Friedrich Nietzsche and the Death of God

For the longest time, I misunderstood philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche’s proclamation, “God is dead. God remains dead. And we have killed him.” Because I was swimming in Christian circles, I learned that Nietzsche was just an arrogant atheist who thought religion was stupid. That’s a little bit right, to be fair. But it’s not the main point of Nietzsche’s analysis.

Nietzsche was born at the end of the Enlightenment, which came on the heels of the Scientific Revolution. This is from Google Gemini:

The Scientific Revolution was a period of drastic change in scientific thought and understanding that took place in Europe during the 16th and 17th centuries. It marked a fundamental shift from relying on ancient Greek and Roman traditions toward a worldview based on empirical observation, mathematical modeling, and the scientific method.

And here is a summation of the Enlightenment from Google Gemini:

The Enlightenment, also known as the Age of Reason, was an intellectual and cultural movement that flourished in Europe and the Americas during the late 17th and 18th centuries. It was defined by an emphasis on reason, science, and skepticism over tradition, superstition, and religious dogma.

The authority of the Bible and Christianity had been dramatically weakened.

Nietzsche writes the “Parable of the Madman” in 1882, in which the madmen says these famous lines: “God is dead. God remains dead. And we have killed him.” We killed God through our search for knowledge, truth, and goodness, desires which were ironically kindled in us by Christianity. But our search for truth was not confirming the worldview of the Bible, but undermining it. This problem has only deepened.

Though Nietzsche celebrated our liberation from Christianity, in the Parable of the Madman, Nietzsche is warning intellectuals that the death of God will be highly disruptive. The madman appears in the market and pretends to be looking for God. He is mocked by those who have understand and appreciate the insights of the Enlightenment.

Have you not heard of that madman who lit a lantern in the bright morning hours, ran to the market place, and cried incessantly: “I seek God! I seek God!”—As many of those who did not believe in God were standing around just then, he provoked much laughter. “Has he got lost?” asked one. “Did he lose his way like a child?” asked another. “Or is he hiding? Is he afraid of us? Has he gone on a voyage? emigrated?”—Thus they yelled and laughed

The madman is speaking to intellectuals who have learned the insights of the last few hundred years and understand that the God of Christianity is false. Nietzsche also believes this, but he worries that others are underestimating the magnitude of the loss of religion. How will people cope?

“Is not the greatness of this deed too great for us? Must we ourselves not become gods simply to appear worthy of it? There has never been a greater deed; and whoever is born after us—for the sake of this deed he will belong to a higher history than all history hitherto.”

For so many people, everything rests on the truth of Christian belief, including much of the morality upon which societies function. This was still the case when Nietzsche was writing. Since then, Christianity has lost many of its adherents and much of its social capital in Europe. In the United States, we are decades behind.

The Death of God arrives in the USA

Near the end of the Parable of the Madmen, the madmen says this to those who mock religious belief.

“I have come too early,” he said then; “my time is not yet. This tremendous event is still on its way, still wandering; it has not yet reached the ears of men. Lightning and thunder require time; the light of the stars requires time; deeds, though done, still require time to be seen and heard. This deed is still more distant from them than most distant stars—and yet they have done it themselves.”

Nietzsche writes this in 1882; he had indeed “come too early.” But the death of God did indeed come to Europe, and has now come to the USA.

In 2000, 8% of U.S. adults identified as Nones (No religion). In 2025, Gallup puts the percentage of Nones at 24%. Ryan Burge, who studies religious trends in the U.S. puts the number of Nones at about 32%.

As you can see, the share of Nones appears to have leveled off over the last five years. But here’s the thing, The Silent Generation and the Boomers are the most religious generations. In the next 25 years, those in the Silent Generation will be gone and the number of Boomers will be cut in half.

The generations behind the Boomers (X, Millennial, and Z) are neither big enough nor devout enough to make up for the loss of the Boomers.

