Episode Transcript
[00:00:02] Speaker A: Welcome to the Truth Exchange podcast. This is a unique program where we have conversations about worldview all through the lens of oneism and two ism. This lens is based on Romans 1:25. We have exchanged the truth of God for the lie, worship and serve creation rather than the Creator who is blessed forevermore. Amen.
I'm your host, Joshua Gila with Mary Weller. Mary, good to see you as always.
[00:00:27] Speaker B: Good morning, Joshua. How are you?
[00:00:29] Speaker A: I'm fine. I can't help but to grin now. Ever since you corrected me on how the end of that text and that I always have excluded or not excluded, I forget to end it with the amen.
[00:00:43] Speaker B: Amen.
[00:00:45] Speaker A: So I can't help but to smile with it. But it's good to have you. And in the corner again on the podcast, we have a special show that we've been working towards, working on for a number of weeks now. And our special guest is Ashley Landy. She is the author of the Thing that Would Make Everything okay Forever, Transcendence, Psychedelics, and Jesus Christ.
And when Mary and I first started talking about Ashley having you on the program, it made me think of something that Dr. Jones had written about in his book the Other Worldview, where Peter was documenting the shift of the. Well, really not just the sexual revolution that took place in the 60s, but the spiritual revolution where as the hippies went east and the gurus came west, not only did they bring just spirituality, but with that spirituality came all kinds of practices.
And some of that practice was the sacred or the technology of the sacred. And Dr. Jones describes that as like yoga, psychedelics, mindfulness meditation, and so on. And so I'm really excited to have you, Ashley, on the program. So welcome.
[00:01:57] Speaker C: Thank you so much. I'm so glad to be here.
[00:01:59] Speaker A: Mary, could you share with our audience just a little bit? How did you come across Ashley's work? And then, Ashley, I love to hear your testimony.
I've listened to a number of podcasts with you on it. I'm sure you may be exhausted by telling it, but I thought it was very moving, compelling, and just powerful testimony of Christ's work in your life.
[00:02:21] Speaker B: So the way I came across Ashley was, and I feel like a fan girl because basically I discovered her on X.
And it was prior to your book coming out, Ashley, but I had just somehow you had come into my feed and you had posted an essay that I think encapsulated some of your experiences that you will get into with the book, but in particular an experience once your son was born, where you were Suddenly comparing the Christian worldview, but at the time, you didn't know you were comparing the Christian worldview. You were comparing kind of this Hindu worldview that you had imbibed.
[00:02:59] Speaker B: And it was all falling apart.
[00:03:03] Speaker B: In the face of the reality of this little son that you had and with what we work with. So just to remind our listeners, what we work with is the theory of one of them and two ism. So one ism is a pagan worldview, and Dr. Jones insists that there really ultimately are only two worldviews. And so one ism is the idea that all is one.
There is no creator outside of creation, but we are all a part of being the Creator. We're really trying to reach the divine because we all carry a divine essence in us, and there's no outside authority. There's no one who truly is omnipotent. We're trying to reach that place again.
So all is one represents one ism for us. And then we talk about all being two.
So in two ism, we understand that there are two forms of reality. There's the Creator and there's everything that he created. And if we worship anything inside of creation, we run into a dark path. So in 2 ISM, reality is the Christian worldview that there's a transcendent creator who's powerful overall, and then there's everything that he's created, and there are no other possible forms of reality, and they never blend. What he has created can never become divine.
And so though you don't use those terms, it was so clear that you were communicating those types of ideas and what you had written.
[00:04:26] Speaker C: Yeah.
[00:04:28] Speaker B: So that essay was the first time I liked your account anyway. I liked your observations and just the things that you shared. But reading that essay was the point at which already I was like, oh, man, we have got to talk to this lady about her story. And then when I read your book, I was just even more convinced of it. It's just. It's beautiful. You. You are an artist, but you're an artist with words as well, not just images. And I just appreciated the depth and kind of the.
The visceral clarity with which everything you wrote came through. And I am proof of the visceral nature of it, because as I told you, I had a nightmare last night that I couldn't get rid of a cute face on this broadcast. And I was struggling to get onto the podcast, and I had been reviewing your book, so got to me all over again.
[00:05:15] Speaker C: Well, thank you so much for that praise. Thank you.
[00:05:18] Speaker B: Yeah, absolutely.
[00:05:22] Speaker B: So Joshua, I know that you were really excited to hear Ashley's testimony. And Ashley, I'm sorry to throw you straight into the deep end, but I wonder if you can kind of explain to our listeners, not too briefly, but kind of in brief, some of the story that you share in your book, the thing that would make everything okay forever.
[00:05:41] Speaker C: Sure, yes. Okay. So not too briefly, but I also wanted to finish time. I'm trying to think of this.
It was a long and long and winding road. God is very patient.
[00:05:54] Speaker C: But I. So I was raised in a Methodist church, and church wasn't. I think my parents were doing the best that they could given how they had been raised and, you know, what they thought we should do. My dad never really cared for the Methodist church because he was more conservative theological and politically and so. But my mom was like a fourth generation Methodist, I think.
And so I was raised going to church most Sundays. We didn't really pray at home. Like, I didn't really, we didn't really read the Bible at home. So I didn't really, I don't think I ever grasped the gospel or, or understood the idea of God's grace, understood the idea of what Christ had done.
And so when I turned maybe 14, 15, it was pretty easy for me and I was rebellious and it was pretty easy for me to just shuck off Christianity and say, no, I don't believe any of that.
And, you know, I had typical teenage arrogance, probably amplified beyond typical teenage arrogance.
And my parents were scandalized, but I think they hoped maybe it was just a phase.
And I discovered pretty early on, I think, I think I opened the book with this. Like, the first time I smoked marijuana, I was just always, I.
[00:07:21] Speaker C: Seeking transcendence, I guess, like, like any of us. But I pretty early on I learned that I really enjoyed the way that different substances could make me feel.
And even the first time I smoked marijuana, I don't think I even really got high off of it, but I was just intrigued. It seemed so. Drugs for me, seemed so. And I was reading a lot of things. Like I would read the beat poets, you know, and these people for whom drugs were a huge part of their creativity. And so I thought, you know, if I want to be an artist, if I want to be a writer, like, to me all of that was very interwoven and very connected.
