I'm Jonathan and I'm left of center.
And I'm Rich and I tend to lean a little bit more to the right.
But the bottom line is, is together we try to look for the balance of what it means to be human in today's world.
So let's get started. Welcome to Living in the Matrix, everyone.
I'm Jonathan. This is my co-host Rich. Say hello, Rich.
What's shaking everybody. Happy Friday. It is a gorgeous day out there.
It is. And this episode is we're going to cover a bunch of topics.
We had a total blast doing this last time.
And what about a month ago? And Rich and I talked about it and we didn't have a guest today.
So we thought, let's go back to that because it really sparked some really interesting conversation.
And I know you and I were talking a little bit before we started, but what question, what topic do you want to start with this week?
Well, one of the things that has been blowing my mind recently is a move to Christianity, if not Catholicism, that I've been seeing.
Not only, you know, with some celebrities, but even something more specific, right?
So here's the first thing. Let's talk about what is going on with this kind of shift recently to either Christianity or Catholicism.
It seems to be pretty strong Catholic people coming to home. Yeah.
What gives you that sense? Well, it's big names like Candace Owens.
There was, I think, a porn star recently came to Catholicism and then I was listening to a podcast,
Justin Briarly, who had a gal by the name of Leah Labresco, and she was in an atheist club, but she found some smart Catholic folks at Yale.
And then she became a Catholic. And then more recently, I've been following Russell Brand and he's been he did the rosary.
He celebrated Lent. And I just found out today that he's getting baptized on Sunday. So that's kind of crazy.
And I've got some reasons why they're making these moves. Right.
And so that's the other thing I'd like to unpack is not only what's going on, but why, why and why now. So that's the first one.
And I want to add to that list. I don't want to say Joe Rogan is a Christian, but he's been to Jesus.
Yeah, he's been talking a lot like he's not found Christianity.
He's sort of like discovered this cool cat named Jesus and he's actually interesting.
And I think it's captured his imagination. So I want to add that to the list.
I'm not saying he's a Christian, but he is talking a shit ton about Jesus.
So he is. He talked about Jesus coming back. Right.
Like Jesus, we need you or something. Right. If you're out there like those are the kinds of things are.
He threw it out there on his podcast. All the time now and how Jesus just made sense.
He's really been gone. So what is your points that you wanted to make about it?
So let's assume for argument's sake that there is a movement towards Christianity.
Yeah. But I mean, it seems like some celebrity.
There's some celebrities and big names that are happening recently. Right. And I'm going to find out what's going on.
And what's interesting is it's kind of a it might be a different push against what Nate was describing when he was on,
where he was seeing small communities focused on health and diet and exercise and sharing best practices kind of can be this movement as people.
There are a lot of people moving away from Christianity. We've seen a lot of that happen over the last five, ten years, too.
It seems like people are abandoning mainline Christianity, you know, other evangelicals.
But I think over the last two or three years, things are shifting back. Right.
And so there's a problem. I think there's a good reason for that, Jonathan.
What do you think the reason is? Well, because I can.
Here's what I can believe. I don't know.
The numbers suggest that we're moving towards none rather than Christianity.
So this this last year was the first year the nuns outpaced evangelical Christianity.
First time ever. Well, the trend is towards none. But to your point, there are some really high profile people turning towards Christianity.
I think that is where we can at least talk about. And I can totally agree.
I see it, especially the one about Joe Rogan. That's the one that captured my.
Oh, yeah. He speaks to millions of people every day.
So it's just truly interesting. So what's your what's your thought behind it?
Well, there's a there's a few there's a few thoughts. Right.
The first one, this is what Russell Brand said, why he's getting baptized.
He says as meaning deteriorates, he found that Jesus always beckons.
Right. So one of the things that we're seeing out there in this trend, I mean, we're seeing postmodernism going beyond itself and almost imploding.
Right. When you've got two people, you know, having completely different ideas, all completely convicted about something.
When you're seeing a lot of science getting debunked now, I mean, you know, the science trust the science on the vaccine was, you know, six feet away from each other.
That's the safe space. And then they look back and they said, oh, shit, we just made that up.
You've got Fauci saying the science says that this was this this coronavirus was somehow a bat, you know, made it with a pergola and at a wet market in China.
And that's when it started. And then, of course, we're realizing now that no, it's an actual gain of function.
You know, there was an actual coronavirus laboratory.
So people are looking and they're seeing they're not seeing things getting better.
They're seeing things get worse. And we've been relying on science and all these things.
And they're saying, you know what, maybe this religion thing isn't so bad.
Maybe this belief in a God isn't so far fetched because I'm seeing stuff every day that makes me question my own reality.
And if I've got something, if I know let's talk about the Catholic Church, if there's something that's been around for two thousand and twenty five years, whatever, whatever it's been around after Jesus died, the Catholic Church has been there.
Come hell or high water. Right. We know the Catholic Church has not been really, really amazing lately with all the abuse and the scandals and the systematic, you know, shifting around of people.
But at the same time, they're saying, but there is so much tradition and think of the greatest minds like Aquinas, like Augustine, right.
Like all these others. And so I think that's one of the reasons why they're making work towards a Catholic standpoint.
The Catholics also tend to be intellectuals. Right. If you think of GK Chesterton, if you think about like Aquinas and some of the greatest names, they had a very intellectual mind.
And even C.S. Lewis. So we were we used to go to campus by the sea, this camp in Catalina Island every summer.