Ryan Burge, professor of practice at the Danforth Center on Religion and Politics at Washington University, sums up the next few decades in this way.

So here’s where we land. In the next twenty years, a very large and reasonably devout generation will die. Behind them are generations that are smaller and considerably less religious. The pews will empty. The offering plates will get lighter. Short of genuine religious revival at a scale this country has never seen, this is a statistical inevitability — and the data has been telling us so for years.

We have some tough decades ahead of us.

Tim J. Dillon (born January 22, 1985) is a prominent American stand-up comedian and podcaster known for his satirical commentary on current events, American culture, and politics. He is best known for hosting The Tim Dillon Show, which features his observational humor and "apocalyptic visions" from his porch in Los Angeles.

Dillon definitely leaned conservative during the 2024 election. He has become more critical as of late, including of Israel. I’m positive that he has a lot of bad takes. He loves to push the envelope. It’s a part of his act.

But he is influential enough, and this is honest enough, that I wanted you to see it. It is NSFW.

The question of how all of this—the suffering and the joy, the beautiful and the tragic—belonged was not posed. Why is reality this way and not another? In my journey, that question was no where to be found.

I was lying down in this dark jungle now. There was music. It was rhythmic, ceremonial, full of drums and chanting. The women took a basin and filled it with water from the river. They brought the bowl over to me and began to pour it in my mouth. It was too much, way too much. It overwhelmed me. It just kept coming. I was drowning in it. I felt myself fill up, starting at my toes and reaching up to my neck. And then I was released into a new scene.

I had posed this question for my journey: How can I hold anger and compassion together? Is there a source of strength and support within me or outside of me, like ancestors, that I can call upon?

In another scene, later in the journey, I felt compelled to take off my sleep mask. I was lying on a mattress next to a dark brown leather couch in my basement. I stared at the leather couch, and as I did the faces of suffering indigenous women appeared in the lines and creases of that couch. Maybe you can imagine it.

This was the most profound experience of my journey. It was deeply painful. Tears streamed as I looked at the faces of these women. At one point, men with weapons began to appear. It scared me, and I said so, out loud. My guide, Chris, put his hand on my back. It helped. The men disappeared. But the faces of women continued. I watched, and as I did, it was as though the suffering of the ages was being imprinted on my soul. It felt like trying to look at the whole universe.

I’ve spent me life trying to understand reality, even ultimate reality (God, Source, the Universe). I pursued advanced degrees, culminating in a PhD in Old Testament. What was I seeking? Sure, I wanted a career. I wanted financial security and maybe even some societal respect. But deep down, what I wanted most was to know, to understand, to have certainty.

But all of my education did not bring me closer to certainty. What I didn’t realize in 2012, as I finished my dissertation, was that I wasn’t interested in “biblical truth,” not ultimately. Because if “biblical truth” and reality were in contradiction, I was going to choose reality. And I knew, as I finished my PhD, that the Bible, Christian doctrine, Christian tradition, were in contradiction with reality. I knew it, but I was afraid.

My journey made me wonder about a divine presence whose greatest ability is to allow for reality to unfold, to hold all the tension, the pain, the suffering, the joy, the love, all of it.

Power, control, dominance, these things do not impress me. They scare me, but they do not impress me.

It takes no strength, no wisdom, no decency or integrity to exert power, to dominate. It only requires the inability to sit with hard emotions, hard truths.

Surely the source of everything is not so pathetic.

This is from Wikipedia. It’s a great summation of El and El’s absorption into Israelite religion.

El is often described as the father of the gods and the creator of humanity. El had many epithets, including ‘Bull El,’ ‘El the King,’ and ‘Father of Mankind,’ reflecting his authority, wisdom, and paternal role. Over time, in Israelite religion, Yahweh absorbed many of El’s characteristics, gradually merging their identities through a process scholars such as Francesca Stavrakopoulou call ‘pantheon reduction.’

