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Coming up next on Passion Strike.
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What s fascinating is the connection between psychedelics inducing a mystical state of consciousness, which has been researched by John Hopkins and measured, that most people are reporting this phenomenon and connecting to this higher being, this higher purpose, and this revelation that there is this other world beyond us.
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And then the other thing I would add to that is the law of thermodynamics, John, simply states energy is neither created nor destroyed.
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So the question we have to ask about death is really where does energy go?
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Because it can t be destroyed, though.
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That s a law of physics.
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So we need to ask a better question of, OK, so the energy is transmuted.
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Where does it transmute to?
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That s what I m interested in pursuing as discovery.
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Welcome to Passion Struck.
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Hi, I m your host, John R. Miles.
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And on the show, we decipher the secrets, tips, and guidance of the world s most inspiring people and turn their wisdom into practical advice for you and those around you.
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Our mission is to help you unlock the power of intentionality so that you can become the best version of yourself.
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If you re new to the show, I offer advice and answer listener questions on Fridays.
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We have long form interviews the rest of the week with guests ranging from astronauts to authors, CEOs, creators, innovators, scientists, military leaders, visionaries and athletes.
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Now let s go out there and become passion struck.
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Hello, everyone, and welcome back to episode 377 of Passion Struck, the number one alternative health podcast.
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And thank you to all of you who come back weekly to listen and learn how to live better, be better, and impact the world.
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I am so excited to announce that my new book, Passion Struck, is now available for pre-order, and you can find it at Amazon or on the Passion Struck website.
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Starting in December, I will be using my solo episodes to discuss different aspects of the book leading up to its launch, and in January, we will feature guests who I talk about in the book.
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If you re new to the show, thank you so much for being here, or if you simply want to introduce this to a friend or a family member, and we so appreciate it when you do that,
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Please check out our episode starter packs, which are collections of our favorite episodes that we organize into convenient playlists that give any new listener a great way to get acclimated to everything we do here on the show, especially now that we have 375 episodes.
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Either go to Spotify or passionstruck.com slash starter packs to get started.
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In case you missed it, earlier this week, I had two great interviews.
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The first was with my friend Amy Morin, who s a psychotherapist, international best-selling author of five books on mental strength, and who also gave one of the most popular TED Talks ever,
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on the secret to becoming mentally strong that has more than 22 million views.
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We discuss mental strength exercises and talk about how to avoid the unhealthy habits that can hold us back in life.
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I also interview Drew Plotkin, author of Under My Skin.
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Drew discusses the roller coaster ride that has been his life and the painful secrets of his past.
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along with his own techniques and tools for continuously navigating life s never-ending trail of valleys and peaks.
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If you love either of those episodes or today s, we would so appreciate you giving it a five-star review and sharing it with your friends and families.
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I know we and our guests love to see comments from our listeners, and these truly do go such a long way into bringing more people into the community where we can give them hope, meaning, and inspiration.
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In today s episode, we embark on a journey into the depths of spirituality, consciousness, and the fascinating connections between psychedelics and religion.
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Our guest today, a true luminary in this field, and a personal friend of mine, Matthew Weintraub, is a healer, psychedelic activist, scholar, and entrepreneur.
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Matthew is here to present his groundbreaking book, The Psychedelic Origin of Religion.
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In this interview, we explore the profound ties that bind psychedelics and shamanism to the tapestry of all world religions.
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With a blend of meticulous research and deeply personal experiences, he illuminates how the use of psychedelics and spiritual rituals can be traced back to the earliest chapters of human history.
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In a world where many yearn to reconnect with their spiritual essence, Matthew s work offers a compelling proposition.
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By drawing on fascinating antidotes and compelling evidence, the psychedelic origin of religion shows how these substances have, throughout millennia, facilitated spiritual experiences and served as a bridge to the divine.
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This episode challenges conventional wisdom, urging listeners to ponder the potential of incorporating psychedelics into their own spiritual practices.
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It s a daring proposition, one that invites us to rediscover our intrinsic spirituality and find healing and fulfillment in the process.
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Stay tuned for an episode that promises to challenge your perspective and ignite the flames of curiosity deep within your soul.
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Thank you for choosing Passionstruck and choosing me to be your host and guide on your journey to creating an intentional life.
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Now, let that journey begin.
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I am so excited today to welcome my friend, Matthew Weintraub to Passionstruck.
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Welcome, Matthew.
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Thanks, John.
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It s great to be here.
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Man, it s great to see you again.
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And I love your new book.
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It came out in January of 2023, and we re going to be exploring it all today.
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And for those who I just show a picture of it, but it s called The Psychedelic Origin of Religion.
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And Matthew, I thought I d start out this way.
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One of the core topics that I explore on this podcast is the topic of mattering.
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And I understand from reading about you that this is a profound area where you ve dedicated much thought over the years.
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Can you share how you ve spent your life studying the fundamental question of why are you here?
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I think it just started with the basic sense of, I think a lot of us ask this question, why are we here?
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And what are we doing?
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And that just always was a question that informed me of life.
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And part of it had to do with the fact that I grew up with a heart condition.
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So I have Epstein s anomaly.
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It s a heart condition.
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The average person with the condition lives to be 35 years old.
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And I always grew up wondering, do I need heart surgery?
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Am I gonna need to have heart surgery?
