1
00:00:01,440 --> 00:00:07,080
Paul F. Austin: What happens when a Christian minister publicly embraces psychedelics as part of his spiritual life?

2
00:00:07,620 --> 00:00:12,720
In this episode of the Psychedelic Podcast, I speak with Hunt Priest, founder of Legare, a Christian

3
00:00:13,020 --> 00:00:19,020
psychedelic society exploring the relationship between psychedelics, contemplative Christianity, and spiritual formation.

4
00:00:19,860 --> 00:00:25,380
Hunt shares his experience participating in the 2016 Johns Hopkins psilocybin study for clergy,

5
00:00:25,680 --> 00:00:31,980
and how that experience reshaped his understanding of the mystical experience within Christian tradition.

6
00:00:32,580 --> 00:00:37,320
We explore the long history of Christian contemplative practice, the distinction between psychedelics

7
00:00:37,500 --> 00:00:43,740
as catalysts versus replacements for faith, and the ethical tensions between legality and moral responsibility.

8
00:00:44,340 --> 00:00:49,380
We also discuss institutional resistance, the controversy that Hunt navigated within the Episcopal

9
00:00:49,500 --> 00:00:53,820
Church, and the decision to resign his ordination in order to continue his work.

10
00:00:54,300 --> 00:00:59,040
This conversation offers a grounded reflection on faith, justice, community, and what it means

11
00:00:59,100 --> 00:01:02,460
to hold spiritual experience with integrity.

12
00:01:03,000 --> 00:01:04,860
Now, who is Hunt Priest?

13
00:01:05,100 --> 00:01:09,360
Hunt is the founder of Legare and was a participant in this 2016 study.

14
00:01:09,420 --> 00:01:15,660
At the time that he was in the study, he was the senior pastor of Emanuel Episcopal Church on

15
00:01:16,080 --> 00:01:21,600
Mercer Island in Washington, and his encounters with psilocybin opened him to the healing and

16
00:01:21,660 --> 00:01:24,660
consciousness-raising power of sacred plants and fungi.

17
00:01:25,200 --> 00:01:30,480
He served the Episcopal Church as a priest for 20 years, resigning his ordination in 2025 to

18
00:01:30,660 --> 00:01:36,420
continue his work at the intersection of psychedelics, religion, contemplative Christianity, and mental health.

19
00:01:37,080 --> 00:01:42,240
Now, what's fun is you'll also get to hear me talk quite a bit about my own Christian upbringing,

20
00:01:42,300 --> 00:01:45,960
which is something that I've hinted at in previous episodes, but haven't really gone into the

21
00:01:46,020 --> 00:01:48,000
same depth that I went into here.

22
00:01:48,540 --> 00:01:53,040
And overall, I think this is a sort of unique episode because we've never had someone on, a

23
00:01:53,100 --> 00:01:59,940
former clergy member, who has sort of stepped out of the clergy as a result of their psychedelic experience.

24
00:02:00,000 --> 00:02:01,980
So I think you'll really enjoy this episode.

25
00:02:02,160 --> 00:02:04,980
And without further ado, let's go to our sponsors.

26
00:02:05,580 --> 00:02:10,140
If you've been wanting to turn your passion for psychedelics into a meaningful and profitable

27
00:02:10,320 --> 00:02:11,880
practice, then check this out.

28
00:02:12,000 --> 00:02:16,140
Enrollment is now open for our microdosing practitioner certification program.

29
00:02:16,320 --> 00:02:22,920
And in just 18 weeks, you'll become a certified microdosing practitioner, mastering my signature

30
00:02:23,280 --> 00:02:28,080
San Pedro microdosing protocol for nervous system regulation while developing the somatic coaching

31
00:02:28,260 --> 00:02:31,080
and business skills to launch or expand your practice.

32
00:02:31,380 --> 00:02:36,000
This isn't just another theoretical course; it's hands-on, high-touch training that helps you

33
00:02:36,300 --> 00:02:42,120
integrate our microdosing protocol, refine your practitioner presence, and graduate ready to

34
00:02:42,180 --> 00:02:44,100
start enrolling clients right away.

35
00:02:44,220 --> 00:02:48,600
If you're ready to help others move from dysregulation to balance and build a thriving business

36
00:02:49,020 --> 00:02:54,540
doing work that matters, I'd love to see you in our next microdosing practitioner cohort.

37
00:02:55,020 --> 00:03:00,540
Just follow the link in the episode description or visit psychedeliccoaching.institute to learn more and apply.

38
00:03:01,440 --> 00:03:05,700
Third Wave sometimes shares or partners with outside providers, but we don't control and aren't

39
00:03:05,820 --> 00:03:09,000
responsible for their statements, conduct, products, or services.

40
00:03:09,120 --> 00:03:12,840
We encourage you to do your own research and consult appropriate professionals.

41
00:03:13,560 --> 00:03:16,020
Hey everyone, I want to take a moment to share something important with you.

42
00:03:16,140 --> 00:03:20,700
At Third Wave, one of our biggest commitments is helping people to explore the power of microdosing

43
00:03:20,880 --> 00:03:24,120
safely, intentionally, and with the right support systems in place.

44
00:03:24,840 --> 00:03:29,760
That's why I'm excited to introduce you to our go-to company, Golden Rule, one of the most respected

45
00:03:30,000 --> 00:03:31,860
names in the microdosing space.

46
00:03:32,640 --> 00:03:38,100
Golden Rule crafts premium, ethically sourced microdosing products, including psilocybin, single-strain,

47
00:03:38,220 --> 00:03:44,760
and blends, San Pedro, and LSD options, all designed to support clarity, creativity, emotional healing, and performance.

48
00:03:45,480 --> 00:03:50,280
What really sets them apart is their integrity, honoring traditional plant wisdom while embracing

49
00:03:50,640 --> 00:03:53,760
modern science to support real and lasting transformation.

50
00:03:54,300 --> 00:03:59,280
Together, Third Wave and Golden Rule are working to make safe, high-quality microdoses more

51
00:03:59,580 --> 00:04:04,620
accessible while ensuring you have the education, tools, and community to feel confident on your journey.

52
00:04:05,160 --> 00:04:08,820
If you're curious about microdosing and want to try some of my personal favorites, head over

53
00:04:08,880 --> 00:04:16,020
to goldenrulemushrooms.com/thirdwave and use code THIRDWAVE at checkout for 10% off, not just

54
00:04:16,380 --> 00:04:18,960
once, but for every future order too.

55
00:04:19,440 --> 00:04:26,400
Again, that's goldenrulemushrooms.com/thirdwave and use code THIRDWAVE for a lifetime discount of 10% off.

56
00:04:28,080 --> 00:04:30,240
All right, folks, let's get right into it.

57
00:04:30,360 --> 00:04:33,480
Here's my podcast episode with Hunt Priest.

58
00:04:58,800 --> 00:05:00,780
So Hunt, it's great to have you on the podcast today.

59
00:05:00,900 --> 00:05:01,680
Thank you for joining us.

60
00:05:01,980 --> 00:05:03,600
Hunt Priest: Thank you, Paul. It's really an honor to be here.

61
00:05:03,840 --> 00:05:05,520
Your work has been really important.

62
00:05:06,060 --> 00:05:08,100
It's been helpful to me in my work, so thank you.

63
00:05:08,700 --> 00:05:10,260
Paul F. Austin: Beautiful. Thank you so much.

64
00:05:11,040 --> 00:05:14,760
Let's talk a little bit about that psilocybin study to start, because we haven't really discussed

65
00:05:14,820 --> 00:05:16,200
it on the podcast before.

66
00:05:16,260 --> 00:05:21,720
If you could just provide our listeners with a little bit of context about 2016, Johns Hopkins,

67
00:05:22,140 --> 00:05:28,920
this study on psilocybin for sort of pastoral or religious leaders.

68
00:05:29,160 --> 00:05:34,020
Talk to us a little bit about what drew you to that study in the first place and what the sort

69
00:05:34,080 --> 00:05:36,420
of immediate result of that experience was for you.

70
00:05:37,020 --> 00:05:42,780
Hunt Priest: Sure. Yeah. So 2015, about this time, it was in October of 2015. I lived in Seattle.

71
00:05:42,840 --> 00:05:47,580
I was the rector, which is the way Episcopalians talk about their senior pastor.

72
00:05:47,820 --> 00:05:51,300
I was rector of the Episcopal Church on Mercer Island, which is near Seattle.

73
00:05:51,780 --> 00:05:55,440
And I was at home one afternoon, and I was flipping through Christian Century magazine, which

74
00:05:55,620 --> 00:06:01,500
is sort of the progressive liberal, one of the magazines that serves that part of Christianity.

75
00:06:01,560 --> 00:06:08,760
And I was flipping through the magazine and saw an article and an ad for the study at Hopkins and NYU.

76
00:06:09,120 --> 00:06:13,260
This was the Hopkins site, but I saw an ad for it and an article.

77
00:06:14,460 --> 00:06:19,860
And I immediately thought, "Oh my God, why wouldn't I do that?" And that's amazing.

78
00:06:20,040 --> 00:06:24,480
Johns Hopkins cares what Christian or clergy think about anything. I'm in.

79
00:06:24,720 --> 00:06:26,220
I knew a little bit about the research.

80
00:06:26,220 --> 00:06:31,380
I'd read Pollan's 2015 article in The New Yorker, but it was just sort of out there.

81
00:06:31,560 --> 00:06:36,840
And I applied thinking, "Well, there's no way I'll get in because there's going to be a thousand

82
00:06:36,840 --> 00:06:41,100
people that want to do this." And it turns out it took five years to fill it up, at least.

83
00:06:41,640 --> 00:06:48,960
But I applied and met the amazing people at Hopkins, Roland, Griffiths, and Mary Casimano and

84
00:06:49,020 --> 00:06:54,600
Bill Richards, other people on that team, and felt immediately safe. So I applied. I got accepted.

85
00:06:54,780 --> 00:06:56,640
I flew to Baltimore for an interview.

86
00:06:57,000 --> 00:06:59,580
Then I did get fully accepted into the study.

87
00:06:59,640 --> 00:07:02,520
And three months later, I'm at Hopkins.

88
00:07:03,420 --> 00:07:08,220
They'd been doing the research since 2020, I mean, since 2000. This was now 2015.

89
00:07:08,460 --> 00:07:13,140
They've been doing the research, picking up on the research that had been going on in the '40s and '50s and '60s.

90
00:07:13,860 --> 00:07:18,660
And they were discovering that people that were having the best results with the mental health

91
00:07:18,840 --> 00:07:26,700
issues, addiction, depression, trauma, were having some form of spiritual and/or religious experiences

92
00:07:26,880 --> 00:07:27,720
in the midst of that.