Baal and Asherah were also a part of Israelite religion until at least 620 BCE when Josiah, kind of Judah, centralized all worship in Jerusalem and cleared the temple in Jerusalem of “idols” (2 Kings 23). Archeological evidence confirms that the worship of Asherah and Baal was standard practice for hundreds of years after Israel

Baal was mainly a storm deity in the Canaanite pantheon, and is depicted as a divine warrior who defeats the Yam, the chaotic God of the sea. Yahweh is often depicted in similar terms in the Old Testament (Gen 1, Psalm 74, Job 26, others). There is even a showdown between these two storm Gods. In 1 Kings 18, Elijah and the prophets of Baal both call upon their God to send down fire (lightning) to consume their sacrificial offerings. Yahweh wins this battle, but worship of Baal and Asherah continues for at least another 200 years.

Asherah was a mother goddess who was associated with fertility and was considered El’s wife. Archaeological evidence from approximately 800 BCE demonstrates that Asherah eventually came to be known as the wife of Yahweh. Inscriptions found at Kuntillet Ajrud and Khirbet el-Qom in the 8th century B.C.E. mention “Yahweh and his Asherah.”

At an archaeological site in southern Israel called Arad, where the southern kingdom of Judah had a fort from sometime in the 10th century BCE until the Babylonian conquest of Judah in 586 BCE. This fort had a tiny temple within it, including an altar for animal sacrifice and a holy of holies. Outside the holy of holies there were two incense altars, and inside the holy of holies there were two standing stones, one larger than the other. These two incense altars and standing stones almost certainly represents Yahweh (no one doubts this) and his wife, Asherah.

To the reader of the Old Testament, all of this idolatry is puzzling. But to scholars of the Old Testament and the archaeology of ancient Israel, the story is fairly straightforward. Disgruntled Canaanites left the Canaanite city-states and started new communities in what is now know as the West Bank. Yes, the earliest Israelites were Canaanites who settled in the hill country of the West Bank.

We know this from archaeology. The story of the birth of the kingdoms of Israel and Judah is not one of conquest. Joshua did not fight the battle of Jericho. There was no conquest of Canaan. There was no exodus from Egypt. Those stories are myths.

Instead, some Canaanites left the city-states of Canaan around 1200 BCE, and went into the hill country to start something new, something more egalitarian. Naturally, they took their Gods (El, Baal, Asherah) with them, as well as their material culture.

These ancient settlements began in the late Bronze age (1300s BCE) and continued into Iron age I (1200-1000 bce). Estimates of the growth of these settlements is as follows: 12,000 people in the 13^th century BCE, to 55,000 by the 12^th century BCE, and 75,000 by the 11^th c. BCE.

At some point (when and how, we do not fully know), a new God was conceived, Yahweh. But the old Gods, the Gods these Canaanites had know for centuries, remained. They remained a part of Israelite worship for at least 600 years.

In the late 600s and 500s BCE, the Canaanite Gods began to disappear from Israelite religion. By the 400s BCE, only Yahweh remains, at least officially. This is known as pantheon reduction, as cited in the quote above. Aspects of El, Baal, and even Asherah, are attributed to Yahweh, and Yahweh is declared to be the only God that exists. Think of Deuteronomy 6 (Yahweh is your God, Yahweh is one), which might stem from Josiah’s reform in 620 BCE.

Once we get to Jesus in the first century CE, these developments are complete and largely forgotten. Jesus believed that the stories of exodus and conquest and idolatry were real. He, like every other Jewish person in the first century, had no way of knowing that the God of Israel was created and shaped by Canaanite religion. When the gospel writers narrate Jesus calming a storm as he does in Mark 4 (and Matthew 8 and Luke 8), they are alluding to Yahweh’s reputation as a God who controls storms. Jesus is like Yahweh.

