imagining sexuality with soul, and doing religion in a fresh way. In his youth, he was a Catholic monk and studied music composition. He has a Ph.D. in Religious Studies from Syracuse University and was a university professor for a number of years. He is also a psychotherapist influenced mainly by C. G. Jung and James Hillman. In his work he brings together spirituality, mythology, depth psychology and the arts, emphasizing the importance of images and imagination. He often travels and lectures, hoping to help create a more soulful society. His family members are also deeply involved in spiritual approaches to the arts: His wife, Hari Kirin, is an accomplished painter and teaches a course she has created on Yoga and Art; his daughter Ajeet is a musician and recording artist and spiritual teacher; his stepson Abraham is an architect focusing on design related to the social aspects of building. Thomas also writes fiction, arranges music and plays golf in New Hampshire, where he has lived for twenty years. http://thomasmooresoul.com Theme music provided by: http://www.modernnationsmusic.com Band of the Week: www.ianmoore.com Music Page: https://music.apple.com/us/album/ian-moores-got-the-green-grass/119833547 Learn more about this project at: http://www.thesacredspeaks.com Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/thesacredspeaks/ Twitter: https://twitter.com/thesacredspeaks Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/thesacredspeaks/

What happens when people are provided a place and the space to ask questions about their lives that, up until that point, they assumed could not be explored? Maybe nothing, or perhaps life takes on new meaning. When have you been able to question the meaning systems of your life freely, that each tends to possess enormous influence, but that also may have been adopted from others close to you? As a child, Stuart moved all over the world, encountering new experiences and foreign territory, which positions him to have a unique lens through which to see everyday experience. On some level, these early experiences guided him into graduate studies at the University of California, Santa Barbara, under the renowned Dr. Anne Taves, for his studies in religion and cognitive sciences. There, and under her guidance, he began to integrate different academic systems and philosophies of thought, further broadening and strengthening his pursuit of the mysterious and meaningful. Stuart Nelson is the vice president of The Institute for Spirituality and Health (ISH), a nonprofit located in the medical center of Houston. The mission of I.S.H. is to explore the various gaps between spirituality, religious practice, health, and healing. Stuart mines multiple theories and methods found primarily within the humanities with the belief that these theories reveal immense, untapped value for the health care industry, business practices, legal concerns, nonprofits, and other professional settings. Bio: Stuart Nelson has served as the Institute for Spirituality and Health’s Vice-President for the past six years. In this capacity, he uses his training in both the sciences and the humanities to creatively organize and execute a broad range of programs and services, as well as to help manage the Institute's long term vision, strategic plan, and general operations. Stuart grew up in Southeast Asia, the Middle East, and Europe, attending international schools until college. He earned bachelor's degrees in cognitive science, religious studies, and psychology from Rice University. During this time, he realized that the scholarly study of religion has tremendous potential to inform and compliment health systems. He completed a masters in religious studies at UC Santa Barbara, where he used theories and methods from cognitive science of religion to inform work at the intersection between religious identity and mental health. This passion extends to his current work. Stuart enjoys hip-hop, classic rock, and classical Indian music, as well as impressionism, surrealism, and modern art. Additionally, he is an avid birder. https://www.spiritualityandhealth.org Theme music provided by: http://www.modernnationsmusic.com Band of the Week: Sound Team Music Page: https://music.apple.com/us/album/movie-monster/715976598 Learn more about this project at: http://www.thesacredspeaks.com Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/thesacredspeaks/ Twitter: https://twitter.com/thesacredspeaks Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/thesacredspeaks/