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And I think that kind of started my process of questioning life a little bit.
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And so I really got into stoicism at a young age.
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And I really found that philosophy super calming to like my anxiety around my health in terms of being present, in terms of maybe wanting to make peace with the idea that someday we don t, we don t know when.
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Well, it s interesting, Matthew, because just yesterday I had an interview with Dr. Kate Bowling, and I m not sure if you know anything about Kate, but she has been studying religion and is a professor at Duke, but she has spent a lot of her time studying prosperity religions, such as Joel Osteen or Tammy Lee Baker, et cetera.
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for her life was on autopilot and everything seemed great and out of nowhere she was hit with a diagnosis of stage 4 colon cancer that as you can imagine completely rocked her world and she said for her this whole idea of
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Potentially, our mortality over time had always been in the back of our mind, but that incident really brought it up to the forefront.
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And from going through that experience and now channeling herself even more into religion, she has found more fulfillment and more meaning in the purpose that she has been set out here to perform.
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And I understand in your case, not the same thing with cancer happened, but that you found yourself in this place where you had a lot of the extrinsic things in life that many of us crave for the million dollar condo, beautiful girlfriend, the amazing job.
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But at the same time, you were feeling empty inside.
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Can you describe this defining moment in your life as it relates to this existential question of our mortality?
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Yeah, John, totally.
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So the reason I, and that s a beautiful story that you shared, the reason I brought up that condition that I grew up with and actively manage is because I think the anxiety around my own mortality really led me to be overly ambitious.
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and really buy into our culture s story that money solves all the problems.
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And so I dove head first into that lifestyle, into that ambition, into that ideology.
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I worked in tech.
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That s pretty much all I did was work.
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I often felt like I neglected my relationships.
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for this ambitious idea that if I work hard and start a company and it s very successful, and I have all the money in the world, then I will be happy.
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And by the time I finally started to start realizing that being in a very successful company, we sold for $750 million, having a penthouse, and like you re saying, having the corporate credit
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are having all this and going, I am miserable.
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What is this?
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And why am I feeling this way?
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And it became this full circle journey of going through that story that we re telling ourselves in our culture and realizing that whole story is a lie and I needed to break it down.
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And so for me, I had in my past in college used psychedelics
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I was arrested for that.
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I was kicked out of college.
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I eventually found a college that would take me in, go Ags, give them Aggies.
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But that experience was a little harrowing for me.
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It was also a blessing in disguise.
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It got me to realize that really the use of medicine, plant medicine, or you can use medicine in a harmful way, right?
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Just as you can use it in a good way.
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And so that led me to basically say, I need to change my entire life.
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I need to change my entire life and think about what really matters and how I m really being of service.
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And so the only time in my life that I could really feel like I was in service was in college.
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I had a non-profit teaching firm at Texas A&M.
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And I felt connected to my community.
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I felt like I was being of service.
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My friends were wonderful.
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We would grow food and then make food and have potlucks and serve the community.
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And I was dying inside to feel that again.
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And that s what led me to go on my first ayahuasca retreat.
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Yeah, so let s go to that ayahuasca retreat.
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Because this vision you received during that retreat, and I think it was in 2019, and your subsequent commitment to teaching about reincarnation, psychedelic medicine, prayer, fasting, natural food, meditation, etc.
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all came out of it.
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Can you describe the details of the vision that, I guess, evolved over the three first experiences that you had, culminating, I think, in the third one, which was your most profound, and how it shaped your understanding of life and what you were supposed to do here on the planet?
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Absolutely.
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I, full disclosure, have used medicine for managing depression and anxiety my entire life, but I was doing it in a self-medicated type way.
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And I always knew at some point I wanted to try ayahuasca, but I had, as we say, I had that fear of doing it or not feeling connected, the call to do it.
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And people generally feel this call to come experience this medicine.
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And so I went down to Cuenca, Ecuador for a 10-day retreat.
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And I had a beautiful time.
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The first ceremony, that first night, I go in there and they ask you to set an intention for ceremony.
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They say it s a good thing to do.
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I said, okay, well, my intention for ceremony, Great Spirit, as they call the spirit, Gran Espiritu,
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So my intention to Abuelita Ayahuasca, Grandmother Ayahuasca, is that I want to know my purpose.
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I am here to know my purpose in life.
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I m not happy with the way things are built.
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I want a purpose.
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And the medicine first just greeted me with a beautiful hug, like the greatest hug of love I ve ever felt in my life.
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And basically said, first off, I want you to know how much I love you, how much the universe loves you, how much God loves you.
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And I was like, oh my God, it s real, 100%.
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This is such a beautiful feeling of embrace.
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And I still would impress upon the medicine in this conversation we re having in my head.
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I m here to know my purpose and the medicine, like the spirit kind of laughed at me.
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It was like, we got some stuff we got to talk about first.
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And I was like, okay.
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And so the spirit showed me my life and my relationships with my family, with my friends, and asked me, are you being the best brother in your life right now?
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Are you being the best son in your life, the best uncle in your life, the best friend in your life, to all the people in your life?
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And I ended up crying a lot, tears of joy, but crying a lot realizing that
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The most important thing in life was not my purpose, not what I m doing.
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It was my family and my friends.
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It was my relationships.
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That is the most important thing that we can do in our life, is take care of our relationships.