But of course, Old Testament scholars know that Yahweh adopted these powers from Baal. Baal wasn’t rejected, not entirely. Rather, his powers became Yahweh’s powers. So when Jesus calms the storm, he is reminding us that Israelite religion is Canaanite religion repackaged. Jesus is Yahweh, and Yahweh is Baal and El and Asherah, all wrapped into one deity.

But now it’s 2026 CE. What are we to do with all of this? We know that Baal is not real. El is not real. Asherah is not real. And yes, we know that Yahweh is not real.

And this is good news, because these Gods are unworthy of our consideration. Yahweh is a cruel, capricious, and abusive God, a mass murderer many times over according to the Old Testament. I see no reason for caveats. And I will not spend another second trying to make Yahweh seem good or kind or loving. As the modern state of Israel is currently showing us, Yahweh has no problem with genocide, as long as those carrying it out are his people.

We can do so much better than the Gods we have created. Once you realize this, and every single day a new person realizes this, there is no going back to these religions. They’re too small, too petty, too cruel.

Images from the Hubble telescope and the James Webb telescope show us that there are somewhere between 6 and 20 trillion galaxies in the universe. It’s incomprehensible, incredible, wondrous.

Can we take this in, the enormity of it, and allow it to shape our vision of what the source of all of it might be? If we start from reality, admitting that universe is vast and largely unknown to us, that it is approximately 13.8 billion years old, what kind of God does that imply?

We can wonder about a God that allowed life to emerge on earth over billions of years. Imagine the patience, the ability to hold it all without making it what you want it to be, the strength inherent in letting life unfold at its own pace, in its own way.

Side note: Maybe the story of Adam and Eve has something of use to teach us. I’m skeptical, honestly. But if we’re going to live in reality, then we have to admit that it’s a myth, just like all of Genesis 1-11, and probably the rest of Genesis (and Exodus and Leviticus and Numbers and Deuteronomy and Joshua and Judges and Ruth and more) as well.

If our view of ultimate reality, of the source of everything, has nothing to say about a vast and ancient universe, about a timeline that includes the expansion of the universe, gravity, black holes, dinosaurs, evolution, Homo Erectus, Neanderthals, ice ages, it’s not worthy of consideration.

In the face of this, the biggest religion in the world, Christianity, tells me that the source of all this (at least 6 trillion galaxies) cares what I believe about a first century Jewish man’s life and death. Or worse, the source of 6 trillion galaxies needed this particular Jewish man to die a torturous death in order to accept me, love me. Or worse, the source of 6 trillion galaxies has always hated me, and you, and all of us, and we actually deserve to be hated. Or worse, the source of 6 trillion galaxies has a special place of torture waiting just for me, for you, for anyone who doesn’t believe specific things about a first century Jewish man.

To imagine that the God of 6 trillion galaxies has the patience and compassion of the worst person that you know is absurd, insulting really.

Again, this is good news. A more beautiful vision of ultimate reality, of God, awaits.

Here are a few illustrations that are referenced in this episode.

We are not well, folks. Nate and I will share more on this tomorrow night.

Psychedelics in the news

In March we covered the science and therapeutic potential of psychedelics. This past Sunday, The Daily podcast from the New York Times featured an interview with one of their own reporters. Political reporter Robert Draper details his experience traveling to Mexico to a retreat center where they administer the powerful psychedelic ibogaine. Draper had a brother with serious mental health issues who terrorized him as a child and who later died tragically. Draper was haunted by this for many years and couldn’t find relief. He tells the story of his ibogaine journey for The Daily. Check it out here.

Cuba is next

In my last post, I included a clip from M Gessen, who explained how the next phase in Trump’s authoritarian takeover would be foreign wars, a new American imperialism. Currently, the target is Iran, but I suggested that Cuba was next. Well, we are starting to get reporting that Trump has ordered the military to begin preparations for an operation in Cuba.

Zeteo

First Draft: 🇨🇺 Is Cuba Next?

