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Welcome to Living in the Matrix. I'm Jonathan and I'm left of center.

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And I'm Rich and I tend to lean a little bit more to the right. But the bottom line is,

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is together we try to look for the balance of what it means to be human in today's world.

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Welcome everybody to Living in the Matrix. This is Jonathan and this is my co-host,

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Rich. Say hello, Rich. Hey everybody. Great to be back.

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It's good to have you back, man. Today we are with Andrew and I found Andrew on Instagram

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about six months ago and I can't remember how what made me hit follow, but he's been in my feed and

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he always has these interesting thought processes about life. And then about a month ago, he came

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into my feed for some, we're going to talk about it a little bit, but it just captured my attention

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how interesting this guy is. And that's what we love to have on the show is people that

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are choosing to live outside of the status quo. And Andrew, you're definitely one of them. Welcome.

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It's a pleasure to have you. Yeah. Thanks for having me. And I'm so excited to be here. And

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I think it aligns so well with kind of my background because I've really only existed on

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the edges of society and on either side. I started off incredibly Mormon and then found myself

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in a gray black market selling drugs and going to different states, extraction facilities. So yeah,

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I started off my journey, like I said, really very religious and that already kind of puts you on the

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edge. So I was a real true blue Mormon guy. And yeah, I really went to BYU and I did like a little

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mini mission and I went and talked to people about Joseph Smith and Jesus. I did the whole thing.

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And I found myself dissatisfied. I found myself feeling not cohesive with my lifestyle. And the

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answer was like, oh, just wait, you'll be happy in the next life. You'd be upset now. But I didn't

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find that answer satisfying because I had this real conversation where I said to my Mormon bishop,

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I said like Mormon bishop, it seems like I would say one of the more significant components was

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the fact that I got married when I was 18. So being married as a teenager definitely

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started to shift my perspective and continue to keep me on the outside of society.

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And that was a weird experience, like basically being a teenager and then being told like,

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all right, you have a wife now and go take care of your family. Yeah. So I graduated high school.

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I go on a mini mission, which is only two weeks long. And so at that point, I had already decided

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I liked having sex too much to really go on a full-time mission. I don't think I'm going to

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be able to do it. I was in the middle ground. And so I go to BYU. I ended up having sex with

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my girlfriend. I get caught. I get kicked out of school. And then the idea was like, all right,

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well, I'm not going to stop having sex. So I guess we should just get married because we're

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already in love and I'm not going on a mission. So this seems like the next logical step of life.

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And that was not the best choice, to be honest with you. And here's the crazy thing. We're still

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cool as fuck. I was married for almost nine years. We were together like 10 years. The

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smoothest divorce I've ever... Breaking up with girlfriends has been much more traumatic than the

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divorce I had with my ex-wife. She is so cool. And I'm very lucky that I was able to get out of

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a marriage with no children, no debt, no hard feelings. That was pretty cool how that worked

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out. But yeah, basically I'm at BYU. I'm dissatisfied with being a Mormon because I see

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that the rest of the world is doing shit that I want to do. And I get not allowed. What the

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fuck? When am I allowed to do cool shit? I have to wait to die to do drugs? I have to wait to die

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to have a threesome? I have to wait to die? Why would God make all this cool shit and then not

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let me do it? What the fuck? And so it's at this time that I'm actually going to school,

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because I'm very Mormon and I'm on track to be a DEA agent, law enforcement. That's what I wanted

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to go with my major in criminology. And I'm ready to get a gun and just start kicking down the road

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with laying down the long dick of the law. Just like, bam, everybody on the fucking ground,

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officer Ferris, bam, bam. I was ready, dude. I was ready. And then I went on a ride along and

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I started spending time with law enforcement. And I felt like a stormtrooper being like,

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oh fuck, are we the bad guys? Like, oh shit, yeah, oh fuck. Because obviously police do good things

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and if some bad shit happened, I'm calling 911. But being a police officer, not for me, even at

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DEA agent and everything like that, the second you show up, people loathe you and you're interacting

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with people on the absolute worst day of their entire existence. And like, I have a hard time

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when a stranger doesn't like me. You know what I mean? Let alone the customer that I'm interacting

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with is actively hating me. So yeah, man, that wasn't for me. And so at the same time, I'm trying

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to figure out what to do. I get an assignment at school and at school they say the way that you

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evaluate reality is through peer-reviewed empirical data, which is odd for a review school to say.

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I felt like it was like an underground railroad where they were trying to have this guy was trying

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to help kids see the light in a smooth way. And so they give me an assignment that says,

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write about anything, just defend your position on anything you want using peer-reviewed scientific

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journals. So I went onto the JSTOR and I thought I was going to have an easy assignment. I thought

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I was going to say, weed is bad, medical marijuana is a backdoor to recreational legalization.

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There's no value. It's bad. Drugs are bad. Because that's what God said. God said drugs are bad. So

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I mean, obviously the science will show that drugs are bad. And so I start looking and now I find all

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these papers, but instead of saying that weed is bad, they're saying, oh, non-toxic, non-physically

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habit forming, shrinks tumor cell, cancer. What the fuck? And so it actually threw me down like

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a portal. I was awake for like a full day reading all this because it was a thread that pulled the

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tapestry of my perception of reality. Because up until this point, God had been the ultimate

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authority and the men at church who told me what to believe, that was reality. And now I have

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another authority figure at a school institution telling me to trust science. I'm like, I've never

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before had science and God in direct conflict. Before it seemed like they could work together,

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there's some gaps, but here it is. Here's the science saying, weed really isn't very bad for

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you. And in fact, there could be some medical benefit. And then here's God saying, bro, you

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smoke weed, you're going to hell and I don't love you anymore. I'm like, that's it. That quote,

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pulling the thread of the tapestry of your reality, we have to highlight that. That was just

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brilliant, man. I just love that line. Oh my God. I'm visualizing it right now. It's like the matrix,

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right? And it's unraveling, you know, that's incredible. Yeah. It really was the matrix

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unraveling for me. And it was terrifying because it was like, Oh man, what if God's really not in

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control of this whole operation, dude? Whoa, God. And like, it created like this pit inside of me

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that continued to grow and more and more of my beliefs and my structure of what I thought I was

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and who I was as the whole group more and fell in. And then I wasn't sure what, Oh my God, who am I?

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What am I? And like, I'm freaking out. I can't explain this to anyone because at BYU, if you

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start to talk shit, if you start to not believe, it's a private institution. And if you get expelled,

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those private credits don't transfer to a public school. So like, Oh shit, you can't let them know.

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You can't let them know. And you need an endorsement every semester from your religious leader. And if

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your religious leader feels that you are not endorseable, then you can't go back to school.

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And now you lose all your credit. So like, I have to be playing the role. You know what I'm saying?

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I cannot express these feelings to anyone because it's dangerous. And even my wife, like, doesn't

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want to hear it at the time. And so eventually I become obsessed with marijuana and reading about

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the facts. And I try to convince people and try to say it's not so bad and nobody wants to hear it.

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And I'm in Rexburg, Idaho, and it is not known for its cannabis-friendly culture. And I first decide,

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like, all right, I guess I'm gonna smoke weed. And like, at the time, the only people had access to

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weed were essentially people who were terminally ill because it's a very Mormon place. So the

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first dude that I met that really had weed had like sickle cell anemia. And then the next dude

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had terminal cancer. And so like, the first few smoke sessions were not like, I'm smoking in this

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dude's bathroom and he's dying. And like, I was like, man, is this drugs? This doesn't seem good.

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I don't know.

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Did you have intense paranoia?

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No, no.

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You didn't. That's good. Especially coming out of a religious background because you and I have

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very similar paths in terms of same conflicts internally, same kind of moving on. And it's

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and marijuana for me is one of those that I think the church needs to significantly look at because

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the medicinal qualities are far superior than any manmade type substances that, you know, they want

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to sell us through insurance. You know, it's like, its medicinal properties are astounding.

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And I think we're afraid of that. I think we're afraid of people getting well. It's easier to

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keep people buying stuff when they're sick.

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I want to get Jonathan quick. I watched this guy who had Parkinson's, like he was really just shaking

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all over and absolutely just almost not able to function. And he slowly released the dropper

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in his mouth and literally he's like lucid. Oh my God, like a freaking miracle, right?

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He's having a conversation. He's like marveling. He's like, this is amazing. He's like trapped in

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his own body, which is just a horrifying thing. Right. And you go down, you know, the awakenings

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movie, which we saw a long time ago, I think it was De Niro and somebody else, and they gave him

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some drugs that made him really bright again. But then he crumbled. In this case, it's like,

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this is, this is salvific, right? For this guy, right? In that term, right?