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And in ceremony, in an indigenous ceremony, they typically say, aho mitakiyase, which means great to all of our relations.
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The indigenous teach this idea of having good relationships, not just with your friends and family, with yourself,
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but also with nature and all the beings.
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And so medicine was like, before we even talk about your purpose, you re going to figure that out.
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Ha ha, you came all the way down here and had all these ideas.
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Ha ha, you ll figure it out.
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You need to really focus on your relationships.
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And at that time, before I left, I had broken up with my girlfriend.
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And so that was also one of the relationships that I wanted to try and repair and started to heal in a good way.
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Well, for those who are listening who may not believe in psychedelics or may not have much understanding of them, can you go into a little bit more of what one of these ceremonies is and what is the difference between Grandmother Ayahuasca and Grandfather San Pedro?
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So just in general, a psychedelic, also known as an entheogen, is a naturally occurring substance that induces a hallucinogenic state of consciousness.
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It is often researched by scientific institutions.
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And within this state, you re able to access a different part of your consciousness that can be measured on brain scans.
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So it s a naturally occurring state and substance.
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In the context of an indigenous ceremony, that ceremony is indigenous to Native tribes of the North and South America, and there are different plant medicines that those tribes use.
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The way they perceive the plants, they perceive all life to be living and be alive.
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And they consider that certain plants, all plants are a form of medicine, but certain plants are power medicines or power teachers.
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They call them master plants.
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So a San Pedro or an ayahuasca are these master plant teachers that these tribes work with in ceremony.
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And so they have ayahuasca representing the feminine spirit of the grandmother, grandmother s spirit and the ancestor.
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And they have San Pedro, which is considered a grandfather spirit as well.
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And so they prepare these medicines with prayer over time.
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And then they host a ceremony in which you will drink it.
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But the ceremony is conducted with a series of prayers around a sacred fire.
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And they believe the fire helps transmute energy that maybe you need to release or purge in that time.
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And so those prayers act as a vibrational form to call in healing.
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from God, from great spirit, as they say, or great mystery, and other beings that you may connect with, like angels, which are very commonly talked about in scripture.
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And you are there to learn how to heal yourself in this relationship with these sacred sacraments.
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And how does that differ from, in North America, what the Native Americans have performed in their rituals?
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Yeah, so in North America, the Native American Church serves peyote in a ceremony or meeting.
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And that is mainly because of the persecution of the American government against those tribes.
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They were more or less forced to decide, one,
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master plant that they could have, one sacrament.
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I believe they worked with many before, but they chose peyote, which grows naturally in Texas.
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It is a very beautiful medicine as well.
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San Pedro and Ayahuasca are more native here in South America.
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So they chose that sacrament to move forward with, and they have that protection to serve that United States.
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Okay.
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And I want to use that as a lead in because you and I first met our friend, Andrew Mars Farm, which is a couple hours outside of Houston, Texas, right on the verge of being in a national forest.
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And I was there doing the David Goggins 4x4x48 challenge to benefit Andrew s foundation.
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which is called the Warrior Angels Foundation, which helps veterans with TBI and PTSD.
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But we also had two other veteran organizations.
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One was VETS and the other is Heroic Hearts, which are trying to help veterans overcome PTSD using psychedelic-assisted therapies.
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Most of us who were there were veterans.
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Almost everyone was affiliated in some way with the special forces.
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However, you found your way there and there were also various Native American tribes that came.
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What brought you to the retreat?
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Well, I met Andrew, and I met Marcus, and Amber, and a couple others at the Texas Capitol.
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At Representative Dominguez s office, there was a collaboration ongoing for House Bill 1802.
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And I have an activist organization, an advocacy organization.
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It s now rebranded to Heal America Dow.
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And so we support those types of initiatives.
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And we were trying to collaborate on that.
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And so we all met originally at the Texas Capitol and became fast friends.
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when I found out that at the time Andrew and I were having some discussions just about psychedelic therapy in general and when they were planning on doing the 4x4x48 I have various indigenous elders that I work with and communication with to just build alliances with goodwill and I told one of the elders about this fundraiser that was going on
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And just through the blessing and grace of the Lord, we were able to meet together and feel this connection.
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And the elder, Chief Phil Lane Jr., he wanted to bring some ceremony to that event as some charity, some goodwill to the community.
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And it just all flowed together in a really beautiful way.
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I didn t realize it at the time.
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But while we were there, we were witnessing profound history and forgiveness on a scale that I only later came to understand.
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Can you shed some light on what was happening during this event?
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Yeah, so Chief Phil Lane Jr.
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was there.
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Grandmother Mona Palaka was one of the elders on the Grandmother s Council for Mother Earth.
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There s 13 of them.
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And then Grandfather Austin Nunez was there.
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He s the head of one of the indigenous nations in Arizona.
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And we held a staking ceremony there that Chief Phil led.
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And that staking ceremony was one to make a commitment, all of us there in the circle, make a commitment to working for peace with our lives, to dedicate our lives to creating peace and goodwill.
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And there was a peyote ceremony held there to act as a bridge of forgiveness, because there has been quite a bit of difficulty between the military, between the US government and indigenous communities.
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And so that was also, in a way, reparation, a healing and an embrace of cultures, a meeting of cultures.