And so I got into drinking alcohol toward the end of high school and, you know, experienced a like horrendous hangover the first time I ever drank in my senior high school. But at that point it wasn't enough to deter me.
Got pretty into drinking my early on in college, and it took a while, but, you know, after a while, I just tired of how destructive alcohol was and how there was such a price to pay the next day with a hangover.
And so I backed off of the partying and drinking a little bit. And then my senior year in college, one of my good friends said that he had some psilocybin mushrooms. And I didn't have any prior experience with that, but like I said, I was. I was intrigued by the idea of being able to alter my consciousness through pretty much anything. And so by that point, I think I had smoked marijuana, you know, a few scattered times throughout college.
And so I was just game to try this. And I had what I felt at the time was a really intriguing experience. It was just. It was just fun at the time. I wouldn't say there was necessarily a spiritual element or an intense spiritual element to that first time that I tried psilocybin, but I just liked it. I liked the idea that I was able to alter my consciousness, see things differently, hear things differently.
[00:09:22] Speaker C: It was just.
Yeah, just really fascinating and really seductive to me.
And so after that, I think I sought out mushrooms once more a few months later. And then a few months after that, I don't know, four, five, six months after that, I was. I graduated from college. I was living in Kansas City in an apartment and working, and I was looking for, you know, hoping to have another experience with mushrooms. I can't even remember how, but I somehow came in contact with this guy on social media. Of course, back then, social media was still kind of in its infancy.
[00:10:02] Speaker A: Yeah, it was like LiveJournal.
[00:10:03] Speaker C: Yeah, I think it was MySpace. I think it was.
Yeah. Which is just so funny.
[00:10:09] Speaker A: Oh, to bring Tom back.
[00:10:10] Speaker C: Yeah. And you could, like, trick out your profile on there, put music on it.
[00:10:14] Speaker B: Put background image and. Yeah, yeah.
[00:10:18] Speaker C: And so he. He was local, you know, and he said, oh, I don't have any mushrooms, but I have some lsd.
And looking back, I just, you know, cringe to think of how dangerous this was. This person I met online, and I was like, sure, let's take drugs together. The first time we've ever met.
And I just, you know, I hope that my children can learn from my mistakes.
And he came over and we took lsc. In the beginning, I was having a great time. I remember saying. Actually saying at one point, I don't understand how anyone ever has a bad trip.
And he immediately said, like, well, don't Think about it.
And then I started thinking about it, and then it was like everything went south. And I've said before, I think on podcast, that I really feel like a bad trip on psychedelics is something that the human psyche is not designed to bear. I mean, a good trip probably isn't either, but. But a bad trip in particular is just like a really hellish experience.
And so.
[00:11:25] Speaker C: It'S difficult to describe. Like, everything just started going wrong. It felt like the universe was spinning out of control. It felt like I would never be at peace or happy again or. And it felt like I was completely isolated, disconnected from everything around me, disconnected from reality. Like, I was. Like I was losing my mind. I was going crazy. Like I was spinning off oblivion.
And there came a point where I. I was. You know, I was panicking. I was telling this guy, we need to call an ambulance. And he kept saying, you're on a drug. It's okay. It's gonna pass. But I didn't believe that.
And then there. There came a point, like, I guess you could call it the peak of the trip, where I. I saw this white light. I just felt really shattered into a million pieces.
And I started weeping. And then the rest of the time was kind of. Kind of okay. I kind of snapped out of the bathrobe. But it was also really strange and just. I felt so disoriented. I felt like I had been ripped apart. You know, I felt like.
[00:12:32] Speaker C: My insides had been ripped out. And I think in the book, I use several analogies, but I. I talked about that nursery rhyme, the nursery rhyme of Humpty Dumpty, you know, falling off all the king's horses and all the king's men couldn't put Humpty together again. I felt just so shattered like that, and I couldn't. I honestly was. Was just so disoriented that I was like. I don't know if that was a good thing or a bad thing.
And I. I told myself, wow, I am like, I don't know if I'll ever do that again. If I. If I do it again, I might do it, like, once a year or something.
But then a couple weeks later, I was looking for LSD again, and I found it and I did it again. And that kind of started my path on essentially being. Being addicted to LSD for a number of years.
And.
[00:13:24] Speaker C: I don't know. Do you want me to go ahead and talk about when I first started encountering Christian ideas? And things started kind of changing.
[00:13:33] Speaker C: That.
[00:13:34] Speaker B: I'm just wondering if I can I just wanted to read something that you wrote about like your first experience with getting high.
[00:13:43] Speaker B: And I'd like to talk to you about that a little bit.
You said after getting high. But that night I felt the first keen pleasure of partaking in something elicit that whispered of transcendence, of exotic acceptance, experience full of promise. And with it came the suspicion that they, my parents, authorities, any square repressed enough to try and bar me from this glittering doorway of decadent effulgence, had been lying.
And I, I love that because, you know, I've never done. I've. I've smoked marijuana a couple of times and for me it was terrifying both times. And so it was never attractive to me ever again. I didn't have any moral thought about it at the time, but it just was so scary and it stressed me out so badly that I didn't want anything to do with it. And yet there are other things in my life before I knew the Lord that certainly attracted me that way, that certainly made me feel that.
[00:14:42] Speaker B: You know, nobody else could understand. No one else could understand this love that I have. No one else can understand the beauty of this relationship that I have. Like the things that I was being drawn to that seemed to transcend what normies, you know, normies were experiencing. And if people could just see it from my perspective, they would understand the beauty of it. And it struck me when I read that quote again how really this is the lie of the garden, right?
[00:15:08] Speaker C: Yes.
[00:15:10] Speaker B: Every human being, it might not be in these kind of flashy, and I'm sorry to use that, you know, that description, but like these big crescendo ways that you experienced with drugs that everyone attracted in that same way to that self godness that you described. I just thought that was wonderful. And when. So I wanted to ask you, when you described being addicted to lsd.
[00:15:39] Speaker B: Was it a chemical addiction, do you think? Or was it an addiction to this idea that there was something more out there that you were trying to grasp?
[00:15:48] Speaker C: Great question.