And there was a guy who was a speaker there and he studied C.S. Lewis his whole life.
And he was convinced that if C.S. Lewis had lived a little bit longer, he would have become converted to Catholicism.
He was a high Anglican. And obviously his best friend was J.R. Tolkien. Right.
They wrote the Narnia series and Lord of the Rings together. And what I'm getting at is that, you know, they've got a good way of looking at it intellectually.
And this gal, Leah Labresco, Jonathan, who was on Unbelievable Podcast, she made an intellectual asset.
She didn't have this kind of, you know, altar call where you and I, we talk about getting emotions, we feel that movement of the spirit.
She did it from an intellectual. She did feel exhilarated when she made the move.
But at the same time, she's a mathematician. And she looked at the laws of what morality might look like.
And her atheist friend, who's also a very cool dude. I mean, his name is he's called the friendly atheist on on on podcasts and stuff.
He didn't have a good reason other than it makes the most sense.
Somebody said, is it wrong to classify some people as better than others? Like everybody should be created equal. Right.
It doesn't matter if you're a man or woman. Yeah. He goes, no, I agree. Well, where do you get that? Well, doesn't everybody feel that way?
And he goes, she goes, no. What about the Taliban? The Taliban sure as hell don't believe that we're all equal.
The Taliban treat their women like animals, like like like chattel. Right.
And unfortunately, this has happened over the years. And his response was, well, duh, I totally believe it's the right thing to do.
And she goes, where do you get that? And those are the kinds of things that she said.
She said God gives a better rational argument for the case of morality than non-god, non-theism.
Even Roger Dawkins, this is hilarious. Dawkins literally admitted about a month or two ago that he's a cultural Christian.
So even though he would still reject all of the miracles and the divinity and the things like that, he goes, I love singing a carol or hymn.
I'll be in the shower and I'll start singing a Christian hymn. It's because he loves what that brought.
He had a good childhood, a good family life, and he liked that background. He calls himself a cultural Christian because we were England.
And the reason why I think it's also important is because he's been very critical of Islam.
And he and Richard or Sam Harris, these guys, and even Christopher Hitchens, one of the things that the four horsemen of the apocalypse,
I don't know about Daniel Dennett, but Hitchens, Dawkins, and Harris were all vitriolic towards Islam and the pain and the suffering and the terrorism and the lives they'll kill in the sake of their religion.
So that's one thing that they were united by, which is interesting.
Anyway, how does this tie back to people like celebrities becoming Christian or Catholic?
What's your role? Well, here's what Candace Owens said.
And by the way, Candace Owens' husband is a Catholic.
He recently became Catholic, but she said recently made the decision to go home.
There is, of course, so much more that went into this discussion.
I don't know. She was probably just a libertarian.
She seemed to be more of a secularist, right?
She probably had a belief of sorts, but I'm not sure the full story.
But she goes, there is, of course, so much more that went into this decision and that I plan to share in the future.
But for now, praise be to God for his gentle but relentless guiding of my heart toward truth.
And Russell Brand said something similar. Remember what he said?
He said, Jesus always beckons, right?
So you've got two celebrities who are very famous, both very public and vocal, who now are seeing the world a little bit more crazy, more tenuous.
And I think they're trying to find something that might have some more stability for them.
Maybe that's what it comes down to. It's a sense of security and stability and something that at least millions can believe in, if not the fact that the church has been around for 2000 years, right?
Yeah. And I think part of like I'll use Joe's example. Yeah.
Joe. And this is one of the things that I've learned on this podcast is by interviewing a large segment of different people from us, because that's really what we've done.
You start seeing the beauty and difference and value of it because we've talked to people about the positive elements of it. And I think Joe is now on his like thousandth show.
I mean that and he interviews people at the top of the bestseller list.
That's his primary person that he interviews is he does a lot of books and he's interviewing people with a deep breath of information about a very specific topic and he's learning it all with him.
That's you can't go through that and not ask the deeper questions about is there a God or isn't there a God? And I think there's a lot of good evidence that there is a God.
But I always want to find a space to respect the atheist, but I think people are beginning to realize man, the part of social media, one of the values of it is it calls bullshit really fast now.
Yeah, I think the world is beginning to say what the fuck people we we need to start dealing with our own bullshit because we're now totally broke and we're pretending in an inflationary depression.
You know, it's like there's a lot of shit going on right now and we're kind of asking God, where are you?
You know, when does God explode during war? Because that's when people need God the most.
Yeah, and terrible, terrible times, very adversarial kinds of times. And maybe that creates a place in us.
Interestingly enough, you know, you think meditation and prayer and cortisol don't really go hand in hand very well.
And yet at the same time, if we truly believe in the divine, Jonathan, this cosmic force of good, the source wants to bring balance to this.
He or she will interject and help that come along better. Right.
Because again, we can still go back to Neo. Neo had a splinter in his mind. It was driving him crazy.
But it was it was something drawing him right. Something drawing him right. And that was external to him. That was not him. That was external to him.
Now, again, this is we live in this dichotomy where, you know, we are the one. But actually, we are also different.
We're an avatar, if you would. But we have to go through these kinds of perspectives. And I think going back to what you were saying about theism versus non theism,
one of the things that would be really exciting is if our levels of consciousness were so transcendent that even as an atheist,
you see the vibrations in science that reflect what we are in pure scientific terms.