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where the special operations community, which is leading this charge for veterans in healing and embracing alternative therapies like natural medicine, psychedelics, and really coming to understand where that comes from.
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And for me as an advocate, I think it s really important that we respect, honor, and embrace that healing and those cultures and what they bring to the table.
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It was a really beautiful and special moment in time.
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Well, to me, it was such a significant moment when Grandfather Phil actually presented Crazy Horses Pipe, something that hadn t really been broken out for over four decades, to the former Secretary of Defense, who was there basically offering his forgiveness to the harms that had been put on his nation and the other nations who were there.
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I found that that was a really moving thing to just observe.
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I couldn t believe we were there witnessing it and the power of that moment still resonates within me.
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It resonates within me as well.
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For everybody listening at home, John just mentioned Chief Crazy Horse.
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You can look him up online.
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Chief Crazy Horse is probably one of the most revered elders in Native American history.
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And he actually was famous for defeating the United States Army many times.
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And so his pipe is a very sacred instrument and pipes in general for the Native American community are very sacred instruments that are used to pray with for others and yeah to have.
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Bruce Miller there to do that with him and the community was, it s hard to put words behind the move, the feeling that I have inside, how that made me feel.
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I have a secret for you.
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Chris was going to leave the event and was going to miss that whole portion of the ceremony.
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And for some reason, I don t know what incurred inside of me, but I said to him, I don t think you should leave.
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I think there s a reason you re supposed to be here and you re supposed to be at that ceremony.
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And he ended up going.
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And to this day, he thanks me because it was one of the most moving things he s ever experienced.
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But it s amazing how fate sometimes happens like that.
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It is, but that s why I believe that God guides all things.
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Well, speaking of that, can you discuss the concept of mattering within the context of psychedelic experiences and how it relates to our intentions and our beliefs?
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Now, when you say mattering, can you just give me a little definition of what that means for you?
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So I have some context.
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But to me, mattering is having significance that your life is being applied to do something that s good for humanity, that s in service of others, that what you re doing here is what you were called to do and put on this planet to do, as opposed to unmattering, which I think a lot of people face today, which is leading people to experience things such as hopelessness and loneliness and mental health issues because they feel like they don t matter.
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that they don t know why they re waking up every morning and how it s benefiting anyone.
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Yeah.
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First thing I want to say is if anybody s listening, you matter.
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You matter so much that God gave you life and God loves you and God needs you here.
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God puts you here for a reason.
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You may not know it right now.
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You may not be able to even feel that vibration, but that s how much you matter.
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And when we talk about mattering, thank you for that definition, it brings me to the word gratitude, being grateful.
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So one of the things that I love in my practice for my wellness is my gratitude prayer that I do.
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And it s the same thing as saying, counting blessings.
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And to me, it s important for us to be able to frame the things that God has given us, whether you use that word or not, the things that life has given us.
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First thing that we re given is our life.
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That s free.
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It s pretty awesome.
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We re given air, we re given water, we re given earth.
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It s amazing.
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And those four things, we gotta take care of them, because they re all gifts.
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And so to me, there s this law of reciprocity, John, which means, says, to give is to receive.
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And so sometimes we wake up, we don t realize how many gifts we have been given.
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We spend our time focused on what we feel that we don t have.
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And we embrace this idea of lack.
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I lack this, and I lack that.
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And we might say in our head, I want this.
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We re gonna say, God, I want this.
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Give me this.
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And we fail to give thanks for all the things we have been given.
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Right?
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Now, maybe sometimes your parents might not still be with you, but they gave you life.
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Can you be grateful that they gave you love?
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What can you find the gratefulness for?
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Because life is challenging.
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So to me, before anything can matter, we have to acknowledge how good life can be and life is, even when it s not great in the moment.
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And so from there, really building that up, it builds up this mentality in one s mind that you can see the world through a different lens.
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Maybe it s more about more than just me, and it is.
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So the way I look at life, John, is that
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God needs me, God needs you, God needs us to tap in to our highest truth.
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And when we do that, we find that when we give to others, whatever our gift is, your gift is this podcast, right?
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You re giving others this amazing platform to share their stories and people wanna listen because you do it in a good way.
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That s beautiful.
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We all have these beautiful gifts and we have to discover them through our journey.
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And when we do that, then we re really serving others in a good way.
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And when we serve others, that s how we serve God.
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That is service.
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What service looks like can be very different for one person or the other.
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There s no judgment there.
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But a lot of times, we get very confused about serving ourselves and not others.
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And it s the question always becomes, can I do more to help other people?
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Can I think about other people more in my intentions that I m creating for myself?
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I want to use that, Matthew, as a segue to a very interesting interview that I did a number of episodes ago.
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I think it was 332.
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And I did this with a woman named Rebecca Rosen, who is one of the foremost spiritual mediums in the country.
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She does thousands of readings per year and has been
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doing this for now decades.
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And she came out with a book this year called What s Your Heaven?
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And I remember when we were having this discussion, she refers to something called Earth School.
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And through her interactions with the spirit world, she has come to a profound understanding that each of us is brought back to Earth
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to go through earth school as she calls it.
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And what has been revealed to her is that each of us is on a journey of fulfillment and we each have gaps in that path.
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And so before we are brought back, we choose major areas that we need to work on to become self-realized, to become this person that we are supposed to be.