Erin Prophet, MPH, Ph.D., is an author and scholar who studies religious experience and narratives of self-improvement and transcendence. She is a Visiting Assistant Professor at the University of Florida where she teaches about cults and new religious movements, nature and the environment, and spirituality and health. In this conversation, we explore the nature of belief, charismatic authority, reincarnation, religious studies and most importantly, how her unique childhood and development influences her studies of religion and health. Erin’s parents were the leaders of a new religious group whose practices were based in esoteric religious practices. The members of the Church Universal and Triumphant would eventually take the prophecy of a nuclear strike that Erin’s mother, Elizabeth Clarie Prophet, divinized from “the masters” – those mystical soul’s and leaders who, it was believed, had something to say about the way that they were living their lives. Bio: Erin Prophet is a scholar of religion with interests in alternative spirituality and medicine. She has a master’s degree in public health (epidemiology concentration) from Boston University and received her PhD from Rice University in May 2018. Her master's practicum looked at characteristics of long-term survival in non-small cell lung cancer. Her dissertation examines the nineteenth-century appropriation of “evolution” as a form of personal improvement and self-transcendence. It is entitled “Evolution Esotericized: Conceptual Blending and the Emergence of Secular, Therapeutic Salvation.” She is currently a lecturer in religion, nature and health at the University of Florida. http://www.eprophet.info Theme music provided by: http://www.modernnationsmusic.com Band of the Week: Mills and Co. Music Page: https://music.apple.com/us/album/dont-ever-look-back-twice/501579556 Learn more about this project at: http://www.thesacredspeaks.com Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/thesacredspeaks/ Twitter: https://twitter.com/thesacredspeaks Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/thesacredspeaks/

Music offers one of the most potent spiritual metaphors that exists, and Patrick Summers, the artistic and music director of the Houston Grand Opera, has plenty to say about the subject of spirituality and music. He positions the operatic voice as the expression of a unique sonic vocal print that vibrates atoms between the singer and the listener’s ears. In his book, The Spirit of This Place: How Music Illuminates the Human Spirit, he writes, “But precisely because music is both an intellectual and an aesthetic pursuit, it is the perfect metaphor for how I believe one must live: with vast respect for provable knowledge and genuine expertise, but never at the expense of the deep joy and wonder of that knowledge, using what can be learned to marvel at what can never be explained” (2018, p. 147). The science and theory of music notes that an E flat played anywhere at any time in the world is still an E flat, but the infinite ways in which this note can be contextualized and performed open the notes, timbre, rhythm, beat, and melody to communicate that which cannot be reduced to the former collection of sounds and spaces. Patrick is a champion for struggling against the dominance of our culture’s tendency to force art and aesthetic practices into a transactional container. As it would appear that the only justification for an arts program today is the capacity to measure the ways in which art increases math skills, which it does; but I would argue that nobody brought to tears listening to a piece of music or by reading a beautiful poem considers the utility of the quadratic formula in that moment. We discuss the fact that while the arts in education may not teach a person how to get a job, they may, and often do, help a person discover who they are and how to be in the world. Summers graduated from the Jacobs School of Music of Indiana University with a bachelor’s degree in music in 1986. Upon graduation, he participated in the San Francisco Opera’s Merola Opera Program as an apprentice coach in 1986 and 1987, and won the Otto Guth Memorial Award for excellence in vocal coaching both years. Summers’ first professional engagement, with San Francisco Opera’s Western Opera Theater, was conducting La bohème in their 1986/87 season. In 1989, Summers began his tenure as the music director of the San Francisco Opera Center, a training program for young singers; his first mainstage production, Die Fledermaus, was in 1990. In 1998, Summers was made Music Director of Houston Grand Opera, a position he has held since. 