And the theist says, no, this is all God. God created these constructs. Let's all get together, break bread and and join our humanity together to change things for the better.
And so now you've got this alignment where there is no dichotomy. It's like unified field, pure spirit. Is it the Atman? Is it Brahma? Is it God? It's yes. Yes, it is.
How how do you break things down, though, because this is where people aren't transcending. Right.
Kleber talks about some of us are ready and more ready and others are not. And over the course of eons and eons and eons of time, the hand,
the source will reach down for that person who's rejected time and time again. Right. We kind of harked at an episode two.
It is like almost a universalistic theme. But at the same time, it's like, no, we're going to just reconcile things because that that ultimate seems like needs to be harmonized.
Let me let me give you a perspective on your your first idea that I had is ours reflected because you talked about we are sort of at the end of the postmodern experiment.
And I think to a certain extent, that's true. But it was also extremely valuable because here's here's what I think is as human beings.
Historically, for pretty much from, gosh, probably.
Maybe three or four hundred years, like sixteen hundreds and back, there's sort of a dominant world or tribal thought, you know, a lot of tribes. But there's the matrix was the empires, the way people thought who controlled that thought.
And so historically, what Jesus did is sort of or any tribe is give them a way of identifying that is unifying. And so there's this Christianity has always said Jesus is the one idea.
Be like that. And so there was this single image that it was almost impossible for everybody to fit in because it's hard to be like that.
Postmodernism came along and said, no, OK, let's all be individuals.
But to do that, you have to let go of a lot of tradition of there's one way of doing things because grace says, no, there is the individual.
And I think what's happened is we've gotten here and realize, OK, this is valuable. This freedom we're experiencing here is very valuable.
But I miss the tradition part. Of course. Yes. And I think that's what people are asking, because like I've said, social media spins up your learning cycles.
That's what it was, is it teaches you very fast how to cycle through ideas and it's changing.
I think we're coming to the end of the postmodern experiment.
I don't know if it's the end because there's always going to be the need for the individual.
But there's also this burgeoning need for tradition. I was talking to some friends in a Facebook group I'm in about deconstruction from Christianity.
And it's.
There you can't let go. I want to ask an atheist.
If you were to take mushrooms and experience that sense of oneness, that is almost a universal sense of what people like they'll experience.
Would you call that God? No, they wouldn't, though, according to Brittany.
So there. So then I would ask, OK, let's take it to that's the religious call it cosmic love.
They felt something transcendent, something that's something that they couldn't explain.
But on the scientific side, you've got the unified field, which is this representative of the nothingness and where it's all one.
OK, and what would you call that?
And I think those are one in the same thing. That's what I'm saying. Right.
And I think that's this is purely scientific. This is purely religious.
And the head and the heart are now coming together where people are waking up. And I think that's when you create coherence, it blows away the bullshit.
That's what coherence does. It removes the bullshit.
And I think people are waking up to, OK, it's going to be a hard experiment because think about it.
Imagine if a large group of people started dramatically.
Find a way for everyone to get out of poverty, like we saw that.
You know, that's the idea of this unified field or this sense of God, the kingdom is what does that look like?
You and I only have this life. Why not try those ideas? Because we don't try those ideas.
And I think I think it's happening. And that's what I think people are drawn towards.
The celebrities, they just happens to be the ones.
Well, there's a void being created that needs to be filled.
So you brought up a very interesting point for me just now, because it's about the unified field.
So when people talk about it, when they use non-pharmaceutical, non-psychotropic methods, it's through meditation.
And everybody knows that when you meditate, you spend a lot of time dicking around, thinking with your thoughts, getting distracted.
Then you spend a key set of moments in there just really transcending.
And that's what, you know, David Lynch calls the unified field. That's what we all call it.
And there's a feeling that I get when I meditate, when I'm in that zone. It's kind of very pleasurable.
I feel like it could be by the pineal gland as well. But what I'm getting at is you can't live there.
It's a touch of something that you really enjoy. And you could call that a slice of heaven.
But the problem is, is that you can't have unity in that.
So the reason why people do meditation is because what they do is when they tap into that just for a little bit,
when they exit that process and they go out into the world, they're becoming more and more like that unified field.
And it just exudes. And you get and you create love. You can see a conflict and you can help bring that down just with energies, all these things, right?
This is why people do this. And yet, so what I'm saying is that experience of heaven that Christians call oneness,
and love, and adoration for our Creator and being tapped by the source, is that the same thing as being in the unified field that whole time?
It seems like it could be. The question I'm saying to you is how can you make the unified field something permanent?
I mean, see, poverty wouldn't exist in the unified field, isn't that correct? Because the unified field is not an actual living place. It's a state.
It's an absolute plane. I'll share with you what I think is this is my...
The thing is, psychedelics consistently produce the same experience of oneness. It's a sense of consistent belonging that is sustained.
It's not temperamental. It stays. You feel it over an extended period of time. And that feeling of oneness is the same feeling people at church at worship have.
It's like there's... Are those the same? Well, here's the fact, they produce the same chemical response. That's what's interesting about it.
It is this idea of the chemical response is the outcome of the thought. And that tells me there's something valuable there, especially when it compels people to love their neighbor.
That's like... Look at the 60s. 60s were all about peace and love. And then it got squashed.
And how they did that is they... I think they took away the... They bribed the boomers with a lot of money. That's how you control people is through money.
How do you bribe them en masse like that? In what capacity?
