Man Made: Good Guys Who Drink and Cuss a Little

Psychedelics in Peru with Jeff and Mick Part 3 (the final episode of this series??)

Jeff Stucke is the founder of Becoming Man Made, a year-long online counselling and therapy for men.
He and Mick are talking, here in their third installment, about their Ayahuasca cermony in Peru in 2023. You'll hear them talk about
their own mental health struggles,
why Mick was trying to get kicked out and sent home
what Jeff thought when he didn't think he'd ever see his kids again
and how these two guys that had nothing but anger for each other are now friends.
Mick’s mic gets messed up a few times during this episode, but stick with it. There are plenty of good bits throughout. It’s not your internet spazzing out, it’s mine.
To learn more about the Becoming Man Made process, visit https://becomingmanmade.com/

Psychedelics in Peru Part 2 with Mick Bland

This is part two of Jeff Stucke and Mick Bland's discussion about depression, mental health, psychedelics, and their trip to Peru. This is part of a three-part series, so buckle up as we go with the guys into the Amazon.

Talking Depression, and Psychedelics with Mick Bland

In this episode of Man Made with Jeff Stucke, Jeff sits down with Mick Bland to discuss their experiences with psychedelics, particularly ayahuasca and psilocybin.
Mick Bland has a background in chemical engineering and explains the chemical mechanisms of how psychedelics work in the brain.
Don't just run out there and start trying stuff. Have a proper "container" or setting when using psychedelics for therapeutic purposes.
They share their personal experiences with ayahuasca ceremonies in Peru and how these experiences have transformed their lives and perspectives. The discussion also touches on the stigma surrounding psychedelics and the potential benefits they offer for mental health and personal growth.
They'll discuss their experiences in Peru in more detail in a future podcast, so stay tuned. 
 
Here's an automatic transcript for what it's worth: 
Jeff Stucke 
Mick Bland. How you doing, bud? You buddy, how are you, man? Doing? Great. How you doing, man? I'm doing pretty good, you know. Working for a living. But other than that, things are going pretty well. Exceedingly excited about our discussion today. 
Mick Bland 
You and I both. 
Jeff Stucke 
Yeah. For me, one of the reasons and this may be like. This is not hyperbole. Maybe the most exciting podcast I've ever done for a couple of different reasons. 1. Having been a licensed therapist that primarily works with men now for, you know, around 25 years. Knowing intuitively, always knowing OK something's off like there are aspects. Of therapeutic intervention, psychiatric and interventions that are right. But there's something that is not right and. But then now having my own personal experiences with psychedelics, which is going to be the subject of our discussion today. You and I intertwined experience with psychedelics, which is a whole nother ******* story, which we'll get to at a later. 
Mick Bland 
Looking forward to that one too. 
Jeff Stucke 
Time. Your personal experience and benefits from the psychedelics, but then the creme de la creme is your vast understanding from your professional background. Being a chemical engineer of how these things actually work. So all of those things are what make me incredibly excited about our conversation today. 
Mick Bland 
You and I both cause it's really one thing I found, and we'll get my back in a little more detail, but do have a background in chemical engineering and never thought I'd be the kind of guy that did psychedelics, just wasn't into that stuff at all. And when I started doing more research, this stuff I had read a lot of the people the quote UN quote experts and they portrayed themselves to the Expo. They're just using big words and they're not lying, you know, they're repeating what they've heard as far as they know, it's correct. But the problem is there's a lot of incorrect information out there and a lot of people just don't have the background in science to really understand the words that they're saying and that someone has to have a degree. But let's be honest, some of the Kemp Bachelors of Chemical Engineering. Probably gonna know that probably they're definitely know a lot more about chemistry than I don't know. ******* Heather. Eagle Feather, who has a half a gram of mushrooms or something and now she's spiritually enlightened and tries to educate the world on how the world works. And that's just like her than not lying and more power to him for wanting to help people. The world needs more people who do want to help people. But you know that help needs to come from a place of expertise that you don't really get unless you studied this stuff for years. And once you have that understanding of chemistry itself, then reading, you know, the more technical journals about the mechanisms of action, those are going to make a lot more sense and a lot easier to explain than someone who frankly hadn't put their time in. 
Jeff Stucke 
Well, and therapists are kind of like that, too. I can always tell. You know, cause like when therapists hang out together. Like we we talk therapy and that is I ******* like. It's like when you when you can't take the concepts, understand them enough to be able to break them down and then explain them in a way that's true to who you are as a person. That's always a red flag for me as a therapist. That's why I hate. 
Mick Bland 
But that's a fun time. 
Jeff Stucke 
And going to conventions and **** because we all just therapy, therapy, therapy there and it's like what are what are we even talking about? Like we're so so I can totally appreciate people that have the experience but don't have the understanding. 
Mick Bland 
Yep. 
Jeff Stucke 
So I'm going to just kind of step out of your way and have you kind of wow us with your understanding of the psychedelics you and I are my experience more a little more heavily into psilocybin, understand the pharmacology of psilocybin a little better. But then Ayahuasca, which is to me. So much more, having had the benefit of of doing ayahuasca ceremonies, and I'm I'm almost a year out from the ceremonies that we did together and I'm still having. Awareness and benefits from that. So having said to that, having said that, tell us about, tell us about the the psychedelics. 
Mick Bland 
OK, a little background myself can do the background bachelor's degree in chemical engineering and worked as a process engineer for three. I'm right out of college and from there went in more HVAC design. Most of my career was spent in IT at a fairly high level, which now called the cloud lucky out at the base floor was just called virtualization. So really my whole life has been wrapped around. More technical stuff sciency stuff. You kind of get the idea here. And never thought of myself as someone who is certainly not a psychonaut even to this day, I don't consider myself someone who I don't do psychedelics for fun up until when a strength I washed a few years ago. My only experience with psychedelics, and I guess technically I did a half a hit of acid when I was a freshman in college. I was dumb ship 19 year old, doing half hit of acid on Halloween. Didn't do all that much. Wasn't particularly spiritually enlightening, and frankly regretted doing it because we've all heard the stories. Ohh man, psychedelics, those things will melt your brain. That's why they're outlawed. And I bought into that nonsense for a few decades and didn't even realize it until I drank iowaska. But. Then ******** depressed my entire life. Like when you just grow up very traumatic household and probably just get it from my parents, you know, genetically disposed to depression. I just didn't know any other way to think. I didn't understand that most people just didn't look at the world to the way I looked at it. And so I called through a pair of **** colored lenses. It's just. 
Speaker 
 