[00:15:50] Speaker C: Yeah, I think it was definitely the latter because psychedelics, psychedelic advocates will say a lot of times that psychedelics are completely non addictive. And they. That's true in a sense because you aren't getting like the dopamine flood that something like cocaine or I don't know if heroin is exactly dopamine, but yeah, something like that, the, the body high that like you aren't getting that with psychedelics. But I think for me there absolutely was, I guess you could call it like a spiritual addiction, an addiction to. Yeah, the idea that there was something more, that there was something. And I never would have articulated it that way at the time, but, yeah, it was this idea like the repressive, you know, Christianity of my childhood. Like God was withholding something good by these guardrails.
[00:16:43] Speaker C: And I, I, you know, once I was saved, like the. There were several verses that became really important to me. But I remember one was like, I forget now which psalm it was, but, like, the boundary lines have fallen for me in pleasant places. And also Psalm 131 is one of my favorite psalms. Like, you know, that I don't reach for things too great for me or too lofty for me, but I have calm and quieted myself.
And I think about those a lot.
[00:17:11] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:17:11] Speaker C: And I think about that like I was absolutely.
[00:17:16] Speaker C: Reaching. I thirsted for knowledge. I thirsted for transcendence.
And I became absolutely convinced that LSC was the only way to get it. But the interesting thing is it also really isolated me from reality.
It isolated me from other people. It isolated me from relationships, because you can be. And I would trip sometimes with other people and. But you're never having the same experience as someone else. Like, it's very. Well, you know, you're never having the same experience.
And so.
[00:17:50] Speaker C: Yeah, to answer your question, I feel like I was. There definitely is such a thing as psychedelics addiction, despite what the advocates might say. And. And it is different in nature from addictions to other drugs, but it's still definitely real.
[00:18:06] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:18:07] Speaker A: I'm curious, Ashley. I've known a number of people who at one time I had been in certain Christian circles where I've been around people who had really been involved in the psychedelic world, specifically people in the Calvary Chapel and in Vineyard Church movements, and specifically with those in the Vineyard Church movement and Reading and Bethel.
[00:18:38] Speaker A: My experience in talking with them is they put aside doing psychedelics.
[00:18:46] Speaker A: And they started seeking a.
[00:18:49] Speaker A: For them.
Why they pursued the more charismatic movements of Christendom is because they got some sort of high from that.
Those circles. And I've known some guys who.
[00:19:06] Speaker A: One guy by the name of John Crowder who.
[00:19:12] Speaker A: Pushes it so far as where he gets in groups with people and he tries to get people high in the Holy Spirit. And they'll do what they call shots of Godka or Jehovah. They'll smoke Jehovah, wanna. And he's all about having some sort of Holy Spirit, what they call Holy Spirit trip.
And I was wondering, Ashley, have you ever felt that kind of. That pull of. You had such a. A flush of experience of something so transcendent and taking psycho psychedelics where you. Have you ever felt that your Christian faith is not enough? Now, I think the answer to that is probably no. When you talk about the Lord has a beautiful inheritance for me, the lions have fallen in pleasant places. But. So let's talk about your conversion and how you have countered the addiction or that draw of psychedelics versus your experience with Christ.
[00:20:20] Speaker C: Yeah.
[00:20:22] Speaker C: That'S such an interesting tangent because I am still. And I have to temper myself, and thankfully I have my husband to temper me. I still am very attracted to charismatic experiences.
[00:20:38] Speaker C: I was part of a Bible study with several women here locally for several years, which a lot of wonderful, really wonderful fruit came out of it. But they were both very charismatic. And looking back, you know, not so much with them specifically, like I said, it was a wonderful thing in my life and they were godly women. But some of the, like, things I got connected to through that church, like, weren't always, I think, spiritually healthy because there was that craving of, like, oh, we're going to, like, conjure up the Holy Spirit to have this really intense experience, you know. And I was saying.
I was saying to my husband the other day, he's so, you know, opposites attract.
I. And he was really into psychedelics too. But I said to him the other day, like, do you ever find it hard just to accept that. That a lot of life is.
[00:21:37] Speaker C: I don't want to say mundane. That sounds bad, but a lot of life is just daily life, you know, and doing what you have to do every day, like. And he said, no, no.
[00:21:48] Speaker B: I'm.
[00:21:51] Speaker C: Like, huh, okay.
And it's interesting that you mentioned Calvary. We went to a wedding. This is an amazing story, though. We went to.
So I had this friend back in my New Age days in Kansas City who was this the most lovely woman. Like, just so friendly and funny and warm. But she was the New Ageist, New Age person I knew. Like, she was just into anything and everything. I remember she did energy healing and she did a couple sessions on me and she was just, yeah, just, like I said, anything and everything. New Age.
And she.
[00:22:30] Speaker C: Met her husband to be maybe, I don't know, gosh, it's been probably a decade ago.
And they got engaged pretty quickly, but then they were just living together. He was also very into various New Age ideologies.
And so for years, you know, they just kind of kept on that path. Like, meanwhile, my husband and I had become Christians. And I remember talking to her once. It's been Years and years ago about Jesus. And she said like, well, he's a good teacher, you know, but. And I said, well, that's like, not really what he says about himself though. And I remember that was the only time that I've ever seen her get irritated and angry, which I can totally relate to. Anytime anybody would try to talk to me about Jesus in my new age days or in my atheist days, I just didn't. I would just like, you know, stop at my ears. I did not want to hear it at all.
And.
[00:23:26] Speaker C: A couple months ago, they. She sent out a text message and she said, we're getting married in a week at Calvary, at Calvary Chapel in Overland Park.
And so we made it up there and it was a beautiful ceremony and it was so Christ centered. The gospel was shared. And we had seen them a couple years ago and we could tell they were kind of. He's. He especially was. They had had a stillborn baby, which is so tragic and sad. And he was definitely very interested in Christianity. They had started going to a Christian church and anyway, but it was just this beautiful culmination of, you know, from the new ageist person I knew who did. Who was my energy healer to this beautiful, like, gospel centered, Christ centered ceremony at Calvary Chapel. But I did notice when we were at Calvary and I ended up sitting next to some people, I was like, all these people look like old hippies, you know, like, yeah.