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And so we each, according to her communications,
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are brought here with a profound mission of what we are supposed to accomplish during our time here.
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And she said that you can see when it s working well because when you re doing the things that you re supposed to be doing and you re being guided by your spirit warriors, then you are on this path to fulfillment and things are generally going well in your life.
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However, when you are resisting the things that they re telling you to do, when you re not doing what you re put on earth to do, adversity starts facing you and things are not going as you would like them to.
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And I just wanted to ask you, because I know a lot of people when they hear things like that, they think this lady is out of her mind or how can she possibly speak to spirits in that way?
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Do you believe anything that she says is accurate based on your experiences?
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Yes, and I would like to anchor what she s saying in science, because I think in today s age, it is easy to speak plainly about the Father, about the Lord, the Holy Spirit, Great Spirit, with science.
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For instance, the spirit world.
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What is that?
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So the University of Virginia has a department that studies the science of reincarnation.
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It was started in, I think, the 30s or 40s, and still continues to this day.
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Dr. Jim Tucker is the head of that department.
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You can look it up.
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You look up University of Virginia Science of Reincarnation.
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several books that have thousands of published scientific peer-reviewed studies, what they study are past lives, or the phenomenon of children under the age of seven who tend to remember their past lives.
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After seven, they tend to start forgetting.
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And they re able to, with those children, put together a life story and then go find out, is that person alive?
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Did that person exist?
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And they re actually able to find these families, these people that have died, bring these children to those families.
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And that child typically is able to communicate to that family things that no one should know to these family members, which without a doubt proves that there is a cycle of life, that there is a soul.
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And so for me, my understanding of life and my next book is going to be The Science of Reincarnation.
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It s a book I m working on.
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is that I believe that science can prove the cycle of where our soul comes and goes and why it does incarnate here.
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And we don t have all the answers, but enough thousands of documented cases, the point where either one can turn a blind eye to the science or just keep an open mind.
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But we see this in scripture.
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Now, it may not be typically in today s modern Bible, but in Gospel of Thomas, which is probably the earliest piece of scripture that was found in the 1940s, Christ talks about this phenomenon.
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And there are things about the life of Yeshua that
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the common American thinks is Jesus, that he actually did teach this concept.
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Buddha taught this concept.
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And actually, aside from the modern Christian world, almost every culture has a story or belief in this psycho reincarnation.
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And so for me, what s fascinating is the connection between psychedelics inducing a mystical state of consciousness, which has been researched by John Hopkins and measured.
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most people are reporting this phenomenon.
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I m connecting to this higher being, this higher purpose, and this revelation.
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that there is this other world beyond us.
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And then the other thing I would add to that is the law of thermodynamics, John, simply states energy is neither created nor destroyed.
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So the question we have to ask about death is, really, where does the energy go?
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Because it can t be destroyed, though.
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That s a law of physics.
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So we need to ask a better question of, OK, so the energy is transmuted.
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Where does it transmute to?
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That s what I m interested in pursuing as discovery.
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And for me and my third ceremony, we didn t get to get into it.
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in that ceremony when I basically floated out of my body and I was surrounded by spirits that seemed like angels and beings of light.
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And they showed me my past lives.
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And they simply encouraged me to, when I asked them, what is my purpose here?
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They said, well, you should see your past lives.
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I said, yes, this is crazy.
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They said, why don t you try to figure out how to communicate that science to the people?
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I said, I can do that.
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So that was one of the beautiful things that came out of that.
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And so I can t obviously give you the science of how I experienced that, but I can go try and find some stuff to do it.
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So I would agree with her that we are here to do that work, to experience life.
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And that s just another beautiful gift from God to realize that yes, we die in our physical body, but we have everlasting life.
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That is the teaching of scripture really at its base core.
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Because also another thing about Christ is that Christ never really taught about hell, but there s really no concept of hell.
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at all.
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That was a modern invention or what we call false teaching.
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So I would agree with her.
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But I do agree that when we don t anchor these things in science, John, whether it s a story about psychedelics, whatever, it s very difficult to communicate in a logical way, because it does, in some ways, we ve lost the magic of life.
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And so we discount other people s testimony.
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We re dehumanizing our siblings, our brothers and sisters when they share their truth.
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And I understand that, but I do wish that we would be more willing to hear others and just listen and maybe consider that
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Not first judge, oh, they re crazy, sound crazy.
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Yeah, it may sound a little crazy.
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I get it, it does.
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But maybe they re on to something.
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Maybe if their life, as she s saying, is manifesting in a good way, maybe they re on to something.
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Maybe that God is giving them these blessings of a beautiful life because God wants that message to continue to prosper.
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Well, Matthew, that explanation leads me to ask you, your book, The Psychedelic Origin of Religion, challenges traditional beliefs about religion.
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What are some of those beliefs and what sparked your interest in unraveling this connection?
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It really started with that whole retreat experience and this revelation of really feeling, wow, heaven is within my own heart.
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And I started asking this question.
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I grew up in a Jewish household in a very small Jewish community in Texas, which meant all my friends are Christian.
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I ve gone to church.
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I ve sat in Bible study just to hang out with my friends.
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I ve been surrounded by the Judeo-Christian values my entire life, but never connected with it.
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And I was also surrounded by a lot of people that were very hypocritical about being religious.
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And so it led me to this question, what is the origin of religion?