Mick Bland 
And at first iwasko ceremony, the light went off. Like, holy ****, I what the hell was I even think in my entire life? Maybe there's something to this. I'm not gonna get too far down the path. I don't be a buzzkill, but I'll be honest, I went down to prove first time in 2018. I went down there to. Myself, I just thought, hey, while I'm down there, I can drink this iowaska stuff I kept hearing about and 1st actually read of ayawaska more than 20 years ago. It was just an immense fitness magazine and just a real article in passing. They had mentioned that, hey, there's this brew down in South America called Ayawaska. People are going down there that helps them find their meaning to life. That helps cure depression, just kind of laughed it off, didn't think much of it, but for some reason that we're just. 
Jeff Stucke 
For people to really understand, it's like when you had a very deep. Clinical depression. That have been very resistant to intervention, but you weren't like no one would have known that. 
Mick Bland 
Yeah, it's like. 
Jeff Stucke 
At first glance, I mean, you're a very successful individual. You know, alpha male kind of guy that people would look at and say, well, that guy's got the world by the balls. But on the backside of that, you've been battling this dark, clinically resistant depression for a very long time. 
Mick Bland 
Yeah, I didn't have been to a couple of therapists as a kid. Even tried a couple as adults, and they just didn't do anything for me, so I just laughed it off. I just thought, hey, this is how people are supposed to think, and you hit the nail on the head from looking at me from the outside in and start out as a chemical engineer for three M from there went into commercial HVAC sales there. You're working off Commission. And you know you're selling systems that are 7-8 sometimes, you know, 9 figures. Well, nine figures of that. But, you know, 7-8 figure systems, you're working. Commission I was making mad cash. People are thinking, man, this guy's got his **** together and literally every night I was going home and drinking a 12 pack more of beer and trying to figure out a way not to put a gun in my mouth and I just thought that's the way people lived. I thought that's the price you paid to be successful. So one thing I want to say, and I'm sure you're going to agree with me on this. You don't have to live that way. And just because your life is really good to other people, well, are you happy? Do you have any kind of purpose in life? You know, if you wanna kill yourself through it and I don't go too far down that suicide path and being kind of a bug. Skill, but just let people know. Man. I'm speaking from experience here. I know what it's like to be in that dark, dark hole of depression. And you tried other methods. You've talked to psychiatrist. You've done everything people tell you to do, and that cloud just ain't lift it. And even if you don't know, you're depressed, maybe you've grown up that whole way. If you just think, man, why are these people so happy? All the time. There is hope out there, there is hope and for me, that was psychedelics and you know, not the only one to discover this. Back in 2018, when I first drank ayahuasca, that's when they were first starting to appear a little more on the public radar. I wouldn't say they're not as popular as they are now, but. At, you know, people started hearing about a waska. I started hearing about in some different podcasts, and now, luckily, that tides continues to keep moving. And I'm really excited to see where we are just as a, as a society, to see just how much these things are going to open up the world to people who may otherwise, you know, other medications haven't actually worked and never went on. 
Jeff Stucke 
That's interesting because it is like there are such. Profoundly negative connotations with the psychedelics. I mean, they are, like you said, it's like the the old War on drugs and the egg burning in the skillet. And and it's like. In fact, that is absolutely antithetical to how the psychedelics work. I mean, that's absolutely, and we know how they work, whereas. Most of the pharmacological interventions, the psychotropics it's like, eh, I mean, like Viagra was originally released as a blood pressure medication. It didn't do anything for blood pressure, but all the guys were like, hey, I need more of that ****. They want to give it back. Intervention for yeah, it's like and it's like. When when you open, when you begin to understand. Ayahuasca and and from a chemical composition, but also just. The the How they discovered ayahuasca it it just is absolutely incredible. And yet we still have mostly stigmatized these things as people that go just trip balls and just want to have fun and escape reality and it's like. Nope, that's not what this stuff is. 
Mick Bland 
Not at all, particularly not in the context that we're talking about it. And they have someone to go trip balls. You know, I don't know. Eats mushrooms go to a rock concert. I'm not telling you not to. Sometimes that's all the medicine that you need. But that's not what we're discussing here. As I said, I'm not a psycho. Not by any stretch imagination. One of the key things to all psychedelics. Needs a container around that experience, meaning you just if you want to go trip balls, that's great. You really are playing with fire, but we're not talking about just going into Iran. Yeah, actually. 
Jeff Stucke 
That's like playing with fire, right? Cause like my my if if I would have had. Particularly, my third ayahuasca ceremony. If I would have had that on my. Own. Like. It it and and and I do think it's very important that we punctuate again, you and I are talking about this as therapeutic intervention, whether it be for me it was kind of like. 
Mick Bland 
Absolutely. 
Jeff Stucke 
Have I have I discovered everything there is to discover about life, because this kind of is boring if it is. You know, so it was just kind of this personal journey of, OK, I'm going to go to the deep end of the pool of self discovery, which was. Transformationally profound As for you, it's like. I've tried everything else for this major resistant depression that I have been fighting and you find it. It it we ultimately end at the same point but but our points of entry on that path were very different points of entry. 
Mick Bland 
Absolutely. And that's no matter where you are, whether you you don't have to wait to get to the point I was at where you're ready to kill yourself. That's what I really want to emphasize. And I'm trying to back me up on this. And even if it just feels there's something missing in your life, you know, maybe like yourself, you got a great job. You got a great family. And for some reason, you just have that nagging feeling in the back of your head. Like, is this it? Like is is there is this. 
Jeff Stucke 
That's exactly right. 
Mick Bland 
All there is to life. 
Jeff Stucke 
Right. 
Mick Bland 
And that that's where psychedelics can come into play. They really are, you know, a miracle drug. I call them miracle medicine. And it's. I thought of it almost kind of annoying. People talk about ayahuasca, the medicine. Well, medicine is that which will lead suffering, and by definition, that's why people call ayawaska the medicine. That's that's not hyperbole. 
Jeff Stucke 
Really. And we've been in with this more, but this is truly medicine because there's no side effect profile. 
Mick Bland 
Exactly. 
Jeff Stucke 
It's not gonna stop working like you're not gonna have to take another medication to mitigate that medication. If we're going to be true to the word, this is medication. 
Mick Bland 
Absolutely. And it's a cure. I mean, that's the the SSRI medications and they work for some people that's great. But if you look at the history of those things, they were originally released with the idea for people, frankly, were who are at where I was at, where you're on the ledge, you're looking for a reason to not kill yourself. Your Bart were to start take. In action and then at that point it's, hey, go on these Sri medications that'll just shut down those emotions. That'll get them off the ledge and into therapy, and then they can start helping them. But then the problem is the pharmaceutical companies, they looked at this long term. They realized, hey, if we can get these people on this medication, quote UN quote, I should say this drug for life. And there's a lot of money to be made, so they realize that they start running enough trials. Eventually, they're gonna find one where it works better than the placebo. And when that happened, that opened the door. And now it's like, hey, you're feeling a little bit down. Go on these SSRI medications. Oh, by the way, you said, hey, **** **** might start working. I mean, there are. There's a real chance of permanent sexual side effects. It just isn't talked about. It kind of falls in the background of this adds to the show a guy, I don't know, riding a bicycle, flying a kite. Then that little voice comes in. Oh, by the way, these have shown here so. 
Speaker 
Right. 
Mick Bland 
Permanent sexual side effects because blah blah and it just your brain has talked to dismiss it and it's like, dude, that's like a huge red flag. So even assuming you don't have those permanent sexual side effects, once you're on these thing. Things most people I know personally going on SSRI medications at first they think, hey, this is great. It does lift that cloud. But the problem is, over time it just shuts down all your emotions. So not only you're not feeling depressed, but you're not feeling any joy. You're not feeling any happiness and you know, makes it easy. You can just keep waking up each. 
Jeff Stucke 
The psychedelics, the psychedelics are that is the exact opposite of that. It makes everything more vivid. It makes everything more just experiential. I mean it just it is a it is a baptism into living. And it OK so, so, so talk us through just kind of you want to do ayahuasca first, let's explain to us how ayahuasca affects the. 
Mick Bland 
Yeah, that's a great way to put it. Brain little bit of history by ayahuasca and this just kind of get people on the same page. First written record of it I'm aware of is back in the. Jesuit priests back in the 17th century, they had writings of the they called them witch doctors. Brewing up this brew with vines and leaves, and that appeared in their writings. And of course, they burned all the history because they thought that that was satanic. So they, you know, literally burned all the the. Of those original shamans that they had worked with, and even as far as how long these things have been in use, back in 2019, shamanic pouch was found in the Libya and that actually contained traces of ayahuasca. We'll get into how we know it was ayawaska, but so they know they've been in use for at least a millennia, and who knows how many millennia. Before that, so these things have been established, they've been a part of, I don't know, human nature, for lack of a better description for literally thousands of years and then going back a bit more recently back in the 40s, doctor Richard Schultes, he's a really known as the father of Ethnobotany just. Who studied botany and how it ties into cultures? He had a written record of Iowaska back in the early 1940s and then was until 1984 Doctor Dennis McKenna and some others think it was the towers and Abbot were the names, but they published confirming their real mechanism of ayahuasca and how it actually works. So just to even get a bit deeper into the chemistry itself. Iwas refers to two different things. One refers to the brew itself, and so the brew. When you make ayahuasca, there's a lot of different additives you can add, but the two main components is going to be 1, the ayahuasca. Divine. So if people get confused, Ayahuasca is a vine itself, the Linnaean name being banisteriopsis copy. So that's the vine. And then they mix that vine with the leaves of the chacruna Bush. And that's a psychiatry of iritis. That's again the Linnaean name of the chacruna Bush. And the leaves of that chacruna Bush. They contain and anti methyl triptan. Which I'll just call DM. Teeth, so DMT is known as one of the more potent psychedelics you can possibly take, but it's not morally active on its own if you just take the leaves at the sacrum Bush itself, you make a tea out of that. Or if you just take a pill containing DMT, you're not going to feel anything, because that's going to be broken down on your gut because your gut has what are called monoamine oxidase. They're enzymes that actually breakdown aiming groups aiming group like ammonia. That's just a molecule containing nitrogen, a specific type of nitrogen with different atoms attached to it. Those are generically called aiming groups, and then your gut. That actually has monoamine oxidase enzymes in it to break those down. And the reason for that is because neurotransmitters, serotonin being the prime example, those actually do have aiming groups attached to them. So just to make sure, we kind of evolved, if you eat different plants, if we didn't have those monoamine oxidase enzymes in our gut, it wouldn't be possible to eat most of vegetation, it would be fatal or just have who knows, whatever. Consequences would happen, so it does, or our gut does have those monoamine oxidase enzymes to break those molecules down. And then for example like DMT stands for Dimethyltryptamine, some may be heard of the five HT2A. That's actually I got you. I keep forgetting them as a chemical engineer. So appreciate keeping online like I say, kind of being a nerd sometimes I get off track here. 
Jeff Stucke 
Not your. No, keep going. But just like I appreciate you thinking that any of us have heard like ohh yeah, well, I didn't know what you were talking about until you said fifth degree mono. How to ******* whatever. 
Mick Bland 
I got you. There. But anyway, so maybe like the Saratoga that actually is most people might have heard of that serotonin, that's a neurotransmitter. And that actually binds as well to the five HT2AH T stands for hydroxytryptophan, so it's no accident that the DMTH, then some tryptamine very, very similar molecule in shape to this serotonin neuron transmit. So when you actually have the DMT in your gut, once it gets in your bloodstream and needs to. Make sure it's not broken down before it can get into your bloodstream. Then that does bind to the same receptors in your brain that serotonin binds to, and that's what makes it psychoactive. So as I said before in your gut you have monoamine oxidase enzymes and that will break those tryptamines down. So that's where the ayahuasca vine component comes into play. So again, the banisteriopsis copy, the ayawaska Bine itself, that has molecules or shape is called beta carbolines. But what's significant about those you may hear those referred to as? MAOI and that stands for monoamine oxidase inhibitor and that's exactly what it sounds like those are. Inhibitors and those chemically react with the monoamine oxidase enzymes in your gut, and it renders those inactive and that's what allows the DMT present in the chacruna leaves to pass through your gut be absorbed into your bloodstream and then get into your brain and bind to those five THT 2A. The same receptor that the serotonin molecules bind to, and that's what allows it to remain psychoactive once it gets into your gut. Otherwise, again, it would be broken down. 
Jeff Stucke 
Fascinating about that remote to me. Anyway. That is so profoundly fascinating about that. Is that is a highly specific chemical reaction. I mean, what are the probabilities that shamans discover that 1000 years ago that? Right. They have to do something there. There has to be an MAOI inhibitor. Like they don't even know it, just like. 
Mick Bland 
It's hard to wrap your head around. 
Jeff Stucke 
People process is so sophisticated, and yet thousands of years old. 
Mick Bland 
Exactly. And as you know, if the you know the anthropologist, that's almost kind of blown off. They're already ask him. Well, how did you find out about this stuff? How did you know about this? And as you know, what those says, hey, the plants told us the trees told us and that would just completely dismissed like, OK, whatever. But you start thinking about it like, who know, we don't even know how many species of plants are in the Amazon 10,000 at least. More than that, what's the probability that they're gonna figure out multiple tribes across the whole? They're going to figure out, hey, if you mix this vine with these particular leaves, then you get this psychoactive brew that opens up the portal to the universe. And that may sound like a bit of a stretch. But as Jeff can back me up until you've experienced ayahuasca. 
Jeff Stucke 
There's no stretch and it's like. 
Mick Bland 
That's exactly what the **** it does. It's crazy. 
Jeff Stucke 
How are people not more interested in this? I mean, it's just like. And that goes back to. 1. I think I think what what you said about the Jesuits, you know, in the 1700s thinking of this as witchcraft and demonic and those kinds of things. And then our in our more modern area era is how we have so. We've we've made the psychedelics so taboo. When? Just like you described, we know chemically how this worked. Shamans of thousands of years ago didn't. And again, the statistical probabilities of shamans finding these two plants in the Amazon with an untold number of species of plant. Chance to get this magical result is like, why aren't we talking about that more? 
Mick Bland 
It's really even when LSD was first synthesized back in the 50s by Albert Hoffman, that opened up the doors to psychiatry, there was, hey, these things really could be a miracle drug. People may or may have heard of Bill Davis. You know, Bill, they call him from A and products went going to Alcoholics Anonymous meeting 20 plus years ago before I quit drinking and. I haven't drank in 20 years. It's found a what didn't fit for me but original. Really. LSD experience that was going to be one of the tenants of AA that could actually open up the door to spirits enlightenment that could make people be aware. Hey, there is a higher purpose to life and psychiatrists. We're very, very excited about this. And it wasn't until Richard Nixon in 1970 until they scheduled the psychedelics, meaning they made those illegal for even. You know therapeutic use very, very difficult even have any clinical trials on it. They just wiped them out across the board and that ended all research. And not only did it end all research. Search that continued that same stigma that the judges priests hads of it, you know, they may have thought they were satanic, but they're gonna melt your brain. And it's taken decades to overcome that stigma. And just, you know, thank goodness that that's starting to happen, people, but it's still out there. But people are slowly but surely starting to overcome that stigma. 
Jeff Stucke 
And alcohol and tobacco. Tobacco as it is processed in the United States, is still legal. 
Mick Bland 
It's just it's the mind boggles. I've quit drinking December 30th, 2003. I really wouldn't be here if I had kept drinking. And it's I'll call it as a poison. And I people would have a couple of drinks. It's. Yeah, knock yourself out, but. 
Speaker 
Poison. 
Jeff Stucke 
Yeah, I'm not judging either. It's like it's like if you want to drink. Drink. I I can't. I don't have. I can't really tolerate it anymore. It just the way that it affects my mind. You know, the fact that it is a systemic depressant, and I experience that, I mean, and I like drinking. I, you know, woo. But I just. 
Mick Bland 
Excuse me. 
Jeff Stucke 
It's like. And and maybe some of that is just post ayahuasca and the clarity and just the mental growth that has gone along with that. But it's like when you when you get past the stigmas of these things. And again, neither one of us are. Or advocating anyone do any illegal activity or anything that that that's not the point of our discussion at all. The point of our discussion is that there is such a stigma about these things. And who knows what's going to happen with the government legalization and those kinds of things. Obviously Big Pharma is going to try to grab a hold of it before any of the rest of us can have any real experiences with it. But it is. It is the key to the unlocking the universe. 
Mick Bland 
Absolutely. And it's just really, it's hard. Have you discussed with even with alcohol you talked with, is it Doctor Peter Addy? It? I keep mispronouncing his name. But. 
Jeff Stucke 
Yeah, I see it to you. I don't know either. 
Mick Bland 
Yeah, but still only time. We just. 
Jeff Stucke 
Yeah, he's he's a ******* God. But yeah, we. Don't want this one down. 
Mick Bland 
He is. He's. Yeah, absolutely. But he's, you know, a medical doctor specialized in longevity and health. And I've heard interviews with people ask him, well, what is the safe amount of alcohol that you can drink without having negative consequences? And he's like, zero. It is a poison. You know, people have a couple of glasses of red wine not going to make you drop dead, but it's not going to do you any good. There really is. No. Productive or safe amount of alcohol that you can drink, and yet that's celebrated. You know, that's hey, you have a couple of beers with your friends. You're not a real man if you don't. And hopefully that's gonna continue to change over time as. More people start getting experience using these psychedelics and the proper setting. 
Jeff Stucke 
And that and then, and let's be clear, you and I are making that. Point not because. I mean, again, I'm, you know, alcohol has never. In it, it's never impairment is the clinical, you know criterion that we use for substance abuse. Does it impair impair your level of function? I've never had any level of impairment. You know, I've never been too drunk to go to work or cost me any relationships or have any legal problems, anything like that. I'm talking about maximizing quality of life from a if you want to drink, go ahead and drink. But. If. You want if you want the maximum human experience. I just it can't coexist with the consumption of alcohol because it's a *******. Poison. 
Mick Bland 
Exactly. I'm. I'm at the point now. Again, not judging anyone. But you know, if people are judged, say, drink, that's one thing having a couple glasses of wine, couple of glasses of Scotch. But if someone's a ******** drinker, even if they're not, we would call it drunk. But if they just, hey, if they're like their beer, they like their booze. Hey, that's great, man. I hope you have a wonderful time. I just really don't want to hang out with that. I just. Not only do I not want to be around alcohol, I just don't really like association with the kind of people that enjoy it to like to go out and get *********. As like, hey, Matt, that's what's gonna do great. But it it just it, it doesn't. It's not people I want to be around. I'll leave. 
Speaker 
With that. 
Jeff Stucke 
No, I yeah. And again, it's not a, it's not a condemnation. It's not a judgment, it's not. It's certainly not a moral position, but I do think it would be a disservice. If if we didn't just punctuate 1. Just the reality of the situation, that it is a poison and then to it's antithetical to the experience of the psychedelics. 
Mick Bland 
Absolutely. 
Jeff Stucke 
Yeah. So more to say about Ayahuasca. Tell me, go back, tell like, because you've told me this before. I can't. The guy. I'm escape. I'm. I'm the guys names. I even ******* went to IU and I'm the guys name that discovered the double Helix in genetics. 
Mick Bland 
Oh, Watson and Crick. Yeah, there are two of them, Watson and Crick. Yet even crickets. Some say it's an urban legend. Who knows if it's true? If not, it's a good story. But a lot of people who just based on conversations they had with Crick. And he is getting one of the Co founders who discovered the double Helix of DNA that he was under the influence of LSD when that revelation. 
Speaker 
Well, that's. 
Mick Bland 
Thing to them. So they really do open up your mind to new possibilities and whether or not that's an urban legend or not. There's a doctor, Bruce Damer. He's just a scientist. I'm a huge fan of, if you're not familiar with him, you can Google his name and you want to talk about a legit scientist literally beyond reproach. I mean, he was one of the founding programmers. Who were the graphical user interfaces he was in at the ground floor of just developing? I'll just say it, you know, the graphic user interface. He says then he went on to now. He's currently works for NASA. He designs spacecraft. You may have heard different stories about the theories about, say, if an asteroid is coming into Earth. Well, they can launch a spacecraft to intercept it, put a sphere around it. Either use that to push that asteroid off course so it doesn't impact the Earth or what. He's getting at is how you can. Use those spheres around those asteroids and then mine them for content. So we're not here to talk about space travel, but I'm just talking about Doctor Bruce Damer again, as far as his scientific credentials, literally a rocket science rocket scientist, more or less beyond reproach. And he was a little under the weather or under the radar. He wouldn't talk directly about it. But a couple of years ago at the SPD 55 and that's the Ethnopharmacology Cal search for psychoactive drugs. And that's a Carmen's been going on for more than 50 years now. But he did a presentation just called it's high time for science. And he just did a fascinating presentation to listen to. He's done other similar presentations, but he comes out and says as we're stressing with the proper container around it, these psychedelics could unlock potential in the human brain. They can just improve the human condition in a way that other medications, other substances, are just simply not able to do so. So it's just not some guy, you know, a chemical engineer talking about it. There's untold number to just mainstream scientist and doctor Dennis McKenna. He's the one who first confirmed the mechanism of action about Alaska, meaning it's the MAOI's in the ayahuasca vine. And just to be specific, there's. Other ones that the big three are harming harmaline and tetrahydro harmony and those are those 3 beta carbine beta carbolines and those are psychoactive on their own. But those are those 3 molecules that function as the MAOI's, the monoamine oxidase inhibitors. And that's what allows the DMT to remain orally. Active in your gut. Allow it to pass into your bloodstream and then bind to those serotonin receptors in your brain. And is, you know, PhD in biology and ethyl bodies. So there's really, really hard, ******** scientists that back this up. And it's been known for around, you know, 40-50 years, the mechanism of action. And that's why I just say. That's. Really, we're getting to the point now. It's gotten beyond just science. It's time to move on to engineering. So, like, do psycho or do psychedelics relieve depression? Do they enable neuroplasticity in the brain? Yes, they do. It's time to start focusing on how can we most effectively use these? What's the most? Effective set setting before, during and most significantly after this ceremony that we can use to maximize the therapeutic potential of these Subs. So that's what's just really, really critical and we're about to talk about psilocin and psilocybin. But regardless of psychedelics, less than a year ago, paper was published by Doctor Gould Dolan. He's a neurobiologist originally worked at the John Hopkins School of Medicine School of Psychedelic Science. Recently, she moved her laboratory to UC Berkeley, and their School of Psychedelic Beta. And she came out with the paper she discovered from experiment with mice. And she found that across the board, different psychedelics, whether we're talking about ketamine, whether we're talking about LSD, whether we're talking about psilocin and psilocybin, whether we're talking about Ibogaine, the main way that they work is they do open up what they're called critical learning periods in your brain. Now our critical learning period, we experience those as children. Everyone knows as kids, it's very, very easy to learn languages and you could do that really before you can even remember to just kind of have. Kids are much easier to learn. Musical instruments even occur in adolescence where you're very, very susceptible to peer pressure because you really want to bond with your peers. So there's different periods in your brain which are called critical learning periods, and they can just open up that window where you're extremely perceptive to your surroundings and your brain is very, very neuroplastic. And it's able to rewire itself and form new connections at the synaptic level that it isn't able to outside of those critical learning period windows. And that's really what we're finding. How psyched. It's work. So not only during the ceremony itself, but for the week, sometimes up to a month afterwards, it does open your brain to that critical learning period window. So that's why integration is so significant. Integration in the steps you take after the ceremony ends. That's what's so crucial to that container around the psychedelic process. Just to make sure you get the most out of that then. So they've discovered you. That's how they work. Yes, they do. Open up those critical learning period windows in our brain. So now it's time to move a little bit past that and start focusing on how can we make the most use out of that critical learning period that window opens up after the ceremony ends. 