You create wealth. You create the capacity for wealth. And that's what the Silicon Valley boom was about.
All right. I want to shift to another topic. And I liked this one. This one was the Christian one. I really liked that one because it's...
I think something is shifting in culture. And I think we're seeing it in a much more dramatic scale this year. So my next idea is I was walking my dog the other night.
And I had this thought that people are always trying to understand woke. Not to be awake is very different than woke. Woke is a very political idea now.
Yes. Its roots were in slavery, by the way, but they were co-opted by a group of people who have essentially demonized white men as a category.
I think that's the core of woke. Okay. And because they're pissed off. It's a sense of righteous judgment.
But the irony of it, like there's a lot of things that white men have done, but the irony of it is it's really one of the categories where white men go,
Well, that's fucked up. And the irony of it is then, well, why don't you recognize it when you do that to us?
That's, I think, one of the dialogues of woke is it's a group of people who have demonized white men because, and I'm part of this group, we are part of a group of people that has historically been in power with the money to enact central structures that have caused horrific damage.
And we've also done great things, but it's, I think that's the tension that is happening.
And I think because I'm on both sides of this, I want reconciliation. I don't think, I think woke is by its very nature.
By demonizing it cripples itself to actually solve any problems because you can't reconcile or solve a problem when you're killing the person you're trying to communicate with. That's why it won't work.
It needs something more like the truth and reconciliation commission to say, listen, if you come forward, we will give you grace. And if we enact a sense of grace about it, like the truth and reconciliation commission, that we can, everybody can move forward without a sense of killing each other.
So what do you think?
Well, you know, the thing about woke is that on a conservative level, it's often seen as a definite pejorative, right? It's not a good thing.
It's on its face value. Woke sounds like awake, sounds like alert, sounds like they know what's going on.
Right.
But I want to differ a little bit with you in terms of what were you defining woke as anti, you know, white men, because I mean, woken be so exclusive, but I think that's the dominant.
Yeah.
It's an easy target.
Because it's there.
Yeah. So what I'm saying, though, is like there's Greta Thunberg, you know, how dare you at the United Nations meeting and all of the people that are, you know, extra, you know, voracious to try to tap into that.
That would be considered woke from most Republicans, right?
Most conservatives would say, oh, let's get on the Greta Thunberg bus. Also applies to can men get pregnant, right?
You know, like biological men get pregnant while they're, you know, etc. And if you espouse the idea that men can get pregnant, then that's considered woke.
So there's just a couple of those issues. I do agree. Also, though, when in terms of it's really sad, though.
So, for instance, you know, we are all we should all want to have marched in solidarity with Martin Luther King, right?
You know, and Selma, etc.
But there's a difference between that and let's say Black Lives Matter, where we found that most millions of dollars were stolen from multiple people in this regard.
That it tends to be more political than actual about real race. And it seems to be more antagonistic and not trying to create real dialogue.
When you start to go down those paths, that's where it's unfortunate.
I think what's sad is a lot of the people on the right just blank use woke as a blank slate to say, OK, this person, you know, you know, this person is in a drag is a drag queen waving a flag for Palestine.
And the irony, of course, is that that drag queen would get their ass kicked in in Gaza, because in Islam you can't do that stuff, right?
You're done. You can get killed in certain parts of the world with Islam as the religion if you're caught in those kinds of acts.
So people look at that and they go, that's woke.
And so I don't know what category you put that in.
But what's really sad about it all is that we're still by having those kinds of definitions of white nationalism, white Christian nationalism and, you know, you know, like white nationalist for Trump versus obviously, you know, woke versus based.
What you end up getting is you get to you get to not do any research.
You get to just call names and you get to show up not really knowing what you're doing and why you're trying if you're trying to solve a solution.
Right. Whereas if people came to the table on both sides, right, not just the right column, the woke left, the left woke and not just, you know, them calling them, you know, crackers or whatever.
Come together with with a way to solve these problems and dialogue and good debate because there are great debates on both sides.
Right. Well, I think that's the problem is that people think debates are won by demonizing the other side and that doesn't work.
That's exactly right. It's the chaos and animosity that makes it a really fabulous event on TV.
But I think I think what's being exhausted is this point of the media's version of what we should be, which is always at war, you know, always in conflict.
Like, that's what sells. But the reality is something exhausting living like it is, you know, it is for 40 years now.
We've sort of lived under greed is good capitalism. OK. And I think that is like what greed has shown is that it sucks.
That's all it's that's all that's happened is that we've proven greed doesn't create a better society.
This is great. It wasn't good. And now we're reaching a point where it's like, what, what, what next? And I think that's the unified field.
And I think hopefully we are at a point where women are brought to the table in equal or even more numbers, because when we talk about really needing new ideas.
Oh, yeah. Through reconciliation is going to require the feminine compassionate.
Yeah, with the masculine responsible, it's they both have to come together and we got to figure out a way to.
I got to want my grandkids growing up in a world where everyone's at odds.
You know, it's like we that's the thing that I love about A.I. is within five years, virtually every human being in the world is going to have access to A.I.
It's going to dramatically increase learning. And can we get over some of these basic problems that are so obvious?
That. Peace just works better. It just does.
You know, you're bringing something important because I was just thinking about this dichotomy of people and the idea that I just lost my train of thought.
I took a gummy before this. So I always throw me off there a little bit.
But I was getting it's coming back to the idea of you were just saying something about.
It was going to be about unity and the ability to break down like these kind of barriers.