On this day in 1865, Abraham Lincoln was shot dead by John Wilkes Booth at Ford’s Theatre in Washington, DC. Three more presidents – James A Garfield, William McKinley, and John F Kennedy – have been assassinated. Donald Trump is one of 13 presidents who have survived assassination attempts…

Read more

17 days ago · 192 likes · 8 comments · Asawin Suebsaeng and Andrew Perez

Zeteo is an independent journalistic enterprise founded by Mehdi Hasan, whom I trust and admire.

In recent days, according to two sources familiar with the situation and another person briefed on it, officials at the Pentagon and elsewhere in the US government were quietly given a new directive that came straight from the Trump White House. The message: ramp up your preparations for possible military operations against Cuba.

It appears that Trump has not made a final decision yet on military action, and negotiations to end Trump’s “economic bombing” of the island’s civilian population are ongoing. If Trump doesn’t get what he wants, Zeteo is told that one option that has been discussed within the Trump administration is for the US military to conduct another abduction operation against some of the Cuban leadership, similar to its kidnapping of Nicolás Maduro in Venezuela early this year.

Iran and Islam (and USA and Christianity)

I listened to really helpful podcast episode from On Point with Meghna Chakrabarti. It was about the Iranian revolution of 1979, which led to the Islamic theocracy that runs Iran to this day. It was these lines, which are part of a 3-minute section that I’ve included below, that caught my attention.

And then, after 79, it becomes a theocracy where Shia Islam is supposed to be the source of everything you do. And what has happened 47 years later is they’ve turned people off.

Again, I find it so ironic that today, Iran is by most accounts the most secular country in the Islamic world.

The only theocracy now sits on top of the most secular population. And the regime is happy that they can go to places like West Africa, convert a few people who happen to be, I don’t know, Sunni Muslim Nigerians, convert them to Shia Islam, and declare that as a major victory when they’re losing literally millions of people who were supposed to be a Shia Muslim but have abandoned their faith.

First of all, I did not know that millions of Iranians had abandoned their Muslim faith. Second of all, as I listened to the full clip, I realized that this is similar to what is happening to Christianity in the United States. Millions of Christians in the United States are abandoning the faith because of its cultural and political witness (in part). People see how abusive and cruel it is, and they want nothing to do with it. Here is the full clip.

Israel’s commitment to destruction and death

Lastly, Ezra Klein devoted his last episode to Iran, and the experts he had on the show agreed that Israel would be content to destroy Iran, its institutions and infrastructure, so completely that it became a failed state. Here’s the clip.

At the end of our February 5 gathering with Sarah Leach, I played a clip from the Ezra Klein show. The guest was M. Gessen, a Russian American journalist. Gessen was a journalist in Russia during the rise of Vladimir Putin. Eventually, he was forced to flee. Gessen now works for the New York Times, and he appeared on the Ezra Klein show on January 10, 2026, almost three months ago. He explains the totalitarian bargain. It’s very prescient.

I have no idea what will happen next in Iran. Because no one knows. It’s madness.

Cuba is next, probably in the summer. Trump mentioned Greenland again as he complained about NATO on his personal social media site.

On Israeli Society

It’s hard to overstate the moral decay of Israeli Jewish society. It’s disturbing. According to Israeli (and Iranian) journalist Orly Noy, Israel is “a genocidal state”in need of “denazification.” It’s an awful thing to have to write, but we must speak honestly now. I am grateful for Noy’s courage and clarity. And it’s not just “this extreme right wing government” or Netanyahu. Netanyahu and his government are a good representation of Israeli Jewish society. Jewish Israelis have completely lost their way.

Israel is an apartheid state that is murdering, torturing, terrorizing, and expelling Palestinians in Gaza and the West Bank as I write. This is from the United Nations press release about its March report on Israel’s use of torture.

Israel’s systematic torture of Palestinians, long shielded by decades of impunity and political cover, has become a defining instrument of ongoing genocide in the occupied Palestinian territory, a UN expert warned today.

