Migration with James McCrae

(upbeat music)

Welcome to Synchronicity. Sorry this episode's a little bit late. It's a little tardy. I don't know why I said it like that. This week has been insane. Yes, energetically, of course, that's what I'm talking about, but also I've done, I guess at this point, it's Thursday, got another 11, so that would put me at 17 readings so far this week somewhere around there. Oh my gosh, it's been incredible. Everyone I've spoken to, you know who you are, holy shit, we're working through some stuff, aren't we? It's been a real thing. You know what's funny is I basically created a week of work for myself. It's like a 30 hour plus work week during the holidays and I forgot what working this much is like.

I don't know if you can tell, I kind of crafted a life where my work is just like I do it when I want to and then this week I have so many people sign up as crazy. Anyway, I'm very grateful. I'm very happy. You know, I, I have these special days in 2020 that are open up for these readings, but I feel, I was talking to Jessica because I hit her up. I was like, oh my God, Jessica, they just did like my first day of like six full length readings back to pack and she's like, yeah, get ready. There's going to be a lot people, a lot more people are getting like slammed down into 5D, they're dropping like flies so you're going to have you're going to be working hard. I'm like, oh no.

So yeah, that's going on. But like I said, I'm going to be doing in persons in LA and the Patreon, we're going to be doing group readings. There's going to be access for everyone. I got an angry email from someone who's like, Hey man, you've been teasing this, this Christ consciousness stuff and, you know, now you're going to only do it in the readings. I hope this isn't a sign of future things to come for the podcast like bruh, this shit is free. I give you a free podcast. I could have held all this shit behind, gated it is good. People love this shit. I could have fucking made a book. I could have fucking made a course.

I could have done all this shit and put a pee on a paywall. And I don't. So you chill fuck out, please. Jesus Christ. Ah, sorry. It's just like, and I know like, I know as my profile continues to grow, I'm trying to figure out a way that not sound like a dick when I say that, but, you know, you're going to get more people who are, you know, chafed at what you do, whatever. It's all good. How you guys doing? I know it's fucking intense. We have this eclipse last night. We have the new moon and Capricorn. We got. Oh man, it's just so much stuff, so much stuff. I'm going to do a solo episode. I'll record it this weekend. It's going to be on freedom, real freedom, because that's where that's where I've been living. My friends and this fucking great.

And I'd like you to be here with me, too. So we'll do a solo cast on that. Today, though, my guests. I didn't even mention it. Jesus Christ, mull over to the place. James McCray. Holy shit. Cool, dude. You're going to love this combo. He came over to the place I was staying at and Laurel Canyon. Guess what? I'm going to be staying there in January, too, probably February, probably March, probably all the months. Beautiful place. Definitely come by and check it out for an in person. If you're in LA, it's just a wonderful vibe. But he came by and we talked about a whole lot of shit. Drinks of mess cow, smoked some weed, or it's mess cow. My sister was like, you got to say mess cow. It's not mess cow. He sounded like a gringo. Well, I'm a gringo. So what are you going to do?

But yeah, we had a great time. Learned about his life. He is a writer. He is an author. He is a thinker. He is a feeler. We should call people feelers. You're like, what a great thinker. What a great feeler. Someone call me a great feeler. I'm a great feeler. That also sounds a little creepy. Maybe that's why people don't say it anyway. James is fucking cool. You're going to love this episode. Go tune into him. He wrote a book called Shit Your Ego Says. That's pretty good. I mean, we know my stance on the ego, but we get into that where we basically just say, all right, let's just define it more specifically.

And that discursive kind of negative self talk. You know, we can call that the ego. You know me. I don't like to talk shit about the ego. I love my ego. I pet it. I love it. I love it. I love it. But I get it, man. Sometimes your mind will tell you some thoughts and be like, bro, what you doing? What are you doing this? It doesn't make no sense. So he wrote a funny book, an insightful book about that. So go check that out. Go tune into him. He's got a podcast. He's just a fucking cool dude, man. There'll be links to everything so you can tune into James. I'm looking forward to hanging out with him when I moved to LA. They're out into Panga. I got to go to Topanga.

It's fucking beautiful. Apparently I see all the pictures. You know, I also listen to Panga, Julianna McCarthy, Julianna McCarthy. She's fucking cool. I'm going to connect with her. I'm going to connect with all my people out there. So I'm there. Okay. Anything else I need to say? Oh, let me put this out there. Froze asking about the music, the owl remix, the 12, all these songs have been dropping. 2020, guys, it's coming. All right, the music is coming. It's getting released. I need to settle. I'm in a transitional period. I basically am moving all over the place all the time now. Soon as I get like, I don't know, two weeks in one location. Guess what? Finishing up these songs. They're pretty much done putting them out. People who joined the Patreon will have early access.