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So go ahead. What were you going to say?

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I mean, I agree 100%. And I think it's a common fallacy of that previous perception. So like

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a lot of religiosity and a lot of like systems of power will have black and white decision trees

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because that discourages critical thinking. So if everything is black and white, this is good. This

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is bad. It's all figured out for you. Yes. If you don't have, if the critical thinking is removed,

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then the understanding cannabis is almost impossible because cannabis does not easily fit

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into one box. So just like how exercise is very healthy for you and good for you, but

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sports are really fun and have a physical exercise component. And so like, can you say,

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well, I'm only playing basketball medically, you know, I'm playing, I'm not having any fun with

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this. I'm not, not, it's not recreational soccer. This is medical soccer. And like the idea that

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medicine and recreation and pleasure and fun can't be associated with medicine and getting better.

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That has to be a sterile doctor thing. You're not allowed. And so like, has to be in a pill.

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Yes. Let's talk about sex. Sex was like procreation, right? It's not supposed to be fun,

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right? Sex is here to have that. Ben Shapiro was talking to somebody about this and they were

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talking about the purpose of, I don't know if it was the guy, if they were talking about gay sex

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or other kinds of sex, but the bottom line is, is like Ben was like, Hey, here's the purpose. And

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then this guy goes, so you've had your three or four kids, you've procreated now you just stop,

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right? Is that what happened? He was just dead silent, right? Ben Shapiro is never silenced,

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right? He's like, always got the answer for every potential question out there, either whether it's

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social or religious or political. And he was like stunned. It's like, Oh shit. Am I, you know, yeah,

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same exact thing. I think that's part of the journey is people are coming to a point where

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they're capable of questioning their own face that they grew up with. And because that's what

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social media and having access to a shit ton now AI is a whole nother level. It's going to teach

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people all the bullshit factors that are in their lives, because they're going to be able to do what

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we did, which is go, I know, it's not, I love the way you said it's not satisfying. Like, it's not

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that I don't care about it. It's it doesn't satisfy. I want to find something that's satisfying. And

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what's interesting is you kind of gravitated towards marijuana. Why was that your catalyst?

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Why? What was it about it? Because here's the thing. There's a concept in faith systems in

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Christianity, at least of the slippery slope, don't go too far over the edge. I don't know if you ever

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heard of that. I think it's actually a slip and slide that we're unlocking ourselves. And I think

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it's a great way to get ourselves from the shackles. What do you think?

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Well, yeah, I mean, there's several questions that I wanted to answer that you guys, you guys both

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asked. So the, the first one would be when you were talking about the Ben Shapiro component,

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the, the assumption that productivity and logic and efficiency are moral, righteous values is

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actually like a total fallacy. And like, you can choose to adopt that in your morality. But the

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idea that that is a standard, like no other animals, mammals value that in the same way.

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Have you ever watched like a bird play a canary play with other canaries or play with toys?

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Like, how can you say, oh, well, that's, that's not productive, that that's not valuable. We're

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like, that's an essential component of its life. If you don't allow other mammals to play or

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socialize, they physically deteriorate. And so the idea that existence is only for functionality,

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and that anything beyond functionality is extra to be cut is like a total misunderstanding of

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reality in my mind. And then, Jonathan, to answer your question about like, why cannabis is so

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interesting to me. It had always been fascinating my entire life, I think, because of the idea of

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scarcity, the idea that like, I got to go to Disneyland one time when I was a child, and it

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was like incredible. And like, there was only I can only go once because like, it's expensive,

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you know what I mean? And like, eating out was expensive. And so like doing fun things was

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expensive. Weed was $10, $15. And so like, all my friends growing up, they all smoked weed, I was

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like the only Mormon one, and I never tried it. Not even one time. I couldn't let Jesus down.

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I never tried it. Finally, you took your face seriously. Like, it sounds like you really took

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it seriously. I was a true blue believer, you better because I had experiences that mirrored

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drug psychedelic experiences that were almost as authentic. And then as a teenager, as a child,

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I had an adult come in and finesse me and say like, what you were experiencing wasn't

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self actualization or any significant emotional experience. That was Jesus and he told me to tell

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you about it. Interesting. I did. You're not talking about the vision that Joseph Smith had

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at Palmyra, was he at Palmyra? Off in the woods, right? Where the angel came and visited him in

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New York, or I think is where he was. And then it was Moroni that kind of showed him the golden

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plates. I can't remember the story, but are you saying that you had some types of experiences

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that mirrored, you know, the use of cannabis and you didn't know what that was? Can you elaborate

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on that? As far as the experiences that built my faith that truly mirrored a psychedelic experience,

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when I was a teenager, when I was 15 years old, the Mormon church has a program called EFY,

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especially for youth. And teens would go to meet on like generally a college campus during the

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summer when the college is out and have like essentially a Mormon kind of camp, summer camp

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experience. And at the end of the week, you're kind of separated into some small groups,

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and you're usually at like a fireplace or like some quiet dark area and everybody shares

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generally some very intense emotional experiences. And being emotionally aware, even if you are not

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sharing your own emotional experience, like you could feel it and you could even feel tears and

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you could feel it's almost a tangible thing. If you've ever had the experience that I'm talking

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about of being in a group of people that you've gotten to know intensely over the last, you know,

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couple of days where you're spending 24 hours with these strangers and you've developed a

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relationship and it's a very new and exciting relationship. And then these strangers are

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being incredibly vulnerable, telling them deep things that they're trusting you with in this

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room. And everybody is being very accepting and like you can feel it's just an intense experience.

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And it's very similar to certain aspects of a psychedelic experience. And so I had those

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experiences as a teenager and that made me think like God was real because like here's how real

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these things were. And then I took drugs and then I was like, oh shit. This was $15. This was not God.

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That's crazy. You don't have to go away for a week either. The experience you're talking about,

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I grew up an evangelical Christian and we would go to camp every summer and they would have a

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bonfire at the end of the week and everybody would profess their faith for Christ. And it was a

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palpable experience of love. What I realize now, knowing what I know now is I was actually

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experiencing the chemical reaction of love. And we take that for a religious experience.

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Is that what you felt? Yeah, 100%. And if again, like I'm a child, I'm 15 years old and an adult

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that has authority that is not only an authority figure in my religious institution, but is a

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authority figure in his social position. Usually they were like a somewhat successful business man

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or doctor, engineer. So like here I'm a teenager and some other important powerful person that

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sits in multiple structures of institution is telling me that was God and he has a special

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message for you. And like, okay. Was that different than the burning and the bosom that you typically

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would get? Because one of the things when we used to talk to Mormons, because we used to kind of

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proselytize, right? We would say, hey, we're in apologetics. I think we found, you know, Joseph

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Smith said, we actually are the real church. Everything that happened in the past, at least

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up until the first century was kosher, right? The early apostles were all good, but now everything's

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gotten screwed up. And to his credit, Joseph Smith was right in a lot of ways when you see 85,000

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Protestant denominations, a lot of war factions, a lot of divisiveness. But, you know, we would say,

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well, you're probably a Mormon because you were raised as a Mormon and that's just the way it goes.

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And it's like, that's not a very, it's kind of a cop out, right? And so you think the natural

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answer was yeah. And they say, no, I got down on my knees and I prayed and I had that burning in my

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bosom. So I had that special revelation. Is that what they were trying to elucidate in these things?

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Or was it just something more like a communal type of strengthening where you would have maybe a

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different kind of a message that you thought you had? Because that's what I've heard of. Is that

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accurate in what's described? No, I think it's definitely by design, but not intentional design.

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Like I think it's people that have, I think there are people that have authentically good intentions

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and are trying their best to be the best that they can be. And they've found some value in

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religiosity, Mormonism, Catholicism, whatever it is. And so like they're trying to create these

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experiences, which they believe are God. And so like, yeah, it's an intentional component where

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it's like, okay guys, we're going to really try to muster the spirit where it's like you're actually

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creating the potential of the social experience for people to feel love in a society and culture

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that suppresses that. And so yeah, then you can manipulate people however you want.

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Well, you just said manipulate, because that's the thing that I get. That's the problem that I have,

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because there is genuine people who want to find God, want to be in community, want to share in

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love. And that's a great thing. But then there's this power structure that says, let's make it

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hyper suggestive, right? This happens in a lot of the Pentecostal and charismatic movements,

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where the people are like, right, they're falling around, they're lurching, they're acting crazy.