Jeff Stucke 
Well, and why that? I mean again to emphasize. The the fact that we have mechanisms that will open up critical learning windows, it's like. I mean, you have you think about, OK? We are born into infancy. And then by age 3. You know, we're starting to master. Mostly master gross motor skill. We're ambulant we're walking around some development of, you know, fine motor skill. We're coloring things like that. Speech acquisition, I mean, which is the developmentally the single most significant? Critical learning window and then it's like for her to discover that this window can be reopened is like, wait, what like this is not like a small thing. This is like a. 
Mick Bland 
It's. 
Jeff Stucke 
Are you serious? 
Mick Bland 
It's just to. Give you some context, like when stroke victims after they're, you know after the stroke is over, that does open up a critical learning period in your brain as well, called a period called a window. Same idea. That that critical learning period that allows the brain to be wired itself so with proper therapy they can recover some of those abilities that were lost. Maybe whatever portions of their brain that were damaged due to that stroke when the brain is in that critical learning period, it can. The brain can rewire itself and all the different portions of the brain to take over for those portions of the brain. They were damaged by the stroke. How your brain does do that naturally, but naturally, that critical learning period only opens up for about two months after the stroke ends, and so stroke victims they can work with therapists, they can do what they can to recover from the motor skills say that were lost, maybe recovered their ability to speak at that part of the brain was damaged. But the problem is, once that critical learning. Your window closed. It's like, well, that's about as much as you're gonna recover. So she's continuing research with the idea. If she can use psychedelics to open up that critical learning period for, say, stroke victims that can extend that two-month window and allow them to continue to work with them. To help recover that capacity that was lost by whatever part of the brain that was damaged by the stroke, and that even goes on to. 
Jeff Stucke 
Just thinking about the implications of for the rest of us that haven't had a stroke and that we have an opportunity to open the critical learning window and. You know not to get too carried away with it, but the implications for humanity, like the fact that we have the capacity which which gives more credence right to the LSD derivative to the discovery of of the double Helix, it's like. OK, maybe. 
Speaker 
It's. 
Jeff Stucke 
Urban legend, but maybe not because the science certainly supports the fact that it's not. What are the overall implications to humanity at such, especially at such a critical time in human existence, where it seems like we we are one decision away from. 
Mick Bland 
Yeah. 
Jeff Stucke 
Launching us into oblivion. 
Mick Bland 
It's it's really hard if it's just so exciting to think where this could actually lead and you say whether it's an urban legend or not, bearing the double DNA double Helix, just referring into the work of Doctor Bruce Damer, there's a lot of mainstream scientists. He went down to Pruitt, the group of molecular biologists, and they drank ayahuasca with the intention of how can we use this to? Unlock new understanding of the way cells work and the results were extraordinarily positive. So and to say at this point that science has been established. Yes, when they're in the proper setting setting, I should probably qualify this a little. But there are people who really maybe shouldn't do psychedelics at all if they're very heavily schizophrenic. If they have, you know, certain personality disorders, you know, they're not for everyone, neither you are medical doctors. So hey, you want to double check with your doctor, but unless you're an outlier, there's it's just not, like, taking antidepressants, where there's a very, very real chance if you're going to have. Permanent side effects, whether they be sexual or otherwise, these psychedelics are extraordinarily safe, particularly when done in the proper setting setting. So it's just it's, yeah, it's just it's just. 
Jeff Stucke 
In the province. 
Speaker 
Of yeah. 
Jeff Stucke 
Yeah. Anything that you and I are discussing, if somebody goes off. And does it in an improper setting like. That's not what we're talking about. We are and and the setting that you and I have both been in is. I mean, there's a three month build up. 
Mick Bland 
Yeah. 
Jeff Stucke 
To the ceremonies. And then there's three month integration. It's you, you know it. It it's not like you and I got drunk at a bar one night and said let's go do all you ask. 
Mick Bland 
Absolutely. 
Jeff Stucke 
I mean that. That's. 
Mick Bland 
It's it's. 
Jeff Stucke 
That's just Anna. If if anyone is thinking like this is somehow like license, you're just to go be irresponsible with recreational drugs. It's like that is. That's not. That's not what this is at all. I mean and. For. 
Mick Bland 
Yeah, absolutely. 
Jeff Stucke 
Some people right, like they have to get off of their. Antidepressants their psychotropic medications, like you know, and that's a significant weaning process. You know, no alcohol, no sex like it's it's. You know this. This isn't. I want to make sure that we dispel any notion that this is just some sort of glamorized frat party, but this is truly medicine. 
Mick Bland 
It's not a party. It really is. It truly is. And the nice because you and I both went down to Peru and frankly that's just not available to everyone. That's why it's so exciting to see, you know, quote UN quote magic mushrooms. And we'll talk about those here now, those are going to be a lot more available to the average person. And so that's why it's exciting. That's going to make them that much more available, can provide it to use in the proper. Setting setting so just talk a little bit about magic mushrooms. 
Speaker 
Cool. 
Mick Bland 
I say magic mushrooms, they really may refer to mushrooms containing psilocin psilocybin, and those are the two big molecules in them, and for some history on those, the first record I found of just from an archaeological anthropology perspective, back around 10,000 BC. This is down in Australia, they found Aboriginal paintings. Having psychedelic images along with mushrooms, so there's a lot of evidence suggests they've been in use for more than 10,000 years by human beings. Some may or may not have heard the Incas, the Aztecs down in South America. What's now Mexico? Mushrooms are a very significant part of their culture, and that's when they first became in the mainstream is in the mid 50s. Gordon Wasson took a trip to Mexico with his wife and he experienced the psychedelic mushroom ceremony with the. Code and data code and data just meaning a healer, Maria Sobina, and she led them through a magic mushroom ceremony and then he took some pictures and published the results in like magazine. They were released in 1957. And that's when the magic mushrooms first started to appear on the radar, and then upon reading that magazine, Albert Hoffman, that's the Swiss chemist that first synthesized LSD. He went had a similar experience with magic mushrooms. Did a say chemical analysis on the magic mushrooms. And he determined the two active. Molecules are primarily psilocybin and psilocin, and now those are both tryptamine, so they're very similar in structure not only to the dimethyltryptamine. Present in ayahuasca, but also very similar again to the serotonin neurotransmitter. So those do bind to the same 5 HT 2A receptors in our brain, just as does the DMT and iowaska. And that does induce a very similar psychedelic experience as ayahuasca, and people most commonly are just. Maybe tangentially, I'll say familiar with mushrooms. They're commonly called psilocybin mushrooms just for the record, in your gut that psilocybin is broken down into. And they're very similar molecules itself. The big difference on the number 4 carbon on the ring of that tryptamine in psilocin, that's a hydroxyl group. And psilocybin, that's actually a phosphate group. And if we get too far into the organic chemistry, it doesn't really work that well. Talking about in the conversation, I'm actually writing an article going to be on beauty here in a couple. Days just do a search for bald engineers, guide to Alaska and that has some graphics. I'll walk through that in some more detail, but just for this discussion know that the two primary tryptamines are wrapped up or psilocybin and psilocin, and your gut. The psilocybin is broken down into psilocin and that psilocin that's what actually binds to that receptor. Your brain. So when most people hear of magic mushrooms, those are what they think of. But as research has continued, there's some additional compounds in those mushrooms that may or may not be psychoactive on the road, but at the very least, they do contribute to that psychoactive experience. So I'm going to throw some names out here. I don't expect anyone to remember to gain stuck on my article on medium for those who are interested, but this what it's called, Nora. Listen, Biosystem and Arun Acin and those are similar in structure to psilocybin. So those have the phosphate group attached to that number four carbs. And there's also Norcia, but you can probably figure out very similar to psilocin, and so they're very, very similar in shape and structure to psilocybin and psilocin. And those compounds, there's some debate to whether or not they're psychoactive on their own. They have found, for example, north North Cillessen, in particular on mice. Once they expose. That chemical, that compound to the mice that does activate the calcium gateway, that's one of the mechanisms by which serotonin works on the receptor itself. So assuming that N silicon can get in your bloodstream, that has a similar affinity for that five HT 2A receptor as does psilocin. So there's a lot of indication that it could be. Psychoactive. If it gets into your blood. Now there is some question as to whether or not that's able to cross the blood brain barrier as along with those other compounds I just mentioned as well that mugician or biosystem biosystem. Those may or may not cross the blood brain barrier, but at the very least those are monoamines. So those are going to consume some of those monoamine oxidase. Enzymes in your gut, and that's gonna allow there's still a sun and psilocybin to be that much more potent because that much more that's going to enter your bloodstream and to touch base a little more. 
Jeff Stucke 
Similar curative effects as ayahuasca. 
Mick Bland 
Exactly. And it's really depends on the person, depends on the setting setting. Personally there's. There's things going on with Iowa that we don't understand as I'm. There is with the psilocin and psilocybin. So is ******** focused as I am on the chemistry now is as good a time as any to mention it. You know, when you and I first met. On the first day of the retreat, I introduced myself as hey, my name is Mick. I'm an engineer, not really in this whole medicine spirit stuff or tree spirit stuff. I'm more about the chemistry. We kind of high fived each other like, hey man, we found a common goal here because we kind of can't hang out with these other people. And I already started my book. 
Jeff Stucke 
This I'm not into this woo woo **** either. I'm just here for right? We were like, we're not like. 
Mick Bland 
A few days later. It's just. I'm just it's. It doesn't even sound, but just deserves its own podcast, so stay tuned for that with more detail, but just say. 
Jeff Stucke 
And I promise you it will get its own podcast. 
Mick Bland 
Absolutely. And I was. 
Jeff Stucke 
Because there was some. ******* weird **** that went down when we were in Peru. 
Mick Bland 
It's the best way I can describe it. I was literally. I was introduced myself. I'm writing a book and getting a bald engineers guy died waska. They'll point you probably figured if I look at me, I'm not a hippie. I'm not a long haired hippie. I'm an engineer and that was the whole premise of my book. I was originally being read is hey, let's just ignore all this stupid woo woo ********. Let's just focus on people actually can think. Rash. And then I had experienced my last ceremony, to put it bluntly, within a minute or two after drinking, the eye washed itself, and it takes a good 20-30 minutes, sometimes before you feel any effects at all. Any psychoactive effects at all, from either the beta carbolines in the ayahuasca, let alone the DMT and the sakuna Bush. So. A minute or two after drinking it literally, they just blown out the candle, saying the ceremony started. I'd heard this kind of commotion behind my head. I was wearing a blindfold and I'd heard it. It felt like people kind of stroking my skull and I thought it was on your one of the other facilitators. I was like, what the **** are you doing here? And then I heard someone say hey, pass. To the night? Very, very clearly. Very, very distinctive. Say, hey, pass in the night and I could just feel just almost felt like a laser beam just dragging across my skull and then felt him pop off the scalp on my skull, reach in, pull something out of my brain. And I just kind of knew, OK, they're pulling out whatever caused that depression and then put the skull back on. I could feel them sewing it back up. And I was like, holy ****, I just had brain surgery by ******* medicine spirits. And then the Iwasaki say then after that ended, then the ayahuasca kicked. And a very specific remember saying, after ceremony I got to write my ******* book like no one's going to believe this, but I'm going to have to literally rewrite the entire ******* book. Obviously I feel find the chemistry fascinating. That does deserve a lot of attention, but there's things going on, particularly with ayawaska I've experienced personally that I don't know if Western civilization is really meant to understand. Some things we're just gonna have to accept, and that's why I haven't experienced that with psilocin or soybean. I've done mushrooms on my own. I've gotten a lot out of it, but really it there needs to be more of a group. There needs to be a proper set and setting, whether that's ayawaska, that's what you and I both experienced together. All my experience with ayahuasca happened down in Peru, have been with the group, have them with the legit. I was scared myself, davia. And so that's one thing that's been missing from my experience with. Sybian, but absolutely the psychedelic experience is very similar and with the proper container around it, with the proper retreat, that's what you're now in the process of building. They can have the same therapeutic effects as ayahuasca does without having to make that trip. 
Jeff Stucke 
To Peru. It's funny because I didn't know. So because my my third ceremony. There was no it it was like. Took off instantly because. I remember kind of thinking, you know, it's been a good trip. I've learned a lot and just kind of like, you know, OK and and and we'll get into this more. But like my intention for the whole week was fear and not letting fear limit my life. And. Dude, that last ceremony like the 2nd that I drank the ayahuasca. I mean, it was like the train had left the station and the next six hours of my life were like. Beyond comprehension and. 
Speaker 
And. 
Jeff Stucke 
But that's funny because I didn't know that yours took off as quickly as mine did. 
Mick Bland 
Uh, it's just it's so. 
Jeff Stucke 
OK. Our next one, the next podcast is you and I somehow trying to tell the story of our time in Peru.
Mick Bland 
I can tell that people are not going to believe it, to quote myself, like after this. The last ceremony ended. Like no one's gonna believe this when I write my book. All I can do is just write it. Put it up there. As honest as it has, I realize people aren't going to believe it, but some people aren't going to believe it. Those who haven't experienced ayawaska. 
Jeff Stucke 
I you I if if I. If I OK one, I would absolutely not believe it if. I didn't live through it, but. I also think. If I didn't have you, if our experiences hadn't been so intertwined and I didn't have you to call and say, did this really ******* happen? I don't know that I would. Still, I may have talked to myself out of some of the things that happened. While we were there. 
Mick Bland 
I really think that's what happened to me my first couple of tries. I got it. I'm still here, so obviously it worked. It cured the depression, but I just didn't have anyone to talk to. I mean, I didn't tell my dad. My mom died a few years prior, but my dad, just for those who, you know, he worked at area 51 about as high security clearance as you can possibly have. Drugs were just not a part of my. Upbringing. I don't know how I'm supposed to talk to my dad. Who's, you know, died. He was a very practicing Catholic. And that's not my path. But hey, more power to him. But you know, a ******** Catholic with a high core, you know, ******** security. Learns that's not someone you can talk about Ayahuasca with. It just doesn't work. And other friends I've had, I was frankly really socially isolated at that time. But the few friends I did have, they're just not the kind of dude you can talk about ayahuasca with. And we're like talking about football, drinking beer, doing whatever. So how can you only talk about experience with medicine, spirits, and experience with? Opening up a possibility to we really are interconnected at a consciousness level that it's really hard to understand unless you've experienced it. You need someone to talk to, you need someone to share these experiences with and that's why I'm so excited about building our psilocybin based retreats. Sir, say silicon retreats in the coming months and year. 
Jeff Stucke 
And I'm in southern Indiana, Bro, which you can't even fully appreciate that. So you can imagine, like I come back from Peru and I I put, I put a few posts on Facebook just whatever and some of it was like just more just kind of like I I just a little bit of like. OK, I'm I'm doing this like I'm not. I'm not hiding this. I'm not going Full disclosure. But then when I get back from Peru, like going up the Amazon, and I still vividly remember getting dumped out. At off the. Amazon and going to that village and then to Casa del Maestro. And like just this decision of what the **** have I done to my life or I am fully committed to this process and I just had to fully commit to the process, which I'm glad I did. Because it it's. Once. Once you understand the possibilities and you're not afraid of the possibilities, and you embrace the possibilities. What? Whatever whatever it opens up to you, whether it's perhaps it's been a long standing battle with the resistant. Issue like depression or somebody that's just like I want to experience everything that there is to experience in life and what's so beautiful about that from my perspective is. 
Speaker 
MHM. 
Jeff Stucke 
Even though you and I were coming from, from our perspective, two different places. The way that we ended. And. How? It wasn't like it wasn't like I was 10 miles ahead of you. It's like we ended at the exact same finish line together. With this completely expanded sense of life experience to where you and I are connected for the rest of our lives in a way that I don't, I truly don't believe. We could be connected with someone outside of this context. 
Mick Bland 
I don't think it is common. I'm not going to say it now, just as it teaser for the next podcast, but literally you had a vision that could have been meant for myself and it wasn't until you shared that vision with me that I realized, OK, you would. Think that vision. Why didn't I receive that vision? That was about me, that had nothing to do with you and something up there is bringing us together. And there's just there's no other way to describe it. It's just there are things happen. Being. Beyond understanding that are even beyond comprehension until you've experienced something similar first hand yourself and that's I'm I'm both excited about. I wasp becoming legal in places, Colorado being one. But if you you need to drink ayahuasca with someone who knows what they're doing, is they the typical, you know, Heather eagle feather. Someone has had a couple of ceremonies. Hey, it's great. The world needs more people that want to help people and less they spent multiple years in Peru, Bolivia, Ecuador and South America doing a formal apprenticeship doing plant they at this with the. Hit. Preferably someone with multi generational Iowa Sketo I'll just call it generally Shaman, which is kind of a general term, but there's a reason why it's used. You'd be very, very careful of that. And as you just just touched. On. Just that trip to Pruitt itself, that's its own part of that therapy. Myself. I would have never had the gumption to go down there unless it was down there to kill myself. You not to be a buzzkill, but that's just the workplace I was at. I couldn't even leave the house. So just the fact that's what got me out of the house and go down to true. I can buy the Nembutal down there. I can do that to off myself while I'm there, I'll drink this. I wash this **** and literally halfway through my first ceremony I was like, this ain't working. I'm at it. I'm *******. Right here. But just the trip down to Pruitt itself and just driving and seeing how people live. And it's hard not to appreciate people fault America I ***** about as much as most people do, but until you spend time in a legit third world country with people who live on dirt floors, we have 10 people living in what you and I would refer to as a shack. That alone. Just that journey, that experience that's going to make yourself that much more open to possibilities that are really just going to be missing if you go to a tree here in America so highly recommend if it's at all possible, do so. 
Jeff Stucke 
Well, and it's just it. It strips life down to its fewest number of necessary parts. It's. You know, I mean, we were in the Amazon in August and you know, with this sanango diet to like, we don't get to use any personal hygiene products, we don't get to use soap. We don't get like you know, it's like it. And again, I won't go too far into that, but it's just like. 
Mick Bland 
Yeah, no salt. 
Jeff Stucke 
Especially with in. Will this the a topic for a later podcast will be because it it deserves its own podcast is the topic of earned versus unearned dopamine and the again, we won't, I won't. I'll let you elaborate on that, but it's like we're we're inundated with unearned dopamine, which has profound implications. To just why everyone is so miserable. And. You know the so, so stripping it down, but then the other thing just for me as a practitioner in the mental health field that's been in it. For 25 years. Knowing that we now have more access to therapeutic and psychiatric intervention than humanity has ever had, and mental health is on the. Decline at an increasing rate more than it has ever been. And when? When the the prescription for that is do more of the same thing. It's like. 
Mick Bland 
That's. Anything can work. 
Jeff Stucke 
It. Talk about the definition of an definition of insanity. Doing the same thing over again, expecting different results. It's like. That's pejorative, but at the same time, it's like, OK, let's increase the rate at which we're doing things that are proven not to work and let's continue to. Make these interventions that we absolutely know are life changing taboo. That's and Mike, I'll give you a final word on our discussion today. 
Mick Bland 
Really not much close to that other than you have. It's just these really are life changing drugs. You know, they obviously talk to your doctor first, but there's very little risk for the average population. And if you're in a dark place, you don't have to wait to get to where I was at, where you're going down the food to kill yourself and you're just missing something out of your life. If you're not sure. That it is even if you feel kind of happy, but if you just feel some sort of calling for something different, if you feel there's us talking about Iowa, ask if that's kind of triggered something in your brain and you're just feeling you're not on your brain. Also in your heart. You know, I'd have laughed at myself. I would have said that before I wasn't good. But if you're just feeling some kind of calling and you don't really, you don't know why you can't explain it, but it just seems like something that's the right thing to do. Follow that call and follow that path. You don't have to stay in the darkness, even if you're not as dark as I was. If your life doesn't have any sort of sense of purpose. If you have obvious thought psychedelics for just for long haired hippies, man, that ain't the ******* case. I can go a lot more in detail and the chemist starts doing aboard the ship out of. People. But this is based in ******** science. There is light at the end of the tunnel. It can open up your world in a way that's impossible to describe until you've experienced it. 
Jeff Stucke 
And we will bore them a little bit because I do want them to understand the just the full depth of knowledge that we have about this, which is, which is profoundly deeper than Big Pharma and their knowledge of. Of the psychotropic interventions that we current currently employ and and and maybe your point of entry is not like mix, maybe your point of entry is more like mine one. Not really, ever having had a rite of passage from boy to man. And not really knowing like have I fully. Experienced that passage into manhood and am I getting all that I can get out of life and am I experiencing life to its fullest? And and again I had a good life. I had a. You know, have a very successful practice. I have 3 wonderful children that I have a fantastic relationship with and it was. My experience again, even though our points of entry were different. They were equally transformational and and now we get to be on the same path at the same point together. 
Mick Bland 
Saying it, it's not an accident. We'll leave it at that. And neither you or I, or believe in organized religion at all. So just want to clarify that if we talk about some sort of higher power, some form of whatever. Hey, if you're into organized religion, that's awesome. But there's there's something up there how they want to describe it, that it's not an accident that we came together. We're. 
Jeff Stucke 
OK, whatever it is. 
Mick Bland 
Going to be together for life. 
Jeff Stucke 
Cool. All right, so next time we'll we'll do our best to tell the story right. 
Mick Bland 
Yes. That's going to cry more prep to try to get ready for that. That chemistry he's going to talk about that off. I ask, because that's what I'm into, but trying to describe our experience and that's to take some work. 
Jeff Stucke 
All right, get started on it because our listeners are going to want to hear it. 
Mick Bland 
All right, looking forward to it. 
Jeff Stucke 
Thanks buddy. Talk soon. 
Mick Bland 
Thanks, bud. You bet. 
 