93
00:07:27,960 --> 00:07:34,860
And I think they wanted to see how those of us that were trained in pastoral care and theology

94
00:07:35,100 --> 00:07:38,340
and leading communities would respond with the same protocol.

95
00:07:38,760 --> 00:07:40,260
So we were screened for mental health.

96
00:07:40,260 --> 00:07:46,620
So we were screened for any mental health disorders, physically screened. And I was accepted.

97
00:07:46,920 --> 00:07:53,040
And there were about 30 of us, mostly Christian, but there were four rabbis.

98
00:07:53,280 --> 00:08:02,040
There were, I think, two Buddhists, one Muslim woman, and then the Christian, mostly Protestant.

99
00:08:02,220 --> 00:08:07,380
There were four Episcopalians, one Roman Catholic, Presbyterians, Lutherans, one American Baptist.

100
00:08:07,620 --> 00:08:13,080
So a good representation congregationally, so a good representation of American Protestantism, at least.

101
00:08:13,620 --> 00:08:19,680
And I ended up on the sofa at Hopkins in February of 2016.

102
00:08:19,740 --> 00:08:25,320
I was psychedelically naive, which was one of the requirements, and in a religious setting,

103
00:08:25,440 --> 00:08:30,000
a religious professional, which I was, as the rector of that church in Seattle. So there I was.

104
00:08:30,180 --> 00:08:31,260
Paul F. Austin: And what drew you to the study?

105
00:08:32,460 --> 00:08:37,080
Why did you feel so compelled to fly all the way to Baltimore and go back and do this?

106
00:08:37,140 --> 00:08:38,940
And kind of what was there for you?

107
00:08:39,120 --> 00:08:43,740
Hunt Priest: Well, I think, well, the immediate thing was just I thought that was so cool to be part of the

108
00:08:43,980 --> 00:08:49,440
because I've always been interested in the relationship between science and religion and spirituality.

109
00:08:49,500 --> 00:08:51,420
So that was an immediate draw.

110
00:08:51,900 --> 00:08:56,280
As I've jokingly said, they cared what Christian clergy thought about anything.

111
00:08:56,400 --> 00:08:58,500
And it was about the things I care about.

112
00:08:58,920 --> 00:09:04,680
And I'd also discerned my call to the priesthood in my mid-30s at an Episcopal church in Atlanta,

113
00:09:05,100 --> 00:09:10,800
where most of the congregation dealt with really severe mental illness, and 80% of the congregation.

114
00:09:10,920 --> 00:09:12,240
So it was a very unusual place.

115
00:09:12,660 --> 00:09:17,940
And I saw firsthand there what community where people with serious mental health issues were

116
00:09:18,000 --> 00:09:22,740
treated with dignity and respect and were incorporated into a community and not some kind of

117
00:09:22,920 --> 00:09:24,660
do-good project of the congregation.

118
00:09:25,140 --> 00:09:32,280
So I had this long-time interest in the connection between spiritual health and mental health.

119
00:09:32,700 --> 00:09:34,440
So there were just several threads that came together.

120
00:09:34,440 --> 00:09:36,540
And I'm sort of curious about things.

121
00:09:36,540 --> 00:09:40,860
And I was never I'd never done psychedelics, but I wasn't afraid of them necessarily.

122
00:09:40,920 --> 00:09:45,000
I was a little afraid of LSD, but mushrooms, I wasn't.

123
00:09:45,000 --> 00:09:45,960
I just had never done them.

124
00:09:46,140 --> 00:09:49,920
And it just felt like an incredible opportunity. I was 51.

125
00:09:49,980 --> 00:09:52,380
I was dealing with some anxiety.

126
00:09:52,560 --> 00:09:55,380
There were some things going on in my family with work.

127
00:09:56,280 --> 00:09:57,840
But I passed the screening for that.

128
00:09:58,440 --> 00:09:59,700
And I'm going to talk about that in a minute.

129
00:09:59,760 --> 00:10:03,900
But I got some healing from some pretty serious anxiety that I was dealing with.

130
00:10:04,020 --> 00:10:07,500
So even though it wasn't a mental health study, I got some real mental health benefits.

131
00:10:07,620 --> 00:10:12,060
And I got profound spiritual benefits in my work as a clergy person.

132
00:10:12,720 --> 00:10:17,100
Paul F. Austin: And I want to come back and revisit that as really the crux of our conversation.

133
00:10:17,280 --> 00:10:24,900
But I'd first love to start with a little bit of the landscape around Christianity and psychedelics.

134
00:10:27,000 --> 00:10:28,500
I've mentioned on this podcast many times.

135
00:10:28,560 --> 00:10:30,720
I won't sort of go back over it again.

136
00:10:30,780 --> 00:10:32,280
But I was raised in the Christian church.

137
00:10:32,340 --> 00:10:38,040
And for basically the first 18 years of my life, I was at church more or less every single Sunday

138
00:10:38,280 --> 00:10:45,120
and mission trips, most summers, and Sunday school and everything you could think of.

139
00:10:46,680 --> 00:10:53,760
And when I started to get into psychedelics, it was at a point in my life when I was leaning more atheistic.

140
00:10:53,940 --> 00:11:01,200
I had a hard time really buying into a lot of the sort of Christian, not traditions necessarily,

141
00:11:01,260 --> 00:11:03,180
but maybe some of the teachings.

142
00:11:03,420 --> 00:11:08,040
And psychedelics were the thing that helped me to sort of revitalize my own spiritual understanding

143
00:11:08,880 --> 00:11:13,200
and life and also realize that as a human, sort of

144
00:11:15,780 --> 00:11:21,540
orthodox religion was not necessarily my calling, that I felt like I wanted to look at a more

145
00:11:21,720 --> 00:11:26,760
sort of syncretic approach to spirituality and religion.

146
00:11:27,720 --> 00:11:34,860
And so I'm curious, first of all, practically, what does Legare mean?

147
00:11:35,100 --> 00:11:38,820
And sort of what was your vision for starting Legare?

148
00:11:39,300 --> 00:11:45,180
What is it that you wanted to sort of help support in exploring this relationship between Christianity and psychedelics?

149
00:11:45,540 --> 00:11:49,080
Hunt Priest: Okay. So just real quick, I was in the study, ended up in early '16.

150
00:11:49,380 --> 00:11:55,080
I was in the study and had two profound, very religious, very Christian experiences.

151
00:11:55,140 --> 00:11:57,240
Quite unexpectedly, I didn't know what was going to happen.

152
00:11:57,360 --> 00:11:58,500
I was totally open to anything.

153
00:11:59,340 --> 00:12:04,920
I had two very profound experiences a month apart and got back to Seattle for the first experience.

154
00:12:05,220 --> 00:12:12,840
And a friend, just out of the blue, had sent me a job listing for a job in Savannah, which is where I live now.

155
00:12:13,320 --> 00:12:14,760
And I have one son.

156
00:12:14,820 --> 00:12:16,500
He was about to be a senior.

157
00:12:16,800 --> 00:12:18,480
And that's a weird time to move a child.

158
00:12:18,540 --> 00:12:22,200
But I saw that profile so clear in my mind.

159
00:12:22,320 --> 00:12:24,060
I saw the profile of the church here in Savannah.

160
00:12:24,120 --> 00:12:29,100
I thought, "Well, that's an incredible fit." And I was sensing it was time to move on.

161
00:12:29,160 --> 00:12:30,660
I'd been there eight years in Seattle.

162
00:12:31,140 --> 00:12:33,120
And it just was feeling a little nudge to move.

163
00:12:33,300 --> 00:12:37,860
And so I asked my son, and he said, "No, Dad, let's go for it." So I applied, got the job, and

164
00:12:37,920 --> 00:12:41,940
moved to Savannah and had a really wonderful time there.

165
00:12:42,120 --> 00:12:47,160
And about five years in, it was COVID.

166
00:12:47,400 --> 00:12:48,780
I saw the mental health crisis.

167
00:12:48,900 --> 00:12:51,360
I'd had those experiences at Hopkins.

168
00:12:51,480 --> 00:12:56,700
And I just knew that there was something very important, both for the Christian church around

169
00:12:57,060 --> 00:13:02,700
psychedelic experiences and for the psychedelic community around a Christian container, a way

170
00:13:02,700 --> 00:13:05,880
to understand it, and harm reduction and safety.

171
00:13:06,000 --> 00:13:07,620
So it was so obvious to me.

172
00:13:07,740 --> 00:13:10,980
So anyway, I applied for that job in Savannah.

173
00:13:11,040 --> 00:13:13,140
I got it, came here, served the congregation.

174
00:13:13,800 --> 00:13:18,480
And in late 2020, I was on a retreat, on a meditation retreat.

175
00:13:18,540 --> 00:13:23,700
And over the course of a few days, I just realized that there needed to be a place for Christians

176
00:13:23,700 --> 00:13:28,440
to learn about psychedelic experiences, the healing that happens, the spiritual experiences,

177
00:13:28,500 --> 00:13:31,080
the direct experience of God, which I'd had.

178
00:13:31,500 --> 00:13:36,060
And there was a need for the psychedelic community to understand that Christianity maybe is

179
00:13:36,120 --> 00:13:42,420
not exactly what they've experienced and that there's a much deeper and more contemplative and

180
00:13:42,540 --> 00:13:48,240
mystical, non-dual part of Christianity that's really been sort of the Protestant Reformation

181
00:13:48,360 --> 00:13:50,280
sort of washed it away in some ways.

182
00:13:50,280 --> 00:13:52,680
But it's there, and it's been held in monastic.

183
00:13:52,800 --> 00:13:54,000
It's been held in the church.

184
00:13:54,060 --> 00:13:55,680
It's just not on the forefront.

185
00:13:55,980 --> 00:14:00,360
And that was the Christianity that had fed me most of my life and certainly as an adult.

186
00:14:00,660 --> 00:14:02,520
So it was so obvious to me.

187
00:14:02,820 --> 00:14:08,520
So I was on that retreat, came back, and realized I needed to do something because there wasn't anything out there.

188
00:14:08,880 --> 00:14:13,740
And so I've made some phone calls to some people I've been talking to about funding, got some

189
00:14:13,800 --> 00:14:16,020
money to get started, and needed to name it.

190
00:14:16,680 --> 00:14:20,520
And Legare is Latin, and it means to bind or unite.

191
00:14:21,240 --> 00:14:25,440
And it's the root word of religion.