I should mention the Patreon now. I haven't officially launched it like publicly. There you can sign up. Also, please do not sign up for the $1 level. That's only for people who are annual members and kick it down to the one because Patreon doesn't do annual. You have to do monthly. So if you sign up for the $1 level and weren't an annual member, I'm kicking you off that shit. Great. If you want to give me money, you're not getting access to the shit that people have paid money for. Okay. Geez, guys, come on. Work with me here. So the Patreon. Here's what it is. Should I fucking pull it up so I can talk coherently about it? Probably.

All right. There are two levels essentially, even though it looks like there are three. The two levels are the annual membership where you get a free bonus reading and the regular membership where it's $13.13 a month. Here's what you get. I don't think I've mentioned this explicitly on the podcast. If you're interested, it's patreon.com/synchronicity. I will make it easy to find, email list. I'll send an email out all that probably in early January, but I am talking about it now because I said I'd wait till the end of the year. It's the end of the year. Here's what you get. You get one monthly live group reading. Jessa is shaming me. She's giving like two a week. That's cool. Jess is fucking awesome. I'm doing one. You're going to get bonus episodes and interviews.

Think of these as like little quick hits, you know, like 10, 15, 20 minutes. Those will be nice. Sometimes I have thoughts. They're not suitable for a whole podcast. Okay. You're going to get access to the Synchronicity Discord server, which is just getting better and better every day. We got bots in there where you can pull tarot and all this other stuff. You're going to get early access to the music. This is what I was talking about. You will have a place where you can download all of the music and then before it hits the streaming sites, you will know about it. And you'll be, yo, I got this shit. I got the hot track. If you're a DJ, that's going to be a good thing for you.

Also, very important, you're going to get free entry to any Synchronicity live event. Live events are starting in 2020. They're going to be in LA and Brooklyn, but they'll probably be in some other places too. If you are a member, if you're on this list and there's an event, let's say event costs $100, you get in for free. Okay. You just, you'll probably get tokens to people or little things that, you know, they can prove it easily. But you get in for free and perpetuity as long as you're a member and those events are going to be ramping up. They're going to be global. It's fucking, it's going to be awesome.

For real. Okay. So that's what it is. And if you become an annual member, which just means you pay upfront, you also get a 33 minute one to one astrology or tarot reading. So there's limited availability on that. I think I'm only going to do like 20 a year. And I think we've already had 11. So there's nine more spots for the annual. Otherwise, you're going to sign up the other way. So that's the Patreon. It's going to be cool. It's kicking off. The first reading is December 30th. That's Monday, I believe. So stay tuned for that. So yeah, that's the Patreon. It's going to be fucking cool. I just wish they'd do annual. Like, why can't you just do fucking annual membership? You got to take a cut after every month. That's really what it is. Come on, guys.

Let's get to the episode. Rate and review this podcast. Share it with your friends. Share it with your fucking friends. What do you selfish prick? Share this shit with your friends if it's helping you. I'm giving you some crazy techniques. Also, the next episode, I've been sharing this with the Christ Consciousness readings. Oh my God, I found a technique. I found a technique. I found a technique, guys. It's real good. It was real good. So I'll be sharing that in the next episode. Don't want to take up too much more time in the beginning of this one. Go tune into James, man. Go tune into James, so I can say, good dude. Alrighty. Without further ado, here is James McCray.

Check, check. Talk into your thing. Check, check, one, two. Alright, we're good to go. Yeah, man. Thanks for coming over. Yeah. Thanks for hosting in this lovely L.A. apartment. It is. Well, I mean, it's technically a house, right? Yeah. Yeah, it's nice here. It's a really pleasant day today. It's been raining a lot. Are you already an L.A. person? I think I've always been an L.A. person. Interesting. So my parents used to live here a few years before I was born, and then they moved to D.C. So my mom could get a finisher law degree, and they had, I guess, my dad just told me this recently. They had always planned to move back here.

And so I think that's right about the time where I was conceived and incarnated, and I think I got tricked. I think I got fucking tricked. I think I thought they were coming back here. Then they stayed on the East Coast, and I'm like, "What the fuck?" You chose them as your parents under the assumption that you were going to be born and raised in California, and they duped you last minute, and then you ended up on the East Coast. That's such bullshit. How they did with some bullshit. You got scammed, man. I did. But I have found my way back here recently, and it's pretty awesome. You just moved. Right on. I'm in L.A. for almost two months now. So I'm pretty new. That's not that long at all.

No. I'm still in New York recovery mode. So I'm from a small town in Minnesota. Oh, I have a lot of Midwest vibes from people I've had on recently. Oh, yeah. Good. Shout out to the Midwest vibes. Good people. Unless you're a Minnesota sports fan, then it's a different story. But no, my whole life, Minnesota, especially in a small town, it's cold, it's stoic, it's Nordic people, it's repressed people, and it's freezing in the winter. Then in New York, which I've lived in New York for 10 years, again, it's cold. People are a little bit edgy. There's not a lot of space to move around. So these are the kind of places I'm used to being, right?