Iron Sharpens Iron: Zac Parsons on his wavering atheism

Jeff sat down with Zac Parsons to discuss the decisions we make, the risks of NOT doing things, and the spiritual things we do alone and with others. 
 
Digitally Generated Transcript
Jeff Stucke: For good, or is he? 
Zac Parsons: I learned I learned from the best. 
Jeff Stucke: All right. Are we rolling here, like, here we go. 
Zac Parsons: Yeah, yeah, we're we're rolling. So yeah, like I said, you. You said you sent me a text and it was. I think we need to discuss your wavering atheism. 
Jeff Stucke: Was it that I I thought I would have been harsher than that. But OK, let's. 
Zac Parsons: And that was, yeah. Well, I mean you you weren't sure like if you needed to treat me with with kid gloves or if this is like more bare knuckle brawl kind of thing. OK yeah. 
Jeff Stucke: That that. Yeah. So. So I went to Peru on a spiritual journey and felt as though I achieved enlightenment. And now you're. 
Zac Parsons: Well, and well and you got to we got to debrief on that together, which was kind of amazing. Like there was this, this window in our schedules to where. 
Jeff Stucke: What are you doing, man? 
Zac Parsons: I mean, we had like a good 90 minute walk together like sort of able to sort of unpack, you know, as much of it, you know as we could together and I was like. 
Jeff Stucke: Yeah. Wow goes. I never in my wildest dreams that I think I'm going to go recommit my life to Jesus Christ. The result of that of that walk, which is like, where did I **** **? Like what? Like what? 
Zac Parsons: Which which you haven't done right. Well, OK, so this is, this is what I'm excited to to figure out what. So so I got to experience your sort of spiritual reawakening, you know, after the fact and and kind of bathe in your after glow a little bit. And now that was what, like four months ago, five months ago. OK. So you're 
Jeff Stucke: Yeah. 
Zac Parsons: And if I'm projecting, you need to redirect me. That's fine. Like you're you're sort of, you've you've come back down to earth a little bit and and you've had to sort of reintegrate that high into, like, the daily rhythms of your life and, like, get your wife, like, sort of up up to speed on, like, OK, so I'm. I'm like, at this level right now, how do we. 
Jeff Stucke: No worries, yeah. 
Zac Parsons: That we work with this is that is that all sort? 
Jeff Stucke: Of yeah, reintegration. Yeah, is infinitely more complex than I thought, because it is such. They. Out of the norm experience, I mean one, you know when you're 52 years old and you get on a plane and you go get on a boat and you go to a village in the Amazon, most people think, oh, well, Jeff lost his ******* mind. And then to have the overall experience with the plant medicines, but then also. The ritual, like the sacred ancient ritual like it all, of all of those things combined. Any one of those would be significant, right? Just going to Peru or. Participating in ancient ritual. 
Zac Parsons: Was this your first trip to South America as well or OK, OK. 
Jeff Stucke: Not South America, but first, first trip to Peru. Yeah, and then. And then, OK, now the cherry on top is you're going to be introduced to plant medicines, one of which is the most profound hallucinogen on the planet. Like, yeah. OK, so then. To your point, coming back and like. How the hell do I reintegrate this into my experience to which I thought you and I were somewhat kindreds on that. But then there's just. 
Zac Parsons: What is? Say, we're not still kindred spirits on this. Let's let that's why we're going to find out. Exactly. Exactly. 
Jeff Stucke: Put them. Hence this conversation. Like what? So I am interested very much in because spiritual journey has been common ground for both of us. What the ****'* going on with you? 
Zac Parsons: Well, well, first I just, I just want to also sort of like draw out the fact that that you and I actually have like a a brief history of of sort of trying to get to this sort of spiritual place through plant medicines or I guess that's maybe not technically true like we tried to do. DMT together and and we're ultimately like kind of unsuccessful just there, there was just some technical things and and it also probably lacked the ceremony the the ritualist I mean it definitely lacked the the ritualistic element of like we were. 
Jeff Stucke: Yes, right. 
Zac Parsons: Like fit it into like mid morning on on a on a busy Saturday like on Main Street. 
Jeff Stucke: Right. Yeah. Like, yeah. Right, yeah. 
Zac Parsons: So so that that's interesting to me that it's like if there is some sort of great spirit that sort of called you down there. One of the things I remember from your story is. Because it was what a 10/10 day process, 12 day process. Two weeks. OK, so this wasn't like come in for like a weekend and rah rah and head back home like there was a preparatory like week plus to where you were actually being purged. 
Jeff Stucke: Essentially, 2 weeks? Yeah. Yep. 
Zac Parsons: Of. Both physical and psychological, spiritual things that were sort of in you and on you that we didn't take those steps at all. When when we tried before and that almost feels like that's right. Like we didn't. We didn't come to it with the right level of humility. 
Jeff Stucke: Well, and that was. Agreed and. That was predicated by three months abstinence of sex. Any mind altering substances and? 
Zac Parsons: I don't. I knew this part three months. 
Jeff Stucke: Yeah. Three months. Yes. And so the. 
Zac Parsons: Good for you. Is that the long you've ever gone without sex? Ohh, have you ever gone 3 days? 
Jeff Stucke: Like what? And and that did create some relational tension because it it's like. 
Zac Parsons: Wow. 
Jeff Stucke: OK, what? 
Zac Parsons: Yeah, yeah. You're not just affecting yourself in this. Yeah, yeah. 
Jeff Stucke: What? Like what are you doing? Like you're first of all, I don't understand all of this going to Peru like. For you, from Anna's perspective, it was. It felt very personal, like your life is so like. Unhappy that you have to do this so she saw it, right? 
Zac Parsons: It's a judge. She's seeing it as a judgment of, like, you know, if it ain't broke, don't fix it. Like, what are you looking for? Look at. Look at all this. Good that we have kind of thing. 
Jeff Stucke: Right. She saw it as kind of a 180, whereas for me this is like, no, this has been an upward trajectory to where now it's. This. It's this is, you know, this is my end zone, so to speak and. 
Zac Parsons: I can see like a three-dimensional axis when you were saying that, yeah, it's not like you're turning from this way to this way. It's like, I don't know, we're we're going up, right? 
Jeff Stucke: We're we're going. We're going higher, right. And and in that, which I understandably so felt personal to her. What? I don't know what you're going to go do. You're going to go for two weeks. Going to the ******* Amazon. Like, so just there were so many complexities in that. And then having to hold to the certainty that I know I need to do this. Which? 
Zac Parsons: Did it feel like a calling? Would you use that word or no? 
Jeff Stucke: UMI mean the word I would use a certainty. It was just it was. 
Zac Parsons: It This it will be done or you need to do it or if you don't it won't leave you alone kind of thing. 
Jeff Stucke: Yeah, there there have been. Multiple experiences. I don't know if you've read green lights by Matthew McConaughey, but twice, OK? 
Zac Parsons: And have gifted it to my stepson. 
Jeff Stucke: It the the many things about it were impactful, but. One of the things that just continued to be kind of a undertone in his book was the fear of not doing something, whereas for most of us, when we're confronted with something, you know our minds automatically, I mean evolutionarily start to say, what are the costs of doing this? And then to hear his narrative and like, some of the **** that he did just because he was afraid of, like, what if I don't? So that that resonated with me on the level of. Of. OK, I'm not like that. I'm always like, you know, cost benefit and like, no, I'm not going to take the risk. But then so there was a fear for me of I can't miss out on what could happen and. You know, and there were some sacrifices with my kids. Like there were some things going on that we had planned together that were, you know, mostly nominal. But it was still like, God, am I just a ******* here. But I I just the certainty of I have to go experience this. So the three months prior to the emotion. 
Jeff Stucke: Internal angst, if you will, of in the midst of angst, doubts in the midst of my kids, doubts in the midst of some other people that you don't have anyone that says this is a good idea, Jeff. 
Zac Parsons: Well, and and I I have a suspicion with your you know background in what, 3 decades of psychology. You know, I don't know how long you've been studying. Yeah. So, like, you understand how people can ******** themselves and delude themselves and. 
Jeff Stucke: Yeah, 2525 years. Man. 
Zac Parsons: Probably going to come up in our conversation, especially directed towards me probably, but also you apply that to yourself and you're like looking in the mirror like. Am I ************ myself here? If the people who love me don't necessarily see it as clearly as I do, but then that's also sort of like a natural tendency for if you see someone you love doing something that's risky, you want to protect them and and they they won't be able to see. The the benefits and the sacrifices that you have sort of decided, yes, I'm willing to make this sacrifice because they just see the risks. 
Jeff Stucke: Yes. And I think that. In the sense that we could use your word calling part of the sense of calling was exactly that that for me in my where I needed to grow, it was. You're doing this. You're doing this by yourself. And in the wake of massive self doubt. I mean, once you get on that ******* plane, bro, it's like, oh, ****. Oh, ****. Oh, ****. You know, so you're constantly teetering on this sense. 
Zac Parsons: You made a leap. Did you feel you could turn back at that point, or did that feel like a point of no return? 
Jeff Stucke: One of the I the I had made a commitment to myself that there was no turning back in spite of, you know, whatever level of anxiety I had. Whatever level of self doubt it was just I just had this mantra that I repeated 7 gazillion times, was due. The next thing you know, whatever it was once you got off the plane, get through custom, do the next thing. Do the next thing and. That just from a psychological perspective and just kind of rewiring my mind that we're not listening to the fears like we're just we're doing the next thing and I'm now in a country where I don't speak the language totally alone, about to go meet people and, you know, so it. So all of these different aspects and it was. Like. Having to hold on to the certainty of I know I need to do this and. That's always been a struggle for me. I've always, you know, well, raising kids has been the biggest, you know, that's my thing. That was my thing. Like anything else is like, fine. But it's like you sacrifice a lot for your children and not in a sense like, yeah. 
Zac Parsons: Sure. But but there and I remember this from your conversation. So you've had a couple of you had a solo sort of podcast sort of explaining your your health scare and the the biggest fear that you had to face with that had to do with, like, the idea of, like, never seeing your kids again. And as much as you were willing to sacrifice. 
Jeff Stucke: Yes. 
Zac Parsons: The idea of. Sacrificing yourself? I don't know if that's the exactly the right way to put it, but like knowing that that might happen or it will happen someday, hopefully you will die before your kids do. And like they won't have you there in this form or whatever. Yeah. 
Jeff Stucke: Ohh it's going to right. 
Zac Parsons: And knowing that if if something profound happens which you're hoping does happen, that might actually even affect that, that relationship, that that is so sacred informative. And is is such a core part of your. 
Jeff Stucke: Identity already? Yes, it was only unknowns. Like, you know, it's just these are all unknowns and and it just so interesting the way that the relationship with the shaman, the progressions of the ceremonies, I think people here ayawaska. 
Jeff Stucke: And you know, it's like they think frat party, you know, like. 
We're like, yeah. Now let's go get sucked up into the. 
Jeff Stucke: Balls and it's like this is the furthest from that. This is such a such a sacred process. 
Jeff Stucke: That, that, that fear. And you know, you and I talked about this and maybe we get into it more. Maybe not. But it's like the third ayahuasca ceremony was like I'm I am now just waiting to die. Like it's happening. It's not. And it, you know, the the level of that and then. 
Zac Parsons: Right. I believe you, yeah. 
Jeff Stucke: You know, one of the commitments that you know, one of my favorite quotes is death smiles as us all. All we can do is smile back and. It's like, yeah, death is coming. Like, that's not a morbid thought. That's just simply reality. Like death is coming. And I was talking to a buddy of mine, and he was talking about the passing of his father. And when, you know, his father was on Hospice, he didn't have much time left. He his. He he wells Greg Allen, a mutual friend of ours and he asked his dad, like, how are you and kind of a philosophical sense. And his dad looked at him and said I'm satisfied. And it's like, yes. 
Zac Parsons: Wow. Give me. 
Jeff Stucke: That when death smiles the the that's you know I'm satisfied, man. I, I I did the things and yeah, so all all of that there were so many so many facets of that but. 
Zac Parsons: Yeah. 
Zac Parsons: Have you recorded like a like a a down like a verbal sort of download of yourself, like trying to walk through? That yet OK. 
Jeff Stucke: Yeah. And still trying to grasp it. It's, you know, because the, the intensity of it, it's just. To capture something that for us in a Western orientation, that's nuts. You know, like we we trust in Big Pharma, we don't trust in shown. 
Zac Parsons: I'll take the FDA approved ayahuasca, please. 
Jeff Stucke: Which believe it or not, we're trying to monetize that. So yeah, what could possibly go wrong? 
Zac Parsons: Ohh. Not not shocking at all. 
Jeff Stucke: Right. And then and then the thought of it that it there that it would be divorce? Just of the ritual that it would be divorce. I mean, there's just you. You know, there there's anything worth it is that's not easy. There is no easy path to something that is worth it. 
Zac Parsons: I I just like it's, you know, we're waiting for like we're going to have a conversation and go where needs to go like yeah. Something just totally came out to me like being divorced from the rituals so soon I think we're going to go into sort of my. My turning my metanoia we get to use like, you know, fun Greek words because we both have a background in ministry. 
Jeff Stucke: Yeah. 
Zac Parsons: But let's let's do this. Let's try and like somewhat quickly, but as best as we can remember, try and recapitulate our like 10 plus year relationship when when do you remember meeting me? 
Jeff Stucke: Vividly Madeleines restaurant and my business. Partner and the time. 
Zac Parsons: Wait, was it was it madeleines? I thought it was. This is. This is so great that we're already misremembering it. 
Jeff Stucke: Yeah. No, no it's I'm wrong. You're. You're right, I'm wrong. 
Zac Parsons: It it was Joe's Lorenzo's. Is that right? OK, that's what I remember. It's OK here to correct the record. 
Jeff Stucke: Yep. Yep, Yep. Yep. Yep. That's signal. You're exactly right. I was. I was. I was seeing Lorenzo's but. 
Zac Parsons: You're at all time like Evansville guy, but this was an East Side restaurant, so that's probably why you were confused because you're a westsider. 
Jeff Stucke: Yeah, yeah, yeah. And and it's been a minute. But, and I just remember, like at the time. You had you had some training, I think Albert Bandura program or? What was the? 
Zac Parsons: It was connected. Yeah. The Pacific Institute up in Seattle. But they they definitely, like, leaned heavily on Al Bender. As you know, model of self efficacy and and all. 
Jeff Stucke: OK. Of that, yeah. And it was just. I I don't know that the meeting itself was productive other than just kind of establishing rapport. The report that I felt that was like, OK, that's. That's a relationship that I want to keep visiting because you were definitely asking questions about, you know, the philosophical sorts of things and and spiritual journeys and those kinds of things. And I would, for me, I was at a stage where I was very dissatisfied in what I considered my spiritual life. Because I was in a very unhealthy marriage, I was still. Clinging to a faith that really had no meaning or substance to me and like. 
Zac Parsons: Were you still, like, serving at the church at that point as well, like in that sort of cognitive dissonance of, like, I don't believe this, but I don't know how to publicly. 
Jeff Stucke: Yeah. 
Zac Parsons: Disengage in an appropriate way and and you you. Is that saying too much? 
Jeff Stucke: No, that's I I had still. 
Zac Parsons: You had a break at some point and I don't think you'd had it yet publicly. 
Jeff Stucke: No, I had not at that point. Yeah, the the total break it was kind of like when when I finally filed for divorce. And then it was like, well, ****. I mean, I might as well go all in now. Yeah. And it's so interesting because when you decide and I don't know how uniquely of a Christian thing this is, but it's like when you say, OK, Christianity is not for me. You don't just get, you don't. 
Zac Parsons: These band aids coming off. 
Jeff Stucke: Get to do that. It's like. 
Zac Parsons: Now I got some serious social consequences. 
Jeff Stucke: Yeah, and and it's like. 
Zac Parsons: Especially in a town like this. 
Jeff Stucke: Literally I'm the same person I was 15 minutes ago. Like and you get you. Actually, for me. And well, I've I've observed this as well is you get pushed in a category that you may not want to embrace. It's like oh were you are you an atheist now and it's like I don't know man like I. 
Zac Parsons: Don't. You're getting pushed out of a category that might not even been. Accurate for you. Otherwise, like when people see someone and and they say, well, I'm a Christian, well, I'm a Christian. Those aren't necessarily the same thing like. 
Jeff Stucke: Typically, they're necessarily not the same thing. 
Zac Parsons: Right, right. Is are there, you know, 8, if there were 8 billion Christians, then there would probably be 8 billion gods or, or at least at some level, the difference is in how they're able to, to perceive and participate with something like God is so informed by their experiences and perceptions and. 
Jeff Stucke: Myopically, yeah. I mean, yeah. And that was. And so it's like, I got forced into this place, which I really I didn't care. I mean, it's. 
Zac Parsons: That time of day. Yeah. 
Jeff Stucke: Helpful because you. 
Zac Parsons: Or an identifying as an atheist is that. 
Jeff Stucke: I didn't give a ****. I'm like, I'm not that like I'm. 
Zac Parsons: But you got put in that category very quickly. 
Jeff Stucke: Yes, and even pushed beyond that towards like, are you kidding me? Like I? 
Zac Parsons: I was identifying that way. I think when we met, I don't know if you remember the conversation going to like atheism or Christianity or believing I I I don't remember. If in that first conversation it went there. But I remember identifying that way as an atheist in sort of those early two or three years of my deconversion is. 
Jeff Stucke: What I would call it, and that's one of the things one of the pivots like and then we'll shift to your. But like in Peru, it was like. I mean, half the group was from the states. Half the group was from Russia and did not speak a lick of English. And but all of us were on this journey and we were all on this journey together and. And and that's really it. It was just like, OK, we are travelers that are moving together towards some end and interested in each other's process. And that was one of the things that was so beautiful we we developed. I developed such a strong rapport. 
Zac Parsons: Hmm. 
Jeff Stucke: With the people from Russia. 
Zac Parsons: Who? Whose language? Like you guys actually couldn't communicate with words. 
Jeff Stucke: No. And yet there was this. 
Zac Parsons: You're sharing meals together and stuff and and. 
Jeff Stucke: But they're kind of at their end of the table where, but there's no, this is not a division of, it's a division of practicality. It's like, well, we can speak Russian, they speak English. And so that, you know, it's like, and they're going to talk more and we're going to talk more. There was no sense of you go to your end of the table. It it just. But there there was this overall experience. That if I can borrow from christianese, you know, as as we talked about, like the body of Christ, bro, you felt that this fellowship, that's a good word too was. 
Jeff Stucke: Was profound, and the communion, the communion of. 
Zac Parsons: Hmm. 
Jeff Stucke: Of the plant medicine ceremonies. Because you, you know, the first week we again you were Speaking of the physical purification. Sanango ain't fun, bro. It is not for the faint of heart. It is not it. Is not a. 
Zac Parsons: You gotta coming out of both ends, you know, every day? Yeah. 
Jeff Stucke: Everywhere. I mean, it's like you're in menopause. You're having hot flashes. I mean, it's so you're communing and suffering with people. 
Zac Parsons: Compassion. Suffering with. 
Jeff Stucke: Dude. Yeah, I mean. 
Zac Parsons: I'm struck by I I I had forgotten this part of the story that, at least in some sense, both groups, cultures were kind of formed by Christianity like the the sort of Western, you know, Catholic, Protestant, you know, America that that we sort of live in and then sort of the Russian. Orthodox Church and its influence in in Russia, very broad strokes. But I'm I'm kind of struck by that. Ohh the the shaman was Cathy. 
Jeff Stucke: With the Catholic shaman. What again, whatever that means to him, I don't like. It's like, wait, you know what? 
Zac Parsons: Sure. OK. Yeah. OK. Right. You're right. I just put them in a box and I shouldn't. 
Jeff Stucke: But it, but it was fascinating because in some of our discussions, you know, he views Christ as a shaman, as a great shaman. And it just it all of that is just. 
Zac Parsons: We weren't taught that in our in our church. 
Jeff Stucke: New yeah, right. 
Zac Parsons: Jesus, the shaman. Now let's let's have communion. 
Jeff Stucke: So and then back to you and his relationship, I know some of the other kind of milestone events was both of us getting divorced. And you know like ****, where do we go? From here. 
Zac Parsons: Well, and and even when you were just talking about like, you know, stuff with Anne over the past, you know, six months or so, this, this idea of being unequally yoked. Like, I remember that it's, I mean it's it's a very vivid common term within Christian marriages. And I mean, you're a therapist. You're dealing with Christians and former Christians, people who've like. Like this is a normal thing when you have people on two different growth paths and it. Is. It is sometimes excruciating to hang on when you're growing in two different directions. And yeah, in in both of our cases, there was a a, A cleaving and a braking and a. Aftermath that affected our three kids and you've got 2 girls and a boy and I've got 2 girls and a boy and you're about, I don't know, 8-10 years older than me. I'm 44 right now. OK, so there you go between 8:00 and 10:00 is 9. Right. And so I'd always sort of looked at you as somebody who was a step or two or three sort of ahead of me. 
Jeff Stucke: 53 so yeah. 
Zac Parsons: In a similar journey like how you were drawn into psychology after. Ministry, which was similar to me and then you know, like you had the kids at those different stages. And so I always kind of felt like, OK. Actually similar to I I would use Matthew Mcconaughey's example of how he would often look at himself 10 years in the future and sort of project back as to help his younger or current self understand what to expect and grow into in the future. Like to the extent where he thanks himself. Ten years in the future at the Academy Awards, and I remember like, thinking that was bizarre. But after thinking about it even further, it's like. 
Jeff Stucke: Right. Yeah. 
Zac Parsons: That's kind of what I did with Jeff. 
Zac Parsons: So and now I'm the age thereabouts. When I met you. But the only thing is. I can't catch. You. I keep trying, but you're still nine years ahead of me. But yeah, so so we, we we have sort of had these moments and sort of the public breaking from church and. 
Jeff Stucke: Yeah. Appreciate the effort. 
Zac Parsons: Similar personality types of being willing to have challenging conversations with people, being totally comfortable with public speaking, podcasting not having areas of conversation like off limits like you have a very awesome podcast called Man made where you would bring your guests. Fun and it's like, buckle up. Was the word that just came to mind and and you guys used the sort of car, you know, metaphor, you know, so Greg's behind the wheel, keeping things safe and you're, you know, with the drink in hand in the shotgun position. 