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Because what they re doing here, they don t call it a religion.
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They say it s a way of life.
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What they re doing here is so beautiful.
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People are healing and connecting and I m healing.
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What is this?
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And so I asked myself this question, like, where does religion come from?
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And could I potentially prove that all these religions are related in some way to psychedelic, to sacred sacraments, to natural medicine?
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Took me about two years of research.
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And then I wrote my book because I can show and I show in the book, whether it s Christianity or Judaism, Hinduism, Buddhism, Taoism, not Taoism, but Zoroastrianism, and then
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Native American culture is that we all had a past where we were in some way communing, having a holy communion with the psychedelic sacraments all around the world.
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And most of those cultures gave that up through time, through whatever you want to call it, right?
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Distortions, through false teachings, through lies, gave it up through persecution, etc.
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But the indigenous cultures continue to do the same thing.
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And now in today s world, everyone is going to these Native American, these indigenous cultures and finding healing.
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with these natural medicines.
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And now the scientific community in the United States and this whole movement of psychedelics to bring that healing to America has happened.
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So now we have the science that proves it conclusively and we ve got this ancient anthropological evidence of it as well.
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And it s really just a beautiful message that in some ways we ve made religion a very processed form and we know processed foods are not really healthy for us.
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And that by getting back to what s natural, this is just natural medicine and doing it in a prayerful way, right?
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Yeah.
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Well, we re finding this connection again to spirit and that, that is salvation to me.
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That s a message of salvation.
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That s a gospel that should be spread all over the world.
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I m glad you brought all that up.
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And I am not sure if you re familiar with the book, the power of myth by Joseph Campbell, something I referred to a lot.
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I haven t read it, but tell me about it.
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Yeah.
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You ve got to read this book.
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He s not talking about psychedelics in it.
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Although the myths that he talks about could have been formed by people who over the ages were using psychedelics to come up with the myths that he talks about.
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In it, he really describes that throughout history, all of the major religions that are out there all share these common stories.
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They each use different symbols to discuss them, but each one has a version of Genesis.
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Each one has a version of the Exodus.
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Each one has a version of this.
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And he basically was saying that the religions
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in differing formats came about because society was evolving and people weren t relating as well to the core messages and how they were being taught.
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So people created new ways to envision these myths that people would
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better refer to.
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And he was saying that the last major religion that was formed was really Catholicism and Christianity, and that since then, there hasn t been a huge undertaking of a new religion that would take these myths and put it into terms that modern people today could understand.
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Now we could say there have been religions, Scientology has come about, Jehovah s Witnesses have come about, et cetera.
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But I think he is talking about a more profound religion that is like Judaism or Christianity or Hinduism or one of those things.
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But it s interesting because in it he goes through and he shows these different stories and then he illustrates how they re told in these different religions.
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So that s what the book is about.
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Well, and speaking of pseudo-religions and things like that, you start out the book by saying that we live, in your words, in a pseudo-spiritual age where everything around us feels fake.
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We live in a fake culture and we practice fake religions.
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How do you think this backdrop of greed, selfishness, and apathy, and I love this word apathy, is causing so many billions, and I m using the words billions, of people to face epidemics on a growing scale of loneliness, hopelessness, and growing mental issues across the board?
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Actions speak louder than words.
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That s the short version of it, John.
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The longer version goes back to this just simple understanding of indigenous law.
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It s called natural law.
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And so what is taught is that without clean air, without clean water, and without healthy soil, there is no life.
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Those things are sacred.
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Christ taught that as well.
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And yet, what do we do for money?
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We pollute the water, we pollute the air.
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When we pollute the air, the question is, why are we doing it?
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Why is money so important?
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Why have we made money such a false idol that we worship in our lives?
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Because you said you pursued it.
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I pursued it as well.
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I pursued that false idol.
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And I found I was
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almost killing my own soul.
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So I think for those who are awakening or have gone through stories like yourself, that hero s journey of worshiping money in some way, that s not what brings contentment or inner peace.
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That s not what s gonna give us what we need.
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And so we have this really, what is called by the Cree tribe in Canada, Wetiko.
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Wetiko is a disease, dis-ease of the human spirit,
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where one worships money and selfishness, and when it infects your mind, you can t think clearly.
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You re not thinking clearly, because you re thinking about things that aren t essential.
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And so natural law teaches us, and so does the Torah of my people, the Jewish people, teaches us to look at how we make decisions on the basis of, is this good for our children, and for the children s children, and for the future children s children?
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And that s the framework through which we are encouraged to make decisions.
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And I know sometimes things aren t perfect.
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But I ll give you an example, maybe that can root this down.
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I was watching a video last night, because we all know we need to transform our energy paradigm, and that potentially renewable energy is that answer.
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And this gentleman was doing a video on the waste generated by renewable energy.
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And that there s so much waste from the wind turbines and all this stuff, but we re not recycling it, we re just burying it back on the ground.
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So that he was making his argument that there s no renewable energy.
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And I think we need to challenge ourselves in a way to embrace technology and embrace indigenous wisdom for how we present solutions, but also end-to-end solutions.
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That if we re gonna make new electric car batteries, we also need to invest in how we recycle them and have a smart way to do it.
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Because right now, if you go look at a place that produces electric car batteries, it s an environmental disaster.