And now I'm in Topanga Canyon, which is the hippie forest enchanted very land of L.A. And there's nothing pushing back against my energy anymore, whether it's frigid cold or crowded subway. There's always something pushing back against your energy. And here, I have space to unwind. And that's a beautiful thing, but it's also just a scary thing at times as well. Why scary? Because it's so hard to let go of the things that your body has. Your body has memory of this kind of situations you're in or the tension or anxiety that is around you. So I feel like I'm still in the process of purging New York, winter, Minnesota.

I'm kind of like my body is in the process of letting these things go. It's been some kind of energetic recovery. You have like energetic PTSD that you're working through. Exactly. You need my girlfriend both. So we're both just kind of like being gentle to ourselves, letting ourselves take our time. And just kind of accepting the blessing of being in California. It's really nice here. I think what happens is there's this weird level of acceptance that people have to go through when they visit or move here or have extended stays here. Where it's like, "Whoa, everything is really nice. Is this okay?"

Seriously, I've had literally had moments here where I'm just like, just felt, just happy. What's this feeling that I feel right now? What is that? Oh, I'm relaxed. I didn't know what that feeling was and I like it. So, I mean, I know like, you know, there clearly is a vibe about this place in Southern California and also in Northern California where I spend some time. But I also find it to be a reflection of kind of internal states that we go through because there are clearly people here. Some guy called me an asshole today because I had a turnaround on Laurel Canyon right up here. And like, dude, sorry, I was coming back from the gym. It was your rush hour, but I had to turn around to fucking park and he's like, "You're fucking hustle!"

So like, clearly there are people here who are not, you know, having the same experience. However, I thought maybe that was because, you know, you're relatively new, I'm visiting, maybe it has something to do with that. But I spoke to a few people who've lived here, who were transplants, who've lived here for six years, seven years, ten years, and they're like, "No, no, it doesn't get old." I mean, yeah, I mean, also like, LA is a big city, right? Like, it's also in a lot of ways of poor city. Like, there are still a lot of people here that aren't, like, LA means something different to them than it does to us.

Right? Like, you know, people that grew up here, it's not-- But the weather is still nice for everyone. It's not a clamorized place. Yeah, people get spoiled from the weather, for sure. I don't miss-- You know what? I'm glad I've had 37 years of winter in my life, because it makes you-- You can appreciate the sh-- I can't say what you do, man. So this is like literally the first winter of my life where it's like not winter, but I will be going to Minnesota for Christmas, so I will be, you know. My idea of reckoning will come soon. Judgment day. Judgment day. Also, just so you know, astrologically, this Christmas, 24th and 25th, is fucking insane.

How so? Everything is in Capricorn. I wrote all this shit down. It's so crazy. I usually don't even do this. I was like, "Wow, I'm actually getting organized about this." That is some big shit. I'll tell you exactly what's going on. How do we prepare for this? All right, well, I mean, I'll preface it in the same way I just did in this episode that I'm going to release later. Probably before this one comes out, which is nothing about astrology should feel restrictive, constructive, deterministic, or like it's boxing you in. So this is just to be aware of some things that are taking place. So 2020, which is going to be amazing for sure, but is also-- Everything is moving into Capricorn, which is the devil in the tarot, and it's the path of fear.

See, go. It is the path of fear, which sounds scary and bad, but it's actually not. It's great, because if you know what to do with your fears, you move right towards them, and right beyond them is like this amazing place, and it's all the shit you want. So for people who can latch on to that, it's going to be quite good, but we also on the 24th and 25th, so here's what's going into Capricorn. Pluto's there, Saturn's there, Jupiter just moved there. Ceres, whoa, we're not going to talk about there, and the sun moves in on December 22nd. So right before, you know, people would be traveling to go home with their families, all this stuff, the sun moves in.

Then on December 24th, 25th, the moon also moves in. So you have the Pluto, Saturn, Jupiter, Sun, and the moon, all fucking there in Capricorn, the path of fear. On Christmas, from Christmas Eve into Christmas, and yeah, dude, so just get ready for the energy to come out there. I mean, this is going to be, for me, a lot of people who are with family who, regardless of where they are in the spectrum of understanding, woo shit and weird stuff. There will probably be some exchanges, you know, and it's to the degree that we can handle it and, you know, be skillful in our interactions that will determine how much we can ride this path of fear.