Zac Parsons: Ready to to force him to grip that wheel as tightly as was needed, and so in some ways we just have, like, this similar calling of if it needs to be done in public, let's do it. If we need to have the hard conversation, let's do it. And since. The whole. Leaving Christianity and even like bonding over. Well, yeah, that's ********. I mean, isn't it so nice to be able to talk about how that's ******** and that's ********. And then within the last, like, month or so. Still committed to that same like ideal of I'm going to have. I'm going to follow where I feel led, even if it's uncomfortable. Even if it rocks the boat, makes relationships weird, causes difficult relationships to happen, and I knew that you would be one of those people that I'd have to have a difficult relationship. Excuse me. A difficult conversation with in order to continue the. Honesty and like sort of like intenseness intensity of of our relationship because I feel like when you came back from Peru, it got kind of rekindled in a way of like all. Right, Jeff, just. Poured his heart out to me sort of unfiltered, and it was appropriate that day for me to sort of receive it and ask a few little questions, but it. Like it was your it was your journey, your conversation. And I was like, oh, ****, I'm going to have to. I'm gonna have to have one of these with with Jeff now with with a, with a therapist, with a psychologist. And interestingly enough, I don't think we've actually ever had a. Have we ever had a one-on-one podcast conversation in all that like. You have had a podcast. I've had a podcast. We have these great conversations that aren't recorded. And so here's this first one, which with our new mutual friend Wes and The Nectar podcast he's producing your podcast. Now he's producing this one. We're here in his. 
Jeff Stucke: Right. Yeah. 
Zac Parsons: You know studio and I don't know how long we've been going, but I guess now we can we can begin to maybe answer the question that you asked me via text about my. Yeah, I know for sure that the word was wavering atheism because it's been echoing in my mind for a couple weeks since you took. 
Jeff Stucke: Yeah, we'll explain yourself. Let's, let's go. What the? 
Zac Parsons: OK, OK. So what this, this, this is going to sound? Pretentious, but what do you know so far? Because I have posted some things publicly. I've got sort of a YouTube channel that I've kind of committed. I committed to a YouTube channel to sort of. Document this exploration of why church still matters to me a decade plus after like leaving. And I have been interested in rituals I have been interested in. You know the the Jordan Peterson phenomenon has, you know, grabbed me and I've I've been writing that, you know, the whole time in his relationship with Sam Harris, who's, you know, one of our famous atheists, like, and the friendship that they've like, created together and has sustained just fascinates me and. 
Zac Parsons: It's like, why do people like Sam and me still care about religion and church? And so I was like, I want to have conversations like this with people to help me understand why I still care and what am I sort of potentially blind to that could maybe be revealed. From. The type of conversation that I hope we are having right now and will continue to have and that I've been having with other people. So have you seen any of those conversations yet? 
Jeff Stucke: So the first thing kind of as we were kind of finishing up our walk and you were just kind of ruminating a little bit about. That journey and the. The journey that I went on you, you were just kind of pontificating a little bit like I want to facilitate that for people like I, there's something still in me, whether it's pastoral and I I don't know if I'm supposed to call myself a shaman like, you know what I'm saying. 
Zac Parsons: Yeah, yeah. 
Jeff Stucke: And it was like. And and it just you were so introspective as you were kind of just processing that that that, I don't know what that space is supposed to be, but I want to get in the space where I can facilitate that for people was the sense that I kind of. And then I've read a couple of things that you've posted. 
Zac Parsons: Yeah, yeah. 
Jeff Stucke: Facebook. 
Zac Parsons: Yeah, yeah. So I posted on Facebook and that those were have been some hard things as well because it's like, you know, any Tom, **** and Harry can start a YouTube channel and has and you know, why the hell should anybody watch it? But I mean, there's still power, you know, in our you know, age group, at least at Facebook, but people are still reading Facebook all the time. And on fat Tuesday. 
Speaker 
Yeah. 
Zac Parsons: Mardi Gras, which our our tradition, she's I don't wanna speak for you. Did you ever practice lent like in any of like it just wasn't a part of our our faith tradition but you you know about it like you know people who practice it were in a very Catholic community. Right. So I have like just this sense of you give stuff up for Lent. And I happened upon a tweet from a guy named Peter Rollins, who apparently I learned this after the fact for about a decade now. Has this program called giving up atheism for Lent? And I was like, huh? So I've made this commitment with, you know, I've been sensing the thing that we talked about at the end of our walk. I made this commitment sort of pursue church on YouTube and, oh, it's fat Tuesday, and this guy is proposing you can give up your atheism for Lent. So I've got. You'd be proud of me. I've got a cigar and I've got a bourbon. I'm out. My, my back patio at my fire pit and I like, take a picture of it and send it to a bunch of my guy friends who've been a part of my men's retreat and say, guys, I'm giving up atheism for lent, like, who's coming with me. And I actually don't even remember if they responded. But that was like, that was one of those moments for me. It was like, OK, I needed to commit to it publicly or. At least. Socially, to have a little bit of accountability and and not even really knowing what that. 
Jeff Stucke: Looked like I was going to say, well, so then what were the implications of them? 
Zac Parsons: Giving it up. Yeah, like, I'll, I'll, I'll, I'll tell you. Yeah. Yeah, yeah. So the next day is Valentine's Day and Jessica's gift to me was. 
Jeff Stucke: Very quiet, OK. 
Zac Parsons: So. Funny, a trip to go see Jordan Peterson. Not both of us. I mean, she went with she. We drove to Saint Louis together. But she only got 1 ticket, you know, for me, you know, to watch you. Know. This silly man that I, you know, listened to hours and hours of his videos and stuff all the time while she has what we like to call a hotel night. Where she can, you know, she's far enough away from the coffee shop store. If they burn down. She can't do anything about it, so she's able to sort of relax and recuperate and in really strong ways, just with a single night at a hotel. So that's the plan as we're driving up there, I'm playing for her a podcast of this brilliant tech philosopher, entrepreneur. He's the founder of Divx. Do you remember? Thanks. 
Jeff Stucke: No, I have no. 
Zac Parsons: Idea what? OK, so it was like, a it doesn't matter what it is. It was a technology thing in the 90s made. A bunch of money kind of got to retire like at 30, like in in his early 30s and then sort of devoted himself to kind of a higher calling of, like, how then should I live for like the next 20-30 years? And I sort of found him through the whole rebel wisdom rabbit hole that I fell down. After getting in with Jordan Peterson, so then rebel wisdom guys would interview this gentleman, Jordan Hall is his name and he's just he's brilliant. He's he's just one of the the smartest, most thoughtful. He's thinking like 10 layers deeper than I can even like perceive all the time. He announced that he was becoming a Christian. Like it it happened last year, he got baptized and then it sort of like came out when he was catching up with someone who has a podcast was like, wait, you're a Christian. Like, does the rest of our little like sense making world know this? He's like, I don't know. It's like, can we talk about it on a podcast? OK. And like, it rocked my world. I was like, wait, Jordan Hall is a Christian, the sense making general. This doesn't make sense. And so that led to sort of this these like successive podcast conversations of people who. Were as dumbfounded as me, but, but still like curious and and like all the relational like tissue that had been built was still there so they could have a good faith conversation about what had happened. And I wanted to. I wanted to listen to it while we were driving and we kind of have a rule. It's like, well, if I'm driving then I get to choose, you know, the music or the podcast or whatever. And so I've got one of these things on, and usually Jessica's like headphones in or taking a nap. Like can't stand. And it she is locked in. She she's like. Is this the thing? Like, you know, she's probably been praying for me for years. She's still Christian like. This is the thing. Maybe that Zach needs to like, be opened up to this and she says that she's listening to this conversation. Like you're gonna talk. To this guy. You're going to talk to Jordan? I was like, yeah, I I don't think so. He's he's he's kind of a big deal. He I don't know him. He's he's not going to want to talk to me. So then I went to see Jordan Peterson that night, and it was great. And it was fun. She had a great hotel night. The next day we're driving back and I respond to a tweet from Jordan and say something like, you know, I'd, I'd actually love to learn more about this new calling that that you have. And he responded and said I'll trade you for a bag of coffee. And so I made the trade and he set up a conversation on February 20th. So we have a a zoom conversation, not zoom Riverside. Whatever video based conversation and. It's. Amazing and deep, and he's so present like he is as locked in as you are right now but through a video screen with somebody who he's never met before. And so I I try and like close the gap on the like relational asymmetry between how much I know about him and have projected onto him from hours and hours. Of, you know, seeing and hearing him and I'm a stranger and telling him about my my ministry journey about my affair that I had and like how my sort of relationship with God and my first wife kind of like disintegrated in different ways. And I kind of emerged as an atheist kind of out of that. And we got deeper and deeper and deeper and at the very end. He asked me to pray. And I told him I'm like, I'm an atheist. Like I I don't. I don't believe this stuff anymore. But he felt something in me and and like, I was like trying to wrap the conversation. I'm like, hey, it's been great. Thank you so much. And he's like, can I make one request? Will you pray? And I was like. Ohh wait. I do pray, or at least non atheist. Pray Christians pray right. And so I had to fulfill that commitment that I had made, whatever a week before, like it was literally like the next Tuesday. So like within a week this, this conversation happened. This is post back Tuesday. Yeah. 
Jeff Stucke: Right. This is post you giving up atheism for Lent, so you're you're on the hook now. 
Zac Parsons: Correct. Yes, I just, I just remember it was actually so when my daughter's birthday was also fat Tuesday. So that'll make it even easier for me to sort of remember what that day before Ash Wednesday was. And so we hang up and. It wasn't like, hey, let's pray together and you know, go into that whole thing. It was like, it's just me by myself, just had this this. Kind not. I'm not gonna call it a miracle, but an unlikely hour. Long connection with somebody that I've sort of looked up to from afar where he was completely with me. And honestly, like he was different. Like he like, there's that sense of. What was it like Harry meant when Harry met Sally? Like, I'll have what she's having is. Like. I want what he has. 
Jeff Stucke: Was. From a from the because I'm while you're sitting here and I'm trying not to be. * ****. 
Zac Parsons: No, no, no. You should be if that's what like. 
Jeff Stucke: It's like I'm I'm thinking about Chris Rock or not. Chris Rock, Kid Rock Kid Rock professing his Christianity and it's like. 
Zac Parsons: OK. 
Jeff Stucke: What are we talking about? And I'm not. I'm not judging him. I don't. But it's just like when it's like the term. I don't even know what we're talking about anymore. 
Zac Parsons: Well, again, yeah. It's like, well, we talk about we started like there. There's these boxes of, OK, does Christian mean the same thing to you as it does to me? And and I don't identify as a Christian right now. So it wasn't like, ohh now I'm a Christian. Like all the way back up to that other mountain. 
Jeff Stucke: Did he did well? Jordan? Was that his name? Did he, Jordan? Did he define what he means to be a Christian? 
Zac Parsons: I mean in that same challenging way that Jordan Peterson has always said, it's like it would take me 40 hours to have like that. 
Jeff Stucke: It would have been that complex. OK. No, no, no, that's. 
Zac Parsons: Yeah. So he's, he's continued to have. He basically opened himself up and said if somebody wants to have a good faith conversation with me about this, like he he like sits there and kind of discerns and says, OK, I will engage with this person and there's. I don't know. Probably been over a dozen now, including mine that are like out on YouTube of him having a different level of somebody asking that. Question because I think it's hard to even answer it because it's like if you're talking to yourself, well, what do I mean when I talk about God? When you ask me what I mean when I talk about God, that might be different than what Wes asked me or what Jessica asked me. And so I think that's why it is kind of powerful to to do it between two people. Because we can maybe figure out what we both mean by that. And I I would guess again, try not to Judge Chris Rock, I. Would guess Kid Rock? 
Jeff Stucke: Sorry, I've got the right yeah. 
Zac Parsons: Chris Rock, Kid Rock, whoever. 
Jeff Stucke: Yeah, no judgment. I'm just saying, it's like when, yeah, keep going. 
Zac Parsons: I and I don't know enough about it, but I would. I would make an assumption that we we mean different things by that we've just we've lived vastly different lives and that's that's my sort of gut sense on that. And I wouldn't call myself a Christian right now it was so I prayed. And in that prayer, it was at a different level and like in a different direction almost than my like, previous kind of attempts to pray within this like period of of atheism or or being in the desert or whatever. It was like a sincere prayer for somebody else. And like my prayers had been. God show kind of show yourself to me like you know I'm. I'm open. I I could be blind to you. Like, if if there's something you want to show me, please show me. You know, it's like. Silence. And this one was like. God, I don't know what I'm supposed to pray for, but I know who I'm supposed to pray for, and I don't even know who I'm praying to right now. But I made this commitment, and I'm going to. It wasn't even out loud. It was like just a. An offering of like sincere. Love. For this person, in a way to where I didn't know what was going to happen next, but it felt it felt like this is a this is a. This is kind of a pure thing here and I did not expect that. And then immediately after that I felt someone else pop into my head of like, this is somebody who needs prayer. Or maybe even more specifically, I need to pray for this person and I think Jordan does too. Jordan Hall, so I messaged him and said, hey here, here's a an A mutual friend. I think I I felt led to pray for him and he responded back. Like, yes, you're absolutely right. I'll be praying for him too. And so and one thing Jordan talked about was fasting. He's fasting on Fridays. And so I have kind of reintegrated prayer and fasting into my life. Let let me take us one other spot within this and see if it's. If it's helpful. When I deconverted, that was the term that made sense to me. Deconversion. Since then, I feel like a new term has kind of come about that I initially resisted and didn't like, but now I think fits much better, which is deconstruct. Do you have any thoughts on on the nuances between deconversion and deconstruction, or is that on your radar at all? 
Jeff Stucke: Well, just at first hearing, I would say that's much more on point. The deconstruction is, yeah, that. 
Zac Parsons: It's not just like this. Binary things like this crossword threshold, that which is the box people put you in ohh he deconverted he's an atheist. He's probably, you know, worshipping Satan while killing babies or something right now and it's like. 
Jeff Stucke: Right. No, I'm pulling. I'm pulling all of this apart. I'm laying them down. I'm looking at what pieces I have, and then I'm going to take those pieces. Maybe I got a few new pieces and. 
Zac Parsons: Yes. 
Jeff Stucke: The perpetual journey of reassembling it. 
Zac Parsons: It's a the the deconstruction leads to cause you get to a bottom or you get to a base or something where you're like, OK, I don't know how much. More. I can take off or pull apart. Maybe I need to sort of look around and recognize what I have and what I am putting back on or what I want to put back on and RECO. Instruct so it does sort of feel like in this Lenten season I've sort of put back on prayer and put back on fasting as sort of like elements of how I am being in the world in my relationships and it's sort of continued to have this weird. Elevated like I'll I'll use your directional sort of metaphor as before, it's like. I feel like I'm being pulled into something higher. And I've had the the these weird, you know, signs and wonders kind of experiences lately. And I'm like, this is nuts. Like, I might be crazy like I am. Am I deluding myself? Am I ************ myself or is actually something happening where I'm tapped into something that I can't see and I can't measure and I've thought back to like your experience and how? You know, if you were to describe and you and you have described it to people like, hey, this happened and they're like, what and and you you can't. You can't give them the experience for them with your words like your words will always fail unless they experience their version of something like that as well. So that's kind of where I feel like I'm at is that I'm. I'm really trying to earnestly. Be open to being wrong, to to ************ myself. 
Jeff Stucke: Or what would be the evidence of, like, ************ yourself? In what way? 
Zac Parsons: That because I grew up in a Christian culture like just broadly like in the United States and then specifically got sort of. Like really into God and Jesus in those formative like 13 year old years like I know like one of the things you always talk about was like, what was your favorite song and like 19 when you were, is it 13 eighth grade? OK. And like before I started recording, I was like, hey, did you ever, like Weezer, like Weezer? Like, was one of those bands for me? And in, like, 1990 three, 1994? 
Jeff Stucke: 8th grade, yeah, yeah. 
Zac Parsons: Like in 8th grade, that was very formative. But also what was formative in that time was like just getting really into church. Like, just like that was my hobby. That was my. That was my thing. I was I was like, you know, one of those ******** church kids. And so with that and the formation that happened for me, my, my moral formation. Like I tend to still be compelled by. OK. Things that would sort of represent the the Christ Avatar, like in in films or or in life, like like talking about, talking about like Wes's father-in-law, like how he sacrifices himself, how he just sacrificed his wrist to keep getting the job done. Like I look at him like that is a king of a man. And it's that sort of like sacrificial approach of Jesus that I like, feel like I necessarily. Project meaning into whether I want to or not, so I don't know if that's like just a result of my personal formation that I'm always going to see things through like a Jesus lens, and therefore when something profound happens to me, I'm going to sort of reinterpret it through that lens and the best language. You can use the best. Like we're talking about Christianities, the best framing of it is going to be sort of back in that sort of church and Jesus's sort of focused way. 
Zac Parsons: But I've also had this journey, I'll call it in the desert or whatever, like in science, in psychology, in, like, trying to understand how people can believe things that are obviously not true. 
Jeff Stucke: Right. 
Zac Parsons: So if I'm believing something that's not true, I'm trying to be aware of the harms of the negative consequences that are resulting from me believing and then acting within that way. And then maybe on the flip side, if I do see positives coming from acting in this sort of. God focused way. What's up with that? Why? Why would that be the case? Could it be that I am communing with something that is in some sort of control or has some sort of power, or has some sort of foresight that is valuable for me to submit myself to? 
Jeff Stucke: It's interesting because so much of what you're describing. I resonate with so much just in terms of. 
Jeff Stucke: For me, my religious beliefs were forced upon me like there was no it's just that's what you do and right and then to go through the literal suffering. You talk about an unlikely crucifixion is coming out of Christianity. 
Zac Parsons: Yeah, yeah. That's how you're gonna see the world. 
Jeff Stucke: Like cause they they ******* crucify you for that **** and then. And. The the evaluating and picking back up and it's it's like have you read Rick Rubin's book? 
Zac Parsons: I literally gifted it to Wes on his birthday. 
Jeff Stucke: Ohh, that's right. That's right. Yes. Yes, yes. 
Zac Parsons: I had an I got an autographed copy for him for it it it is. It is a sacred text to me. 
Jeff Stucke: OK, like and and like Christianity is so tribal. Like it's so ******* tribal. Why does there need to be so many denominations? And why are the denominations so hostile that against each other and like? This and people always say. 
Zac Parsons: But yeah, but. But I think people sense that right now, like like people who are in the church, who very much identify as Christians, they feel that too. There isn't like this sense of, like, man, we got this all figured out. Things are really good in the church right now. Like, you could talk about all the political things with, like, a sort of Christian nationalism. Like, people are freaked. Out about what the this, this election and this sort of political the political and Christian sort of bedfellow, Christian. Combination that's happening right now is really concerning. A lot of people because it's. It's it's not what others like. Probably you and me would have ever signed up for. 
Jeff Stucke: Yeah, I when I had the a pastor on my podcast. Brett. Yeah. 
Zac Parsons: Just just I'm editing our conversation right now. Yeah, you guys are gonna have. Another conversation. And it was a great it. 
Jeff Stucke: Was great because you didn't hold back. Well, I did. I mean, I I did. I I I did not want. 
Zac Parsons: OK, OK. OK, fair enough. You didn't treat him with kid gloves, though. 
Jeff Stucke: Correct. But I also did not want to come across this. Aggressive because I really don't have an axe to grind it. It's so funny like I've got. I'm just going to flooded with thoughts right now, but one of the things that really helped me with Ruben's book was conceptualizing this life force like there is a life force that you can tap into and. Yeah, and it's like. 
Zac Parsons: Yeah, yeah. West. I called the spirit. So does Rick. 
Jeff Stucke: What it's like when multiple people get the same idea at the same time at in different parts of the world. It's like are you tapped into this life force that is, that is greater than you and it's like. Yes, and I don't. I don't care what you call it. I don't care. Why are we fighting over? 
Zac Parsons: Right. 
Jeff Stucke: And you know, one of the things that Brett said, I think, and most pastors say, is you can't. You can't judge Christians. You can't judge Christianity by the church. Why the **** not? 
Zac Parsons: And you. 
Jeff Stucke: I mean if the if the church is the production center, like if that were a product under normal circumstances, it would go out of business. 
Zac Parsons: Sure. Yeah. It what? What comes to mind for me? It's like there the the two big inflection points that come to mind are like Martin Luther. Right. So it's like there is this point where for for many people. The church became corrupt and he hits his 95 theses, you know, on the Wittenberg door. And like births Protestantism and like there's this complete reformation. So talk about like there a deconstruction needed to happen and a reformation needed to take place and changes the course of history like. His like that move altered history. Go back another like 1500 years or whatever to like. Jesus within like Judaism, like he's got all of these holy legal, you know, scholars, the Pharisees, the Sadducees, like, yeah, we we kind of got this guy thing figured out. We got the law figured out. We've. Been studying our whole lives and this this Jesus character is. He's going rogue. Let's trap him. Like let's let's ask you know what's what's the greatest commandment? Or let's make sure he's failing on one to try and achieve the other. And he like summarized like this big swoop of of low. Love your neighbor yourself, love, love the Lord your God with all your heart. Love your neighbor. 
Jeff Stucke: As yourself. But how did it? How did we get to a point where Christianity is so bastardized that we have? 
Zac Parsons: The Mega Church, I think it's. I think it's a it seems to be a natural course of human behavior like there's. 
Jeff Stucke: But how do we get that and think, well, this is this is right? 
Zac Parsons: They're static. 
Jeff Stucke: This is like what? 
Zac Parsons: I think that's the I think that is the difference. So if I can challenge you for a little bit find. 