192
00:14:26,400 --> 00:14:30,120
And re-Legare is really religion to rebind to God.

193
00:14:30,660 --> 00:14:33,300
And so legare.org was available.

194
00:14:33,540 --> 00:14:38,340
And I was off to the races, not really knowing exactly what I was going to do.

195
00:14:38,400 --> 00:14:42,720
But I knew that so I just got busy basically doing some community organizing work, going to

196
00:14:42,720 --> 00:14:46,620
every psychedelic conference I could, getting on the phone with anybody I could.

197
00:14:46,800 --> 00:14:51,840
Again, it was during COVID, so it was easy to do that, and began to develop a network.

198
00:14:51,840 --> 00:14:54,000
And we slowly rolled it out.

199
00:14:54,060 --> 00:14:55,500
So that's the genesis of it.

200
00:14:55,560 --> 00:15:00,180
But it came on a retreat and then just the Latin word for religion.

201
00:15:01,020 --> 00:15:04,500
Paul F. Austin: That's beautiful. That's beautiful. So legare.org is where folks can find out.

202
00:15:04,740 --> 00:15:07,080
We'll revisit that at the end of the conversation.

203
00:15:07,260 --> 00:15:11,340
Something you said sort of piqued my interest, and I want to dive into that a little bit deeper.

204
00:15:11,400 --> 00:15:17,280
You had mentioned part of your theological framework, even coming into these psilocybin experiences,

205
00:15:17,280 --> 00:15:22,680
was more, let's say, monastic or mystical in context.

206
00:15:24,540 --> 00:15:30,960
There's a reason, I believe, that the monastic life is sort of set aside from the rest of the world, right?

207
00:15:31,020 --> 00:15:33,360
So there can be a real diving in.

208
00:15:33,480 --> 00:15:40,740
And as you mentioned, with the Protestant Reformation and then industrialization overall, these

209
00:15:40,800 --> 00:15:45,120
sort of monastic traditions really have died away.

210
00:15:45,900 --> 00:15:51,360
And also from what I understand, a lot of these monastic traditions are not necessarily associated

211
00:15:51,480 --> 00:15:56,400
with the sort of Protestant tradition.

212
00:15:56,400 --> 00:16:03,900
They tend to be more associated with Catholicism or even Orthodox, whether that's Greek Orthodox or Russian Orthodox.

213
00:16:04,980 --> 00:16:11,700
So talk to us a little bit about these more monastic or mystical traditions in Christianity

214
00:16:12,060 --> 00:16:19,080
and maybe even talk a little bit about your speculation on why you think psychedelics may be

215
00:16:19,140 --> 00:16:24,420
helpful in reviving some of these traditions within a Christian context.

216
00:16:24,840 --> 00:16:29,520
Hunt Priest: Sure. So I'll step back just a little bit to my connection with what you said about your own.

217
00:16:29,700 --> 00:16:35,700
I grew up in the Episcopal Church, which is part of the Anglican Communion, which is the Church of England.

218
00:16:35,820 --> 00:16:44,340
So it's a large branch of Protestantism that's really in between sort of traditional Protestantism and Roman Catholic. So sort of maintained.

219
00:16:44,520 --> 00:16:49,440
And the Anglican tradition also has convents and monasteries, not as many as the Roman Catholic

220
00:16:49,560 --> 00:16:51,420
Church, but that's part of our tradition, too.

221
00:16:52,500 --> 00:17:00,240
And in my 20s, I was beginning to I sensed something was missing in Christianity for me.

222
00:17:00,480 --> 00:17:04,500
And I started reading Hindu texts and started reading Buddhist texts.

223
00:17:04,680 --> 00:17:07,740
And although I was still going to church, I was just interested in that.

224
00:17:07,920 --> 00:17:13,200
And I read a book called Living Buddha, Living Christ by a Buddhist monk named Thich Nhat Hanh,

225
00:17:14,040 --> 00:17:17,040
who's Vietnamese and had lived in France.

226
00:17:17,160 --> 00:17:25,980
And in that book, he says, "This contemplative, meditative sort of religion is in all traditions.

227
00:17:26,580 --> 00:17:29,760
It's more obvious in Buddhism, but it's in every tradition.

228
00:17:29,820 --> 00:17:36,960
And if you can find it in yours, go back to yours." And so I made a quick turn back to Christianity

229
00:17:37,020 --> 00:17:38,640
and started reading more of the mystics.

230
00:17:38,940 --> 00:17:44,580
I started going on some retreats at convents and monasteries, which became really a lifelong

231
00:17:44,640 --> 00:17:51,900
practice after that, and started reading Thomas Merton and Julian of Norwich and Hildegard and

232
00:17:52,500 --> 00:17:57,360
this deep tradition in Christianity that has always been on the edge of the church.

233
00:17:57,420 --> 00:17:59,820
The convents and monasteries are on the edge of the church.

234
00:18:00,420 --> 00:18:06,720
And the mystics have always there's always a tension between the kind of structure of organized

235
00:18:07,020 --> 00:18:15,000
Christianity and these more contemplative, spirit-led, less controllable parts of Christianity.

236
00:18:16,260 --> 00:18:20,340
And the monasteries have held these traditions through the centuries.

237
00:18:21,660 --> 00:18:26,100
And to connect to those so that was just part of my own formation, both as a Christian and then

238
00:18:26,220 --> 00:18:29,640
as a pastor and priest, was this part of Christianity.

239
00:18:29,760 --> 00:18:32,580
So I knew it was there. It fed me.

240
00:18:32,640 --> 00:18:37,140
I went to seminary and got a bunch of education, which is really helpful. But

241
00:18:39,900 --> 00:18:42,240
I think I've always been contemplative at heart.

242
00:18:42,480 --> 00:18:46,740
And all of that prepared me well for the experience I had at Hopkins.

243
00:18:47,100 --> 00:18:50,940
So what I try to help people see, both people that are still in the church and people that are

244
00:18:51,000 --> 00:18:57,780
outside the church, is there is such a spiritual wealth in Christianity that's overshadowed

245
00:18:57,840 --> 00:19:06,300
by a lot of bad theology, a lot of control, a lot of homophobia and anti-science and anti-women

246
00:19:06,540 --> 00:19:10,920
and sort of just bad stuff. And that's overshadowed.

247
00:19:10,980 --> 00:19:15,180
But at the core is this beautiful tradition that goes back way past Jesus.

248
00:19:15,360 --> 00:19:21,420
But certainly, Jesus and Paul, who was, I think, the church's first mystic, these unexplained,

249
00:19:21,780 --> 00:19:24,960
difficult-to-explain experiences of God that full Scripture is full of.

250
00:19:25,080 --> 00:19:27,540
So Christianity has the tradition.

251
00:19:27,600 --> 00:19:33,960
It has the stories and scriptures, many of which are really weird and non-ordinary and maybe

252
00:19:34,080 --> 00:19:35,700
or maybe not involve psychedelics.

253
00:19:36,120 --> 00:19:37,560
To me, it doesn't really matter that much.

254
00:19:38,100 --> 00:19:43,560
The fact is, these experiences are very difficult to explain, often like psychedelic experiences are.

255
00:19:44,160 --> 00:19:46,440
And then Christianity has community.

256
00:19:46,560 --> 00:19:50,040
And we know how to keep people safe.

257
00:19:50,100 --> 00:19:52,440
We don't always do it, but we know how to keep people safe.

258
00:19:53,100 --> 00:19:55,380
And community is so important.

259
00:19:55,500 --> 00:20:00,000
And part of what I'm trying to do is wake the church up to what's happening in psychedelic spaces

260
00:20:00,420 --> 00:20:02,640
where the church could really find a ministry.

261
00:20:02,880 --> 00:20:04,860
I really think the church can find a ministry in this.

262
00:20:05,700 --> 00:20:07,200
And I think we have a lot to offer.

263
00:20:07,380 --> 00:20:09,720
So that was a long answer to a short question.

264
00:20:09,840 --> 00:20:12,720
But there's just so much within Christianity that can be helpful.

265
00:20:12,780 --> 00:20:19,800
And what psychedelics can bring to Christianity are these profound experiences of God that people are having.

266
00:20:20,760 --> 00:20:25,920
Paul F. Austin: The mystical experience. Talk to us a little bit about sort of the state of Christianity today.

267
00:20:27,060 --> 00:20:28,140
I grew up in the church.

268
00:20:28,440 --> 00:20:32,220
I would have left I graduated from high school in 2008.

269
00:20:32,280 --> 00:20:34,380
I graduated from undergrad in 2012.

270
00:20:34,440 --> 00:20:37,560
And that's more or less when I left the church.

271
00:20:38,280 --> 00:20:43,560
I've gone back here and there, but I'm not an active practicing member of any denomination necessarily.

272
00:20:43,620 --> 00:20:48,540
I know from talking with my parents, they continue to go to the same church that I was raised in.

273
00:20:48,600 --> 00:20:53,160
It's one of the, I would say, preeminent churches in Grand Rapids, the city that I was raised in.

274
00:20:53,220 --> 00:20:55,380
It's called Central Reform Church. It's right downtown.

275
00:20:55,440 --> 00:20:57,120
It's been around since 1840.

276
00:20:57,840 --> 00:21:07,020
And they've also noticed that attendance has started to go down a little bit these last 10 or 15 years.

277
00:21:07,260 --> 00:21:13,560
And the polarization that's also present in general culture has also been present in the church

278
00:21:13,800 --> 00:21:19,860
as well around when I was growing up, it was women's rights in terms of could women be ministers or not.

279
00:21:19,980 --> 00:21:25,980
Now it's a lot around sort of LGBT, BIPOC, social justice,

280
00:21:28,680 --> 00:21:35,220
things like that. So kind of bring us a little bit into what is the state of the Christian church

281
00:21:35,460 --> 00:21:39,780
today, specifically in North America or the United States.

282
00:21:40,440 --> 00:21:46,320
Hunt Priest: After over a decade of working professionally in the psychedelic space, one thing has become clear to me.

283
00:21:46,380 --> 00:21:51,420
If you want to guide others through this journey, there is no substitute for doing our inner work.

284
00:21:51,600 --> 00:21:55,860
At the Psychedelic Coaching Institute, we train people to guide others through transformation

285
00:21:56,040 --> 00:21:58,500
ethically, effectively, and with integrity.

286
00:21:58,680 --> 00:22:04,320
Our six-month certification combines science-backed education with coaching mastery, culminating

287
00:22:04,440 --> 00:22:08,640
in a legal psychedelic experience at our in-person intensive in Costa Rica.