And and I don't know what it's going to take.
It's going to stop with name calling.
I know exactly where I'm going with this. The problem is we've been in so much pain recently and now we're in financial pain.
Right. I think Covid was just emotional pain, spiritual pain.
Now everybody's really getting financial pain. There's true.
I mean, I just looked at this two chicken breasts we cooked up two nights ago.
It was fourteen dollars, dude, for organic chicken.
It was two two chicken breasts. Fourteen dollars.
This is why we're also seeing these people show up on campus.
Not only do they.
Well, that's where the campuses are where new thought is created.
Yeah. But but but but one of these gals was asked, what are you doing?
Tell me tell us about how NYU is standing for Gaza.
Because I don't really know what we're doing here.
We're just kind of showing up. And then her friend was like, yeah, I'm so uneducated.
They didn't even know they couldn't even articulate why they were there at this massive rally.
And what that is, is it's a spiritual en masse.
It's like I want to just shout and scream and show up and be unified with some people.
And I just want to feel that energy. Right.
And this is where I think that's why waves are so powerful.
Oh, my gosh. 100 percent.
And I think that's where we're going to.
We're seeing a cosmic shift of collective humanity, of a groan, of a shove, of a heave.
I need something is got to give.
Something is got to give.
And I don't know if the universe or the divine uses all of that kind of energy in one common frame.
You know, like, I don't know if you if you remember like in Monsters Inc.
When you scared the kid, you got a lot of energy and all these monsters have to scare all the kids.
So they produce all the energy. Right.
Well, at the end, laughter blew it out of the charts. Right.
So remember when she giggled at the end and all of a sudden the meter went super high up?
I don't know if you remember this, but what I'm getting at is, is that.
You know.
If people are actually getting people out of poverty, if we took away.
Let's let's say that everybody was hit with a with a terrible tragedy, but they were still well off.
They would deal with that tragedy.
They would have emotional, spiritual, even possible physical pain, and then they would move on.
But then they then then life goes on. Right.
If if our I believe if you could pull us out of poverty, Jonathan, and we got to a level where we had actually money to spend,
we wouldn't spend so much time screaming and shouting.
We would just deal with the other things on the side. Right.
So the thing about where we are in, I think, a really financial tough financial situation is that's affecting people because that's going down to Dawkins level.
Right. When you're he talks about and transcending levels of consciousness, like ask yourself,
what's the worst thing that could happen to you if you lose your job and keep asking?
And then what? And then what? And then what? And then you would die basically because you couldn't you couldn't live on food anymore.
Everything comes down to because you're afraid of death.
So what I'm getting at is how do we help get to a levels of iterations so that these conversations have become better?
Right. As you said, calling something woke or calling something this is just a lazy way out.
But there have to be this progressive levels of understanding. Right.
That's what I was trying to draw out is woke is a demonization of a group of people in response to oppression.
Yes. The core essence of woke is intentionally good that they're trying to fight for people's dignity.
Yes. But the way they're doing it is to take away the dignity of a group of people and say, see how this feels.
That doesn't work. It never works to take away the dignity of your oppressor.
That's what Paul Ferreri knew is you can't overcome your oppressor by killing him.
The only way you create a unified field or a unified people is to redeem.
And that's what the Truth and Reconciliation Commission is.
Yes. Is they found a way that didn't require you to kill or imprison the people that harmed you.
What was really important is a sense of forgiveness and verbalization that this did happen because what a lot of people trying to get over is just a need to be have my truth heard.
Yeah. And I think are we at a point in history where we have AI at our disposal to craft something new that is.
That is different. Yeah. That's the question.
Yeah. The only sad thing about the TRC is that it lasted about a generation and a half and now it's done.
Right. So it seems like they're back. There's a lot more pain and suffering going down, going down there, including a lot of the Africans themselves, like causing a lot of violence.
But again, let me ask you the question again. Yeah. Do you think a unified field is possible in our lifetime?
Not unless you die. I don't know. I don't think it's possible in this life.
I don't understand what it would actually be like to be in a unified field for eternity because it would blow my mind. I think maybe that's a different level.
I mean, because you talk about being in the unified field when you're on psilocybin, for instance, right? And you think that's touching it.
But again, you're also having full faculties. While you're in that place, you're still breathing, living. You're almost living in two worlds, right?
The unified field is not. You do not notice anything else. You are just there and there's nothing going on.
And this is why it's so magic in terms of what it's what my friend Brett said is it's just an intense sense of peace. It is.
You don't have to prove anything. You don't have to be more, do more or get more to be accepted. You're already accepted.
It's like sitting in the midst of your very best friends in your entire life and they're all telling you how much they love you. That's what it feels like.
Well, I would say that in many ways it's almost like there is no feeling sometimes. Right. You have no awareness of of other. Right.
It's a good way of putting it is there is no other. Yeah, there's no awareness of other or of anything. If you get to that right place.
And I think, you know, so here's the thing. The sense of oneness that we're experiencing in the unified field is energy.
It's is purest form. And that is what I think Jesus meant when he said, I am. He says, I'm part of that. I am.
I'm always present. So that energy can never be exhausted, according to the first law of thermodynamics, but it can transmute into something different.
The second law of thermodynamics, love conservation. I think that is the more people are aware of the value of that experience, the more we can hopefully recreate it because it is naturally therapeutic.
Yes, to the feeling of oneness and connectedness and belonging is what church used to be.