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You've probably heard of Benny Hinn. I don't know if you've heard of Benny Hinn. But you watch these

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people and audiences and you realize that this is a manipulation, right? And it's, and the question

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I have for both of you guys is, if the end result is a connection and a better standing, is that

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accurate? Or is it, if the focal, if the actual point of it was suggestibility and getting money,

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that's saying getting commitment to a cause, is that, tell me, is it wrong or is it not wrong?

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If the outcome is like community and love and outpouring and support in a community,

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then justify the means.

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Andrew, let me answer first here. I say no, I know, I've wrestled with this question very deeply,

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was the intention of those people who led the church when I was young to manipulate me into

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the kingdom of God. And I don't think that was it at all. They saw it as a deeply valuable experience.

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So they were leading me to something that had worked for generations. So it wasn't

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manipulation. They knew it was good. Because I, so half my family is Mormon. So I grew up with a

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presence of being a Mormon. And I will honestly say I find the Mormon faith family structure

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or a sense of my experience with that family infinitely better and more loving than in my tribe.

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Because it was in the evangelical tribe. Yeah, there's, and so that's culture that I experience

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is one that was, there was a lot of love in the Mormon family. Like it's, they practice it.

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But so Andrew, give me your take. Yeah, I mean, there's membership of these organizations exists

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for like a reason, like there is value that people are able to get. And it is like a real actual

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value and a system that's replicatable that has value. I mean, look at McDonald's or anything else,

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that's like a very replicatable system value. And so, yeah, I feel like as nice as it would be

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to know the answers to whys. I have kind of resigned myself to only focus on hows. And so like

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the why people did this, the what, like we're trying to answer a question that they themselves

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don't know. And so it's like impossible to get to that base. But as far as like the how, the how is

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I was a kid, I got in this situation, an adult told me these things. And like, as far as why they

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told me those things and their true intentions, like that was like really impossible to know.

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Do you consider yourself a Mormon still? Definitely not. Negatory,

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megatourist. So what was that jump for you? Oh, so that was actually my next, my next thing on my,

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on my list here. And when you're a Mormon or religious person, you're the way that you look

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you're the way that your life is set up is like God is in the center and you build your life around

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God. And so like all of a sudden, like God was gone. And I was like, what am I going to do here?

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Like, what do I, do you consider yourself an atheist? Yeah. Okay. Yeah. I think so. I don't

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know. I don't. You wouldn't be the first person we've had on our podcast that was Mormon that

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went down the path of theist to then non-theist. So the path. So I think here in the biggest challenge

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with this is, is that when you, and I was going to ask you this earlier, because for me, when you

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had that task of finding imperial evidence, empirical evidence and research, that is the

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biggest crock of what they would have asked you. Because one of the foundational misattributes of

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truth to the Mormon religion is that during the reign of Zedekiah, they came across here, they

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built, you know, nations, the Lamanites and the Nephites warred against each other. And all that

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was left behind were the dark skinned Mark of Cain, Lamanites, I think, maybe they're in Nephites.

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I can't remember. But the bottom line is, is like, there's no historical, archaeological, genetic,

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or cultural evidence of any of these types of civilization ever existing here in this country.

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So the DNA of the Native Americans that everybody found when they came over here should have

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Middle Eastern DNA in them, because they all came across here from Middle East, from, they were

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Jews, they're Hebrews. And then here, Jesus came, showed up. So one of the questions I was going to

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have for you is, to me, I believe you can have the truth of the message of Christ. And even though

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there's a lot of guessing games there, and there's a lot of faith you've got to put into it, like

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rising from the dead, etc. I think, unfortunately, for the Mormon faith, there's a lot of things that

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I think Joseph Smith added to that, including just taking the King James Version and writing stuff

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down and trying to be almost verbatim in the Book of Abraham, which according to Smithsonian was-

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Rich, what's your question, bro?

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My question really is, is like, was the actual, was there an actual epistemological, was it an

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actual intellectual assent that you realized it wasn't true because of the Mormon thing? Or was

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it something that you missed, like God was just missing? Like, you know what I'm saying? Like,

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there's people who say-

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Where's the word satisfied, which was your word?

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Yeah. So I'd like to understand that if you would. When he left, when God left you, was it because it

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was intellectually un-

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He wasn't here. That's all you said. It wasn't here.

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What broke the shelf is what you're-

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Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

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What was the straw that broke? Yeah. So like essentially, I had always felt not satisfied,

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and I just assumed that that was part of the burden of my responsibility as a Mormon, is that like,

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life is hard and part of the difficulty is restraint and a lack of fulfillment. And so like,

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the more discomfort you have, the better your heaven's going to be. And so like, I'd always

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felt that. And then all of a sudden, I get to college and like, there's a Mormon Stories

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podcast. They still exist, but at the time that was more significant to me. And then I'm taking

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these like biology courses and like, not even like, it wasn't like deep doctrine that convinced me.

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It was more just like baseline things where like, yeah, I don't know if I believe in this. And then

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it was like, well, you're going to tell me that like Noah was a literal story. And like,

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it was, I don't know, because like there's a zoo in San Francisco and it has like a full team of

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people that like have doctor degrees and like, they can't keep the animals alive sometimes.

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And they don't even have two of all the animals. And then like, you could measure the earth and

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like the atmosphere and like, you know how the rain cycle works. So like, we can measure how much

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rain can even fit on our planet. And like, how much water would it take to plug and cover Mount

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Kilimanjaro to fill the Grand Canyon? Like all of a sudden, the math doesn't work now. And so if you

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had been more flexible with your theology and said like, yeah, interpret it as you'd like, see what

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there is to think about, find your own answer, then that would be fine. But like not you were

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Mormonism's black and white. This happened this way. And like, when you set yourself up,

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don't question it. Yeah. When you set yourself up to be so rigid, then all of a sudden it's

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very difficult to recover from any deviation from that. I don't know if that answers your question

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totally. No, that's the hero's journey because the hero's journey is to break the cast of the

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family and go create a new story. Yeah. And that's what you did. So I mean, the most significant

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part of that was like, I had started smoking weed and I was married, but I was hiding from my wife

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because she didn't like it. And so she goes on a trip to go see her sister and she's gone.

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And I decided I want to do some real drugs. And so I had never bought drugs before. I didn't know

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how to get them. I was 24, 25, married since I was 19. And so like, I didn't have a lot of single

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friends. I only had Mormon friends. And so like, I just, I think I went on Craig's list.

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I don't know how I did it, but it was not a smart way to go about it. But I eventually,

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I get myself a tab of acid and I say, okay, here we go. And I do this acid. And when you talk about

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the matrix and like, it was like the scaffolding of my existence and perspective disintegrated.

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I don't know how to fully explain to you the idea that, okay, if I'm not going to believe in God,

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then like we got to delete the whole hard drive here because what can we keep? What can we throw

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away? I don't know because if God's real. And so like, hey, I filled up a whole notebook where I

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wrote down, okay, I guess this is what I believe now because if God isn't real, then I guess I am

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God. And if I'm God, I'm going to make some rules that make sense to me. And so like, I started at

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the bottom, like, okay, God says stealing is wrong. What does Andrew God say? And I remember,

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I had my iPod stolen in high school. That felt real shitty. And so I said,

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stealing is wrong. I don't think I want to steal. And then I had to, okay, what about like driving

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the speed limit? Nah, fuck that. I'll go faster than speed limit. That's okay. And then I had to

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go to the next thing. Like, what about like lying? What about like cheating on your girlfriend? What

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about like, I had to go through everything like a little baby, like a brand new little baby. And I

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had to make all these new decisions. And like, some of my decisions are far outside of the realm of

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societal norms. Because I didn't have a society at the helm of creating my new rules and laws. It was

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just fucking mentally ill, wild ass me. And so yeah, that's how I ended up existing on the outside

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because like, my rules for life that I created are not like, based on anything else but my own

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experiences. And so yeah, but in an amazing way, it's like so freeing because like,

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when I take accountability for being responsible for my reality, and essentially the God of my

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existence and experience, all of a sudden, it's an incredible burden because the things that you

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don't like, you have to be responsible for. Take accountability for them. But if there are things

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that you want, then all of a sudden, you can grant them to yourself. So like, this is a great example,

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even the fact that I'm talking to you, I had everything in my life kind of end. I've had like

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three chapters of life and my second chapter of life ended in a spectacular blaze of despair and

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agony. And I was like, it was just like before when I lost my moral religion, I had to restart

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again. And I said, okay, this time I'm God. And like, what do I want my reality to be? And I based