288
00:22:08,760 --> 00:22:14,040
You'll gain practical skills, leadership training, and get to connect with a supportive community

289
00:22:14,280 --> 00:22:17,460
grounded in compassion, rigor, and efficacy.

290
00:22:17,580 --> 00:22:23,700
If you're a coach, clinician, or conscious professional ready to serve at a higher level, we'd love to meet you.

291
00:22:23,880 --> 00:22:27,240
You can learn more and apply at psychedeliccoaching.institute.

292
00:22:27,480 --> 00:22:32,160
Again, that's psychedeliccoaching.institute, or simply see the link in the description.

293
00:22:33,240 --> 00:22:37,740
Hunt Priest: Yeah. I mean, I think Christianity is growing in lots of parts of the world.

294
00:22:38,220 --> 00:22:39,900
In the Global South, it's certainly growing.

295
00:22:40,020 --> 00:22:43,980
In the Global North and Europe, a long time ago, it started declining.

296
00:22:44,100 --> 00:22:46,440
In the US, I think that's been happening.

297
00:22:46,560 --> 00:22:49,620
And the church is graying.

298
00:22:50,040 --> 00:22:55,980
The average age is significantly higher than it was when I was younger and when you were younger even.

299
00:22:56,220 --> 00:22:59,640
I think COVID took a major people realized, "Oh, wait.

300
00:22:59,760 --> 00:23:05,760
I don't necessarily have to I can connect to God, or I can have spiritual experiences without

301
00:23:05,760 --> 00:23:10,500
having necessarily to come to church." And I think the politics has been devastating.

302
00:23:10,560 --> 00:23:13,860
I think the polarization in the culture has been devastating.

303
00:23:14,160 --> 00:23:17,340
And I was serving the church in 2016.

304
00:23:17,460 --> 00:23:27,120
And then beginning with that election and then with COVID, it became so difficult to lead congregations

305
00:23:27,240 --> 00:23:30,840
without really, frankly, pissing somebody off all the time.

306
00:23:31,380 --> 00:23:38,400
And people would threaten to leave if something was said that felt too political, which is interesting

307
00:23:38,520 --> 00:23:46,380
because Christianity should be nonpartisan, but it should not be nonpolitical because Jesus was very political.

308
00:23:46,980 --> 00:23:49,380
He just may have not been nonpartisan, but he was very political.

309
00:23:49,440 --> 00:23:50,700
His ministry was very political.

310
00:23:50,880 --> 00:23:54,960
He spoke truth to power in the politics and religious circles.

311
00:23:55,140 --> 00:24:01,440
So that's been a peace-mongering tactic in the church to say that politics does no place in church.

312
00:24:01,740 --> 00:24:03,120
Politics does have place in church.

313
00:24:03,780 --> 00:24:08,040
And our politics should be informed by our religious beliefs.

314
00:24:08,520 --> 00:24:11,880
That's not to say that the preacher should stand up and say, "Vote for this candidate or that

315
00:24:11,940 --> 00:24:13,260
candidate." I don't think they should.

316
00:24:13,380 --> 00:24:18,360
But to put the gospel message out front, which is about compassion and mercy and care for immigrants

317
00:24:18,420 --> 00:24:23,640
and care for the widows and orphans, the core messages of Christianity are about compassion.

318
00:24:24,720 --> 00:24:32,100
And so when that gets presented as being anti-not-Christian, then we're really in a bad place.

319
00:24:32,160 --> 00:24:33,240
And we're in a really bad place.

320
00:24:33,540 --> 00:24:37,620
So I think American Christianity is in a crisis. I know it is.

321
00:24:38,160 --> 00:24:45,600
And yeah, I think it's like every other institution. It's under extreme pressure.

322
00:24:46,740 --> 00:24:57,180
Paul F. Austin: And just to go a little bit deeper into that because my sense is these more, let's say, non-denominational

323
00:24:57,600 --> 00:25:03,960
or evangelical or even I might characterize them as fundamentalist sort of traditions maybe

324
00:25:04,080 --> 00:25:09,240
have actually grown over the last 8 or 10 years in the United States. This might just be.

325
00:25:09,420 --> 00:25:10,800
Hunt Priest: No, they haven't. They haven't.

326
00:25:10,860 --> 00:25:11,580
Yeah, I think they have.

327
00:25:11,700 --> 00:25:17,820
And yeah, they say that they've got what people say about those big mega churches, they've got a big front door.

328
00:25:18,000 --> 00:25:20,280
Lots of people come in and a pretty big back door.

329
00:25:20,580 --> 00:25:28,560
But yeah, and evangelicalism is complicated, too. It's not all fundamentalists.

330
00:25:28,800 --> 00:25:32,220
I mean, evangelical means sharing the good news.

331
00:25:32,280 --> 00:25:35,760
I mean, it's not a but it's become very political.

332
00:25:35,940 --> 00:25:38,820
And it's become very partisan. It's become very partisan.

333
00:25:39,000 --> 00:25:44,220
And it's been aligned with one very narrow stream of one particular party.

334
00:25:44,640 --> 00:25:49,020
And it's aligned itself with Christian nationalism, which is antithetical to the gospel.

335
00:25:49,620 --> 00:25:57,120
And it's aligned itself with some bad patriarchy and bad misogyny and homophobia and I think

336
00:25:57,240 --> 00:26:00,300
all the things that would have Jesus come in and tear the temple upside down.

337
00:26:00,660 --> 00:26:01,800
I mean, that's what I think.

338
00:26:01,860 --> 00:26:03,360
Paul F. Austin: Turn the table, right?

339
00:26:03,540 --> 00:26:04,740
Hunt Priest: Yeah, exactly. Yeah, exactly.

340
00:26:05,220 --> 00:26:10,440
Paul F. Austin: And I think my perspective a little bit, which is maybe something you may agree with, is that

341
00:26:10,800 --> 00:26:16,560
psychedelics may be the thing that is needed to disrupt or turn the tables upside down.

342
00:26:16,620 --> 00:26:23,520
In other words, there seems to be a pretty close relationship between some of the experiences

343
00:26:23,580 --> 00:26:30,900
that people have with these plant medicines and some of the sort of core wisdom teachings from,

344
00:26:31,980 --> 00:26:39,180
let's say, Jesus in particular, but you could also say from Peter and Paul the Apostle and other.

345
00:26:39,420 --> 00:26:43,080
Hunt Priest: The Hebrew prophets. I mean, all the way back.

346
00:26:43,200 --> 00:26:49,440
And yeah, I mean, it's the wisdom tradition that I think we should be lifting up and not the rules.

347
00:26:49,500 --> 00:26:55,440
I mean, the rules are I mean, Christianity has become sort of back to your question a minute ago.

348
00:26:55,680 --> 00:27:02,100
Christianity has become way too rule-focused and way too and then interpretations are very narrow

349
00:27:03,120 --> 00:27:07,560
and really our attempt to exclude and silence a lot of people. It's sad.

350
00:27:07,860 --> 00:27:13,560
It's sometimes hard to be a Christian right now if you see the message of Jesus as being about

351
00:27:13,740 --> 00:27:16,980
inclusion and acceptance and love.

352
00:27:19,260 --> 00:27:26,640
Paul F. Austin: So I mean, talk to me then a little bit about as you've come out of this study, as you've started

353
00:27:26,880 --> 00:27:35,940
Legare, how have people within Christian institutions and denominations and other clergy and

354
00:27:35,940 --> 00:27:42,720
even seminaries, how have they regarded your work with psychedelics, or how have they regarded

355
00:27:43,500 --> 00:27:47,160
generally what's going on with psychedelic therapy?

356
00:27:47,580 --> 00:27:50,760
What are maybe some of the what's some of the resistance you've encountered?

357
00:27:50,940 --> 00:27:55,800
And has there been maybe some openness as well for people who want to who are curious and want to learn more?

358
00:27:56,460 --> 00:28:00,600
Hunt Priest: All that. I think the biggest surprise I had, especially after Michael Pollan's book came out

359
00:28:01,260 --> 00:28:07,860
in 2018 and then in those year or two after that, was how I saw so many people in the wider

360
00:28:07,980 --> 00:28:13,680
culture aware and so many people and now the Episcopal Church is pretty open-minded.

361
00:28:13,800 --> 00:28:15,180
It's a pretty educated crowd.

362
00:28:15,540 --> 00:28:17,820
The church I served in Savannah, all of that was true.

363
00:28:18,420 --> 00:28:21,660
And there was almost a complete unawareness.

364
00:28:21,660 --> 00:28:27,120
I don't think it was an intentional ignorance, but a complete unawareness of all this research that's been going on.

365
00:28:27,120 --> 00:28:32,580
And I think there's some built-in bias from Judge Center generational bias since the '60s against

366
00:28:33,720 --> 00:28:35,580
"drugs." So that may be some of it.

367
00:28:35,640 --> 00:28:37,500
And just people weren't tuned into it.

368
00:28:37,620 --> 00:28:43,260
But that was the shock to me after Pollan's book came out and the documentary that people were so unaware.

369
00:28:43,440 --> 00:28:51,120
So there was just a real lack of awareness in the Christian even in very curious parts of Christianity.

370
00:28:53,700 --> 00:28:59,820
And there are a lot of Christians, clergy, lay people, people who used to be Christian, people

371
00:29:00,000 --> 00:29:07,680
that still hold Jesus in very dear place, even if they may not go to church, who've been working

372
00:29:07,800 --> 00:29:12,900
with psychedelics, who used to work with psychedelics, who need and want to work with psychedelics,

373
00:29:13,560 --> 00:29:20,160
including priests and bishops and pastors and lay leaders and seminary professors, I mean, scholars.

374
00:29:20,940 --> 00:29:22,200
There are a lot of people out there.

375
00:29:22,380 --> 00:29:24,600
And we can talk about this in a minute, too.

376
00:29:24,660 --> 00:29:30,300
It's still a little unsafe to be out there talking about it at a certain level of leadership and

377
00:29:33,060 --> 00:29:39,480
sort of being seen. So I think we're at a I think we're at a really good place in this that

378
00:29:41,700 --> 00:29:45,300
I just came back from two conferences, two work, two festivals that I can talk about, two Christian

379
00:29:45,840 --> 00:29:49,860
festivals I just got back from where there was an incredible amount of interest, one in England

380
00:29:49,980 --> 00:29:50,700
and one in the US.

381
00:29:51,720 --> 00:29:56,220
And I was at the MAPS conference this summer in Denver.

382
00:29:56,340 --> 00:29:57,420
I was on a panel there.