But like, we're going to be challenged. But it's like one of those things where you want to be challenged because it shows you how fucking strong you can be. But yeah, energetically, 2020, like, people are very excited because it's like cool, but it's also going to be like a big time shit. It's like, yeah, yeah, so what is that, man? Like, I know like, you know, 2012, big year energetically for a lot of people. Are we like, is 2020 going to be like another big shift in global consciousness? Yes, and I think it, but I think sometimes people get a little too simplistic about like, it is going to be amazing, but the beginning part of 2020 until about March or April is going to be like really intense.

It's not going to be necessarily like the good, smooth, easy. There's going to be not restrictions, but basically all this expansiveness that we've had particularly over the last year is going to need to be grounded in reality, not in a restrictive way, but it's like tangibly allowing those, imaginal acts and dreams to unfold in this world. And that is a different game than imagining expansive, amazing, big fucking things for yourself. It's a different energy. So it took me legitimately two, three, God, it's not that long. So Jupiter just moved into Capricorn. It was in Sagittarius, and that's the expansiveness. When Jupiter moves into Capricorn, it seems that's the, it's known as the fall for Sagittarius.

But it basically means that we have to start bringing in that Zeus-like, boon-giving energy into this world. Right. So like, like, she gets real. She gets real. Like, she's like, Oh, it's great that Noah's talking about imagination. It's great that there's all these things, but we need to now see. Take that imagination out of the ether and like actually build it. Yeah. And so what's interesting to me is like, I noticed this with the stuff which I never would have done before, but on Instagram, I was like, I did this imaginal thing last week where it was like the lottery tickets. I was like, do the lottery, play the lottery and see what happens. And I was like, that'll be interesting. And it's been a barrage of people every day sending me their winnings with lottery tickets.

That's an example of Jupiter and Capricorn. It's not like, imagine winning mega millions and then, wow, that'll be so cool. It's like, go fucking imagine it and then do the damn thing and then see what happens. And like, that's kind of a dominant energy, but depending on where you are energetically, that's going to feel supernatural. Or it's going to feel like very uncomfortable because you're used to being a dreamy kind of natural weirdo space. So I just know on Christmas, shit's going to be nice. That would be a good day to take mushrooms or something like that. It's just going to be amazing. All these families getting together around the country and then with their families, with their parents and siblings doing a Christmas mushroom ceremony together.

Dose somebody covertly, just put it in the ham. Can you do that? Dose the ham, glaze the ham and I have a friend that does. She helps to facilitate mushroom ceremonies in Jamaica. And she is planning one. She tries to get people to bring their parents to the retreats with with them. And now she's trying to get an entire retreat of just, you know, children with their, not children, but like adults with their parents. And I can't imagine anything more terrifying, but also something with more potency for transformation than that. If you have, yeah, it's true. I mean, you would see your, to see your parents as their true selves and for them to see you as your true self and in like let go of these like definitions of parents and like, you know, son.

I think you would be hard. I think you can do it without psychedelics. I think the thing about psychedelics is, is you probably would see a raw, more raw authentic version, which I don't know if you, I like some of the constructs we've placed with parents like mystery. Well, like, I do believe fundamentally that everyone is you pushed out. You know, I really do believe that to my core, but I also find it to be fun to have these distinctions between people like James and Noah, you know, Noah and my mom, no and my dad. And so some aspects of psychedelics, mushrooms in particular, which are very difficult to kind of pin down.

I don't know if I want it. No, I wouldn't want to do it, but at the same time, like, I think of the thing about how much trauma people tend to carry over from their family. Like the best parents in the world, like you can be the best, you can try your best, your heart is as a parent, do a great job. You're still passing on some type of psychological, you know, trauma to a degree to your kids. I've already done it. I've already done it and my kids aren't even that old. And it's not, I'm not even upset about it. It's just like it happens. Right. Exactly. And everyone deals with that. It's all good.

But like then to heal that through like a mushroom ceremony. I don't know. I feel like my kids could do mushrooms with me and heal it because I'm cool as fuck, but I feel like also if I were going to, if someone was like, yo, go take mushrooms. Maybe acid, I could take acid with my parents. I'd be more comfortable doing that. Mushrooms to me are just little tricksters and they could just get you, get you going real weird. And I just don't, I don't know if I want to be in that space with my parents in either way, myself or them. I kind of trust myself, but like, oh boy, you don't want to see your, your parents a blubbering mess confronting their inner demons that they've never found before because they're in the relationship with their children.

You don't want to. I won't be doing it. Yeah. So tell me you're an author, but you, you also are a podcaster. How did you get into the field where you're writing about stuff like the ego and kind of meta analyzing consciousness? But what was your trajectory to get here? Yeah. Well, I began writing like early on. I started writing poetry when I was like 13 or 14. And I was just drawn to it. Like I just found like poetry books around the house. My mom always had books around the house, everything from like the constitution to rilka's poetry to like the constitution. Yeah. Or like anything like Plato or that's cool, man, or new thought authors like like Napoleon Hill and all that stuff or Napoleon Hill.