Well, when your pulse gets down to 48 beats per minute, when you're in the middle of that, sometimes you can see it on your health app.
That's a great place to be. That is the body and the mind and everything tapping into the energy of the source. Right.
I just, you know, for me, I just need to get better at it because I need more of that. You know, it feels like I need to be in it more often. Right.
And I need it to last longer. So there's this point where when you've been doing this long enough, you know, you dive right into it right away. You don't spend 10, 15 minutes.
You know, you get there right away. Yeah. Although Byron Yates, who has been doing meditation for a year, he does the Vedic style.
We remember him from, we both had a friend who shot himself and he had a 30 year marriage that went south, but he's had the two best blissful years of his life.
And he even says that I think the reason they make it 20 minutes each time is because that first 10 to 15 is like just your mind going elsewhere. Right.
So, but what I'm getting at is how this is what's so powerful about the unified field is if you do 10 minutes of that in the morning and 10 and you're in the pure unified field and you do that every day for 20 years, that's just going to have this massive vibrational effect on your
upward appearance and who you interact with and stuff like that. And I think you can be extremely intentional about that connectedness because what I do is I, when I walk my dog, I'm extremely intentional to go right into that space and live there.
And I try and live that consciousness all the way into going to sleep.
And I, what is that intentionality? Tell me, describe to me exactly what that looks like. It's an intention of, here's what the unified field feels like to me.
Okay. It's a sense of I am good.
I'm like, anything that I could, that could possibly give me fear has to first pass through that rule. And what comes out of this is just love. That's all it is. So everything that I filter has to go through good.
And so I've kind of consciously gotten over, am I good? I know that I'm good, not because, because that's the nature of source that I am part of. So I don't have to prove it anymore. It's like that allowed me to then connect to how do I, I was having a conversation around it.
And 20 years ago I read how to win friends and influence people, which basically the idea and phenomenal books, probably one of the best books I've ever read.
He said, the more you, if you want friends, become a friend and you'll always have friends. That's basically the tenant.
And what I realized is, Holy shit. It worked. It really worked because I have spent a lot of the last 10 years of my life really learning how to invest in people first. And that's love.
And I realized, Oh, I can love and that has made my life infinitely better because my relationships are a lot more rewarding and I'm much more creative and ambitious.
Because I, like, I'm not dealing with a lot of the bullshit that was really characterized the first probably 35 years of my life.
Yeah.
That's, that's, that's amazing, man.
Yeah. It's, I think people are waking up wanting, they want the science and the religion to match.
Yes. And I think that may be what's happening right now in this age that is the age of Aquarius is where the heart and the mind, because this is science, this is religion, and these two are coming together.
Yes. So I'm reading, I'll close and then we'll switch to the next topic. I'm reading this book.
And it's probably I want the readers to know this. It's how emotions are made by Dr. Lisa Barrett. I want to highly recommend this book.
Absolutely phenomenal. And in it, she's basically saying we are at a point in history where the head we're realizing we've almost cut off the body from the head.
We say, Oh, when something happens, a disease in the body, it's, it's, it's biology. It's physiology. It's not mental.
And she's saying neuroscience is now basically destroying that notion.
Wow.
Completely destroying it that all disease is created by mental.
Wow.
100%.
But.
And as we break down there, as we break down those barriers, that allows us to make the connections of the head and the heart. And that's what's happening at a scientific level. I think what the.
She even saying is this scale even saying if you had somebody with bubonic plague literally spit on you or cough blood on you and you were exposed to that, that you wouldn't die because it's in your head.
Or you sing like 99%. You know what I'm saying? Like there are physical. I mean, if you're in, let's say you're being sprayed with.
Here's how it works. Here's how it works. Okay. The brain only operates on prediction. Okay. It only operates on prediction. You, you don't ever choose to do something you operate on.
This is what life has taught me is the best option predicted at this moment.
Okay.
And anything we learn basically before nine is is mostly our genetics influencing those paths.
But everything is 100% chosen.
Okay.
Or constructed in our head because there is the external and then there's the internal and the.
Your body that prediction then season and external environment it sees that message. It feels the feeling and then it comes up and it creates an assessment of it's a constructed assessment.
That your body follows whatever you construct. That's what your body will follow.
And the problem is, is that you.
Pain.
Is also a prediction. So you have an experience of, oh, your arm gets cut.
And the first time you experience it, you go, oh, that's what getting cut in your arm feels like.
And so the next or a shot that she uses the idea of a shot. She goes, children.
And then the next time they come to the doctors, they're literally shaking Pavlov. Yeah. Right. And it's because what's happening is the prediction mechanism in your brain is setting off.
And here's the reality. If you hook up EKG and MRI to it, you can see that they're having the exact same chemical response as getting cut.
Yes. Here's the thing is the brain can actually construct a false narrative. It can construct. Neuroscience is teaching us that the brain can construct an illusion and live by it.
Yeah. Well, Anna and Joe dispenses book, right. At the beginning, her husband, Joe talks about is completely validated by what she said. Everything.
And so we're at this period of time where science, the head is beginning to talk to religion, the heart and go, hey, we need each other because there's value in traditions.
We just have to get rid of all the bullshit part of it. Right.
So one of the things that we talked about last episode with Brian was.
A sense of powerlessness. Okay, we're going into an election year with probably.
People are potentially expecting it to be even more crazy than the last one. People are kind of freaking out going.