[00:24:22] Speaker C: Which is good. I, you know, I had this great conversation. Like, I could relate to it.
But yeah, it's just interesting that you mentioned Calvary.
[00:24:32] Speaker A: A bunch of deadheads or they listen to a lot of fish.
[00:24:35] Speaker C: Yes, yes.
Yeah, so.
But yeah, I really have had to. And I'm not like, I personally am not a cessationist, but I have had to be careful, I guess, about not getting pulled into that. That idea that life is just, you know, and that life with God and life with Christ is just a series of spiritual highs. Because it's not, you know, But I will say the.
And I think too, there can be a little bit of.
[00:25:05] Speaker C: How can I put it? Like the same in hyper charismatic circles, this kind of. That same attitude of like, I can bring about this experience on my own, like I can bring about this guy on my own. Which was totally my posture toward what I called God back then with psychedelics is like, I can take this thing and I can have an experience of God. You know, sometimes it would be a heaven, you know, what. What seemed a heavenly experience. Sometimes it would be what seemed A hellish experience. But I could have this transcendent spiritual experience, and it was within my grasp all the time. Like, it was in my control, sort of. You know, you can't necessarily control what direction a trip goes, but. But yeah, I think you have to be careful, like, because there can be that same. Like you. Like you were saying with that guy who. Who has these.
These gatherings that are specifically to chase the spiritual high, this idea that.
That almost like trying to circumvent, I guess, God's sovereignty or. Yes, yeah.
[00:26:10] Speaker A: Yeah, that's a good way to put it. Yeah.
[00:26:12] Speaker B: Yeah.
I wonder, too, because it seems that. And I'd like to know how this happened.
It seems that you got heavily into yoga and kind of like Hindu practices as well.
So how did that. Was it just part of the ether in which you were operating? Or was there something about that that offered you more of what you were looking for with drugs as well?
[00:26:38] Speaker C: I think. I think both. I mean, the. The circles that I ran in, like, a lot of people are into yoga meditation.
And I actually.
Actually my. My mom was the one who introduced me to yoga. And then I think later she was kind of horrified by the fact that I had.
For her, it was just. It was stretching, it was exercise. You know, I don't think she.
But then I completely embraced all the beliefs behind it, and I was, yeah, super into it. And for me, it was there again, it was like a spiritual high, you know, like a really intense yoga class I loved because it felt like it provided that kind of high.
Not as much as I thought psychedelics was, but did. But, yeah, so it was both. It was the either that I was swimming in, it was the what people that I was around were into. But it was also. It also seemed to fit so well with the psychedelic belief system, you know? Yeah.
[00:27:41] Speaker A: To.
[00:27:41] Speaker C: It seemed to just be part and parcel of that.
And I remember.
[00:27:48] Speaker C: Earlier we were talking about.
[00:27:51] Speaker C: Oh, gosh, what was mentioned about that. Oh, yes. The idea that we just, like, we are already, you know, have divinity within us. Like, we just need to kind of return to that, to that divine state.
And I remember that was very much an idea within yoga. You know, it's just you do these practices enough, you do these meditation enough, you detach enough from the world and from your emotions and from desire, and you can attain this state of enlightenment. And I remember one time, I think I wrote about this in the book, my yoga Teacher, talking about how we are all born like these perfect diamonds, you know, these beautiful sparkling diamonds with all these dimensions and all these.
And then we get. As we get handled through life, we get sullied, we get fingerprints on us, we get dirt on us. And, like, the goal of yoga is to return to that divine state. And I remember thinking about that and being like, but, like, where does the dirt come from? Like, what is the.
What is the genesis of the dirt? It has to come from somewhere. So, like, other people are contaminated with it somehow. But, like, where did it come from? You know? And so that really got me thinking about. I think that was probably still around the time that my husband was beginning to go to church. We were starting to get really disenchanted with all these practices that we thought were going to lead us somewhere with psychedelics that were actually kind of leading us nowhere, leading us around in circles.
And so that kind of really got me thinking about.
Yeah, like I said, about where the dirt came from. And I think this idea that I could.
[00:29:43] Speaker C: That we're born perfect and I just needed to return to this state. Like, I just found within myself. I couldn't do that. Like, I couldn't save myself. I couldn't. I remember speaking of Calvary and vineyard people, there's this really great book called God's Forever Family that's a history of the Jesus people movement. And in the first couple chapters, Larry Eskridge, the author, talks a lot about.
[00:30:08] Speaker C: People who specifically came out of using psychedelics, out of the hippie movement and Haight Ashbury.
And there was one man, Ted Wise, who has always stuck with me.
He talked about just being on the same quest with psychedelics, you know, trying and trying and trying to reach this elusive state of enlightenment, this elusive state of permanent transcendence.
[00:30:35] Speaker C: And he said, you know, the. The farther and farther I went with psychedelics and all these things. Like, all I found was, I think he said, a rat scurrying around in the dungeon of my soul.
[00:30:49] Speaker C: That. That's it, you know, that's it.
[00:30:52] Speaker A: A picture.
[00:30:53] Speaker C: Yeah, yeah. Like, I didn't. I found that I. I could not transcend my.
There was a. There was a foundational brokenness and sinfulness that I could not.
[00:31:08] Speaker C: Get out of myself, you know, that I couldn't purge from my being through all these practices.
And so, yeah, there were. I got used so many different strains. There were so many different things colluding kind of at the same time that led to me being saved.
[00:31:26] Speaker B: That's such a great description, and it's interesting that he recognized that. And you were realizing that too, because there is this idea that you're Transcending. But then I was struck by the nothingness that also was sort of like called out as salvation. And you had written salvation was here and now it had already happened. It already existed before my birth, before the beginning of time. The key was to remember and to re. Remember over and over again until eventually the drudgeries of the earth trip would yield to a state of perpetual bliss, void of form.
And you talk about how you clung to that.
But then you had this excellent quote from Ram Dass and be here now.
[00:32:15] Speaker B: You go through the final door and you go from form into the formless, into the void, into the beyond. And beyond the. But beyond you enter into formlessness. So there's like this nothingness, this obliteration that is at the heart of all of this. And Ram Dass says there is all this in its own. In its manifest, in its unmanifest form, always, eternally, you perceive that nothing is really happening at all. Nothing ever happens. Nothing is going to happen. There's nothing you've got to do. There's no doer to do it anyway.