383
00:29:57,420 --> 00:30:02,100
And there's so much more interest now than two years ago in the spiritual dimensions of psychedelics

384
00:30:02,280 --> 00:30:07,080
and how do we provide spiritual care for people, not just therapeutic, clinical, psychiatric

385
00:30:07,260 --> 00:30:11,700
care, but how do we care for people's souls, which, again, the church has a lot we got a lot

386
00:30:11,760 --> 00:30:15,300
to say about that, a lot of resources and a lot of good history with that.

387
00:30:15,420 --> 00:30:22,080
So I think it's just a we're just right at a, I think, a threshold of there being a much more

388
00:30:22,860 --> 00:30:27,480
public and vibrant conversation around Christianity and psychedelics. And it's been happening.

389
00:30:27,780 --> 00:30:29,640
So Legare has been four years in the making.

390
00:30:30,360 --> 00:30:33,840
And I think we're at a really important place.

391
00:30:34,020 --> 00:30:42,000
Legare has we've changed and updated what we're doing to provide a more pastoral and spiritual care framework for people.

392
00:30:43,800 --> 00:30:46,920
And the mental health crisis continues to get worse.

393
00:30:47,280 --> 00:30:51,540
And it looks like healthcare is getting worse. Insurance is getting worse.

394
00:30:52,560 --> 00:30:59,640
And we need I always say we have a moral responsibility to make these available in safe settings,

395
00:30:59,760 --> 00:31:04,140
safe and ethical settings for people that really, really need the healing and may not be able

396
00:31:04,200 --> 00:31:08,040
to afford to go to Jamaica or the Netherlands or don't feel safe.

397
00:31:08,040 --> 00:31:08,940
Paul F. Austin: Or even Oregon or Colorado.

398
00:31:09,120 --> 00:31:11,700
Hunt Priest: Or even Oregon or don't feel safe to really break in the law.

399
00:31:11,820 --> 00:31:17,520
I think that's also a thing in part with the Christian community is a fairly law-abiding community.

400
00:31:18,180 --> 00:31:22,260
My Jewish friends have pointed out that laws often benefit the Christian community, the Jewish

401
00:31:22,320 --> 00:31:24,240
community not always benefiting by law.

402
00:31:24,360 --> 00:31:28,980
So they may be a little more willing to subvert the legal structures when it's appropriate.

403
00:31:30,420 --> 00:31:36,780
I think that's part of it, too, with Christians is equating the war on drugs with scientific fact.

404
00:31:38,040 --> 00:31:40,320
And of course, we know that was all political. That was all political.

405
00:31:40,380 --> 00:31:44,460
Paul F. Austin: Well, and it's funny that you're mentioning this because this was sort of my upbringing.

406
00:31:45,000 --> 00:31:51,240
When my mom found out that I was involved with psychedelics or when they found out when I smoked

407
00:31:51,360 --> 00:31:59,340
cannabis at a pretty young age, 16 or so, they were horrified, partly because my mom's sister

408
00:31:59,400 --> 00:32:01,860
had dealt with addiction to certain drugs.

409
00:32:01,980 --> 00:32:06,480
And my parents didn't have a lot of education around this versus that, but also just because it was illegal.

410
00:32:07,440 --> 00:32:08,160
That was a lot of it.

411
00:32:09,600 --> 00:32:15,420
I even growing up, my parents refused to let me drink alcohol around them until I was 21 because it was illegal.

412
00:32:16,920 --> 00:32:18,900
And so there's definitely the sense of law abiding.

413
00:32:19,020 --> 00:32:21,720
We do the right thing, right? There's a relationship there.

414
00:32:22,380 --> 00:32:25,680
And I could care less what's legal and what's not legal.

415
00:32:25,980 --> 00:32:31,740
I go kind of deeper to what's ethical based on science and all these things, right?

416
00:32:32,400 --> 00:32:38,220
Hunt Priest: And justice. There's a lot of things that there's multiple things that are illegal in this country

417
00:32:38,280 --> 00:32:43,740
that have negative impacts on well, I think the war on drugs is the best example.

418
00:32:44,220 --> 00:32:48,240
The people most impacted by that are people on the margins with the least power.

419
00:32:48,360 --> 00:32:50,940
White people can snort a lot of cocaine and not get caught.

420
00:32:51,180 --> 00:32:54,300
And Black people could smoke a little crack and go to prison for life.

421
00:32:55,020 --> 00:32:57,780
I mean, that's just one example of the injustice in the drug laws.

422
00:32:58,980 --> 00:33:06,960
And we know that psilocybin and LSD and MDMA can bring profound healing to people.

423
00:33:07,020 --> 00:33:10,680
And yet, they're still Schedule I underground things.

424
00:33:10,860 --> 00:33:13,560
So it's a matter of justice as much as anything.

425
00:33:14,640 --> 00:33:16,020
Paul F. Austin: Yeah, I would agree with that.

426
00:33:16,560 --> 00:33:23,520
Talk to us a little bit about the controversy that you've navigated because it's been you haven't had it easy.

427
00:33:23,640 --> 00:33:27,240
And you sort of hinted at this before that if you have a leadership role in the church, it might

428
00:33:27,240 --> 00:33:31,980
be risky to come out about supporting psychedelics and being part of psychedelics.

429
00:33:34,020 --> 00:33:38,100
You've been, especially over the last few years, very public and open.

430
00:33:38,160 --> 00:33:42,060
As you said, your experience was in 2016, but you didn't really start to actively open up and

431
00:33:42,060 --> 00:33:46,740
talk about it more publicly till 2020, 2021 when you started Legare.

432
00:33:48,180 --> 00:33:54,240
What have you had to navigate as part of "coming out of the closet" for psychedelics, especially

433
00:33:54,360 --> 00:33:59,880
as someone who was ordained as an Episcopalian rector, I believe, is the.

434
00:34:00,000 --> 00:34:04,680
Hunt Priest: Yeah, right. Yeah, yeah our priest we use that language, too, but which is always a little funny

435
00:34:04,740 --> 00:34:05,760
since my last name's priest.

436
00:34:06,060 --> 00:34:08,760
I would say, please, please, please do not call me Father Priest.

437
00:34:08,880 --> 00:34:11,820
Please just don't do it. But anyway, so.

438
00:34:11,880 --> 00:34:13,020
Paul F. Austin: It's good double entendre, though.

439
00:34:14,220 --> 00:34:23,640
Hunt Priest: It is. It is. So I never really once I decided to make this shift, I resigned my parish position.

440
00:34:23,760 --> 00:34:27,000
In the Episcopal Church, the ordination is for life.

441
00:34:27,180 --> 00:34:31,260
It doesn't really hinge on whether or not you're serving a congregation.

442
00:34:31,380 --> 00:34:33,720
It's a vocation and a role.

443
00:34:33,960 --> 00:34:42,180
And lots of people that are ordained in the Episcopal Church do lots of different things, therapists, run nonprofits, hospital chaplains.

444
00:34:43,380 --> 00:34:44,880
And so I did made that transition.

445
00:34:45,660 --> 00:34:49,200
What I imagined was an extension of my ministry as an Episcopal priest.

446
00:34:49,320 --> 00:34:54,180
I went to meet with the bishop, told him what I was doing, got his permission.

447
00:34:55,140 --> 00:34:59,940
He was a little concerned, but he knew about the research.

448
00:35:00,000 --> 00:35:08,340
And so I did that and then was plugging along and doing my thing.

449
00:35:08,460 --> 00:35:15,900
And then I had a former intern who decided that he did not want to in the middle of his internship, resigned that.

450
00:35:16,860 --> 00:35:25,440
There was a big controversy and scandal and some damage done by a therapist in the Bay Area.

451
00:35:25,680 --> 00:35:27,180
It got covered by symposia.

452
00:35:27,900 --> 00:35:32,820
And that upset this intern a lot as it should have.

453
00:35:33,000 --> 00:35:36,540
It should have upset everyone, the sexual misconduct that happened.

454
00:35:37,260 --> 00:35:42,900
And he resigned the position and felt like I should have been more vocal about it and became

455
00:35:43,260 --> 00:35:50,760
more and more sort of anti-psychedelics and eventually filed charges against or eventually complained

456
00:35:50,760 --> 00:35:51,900
about me to the bishop.

457
00:35:52,320 --> 00:35:57,480
And I was sort of navigating that and continued to do my work and then filed formal charges

458
00:35:57,540 --> 00:36:02,700
in the Episcopal Church using the part of canon law that's used for clergy misconduct of all

459
00:36:02,760 --> 00:36:08,340
sorts and conditions like stealing money, abusing children, sexual misconduct.

460
00:36:09,000 --> 00:36:14,700
It's very vague in the Episcopal Church, but there's a really rigid and dramatic part of canon

461
00:36:14,760 --> 00:36:20,460
law that comes out of the clergy scandals of the late '90s and all valid.

462
00:36:22,260 --> 00:36:25,560
So if charges were filed against me for conduct, I'm becoming a member of the clergy.

463
00:36:26,100 --> 00:36:33,600
An investigation was started and lasted about nine months, involved a law firm and interviews with everyone.

464
00:36:34,380 --> 00:36:42,600
And at the end result of that investigation, I had misspoken one part of he had resigned.

465
00:36:42,780 --> 00:36:47,280
And in a letter I'd written, a cease and desist letter, I'd said that he'd been fired, which he hadn't. He had resigned.

466
00:36:47,400 --> 00:36:49,260
So that was my bad.

467
00:36:49,320 --> 00:36:51,240
It was not proofreading enough. I should have.

468
00:36:51,840 --> 00:36:54,660
And so that all came to the light.

469
00:36:54,660 --> 00:36:56,640
And I met with the bishop.

470
00:36:56,700 --> 00:37:03,660
And basically, long story short, but the gist of it, once the investigation starts, you're in the investigation.

471
00:37:03,840 --> 00:37:11,040
And then the committee makes a decision that I had used my priesthood to encourage people to

472
00:37:11,100 --> 00:37:15,660
take illegal drugs was basically what they said I was doing, which I disagreed with.

473
00:37:15,660 --> 00:37:18,420
But that was the decision of the committee.

474
00:37:18,840 --> 00:37:23,760
And it was then up to the bishop to decide how to respond and basically what the punishment

475
00:37:23,880 --> 00:37:25,260
would be or what the outcome would be.

476
00:37:25,680 --> 00:37:31,680
So I was given a choice to either resign my work at Legare or to resign my ordination.

477
00:37:31,980 --> 00:37:34,380
And I had 90 days to think about it.

478
00:37:34,500 --> 00:37:40,740
And I always saw my work at Legare as an extension of my priesthood as part of my work as a Christian leader.