Did you find Neville Goddard earlier? I don't know if I saw Neville Goddard or not. I might have just never never got her later. I don't think he existed until 10 years ago. I think there was a timeline that he jumped in at. That's funny. I never heard about this fucking dude. Mitch Horowitz never heard about him until Barry Zito said him. Yeah, that's interesting. Fuck, I never heard about this. I heard about a lot of shit. I was like, you are red. I read. Yeah, we had a lot of books around of other Ernest Holmes is another one. He's a big new thought author. And the book that really got me when I was like 14 years old and my mom had a book called As a Man Thinketh. Yes.

I forget the author right now. James, no. Some Henry or William old school name. I remember it. I do know it. As a man thinketh and it was just like about how as your consciousness expands, your reality expands and your old reality kind of slips away. And you just kind of outgrow it. You outgrow your reality and when you outgrow your reality, it just kind of fades away into the background as you kind of expand yourself into the next one. And I was like 14 reading that and I'm like, oh, cool. I was like relieved. I was like, oh, good, because I was like in a small town. And I was like, oh, that sounds good to expand my reality. I'm going to try that.

It does sound good. Why wouldn't one want to try that? Yeah. But I think poetry is one way I did that. And just kind of like gradually wrote in various formats. I think when the blogs popped up, I jumped onto that and had my own blog for a long time. I actually ended up going to art school to study design. And my writing at that time took the form of design criticism or design. I was writing about the philosophy of design and branding and things like that. And that blog, it was called No Brand Like Home. And it was like kind of like a snarky design commentary blog. And as I was writing it, I was like starting out my career as a designer, as a graphic designer.

And I was learning a lot about my own career and like what it took to become successful and what kind of like internal states are most like helpful. And I started writing about more personal issues. Like, oh, it's almost like self-help based on your career and how to do certain things. But your direct experience? Yeah. Totally. And people started responding to that a lot more than the typical design and branding stuff I would write. And I just kind of like carried that with me and just started more and more writing about personal things. And when 2012 hit, you know, I think like a lot of people kind of pivoted a little bit in terms of being more awake, being more conscious, being more tapped into spiritual ideas.

And that happened for me as well. And like, essentially my writing never looked back. You like died to your old self and became the new version that was like, I know how to do this now. Yeah, I died in Hurricane Sandy. Right? I was in Sandy too. I guess I died there too. I was saw the explosion. I was in the Lori's East Village. The Niners were playing the Cardinals. There was fantasy playoff implications. This is the only reason I remember it. I was watching the game. It just started. And there was this huge green flash. We lived on the 11th floor in the East Village. And you know, like buildings aren't that tall there. So we had like one of the tallest buildings. You can see everything.

And the fucking thing, it was a green flash. And I was like, that was. And before I got to weird, everything went black everywhere. I was like, what the fuck? It was crazy. And we had to like escape New York. It's funny about Hurricane Sandy is like New York was so, and for good reason, so unprepared for a hurricane. No one thought. No one talked about it. I was right there. They were flooding Avenue C. Yeah. People are just like, oh, I heard a storm is coming. Oh, okay. Cool. Like no one like said, we should prepare for a hurricane. Like, because we're not. I went to the Bodega the next day and they had nothing. I was like, yo, we are fuck.

We got to go back to DC. I did though, man. So I was. So I had just moved to New York, not too long before that. And I was basically what happened was I was in Minnesota. And I had always kind of had this call to move to New York. Like, I was like, mostly through like the writers and the musicians that I liked. I was kind of grew up having it as seeing this like place I admired. And I'm like, I'm going to, I'm going to move there. I'm going to, I'm finally ready. All these things like conspired in my life to like lead me to want to move there. And quit my job, give up my apartment, like all these things, like said goodbye to all my friends and family in Minnesota, moved to New York.

And I had just gotten apartment. It was on the island of broad channel in Queens, Jamaica Bay. And I just signed the lease the day before Hurricane Sandy hit. And let's just say the apartment within 24 hours of me signing the lease was five feet underwater. Wow. And I was homeless in New York City after like giving up everything to move there. What happened next? Yeah, man. Like, I didn't have anywhere to go. Like, I considered moving back to Minnesota, but that felt so like it felt like a retreat. Like, I just moved to New York. I just like accomplished this thing. And my friend who also we are going to move to broad channel together.

So we were both kind of homeless. He had a friend who had this empty beach cottage in this island in the Caribbean called Calabra. And he's like, let's just go there and crash and figure the rest out. And we literally just like got one way ticket to Puerto Rico and then flew on these little rinky dink planes into Calabra. And basically, I proceeded to have a dark night of the soul. Right. Like, what did I just gave up, arrested all to get it all. And I just lost it all. Yeah. Like, I had a good job in Minneapolis. I was like an account executive at an advertising agency. No, you had at least a comfortable life. Yeah. Yeah. And in New York, like, I was getting rejections for jobs left and right.