And I was, wow. You know, you think of Satan's desire to destroy what God has made and called. Very good.
[00:33:00] Speaker C: Yeah.
[00:33:00] Speaker B: And it held out as this shimmering jewel that really. It's such darkness.
[00:33:05] Speaker C: Yes.
[00:33:06] Speaker B: That really, that really struck me. And I love, if you wouldn't mind telling part of this, I love the way that some of the incoherence of this came out in a children's book for you after you.
[00:33:19] Speaker C: Sure. And just as you, just as you were reading that and you were talking about Satan, you know, subverting and destroying God's design, it struck me like that quote, what Ram Dass wrote, it's so anti human. Like, it's so anti.
And like Satan seeks to.
[00:33:40] Speaker C: Steal, kill and destroy and God seeks to redeem humanity, you know, and God came and through the incarnation, like. And yet that those ideas that Ram Dass is talking about were so anti. Anti human, you know, negating everything. Negating everything that makes us human. Destroying everything that makes us human.
[00:34:01] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:34:03] Speaker C: And yeah, rereading that book while I was, I hadn't picked up that book in years. And I actually went through this kind of Acts, which Acts chapter. Is it where the sorcerers are burning all their books?
I went through that. I went, you know, I just went out to our. We have a little burn barrel. And I was like, I just want to be done with these.
And I burned some of the old astrology books I had. And my husband was like, no, I want to Keep my copy. We had two copies of Be Here now because we loved it so much. But I want to keep my copy of Be Here now just for, for reference. And I was like, okay.
And I'm glad he did just because it was just striking to go back and read that stuff that I used to believe fully.
And in that same book he has, he, you know, he talks about Jesus Christ and just kind of, you know, it was just, it was painful to read because placing Jesus Christ in the context of.
[00:35:07] Speaker B: That.
[00:35:08] Speaker C: Yeah, that anti human framing and that he, he kind of talked about the crucifixion as Jesus was detached from it and.
[00:35:17] Speaker C: Really trivializing way like that Jesus was just saying like, wow, look at that, that's happening. Wow, look at that, that's happening. But I'm not attached to, to it. I'm not. You know, it's so, so just so like satanic. You know the quote you had in.
[00:35:35] Speaker B: The book about Jesus looking at the nail and not feeling the pain of the nail as it's driven into him, like, oh wow, a nail.
[00:35:43] Speaker C: Yeah, yeah, yeah. That was what I was. Yeah, yeah. And just like, I mean a part of it's laughable but it's also like so sorrowful and like.
[00:35:55] Speaker C: Hurtful and, and, and just like satanic. Yeah, satanic.
[00:36:01] Speaker C: And so the children's book. Yeah, the children's book was, was an interesting experience I think.
And I was going to tell you that that little baby that I had at the time is now a big strong six one 16 year old boy.
[00:36:13] Speaker B: Oh yeah. It happens to all of them.
[00:36:16] Speaker C: I know, right? Oh, it's crazy.
It goes so fast.
[00:36:22] Speaker C: But yeah, so our, one of our friends who is also into psychedelics, he was very gifted tattoo artist, but you know, into all the same things we were. And he gave us this children's book that I think he got at the Unity Temple bookstore, which we attended a Unity chapel for a while. And I'm sure you all are probably familiar with it, but, but I would say they definitely push all the, like they were kind of vaguely Christian in their origins back in the 1920s, but that's kind gone by the wayside. And now it's very much this idea of oneness, you know, that we are all. I think that was one of the chants we did in the services, like all good, all God. That was what they would say. Oh yeah, yeah. And so we got this children's book given to us and it was basically a, a distillation of that oneness concept brought down to a children's book level.
And it was really disturbing, you know, because you can. There are.
[00:37:27] Speaker C: Philosophers and people who can make that idea of oneness sound very sophisticated.
And I think that was. That was why, you know, maybe in addition to wanting to be an artist and a writer, like, I wanted to be an intellectual. And so there are, you know, philosophers who can speak in a very crafty way to make that oneness concept sound really sophisticated, more sophisticated than Christianity, more sophisticated than the simple gospel. And so. But then when it was. When it was dumbed down to this children's level, so this book said.
[00:38:00] Speaker C: I can't remember what the title was, but it said, like, I. I am the sun, I am my feet, I am the dog across the street.
So just this idea that I am everything, everything is me. Like, all matter is just interchangeable. You know, the body is an illusion, Consciousness is an individual. Consciousness is an illusion.
And it was really disturbing. I think I started. I don't even know if I ever read it to our baby toddler. I think my husband and I looked at it and we were like, this is insane.
But then, like I wrote in the book, that really got me thinking, like, okay, but these are the same ideas that I've been embracing. They're just being expressed. They're being expressed in a very childlike or, you know, way. And so that. That really got me. Yeah, that just really got me thinking, like, do I really want to believe this? Because it's not. It's not beautiful. When you put it this way, it's not beautiful. It's ugly and it's disturbing.
Yeah.
[00:39:06] Speaker B: Yeah, I.
I love you. You said it shook me. I'm sorry. Does anyone else read your book? Back to you. But I just. I love this book so much, so I apologize. And I'm like, here's what you said, Ashley.
[00:39:22] Speaker C: But I love.
[00:39:23] Speaker B: It shook me, this boiling down of what I like to imagine was my sophisticated pantheism to its most elementary level, which seemed to make it another thing entirely, namely nonsense. But I couldn't get around the fact that the book took its reasoning from some of my favorite hippie philosophers.
In fact, I would later realize that it cribbed its key lines directly from Alan Watts, who once said, all beings throughout all galaxies, when they come into being, that's you coming into being. It's all a continuous energy going on. And if I am my foot, I am the sun.
And that just the nonsense of it, when it was taken out of those high fluting terms, you know, in children's language, really came through. To you. I.
I have experiences of that.
I think, you know this just from some of our interactions on X, but I deal with the idea of gender and really using a biblical worldview to push back on transgenderism. And when I was writing a lecture that we hosted in our symposium last year, I was using the two commandments from Christ. You know, love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, mind, and strength, and love your neighbor as yourself, as sort of the boiled down version of what it is to love as Christians that all of our love is defined first by who God is and what he says, and then we love our neighbors. Correct. And so I was looking for, like, well, with transgender ideology, like, what is the boiled down statement? What is the single thing that I can find that really will explain to people.