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So we have to get better at working together, collaborating together and being conscious about all of our decisions and stop cutting corners.
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for money s sake.
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And so for me, it s less about pointing out the problems and more about trying to collaborate with thinkers who want to bring together solutions, right?
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Take action to do things, whether it s the psychedelic movement, the action of people to stand up and God bless our veterans who can get the attention of public officials to stand up and say, I deserve my right to heal with natural medicine.
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That s action, that s saving people s lives because now people are getting access to this and I m not committing suicide or not feeling depressed or hopeless.
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So what is it?
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I think it s a matter of us learning how to work together again and realize that we the people are the change that we want to see in the world.
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And that s my intention as well, to be that change.
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I m glad you brought up how psychedelics are helping people overcome mental health issues, etc.
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Because in some previous episodes I ve done on this topic and in research I ve done, it was really eye-opening for me when I found out that when you re doing typical talk therapy, whether it s cognitive processing therapy or cognitive behavioral therapy or what have you,
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the efficacy rate is about 33%.
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But what these major research facilities, and you mentioned Johns Hopkins, but there are many others that are exploring this, and they re all finding that the efficacy rate on using psychedelics to treat PTSD and other mental health issues is between 66% to 80%.
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And it s such a huge leap.
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And you might even have more recent data than I do
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But it just shows you the power that these could have and why so many people are now are trying to legalize them.
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You even see confidence intervals in those measurements of those studies at 80%.
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That is unheard of in scientific research, that type of confidence interval, right?
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Four out of five people.
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And the other thing that I find partially frustrating, John, that I wanna bring up is that thousands, we could probably have tens of thousands of people who ve experienced a psychedelic ceremony in an indigenous context go, I found healing there.
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And the question is, how many people do we need to raise their hand and go, I found healing, to go, I trust 10,000 people that this is valuable?
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If a confidence interval of 33% is good enough for certain medications to get approved by the government, why is not groups of tens of thousands of people standing up and saying, I need this, not good enough?
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Or another question,
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if you serve medicine, sacred sacraments, these plant medicines, you have to go through a process with indigenous elders and their tribes to be approved to have the blessing to serve medicine.
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That can take from anywhere from four to eight years.
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And so sometimes I have a little frustration with the medical community in the United States and the movement appropriating all this and saying, well, we re going to take this from you, from the indigenous community, and we re going to figure out how to do it.
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Instead of saying, will you teach us?
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Will you come lead this for us?
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Will you come show us the way and we can show you our way and we can make a better way together?
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Instead of just taking, we ve been known for so long to take, but are we really willing to sit down with some indigenous elders and say, can you help us do this?
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Or can we create a good relationship where you help grow medicine and then bring it to us and we pay you what s fair?
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Instead of just taking, we re just always taking.
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And so,
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sometimes have that concern that we re pushing so fast for change and we need it.
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Don t get me wrong.
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But we re also neglecting and creating the same cycles of trauma again and again by the way we re doing things.
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And so in some ways, I wish we would slow down a little bit.
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and focus less on the potential of making a lot of money, helping people heal and focusing on how do we make this a good way that we re all doing this together or make sure that everybody s included.
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Make sure everybody s included in a new way.
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Well, thank you for sharing that.
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And can you share a little bit more about how do you see the role of psychedelics evolving in modern spirituality and what benefits do they offer in this context?
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So I would say that as a person on Camino Rojo, the Red Road, I believe that it s, for me, I don t like to self-medicate, if you want to use that term.
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I believe that this should be facilitated for novice users of this medicine who experience it in a conscious, loving way with good standards of care.
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And so I think this can be a transformational thing for communities, but I think we need to figure out a way that we can design and develop healing centers that include both Western medicine protocols with indigenous healing protocols and have that available in communities all around the country.
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And I believe it should be protected at the federal level to do this.
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I believe that everyone should have the first amendment to exercise that with natural medicine, to be able to produce that natural medicine, to not be put in jail for doing that.
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And I believe that we should find some ideal funding mechanism to do that.
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I think we could probably do it self-funded in communities.
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But that s what I think it looks like in the future.
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And I know that some people will need it in different forms or factors with the doctor, et cetera.
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And I want everybody to find healing.
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I believe simply that natural medicine should be legal, that it s a human right, and that everyone deserves the right to find healing in their life.
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And that if we bring that to people, we re just making the world a better place.
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And that when people feel whole, and they feel good, and they re pursuing an intention in their life to be of service, that makes the entire world better.
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And as elders would say, the hurt of one is the hurt of all.
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This is my prayer.
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It s not just the work I do.
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It s the prayer of my life that I want to be able to come home to Texas.
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I want to have my own church, John.
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And I want to be able to help people heal in a good way.
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And I want to build this in my own country.
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I live in Ecuador because I m free to practice this way of life here.
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And I do pray that someday I can bring that home.
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And what advice, Matthew, would you give to someone who s interested in exploring psychedelics for spiritual purposes or mental health for the first time?
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I would really encourage you to find a good healing center.
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Outside of the United States is probably your best option.
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There is a new healing center in Oregon.
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They re quite expensive, but I would encourage you, whether you re going to do this with a doctor or with healing with the indigenous communities, to find a center that does that and go do it there.
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I don t think it s healthy to try to do this on your own.
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I think it s important to heal in community and have a support system.