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my base it on a story that my father told me, like my father, he's a lawyer now, but he used to be a

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heroin addict. And he's a heroin addict when he's like a teenager. And all his friends are dying

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because you don't live long doing intravenous drugs. It's like the Vietnam War. And he tells me

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like, hey, I was gonna go kill myself on the train tracks. And I get there and I decide I'm gonna

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stay alive, I guess. And then he says, I'm gonna stay alive. And if I'm gonna stay alive, what

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should be my life? Because doing heroin is great. So if I'm gonna not do heroin, I better be doing

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some badass. And he remembers that a lawyer had gotten him out of drinking underage. And so he

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decided, I'm gonna be a lawyer. And so like, my dad stopped doing heroin, he goes to community

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college gets into college goes to law school does the whole thing. Because he's at like the bottom

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and decided, I'm gonna go back to here. That still is he's 75. I'm gonna go back to heroin later. I

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don't know. Not yet. But soon. I'm gonna go back. So I kind of have it actually. Yeah, I had that

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template of my reality. So I said, you know what I want to do? I want to like, I want to be rich

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and famous. That sounds pretty badass. And like, it's even scary to say out loud, it feels uncomfortable

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to even tell you, like, just saying the word, I want to be rich and famous. That sounds pretty

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fucking cool. And like, I guess I'm, I'm gonna do that. And either like, I'm going to accomplish

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that goal, or I'll die before and then I'll be famous after I'm dead. So like, I've already

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decided, I've already made the decision as the god of reality, I'm going to be rich and famous. I

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don't know if I'm gonna get to experience it while I'm alive. I don't know if it's gonna be

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future generation. I don't know, I can't control that much of my reality. But I can't control

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this much. And so like, the freedom and responsibility and satisfaction of making progress

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in the reality that you've decided is, I mean, I'm my vocabulary, I rarely run out of things to say.

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But I cannot describe the satisfaction I feel of progress on my goals.

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I want to offer you a perspective because you and I have, like I said, we have same trajectories,

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probably different paths. But I think what you're doing is essentially taking Jesus or, I mean,

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because Jesus is part of the Mormon religion, so that's your background saying, hey, there's

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this thing called grace. And you kind of took up that idea of I get to do anything I want,

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but I've got to create my own rules. And I think Jesus created a very simple structure.

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This is if you base it on love, you're always going to be in a good place.

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How would you say yours is different from that? Because I think that idea of living into this

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gray space is really hard for people. They don't like freedom, they want structure, they want

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safety and security. Grace is hard because it's like, it's a big world. And I think you're kind

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of taking it by the balls and go, let's go for a ride. Let's do this. And what do you think?

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I think my opinion on that is that love or comfort is fantastic and desirable, but it is not

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the enemy of discomfort. In fact, they are one and the same. And they require each other. And the

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idea of trying to separate them, like you can't take a coin and separate one half from the other

373
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half. You can't only have half of a mountain. They require each other to exist. And so my

374
00:37:06,080 --> 00:37:16,400
experiences that have had contrast are the most valuable. So here's I'll give you an example.

375
00:37:16,400 --> 00:37:23,040
Like when you have the perspective that, okay, love and only love is going to guide my decisions,

376
00:37:23,040 --> 00:37:27,920
you could be with your partner on the beach and you see another beautiful woman and you think like,

377
00:37:27,920 --> 00:37:36,000
I really like her a lot and I want to go have that. Why should I not? If my desire is to only

378
00:37:36,000 --> 00:37:42,480
maximize love and kind of like feeling good, it's an option. The same love feelings that I'm feeling

379
00:37:42,480 --> 00:37:47,200
for this other woman, I had those same feelings that drew me to my wife. And look, I'm married

380
00:37:47,200 --> 00:37:51,600
and that's all good. It's so much love. So how can you tell me the same thing that drove me here

381
00:37:51,600 --> 00:37:55,760
to a good place? Now you're telling me the same thing is going to fuck everything up. And like,

382
00:37:55,760 --> 00:38:01,120
the fact is like, it's true. And like, I messed up my life a lot by doing that because I was so

383
00:38:01,120 --> 00:38:07,360
Mormon and I had so much control in my life. I thought all control and all discomfort was bad.

384
00:38:07,360 --> 00:38:12,640
I thought I had to just maximize comfort. And so I go to the grocery store, like, what do you want

385
00:38:12,640 --> 00:38:17,760
to eat? All the food that's good, ice cream, cinnamon, but like, that's how I got to be 300

386
00:38:17,760 --> 00:38:25,600
pounds. That's how I ended up having a bunch of not successful relationships. That's how I ended up

387
00:38:25,600 --> 00:38:36,400
not being able to have control over my own life and finding the value of discomfort and saying like,

388
00:38:36,400 --> 00:38:43,440
oh, this is not a thing to run from. This is not a thing to chastise. This is a beautiful part of

389
00:38:43,440 --> 00:38:55,600
the process. And so like, in the same way of imagine your destination is in a far away place,

390
00:38:55,600 --> 00:39:02,960
and you're on a journey and your true destination is still miles away, but you've found a very nice

391
00:39:02,960 --> 00:39:08,240
place and there's nice food here and it's nice to rest here. And like, you can spend your whole life

392
00:39:08,240 --> 00:39:12,000
trying to convince yourself that like, you don't really want to go over there. That you're really,

393
00:39:12,000 --> 00:39:17,520
everything's good here. Why should I leave? It's fine. Everything's good. But like, you know,

394
00:39:17,520 --> 00:39:25,200
what you really want and where you really want to be. And so like, I cannot lie to myself to find

395
00:39:25,200 --> 00:39:31,680
satisfaction in not following the things that I want. I tried.

396
00:39:31,680 --> 00:39:33,760
Wait, that was a double negative. What'd you say?

397
00:39:33,760 --> 00:39:44,480
Hmm. I cannot lie to myself and say I'm satisfied with things that are just not bad or things that

398
00:39:44,480 --> 00:39:48,960
are just good. Right. In other words, you want more. Because I think that's part of the whole

399
00:39:48,960 --> 00:39:54,960
life experience is it's not about what's right or wrong. It's about, we're meant for freedom.

400
00:39:56,240 --> 00:40:01,600
And we tend to, for the sake of safety, because our brain goes hardwired and says,

401
00:40:01,600 --> 00:40:05,840
you need to protect yourself. So let's create these structures. I think that's the hard part

402
00:40:05,840 --> 00:40:10,560
about any, you know, organized religion is its intention. You know, Rich, you talk about

403
00:40:10,560 --> 00:40:16,960
manipulation. It's like, no, they don't start out trying to manipulate people, but they can.

404
00:40:16,960 --> 00:40:25,600
That's the interesting part of it. And I'm always fascinated like with power and power structure,

405
00:40:25,600 --> 00:40:33,200
systems of control and religiosity and organized religion is another one of those very powerful

406
00:40:33,200 --> 00:40:41,520
things. This is living in the matrix. We're a huge part of this is because both Rich and I came out

407
00:40:41,520 --> 00:40:45,600
of a religious structure and we're probably a lot more free flowing now. But it's like,

408
00:40:46,400 --> 00:40:52,960
back, what does it mean to live in a simulation? And is, you know, because our backgrounds parallel,

409
00:40:52,960 --> 00:40:58,720
but they were probably fairly similar because it's a really protective border. And there's a lot of

410
00:40:58,720 --> 00:41:03,920
love that exists in it. I can say most of my youth was filled with love, but there was a lot of

411
00:41:03,920 --> 00:41:08,400
control and manipulation that happened. So yeah, I think, oh, go ahead. Sorry.

412
00:41:09,200 --> 00:41:13,040
I was going to say that the reason why I kind of got out of the church though, Jonathan, is because

413
00:41:13,040 --> 00:41:19,200
my wife was hurt by the people there. Right. And so she was hurt by gossip and, and structure and

414
00:41:19,200 --> 00:41:26,240
legalistic bullshit. Right. I wanted to go back to you though, Andrew, in terms of, there's this

415
00:41:26,240 --> 00:41:33,840
concept about freedom to explore and express and find what you want, but there's also the idea of

416
00:41:33,840 --> 00:41:41,840
balance. So there is the idea of the book of Ecclesiastes where Solomon, one of the wisest

417
00:41:41,840 --> 00:41:46,880
people in the world, he does everything. He has all the money, all the wealth, all the concubines,

418
00:41:46,880 --> 00:41:53,120
all the wives. He had all the wine. He had whatever the heck he wanted. And then at the end of the

419
00:41:53,840 --> 00:41:57,680
day, he gave himself the freedom to just totally have excess. And at the end he says,

420
00:41:58,320 --> 00:42:03,360
meaningless. It's all, it's all worthless. It's all meaningless. And that's why it's a crazy book.