[00:41:02] Speaker B: Sort of the entirety in a few sentences of what this ideology is representing to us? And it was children's books. You know, I have a remarkable collection of pro trans children's books, but that's where I could find it, because there they are trying to explain to the simplest growing minds the simplest terms on which they're supposed to found all of the rest of their understanding. And it's that same kind of sorrowful.
[00:41:28] Speaker B: Like, how hateful that you would teach this to a child, you know? And.
[00:41:34] Speaker B: I was reminded, too, of talking to a woman. My husband and I were in Las Vegas for a work trip that he was on, and we were at the pool, and I was just talking to this woman who was very new ag.
[00:41:47] Speaker B: Sort of like your friend. Like, very sweet, but into a little bit of everything. And so she was deciding, describing what heaven was gonna be in her terms, and she was talking about, well, eventually I'll just be absorbed into the all. Like, I will. Yeah, I'll lose this. I think she called it a meat envelope at one point.
[00:42:05] Speaker C: Like, yes, I hate this. It's so gross.
[00:42:08] Speaker B: Like, yeah, that, like, I will. I will lose all of the things that keep me from connection to who I really am.
And. And I'll kind of dissolve. And she was sort of presenting that to me as this glorious thing.
And I. I said to her, that sounds really scary, you know? And I started to talk to her about the fact that in. In the Bible, what we're told is that I'm called by my name.
Like, my name is written on Christ's hands. My name is written in his book. So when I go, I don't lose myself. I get to still be me, but I get to be in relationship with God because of what Christ has Done. I get to keep my name. And that idea of not having a name freaked her out. So that was really interesting to me.
[00:42:59] Speaker B: It's amazing how the enemy really can make such destructive things sound so beautiful. And then when you realize what they're actually saying, it's so awful, and it's so terrifying.
[00:43:11] Speaker C: Yeah. And this idea that there's some kernel of who I really am, you know, it's so pervasive in culture, you know, Pervasive. And I think.
Yeah. And it started with probably the.
Well, probably started before that, but the sexual revolution and the hippie revolution in 60s, I'm sure, accelerated all of that. And now we see that messaging. That messaging everywhere. Disney movies, you know, everywhere. This idea that. And to go along. Goes along with that idea that if we can just return to this state of divinity, if we can return to the core of who we really are. And I think it's. It's interesting. Yeah. Like that woman saying things like that, like, well, what. What do you think that is? Like, who. Who are you really?
[00:43:59] Speaker B: You know? Right, right. Like.
[00:44:01] Speaker C: Yeah.
[00:44:01] Speaker B: Because if you have this piece of divinity, like this, who you really are, it doesn't seem like anyone actually knows who that is.
[00:44:09] Speaker C: Like.
[00:44:09] Speaker B: No, really, to actually have a grasp on what that represents, it's just that you have to shed all of the things that actually do make you. You, it seems.
[00:44:19] Speaker C: So.
[00:44:20] Speaker B: It's. It's this uncreating that happens. And I've been on this tangent for a while, but this idea of all is one.
When you actually look at what advaita is, it's. It's not all is one. It's that all is not two.
So inherently, it's a rejection of the creator, right at its core. Right. So there. There has to be an idea of two in order for you to reject it.
And so it seems that we call it enlightenment, but it really is this path of uncreation that we're all tempted to be on.
I apologize. I'm sitting next to a window and the sun is tracking.
I'm like, constantly trying to.
Out of the.
Out of the beckoning or the coming rays. I can't avoid it.
I cannot uncreate the sun, so it's gonna shine on me. So.
[00:45:15] Speaker A: Ashley, could you.
Oh, go ahead, Mary.
[00:45:18] Speaker B: No, no, no. I was kind of at the end. It's just that idea of. It's not. It's not enlightenment. It's uncreation. I don't know a better way to put that.
[00:45:27] Speaker C: Yeah, yeah.
[00:45:30] Speaker A: Ashley, since you've written this book, I'm curious and I have seen it. I've seen it in the news, I've seen it in a various number of reports. I've observed it done with on men, on social media platforms. Push the use of psychedelics. So Joe Rogan, Ezra Klein. I saw an interview with Ross do that and Ezra and I, I wondered how much.
[00:45:58] Speaker A: Are psychedelics really becoming a part of Gen Z or younger generations culture?
Yeah, I'm assuming it's. It's because the. How the perception of it has changed so much over the past number of decades.
I wonder what kind of resources could pastors parents be equipped with to come combat this movement?
[00:46:24] Speaker C: Yeah. And you know, it's interesting a couple years ago I just really felt like the.
[00:46:34] Speaker C: Yeah. Psychedelics were becoming so wildly popular. Like Joe Rogan, I mean Joe Rogan. I think it's been quite some time, quite, quite a few years that he's promoted them and these other, you know, pretty major influences, Hollywood celebrities. Who's the guy? Aaron Rodgers.
And I think there's been. I think we've kind of peaked thankfully and I think we're kind of on the disenchantment trajectory now. I just feel like that way. I remember a couple years ago, maybe three years ago, two or three years ago, watching Aaron Rodgers on. There's this popular, I guess you call him like a health and wellness influencer named Aubrey Marcus.
And he had Aaron Rodgers on his show. Aaron Rodgers was talking all about his ayahuasca trips and.
[00:47:25] Speaker C: How wonderful they were. He was talking about. I think he was talking about whether he was deciding whether or not to retire from football. He just spent three days in a completely black room, completely by himself alone. And so just these various practice. I guess I never heard of that before but I'm sure, you know, you could categorize that as just a weird new, new, new age practice. Anyway, a lot of what they were talking about were ayahuasca and really positively, you know, and, and Aubrey Marcus I'm pretty sure has millions of followers.
And so I was seeing all these things, all these things pop up and it was really concerning and, and now I just feel like there's been, you know, to use the, the current phrase, a vibe shift.