I was like, get out of here, Minnesota boy. You don't know shit. They're like, they're like, they're like, look at my resume and they're like, we've never heard of these places. And you're like, I can make it here. I'm like, yeah, like, I can make it here. Let's flood your fucking apartment. How do you like that? I know, right. So that was just man. It's not an easy transition. But so I did. Yeah. Like, I feel like that was and that was 2012. So, and that was right before like December 21st, 2012. And I really do feel like I was on this island called Koolabra and had basically lost everything. Like, I didn't have a job, a money, even an apartment. And that's when like, I really just like went really deep, like into my own meditation, my own just kind of like self reflection.

What did that look like, like practically? It was just a lot of sitting on the beach. Awesome. A lot of just kind of like having nowhere to go and nothing to do and just sitting there and reflecting. And it was really there that I realized like how kind of chatty my mind could be and how like self deprecating and my mind could be and how much kind of an asshole. Yeah, your mind could be kind of an asshole. At least mine was at the time. Still is, you know, at times. And I just, I saw all this self doubt and all this fear and all this like, I felt stupid for trying to like move to New York and make it.

And, you know, basically mentioned the ego. Like, I really, it was just sitting there. I had nowhere to like hide from these thoughts and these feelings because I was just alone on this island. So it really came to the point where I was sitting with it long enough where I kind of recognized like this was just a reflection of my own ego. And I felt that fear and doubts weren't in fact, you know, they're only as real as I made them. Very real. If you make them real, totally unreal if you recognize that they're not. It's a weird little fucking game, isn't it? Yeah. Time delayed mirror magnified. Yeah. Yeah. And that's just one of the situations like, you know, I've been, you know, fired from jobs that I like really needed at the time.

And it was kind of the same thing where these like many disasters that can happen in your life. They really make you go deep and like do a lot of exploration that lead you to somewhere else. Yeah, ma'am. Don't I know. So you're on the beach meditating, getting your space. And what's your next move? I was like a try. I was like still like trying to get jobs in New York. Like I even like I was I was applying places. I was trying to get back. You're still trying to make it happen. That determination. You're like, fuck man, I really want this even though. Yeah, it looks like I'm not supposed to. I'm still doing it.

So essentially I was just like writing down in a notebook, like all these thoughts. Like I was just filling up a notebook full of like all of these thoughts that were popping into my mind. I didn't realize it at the time, but those notes that I was jotting down on Calabra like were the beginning to what would evolve into like my first published book. What was the path? Okay, so you didn't know it, but but I found when you honestly sit down and start writing stuff into a place, whether it's an app or a physical piece of paper and pen, there is this little part of us that goes. Oh, it is a good shit.

Yeah, well, because I had always wanted to write a book. I always knew. I mean, I wrote my first book when I was like 14. I wrote a novel about the Civil War. Really? Which was never published. I love the Civil War history. I love American history in general. Ron Turner. I was like one of my favorite authors. Yeah, I was. Well, when I was like, man, I was supposed to have been like 13 years old and I had a subscription to the magazine Civil War Times. Well, you super nerd. That's the next level of shit. I was, man, because I think my dad had a friend who was kind of an historian and he was also like a Civil War reenactor and he would actually get roles in Civil War movies as an extra.

So I would see his movies as a kid and it was kind of like, oh, he became this like interesting idea of like the Civil War, which coincidentally side note, the first time I ever took LSD was on the Gettysburg battlefield. Oh, how'd that happen? I mean, I guess you took some LSD. That's how it happened. But like, did you go there with the plan to take that? My girlfriend at the time. We both, on our first date, we nerded out over the Civil War. We both kind of like, we're a little like history. I was from the north. She was from the south. We both just kind of like, thought it was an interesting topic. And for her birthday, I got her a cabin in Gettysburg and she surprised me on the way by saying she had LSD.

Oh, shit. So we took LSD in the cabin and we realized like it was a really small cabin. What a crazy fucking place to take LSD. Yeah, but we did it in this really small cabin and it was, it was constricting and there was a lot of noise outside and we're like, this is my first time taking it and I didn't, and she's like, this is, and she's like in this little cabin. But then I'm like, let's go to the battlefield and she's like, well, but we just took LSD. I'm like, yeah, but how long does it take to kick in? And she's like 20 minutes and I'm like, we're 20 minutes away from it. I'm like, we're 20 minutes away from the battlefield. So we get in the car and I proceed to drive to the Gettysburg battlefield.

When did it kick in? About halfway on the drive. On the drive. Yeah, that sounds right. That sounds right. But we got there safe and we laid out on the battlefield and just proceeded to have hours of an LSD experience at Gettysburg. Dude, I literally, I saw, I'm not one who sees paranormal things. I was going to say you have to see fucking paranormal things. I've never seen ghosts. I've never seen aliens. I don't feel energy necessarily, but I literally saw, I remembered I had a recurring dream when I was a kid of myself running down a hill in a battle and I was waving the flag. I didn't have a weapon. I was waving a flag.