I'm trying not to worry about it, but I, you know, back. It's probably in the back of everybody's mind.
And what do you do?
Do people or do you feel powerless to stop what's happening in Washington?
Yes.
One of the easiest ways to look at it is. Nobody was happy with the Patriot Act with the privacy violations that it brought, except we gave in because we said this is for, you know, this is for safety.
This is we're in war. And over the course of time, it was never reenacted or repealed.
And another vote just came up and everybody's still pissed and they pass it anyway.
According to most of America.
Most Americans, 70% do not want multiple billions of dollars going over to Ukraine or to Israel to others until we get our own shit together.
And they did it anyway. And not only that, it didn't. I mean, nothing went towards the border. Right. Everybody knows that the border is very scary.
I mean, I watched this boat go in and Sonata or not. It's not about Carlsbad. I mean, just comes out and like 25 guys get up and just start running around.
So I mean, that is something that, you know, in terms of.
You know.
I don't even know where I'm going. But those are the things that I think of. Right.
Did you vote this last November?
Oh, for the primary? No. Yeah.
Do you vote on a yearly basis? Yes, I voted for Republican my whole life.
I probably vote two out of every four years. I try and get in the local stuff. But here's the thing.
I was watching this video. What brought this up is I was watching this video of this guy saying, does anybody really care?
Like nobody's doing it feels like nobody's doing anything about it, that everybody's the rug is being pulled. Yes. Yes.
And everybody's just saying, oh, this is the way it is.
Like that's the simulation. This is why people like it doesn't matter.
This is that why this is why I went back to the postmodern thing and going back to where I lost my train of thought.
It's the idea that no matter where you go, what you do or what you're looking at, it doesn't seem to make any sense.
You know, even when you've got Mike Johnson, who at one point in time was basically like saying prayers and doing all this and everybody's like he's on board.
Next thing you know, he's doing exactly what they all do.
So, Jonathan, the thing about it is, is whether you're seeing the CIA literally guilty of killing a president or the FBI, you know, weaponizing all these things are coming together where people feel powerless.
And if what would happen if what they're doing in China happens to like a social credit score, right?
What happens if, you know, you know what, what's happening in other countries like Australia and in Canada, there's somebody trying to whip out a thousand dollars.
They got fifty thousand dollars in their bank account and the people are asking what why is this? Why are you doing this?
What's the invoice? Show me what this is for. It's like, I just want my money. It's my money.
So those are things that people are asking themselves. What would I mean? I'm powerless against this, right?
So that's I think it's a reality, dude. I think it's a real it's a real concern.
How do you respond to it? Because when we were interviewing Brian and I kind of said that, I thought, well, you know what, actually, yeah.
What would what would you do if nobody did anything about some major politician?
I'm not picking either side out because they're both guilty.
I agree.
What would you do if nobody did anything about it? It's like, what could we do? It's like, do we just continue?
Like, how much of it is simulation meant just to fuck with you in the background going, yeah, this world is blowing up.
How are you going to how are you going to do tomorrow? You know, I think you have to do these things like Brian was talking about, right?
I mean, he even went back like, hey, we're talking about it, right?
This is like it. The same analogy was I don't know if it was Augustin or whatever.
You know, he's throwing the starfish back into the ocean. There's thousands of them there. A lot of them going to die.
And why are you doing it? Well, I saved that one. That one's going to thank me. Right.
So the question is, what iterative processes can you do to try to make a difference?
And maybe it starts. I don't know.
It's not as simple as starting at the local government, your town or your county and trying to make the community work right in terms of like, you know,
ways that you can change. Maybe what Brian was talking about climate change is you get small groups, you get together, you build bigger groups, you get some investors and you start to make some noise.
Right. And so I really don't know how.
I mean, it's like an open secret now. I mean, there's no community notes on Twitter anymore when Tucker says, you know, and R.F.K. Jr. says, yeah, the CIA killed my dad.
Right. That's it's not even showing up. Like community notices. Well, you might want to look at this. Right.
So I guess how would you make a difference? I mean, I think the small guys like saying, hey, I could I could vote for R.F.K. Jr. I like him.
I like his style. His family's been freaking screwed over. Let's go and see what happens. Right. And maybe something miraculous will happen.
I don't know. Do you like R.F.K.? I like him a lot. Yeah.
He's definitely progressive on some issues, but that's I mean, I liked Andrew Yang.
Yeah, I did, too. I liked him a lot. Very winsome. He was on it was on Fox.
He knew why the truckers, you know, what they're going through.
And the beauty of him is that he knew how to empathize. And that's what Vivek Ramaswamy is so good at.
He he can come across and he can even let somebody screaming at him in the audience come up and then totally talks.
Make sure he understands their point. Right. I think brings things down. Let's then let's let's them vent.
Right. And then comes back with something that seems always to be relatively innocuous and like, oh, my God, why didn't we all think of that? Right.
And so I think there's some magic and we need people like that in circles to grow and get bigger to make that because I think he was an important voice. Right.
I think he's that kind of person who's pulled behind and said, hey, because he just makes a lot of sense. Right.
He's just coming from the right. And I liked Andrew Yang the same way. Articulate, winsome, not bagging on people coming up with unique ideas.
You know, did you like Pete Buttigieg? No. You didn't.
He was the most articulate speaker of them all. Oh, no. He knows how to dodge people.
And when his infrastructure is fumbling and he says, well, we can't be productive. He did. He was the mayor of West Bend, Indiana.