Like people are not as excited about psychedelics. People are. It's kind of. I just feel like the trend has peaked and it's starting to decline, which makes me really hopeful. I remember spend probably, I guess that was early last year. So a year and a half ago I spoke at the Apologetics Canada conference in Vancouver.
And in one of the breakout sessions.
[00:48:38] Speaker C: The gentleman from Apologetics Canada who was interviewing me, Steve Kim, he asked for a show of hands in the room. There were maybe, I don't know, 40 people, 50 people.
[00:48:50] Speaker C: Who has a child, family member, loved one who is experimenting, experimenting with psychedelics. And I'd say at least half of the room hands went up, which is just heartbreaking to me. And I had several parents come up to me afterwards to ask for my advice.
And.
[00:49:10] Speaker C: It'S so difficult for me to say. I look back and wonder what would have gotten through to me at that point. I think just.
[00:49:23] Speaker C: If I had had someone who was able to start really poking holes in my ideology, I think that would have been helpful. So I would say to, you know, pastors, lay people, if you have someone that you love or someone that comes to you.
Since then, you know, or since I really, since I was on Unbelievable and published my book, I've had a number of people. I have, I say more often I have people come to me and say, I have a similar story, you know, thank you for writing this book. I. I was heavy into psychedelics, but became a Christian. But I've also had some people come to me defending their use of psychedelics, even some people who say that they're Christians.
And I try to just ask, you know, like, why.
I guess, like, why do you find God's ordinary means of grace insufficient?
Like, why are you continuing to take these drugs? What are they doing for you?
[00:50:22] Speaker A: Great question. That's a great way to put it.
[00:50:25] Speaker C: Try to tell people, like, sometimes people are very confident that, well, you know, they're not affecting me, like, I can handle it. You know, they. They haven't changed my beliefs, they've just brought me closer to God, or they just help me to process my thoughts or help me to process my trauma. They help. And I think I try to say in those cases, like, I feel like you are underestimating the power of psychedelics and the entities that operates can operate through them. And I think you're overestimating your ability to withstand that power.
[00:51:05] Speaker C: Yeah. And so that's one. I was also, I was also. Sorry, I was also going to comment too.
So Aubrey Marcus, that influencer that I mentioned who had interviewed Aaron Rodgers, was very popular.
[00:51:18] Speaker C: Maybe six months to a year ago, he came out to say that he was in a polyamorous relationship and he had his wife and his mistress, although he doesn't. I don't know what he calls them. And just his wife is just gorgeous. You know, I don't even know.
But.
And, and then he talked about this experience. He had this experience in the Temple of Isis. You know, they were touring the Temple of Isis, and he had this experience of Isis speaking to him and telling him he should impregnate both of these women, he should have children with both of these women. And I just. I didn't even watch the entire podcast. It was just too painful. And a few times his wife cried, and you could see she was straining to be like, you know, I'm trying to be open to this and get past my hangups and get past, you know, there's all this new age language about, you know, I can't remember, you know, just all that new age language about that that twists things around and that, that makes things, you know, that.
[00:52:22] Speaker C: That makes, like, kind of weaponizes her resistance to. Her very natural resistance to this against her.
And, And I remember looking at social media and, like, YouTube and there were tons of people who are like, you know, Aubrey, I've followed you for a long time.
And I. This is messed up. You know, I don't agree with this. So that was kind of. It was just a tragic thing to watch, but it was encouraging to me. Like I said, I think this general trend. I think we're on the downside of the trajectory with psychedelics.
[00:52:54] Speaker A: Talk to us about the entities. But I'm also curious why.
[00:52:59] Speaker A: You'Re hopeful as seeing a shift on the downward. What has perhaps contributed to that downward?
[00:53:07] Speaker C: I. I mean, I think.
I think it's inevitable because psychedelics cannot deliver on the promises they seem to make. In the beginning, like, I remember just feeling like this new universe had opened up to me and that I was going to reach this. Attain this new state of being.
[00:53:28] Speaker C: That I was going to become enlightened, you know, that I was going to have all this knowledge, that I was going to keep having these experiences, static, beautiful experiences, and that I was going to, you know, like, I can't. I don't even know what I thought. I just thought things were going to keep getting better and better and better in some sense. And so I think with. With almost everyone who takes psychedelics, there is a trajectory. There is, you know, that upward trajectory of, like, this is amazing. The world is opening up to me. I'm experiencing things I've never experienced before.
I'm having these revelations, these thundering revelations of what the nature of life is and what reality is. And then there's this inevitable downward trajectory of disenchantment of maybe bad trips and bad experiences and confusion and disintegration.
And so I think that just culturally, I mean, the, you know, the individual disenchantment, the cultural disenchantment, is kind of mirroring the individual enchantment that people are having. And I, I, I think it's interesting, I think psychedelics were able to.
[00:54:41] Speaker C: Have this moment, I mean, because Satan is always at work, but also because I feel like the generation that understood why psychedelics were destructive and, like, is starting to die out. You know, like Ted Wise, that man I mentioned in God's Forever Family, he.
He's passed away.
Like, a lot of these people who had that wisdom, I guess, have passed away or are elderly enough to kind of like, be out of the cultural conversation or, or it's just easy for people to say, like, okay, Boomer, you know.
[00:55:17] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:55:18] Speaker C: And, and so I think that's, that's maybe why there was able to be such a resurgence and people repeating these lies, like, oh, they were only outlawed because, you know, Richard Nixon is a jerk or whatever and cool, you know, which is not the truth at all. That's not the only reason they were outlawed, just because, you know, these squares were freaking out about it because everybody's minds are being blown open.
But, yeah, I think there was just a number of factors that went into psychedelics having another moment. And like I said, I think now. And I. It's interesting, too, if I might mention there was this book, and you all might have heard of it, called the Immortality Key that came out within the past few years by Brian Murarescu, and it just repeated all these. I mean, I'd heard this before 15, 20 years ago when I got into psychedelics, that all of.
All of the world religions actually had their origins, and specifically Christianity had its origins in psychedelics.
Like, you know, I remember there's this book back in the day about how Jesus was actually a mushroom. He wasn't.
He was actually a mushroom. And that's the reason that.
And so just this ridiculous premises, you know. And Brian Mira Rescue wrote a new book about this. He claimed that he had never done psychedelics, which I don't believe, but he's a lawyer, and so, you know, very smooth talker, very convincing. He went on the Joe Rogan Show. Joe Rogan was big on that book.