“Since the onset of the genocide, the Israeli prison system has degenerated into a laboratory of calculated cruelty,” said Francesca Albanese, the UN Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights in the Palestinian territory occupied since 1967, in her new report to the UN Human Rights Council.

“What once operated in the shadows is now practiced openly: a regime of organised humiliation, pain and degradation, sanctioned at the highest political levels.”

And that’s not the worst thing that Israel is currently doing in the world.

Since March 2nd, Israel has killed almost 1,800 people in Lebanon, and injured nearly 6,000. Israel has forcibly displaced over 1 million Lebanese people (20% of the entire population of Lebanon) and now occupies 14% of Lebanon.

The Israeli military released the following video, showing their demolition of whole communities in southern Lebanon.

Today, April 8, the first day of the supposed ceasefire, Israel bombed Lebanon relentlessly, killing at least 254 and wounding 1,165.

On the U.S.A and Israel

The two most destructive and dangerous countries in the world are Israel and the United States. They both have democratically-elected leaders who are carrying out the will of their religiously-devoted voters.

Iran is run by Muslim fascists who killed tens of thousands of their own citizens a few months ago.

These words from James Baldwin come to mind: “If the concept of God has any validity or any use, it can only be to make us larger, freer, and more loving. If God cannot do this, then it is time we got rid of Him.”

My apologies for all of the changes to April’s gathering. Nate DeWard was always supposed to be our guest. A few weeks ago, it looked like he had a scheduling conflict. Then, for a variety of reasons, that conflict disappeared. So we are back to our regularly scheduled programming, which focuses on Nate’s work with those in our system of incarceration.

During Nate’s tenure at Reach the Forgotten, they have begun to focus on identifying and healing trauma, which is so common amongst those who end up in our justice and incarceration system.

More broadly, Nate and I will discuss our country’s focus on punishment/law and order/elimination. Domestically and internationally, the United States often uses violence or threats of violence to control people.

Not all countries treat criminals in this way. Norway has an approach that focuses on rehabilitation.

But I don’t believe that anymore. I don’t have big hope. That hope appears to be an illusion, wish-casting, cope. I understand the desire to say that it’s all going to be ok. I get it. I feel it. But I’m trying to live in reality now. In reality, anything can happen.

Small hope, on the other hand, is everywhere. I experience it daily. I look for it. I notice it. I note it. I receive it. I try to give it.

My daughter, Luciana, is 13. She’s been playing piano for about five years. Over the last year, it all started to click for her. It started with Rihanna’s “Stay.” She learned it in a few days. There is nothing quite like listening to your child play and sing a beautiful song.

Luci sang in the spring recital last year. I shared it here. It was a beautiful moment. This year, she wanted to play piano and sing. She chose the song “All I Want” from High School Musical: The Musical: The Series. It’s a powerful song.

Luci sat down at the keyboard. My heart was pounding. Something was wrong. The keyboard wasn’t working. For what seemed like an eternity, they looked at cords and buttons. My heart raced. That’s a lot of anxiety for a 13-year-old to hold.

But people cheered and encouraged her. The audience, a collection of middle school parents and loved ones, wanted her to succeed. The room was electric with anticipation. And finally, it was all ready (kind of).

I was sitting with my family. Luci’s mom’s family was right behind us. I won’t tell how it went. You can listen for yourself. As I listened to the recording that I took, I was moved by Luci’s performance, of course, but I was equally moved by all the ways that I could hear people offer support and love.

There’s a line in the song that I can’t stop thinking about as I embrace small hope, and leave behind big hope.

“But shouldn't that be enough for me?”

Here’s Luci’s performance.

Lyrics

I found a guy, told me I was a star
He held the door held my hand in the dark
And he’s perfect on paper but he’s lying to my face
Does he think that I’m the kinda girl who needs to be saved?