479
00:37:40,800 --> 00:37:42,060
And I still do see that.

480
00:37:43,020 --> 00:37:44,340
But this is my ministry.

481
00:37:45,120 --> 00:37:49,260
Bringing the conversation around Christianity and psychedelics is my primary ministry.

482
00:37:49,560 --> 00:37:50,700
So I resigned my ordination.

483
00:37:50,940 --> 00:37:59,580
And the official church language of that is deposed, which sounds very defrocked is what we sometimes say. But it's illegal.

484
00:37:59,640 --> 00:38:01,500
It's a church legal term.

485
00:38:03,420 --> 00:38:10,200
But I could have stayed in had I resigned my work at Legare. And I'm still Episcopian. I'm still Christian.

486
00:38:11,820 --> 00:38:17,580
I understand in some ways that there was a and the main complaint was that I had stopped saying

487
00:38:17,760 --> 00:38:20,700
legal kind of back to what we talked about a minute ago.

488
00:38:20,760 --> 00:38:25,740
I stopped saying legal and started saying ethical and safe because I think the laws are unjust.

489
00:38:26,760 --> 00:38:27,600
And some of it was intentional.

490
00:38:27,600 --> 00:38:30,360
And some of it was just me throwing words out, which I do sometimes.

491
00:38:30,540 --> 00:38:34,200
But upon reflection, I do think the laws are unjust.

492
00:38:34,380 --> 00:38:42,120
And so I think and people are for millennia, lots of people, Indigenous people and others have

493
00:38:42,240 --> 00:38:48,540
used these substances in violation of the law and have had deep, profound healing in their lives.

494
00:38:48,660 --> 00:38:51,180
So we're just in this weird in-between place.

495
00:38:51,180 --> 00:38:55,440
And here, I am stuck in that. And I'm OK. I'm OK.

496
00:38:55,800 --> 00:39:01,020
I'm sad about it because I do think some of the denominations, the Episcopal Church, the Lutheran

497
00:39:01,080 --> 00:39:06,720
Church, the more progressive parts of Christianity really will embrace this sooner than later.

498
00:39:06,840 --> 00:39:10,080
And we'll see that we have a ministry. And I'm OK.

499
00:39:10,200 --> 00:39:11,580
I'm doing what I'm called to do.

500
00:39:12,180 --> 00:39:18,480
Paul F. Austin: Well, and in fact, I mean, you mentioned that Indigenous peoples have been using these for a long time.

501
00:39:19,560 --> 00:39:26,160
They even had to rename their cactus in the Andes, at least the Caro people, from Huachuma to

502
00:39:26,280 --> 00:39:28,440
San Pedro so they could hide it, right? St.

503
00:39:28,560 --> 00:39:32,940
Peter so they could hide it from the Christian missionaries. And same with.

504
00:39:33,120 --> 00:39:33,960
Hunt Priest: Hide it in plain sight.

505
00:39:34,080 --> 00:39:34,920
Paul F. Austin: Hide it in plain sight.

506
00:39:34,980 --> 00:39:36,120
And same with psilocybin, right?

507
00:39:36,180 --> 00:39:39,000
They had to also come up with a new way to contextualize that.

508
00:39:39,060 --> 00:39:45,360
So the sort of Christian orthodoxy has been coming down hard on these, let's say, entheogenic

509
00:39:45,540 --> 00:39:51,720
plant medicines for hundreds of years at this point in time, right? And it's interesting.

510
00:39:51,840 --> 00:39:57,120
You're really the first, from what I can tell, the first, let's say, for lack of a better term,

511
00:39:57,240 --> 00:40:02,640
public figure who has openly talked about and come out about your own psychedelic use and how

512
00:40:02,700 --> 00:40:05,580
it may or it could hopefully shift the church.

513
00:40:05,700 --> 00:40:08,460
There have been a few other people here and there that have maybe talked about it, but it's

514
00:40:08,460 --> 00:40:11,460
not necessarily their professional focus.

515
00:40:11,580 --> 00:40:14,100
You're really making this your professional focus.

516
00:40:14,220 --> 00:40:16,440
And so there's a way in which you're a bit of a heretic.

517
00:40:17,160 --> 00:40:23,040
And we know the heretics, what happens to heretics is they get put on the cross.

518
00:40:23,820 --> 00:40:26,460
Hunt Priest: Yeah, or burned. I'm trying to avoid the stake if I can.

519
00:40:26,460 --> 00:40:26,700
Paul F. Austin: Burned at the stake.

520
00:40:26,700 --> 00:40:28,800
Hunt Priest: I'm trying to avoid that if I can, but yeah.

521
00:40:28,920 --> 00:40:32,400
Paul F. Austin: Yeah, it feels like cancel culture is sort of the current modern equivalent of either getting

522
00:40:32,520 --> 00:40:39,900
put on a cross or burned at the stake, which thankfully isn't nearly as damaging to our life in many ways.

523
00:40:39,900 --> 00:40:42,420
Hunt Priest: Right. It's pretty damaging, though, the whole cancel culture thing is.

524
00:40:42,600 --> 00:40:45,960
And it does feel like that's happening in all parts of this.

525
00:40:45,960 --> 00:40:50,760
I think if everyone involved in this psychedelic conversation could take a or the political

526
00:40:50,940 --> 00:40:56,700
conversation could just take a breath and extend grace to each other, the good old-fashioned

527
00:40:56,760 --> 00:41:01,920
Christian concept of extending grace, an undeserved gift, extend grace and assume that people

528
00:41:02,160 --> 00:41:06,780
actually are coming at this for the right reasons, even if they're our mistake.

529
00:41:07,080 --> 00:41:09,360
My God, I've made a lot of mistakes in this.

530
00:41:09,600 --> 00:41:16,020
But overall, the work I'm doing, I feel very grounded in my Christianity and in my priesthood

531
00:41:16,620 --> 00:41:18,780
and in my sense of justice.

532
00:41:19,380 --> 00:41:25,740
So yeah, I don't feel like I'm out of my integrity in any of this, although there's certainly

533
00:41:25,740 --> 00:41:29,580
been things I've said and done that I wish I hadn't. But that's all learning. And we're.

534
00:41:29,760 --> 00:41:30,360
Paul F. Austin: Part of being human.

535
00:41:30,840 --> 00:41:34,140
Hunt Priest: Again, yeah. And the grace part is and again, this is bigger than psychedelics.

536
00:41:34,260 --> 00:41:37,800
There is a dearth of grace in the culture right now.

537
00:41:37,860 --> 00:41:40,560
I mean, we're seeing it right now in the news every day.

538
00:41:42,900 --> 00:41:44,220
And it comes out of fear.

539
00:41:44,280 --> 00:41:46,560
And it comes out of lots of things.

540
00:41:46,680 --> 00:41:49,380
So I've got compassion for us.

541
00:41:49,620 --> 00:41:54,240
But if we don't straighten ourselves out, we're going to kill each other, literally going to kill each other.

542
00:41:55,020 --> 00:41:57,060
Paul F. Austin: Yeah, let's hope we avoid that.

543
00:41:57,600 --> 00:41:58,080
Hunt Priest: I know.

544
00:41:58,680 --> 00:42:03,420
Paul F. Austin: So I'd love to hear your thoughts on how psychedelics fit into a broader spiritual life.

545
00:42:03,600 --> 00:42:08,460
So a lot of the early research at Johns Hopkins, especially the study that was published initially

546
00:42:08,520 --> 00:42:13,080
in 2006 showing this relationship between a high dose of psilocybin, a mystical experience,

547
00:42:13,200 --> 00:42:21,000
and an improvement in quality of life has really helped to frame this broader conversation around psychedelics and spirituality.

548
00:42:21,120 --> 00:42:27,840
And as podcast listeners have heard me talk about before, Nietzsche said at the end of the 19th

549
00:42:27,900 --> 00:42:30,060
century, God is dead, and we've killed him.

550
00:42:30,120 --> 00:42:38,820
And that this sort of dearth of spiritual practice is maybe largely responsible for the sort

551
00:42:38,880 --> 00:42:45,600
of nihilistic lens that we've held in 20th and 21st century modernity in World War I, World War II.

552
00:42:45,780 --> 00:42:49,500
And there's a lot more there, which I won't get into.

553
00:42:49,500 --> 00:42:56,340
But psychedelics seem to offer us a hope of regenerating this sort of spiritual nourishment

554
00:42:56,460 --> 00:42:57,600
that we're really looking for.

555
00:42:57,660 --> 00:43:04,740
And yet, they can't be the only thing that we lean on and rely on. There's prayer. There's contemplation. There's community. There's service.

556
00:43:05,400 --> 00:43:11,160
So talk to us a little bit about this relationship between psychedelics or entheogens and these

557
00:43:11,280 --> 00:43:19,920
other sort of grounded spiritual practices that have been traditions for thousands of years in many ways.

558
00:43:20,100 --> 00:43:22,740
Hunt Priest: Right. Well, that's a great question.

559
00:43:23,640 --> 00:43:27,780
I know I was going to say I think, but I know that there are ways to get to these nonordinary

560
00:43:27,900 --> 00:43:29,700
states that have nothing to do with psychedelics.

561
00:43:30,120 --> 00:43:32,640
And the mystics in all traditions show us that.

562
00:43:32,940 --> 00:43:42,300
And fasting, meditation, chanting, retreats, sensory deprivation, holotropic breathwork, there's

563
00:43:42,420 --> 00:43:43,560
lots of ways to get there.

564
00:43:44,220 --> 00:43:50,460
And what the religious and spiritual traditions offer is a container and a lens through which

565
00:43:50,580 --> 00:43:55,020
to understand those experiences, to make meaning of those experiences, and then to integrate

566
00:43:55,140 --> 00:43:58,020
them into how we live our lives to become better humans.

567
00:43:58,680 --> 00:44:01,440
And all the way back, I mean, that's in scripture.

568
00:44:01,500 --> 00:44:05,160
That's in all the mystical writings from all the world's traditions.

569
00:44:05,280 --> 00:44:08,760
So just to take Christianity because that's what I am.

570
00:44:08,820 --> 00:44:10,500
And that's the dominant religion in the West.

571
00:44:10,620 --> 00:44:15,660
And even if people aren't practicing Christians, it affects their lives. It affects our lives.

572
00:44:16,320 --> 00:44:21,180
And in spite of all the sort of negative things that we talked about, the core is this beautiful

573
00:44:21,960 --> 00:44:29,940
story in Christianity of that death does not have the final say, that there's a cycle.