And one of my friends, who, Joe Welker, who, he's a reverend now, and it's interesting, when he first got in touch with me after I was on Unbelievable, he was still very much a psychedelics advocate and felt that he was at Harvard Divinity School, felt that there was a way to integrate psychedelics and Christianity. And he has since totally reversed course and. And was actually a whistleblower on the Johns Hopkins clergy study. So.
[00:57:09] Speaker C: Yeah, if anyone wants to look up his work, he does a lot of great work. But he. He sent me this article just recently where I think it was published by Symposia, which is.
It's a long story. They're kind of a weird group. They, like, kind of advocate for psychedelics, but they're against corporate psychedelics. But anyway, they.
[00:57:30] Speaker C: Talk. They tried to get in touch with Brian Mary Rescu for this interview, and he said, like, you know, I'm done with this. I just want to be left alone. Like, I don't have anything to say. So that was really interesting. I was like, okay. So, yeah, I mean, he was like the podcast guest of the moment two or three years ago, and now apparently, I don't know if he's reverse course and is disavowing all that or he just. He's sick of it. He doesn't want anything to do with it. But I just thought that was really fascinating.
[00:57:56] Speaker B: Yeah, you know, it's interesting. You were saying that.
[00:58:01] Speaker B: Some of the disenchantment that people experience is that these psychedelics can never deliver on the promises that they seem to make.
And I've talked on the podcast a number of times now about how I'm seeing so many detransitioners come to Christ. Yes.
Because when they thrash up against the reality of their created beings, the immutability of what is real, you know, you really are just running up against what is. And you can throw anything that you want to at it, but ultimately it will win.
[00:58:34] Speaker B: I think about Paul saying in Romans 1, starting in verse 19, for what can be known about God is plain to them because God has shown it to them. For his invisible attributes, namely his eternal power and defined nature, have been clearly perceived ever since the creation of the world in the things that have been made. So they are without excuse.
[00:58:56] Speaker C: Yes.
[00:58:57] Speaker B: So in other words.
[00:58:59] Speaker B: All of creation, the reality of us being us, who we were created to be, anything that promises to thwart that will let us down. And I guess the beauty and the hope, and I think we can close it out here, Ashley.
[00:59:17] Speaker B: The beauty and the hope that we have in that is that God will come, take all things and use them for the good of those who love him according to his purpose. And so even the darkness, even the futility of pressing up against reality and trying to fight it, even that then can lead us to the Creator who is also our redeemer.
So.
[00:59:44] Speaker B: I want to thank you, Ashley, Ashley, so much for coming on the show today. I hope that our listeners, we can put a link to your book in the show notes and I hope that people will go, especially people who have been trained as our listeners have, in these ideas of oneism and two ism. I think that.
[01:00:05] Speaker B: You know, as they read your book, they will see such a beautiful display of the power of the gospel to overcome all of these one of slides, things that you pursued for so long. And I just, I thank God that you're my sister in Christ.
[01:00:22] Speaker B: The way that we have. Is there anything else you want to share? Like where can people find you? Is there anything that you want to send people to besides your book so that they can follow your work and the things you write?
[01:00:37] Speaker C: Well, I do have a website, it's just ashleylandy.com and then I am on Twitter, slash X and I am on Facebook and Instagram, but I just use those mainly for pictures of my children, baby pictures. Now I have a baby and a toddler.
[01:00:56] Speaker C: So my website, it's, it's. It's suffering from not being updated in a long time because I have a baby and a toddler.
[01:01:03] Speaker B: Yeah.
[01:01:04] Speaker C: But yeah, you can find some of my old writing there and.
Yeah, I guess that's it.
[01:01:11] Speaker B: All right. Well, I'd love to talk to you again at some point about your experiences in the natural birth movement too.
Yeah, I have one hospital born son who's now 6 foot 4 and home from college.
And then I have a daughter that I birthed at home. But I just. There was so much in that and there was so much that I encountered in that movement that I think would be really interesting for our audience as well. But that'd be interesting.
[01:01:37] Speaker C: Yeah, that would be. You know, I kind of flip flopped again and I had a home birth again, my most recent birth. And I actually had a really good experience, I think because I was not expecting it to be this blissful thing, you know, like I was with the suffering. I was acquainted with the intensity.
And I think it was, I mean, it was an intensely painful experience, but it was a redeeming experience because I didn't have those expectations that I wrote about in the book where I was just gonna cruise through oming the whole time.
Yeah.
[01:02:10] Speaker B: Oh, no, I. Well. And Joshua, what were you gonna say?
[01:02:13] Speaker A: Oh, I was just gonna say Mary's. That would be a fun episode. Mary's delivered two of my. Of my children or help with that, so.
[01:02:20] Speaker C: Oh, really?
[01:02:21] Speaker B: Lael delivered them, but I was there to be squeezed. No, I did have. I did have the privilege of being present for two of Joshua's kids.
[01:02:33] Speaker C: Oh, that's amazing.
[01:02:35] Speaker B: It was. It was miraculous. But, yeah, just this whole idea of, like, pain being a defeat, something that you shouldn't have let in. Like, there's. There's so much that you encounter there. And yet, especially in the birth that I had at home because I wasn't, like, high on all the drugs that they had given me in the hospital. And I'm thankful for them. I'm thankful for interventions, but I learned about how I had been made to do this thing. So as painful as it was, there was so much that I learned in that, too. So I'd love it if we could get you back on at a less busy time of year.
[01:03:10] Speaker B: But thank you so much for making the time to come on in such a busy season. Ashley, it's just been wonderful to have you on. And to all of our listeners, thank you so much for joining us for another episode of the Truth Exchange Podcast. As always, you can find new articles and old but still even more relevant content that we're reposting constantly on the website. So you can go to truthexchange.com please do do us a favor liking the podcast, subscribing to the podcast, and most especially leaving a substantive comment or question about the podcast that really helps us with the algorithm. And we could not be here, we could not be doing this podcast and the other important work that we're doing without help from all of you. So thank you so much. We love you and pray God's blessings over you until next week. And this is the end of the Truth Exchange podcast. Thank you.