1998 also saw Summers’ Metropolitan Opera conducting debut in Johann Strauss’s Die Fledermaus. As Music Director of Houston Grand Opera, Summers oversaw the foundation and development of the HGO Orchestra. Prior to the orchestra’s foundation, HGO hired outside orchestras for its productions. Since 1998, Summers has conducted over 50 productions at Houston Grand Opera, including seven world premieres (notably Carlisle Floyd’s Cold Sassy Tree in 2000). In 2011, following Anthony Freud’s move to Chicago Lyric Opera, Summers was named Houston Grand Opera’s Artistic and Music Director. In 2002, he won a Grammy Award for his audio recording Bel Canto, with soprano Renée Fleming and the Orchestra of St. Luke’s. Summers's book The Spirit of This Place: How Music Illuminates the Human Spirit released in 2018 from University of Chicago Press. https://www.houstongrandopera.org Theme music provided by: http://www.modernnationsmusic.com Band of the Week: Renee Fleming and Patrick Summers, Bel Canto Music Page: https://music.apple.com/us/album/ren%C3%A9e-fleming-bel-canto-scenes/1452542018 Learn more about this project at: http://www.thesacredspeaks.com Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/thesacredspeaks/ Twitter: https://twitter.com/thesacredspeaks Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/thesacredspeaks/

46: Culture and religious practice. A conversation with Tanya Lurhmann. Dr. Lurhmann, professor and psychological anthropologist at Stanford University, begins our conversation defining the term culture. She answers the question: What are the patterns of culture that inform how we should think and behave, and what happens when our individuality and the culture are at odds? Dr. Lurhmann is interested in the power of the mind and how certain aspects of the imagination and one’s intentions inform their experience of the world. She posits that our emotions – the inner world of an individual – can influence the experience of the outer world. We discuss the underlying social and relational structures of various cultures and how these universal patterns reflect for all of us hidden and inner aspects of each of us. Dr. Lurhmann is interested in the power of our human experience. We explore her early work with witchcraft in England as an entry into her current work as presented in her book, When God Talks Back, wherein she engages an evangelical Christian community to understand their relationship with God. She notes that throughout the book, she is trying to figure out how Jesus becomes a relatable person for those practitioners who seek a personal relationship with the divine. We discuss the formation of modern Christianity in the west and explore the changing definition of the term belief – obviously, how we define this term has a massive influence on our modern notion of religion. One particular aspect of the evangelical community that Dr. Lurhmann is interested in is the practice of prayer as an active experience, wherein the individual acts “as if” God is present – this has reportable and noticeable consequences for the individual and the community at large. Bio: Tanya Marie Luhrmann is the Watkins University Professor in the Stanford Anthropology Department, with a courtesy appointment in Psychology. Her work focuses on the edge of experience: on voices, visions, the world of the supernatural and the world of psychosis. She has done ethnography on the streets of Chicago with homeless and psychotic women, and worked with people who hear voices in Chennai, Accra and the South Bay. She has also done fieldwork with evangelical Christians who seek to hear God speak back, with Zoroastrians who set out to create a more mystical faith, and with people who practice magic. She uses a combination of ethnographic and experimental methods to understand the phenomenology of unusual sensory experiences, the way they are shaped by ideas about minds and persons, and what we can learn from this social shaping that can help us to help those whose voices are distressing. She was elected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 2003 and received a John Guggenheim Fellowship award in 2007. When God Talks Back was named a NYT Notable Book of the Year and a Kirkus Reviews Best Book of the Year, and received the 2014 Grawemeyer Award for Religion, a prize that carries $100,000. She has published over thirty OpEds in The New York Times, and her work has been featured in The New Yorker, The New York Review of Books, The Times Literary Supplement, Science News, and many other publications. Her new book, Our Most Troubling Madness: Schizophrenia and Culture, was published by the University of California Press in October 2016. Stanford profile: https://profiles.stanford.edu/tanya-luhrmann https://news.stanford.edu/2014/07/16/voices-culture-luhrmann-071614/ Theme music provided by: http://www.modernnationsmusic.com Band of the Week: Polydogs Music Page: https://music.apple.com/us/album/polydogs/1457744929 Website: http://polydogstx.com Learn more about this project at: http://www.thesacredspeaks.com Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/thesacredspeaks/ Twitter: https://twitter.com/thesacredspeaks Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/thesacredspeaks/