And there’s one more boy, he’s from my past
We fell in love but it didn’t last
‘Cause the second I figure it out he pushes me away
And I won’t fight for love if you won’t meet me halfway
And I say that I’m through but this song’s still for you

All I want is love that lasts
Is all I want too much to ask?
Is it something wrong with me?
All I want is a good guy
Are my expectations far too high?
Try my best but what can I say
All I have is myself at the end of the day
But shouldn’t that be enough for me?
Ooh ooh ooh ooh, ooh ooh

And I miss the days
When I was young and naive
I thought the perfect guy would come and find me
Now happy ever after it don’t come so easily

All I want is love that lasts
Is all I want too much to ask?
Is it something wrong with me? Oh
All I want is a good guy
Are my expectations far too high?
Try my best but what can I say
All I have is myself at the end of the day
And all I want is for that to be okay

We are trying something new at Still Processing. For our next gathering, I’ll be getting the questions, which will come from all of you!

Many podcasts do this once a year, and I typically find these episodes surprisingly helpful.

So please send me your questions. You can comment on this post with your questions. You can send them directly to me, or to Meagan MacCready at the following email addresses: joshuamvis@gmail.com or meagan.maas0019@gmail.com

Please take a few minutes (or hours or days) and send me your questions! I’m anxious to see what’s on your mind!

At this gathering, we focused on the experience of a psychedelic journey. We reviewed the neuroscience of psychedelics and then focused on the experience of a psychedelic journey. Before the journey: mindset/intentions, setting/location, breath work, diet, etc. During the journey: trust, be open, let go. After the journey: integration through meditation, conversation, writing, therapy.

I’m including the four videos I used during the gathering below, in case you want to watch them at some point.

Chris and I are excited to continue our conversation on the reemergence and the potential of psychedelics for healing and expansion of consciousness. Tonight we will concentrate on the components of a psychedelic journey: assessment, preparation, facilitation, integration, and micro-dosing.

My journey changed me. It moved me. It challenged me. It humbled me, quieted me. Not a cruel way, but in a caring one.

And as I’ve been meditating on it, integrating the felt sense of peace and depth that the journey gave me, sometimes my mind will remember something I’ve seen or heard. Here is one such clip of Ezra Klein and Ta-Nehisi Coates.

This interview happened in September of last year, shortly after the death of Charlie Kirk. And I recognized then that Coates had something, knew something, felt something, that I didn’t. Coates talks about a heritage, an ancestry, that gives him peace. It grounds him. I wanted that.

My journey gave me a glimpse of that feeling, that felt sense. I’ll share more tonight.

You can listen to my first conversation on psychedelics with Chris Teague here.

On Being with Krista Tippett dropped a new episode recently and it was all about psychedelics. Gül Dölen, neuroscience professor at U.C. Berkeley and Johns Hopkins, is featured. You can find it here.

Next week Thursday, Chris and I will be focusing on the experience of a psychedelic journey. We’ll review the neuroscience of psychedelics and then focus on the experience of a psychedelic journey. Before the journey: mindset/intentions, setting/location, breath work, diet, etc. During the journey: trust, be open, let go. After the journey: integration through meditation, conversation, writing, therapy.

Chris and I also have some personal experiences with psychedelics that we are excited to share. There is a lot to be hopeful about in the realm of psychedelics.

Here is a taste of my one and only full psychedelic journey.

I had my first psilocybin (magic mushrooms) journey about a month ago. My first memory of this journey, which lasted about four hours, was the fierce and safe presence of indigenous women. My intention for this experience, the question I posed was the following: How do I hold anger and compassion together? Is there anything out there or in me that I can call upon for strength? In this journey, anonymous indigenous women were the holders of strength and wisdom. They were more presence or energy than image, meaning I felt them much more than I saw them. I don’t know why my journey was overseen by these indigenous wisdom. Admittedly, my disdain for patriarchy probably has something to do with it. Incidentally, if you were to ask me if I think that these indigenous women exist, I wouldn’t know what to say. And alas, this was part of the lesson.