Zac Parsons: Like you know, you know Jordan Peterson and and Sam Harris. When they when they finally like, realized that they weren't talking about the same thing and they were like alright, we need to steal man each other within this conversation. So like I would challenge you and like and maybe it's with Brett like to steal man his understanding of of the church. In that way to where like, make sure that he's defending what you think he's defend. Because what I sense in a lot of church people is, there is a lot of **** that is impure, that needs to be sort of burned away from the current church right now and they're not willing to defend that they, they'll say, probably say like we can't throw the baby out with the bathwater, but they would very much acknowledge that they're the the baby. Get in the bathtub. 
Jeff Stucke: Well, and I think I think a lot about not only, but I think one of the most significant things is. The centralization of the church, I think. I think community like the hub of community is the local church, not the church that people are driving 35 minutes whatever to get there and. 
Zac Parsons: The only time they see those people is in a service where they're actually all looking up at the at the the person singing. 
Jeff Stucke: Yeah, it's *******. Just static. There's no, there's no inner, there's no as man. As iron sharpens iron, so one man sharpens another like that. She's in the Bible and pretty ******* important. 
Zac Parsons: Like, did you get that? The Bible is important. Jeff Stucke: y. 
Jeff Stucke: Dude, you talk about can't see the forest for the trees. I love the gospels. I love reading the Gospels and. And part of going to Peru and not forsaking, that was a lot about what Jesus talked about in terms of. The path that he was on was also his invitation to the disciples. Like you know, this ship's real like, this isn't like vocational ministry. Like, we're ******* walking around like we're doing **** like your feet are going to get nasty and dirty, so I'll wash them for you one day. Like. It's there. Whether and again I I don't read the Bible the way that I used to read the Bible. I read it not quite as union as Jordan Peterson, but it's like when you look at the spirit of the scriptures. 
Zac Parsons: Yeah, yeah, yeah. 
Jeff Stucke: Rather than, this has to be the authoritative, inspired word of God, and it is infallible, and we have to die on that hill. It's like no, when you just read. 
Zac Parsons: The. We'll die on that hill. The church will die. 
Jeff Stucke: On the hill, yeah. 
Zac Parsons: On that. Agreed. 
Jeff Stucke: And it's like I don't. I I was. Hung out with a buddy this weekend and. He he knows my journey and he professes to be a Christian, fine. And so he starts to talk about his faith. And he says, I know you're not supportive of that. 
Zac Parsons: This is this is a recently you guys haven't had this conversation before. No, no. I mean like, have you guys gotten to this level before? OK, OK, OK. 
Jeff Stucke: ******* this weekend. No, we've. Yes. And it's like it's this is one of the things that's interesting to me about the. Elitist view, I guess, and I know they say, you know, Jesus is the way the only way that and again it's like that's the hill you're going to die on when there's how many religions around the world and geography says more about what your religious orientation is and. All of these sorts of. 
Zac Parsons: Poor souls burning in hell right now. They're. 
Jeff Stucke: Things. And it's like if someone I have several friends that have a beautiful faith. It's a beautiful personal faith. They respect that. That's not my path. 
Zac Parsons: Just, yeah. 
Jeff Stucke: But it's like within Christianity, not, and not just Christianity. But that's been my experience. But it's like within. Christianity, like we're not supposed to associate with each other because I'm not. I'm not in the brotherhood. 
Zac Parsons: You're you're a heathen. You're you're unclean. You are an apostate, you are etcetera, etcetera, etcetera. 
Jeff Stucke: All of the above, right. And they're not like they're they're fairly malevolent titles, I. 
Zac Parsons: Yeah, yeah. Mean let's start little well. But then Jeff is the Antichrist. You probably have also gotten this label from some Christians. Let me know how this lands of. Seeker. And people still call you a. 
Jeff Stucke: Yeah. **** yes. And it's like. 
Zac Parsons: Seeker. You're going down to Peru. 
Jeff Stucke: I'm not. I'm not. I know I am not seeking that and. If, if our society has a hope, it's the local church, it is the rebirth. It is the categorical rejection of the. Heresy of the modern Mega church and it is a return to the local church and the practicing of Acts 2 of meeting together the breaking of bread and sharing with one another where there is need our sister. You can yes like yes. 
Zac Parsons: Can I can I say Amen? Is that appropriate? 
Jeff Stucke: Amen. We need that. But the tribalism of you're not like us and we're right and you're not, right. The fact that the religious landscape in the United States. Where we are as a society would still. Be would rather argue over doctrinal nuance than heal society. That's where I'm like what? 
Zac Parsons: Have you gotten turned on to John Verbeke? Yet no what? 
Jeff Stucke: That felt judgy. 
Zac Parsons: It's it's not judgy. It's more like shock. It's more like you need to clear your calendar. So he has this fifty part YouTube series called do we do do, do the little thing balloons, John. 
Jeff Stucke: At the. 
Zac Parsons: He has a 50 part YouTube series called Awakening from the meaning crisis. He's colleagues with Jordan Peterson. Yeah, you actually probably if you're, if you're talking to Jordan Peterson podcasts, he's had a couple of he has one specifically called a conversation. So intense it might as well be psychedelic. 
Jeff Stucke: Just don't know him by name, but yeah, I'm. 
Zac Parsons: Has. Has that been on your radar? No. OK Jeff Stucke: y, who listens to Jordan Peterson, is into psychedelics. Find that one, and see if that's a good jumping off point. So he has these four peas of knowing that, kind of like a a shorthand, a little heuristic to talk about different ways of knowledge. 
Jeff Stucke: Yes, yes. OK. 
Zac Parsons: So there's the propositional these are the sort of beliefs that you have to sort of ascend to and and it's it's very linguistic and we are. Living in a tyranny of the propositional right now, and the church that you and I just described and rejecting lives in that place like you need to have something like the inerrant word of God that has these things, that you ascend to. These are the propositions that you must agree with in order to have fellowship together, and then you have the the perspectival. Then you have the. I'm going to miss one of them, but the one that I want to go to is the participatory and I feel like there's this huge tension that I am continually being sort of pushed back into what we actually need is to participate in something together and that propositional that tends to sort of reign. And create tribes gets in the way of us sitting down and breaking bread together, having a a conversation together, taking a walk together, you know, helping to, you know, paint. Your house or something together like whatever sort of needs to be done in that local community that is participating and doing life together. That is the Creative Act, a way of being, not a way of thinking. 
Jeff Stucke: And. And that is the only mechanism of communion for men. 
Jeff Stucke: When we gather around A cause, when we're, I mean for men to just sit and like, look at each other and like what we're. 
Zac Parsons: Doing. 
Jeff Stucke: I know, man, but you need to wrestle, like, but we're also recording a podcast. But for most men, for most. 
Zac Parsons: Yeah, yeah. 
Jeff Stucke: Then it's the the validation of. It's like when we for men when when we. When our partner comes to us with the problem, what's the first thing that? We do. 
Zac Parsons: We wanna talk. 
Jeff Stucke: About we wanna ******* solve that thing, right. And then she's like, why do you want to solve my problem? Because I love you. Like I'm really not because I'm mansplaining because it seems like that's what. 
Zac Parsons: Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, yeah, this is me trying to show up in love right now. 
Jeff Stucke: Right. And and again, you know, men have to learn the skill that I'm just going to be present and I'm gonna listen. I'm going to be available in the way that you want. Two, but in the the the Petri dish for that is painting a wall, and suddenly one of us starts talking about how unhappy our marriage is, and we don't, whatever that is. And it's like we men don't have these places. And I do believe in as iron sharpens iron, so one man sharpens another. I I do believe in that. I believe there. There is space that men need to have. Have where we kind of in early childhood development, we would call it rough and tumble play, right? It's just a struggle, yeah. 
Zac Parsons: Sure. RAF Kelly. You know RAF Kelly. 
Jeff Stucke: Dude, you're just like. 
Zac Parsons: OK, rough and tumble play Raff Kelly. We'll put a link in it here, too. You're gonna freaking love this guy. 
Jeff Stucke: OK, so Jonathan Hyatt would be the one that OK, yeah, those kinds of things and it's. 
Zac Parsons: Love, Jonathan. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yep. 
Jeff Stucke: Like for the most part, men are void of those environments anymore. And what I don't I. I don't wanna go listen to some dude talk for a *******. 
Zac Parsons: Hour. Ohh. Like he's talking about going, going to church right now. The way to go, yeah. 
Speaker 
Sure. 
Jeff Stucke: Yes. And it's like it's like, OK, I want, I would love to participate. One, if that I I presume if the church would allow me and I'd have to wear a scarlet. Letter so so. They so they they know that the the unclean one is amongst us. I don't want to sing those songs. Two. Maybe I could do three. That's plenty. 
Zac Parsons: I'm this guy. The Antichrist. You've been warned about. Unclean. Unclean. Yeah. You'll stand politely as as everyone else around you is having an experience. 
Jeff Stucke: It's like I don't need. I don't need like the uplifting songs. 
Zac Parsons: You're thinking about where you going for lunch. 
Jeff Stucke: And then mood swing now into sobriety. Ohh, now you got me in my feels perfect. Time to pass the offering plate. So wow, this isn't formulaic at all. 
Zac Parsons: That's right. So this is great because Brett is listening to this right now, maybe even watching it and we had a conversation a couple weeks ago where he talked about a really a prophetic vision that he had right before launching one life church. And he he alluded to several elements of it that he wasn't able to get into at that time. But that the. The part that was alive at that conversation was actually seeing a picture of people sort of sitting across from each other drinking coffee at tables, participating in God's not sitting and having what we would just describe as like a church experience that we reject, you know, those things. Ended up coming about like that tends to be the direction that a church goes into and like he's feeling that calling right now of this more participatory thing, whether it's church or church adjacent, needs to be born and wants to be born. And I said, I think I could come in and sort of protect that space from the church that the church is going to have a it's going to want to programmatically that and make, like, you know, here's 3 easy steps to say the sinners prayer. If if you're in one of these, you know, coffee conversations to where Jesus comes alive. And and we'll, we'll have a baptismal, you know, around the corner. It's like, no, no, no, no, no, no, none of that. We're gonna protect this sacred space from the church, and he's on board with all of it. He's like. That is what we need. So like we're literally like planning all of that, like right now in Evansville to create that for our. 
Jeff Stucke: Community and whenever it expands into a psychedelic realm, I'll I'll take that part. 
Zac Parsons: That's that. That's what you're called to. It might be. Honestly, that's. I mean, that's like what you're talking about, like. What's the next good step or, you know, trusting that certainty that that called you? There, there's this idea of like if you actually do believe in God. You have to believe that all aspects of life and and this gets really hard when you start thinking about evil, right? And you think about the, you know, torture of children or whatever your mind just went. When you think of like evil like. God has to be a part of that too. And so a lot of the things I know we've talked about this before. 
Jeff Stucke: Can you unpack? That a little bit more when you say God has to be a part of that too. 
Zac Parsons: Like, if you're gonna say you believe in God like like, there's always, you know, the constant sort of atheist Christian debate of, like, well, what do you do about the problem of evil? Like, how could a good God answer, you know, Susie's prayer of help me do good on this test when you know someone is like, like, they're literally, like, she'll. Yes, right now. 
Jeff Stucke: When a four year old Shane was molested. Or. 
Zac Parsons: At this moment, dozens, hundreds of thousands. 
Jeff Stucke: What number of children are starving in the Gaza Strip right now? They have no access to. 
Zac Parsons: Being being blown apart, being like being apart by a gun or or a by a knife like like that's happening. 
Jeff Stucke: And then with Christians and then? 
Zac Parsons: We are at this moment on this planet right now. 
Jeff Stucke: And would and would Christians say that children are starving to death in the Gaza Strip right now because they believe in the long God? 
Zac Parsons: A lot of them would absolutely they would. 
Jeff Stucke: And and not be disgusted by the. That is so. Is that a fair thing to say? That that's disgusting like, no. Well, they deserve it. They do deserve to die because they were born in the wrong place and because of that, they believe they have. So that so they deserve it. And it's like. 
Zac Parsons: This. It yes, sorry, it is fair. Yes, yes. And it needs to continue for eternity. 
Jeff Stucke: What are you people talking about? 
Zac Parsons: Well, this is what happened to Rob Bell. So, like around the time that we met, like Rob Bell goes on this whole journey, which you know, he has someone say to him like ohh yeah. Gandhi was a great sort of like spiritual teacher, but he's burning in hell right now. And Rob's like what Gandhi Gandhi is burning. In hell, like we're sure about that and that just sort of. That was one of the big sort of dominoes, the deconstruction for him which to my understanding has sort of led him completely outside of the church. You talk about somebody who was crucified for their deconstruction. That was a guy that that went through some ****. And has, I guess come out on the other side, completely separated from from the churches. We knew it. 
Jeff Stucke: Which is funny because he velvet Elvis was certainly pivotal in some of just like can we start asking some of these questions? And I remember reading. The book looking up like oh **** is someone. He's gonna ask it. Ohh, and it was that Donald Miller's blue like jazz was. What the hell? Now Donald's a business coach. But whatever. That's good for him. You know, some of those books that were starting to say some of this **** doesn't make any sense, which is like. 
Zac Parsons: Going to get him. 
Speaker 
Yeah, yeah. 
Jeff Stucke: It doesn't make any sense and what what is going on. Again, I'll go back to almost the intentionality of making it so tribal and. 
Zac Parsons: Because it's certainty and and like it's it's interesting that for me the word certainty actually has a negative. Galen. To it and for you how you talked about what I wanted to project onto your experience and prove as a calling. You use the word certainty of like I am certain of this. And therefore I will move forward and and you know as a psychologist, how much certainty and uncertainty plays into people's psychological distress. Comfort and so. 
Jeff Stucke: Yes, which is and now in my life it's almost paradoxical. That it's like the more uncertain it feels, the more certain I am I'm supposed to do that. 
Zac Parsons: OK. OK. That's a good. That's a good, because that's sort of how I have it as well. It's almost like I have two boxes which even the. 
Jeff Stucke: Ohh that that's the really hard one. **** yeah, that's the one I'm supposed to do. 
Zac Parsons: That's what I don't understand that that's it's. And so I call this one the the mystery box or the mysterious box. And if I really don't understand it and I'm not certain about it, that is where I feel sort of drawn to. 
Jeff Stucke: Yeah. 
Zac Parsons: And so my early faith in theology in the propositional knowing that I had had this really big box of these things that I am sure about. And slowly but surely, as I go through life and have experiences and meet other people who've had different experiences. This starts to get kind of ticked off and broken away to where now my certainty box is a dot and my mystery box is enormous. 
Jeff Stucke: Yeah. And that's one of the things that was so resonant about Mcconaughey's book and just how he he almost felt an oblate well, I think he did. I mean, he made. He did not represent it this way, but it was like he just felt this urgency and obligation to like storm off into the unknown. And and I think what resonated because with my religious experience, right, it is keep your world as small and predictable. Yeah, and known. 
Zac Parsons: But that's what we we do. That's just psychologically what we know people want, but that may not necessarily be what's good for them or even like what react. 
Jeff Stucke: It's necessarily what is not good for them. Just like say, well, it's just like sedentary lifestyles, whether it's. 
Speaker 
So. 
Jeff Stucke: Physical, sedentary or cognitive sedentary because who thinks critically anymore, and it's hard for me because I can get on ******* YouTube and listen to brilliant **** and just be stuck and it's like, OK, I have to put this down and actually go do some thinking for myself right now. And it's like. A typical church service. What does a man do? Walks in uncomfortably. OK, now we have to sit. Here OK. 
Zac Parsons: So interestingly though, that was also what sort of broke because I feel like I was in the exact same spot and then hearing Jordan Hall talk about how he went into a church service and he experienced beauty. Not the architecture, not the the ornate. You know the the, the, the pews or the lectern or something like that. But it was like it was the spirit in the children, in the youth in particular, of something different than what he's seen in the other contexts of kids who are depressed. Kids were confused. Kids who are. 
Jeff Stucke: It's in which to me from a cycle like, yes, like community. That's what community does. 
Zac Parsons: You, which you deal with all the time. Yeah, and. And he knew that like he he's like. This is the gold standard of what a healthy community is. Maybe I need to humble myself and be open that they might have something here that I haven't examined their way or understood, because this is the gold standard of what a healthy community is, and he called it beauty. And so if that involves singing those songs and listening to that guy stand up, he's like, I have to be open to all of it. So he was and it's. So I think their church has kind of like. The. The Sunday service and then sort of the Wednesday Home group. And then there's also like a like a group home or something like that, that that does sort of ministry. On the daily as well. And they've got like a a cafe and a coffee shop whole sort of thing that he's. Kind of volunteered himself into to sort of roll up his hands and participate in this church community more than just, you know, get up there and and listen to or stay down there. Actually, probably more accurately, and listen to what's happening in the in the Sunday service. So some something's happening with him. I I I really want you to. 
Jeff Stucke: Yeah. 
Zac Parsons: To. Explore what he's gone through. I'll send you a link of him describing. I'll send you the same thing that I. That Jessica came alive with this conversation with this guy named Jim Rut, who's an atheist, but they have, like a good 10 plus year relationship that allowed Jordan's conversion to not break the relationship. But he Jim hammers him. Jim gets up on the website of this church and is like. OK, the Bible is the inspired in there. Word of God. You tell me you really believe this ********* and like and Jordan, just like takes it and responds. And and. It's it's sort of what I kind of expected. Maybe we would get into, but I don't think we did. I think I feel like we're like just sort of. Puzzling through this mystery together because I don't have a lot of certainty about certain aspects of what I've experienced and how it relates to what we would call church and Christianity. The the closest the best language, the best description of what I'm feeling right now is that I feel like I do feel like I turned around. There is movement, there is motion, and to the extent that the description of the early church was followers of the way, that's what I feel like I'm on right now again. And I I take that next step. And something like God meets me there. And the other profound experience that I had was with Rob Henson walking down Bellmead and the pastor, the priest. I don't know what you call him from the Greek Orthodox Greek Orthodox Church, pulls up as we're walking right by his church and calls to us like. Jesus calling you know Andrew and and Peter and it's like I think I said the word God like right as he opened the door and he's like. That's a conversation I can believe in. I mean, we're, we're 30 feet away, 40 feet away. We're, we're not, like going to run into him. He's inserting himself into this and then immediately says, guys, you guys wanna come inside and and see the space. Sure. We follow as we go inside and he's like, yeah, I'm late for the service, but it's we're about to get started. So stay as long as you want as long as you feel led to. So he have you ever been to a? Greek Orthodox Church. Yes, OK. OK. So I hadn't. And I was like, whoa. And he's like kissing a picture of Jesus. And there's like pictures everywhere. And there's a stage and and there's, like, a a threshold. Like, he walks through like a hidden door. And it looks like a a miniature version of like Hogwarts. Or something. There's like a a tower and he gets this cauldron of smoke and he's waving it around the room and there's these two guys in the corner who are. Like alternating like reciting the Bible like in kind of a rhythmic musical sort of way. It's it's not rhyming, it's it's a little weird, you know, praise to you. Oh, God. Da da da da da da da da da da, da, da. And then they alternate. Then the priest says something. And I'm just sitting there and I look at Rob and I'm just like. We're supposed to be here, or I'm supposed to be here. That was. That was the look he had to get back to work and I turned around. He didn't say. Like there's no. There's no words. Just look at him. It's like. 
Jeff Stucke: Right. 
Zac Parsons: This is this is what we're. Supposed to do right now what I'm supposed to do right now. And I look up at the stained glass and there's there's Jesus, which you know, he's everywhere. He you look any direction you go find Jesus. But this is like the pinnacle depiction of Jesus and he's he's got his right hand up like ready to like bless somebody like a king. You know, one of those kinds of things. And I like lock eyes with this. Stained glass. Jesus and I, I feel and I hear a sort of like anybody who you know. Puts his hand on the plow and doesn't and looks back is not worthy to be called my disciple. Whatever that verse is of like, don't look away. And so I just stay on him. 
Jeff Stucke: Yeah. 
Zac Parsons: And I kind of have that, like, remember in Ghostbusters two when they look at Vigo and and Vigo like takes over and like possesses them like this big painting of this, this guy, it was like that was like OK Jesus is like starting to come alive in this stained glass. There's. 
Jeff Stucke: OK. 
Zac Parsons: Sort of a a motion. A movement. Like when I've been on a site. At the end of my DMT experience I had something similar like that to where like the walls are kind of moving and there was like a snake that I could sort of sense there wasn't a snake in this side, but it was Jesus eyes. And I'm just like looking at him and he's looking at me, and then it's like. Who the hell do I think I am to, like, meet the gaze of this king? And stare back. Like I need to kneel in front of this king. And I hear the door open and closed, like Rob leaving. I'm the only person in here besides the priest and these two men like reading the Bible. So I kneel like on one knee, you know, like put my head down. It's like, all right, I'm bowing to the king. And I'm like. This isn't low enough like. I need to get lower and I remembered an experience I had in the Utah desert watching a sunrise after six days on the grid and like kind of worshipping the sun. No words. Silence like my body responded in a way of like, kneeling, putting my hands up and like. Yes. To this similar but instead of hands up, yes to this feed me son. It was like bow down to this king. And so I got full prostate and I'm just like. I'm still in my head. I'm not like having a. 
Jeff Stucke: It's not a Mystic here. 