Deborah holds the honorable position as the poet laureate of Houston nominated by Mayor Sylvester Turner, and her presence is known any time she is around. This conversation explores aspects of her background that are necessary threads to the formation of her current self. Her poetry ranges from the profoundly contemplative to the deeply expressive – an evocative and challenging pairing for both herself and anyone who listens. She addresses themes of race, blackness, womanhood, black-womanhood, power, culture, development, and the like with a presence ranging from the emotionally vulnerable to the humorous. Her sharp wit is the wrapping that often delivers difficult conversations, and she demonstrates a way to wrestle with words and ideas that draw in any onlooker. This conversation will make you reflect. Deborah asks us all to celebrate our differences, reflect on our struggles, contemplate our existence in both private and social spaces, and connect, deeply, with each other. Bio: Deborah D.E.E.P. Mouton an internationally known Poet, Singer, Actress, Photographer, Wife, Mother, and the first Black, Poet Laureate for the City of Houston. Heralded as a "Literary Genius" by Congresswoman Sheila Jackson Lee, this California native was formerly ranked the #2 Best Female Poet in the World. D.E.E.P. has established herself as a notable force in the Performance and Literary World. She published her first collection of poetry at the tender age of 19. From there, she went onto compete at CUPSI as a member of the 2004 University of Michigan Slam Team while simultaneously touring with the WordWorks Poetry Troupe across the Midwest. She released her first full-length album in 2009 titled "The Unfinished Work of a Genius". It is a collection of original songs and poems that explore ideas around spirituality and personal growth. Her sophomore album, "Beautiful Rebellion" is available now. It explores more socially themed poems. She has been featured on BBC, NPR, Upworthy, Blavity, Tedx, Button Poetry, Write About Now, and the opening video of the 2017-2018 Houston Rockets Season. Her collaboration with the Houston Ballet celebrated Houston's resilience and provided hope for the City after Hurricane Harvey. She has also shared stages with Nikki Giovanni, Talib Kweli, MC Lyte, Amiri Baraka, John Legend, Slick Rick, Slum Village, Karen Clark-Shield, Raheem Devaughn, Trae Tha Truth, Devin the Dude, Def Poet Sunni Patterson, Def Comedy Jam's Rodman, Regie Gibson, Buddy Wakefield, Danez Smith, Roxane Gay, and multiple local and national political figures. Her newest collection, Newsworthy, examines incidents with police brutality and the Black body and how the media chooses to report them. Her up and coming projects include an opera, Marian's Song, in collaboration with The Houston Grand Opera, and a regional tour as part of the Texas Commission on the Arts touring roster. She currently serves as the Senior Editor of Relationships for Raising Mothers Magazine. Deborah Mouton website: https://www.livelifedeep.com Theme music provided by: http://www.modernnationsmusic.com Band of the Week: DJ Shadow featuring De La Soul Music Page: https://music.apple.com/us/album/rocket-fuel-feat-de-la-soul/1472791626?i=1472791631 Website: https://djshadow.com Learn more about this project at: http://www.thesacredspeaks.com Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/thesacredspeaks/ Twitter: https://twitter.com/thesacredspeaks Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/thesacredspeaks/

A week or so before recording this episode I asked Justin if he would lead a poetry workshop during the conversation. In a few words, what came out was raw and real. Justin is one of the better songwriters I know, not only because of his gift with language, but also because he approaches the craft with reverence and respect. He seeks to deepen his practice with each pass and he has a gift of a sharp wit that I find myself enjoying through each of our exchanges. “What better person to speak to the craft of creativity?” was my thought, and I was right. This episode explores the craft of poetry, songwriting and performing. The conversation invites welcomed interruptions in the form of Justin’s songs. In fact, in preparation for this episode, Justin wrote the first part of a song that he work shopped throughout the conversation – the episode finishes with the complete song that Justin shared with me a few weeks after the recording. Justin shares personal stories with a degree of vulnerability that, no doubt, infuses his whole