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However, you can find that there are churches in the United States that are doing that work.
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They re a little bit difficult to find, but try to find a community which can help you along that journey.
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Okay, and I know that in many cultures, there s a whole issue that people bring up when it comes to doing drugs of this sort.
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Are there any specific cultural or societal shifts you believe are necessary to de-stigmatize psychedelics and integrate them into the mainstream?
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Well, one, I d like to say the only difference between a drug and a medicine is how you use it.
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It could be food.
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It could be anything, it could be gambling, it could be sex, drug or medicine.
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It can be both.
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Second thing I would like to say is yes, that I think there s a stigma around psychedelics, and in Colorado when the Natural Medicine Act was passed,
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we found that the polling around the words natural medicine resonated better with individuals.
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So I think I tried to consciously communicate using the word natural medicine so that people can understand this is just a natural medicine.
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It s not some crazy thing that came, somebody invented.
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It s very natural.
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It s a natural process.
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And so it s something that we all, we don t have to experience it, but we all deserve to experience it.
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Okay.
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And in psychedelic culture, there s something that you refer to in the book called the science of ego death.
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Can you explain this concept and its impact on our consciousness?
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Yeah.
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So I think really good point to bring up is what is actually on the neuroscience side happening, John, when we are ingesting these sacraments, these plant medicines, we all have an ego.
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It s part of our life.
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But when you are taking a psychedelic, it actually, in the mind, suspends that part of you.
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And it enables you to have a different perception of your own being outside of the ego.
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And so what that is called scientifically is an ego death.
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And when you experience this ego death, which can be measured on brain scans,
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That is when the individual starts to have this greater sense of connection, this mystical experience that they report in literature, a connection to a bigger being, a supreme being, whether it s God or the word Allah, however you describe creator, the universe.
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And so that phenomenon is fascinating because that is what s enabling us to disconnect from this ego, which wants control over everything.
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I can control everything.
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You can t control everything.
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was a greater guiding force to this entire universe.
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So it asks us to let go.
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The ego is all about me and what I want.
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And the medicine in this phenomenon forces you to release all the things that you want and realize there is so much more to you than what you re perceiving.
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And so without this medicine,
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we get this lens over our eyes that clouds our perception of life.
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We stopped seeing the beauty in life.
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We stopped seeing the goodness, the blessings, and we start to focus on all the things that are negative, these lower vibrational forms, the greed, all these things.
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And so that s just a fascinating phenomenon that is documenting really what s happening in the mind with this medicine.
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Okay.
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And Matthew, my last question for you is what message or insight do you hope readers and listeners will take away from your work in this podcast episode?
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Yeah.
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I hope people take away that love is the most powerful force in the universe and love is really all you need.
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Okay.
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And for someone who would like to learn more about you and what you re doing, what are the best ways for them to get in touch with you?
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Best way to get in touch is probably on Instagram at H-E-Y, hey, T-R-U-B, Trubb.
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I also have a website, trubb, T-R-U-B dot heel dot earth.
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You can find all my links to various things.
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We have ayahuasca retreats down here in Ecuador.
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Yeah, thanks.
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Well, Matthew, thank you for taking the time to join us today and sharing all your amazing research on psychedelics and spirituality.
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Thank you so much.
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Thanks, John.
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Thanks for everything you do, bud.
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You re welcome.
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I so thoroughly enjoyed that interview with Matthew Weintraub and I wanted to thank him for joining us today.
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Links to all things Matthew will be in the show notes at passionstruck.com.
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Please use our website links to purchase any of the books from the guests that we feature here on the show.
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Videos are on YouTube at both our channels, John R. Miles, as well as Passionstruck Clips.
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You can catch me at John R. Miles on all the social platforms.
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You can sign up for my work-related newsletter,
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work intentionally on LinkedIn.
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Advertiser deals and discount codes are in one convenient place at passionstruck.com slash deals.
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You can also sign up for my personal development newsletter, Live Intentionally at passionstruck.com.
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Lastly, we now have a Passion Struck Quiz available and you can catch this on our book page.
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Just go to passionstruck.com backslash passionstruckbook to take the Passion Struck Continuum and find where you are on your journey to becoming passionstruck.
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You re about to hear a preview of the Passion Strike podcast interview that I did with Dr. Nicole LaPera, a number one New York Times bestselling author and luminary in holistic psychology, who brings a revolutionary perspective to the table.
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In her new groundbreaking book, How to Be the Love that You Seek, she proposes that healing our broken relationships first requires that we fix the relationships that we have with ourselves.
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I think sometimes there s a bit of misinterpretation in terms of what is meant by self-love.
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I think naturally when we think of self-love, we think of all the positive feelings that we could have about ourselves.
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Liking ourselves, being in celebration of ourselves, doing nice things for ourselves.
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Though what I ve come to learn is that self-love is much more than that.
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Self-love is grounded in the ability to be present
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to all of ourself, inside and outside of those more positive feelings or positive moments or positive, loving gestures.
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The fee for this show is that you share it with family and friends when you find something useful or interesting.
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If you know someone who s interested in exploring the psychedelics of religion, then definitely share this episode with them.
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The greatest compliment that you can give us is to share the show with those that you love and care about.
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In the meantime, do your best to apply what you hear on the show so that you can live what you listen.
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Until next time, go out there and become Ashton Stroud.