For four hours, I was mostly quiet. I was in my basement, lying on a mattress with a face mask on, at least most of the time. I cried a lot, but not in the way you might think. I wasn’t sobbing. It was more like the tears that flow when you are stunned by beauty or by loss, the ones that stream with great ease. It’s like they took my pain, my anger, my suffering and moved it from my chest and into my heart. And as they did so, I melted.

I mean that as literally as I can because in a variety of ways, my guides invited me and at times forced me to dissolve. It was scary; but, also, it wasn’t. Because it felt good to let go and to melt into whatever was around me. Except when I was forced to melt in with some loved ones (don’t remember who, exactly) and also Jeffrey Epstein (now you understand why I don’t remember who else I melted into)!

At one point I recall saying to my guide, Chris, “I’m having trouble letting go of Luci.” Luci is my youngest daughter. I can’t picture the scene that must have been before me. I only have the memory of saying this, and the feeling of holding onto her, not wanting to let her go, fearing that she won’t be ok. It’s the feeling of knowing with great certainty that we cannot protect the ones we love. The world is not a place of certainty. It never has been and it never will be. Suffering is destiny. The weight of feeling the weight of that truth is overwhelming. It feels like you cannot survive it. But then you let go. And you melt. And you’re ok.

On one level, I cannot stop mining these experiences for meaning. On another level, the meaning was in the experience, what the experience did to me. So the indigenous women are real because they gave me an experience that changed me. They changed me through intense feelings and profound emotional reflection. And it has me thinking that the deepest wisdom is felt.

I’ll share more next week.

Next gathering: “Psychedelics, Consciousness, and Therapy, with Chris Teague,” Thursday, March 5, 7pm, Port 393, Holland, MI

Second March gathering: “Psychedelic Experiences, with Chris Teague,” Thursday, March 19, Port 393, Holland, MI

Are you curious about consciousness, about mystical experiences, about healing? Psychedelic research and therapy touches on all of these aspects of existence and more! Chris Teague is expert in psychedelic science, research, and therapy. Chris and I will explain the history of psychedelics, the suppression of psychedelics, the current reemergence of psychedelics, and their potential.

In our second March gathering on March 19, Chris and I will describe our personal experiences with psychedelics. I had my first full psilocybin (magic mushrooms) experience two and a half weeks ago, and it was incredible, difficult, and beautiful.

Michael Pollan’s 2018 book on psychedelics was made into a documentary series and is available on Netflix. It’s called “How to Change Your Mind,” as is Pollan’s book, How to Change Your Mind: What the New Science of Psychedelics Teaches Us About Consciousness, Dying, Addiction, Depression, and Transcendence.

Here is the trailer for the documentary series.

I read the acclaimed memoir of Omar El Akkad this weekend, and it was incredible. Sahar and I will discuss this tonight. I hope to see you there.

Sahar Vardi is a voice of moral clarity and moral courage. Sahar is an anti-militarist and anti-occupation activist from Jerusalem. She is a researcher and campaigner on issues of militarism in Israel and globally, including export of Israeli militarism worldwide. Sahar was a conscientious objector from the Israeli military and served time in prison.

Here is a short clip of Sahar from my documentary, The Law and the Prophets, which you can watch in its entirety, for free, here.

Here’s something to chew on for Wednesday. It comes for Victor Ray’s book, On Critical Race Theory.

We meet again on Monday, February 23, 7pm, Port 393, Holland, MI. Sahar Vardi and I will discuss how we resist militarism in a time of hopelessness. Sahar is a badass. You shouldn’t miss this.

Vardi is an anti-militarist and anti-occupation activist from Jerusalem. She is a researcher and campaigner on issues of militarism in Israel and globally, including export of Israeli militarism worldwide. Sahar was a conscientious objector from the Israeli military and served time in prison.