What uniform are you wearing? It's kind of hazy, you know, I like to think it was like... You just say you fought for the south. It's okay. No, I didn't. It was a navy blue, but I had this recurring dream and it was funny because I kind of saw that dream playing out before me when I was on this particular hill called Little Round Top, which was like this pivotal hill in the Civil War. I'm a big, I grant. I get it, man. Yeah, man. And I was up there and I literally kind of saw soldiers charging. One of the most brutal fucking, wow. It was pretty wild, man. I was going to say like, so we had some Mescau here before. Mescau, I've realized, really allows you to talk to past lives and dead people pretty easily.

I don't know how to describe it exactly. It just for me at least. And right when you were talking about Gettysburg, I'm like, "He took LSD there." That means he definitely saw some past life or dead people shit. You can't not, man. You don't end up in Gettysburg. No one ends up in Gettysburg taking LSD by accident. No one does that shit. I bet you could tell everyone you met for the rest of your life. Every single person, just like a weirdo, run up and be like, "Yo, I took LSD at Gettysburg." And no one would be like, "Oh, yeah, me too." And it was my first and only time taking LSD. Oh, you've only taken it once, I said?

I have micro-dosed. It's not the same. But I've never taken like a, you know, a big dose. Herculean, you were going to call it? I was going to say heroic. Ah, heroic. Shout out Terence McKenna. Yeah, LSD is a little goes a long way these days. But it was interesting too because my girlfriend was a little nervous because she thought like, "Oh, there could be bad juju here. Like, what is scary?" No, no, you didn't purify that shit. It was purified though. It really was. I asked her, like, did she feel like any of that negative energy? And she said that she felt a certain sense of peace in the sense that whatever happened on that battlefield, for whatever reason, it needed to happen.

Oh, yeah. It's all perfect. Energetically, it was like this, somehow the synergy of the country at that time. And while it was terrible and tragic in a lot of ways, it was also like just something that humanity collectively needed to pass through. Also, like, dude, just think it was a civil war buff. I'm sure you'll get this because you've heard of the rebel yell and all this stuff. The raw primal energy that is brought to a battle, no one in the heat of battle is thinking of the conceptual intellectual reasons that they're fighting. They're not like, "I love slavery so much." They're not like, "I love freedom."

"I love freedom." They're just literally put in these positions energetically to attack and meet and collision, like, large, hairdron, collider style into each other. And man, like, for people who don't know what the civil war is, like, unlike any other thing, A, because it was a country and it was just so unknown, devastatingly brutal. Like, you would literally just have, like, hundreds and thousands of men running into huge metal pellets and balls. And, like, if you know what shit does, like, yo, people hadn't seen that before, oh, man, it was... Oh, my God, it's just crazy to think that, like, people were put in those positions.

I'm very grateful that, in this particular incarnation, I've not been faced with any of those choices, but it sounds like you might have been. I know, man, I was probably in a past life, and also, like, I kind of come from a military lineage, I guess. And I think, like, in the Midwest, a lot of people do, and especially, you know, in World War II, and it was very common for most men to volunteer or get drafty draft. Yeah. So, I know, like, both my grandparents were in World War II. One of my grandparents was actually a pilot on his first flight. His plane was shot down by the Nazis, and he was taken into Nazi prison camp.

Where? I don't... Allied or Axis space in Germany? Yeah. Oh, shit. Yeah, it was in Germany. He was shot down in Germany. And then lived and got captured? He lived, he was captured, he was put into Nazi prison camp, and he fucking escaped. Oh, that's so badass. Yeah. What was your grandfather's name? Raymond Busian. Oh, that's so badass. It was really cool because... That's so fucking badass. Dude, we grew up, like, knowing that that had happened, but we didn't know the details. And then, a few years ago, my grandmother got a phone call from someone who was writing a book about someone that my grandfather helped rescue from.

Nazi prison. So, we got to hear... Not only did we got to hear the first-hand story about his escape, but it was actually all put into a book. Holy shit. Can you tell me some details? Yeah, he was on... He was, like, freezing winter. It was, like, February, and they were doing this big march called the Black March, where they were marching, like, thousands of prisoners from one camp to another. And, like, I think, like, he pretended he was going to take a piss, like, in the snow. And I think he just fucking booked it. Yeah, he just fucking, like, he and he, like, helped someone else escape. And the two of them just, like, fucking ran from this march, and I don't know if they were followed or not, or if they were, like, slick enough to just, like, run.