421
00:42:03,360 --> 00:42:09,040
But have you ever heard of the movie Legends of the Fall? It's with Brad Pitt. That sounds very

422
00:42:09,040 --> 00:42:15,040
familiar. It's a famous movie. It's when he's, you know, he's a good looking dude and the wife loves

423
00:42:15,040 --> 00:42:22,080
it and everybody loves Brad Pitt, but he basically goes to the war. He sees his young brother die and

424
00:42:22,080 --> 00:42:28,800
he goes and scalps all these Nazis during World War I. Oh, I have seen it. Yeah. He comes back

425
00:42:28,800 --> 00:42:32,560
and he's broken and he's got this girl that he loves, but he can't be with her because

426
00:42:33,120 --> 00:42:38,480
they're, she's part of the family. He goes off and he just smokes opium. He's on this boat.

427
00:42:38,480 --> 00:42:43,440
He travels. His hair gets long. He's got women next to him. And I think he realizes that he's

428
00:42:43,440 --> 00:42:49,520
seen it and they're done that. So I guess my question for you is when do you find balance?

429
00:42:49,520 --> 00:42:53,840
What, when, when is enough enough in terms of exploring that? Or I mean, to be fair, Jim

430
00:42:53,840 --> 00:42:59,040
Morrison, I love, he wanted to break on through, man. That guy did whatever it took because he was

431
00:42:59,040 --> 00:43:05,440
on a mission to say what's out there, right? And he's a poet, man. I love his album, An American

432
00:43:05,440 --> 00:43:09,840
Prayer. So tell me, is there any balance in there? Is it just like, let's fricking see where this

433
00:43:09,840 --> 00:43:14,960
thing goes. Tell me a little bit about that journey. Is this phase three? Are you still in,

434
00:43:14,960 --> 00:43:21,200
I don't know, are we in phase three out of your life? Yeah. I mean, this is the third chapter,

435
00:43:21,200 --> 00:43:28,720
for sure. They've all had very distinct openings and closings. And I mean, everything is actually,

436
00:43:29,360 --> 00:43:37,040
my progress in my third chapter, I've in two years has exceeded several years in chapters one or two.

437
00:43:37,040 --> 00:43:44,000
And so, yeah, I'm doing great. And I mean, the question that I've still been dying to answer,

438
00:43:44,000 --> 00:43:49,520
that I think like, can continue to go around and around is that you can recognize like, on the one

439
00:43:49,520 --> 00:43:55,120
hand, yeah, religion has all these very tangible, visible, good things that you we've all experienced.

440
00:43:55,120 --> 00:43:59,040
And then on the other hand, we can see, ah, religion has all these kind of fucked up bad

441
00:43:59,040 --> 00:44:04,000
things that like, not only we can reach in touch, but we've all experienced. And so like, you're

442
00:44:04,000 --> 00:44:13,280
you're trying to assess, you're trying to attach morality to power. And like, power doesn't,

443
00:44:15,280 --> 00:44:21,680
yeah, like, just like a river or the ocean doesn't have a morality, power cannot have a morality. And

444
00:44:21,680 --> 00:44:30,000
like other things that are powerful, also don't have a morality, like guns, sex, drugs, fire,

445
00:44:30,000 --> 00:44:36,480
money, all of those things are incredibly powerful. And a slight change can make one experience an

446
00:44:36,480 --> 00:44:44,160
amazing ecstasy and another a terrible nightmare. Like just one one tiny, little tiny change of any

447
00:44:44,160 --> 00:44:49,360
of those incredibly powerful systems, and even the intent behind the person in control of those

448
00:44:49,360 --> 00:44:54,480
powerful systems, drastically changes your experience. And so like, I don't think it's

449
00:44:54,480 --> 00:44:59,680
possible to assign morality to raw power, it's possible to assign it to the people

450
00:44:59,680 --> 00:45:04,560
who are driving the system. So like just a car doesn't have morality, but the driver hasn't.

451
00:45:04,560 --> 00:45:11,040
And so like, yeah, religion, just like anything else, that's powerful is, is powerful and can be

452
00:45:11,040 --> 00:45:16,160
used for good things like fire, cooking food, bad things like burning down your neighbors house.

453
00:45:16,160 --> 00:45:23,200
Like, yeah, I think you can, because you can see it on both sides, it doesn't fit into a box,

454
00:45:23,200 --> 00:45:26,640
it's it's the mechanism. It's the operator. That makes sense?

455
00:45:26,640 --> 00:45:32,640
Yeah, agreed. Do you, in your journeys, because I know you sort of given yourself a lot of freedom,

456
00:45:32,640 --> 00:45:39,600
I, I, I think it's a powerful way to live, because it's, it's, it's your, your delimiting yourself.

457
00:45:40,560 --> 00:45:46,480
How do you, what is the sort of not existential, but all maybe existential sort of questions you

458
00:45:46,480 --> 00:45:50,800
ask as you go through that in terms of how it affects other people, because like your point was,

459
00:45:51,760 --> 00:45:55,600
you have one woman and the other, what's to stop you from this one, what's been the journey in

460
00:45:55,600 --> 00:46:04,720
your head on that? Yeah, basically, it, I, I, I hit the ceiling, I realized, and it was no longer

461
00:46:05,280 --> 00:46:14,960
satisfying. So like, yeah, you can have sex with a lot of women, and that's awesome. I cannot,

462
00:46:15,440 --> 00:46:22,720
I cannot tell you how great it is. But it's also awesome to like have somebody when you get home,

463
00:46:22,720 --> 00:46:29,280
that is your best friend, that like knows you, that like cares about you in a way that nobody

464
00:46:29,280 --> 00:46:35,040
else on the planet cares about you. And like, you cannot have both things, you know what I'm saying?

465
00:46:35,040 --> 00:46:42,880
You, you require temperance to have access to both things. And so I think that's where some of the

466
00:46:42,880 --> 00:46:48,800
balance lies, you know? I mean, that's, that's, this is, this is an age old question, right? I mean,

467
00:46:48,800 --> 00:46:53,360
I mean, hell, let's talk about love. I mean, wars have started, people have died, thousands of people

468
00:46:53,360 --> 00:46:57,760
have died because of love interests, right? In relationships, right? I mean, look at like Henry

469
00:46:57,760 --> 00:47:02,480
the Eighth, for heaven's sake, right? I mean, just, I mean, he split a church apart, right? He'd

470
00:47:02,480 --> 00:47:08,480
separated from Rome because he wanted another woman instead of Catherine of Aragon, right? So

471
00:47:09,280 --> 00:47:14,880
I think that you're onto something in that you're recognizing the dichotomy of

472
00:47:14,880 --> 00:47:23,520
this excess has limitations. This certainty has also got limitations, right? And we have to choose

473
00:47:23,520 --> 00:47:28,400
what's going to be, what's going to work for us. I think if you also, and Jonathan would lead towards

474
00:47:28,400 --> 00:47:34,240
love, I think he would realize that even if he had the opportunity to be Charlize Theron is walking

475
00:47:34,240 --> 00:47:39,680
by, she catches his eye. She's like, there's more than eye contact. It's like, wow. And she,

476
00:47:40,320 --> 00:47:43,520
Jonathan's like, all right, she just gave me an ultimatum. She goes one night with me,

477
00:47:43,520 --> 00:47:49,760
what do you say, hun? And you've got that choice, right? I mean, it's, people have these supposedly,

478
00:47:49,760 --> 00:47:54,560
these relationships where, yeah, okay, hun, Brad Pitt shows up. He's all yours for one night.

479
00:47:54,560 --> 00:48:00,640
You know, Noah questions asked, right? And so I guess the question, the thing, it seems so alluring,

480
00:48:00,640 --> 00:48:07,440
but there could be that little thing like, wow, you've changed. You haven't been the same since

481
00:48:07,440 --> 00:48:12,640
that happened for like six months and I don't know what the hell to say about it, right? So I think

482
00:48:12,640 --> 00:48:18,640
it's almost like, this is where we get back to the law of thermodynamics. It's a law of every op,

483
00:48:18,640 --> 00:48:24,240
every action has an equal and opposite reaction. So one of the things, yep. Yeah. Second law of

484
00:48:24,240 --> 00:48:33,040
thermodynamics. And what we're finding is karma and physics and this whole thing we know as

485
00:48:33,040 --> 00:48:38,880
consciousness are all interrelated at the base level, man. We are all connected through this

486
00:48:38,880 --> 00:48:44,080
consciousness, this pure unified field, whether we like it or not. So you reduce ourselves down

487
00:48:44,080 --> 00:48:48,160
to this atomic level. And when you think about doing something to somebody else or something

488
00:48:48,160 --> 00:48:54,080
that comes back at you and that reverberates, it's actually just law of physics in many, many ways.