Zac Parsons: Psycho. Yeah, like experience. You know where it's like. I'm not in like it. It was nowhere near as intense as your experiences. Like I can say no to this. I definitely felt that. But I said yes and I stayed down and I was like, this is right, this is this is what I should be doing. But I'm thinking it through like, well, what are what am I doing like we were. I was just on a walk and now I'm bowing down in front of strangers in a building I've never been to, to a God that I supposedly denounced a decade ago. After a few minutes, one of the guys said the word upright. And I was like, oh, OK. That was my cue to sort of stand up, service continued. I think. And I was. Like. Time to go. So I'm I'm walking out and right before I walk out because I just saw the priest do this. I turn around, look back at stained glass. Jesus and. Do one of these things. You know when in Rome and. Walked out the door. Turned around, took a picture of the door because it's 2024. You know, you got to get it for the gram and. Kind of floated back to my car. Like like, what was that? And so this is where I'm like, OK, I'm crazy. Like I or or if I'm not crazy, then this is sort of like a natural. This is how somebody who was formed by Christ and Christianity would respond if they were open to and seeking. Signs and wonders or something like that. Like if if this is what I want to see. This is what I'm going to see this this will be the the purest version of me, identifying with something worthy to be worshipped would be Jesus. And I don't know what to do. 
Jeff Stucke: With that, well, the two parts that are distinctive to me are one, it was internally motivated and two, it was participatory like you and and there were there was also. Maybe not rejection, but at least a lack of inhibition by social norms, and it's like. 
Zac Parsons: Yeah, yeah, ohh, Jessica said. She's like, wait, this guy, this stranger like invited you into, like a room and you're like, yes. Like, I wouldn't have done that. He interrupted your your walk. Like. One just keep walk. 
Jeff Stucke: And it's it's interesting because I'm still challenged by. Rick Rubin's book, because it's it's either. Exceedingly profound. Or gibberish. I go back. And forth like. 
Zac Parsons: Yes. 
Jeff Stucke: Is this the most amazing thing I've ever read? Or is this literally nothing like I'm not? I'm not sure which. 
Zac Parsons: It's somehow both. It's I I I don't know either. I don't it's like but. But I'll tell you what. There have been so many times to where. Again, it's like if if you think that there's resonance, if there's signaling that noise and you're not sure you share it with another and it's like there's something here and and more often than not with that book, it's like, yes. 
Jeff Stucke: And that's what he says. Like the people that have the courage to hear it and respond to it. And it's like, OK, that's like. Creative, artistic. That's like philosophical. That is definitely, you know, religion spirit. It's like holy **** and it's like. 
Speaker 
Hmm. 
Jeff Stucke: There, there was no groupthink in what I did. When I went to Peru, it was like I have to trust this within myself, and that's what I would say. The similarity between those two experiences are is that you trusted that within yourself and it's like. 
Zac Parsons: Well, and even like the fact that it was with rob, like Rob is. If there was anybody who would sort of like, get it and be like, yes, I understand this, I'm electric. He was actually the one that took me to my very first. And so far only Ash Wednesday experience with with Kevin Fleming at First Presbyterian Church, maybe like three years ago. And so like. 
Jeff Stucke: So in terms of that kind of Mystic ritual like these? 
Zac Parsons: Yeah, he's all in on that. That kind of like, that's that's so he has not the the deconverted, you know he's he's actually still practicing as a minister but but. 
Jeff Stucke: Yeah. 
Zac Parsons: He is. He's wrestled with a lot of the same things that we have and and he still holds on to it. 
Jeff Stucke: Yeah. And that's the thing. It's like there's such a lack of humility in the North American Church. It's one just the the personality cult that is the modern mega church. I mean, it's just. Yes, I mean, it's like you're a ******* rock star. You're not a, like, this is. 
Zac Parsons: And then make it work. Faster. 
Jeff Stucke: Just come on, man. And and. 
Zac Parsons: Which, let's be honest, did you feel that that was a calling or a path potentially for you at at at a point in your in your past or even like you experienced it? 
Speaker 
I. 
Jeff Stucke: I felt like I'm a ******* idiot, like I still feel like an idiot. I mean, I spend most of my days after a client thinking **** do I have any idea what I'm talking like? Like it just. It's like the. 
Zac Parsons: But you then you have to look. You have to look at the fruits, right, like by their fruits you will know them. Like if people are being healed, then you can be like, OK. 
Speaker 
The different. 
Jeff Stucke: I trust that like it's it's it's like I trust the external affirmation and validation way more than I trust internally, because internally it's like no one should be listening to me. This is like the the feeling that I get. Of you have to be so ******* careful about the words that come out of your mouth. You have to be so careful that. 
Speaker 
Yeah. 
Jeff Stucke: It's it and I the the pastors that I have experienced with this would be the certainty that you were referring to that is so off putting. It's like, no, I know I'm right. 
Zac Parsons: It's like well, because it's, it's it it, it's as if they were to say otherwise it would be a, an affront to God. Like, if if you actually believe, then, then you have to believe all the way and act as if it's true. And therefore you need to act as if it's certain. And there's such a dark side to that because. 
Jeff Stucke: Damn. 
Speaker 
But which is the Dunning? 
Zac Parsons: I I I. 
Jeff Stucke: Kruger effect. You know, it's like the more the more certain you are, the less you understand, and the more dangerous you. 
Zac Parsons: Yeah, yeah. Are and and I think that idea of a pastor who has to speak the truth on behalf of entire an entire tribe or community is dangerous. And I personally tend to like people who talk like I just did, which is why I talked this way of like, here's how I see it, for what that's worth, not. Here's how it is fact. You better submit to that or just by virtue of the. Forcefulness of the way that I'm saying it. You're going to submit to it because I can sort of dominate you in in a certain way that pastors tend to dominate people intellectually and spiritually. 
Jeff Stucke: Let's just. Right. I mean it's, I mean if we're calling what it is, it's, yeah, it's narcissism like it's just and they're they're blinded by their sense of self importance and and it's dangerous because you know absolute absolute power corrupts absolutely. And it's just that whole model of some dude walking out there and just. 
Zac Parsons: Thus sayeth the pastor. 
Speaker 
Yeah. 
Jeff Stucke: Asserting these sorts of things with so little humility, and it's like. I'm a fairly intelligent, sophisticated thinker like it's like. Like slow your roll, dude. Like yeah or or do you do? You ever like? Who do you go up to and ask? Was that ******? Like did I what? 
Zac Parsons: Yeah. Who do you submit to? Well, and that's that is the part of my experience that was like, OK, as I've been on this sort of like. So so I mean my big breaking points just sort of came from like trying to think through my prayers and like I I was what I thought was sort of praying through my affair, like praying through, like, God, if this is your will, you know, give me a sign and then I'd see something say, Oh well, there's my sign. I'm going to keep going down for this affair. And so when the affair had run its course and I'd reconciled with my first wife, and I'm, like, sort of putting these pieces back together, it's like. Where was God when I was praying and being led there? Maybe there's nobody on the other side of that phone call and sort of like just trying that on. Like maybe there is no God and it just stuck. It was just like oh. Yeah, you've always been praying to nobody. Well, that's why this didn't happen. And this happened like like. All the is like. Oh well, that's why there's evil in the world. Because there is no God to say like, wow, the problem. Of evil just got solved, huh? And then it's like ohh so we need to step up and do some things. If there is no God, it's like what are we waiting for? 
Jeff Stucke: That is, that is a. That's always been an issue for me is. God's ways are not our ways. As you know the the loopholes that they have for evil being present in the world, and it's like one of my frustrations has always been when I when religious people try to. Attack me, which leave me the **** alone, man. But it's like. 
Zac Parsons: Ohh, you'd be a good get man. I mean, imagine that notch on the belt. I baptized Jeff Stucke: y. We baptized. Yeah, the scalp. Yeah. 
Jeff Stucke: But I would, yeah. That's a solid. Like a big fish like look at here. But it's like I. Always present the child molester dilemma next door is a room with a man and. A little girl. And he's going to molest her. You now having the knowledge can do whatever you want. You can. You can do whatever you want. You can leave. You can watch. You can help whatever it is you want to do. You can do it. What do you suppose you would do? 
Zac Parsons: Stop them at all costs. 
Jeff Stucke: **** yes. Yes, that's what keeps you from being a sociopath. 
Zac Parsons: And that that makes you more moral than God. If the the way that we sort of understand how how God, a good God, a good person, a good. Would response to that sort of. If you have the agency to intervene and don't, that is evil. 
Jeff Stucke: But I think. To state that. But what I think you have to say. Is in that instance, it is objectively true that that makes me more moral than God, and that then does present a problem. And it's like, that's where we got to start having some ******* discussions. 
Zac Parsons: Which is yeah. 
Jeff Stucke: Is God there? Is he watching? Is he enjoying it? Like, but it's like, no, we can't. 
Zac Parsons: You you do have to ask that question because it's like there there is this idea of like God creates created the universe so that he could have something to enjoy and that it would be good. That that includes the evil that you just described. It's not like he created us and we're just like, you know, going along, you know, playing Patty cake with each other. And, you know, building cool technology. And it's all Kumbaya. It's like we do terrible, terrible, terrible things to each other with. Oftentimes no perceivable consequence or and and. That's. I mean I think that's where all these things have sort of been created like we have to have a hell, we have to have some sort of justice that is served from all of this evil. 
Jeff Stucke: And it just seems like Sam Harris said. I think with Sam Harris, it might have been Christopher Hutchinson, one of the other, that there will always be. Bad men. But religion is the only thing that can get good men to do bad things. 
Jeff Stucke: And it's like when you think about that and you really, you know, when you don't wince. I mean, as a country, we are a war mongering country. I mean and feel completely justified in our annihilations of other humans. And oftentimes I think within the ethos of our country is that there's some sense that we're the New Israel. And that God has blessed us because we have been a blessing to Israel. And it's like, yes. And now we we deserve whatever tools there are to be like. It's like ******* what? 
Zac Parsons: Ohh well, I mean I think that is actually how the Old Testament is written and understood. And so it's like to me to my mind and this will be blasphemous to. 
Jeff Stucke: It's precisely yes. 
Zac Parsons: People listening to this are Christians and and people like especially like really strong Bible Christians. It's. That was the authors of those books in the Old Testament, projecting things onto a what should have been an unknowable God, the the, the pillar of cloud, you know, leading them, you know, through the desert or the voice, talking to Moses and the burning Bush. Like all those things. Saying no no, no. God spoke clearly to me that we need to destroy the Amalekites, and we need to like, exactly, so that I I mean, I just, I just don't have that high view of the Bible still. So like, when when you ask me, like, where am I right now? I'm in. I'm in this world of where I have to take sort of the 1st. 
Jeff Stucke: Kill them all. 
Zac Parsons: Half of my life, the 1st mountain, if you will of like getting. To. Christianity and Vocational Ministry and just like really, really, really believing all of that. And then this sort of 2nd mountain or this desert experience of like I I. I might just be by myself. I might be praying to nothing, and I might be deluding myself, and it's on me sort of make meaning for myself, and if I can find some fellow travelers that we align with each other, we can have a good time before we kind of get snuffed out and shed this mortal coil. Great that that seems like a good thing to be pointed to. And now sort of pointed back to some sort of integration in the middle and maybe there was something transcendent in those because I had some really real experiences in the church as a Christian that I I still couldn't make sense of as an atheist. And I still don't know how to make sense of the the one that I had last week with the. Greek Orthodox Church. And. That's the journey that I want to be on. Those are the discussions that I want to have. I love the fact that we're having this in person in our meat suits. We're in the same same communities for now. I know you're sort of splitting your time between here and Chicago and Denver as. 
Jeff Stucke: Well, is that right? Yeah. Long term will probably be there more. 
Zac Parsons: But it's like this is the Kingdom of heaven that it seems it was always being described and was compelling to us as like. 
Jeff Stucke: In the Lord's Prayer, thy Kingdom come. Thy will be done on Earth as it is. 
Zac Parsons: In heaven? Yes. So it's like I'm still living like like. I'm still living the same life. I've got the same job. I've got the same wife, I've got the same kids. And man, the stuff, the stuff with the kids. I mean, I got, I got rejected by my family, like my my atheism. Resulted in in my wife filing for divorce. Like I, I filed for divorce the first time I was like, uh, we're we're bad for each other, blah, blah blah reconciled. Except then I become an atheist and she's like. Yeah, I'm not. I'm not getting reconciled to this guy, so she divorces me and the justification was unequally yoked. He's an atheist. And you know what? What things are like with with parents and and and custody and the the whole, like parental alienation and it's like. And my kids. Go to church and are drawn to to, to God and and like they're on their own sort of spiritual journeys and. Well, what's dad? Well, Dad's an atheist. And all the baggage of being in that box. And so within the past two weeks, I've got to have separate individual conversations with all my kids, being very careful to explain to them like, I'm not saying I'm a Christian. But I have turned away from moving towards atheism or or or a secular humanism towards something like God. I'm on some sort of way, and I know you've been praying for this. I know that. 
Jeff Stucke: Turn. 
Zac Parsons: This is something that we need to have this conversation and it has been good. Like my daughter said. OK, well then we need to pray before we eat this meal right now. And she and then she, like she says well, and when I pray I we hold. Hands. And so I get to share a meal with my my daughter in Chili's, which is actually like the Now this holy place for me where we hold hands and and pray together. Just just. To. Bless the food. 
Jeff Stucke: And I think that's what the rituals are designed to do. And I think at some point. The church was. Was a means to an end. Now it's the end in and of itself. You just go to church, you accept Jesus, you get baptized, and then you just ******* wait to go to heaven. And it's like, yeah, it's like, no, no, the church is not. The church is not an end in and of itself. It is a means to an end of. 
Zac Parsons: Yeah. Lord, come quickly. Let's you know, let's bring on the Armageddon. 
Jeff Stucke: You know, justification. Accepting that there is a higher order sanctify sanctification like the process of becoming more like that, and it's like sanctification does not exist in the North American Church. It's like we go to a ******* Bible study. 
Zac Parsons: Hmm. Yeah. Being purified. Yeah, yeah. 
Jeff Stucke: You know, everything's very passive. There's no. 
Speaker 
And. 
Zac Parsons: And and I that's what that's what we've experienced so much. But that's what I'm saying. Like this, this experience from Jordan Hall in particular and and a handful of others, it's like. OK, something is happening. Something is breaking and and and I. I'll admit this as well. I definitely did not see the sort of the rise of sort of new atheism. So you got Richard Dawkins, Christopher Hitchens, Sam Harris. Like it definitely seems like that is sort of waning or on like a like it hit its IT hit its peak. But it's critical mass and I heard someone say it was actually the the founder of rebel Wisdom Guy named David Fuller, about a year and a half ago, he said. I think we are entering a post secular era. And that means that the church has to reckon with itself and reckon with all of the baggage that you just described and are still repulsed by. And in the conversations I'm having with Christians, they're repulsed and want to see it purified and sanctified as well. And so. Maybe, maybe we'll, maybe we'll try and try and wrap with the. Like we're moving forward like like Brett and I are going to start this thing, it's called Estuary and it's this point where the the fresh water from a river meets the saltwater of an ocean like that, that actual geographical point is called an usuary. And there's like this explosion of of life and like biology that like doesn't exist anywhere else. There's like a. A weird sort of magic right there to where the saltwater doesn't creep in all the way up and and get into where the fresh. There is and the fresh water doesn't come in and then purify all the salt water. So that's the name that this guy named Paul Vander Clay and John von John Van Donk sort of came up with. And they've got these little sort of pods like all over the world. And Brett and I feel a pretty clear call that we. We need to start one of those here in our community and if, if, whether you want to come or not, I'm officially inviting you and part of what is appropriate there is there's no questions about God that are off limits. 
Jeff Stucke: Well, I would say to you, make haste. I would say to you, the Achilles heel of secular humanism was there was no well, I would say maybe I'll, I don't know if I should say this or not. That universities replace the church and. Universities are now more. 
Zac Parsons: Yeah. 
Jeff Stucke: Less about academia and more about indoctrination. 
Zac Parsons: They they seem religious in in the worst way in the worst way. 
Jeff Stucke: Yes. Yes, in the worst way and. 
Zac Parsons: Yeah. Which is like if if that gentleman was right, like for entering this sort of post secular age like that, that fervor, that spiritual sort of. Intensity gets applied in different ways, like just just because you leave a church doesn't mean that whatever that sort of church shaped whole or church formed energy goes into a vacuum, it goes somewhere and it animates what you're sort of putting it into. And we are seeing like the indoctrination. Of of people at the university and. 
Jeff Stucke: You know the social sciences are they are more ideological than they are academic. Yeah, it's like and. 
Zac Parsons: Used to be our home. 
Jeff Stucke: The. 
Zac Parsons: One person's been like this disband like he he, he can't practice anymore. 
Jeff Stucke: Jordan, Pete. Hmm. Right. And how could he anyway? I mean, you know. 
Zac Parsons: Well, yeah. But, but even if he, even if he wanted to, his his home discipline has. 
Jeff Stucke: But I right, right. 
Zac Parsons: He's been ostracized, he's been excommunicated. 
Jeff Stucke: Yes, which was an event. I mean, if you if you followed his trajectory and you follow. Would the emergence of or the evolution I should say of the social sciences? It was like, yeah, the. 
Zac Parsons: Jonathan Height is documented as well. 
Jeff Stucke: Yeah, the irresistible force and the immovable, immovable object are about to. 
Zac Parsons: The collision course was inevitable. 
Jeff Stucke: Yeah. And then it's like so then now where do people go to commune? And. 
Zac Parsons: Well, in Evansville, they can come to our estuary. 
Jeff Stucke: Is it open tomorrow? Or like what *******? 
Zac Parsons: It's Monday. I mean, uh, we're we're working on it. I probably got like 5 texts from him while we've been like, can, can, can we stop so I can. 
Speaker 
What? 
Zac Parsons: Check the text. OK OK. 
Jeff Stucke: Yes, *** **** it, I. Was kind of wondering like. Who's going to lie on this ******* plane? 
Zac Parsons: You're gonna land it. You're gonna land it. How do you wanna land it? 
Jeff Stucke: Well, here's what I would say, and obviously the most of. 
Zac Parsons: We need Greg here. You know, we we maybe Wes will, will will grab a big hook here in a SEC. 
Jeff Stucke: Somebody say hey boys. Here's what I would say, and I work mostly with men, and I am deeply concerned about. The state of men in our society today and and all the data proves that. I mean, we're not depression rate, suicide rates. We ain't getting better, we're getting worse. And marriages in all ways. And part of the reason is men don't do this anymore. They don't sit down and sharpen each other. They don't sit down and say, what do you think about this? They don't sit down and like it it it's critical and I'm not. I'm not saying anything other. Than four men to be healthy for men to function the way that they are designed to function. These kinds of interactions for us to start thinking and putting our ideas out and running the risk of somebody saying that's ******* stupid but not giving up on that. Idea. Keep working until we get these sorts of interactions. Have to start taking place. And then. We have to get them off the bench and in the. Game. 
Zac Parsons: The estuary project is sort of co-ed, you know, it's it's it's for men and women, but it it necessarily needs to be a place where it is appropriate for men to be able to have that conversation in, in front of a a mixed gender sort of experience. But then I'm also still feeling called to this whole men's retreat thing, and I like there's this other sort of thing that's been developing that feels kind of magical, mystical. And again, I could be completely projecting and looking for signs and therefore seeing them and they're not there, but I've got a a mentor tree at the end of April that is like. Coming together in a in a way to where we will be like kind of on a compound that is separate from from everybody before we've done like we've gone to like a State Park and like rented a couple of cabins like, all right, we're going to get into like, a holotropic breathwork session and hope that we don't disturb those those kids over there, you know. Riding around on their bikes and we're, you know, doing this deep breathing with all these tribal noises, like on a little little iPod, we're going to have a completely separate place to do that. We have to get together and, like, grapple with each other. 
Speaker 
Cool. 
Zac Parsons: And say **** you right? 
Jeff Stucke: And then be able right and then be able to. We'll **** you like. 
Zac Parsons: Not just their people. Yes, yes. Like the stuff that men actually really need to be able to do and it's and it's there's a physicality to it and there's an intensity to it and it's wrestling with God. 
Jeff Stucke: This is where. Well, and it's and it's it's honing our skills so that I can go home and have a better conversation with Anne so that I can be more sensitive to my children. It's not, you know, it's not, you know. 
Zac Parsons: Yes. 
Speaker 
Yes. 
Jeff Stucke: We we make it sound like if men are left alone, they're just going to get drunk and go to strip clubs and it's like, no, like, that's not that. There are men who desire this kind of interaction, this kind of refinement, this kind of like, I want to be better to. And I want to be better to my kids. And when I come over here and you smack me and say that's ******* stupid. Don't ever say that to Anne. Jesus. Where did you come up with that **** *** idea? 
Zac Parsons: There's your iron sharpening iron, which is why it what's been great about this. The first mentor shirt I went to was in England and it was great. Wonderful. Like really good hearted. Everyone who was like inspired to come like was was sort of following the same spirit and like we got into a really deep place. But I don't live in England. 
Jeff Stucke: Precisely. 
Zac Parsons: And so like the commitment that I made there was, like, I'm gonna go home and I'm going to call the others. Like, I'm gonna be a Fisher of men to create this in my community. And it isn't just to like, hey, you know, come to Evansville and have this retreat and then go back to wherever you're from. There might be a little bit of that, but what has been shown powerful through the couple of mentor trees that we've had is then. We then see each other in the the life that we do together. 
Jeff Stucke: Right. 
Zac Parsons: And the commitments that the higher calling that we submitted to in those more intimate intense moments are brought back to our attention in the more mundane aspects of life as we see each other and do community and do life together. 
Jeff Stucke: Which I think is. Yeah, and the problem is that everybody's trying to scale it. It's like, no, let's make this on a mass level and it's like, Nope, you can't do that. It loses. It's it. It loses all of it when you try to. 
Zac Parsons: No, no, no, it's it's, it's, it's it's tight. 
Jeff Stucke: Will it? All right, we'll make that the last word because we've been talking for a very long time and I'm about to **** myself. So we'll we'll say. 
Zac Parsons: Alright man. 
Jeff Stucke: We'll put a we'll put. A bookmark here for now. Alright man. OK. 
Zac Parsons: Yeah. OK. Till next time. 
 