He has he has ideas that don't fall in line. An infrastructure plan that I think is not viable.
And he comes in condescending. That's the problem. He comes in. Oh, absolutely.
No, he's he definitely comes in like, hmm, yeah, I'm going to take you down a little notch instead of like, who doesn't come like that.
That's why I dislike Buttigieg. Hey, why don't we finish with you brought in a white Negroni and you can share how to our listeners how to make one.
Oh, sure. I would love to because I because you talked about this drink and I've had a Negroni.
It's all right. But you talked about this one, a white Negroni. What's the difference?
Yeah. So a Negroni for everybody's education is a drink that came up from Florence, Italy, I think in the 30s.
Basically, you've got Campari, which is the key component. It's a very bitter aperitif and it's very dark red.
And so you've it's very hot oftentimes in in Italy. So you've got three components Campari, sweet vermouth.
And then you've got gin. So those are three main components of a Negroni. The beauty of a Negroni is when you take a look at it, you can literally intersperse every ingredient.
And so much so that they call one when you add rye to it or bourbon, it's called a boulevardier.
And of course, you know, there's a variety of varieties. Right. So what people started doing was like, well, if we can change the booze, why not?
Right. But let's try to make it a white Negroni. And I don't know where it came from. But you're just trying to mix up those flavor profiles.
So white Negroni is traditionally gin as well. Instead of red Campari, you're using a derivative that's very bitter and herbaceous, but has a little bit more kick.
It's more like a liqueur than the vermouth. So in this case, it was Luxardo's bitter Bianco.
So this is a, and by the way, so I, instead of sweet vermouth using dry vermouth, and then instead of gin, I actually used a G4 tequila.
That's the new hottest tequila that he says, G4 Blanco.
Why G4?
A fourth generation. That's what it stands for. When I was first introduced to it, it was a few months ago.
And then all of a sudden the bar that my son used to work for, they started carrying it. And then I saw an ad on Instagram that had it in there too, all at the same time.
I'm like, okay, this is, this is hopping. So let's go.
Nice.
Yeah, dude.
What do you garnish it with?
So what's in the white Negroni?
Yeah. Okay. One ounce of gin, traditionally one ounce of dry vermouth and one ounce of either Sous or you can use Luxardo bitter Bianco.
And instead of dry vermouth, you can also use Lilat Blanc. So hope that helps. That's a white Negroni.
And I garnished it with grapefruit. I garnished it with a grapefruit, but you could always use lemon or orange.
Okay. What is the difference between a dry and a sweet vermouth?
So sweet vermouth is by default a sweeter in taste. Imagine kind of a fortified wine with a lot of different herbs in there.
It's not as bitter as Campari, but it does have an herbaceous-ness to it.
Dry vermouth is just a hint of sweetness. It's also called more citrusy and minerally, less fruity and herbaceous-ness.
And it's really designed to accent the flavor of the gin. Whereas if you think about a martini, most martinis are mostly gin or vodka and just a touch of dry vermouth, right?
Whereas when you use red vermouth, it's traditionally as a compliment, not an accent. It's literally like one equal part or it's a solid part of that component.
So in a Manhattan, you would have two ounces of bourbon and you'd have like one ounce of vermouth. So that's almost half, right?
Yeah. I've never been a vermouth fan. I don't know why.
It's not easy. It takes some time. Yeah, I agree with that.
It's an equal taste?
Well, that's the first part. The second part is what people don't know. And I said this on my story last weekend is that it goes bad very quickly.
So vermouth is only about 17 to 18 percent and it's not fortified. Meaning like port has had brandy added to it to make it, let's say 20 percent or 30 percent.
Right.
And that's why port can sit in your cupboard for two years with a cork in it. Dry vermouth doesn't have that process added to it.
So imagine opening up a 17 percent Zinfandel from Dry Creek and letting it sit in your cabinet for three or four weeks. That's not going to be a good cabernet or Zin, is it?
So dry vermouth and sweet vermouth likely sat on a dry shelf, a warm shelf and sat there for months, if not a year when you were given it.
So you might not have had the best vermouth ever.
Yeah. You know what I'm trying to think of? If I when I was in high school, we graduated and all went to Hawaii together, all my friends and all and all my friends that night, two of us went back and four of them went and got a martini and it had vermouth in it.
And they all go, oh my God, we wanted to die. So from that point, I don't think I've ever had.
Interesting. Yeah.
But I think that's the, you know, the social dynamic of people creating tastes. You never tried it, but you know it's awful, you know.
Yeah. So awesome.
So this has been a fun episode. I always love these topic ones, getting to discuss kind of what's on our heart. I know the world is interesting right now and it'll be interesting to see where the rest of this year takes us. Any final thoughts?
I just obviously the Holy Spirit prompted and blew my shutters open. So yeah, no final thoughts, man. It's been a good episode.
And I think that it was one where we kind of went introspective. It feels like rather than intellectualizing a conversation, this is we were feeling it, man.
You know, we literally were feeling, I think a lot of the pain that's going on in the world and it feels really real. And I'm looking forward to somehow getting a sign that this shit's going to break through before too long, you know.
I believe it will. Yeah.
All right, everybody. Thank you for joining us. If you're still around, please comment and review. Let us know if you'd like to see somebody. We'd be more than happy if you could introduce us.
And we wish you all the best. Have a wonderful weekend to all of our listeners. Much love, everybody.