489
00:48:54,080 --> 00:48:58,880
We can call it religious, but in many ways, you know, and I know that doing something, there's,

490
00:48:58,880 --> 00:49:02,480
there's a little hint in the back of your mind that says, if I go down this path, I know there

491
00:49:02,480 --> 00:49:09,680
could be consequences. It feels really good. I do it. I know. And whether you actually physically,

492
00:49:09,680 --> 00:49:14,640
you can even cheat on somebody that you love and they might not know about it, but you're sure as

493
00:49:14,640 --> 00:49:20,240
hell going to know about it. Right. And so, I mean, Edgar Allen Poe talks about things that it just,

494
00:49:20,240 --> 00:49:24,480
it eats you inside. Right. And so people go crazy because of the stuff that they could do.

495
00:49:25,200 --> 00:49:31,040
Yeah. I mean, I, I'll tell you, Rich, I mean, I did all those things and you become

496
00:49:31,040 --> 00:49:36,400
very aware of your position. So like, I think a lot of men would think like, oh, it'd be so cool.

497
00:49:36,400 --> 00:49:41,040
My wife or girlfriend let me open up. That would be so great. And so like, I did it, right. I pushed

498
00:49:41,040 --> 00:49:44,560
her and complained and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. And like, we're living together. We've been

499
00:49:44,560 --> 00:49:50,080
together a while and I'm excited and I get out there and like, within like the first few days,

500
00:49:50,080 --> 00:49:55,280
you know, how many girls talk to me? Like one, two, you know how many dudes talk to her?

501
00:49:55,280 --> 00:50:03,200
Well, dozens, dozens, dozens. And I guarantee you, no matter who you are, just the economics of sex,

502
00:50:03,200 --> 00:50:08,400
your wife or girlfriend is going to receive way more attention for the thing that you beg.

503
00:50:08,400 --> 00:50:13,200
And now you never thought about what it's going to be like on the other side. You were just thinking

504
00:50:13,200 --> 00:50:19,760
about the girl at work and how fun that would be. And like, having to accept the, having to eat the

505
00:50:19,760 --> 00:50:26,720
fucking cake that you baked for yourself. So I've had to have that experience and as, oh wow,

506
00:50:26,720 --> 00:50:33,680
that's a different thing. And like, I would say even dating women that like were worked in like

507
00:50:33,680 --> 00:50:41,360
the sex industry, whether that was like dancers or like she was a prostitute in Australia. And so

508
00:50:41,360 --> 00:50:45,600
like they have a whole legal system there. And so like she would work and then get money and come

509
00:50:45,600 --> 00:50:52,560
to the United States. And so that's how I'd met her. And so like those experiences changed and

510
00:50:52,560 --> 00:51:02,640
shaped my perspective of sexuality and of manhood. And I think, I think that has been very helpful

511
00:51:02,640 --> 00:51:14,160
for me to, many men I think don't recognize their feelings of interiority. And when they do,

512
00:51:14,160 --> 00:51:21,200
they just appear as anger or appear as discomfort and unable to recognize that. It's actually your

513
00:51:21,200 --> 00:51:27,120
feelings of inferiority around sex or confidence or women or whatever it might be, because men have

514
00:51:27,120 --> 00:51:33,840
the same expectations and pressures that women have. They're just not spoken about and not

515
00:51:33,840 --> 00:51:41,600
addressed. And so like that is why sometimes it's confusing maybe as a man, why you get so mad

516
00:51:41,600 --> 00:51:45,760
and you don't understand why you're so fucking pissed and like, I don't know, I'm just fucking

517
00:51:45,760 --> 00:51:53,360
mad, just leave me alone. And like, it can just feel like I just, I just get upset. That's all

518
00:51:53,360 --> 00:51:58,320
it is. I'm just getting upset when in reality, you are getting upset. But the reason that you're

519
00:51:58,320 --> 00:52:02,080
getting upset is, is things that you need to address about yourself.

520
00:52:02,080 --> 00:52:10,160
Absolutely. Yeah. And that's hard is addressing the stuff about ourselves is hard for guys.

521
00:52:10,160 --> 00:52:16,960
I think it's hard for men. They don't like going into the heart at all. It's easy to be a smart guy,

522
00:52:16,960 --> 00:52:22,400
push all the energy down and not let it come out. And it eventually kills guys. They either become

523
00:52:22,400 --> 00:52:33,760
hulks. Yeah, I have some friends that were in the military and they were went to Iraq or Afghanistan.

524
00:52:33,760 --> 00:52:39,680
They talk about their experiences and they talk about their friends that they've lost, not in

525
00:52:39,680 --> 00:52:47,520
battle, but here in the United States and about the, I mean, I can't imagine basically your setup

526
00:52:47,520 --> 00:52:55,840
where, okay, here's all this trauma and all these people that are creating this conflict inside of

527
00:52:55,840 --> 00:53:01,120
yourself, but you're not allowed to talk about it. And if you do, you'll be punished. But if you have

528
00:53:01,120 --> 00:53:08,400
these problems, you'll also be punished. And so like, it doesn't, it doesn't, like the power

529
00:53:08,400 --> 00:53:16,640
structure does not allow for someone to feel like a man and be a man. And so it's hard to talk about

530
00:53:16,640 --> 00:53:24,400
a man and be in second place or be a co-pilot or be a vice president. The system is set up to say,

531
00:53:24,400 --> 00:53:28,480
if you are a vice president, you should be trying to be the president. If you're in second place,

532
00:53:28,480 --> 00:53:34,640
you should try to be in first. Like there's, there is no space to feel satisfied and fulfilled

533
00:53:34,640 --> 00:53:41,360
unless you are the top or you're trying to climb to the top. And so everybody else feels bad all

534
00:53:41,360 --> 00:53:50,400
the time. And so yeah, there's no relief and the relief that exists, you are not permitted to access.

535
00:53:50,400 --> 00:53:57,920
And so like, wow, man. I think you're onto something and we've seen a huge shift in this,

536
00:53:57,920 --> 00:54:05,200
I think. You look at Jordan Peterson, he's had huge following and the 12 or 10, you know, like

537
00:54:05,200 --> 00:54:09,920
life steps and stuff like that. So I think we're seeing, I don't know if it's the age of Aquarius,

538
00:54:09,920 --> 00:54:15,360
Jonathan or not, but we're seeing obviously a lot more visibility towards things or even like NFL

539
00:54:15,360 --> 00:54:20,560
players. They talk more about, you know, concussions. They talk more about like emotional

540
00:54:20,560 --> 00:54:25,520
stuff, right? And it's becoming more and more, I think, visible and it's getting better to talk

541
00:54:25,520 --> 00:54:31,040
about. I think it's a good thing, right? I think, you know, we don't want it to shift too far over

542
00:54:31,040 --> 00:54:36,560
where like everything that there is this kind of idea that says instead of I am an anxious person,

543
00:54:36,560 --> 00:54:41,520
I have anxiety. There's a difference where we don't want it to make it ontologically like a problem

544
00:54:41,520 --> 00:54:45,840
that you're faced with things. So we can still overcome that and still instead of being a victim.

545
00:54:47,520 --> 00:54:52,160
Yeah. But that being said, there's certain things. And going back to your psychedelics,

546
00:54:52,160 --> 00:55:01,280
let's say, Andrew, I mean, there's huge, huge wins in PTSD with psilocybin, with MDMA, right? And

547
00:55:01,280 --> 00:55:06,640
there's ways to come through this. And I think the death of the ego is a huge way of doing it through

548
00:55:06,640 --> 00:55:13,920
these experiences and overcoming this idea. I have to ask you this because we've been talking about

549
00:55:13,920 --> 00:55:18,960
this a lot. One of the things that's happened to Johns Hopkins, which has dedicated decades to

550
00:55:18,960 --> 00:55:24,640
psychedelic research where people are having near death experience, these were all possibly atheist

551
00:55:24,640 --> 00:55:30,240
agnostics, but they felt a presence of something, something that they called love, but they didn't

552
00:55:30,240 --> 00:55:34,560
acknowledge it was God. But what the hell is that? It's something, there's something there other than

553
00:55:34,560 --> 00:55:42,080
just me and I love it. And it felt comforting. So, I mean, I know that you've given up on the idea of

554
00:55:42,080 --> 00:55:50,400
necessarily a God, a transcendent God in the sky, but have you felt a sense of, tell me about,

555
00:55:50,400 --> 00:55:55,120
have you had that kind of experience where you're feeling kind of comfortable with the universe in

556
00:55:55,120 --> 00:56:02,000
that regard and just like placing it? Yeah. Yeah. A significant amount of times in a significant way.