process. Bio: Texas born, and Austin-based, Justin Stewart tends to write about the places he inhabits. He grew up splitting his time between Houston and Galveston Island. Family vacations were not to Colorado like many Texans, but to the more "modest" Austin, which his mother liked best because “the air and water were cleaner.” From an early age, Justin knew he would never leave Texas and likely land in Austin. Stewart's first solo record, Flagship (2013) was produced by Kevin Russell (Shinyribs/Gourds). A bit of intimidating praise came Stewart's way when Russell called the record "remarkable or extraordinary," Stewart's response: "That kinda scared me because I did not have my process down to maintain such vulnerability." Stewart's sophomore album, City Fox (2015) was produced by George Reiff (Joe Walsh, Jacob Dylan, Chris Robinson), and is the gem that came from a 2014 west Texas residency. Stewart lived and wrote in the dusty border town of Presidio. Stewart's third record, Renaissance was produced by Stephen Belans (Radney Foster, Billy Cassis). Players include Bukka Allen on keys (Ryan Bingham, Jack Ingram), Chris Searles on drums (Alejandro Escovedo, Shawn Colvin), Geoff Queen on guitars and pedal steel (Kelly Willis, Randy Rodgers), and John Mike on bass (Hayes Carll, Ray Wylie Hubbard). The February 2017 session was held at Ronjo Studio. Jim Vollentine was on engineering. The record was released in the spring of 2018. Theme music provided by: http://www.modernnationsmusic.com Band of the week: Justin Stewart Music Page: https://music.apple.com/us/artist/justin-stewart/1464710413 Website: https://www.justinstewartmusic.com Learn more about this project at: http://www.thesacredspeaks.com Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/thesacredspeaks/ Twitter: https://twitter.com/thesacredspeaks Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/thesacredspeaks/

Dr. Ferrari, one of the trailblazers of nanotechnology, the current President Designate of the European Research Council of the E.U., and the recently retired President and CEO of Houston Methodist Research Institute begins by explaining how he views math as a creative art. He maps theorem and proof onto the creative endeavor and posits that in the same way that the artist envisions the work, a mathematician envisions or intuits the theorem and then has to discover how to get there. He argues that this process of intuition provides the map, and the proof is the, potentially, frustrating process of bringing the inner world into the outer world. Dr. Ferrari, a medical doctor and engineer speaks of concepts such as awe, infinity, creativity, intuition, and dreams. This conversation explores what Dr. Ferrari identifies as the three phases of his life – his training and early history, the many academic languages that he speaks, the descent into personal chaos, and how dark moments such as these paved the way for him to seek to join in the fight for humanity as we seek to end the power that cancer has had over our lives. Bio: Mauro Ferrari, Ph.D. – Biosketch (Updated June 2, 2019) Current Positions (Selected): President Designate, European Research Council of the European Union (primary funding agency for research in the 28 member Countries of EU); Director, Arrowhead Pharmaceuticals (NASDAQ:ARWR); Executive Vice President for Strategic Initiatives and Community Partnerships, and Professor, University of St. Thomas; Advisor, Houston Methodist Hospital and Research Institute. Education: Mathematics (Padova, Italy, 1985, Dottore); Mechanical Engineering (University of California Berkeley, 1987, MS and 1989, PhD); Medicine (Ohio State University, 2002-2003, no degree); Business Administration (Wharton, 2016, Harvard Business School, 2017, no degree). Professional History (Selected): 1988-1990 Universita’ di Udine, Italy (Ricercatore, Assistant Professor Civil Engineering); 1991-1998 University of California Berkeley (Assistant and Associate Professor with tenure, Civil and Environmental Engineering, Materials Science and Engineering, Bioengineering); 1998-2006 The Ohio State University (Full Professor with tenure and endowed chair, Biomedical Engineering, Mechanical Engineering, Internal Medicine, Director of Biomedical Engineering, Associate Director Davis Heart and Lung Research Institute, Associate Vice President Health Science Technology Commercialization); 2003-2005 National Cancer Institute (Special Expert on Nanomedicine and Advisor to Director, concurrent with OSU); 2006-2010 University of Texas Medical School Houston, and MD Anderson Cancer Center (Full Professor with tenure and endowed chair, Internal Medicine, Experimental Therapeutics, Biomedical Engineering and Nanomedicine); 2010-2019 Houston Methodist