574
00:44:30,000 --> 00:44:36,540
There's a life, death, and resurrection, what Richard Rohr, the Franciscan friar, calls order, disorder, and reorder.

575
00:44:37,080 --> 00:44:42,180
And people have those experiences in psychedelic space where everything blows apart.

576
00:44:42,240 --> 00:44:44,880
And then everything eventually gets put back together. And it's better.

577
00:44:45,300 --> 00:44:46,980
When it's put back together, it's actually better.

578
00:44:47,640 --> 00:44:56,040
And just to take the story of Jesus, the crucifixion and resurrection of Jesus, that Jesus is doing his ministry.

579
00:44:56,160 --> 00:44:57,540
He's killed by the state.

580
00:44:58,080 --> 00:44:59,940
It's capital punishment for his offenses.

581
00:45:00,840 --> 00:45:04,380
And he receives capital punishment, dies on the cross.

582
00:45:04,980 --> 00:45:07,140
And in the story, he descends to the dead.

583
00:45:07,380 --> 00:45:10,620
And three days later, he's back. It's not a resuscitation.

584
00:45:10,920 --> 00:45:12,660
It's not a dead body that doesn't sit up.

585
00:45:12,720 --> 00:45:17,340
It's a new creation that he's so new that his friends don't recognize him.

586
00:45:17,760 --> 00:45:23,400
And so just to think of that as a metaphor for the psychedelic experience, that was certainly my experience.

587
00:45:23,940 --> 00:45:28,620
After my first experience, my good friend that lived in DC picked me up in Baltimore.

588
00:45:28,980 --> 00:45:32,220
And he said I looked he said he almost didn't recognize me.

589
00:45:32,280 --> 00:45:40,800
I was so fresh and so sparkly and so not freaked out, but just like literally like a new creation.

590
00:45:40,980 --> 00:45:49,020
So there's just one example of how the Christian understanding of life, not doctrine necessarily or not even actual

591
00:45:53,100 --> 00:45:57,600
literal in some ways, literal truth is irrelevant to this.

592
00:45:58,080 --> 00:45:59,820
This story is very critical.

593
00:45:59,880 --> 00:46:02,820
It's in nature that things die and come back.

594
00:46:02,940 --> 00:46:10,380
So it's like that, to me, is one of the core things is these psychedelics, these mystical experiences,

595
00:46:10,380 --> 00:46:14,820
whether it was psychedelics or anything, can create a whole new way of being in the world. It did for me.

596
00:46:14,940 --> 00:46:17,100
And it does for so many people.

597
00:46:17,160 --> 00:46:18,480
It's not just about mental health.

598
00:46:18,900 --> 00:46:21,540
It's about I was 51.

599
00:46:21,780 --> 00:46:30,420
And I got a whole new way of living out of that and not disconnected from the old way, but a

600
00:46:30,420 --> 00:46:35,160
fresher and I think more enlivened and more present.

601
00:46:35,220 --> 00:46:38,580
I'm much more present to my life and to the life of the world.

602
00:46:39,060 --> 00:46:40,140
So that's just one example.

603
00:46:43,080 --> 00:46:47,100
I mean, I always say the whole book of Revelation is like some it's like a serious psychedelic

604
00:46:47,400 --> 00:46:49,320
experience that maybe it was or maybe it wasn't.

605
00:46:49,380 --> 00:46:51,480
But read that through the lens of psychedelics.

606
00:46:51,600 --> 00:46:57,300
And then there's the resurrection appearance of Jesus that I sort of mentioned, that his friends didn't recognize him.

607
00:46:57,960 --> 00:47:01,440
And there's Paul on the road to Damascus.

608
00:47:02,340 --> 00:47:07,380
There's Paul's vision of the third heaven. There's Ezekiel.

609
00:47:07,500 --> 00:47:08,940
There's Moses in the burning bush.

610
00:47:09,000 --> 00:47:15,780
And just to think of these as archetypal stories, if nothing else, and there are more than that.

611
00:47:15,840 --> 00:47:17,520
But at their core, they're archetypal stories.

612
00:47:17,700 --> 00:47:23,040
And you can apply those to so many parts of psychedelic or mystical or nonordinary states of consciousness.

613
00:47:23,040 --> 00:47:28,680
I think the whole Bible is a record of experiences with God, often of them hard to explain.

614
00:47:29,340 --> 00:47:30,120
And we have an experience.

615
00:47:30,180 --> 00:47:31,020
And we want to explain it.

616
00:47:31,080 --> 00:47:31,860
So we tell a story.

617
00:47:35,820 --> 00:47:44,700
Paul F. Austin: I love that. Yeah, there's a way in which these experiences literally open up the heavens.

618
00:47:45,180 --> 00:47:50,580
And then from that experience, right, with what I would call the regeneration or rejuvenation

619
00:47:50,700 --> 00:48:01,500
of or even remembrance of our soul or our essence, then we seem to have more energy for prayer, contemplation, service, community, right?

620
00:48:01,560 --> 00:48:04,380
There's so much that can kind of come from that well.

621
00:48:04,440 --> 00:48:10,860
But I think part of the challenge in modern-day religion, Christianity, or even Protestantism,

622
00:48:11,340 --> 00:48:22,080
it's sort of what impacted me growing up is a lot of times, these traditions feel ossified. They feel too intellectual.

623
00:48:23,100 --> 00:48:27,960
There isn't a lot of actual deep connection to spirit.

624
00:48:28,140 --> 00:48:36,660
It's just the sort of rote patterns of saying the Nicene Creed or saying the Lord's Prayer or

625
00:48:36,960 --> 00:48:42,900
singing the hymns or doing the study without the actual lived experience.

626
00:48:42,960 --> 00:48:47,220
And so my hope is that especially for Protestantism, because I think it's rampant there, we

627
00:48:47,280 --> 00:48:49,020
also see this in Catholicism and Orthodoxy.

628
00:48:49,020 --> 00:48:53,520
But there seems to be something there seems to be something about Catholicism and Orthodoxy

629
00:48:53,520 --> 00:48:57,600
that's a bit more embodied. Protestant, it's very heavier.

630
00:48:57,660 --> 00:48:58,500
It can be very heavy.

631
00:48:59,400 --> 00:49:02,100
Hunt Priest: It's about right here. That's about all it is in a lot of cases.

632
00:49:02,880 --> 00:49:07,200
And so just real quickly, I was kind of a mystical kid.

633
00:49:07,260 --> 00:49:08,820
I mean, I was kind of a magical kid.

634
00:49:09,540 --> 00:49:11,100
I grew up in a small town in Kentucky.

635
00:49:11,160 --> 00:49:12,000
I was outside a lot.

636
00:49:12,060 --> 00:49:14,220
I felt like God was everywhere.

637
00:49:14,340 --> 00:49:16,740
I felt like I didn't want to step on rocks.

638
00:49:17,040 --> 00:49:22,500
I just had sort of this sense of animism and the sentience of everything.

639
00:49:22,980 --> 00:49:24,900
That was really my childhood. It was magical.

640
00:49:25,260 --> 00:49:26,640
And of course, you get older.

641
00:49:26,700 --> 00:49:28,200
And you go to school.

642
00:49:28,200 --> 00:49:29,100
And you get a job.

643
00:49:29,220 --> 00:49:35,520
And by the time I went to seminary in my mid-30s, and I'd had all kinds of these experiences,

644
00:49:35,640 --> 00:49:41,400
but I went to seminary, got a lot of good training and education, and then was running in charge of a church.

645
00:49:41,700 --> 00:49:46,140
And I went right here, even though that's probably not my best place to lead from.

646
00:49:46,140 --> 00:49:50,100
I was just like, how do I figure how do we get more how do we appeal to more people?

647
00:49:50,160 --> 00:49:52,140
How do we how do I ha ha ha?

648
00:49:52,140 --> 00:49:53,520
And what book can I read?

649
00:49:53,580 --> 00:49:54,480
What conference can I go to?

650
00:49:54,540 --> 00:49:58,140
And by the time I got to Hopkins, I was 51.

651
00:49:58,200 --> 00:50:04,680
I don't know, 11 years, 12 years into my ordained ministry, I had forgotten that there was anything below my neck.

652
00:50:04,740 --> 00:50:06,960
And I'd kind of forgotten how to lead from my heart.

653
00:50:07,620 --> 00:50:15,540
And within two hours of my first experience, I had this electrified, profound experience of

654
00:50:16,560 --> 00:50:17,700
electrical current in my body.

655
00:50:18,180 --> 00:50:21,600
I think it was a kundalini awakening, which is something I didn't know much about.

656
00:50:21,960 --> 00:50:26,700
And I also think it was the way I understood it in my own Christian language was the presence

657
00:50:26,760 --> 00:50:31,500
of the Holy Spirit in my body moving dramatic it was dramatic. It was scary. It was so dramatic.

658
00:50:31,560 --> 00:50:32,400
It was a little scary.

659
00:50:33,000 --> 00:50:40,440
And as I came out of that, I was like, oh, that's what Paul means by the body's a temple of the Holy Spirit. That's what that means.

660
00:50:40,680 --> 00:50:42,060
It's not about drinking and smoking.

661
00:50:42,240 --> 00:50:43,620
And it's not having sex.

662
00:50:43,680 --> 00:50:46,140
It's about the temple this is the temple.

663
00:50:46,380 --> 00:50:52,080
The Spirit is active, active right now between us, but active in me.

664
00:50:52,560 --> 00:50:56,760
And that yeah, so I'd done with a lot of us doing middle age.

665
00:50:56,820 --> 00:51:05,280
I'd just gotten disconnected from my core, my core spirit, the Christ in me, the Christ light in me.

666
00:51:05,400 --> 00:51:11,940
So again, Christianity's got so many beautiful ideas and metaphors and concepts and visions.

667
00:51:12,060 --> 00:51:19,320
And it's just so much the Christ consciousness, which doesn't have much to do with Christianity. It's way beyond that.

668
00:51:19,560 --> 00:51:21,120
Christ consciousness is way beyond that.

669
00:51:22,080 --> 00:51:30,300
Paul F. Austin: Yeah, religion seems to be more of a structure of survival than

670
00:51:32,820 --> 00:51:40,020
sort of thriving, whereas an individual spiritual practice and spiritual connection is really about regeneration.

671
00:51:40,380 --> 00:51:44,820
And it feels like we have a hard time and this has always been the case.

672
00:51:45,120 --> 00:51:46,140
We've always had a hard time

673
00:51:49,800 --> 00:51:53,520
integrating the tension between those two, right?

674
00:51:53,580 --> 00:51:57,420
The need to survive, especially for large groups of people in the greater collective.