From Client to Friend: Remembering Jeff’s Good Friend Craig

As men, we need role models. Sometimes, we find them in our fathers or other family members, other times we discover them in music, movies, or other forms of art and media, and then, if we’re really fortunate, we recognize a most-important role model sitting across from us in the form of a “client”. Here, the teacher becomes the student; the mentor, the mentee. For Jeff, it was a meaningful and unexpected turn down this two-way street where he and his client Craig would enter into a long and fruitful journey of friendship, self-discovery, and the most-profound version of Authentic Love.
Ready to become Man Made? Learn more about Jeff's program to help men become their authentic selves by visiting https://becomingmanmade.com/.
Man Made is produced in partnership with Nectar Podcast Network. Visit https://linktr.ee/nectarpodcastnetwork to learn more.

The Young Yet Wise Giuseppe: A Young Man’s Journey Through Depression

Jeff sits down with the young yet wise, Giuseppe. At just 19 years old, Giuseppe has done the hard work that most men two or three times his age aren’t even aware of and has set himself on a path of self-discovery.   Ready to become Man Made? Learn more about Jeff's program by visiting https://becomingmanmade.com/.Man Made is produced in partnership with Nectar Podcast Network. Visit https://linktr.ee/nectarpodcastnetwork to learn more.

The Great Gift of Being a Dad: Jeff in Conversation With His Kids.

Joined in conversation by his two daughters (eldest and middle) and his son (youngest), Jeff opens the floor to his adult kids asking them to share what they remember about growing up in Christianity before leaving the church, being raised by divorced parents, and how they would rate the job he did as their father.  Ready to become Man Made? Learn more about Jeff's program by visiting https://becomingmanmade.com/. Man Made is produced in partnership with Nectar Podcast Network (Drink up!). Visit https://www.nectarpodcasts.com/ to learn more.

Amy McAllaster - It’s Not About You

Fellow therapist and longtime friend of Jeff's, Amy McAllaster joins Man Made to talk marriage, relationships, and what it's like receiving therapy as a therapist. Holding a Bachelor’s Degree in Psychology and Sociology and two Master’s Degrees, one of which is in Marriage and Family Therapy, Amy McAllaster M.A., LPC, is a counselor and psychotherapist with over 20 years of professional clinical experience. In 2001, Amy started her career in a Dallas, Texas crisis center focused on young men and women before expanding her practice to include adults, couples, and families. She now works and lives with her own family in Littleton, Colorado where she founded and leads the private practice, McAllaster & Associates.  Ready to become Man Made? Visit https://becomingmanmade.com/ to learn more.Man Made is produced in partnership with Nectar Podcast Network (Drink up!). Visit https://www.nectarpodcasts.com/ to learn more.

New Season. Next Chapter.

After facing a sudden health scare turned false alarm, Jeff takes the wheel as a solo driver in the new season of Man Made.   ***For those previously subscribed to Man Made on Buzzsprout, the next several episodes are reissued releases due to previously existing technical issues. Ready to become Man Made? Visit https://becomingmanmade.com/ to learn more.Man Made is now produced in partnership with Nectar Podcast Network (Drink up!). Visit https://www.wallyopus.com/podcasts to learn more.

Let’s Take Your Questions

Greg asks Jeff to answer some questions from men who are on the journey to becoming Man Made.