Hospital (HMH) and Research Institute (HMRI) (Full professor with presidential endowed chair, President and CEO of HMRI, Executive Vice President of HMH, Chief Commercialization Officer). Publications: About 500 publications in leading archival journals, including 27 primary papers, reviews, and features in Nature journals (4 covers). Bibliometrics as of February 6, 2019: 57471 citations, h-index = 107, i10-index = 836 (Google Scholar); 21699 citations, h-index = 69 (SCOPUS); 22546 citations, h-index = 72 (ISI Web of Science). Theme music provided by: http://www.modernnationsmusic.com Band of the week: Alan Album: Alan, the Universal answer is both https://music.apple.com/us/album/alan-the-universal-answer-is-both/425467149 Learn more about this project at: http://www.thesacredspeaks.com Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/thesacredspeaks/ Twitter: https://twitter.com/thesacredspeaks Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/thesacredspeaks/

Dr. Kauffman, theoretical biologist, complex systems researcher, author of six books and numerous papers, begins the conversation recalling the ancient world and how the original split between the religions and the sciences influences the struggles and projections between the sciences and the arts/humanities today. Stuart begins this by providing scientific reasons why the possibilities of the world and our evolution are indefinite and anything that comes next in this evolution cannot be prestated – and he offers fascinating insight as to why this makes sense. He makes the case that any attempt to find a theory of everything or a final theory is false. Therefore, he connects this with the argument that reductionism, from an evolutionary perspective, fails – including Newton’s laws. Next, we move into how philosophers, beginning with Descartes’ notion of substance dualism, have made sense of reality, from Stuart’s perspective, dual nature – mind stuff and matter stuff. Here we use dual-aspect theory to begin to bring together the split that has permeated philosophy, religion, science, and even human biology, thus starting what we call today “the mind-body problem” – how mind stuff and matter stuff can interact. Dr. Kauffman suggests a new, quantum answer for this mind/body problem in a paper he titles, Beyond the Stalemate: Conscious Mind-Body - Quantum Mechanics - Free Will - Possible Panpsychism - Possible Interpretation of Quantum Enigma. He explains what is meant by the term “quantum mind” and its relationship to private experience termed “qualia.” Stuart posits that his definition for the term “god” is not the creator of the universe but creativity as a force and infinite pattern of the universe. https://www.amazon.com/s?k=stuart+kauffman&i=stripbooks&crid=LSORSEFY7Z9N&sprefix=stuart+kau%2Caps%2C388&ref=nb_sb_ss_c_2_10 Books by Dr. Stuart Kauffman YouTube links: “The Shape of History” Evolution of Human Culture and Technology https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R9Mn1bppV7U A Simple Combinatorial Model of Economic History Papers: Res potentia and Res extensa, non-locality - Taking Heisenberg’s Potentia Seriously https://arxiv.org/abs/1811.04502 Theme music provided by: http://www.modernnationsmusic.com Band of the week: Bob Schneider Music page: http://www.bobschneider.com Learn more about this project at: http://www.thesacredspeaks.com Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/thesacredspeaks/ Twitter: https://twitter.com/thesacredspeaks Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/thesacredspeaks/

In this episode, Episcopal priest, Barbara Brown Taylor, and John explore the ideas that she has been working through in her books Learning to Walk in the Dark (2015) and Holy Envy (2019). She eloquently guides the listener through many of the hurdles that one encounters when grounding one’s self in a particular religious tradition. She encourages all of us to not only look on the other side of the fence over at another tradition but to experience the freedom one may acquire once we open ourselves to the other and see our own worldviews anew. Barbara has a gentle ability to challenges one’s assumptions about the world and her books provide a pathway to learn how to love more and also how to connect with and challenge those aspects of each of us that we often choose not to see. Bio: Barbara Brown Taylor is a best-selling author, teacher, and Episcopal priest. Her first memoir, Leaving Church, won an Author of the Year award from the Georgia Writers Association in 2006. Her next two books, An Altar in the World (2010) and Learning to Walk in the Dark (2015), earned places on the New York Times bestseller list. She has served on the faculties of Piedmont College, Columbia