557
00:56:02,960 --> 00:56:12,400
The, yeah, the realization that like, not only are you like, I am you and you are me and we are

558
00:56:12,400 --> 00:56:17,840
all together. You know what I'm saying? And like, the best analogy is like, imagine there's like a

559
00:56:17,840 --> 00:56:22,880
light bulb and the light is on and filling the room. And then I'm going to take a cloth and put

560
00:56:22,880 --> 00:56:26,880
it over the light bulb and now the light bulb is dampened and you can't see. But if I poke a bunch

561
00:56:26,880 --> 00:56:33,760
of holes in the cloth, a bunch of individual streams of light that seem individual are now

562
00:56:33,760 --> 00:56:42,480
visible when in reality they are all the same thing. And so like, yeah, it just seems reasonable

563
00:56:42,480 --> 00:56:49,440
that we are all the same goo in some way. What would that mean that there is a God in charge?

564
00:56:49,440 --> 00:56:54,160
I don't know. But if there is a God in charge, I feel very much like the relationship that we have

565
00:56:54,160 --> 00:57:01,600
is similar to my relationship with the cells that build me. Like I am cells, but I don't know them

566
00:57:01,600 --> 00:57:10,640
nor do I have a way of even communicating with them. Like how would I talk to one cell? How would

567
00:57:10,640 --> 00:57:15,520
it, if a cell says, Andrew, I'm hungry, give me. Well, it's proven that your body listens. Yes.

568
00:57:15,520 --> 00:57:21,760
No, but yeah, Dr. Joe Dispenza. Yeah, it's proven that your body listens to your own words.

569
00:57:21,760 --> 00:57:27,600
Right. So that's the hard part about language is it's a frequency vibration. So you can get hit

570
00:57:27,600 --> 00:57:32,880
with someone's words. It's a vibration that your body feels and your body actually listens to. The

571
00:57:32,880 --> 00:57:38,480
problem is it can't tell who said it and it can't tell what's true. So you can script your body.

572
00:57:38,480 --> 00:57:46,240
Yeah. And that's, oh yeah, yeah. That's the power of what they're learning in quantum physics is

573
00:57:46,240 --> 00:57:52,800
that through neuroplasticity, you can actually re-script your entire body. And as that begins

574
00:57:52,800 --> 00:58:01,200
to accelerate, it becomes more and more powerful because once you start investing with intention,

575
00:58:01,200 --> 00:58:05,920
I think that's what you've done is you've created this life of intention to say, fuck it, I'm going

576
00:58:05,920 --> 00:58:10,000
to do my own thing and suffer my own consequences, which is a highly responsible thing to do.

577
00:58:11,040 --> 00:58:14,880
Because that's always the other side of the coin. You have this flittering life to go out, but

578
00:58:14,880 --> 00:58:18,960
you've held responsibility for yourself. That's powerful.

579
00:58:18,960 --> 00:58:27,040
I think, I mean, to just touch on that, one of the most significant things is that for my own life,

580
00:58:27,040 --> 00:58:37,200
if I only cared about myself, I'm not really going to get, it was just me. I'm not going to get too

581
00:58:37,200 --> 00:58:41,440
jammed up about getting arrested. I'm not going to get too jammed up about going to prison. It was

582
00:58:41,440 --> 00:58:57,200
just me. I don't care. But my mom, bro, I can't, what am I going to do? Just abandon my path.

583
00:58:57,200 --> 00:59:03,040
And so I guess that's the balance of freedom and responsibility. I'm like, ah,

584
00:59:03,040 --> 00:59:06,400
this is all the shit I want to do. I want to sell drugs and go out there and do whatever

585
00:59:06,400 --> 00:59:13,280
fuck I want, break the law, fuck all this shit. But I could do that. I can. I sure can. But I'm

586
00:59:13,280 --> 00:59:21,360
also an adult grown man that should be responsible according to my values because the God that I am

587
00:59:21,360 --> 00:59:25,200
said should be a responsible man. And so I'm like, fuck.

588
00:59:25,200 --> 00:59:28,480
And you can't blame anybody. You created the rule.

589
00:59:29,360 --> 00:59:33,680
I know. And I agree with them so wholeheartedly that I can't argue with them.

590
00:59:33,680 --> 00:59:38,480
But what's been the value of that? Because I don't think it's just a flittering response.

591
00:59:38,480 --> 00:59:44,080
I think there's a lot to learn there of you took up the mantle of responsibility for your own life.

592
00:59:44,080 --> 00:59:47,600
You took it away from the church and said, no, I'm going to hold this.

593
00:59:49,280 --> 00:59:55,680
Yeah. I think people mention it. Sometimes they will give me a compliment about how

594
00:59:55,680 --> 01:00:04,240
I'm able to be myself. And I think that's the result of having your own rules and living

595
01:00:04,240 --> 01:00:09,040
authentically to your own rules. You get to be yourself. And I get to be myself all the fucking

596
01:00:09,040 --> 01:00:14,320
time. And I talk to people, they get to go to Burning Man once a year where they can be themselves

597
01:00:14,320 --> 01:00:22,480
and they don't have to follow the rules of society. Fuck that shit. Every goddamn day I do whatever

598
01:00:22,480 --> 01:00:30,240
I want. And the things that I want to do follow my own rules. And so I do as much of everything

599
01:00:30,240 --> 01:00:38,480
that I want. And yeah, having freedom for yourself requires responsibility, which is like an odd

600
01:00:38,480 --> 01:00:43,760
conundrum. So I want to ask you a question. I mean, I talked about it at the beginning.

601
01:00:44,880 --> 01:00:49,360
You visited or attempted to visit, because I didn't see any second halves of it,

602
01:00:49,360 --> 01:00:58,320
the Zide Church in Oakland. Yeah, it was real cool. I forgot. I still have stuff I forgot to post

603
01:00:58,320 --> 01:01:05,200
about that. But no, it really did remind me of the very early days of medical cannabis, because

604
01:01:05,920 --> 01:01:12,160
the way that it worked is there's obviously a donation at the door. And then you go through

605
01:01:12,160 --> 01:01:19,360
like a little security thing. And then you go to the buying room, which is set up like a deli style.

606
01:01:19,360 --> 01:01:25,120
So very similar to how cannabis used to be sold before, or packaging regulations. And so, excuse

607
01:01:25,120 --> 01:01:31,440
me, they have a bunch of different bins with like a bunch of different types of mushrooms. And there's

608
01:01:31,440 --> 01:01:38,800
a menu and like they have symbols instead of dollar signs. Because that'll stop the fucking police,

609
01:01:38,800 --> 01:01:43,360
you know, they'll get in there and be like, Oh, no, you got a little car symbol instead of a dollar

610
01:01:43,360 --> 01:01:49,200
sign. You get away the stats. Well, like, yeah, basically, they have little things, but they

611
01:01:49,200 --> 01:01:54,640
really mean this is the dollars that these drugs cost. There's a lot of language like you just

612
01:01:54,640 --> 01:02:00,800
donate and we lose a free sacrament. But yeah, anyway, so but they're keeping within the rules,

613
01:02:00,800 --> 01:02:04,720
you know, they're doing it the right way. Because honestly, the impression I get is they want to

614
01:02:04,720 --> 01:02:10,800
help people. I mean, yeah, for sure. And I mean, yes, I agree. It's, it's very similar to the,

615
01:02:10,800 --> 01:02:15,200
again, the very beginning days of cannabis where it's like, well, this needs to get out there and

616
01:02:15,200 --> 01:02:18,560
nobody else is going to do it. So I guess it's going to be me and I'm going to do it the best

617
01:02:18,560 --> 01:02:24,080
that I can. It was just like a regular person. So yeah, they the other thing that was very

618
01:02:24,080 --> 01:02:31,120
interesting was they have a body weight experience calculator, which I had never seen before. And all

619
01:02:31,120 --> 01:02:36,800
of the psilocybin is tested. Well, not all of it, but most of it. So you can see per weight,

620
01:02:36,800 --> 01:02:44,480
the psilocybin concentration of the strain that you're getting. And then you put the concentration

621
01:02:44,480 --> 01:02:52,320
percentage of strain and your body weight, and you can see exactly how much to eat to have the

622
01:02:52,320 --> 01:02:58,560
exact experience that you want. And that, you know, that's always a question when doing mushrooms.