675
00:51:57,660 --> 00:52:02,640
And the rules that religion has put down is often helpful in that process because there are

676
00:52:02,640 --> 00:52:05,040
sort of these traditions that are passed down again and again and again.

677
00:52:05,160 --> 00:52:15,840
But oftentimes, if it becomes too ossified, then it's actually more hurtful than it is helpful, right?

678
00:52:17,100 --> 00:52:17,280
Hunt Priest: Yeah.

679
00:52:17,580 --> 00:52:21,540
Paul F. Austin: So that's when the Orthodoxy needs to be disrupted a little bit.

680
00:52:21,720 --> 00:52:22,920
And new things need to emerge.

681
00:52:24,540 --> 00:52:29,520
Hunt Priest: I mean, I think for probably the last 1,600 years, the Christian Church has been, in most places,

682
00:52:29,640 --> 00:52:33,600
been a handmaiden to empire and to colonialization.

683
00:52:33,660 --> 00:52:41,340
I mean, you talked a little bit about South and Central America with peyote and with mushrooms and other psychedelics.

684
00:52:41,520 --> 00:52:45,480
And I try to say this, and I forgot to when we started, is the Church has a terrible history

685
00:52:46,140 --> 00:52:49,620
with oppressing people using these healing substances.

686
00:52:50,040 --> 00:52:51,480
And there's some atonement that we need to do.

687
00:52:51,540 --> 00:52:57,120
And that's part of what we're doing at Lagarre is acknowledging the damage institutional Christianity

688
00:52:57,120 --> 00:52:58,920
has done to Indigenous communities.

689
00:52:59,220 --> 00:53:04,740
And thankfully, they've held them and are now, with some caution and concern, but an openness

690
00:53:04,800 --> 00:53:09,120
of heart to say, learn from us, but these are here. And

691
00:53:12,660 --> 00:53:16,620
probably the biggest critique I have of institutional Christianity at this point is that it's

692
00:53:17,340 --> 00:53:22,860
sold its soul to empire and capitalism and everything that dominates the culture right now.

693
00:53:23,280 --> 00:53:24,420
And that's what's got to change.

694
00:53:24,600 --> 00:53:29,580
Our Christianity is just going to lose more and more lose the respect of more and more people

695
00:53:30,240 --> 00:53:35,760
and become a tool of authoritarianism, sadly.

696
00:53:37,260 --> 00:53:39,480
Paul F. Austin: There's Christian nationalism and that whole kind of thing.

697
00:53:39,540 --> 00:53:45,840
Hunt Priest: Yes, exactly. And it's not losing the sense and I think it's a loss of experience of God.

698
00:53:46,200 --> 00:53:53,220
I think it's a loss of that felt experience of the presence of the holy selling out for fear

699
00:53:53,340 --> 00:53:58,740
and for safety and for yeah, and just for tribalism.

700
00:54:00,120 --> 00:54:04,620
I mean, a famous bit of scripture is, "In Christ, there is no east or west, no Jew, no Greek,

701
00:54:04,980 --> 00:54:12,540
no free or slave." And that's a core piece of Christian scripture and that we're all there's

702
00:54:12,600 --> 00:54:13,920
a unity in our difference.

703
00:54:15,780 --> 00:54:23,280
Yeah, and that's one of the things that people say about psychedelics is I feel a oneness with everything, oneness in creation.

704
00:54:23,460 --> 00:54:28,140
So again, these are core teachings of all religions and certainly a core teaching of Christianity.

705
00:54:28,620 --> 00:54:32,160
Paul F. Austin: Well, we also saw Rob Bell, which I'm sure you know Rob Bell.

706
00:54:32,580 --> 00:54:34,020
Hunt Priest: Yeah, good old Western Michigan guy.

707
00:54:34,440 --> 00:54:38,220
Paul F. Austin: Marcel was in my hometown, Granville, in fact, which is pretty crazy.

708
00:54:38,280 --> 00:54:41,400
I went there a couple of times growing up.

709
00:54:41,400 --> 00:54:46,080
And I think when he wrote Love Wins, I believe this was 2010 is when he published Love Wins,

710
00:54:46,440 --> 00:54:49,020
it really rocked the Church to its core.

711
00:54:49,920 --> 00:54:56,580
And it feels like psychedelics are doing something similar in many ways.

712
00:54:57,240 --> 00:54:59,040
Hunt Priest: Yeah, I hope so. I hope so.

713
00:55:00,300 --> 00:55:04,860
Yeah, I think the Church really can be a place that again, I'll say this is not necessarily

714
00:55:05,040 --> 00:55:08,940
a Sunday morning activity in your Reformed or Episcopal or Presbyterian Church.

715
00:55:09,120 --> 00:55:14,520
But my vision is that small groups of parishioners or friends would go off to a retreat center

716
00:55:14,640 --> 00:55:19,440
or go to somebody's home and have someone that really does know what they're doing to lead them through it.

717
00:55:19,500 --> 00:55:25,440
And then they can reflect on it through their own lived experience of life and their own Christian life.

718
00:55:27,960 --> 00:55:39,780
Or Santo Daime and UDV, which is a syncretistic Christian I mean, they're Christian. And they're using ayahuasca. So it's out there. And it's really close.

719
00:55:40,920 --> 00:55:45,060
People don't realize that there's a real we're getting there. And there's a tension.

720
00:55:45,360 --> 00:55:48,660
And there's some fear from both sides. Valid.

721
00:55:49,620 --> 00:55:51,180
The concerns about psychedelics are valid.

722
00:55:51,240 --> 00:55:52,380
I don't want to downplay them.

723
00:55:52,620 --> 00:55:57,840
But the fear should not be the dominant emotion.

724
00:55:58,800 --> 00:56:02,760
Paul F. Austin: Agreed. Well, Hunt, I appreciate you joining us for the podcast today.

725
00:56:02,880 --> 00:56:05,340
This is a ton of fun to go back and forth with you folks.

726
00:56:05,340 --> 00:56:14,940
If you want to learn more about Lagarre, it's ligare.org. So lagarre.org, ligare.org.

727
00:56:15,240 --> 00:56:19,080
Check out what Hunt has been building and working on.

728
00:56:19,200 --> 00:56:26,760
And any sort of final other places or resources that folks might want to check out after our conversation?

729
00:56:26,880 --> 00:56:32,040
Hunt Priest: Yeah, well, yeah. I mean, I think just around Christian I think a lot of people that are trying

730
00:56:32,040 --> 00:56:35,760
to figure out how to get back into Christianity or at least have some sort of so there's two

731
00:56:35,940 --> 00:56:40,560
organizations that I point people to that are not psychedelic but support this whole idea of

732
00:56:40,740 --> 00:56:42,420
the mystical and the nonordinary.

733
00:56:42,780 --> 00:56:45,120
Richard Rohr's Center for Action and Contemplation.

734
00:56:45,180 --> 00:56:46,260
Paul F. Austin: Yeah, Richard Rohr is fantastic.

735
00:56:46,920 --> 00:56:49,560
Hunt Priest: He's doing that organization did fantastic work.

736
00:56:49,620 --> 00:56:51,780
His book, The Universal Christ, is really important.

737
00:56:52,140 --> 00:56:56,460
And then I think Christogenesis, which is Iliadeleo. She's also Franciscan.

738
00:56:56,940 --> 00:56:58,140
She lives in Washington, DC.

739
00:56:58,260 --> 00:57:00,060
And she's a scientist and a theologian.

740
00:57:00,540 --> 00:57:06,300
And the Center for Christogenesis is doing incredible work at the intersection of science and

741
00:57:06,480 --> 00:57:11,040
religion and Christianity, the work of Teilhard de Chardin and others.

742
00:57:11,280 --> 00:57:16,260
So those two, Center for Christogenesis, Richard Rohr's Center for Action and Contemplation,

743
00:57:16,320 --> 00:57:18,060
and Matthew Fox, I think, is another person.

744
00:57:18,900 --> 00:57:20,220
Cynthia Bourgeaux is another person.

745
00:57:20,280 --> 00:57:25,980
So there are people in the Christian world that are really focusing on the contemplative, the

746
00:57:26,100 --> 00:57:30,300
mystical, the nonordinary, and are really leaders in that part of it.

747
00:57:30,300 --> 00:57:38,400
And that's an important part of what we're doing is pointing to that, saying, you may think you understand Christianity. And maybe you do.

748
00:57:38,460 --> 00:57:43,680
But there's this whole other side that you may not know about that goes back to the way before the earliest days.

749
00:57:43,740 --> 00:57:44,940
It goes back to Judaism.

750
00:57:45,060 --> 00:57:47,220
And so yeah, so those organizations.

751
00:57:47,340 --> 00:57:48,300
And please check us out.

752
00:57:48,360 --> 00:57:49,860
We've got multiple ways to connect.

753
00:57:49,920 --> 00:57:50,880
And that's on the website.

754
00:57:51,600 --> 00:57:57,180
Paul F. Austin: Great, lagarre.org. We'll also link to the other folks that Hunt mentioned.

755
00:57:57,540 --> 00:58:01,620
And yeah, just thank you again, Hunt, for coming on today and for all the work that you're doing.

756
00:58:01,860 --> 00:58:08,460
Hunt Priest: Thank you, Paul. I'm glad to know you a bit and glad to know more about what you're doing too.

757
00:58:08,520 --> 00:58:09,900
And we'll stay in touch.

758
00:58:09,900 --> 00:58:11,280
And thank you for all you're doing.

759
00:58:13,440 --> 00:58:15,780
Paul F. Austin: Hey, folks, I hope you enjoyed this episode.

760
00:58:15,960 --> 00:58:21,660
It was really great to interview Hunt about everything related to his own psilocybin experiences.

761
00:58:21,720 --> 00:58:27,600
I would invite you, if you found this episode to be interesting or inspiring or even provocative,

762
00:58:27,660 --> 00:58:32,220
please share this with a friend or family member or someone that you think might be interested in this.

763
00:58:32,340 --> 00:58:37,740
You can rate and review our podcast on Spotify, Apple, and even subscribe to our YouTube channel,

764
00:58:37,740 --> 00:58:42,060
where we publish these in full video at youtube.com/thethrdwave.

765
00:58:42,420 --> 00:58:48,240
And if you want to stay up to date on social, follow me on LinkedIn or X at @paulawson3w or

766
00:58:48,300 --> 00:58:50,640
check out our Instagram at @thirdwave is here.

767
00:58:51,000 --> 00:58:52,380
Again, thanks so much for tuning in.

768
00:58:52,380 --> 00:58:53,820
And we can't wait to see you again next week.