Theological Seminary, Candler School of Theology at Emory University, McAfee School of Theology at Mercer University, and the Certificate in Theological Studies program at Arrendale State Prison for Women in Alto, Georgia. In 2014 TIME included her on its annual list of Most Influential People; in 2015 she was named Georgia Woman of the Year; in 2016 she received the President’s Medal at the Chautauqua Institution in New York. Her fourteenth book, Holy Envy, was released by HarperOne in March 2019. https://barbarabrowntaylor.com Theme music provided by: http://www.modernnationsmusic.com Band of the week: Patrice Pike Music page: https://www.patricepike.com Learn more about this project at: http://www.thesacredspeaks.com Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/thesacredspeaks/ Twitter: https://twitter.com/thesacredspeaks Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/thesacredspeaks/

Pastor Juanita Rasmus recounts a life of service to others and then the reality that no one is free from being drawn into a fight for their life. This fight felt more like a decent which landed in a depressive episode that she describes in great detail. Juanita recounts how she was able to both emerge from the depths and work to make sense of how her mind and body could have been so completely taken over by this decent. She could not laugh, get out of bed, or take care of herself, and while she had already been leading the life of someone who had committed her life to help those in need, this reality has provided her with a life-changing orientation. She was learning to take care of her soul. After laying out her personal experiences through this conversation, she begins to explain some of the contemplative practices that have clarified her thinking and have become reflections of her heart. Following Pastor Juanita's move through her depression, she became more connected with her environment and the act of contemplation as a means by which she can engage in a more profound and more mystical presence with her life and God. She discusses the mystical teaching of Jesus and also a few black mystics that have been omitted from the general history of Christianity. Bio: Juanita Rasmus is a pastor, Spiritual Director, and contemplative with a passion for outreach to our world’s most impoverished citizens. Pastor Juanita co-pastors the St. John’s United Methodist Church located in Downtown Houston with her husband Rudy. In 2009, Juanita was diagnosed with kidney cancer, but she wasn’t afraid. Instead, she waited to see what lesson the disease would bring. Years later Juanita and Rudy have continued their mission of bringing life to those who struggle on a daily basis and they created a nonprofit called The Bread of Life which has changed the landscape of Downtown Houston providing an array of services to families in peril and homeless individuals. The project also distributes over 9 tons of fresh produce weekly to hungry families. The project has been on the forefront of HIV/AIDS prevention, providing solutions to food insufficiency, housing the homeless, and disaster relief. Today, with a focus on social impact investing, the Bread of Life owns and operates Eco Life Employment LLC, a digital employment and staffing agency for men and women with troubled past lives and the Amazing KMAZ 102.5fm radio station Thanks to generous support from a collaboration of government agencies and a significant donation from Tina, Beyoncé, and Solange Knowles the St. John’s Downtown campus includes the Knowles-Temenos Apartments, a 43-unit Single Room Occupancy development designed to provide permanent living accommodations for formerly homeless women and men. Temenos CDC portfolio also includes an 80-unit apartment community to meet the growing need for permanent supportive housing for the previously homeless in Houston, Texas and a 15-unit apartment project for chronic inebriates and the most vulnerable homeless individuals in the Houston community. Eighteen years ago Kelly Rowland teamed up with Beyoncé and Tina Knowles to build the Knowles-Rowland Center for Youth where community empowerment activities for the young and old take place every week. The facility is currently serving as the base of operations for Hurricane Harvey relief efforts. https://www.stjohnsdowntown.org https://breadoflifeinc.org Theme music provided by: http://www.modernnationsmusic.com Band of the week: Todd Pipes Music page: https://itunes.apple.com/us/artist/todd-pipes/26246004 Learn more about this project at: http://www.thesacredspeaks.com Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/thesacredspeaks/ Twitter: https://twitter.com/thesacredspeaks Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/thesacredspeaks/