623
01:02:58,560 --> 01:03:04,640
How many do I take Andrew? Fuck, I cannot be responsible for your decisions, bro. I don't know.

624
01:03:06,720 --> 01:03:12,080
So that's very cool. The other thing that's very cool, that's very exciting for me is the advent of

625
01:03:12,080 --> 01:03:18,480
like new products. So the products that they had, I think the most common thing that I've seen

626
01:03:18,480 --> 01:03:23,440
not in the Zyde door churches, like chocolate bars, like full bars of chocolate that are sold,

627
01:03:23,440 --> 01:03:29,280
and you can buy that packaging on eBay or Alibaba, whatever, and put God knows what in there and sell

628
01:03:29,280 --> 01:03:37,760
it as mushroom. So it's also a problem because like the chocolate bars themselves like don't usually

629
01:03:37,760 --> 01:03:42,320
taste that good. And then they're actually like high in caloric and sugary. And so it's like,

630
01:03:42,320 --> 01:03:46,480
I'm going to eat something high in caloric and sugary. I want it to taste good. So anyway,

631
01:03:46,480 --> 01:03:51,120
the thing that is very exciting for me is they had like, they were almost, do you remember Spree

632
01:03:51,120 --> 01:04:00,560
candies? Yeah. They had a very similar to that. And it's just a little kind of a lightly flavored

633
01:04:00,560 --> 01:04:11,760
candy tablet that is about 0.23 grams. And they are fantastic. So that's a little above microdose.

634
01:04:11,760 --> 01:04:18,080
Is that what they're selling them at? Yeah, they're selling them at microdosed. But

635
01:04:18,080 --> 01:04:23,600
I think for me, I like to take maybe like two or three of them. So like about a gram or less is

636
01:04:23,600 --> 01:04:31,440
like a most ideal spot for me. And the pricing, pretty reasonable. Obviously, it's like a black

637
01:04:31,440 --> 01:04:36,000
market, so there's no taxes, but usually everything's like around 25 to maybe 35, 40

638
01:04:36,000 --> 01:04:42,560
dollars. And they had individual chocolates as well. I like that because again, the bar kind of

639
01:04:42,560 --> 01:04:49,520
encouraged you to eat the whole thing and it's hard to dose that out. But yeah, products being

640
01:04:49,520 --> 01:04:57,280
made with extract as opposed to the whole fruiting body, I think is going to be also the next kind of

641
01:04:57,280 --> 01:05:04,320
frontier. Because there are other things that are potentiators. So I don't know if you've ever heard

642
01:05:04,320 --> 01:05:14,240
of like lemon juice tech or other... Oh, sure. And so products that are combining the benefit of

643
01:05:14,240 --> 01:05:20,640
adding the acidic component to a psilocybin extract, those are kind of the new things that I'm

644
01:05:20,640 --> 01:05:26,400
seeing coming out, which are pretty cool. Yeah, Jonathan, imagine taking the mushroom instead of

645
01:05:26,400 --> 01:05:31,120
a whole stem or a cap. You're shredding it almost like a keif, if you would, and then you're adding

646
01:05:31,120 --> 01:05:35,760
lemon juice and supposedly it intensifies the effect. It might actually make it a little less

647
01:05:35,760 --> 01:05:42,080
actual long, but it definitely has a more intense... That's what we did up in Breck last summer.

648
01:05:42,080 --> 01:05:47,280
I was going to ask you, Andrew, do you have... Because it's a religious institution and a church,

649
01:05:47,280 --> 01:05:53,760
like you know, peyote or other kinds of substances, did you have to consume it there or

650
01:05:53,760 --> 01:05:57,520
are you able to take it outside and then take it back with you? No, yeah, I don't think you're

651
01:05:57,520 --> 01:06:02,880
allowed to consume it there. And then just real quick, the products that I'm talking about,

652
01:06:02,880 --> 01:06:07,680
they're not even grinding up fruiting bodies. They are taking the fruiting bodies, extracting

653
01:06:08,560 --> 01:06:15,440
the psilocin and then... Okay. The actual chemical component, chemical...

654
01:06:15,440 --> 01:06:19,600
Yes, so once it's in the fruiting body, it's psilocin and then converts into psilocybin once

655
01:06:19,600 --> 01:06:25,040
digested. That's what the lemon juice does. It makes that conversion happen faster.

656
01:06:25,040 --> 01:06:30,480
Right, exactly. It helps the conversion of psilocin to psilocybin. And so,

657
01:06:31,840 --> 01:06:36,240
that now, that could make... You could be real small with like a whole gram.

658
01:06:37,520 --> 01:06:41,040
Wow. So that could be intense very much so. Okay.

659
01:06:41,680 --> 01:06:47,200
I cannot believe how much I love talking to you and I feel so guilty about all the interruptions

660
01:06:47,200 --> 01:06:52,480
and how much you'll probably have to edit out. It's not a big deal. This has been a fantastic

661
01:06:52,480 --> 01:06:56,160
conversation. And brother, you and I have a lot of similarities in terms of our life. It's been

662
01:06:56,880 --> 01:07:02,000
everything I had hoped it would be. So thank you for joining us. This has been an absolutely

663
01:07:02,000 --> 01:07:05,760
wonderful experience. Yeah. I think I've been shooting your guys'

664
01:07:05,760 --> 01:07:14,080
questions as well. I don't have conversations usually with people that have such a similar

665
01:07:14,080 --> 01:07:19,760
background where I still find value in some of my religious experiences, but obviously,

666
01:07:19,760 --> 01:07:23,760
I'm an atheist and obviously, I disagree and obviously, it's painful and traumatic. And so,

667
01:07:23,760 --> 01:07:30,480
it's like, yeah, it's like having an ex-girlfriend that you love, but you have a restraining order

668
01:07:30,480 --> 01:07:39,040
because she ruined your life, bro. It's been a lot of fun. Any final words, Rich?

669
01:07:39,840 --> 01:07:46,640
No, I just really appreciated your angles. And I mean, we love the idea of having unique

670
01:07:46,640 --> 01:07:54,240
perspectives. And yours has been unique in that you've kind of been a Jim Morrison of sorts,

671
01:07:54,240 --> 01:07:58,240
and you've kind of broken on through. You've seen what's on the other side, and I can't wait to

672
01:07:58,240 --> 01:08:03,360
hear more about what you explore and learn down the road, man, and be that kind of beacon for us.

673
01:08:03,360 --> 01:08:05,600
Looking forward to more. Thanks so much.

674
01:08:05,600 --> 01:08:12,000
Yeah, Andrew, I will say this. I truly believe you should write a book because I think,

675
01:08:12,000 --> 01:08:18,800
and I'm not joking about that, here's why. I think you ask a very provocative question in your life

676
01:08:18,800 --> 01:08:25,600
from here's what my religious institution told me, and that's very common across all religious

677
01:08:25,600 --> 01:08:32,480
institutions. So, that catalyst is true. And you took the risk to go figure it out and realize,

678
01:08:32,480 --> 01:08:36,800
oh, there's more. I think a lot of people would be interested in that story. I really do.

679
01:08:36,800 --> 01:08:42,800
Thanks. Thanks, Jonathan. Yeah, I appreciate both you guys, your time and your interest in me.

680
01:08:43,360 --> 01:08:47,600
And I really would love to come back again. I have a whole paper of stories that I still

681
01:08:47,600 --> 01:08:51,840
didn't even tell you guys. We will definitely have you back.

682
01:08:51,840 --> 01:08:52,720
Definitely. 100%.

683
01:08:52,720 --> 01:08:59,920
Yes. All right. All right. Thank you, everybody. This has been Living in the Matrix. If you,

684
01:09:01,280 --> 01:09:06,240
please comment. If you have a suggestion for a guest, please let us know. And we'd love to

685
01:09:06,240 --> 01:09:09,840
interact with our audience. Suggest topics that you'd love to hear us talk about.

686
01:09:13,040 --> 01:09:15,920
Say goodbye, Rich. See you guys. Have a great weekend.

687
01:09:16,560 --> 01:09:18,960
Grace, much love, much peace. Thanks.

688
01:09:18,960 --> 01:09:39,920
All right. Much love, everybody.