But they wandered in the... Yeah, they're in the motherfucking... The German wilderness in the winter for days, and they eventually stumbled across a very small encampment of Germans, or, sorry, of Russians. Or cooking potatoes. And they gave them the potatoes, and, like, they were, like, saved their lives, and they just, like, scarfed down these potatoes. And then the Russians gave them over to a British camp, and they were eventually sent back to the United States. Holy shit! Yeah. And that's why you're here. That's why I'm here, yeah. That's literally why you are here in this earthly incarnation.

Because, yeah, just by the skin of my teeth. Wow, that's so fucking maternal grandma. Yeah, my mom's dad. Yeah. And then my dad, as well, was, like, he volunteered to fight in Vietnam, and he volunteered. He volunteered the guy. So he was from a smaller town than I was. He was from a very tiny town in Minnesota. What's the closest big town near where you guys were born? Uh, Minneapolis. Minneapolis is probably two hours away. Okay, so that's reasonable. Yeah, yeah, yeah. You can go to Minneapolis. You went to Minneapolis, went to them all of America, went to Vikings games. You're still a Vikings fan?

Dude, I have to be. You know, it's not... We're taking Kirk Cousins. Kirk Cousins is a talented... Yeah, man. He's a talented quarterback who is unreliable in critical moments. It's a nightmare, the worst. If you were building a prototype with a quarterback who wanted to rip people's hearts out, it'd be Kirk Cousins. Well, that's... If that's the case, he's perfect for the Minnesota Vikings. Yeah, no, he's perfect. That will give you really high highs, and then suddenly when it matters most, they'll just pull the rug up from under you. Yeah, you know where that starts in your organization, truthfully, and I've said this before, and no one catches on to it.

It's only because I'm a rabid Dolphins fan. It's Rick Spielman. He will build a team for you that will look and should, by all accounts on paper, function phenomenally. And then there will be this one weird fucking thing that receivers aren't happy now. What? Why? It's fucking great. They let them run the ball. There's always some Dalvin Cook should be like the next fucking superstar. He's fucking amazing. I'm telling you, Rick Spielman, he doesn't. He can do good things, but then that'll fucking do it, man. I wish it was that easy. I think our karma goes back, man. The '70s, where it started in the '60s and '70s.

Are we going to Tarkington's game? The purple people leaders? Yeah, man. You know it. I do, man. I think they made four Super Bowls in the '70s, where they were basically favorites to win the mall. Oh, I know, my friend. They were like the dominating team of the '70s, and then they always lost every Super Bowl in a heartbreaking fashion. They were like the proto version of the Buffalo Bills. Yes. Oh, I know. They continue to be. So, you know, that's another cross I bear. [LAUGHTER] You know-- Sorry, I tried to do that. No, no. I'm a Tim Rules fan, which is even worse, so it's all good, man. [LAUGHTER]

But, yeah, man. My dad was in a small town, and he did volunteer to go to Vietnam when he was, like, 18. Holy shit. Because I think he just wanted to get out. I think he wanted to see the world. That's one way to get out. I think he just saw it as an opportunity that he might not have had otherwise, just to do something. What was his experience? Did he see action? Yeah, he saw action. I think he was, like, camped out with-- You like how I said action, like, I know what the fuck I'm talking about? Yeah, he saw some-- Yeah, he saw some action. Yeah. [LAUGHTER] Yeah, he was there for a while. I think he saw some shit, but I'm thinking, like, the first person as far as I know in a while to be, like, a peaceful pacifist, first of all.

Because I think my mom is very much a hippie, and my dad was kind of more from the military background. Oh, what's that? So, I've got, like, a cool-- How'd that happen? I don't know, man. How did-- Minnesota. Man, just love. Yeah, just open-minded people. That's so cool. Yeah. That's so cool. Yeah. One of my best friends is, like, this kind of, like, philosophical atheist, and he married a Catholic, like a serious Catholic. Like a loving a serious Catholic. And it's, like, it's like a beautiful relationship because they're both so open-minded, and they'll ask each other questions about their beliefs, and just, like, consider them and respond to them, and allow each other to be perfectly who they are.

Those people are, like, angels. Oh, it's great. That's, like, a guiding beacon of light for the rest of humanity. Yeah, I love it. Wow. That's cool. So I'm getting a better sense of who you are as a person. So to go back to when you started jotting things down, and it was the genesis of your first published book, what did that trajectory look like from writing down those thoughts after kind of a deep meditative period, and then actually the process of being like, "Oh, you know what? I think this book I've been wanting to write for a long time. I'm actually going to do it, and I have the substance for it."

Yeah. So I always had ideas for books. Keep talking. I'm just going to get some messages. Yeah, yeah. I always had ideas for books that just never panned out to be, like, quite the right idea. So I would start books, and then I would stop them. It just wasn't the right idea. So there was a moment with the book that became "Shit Your Ego" says where I'm like, "Oh, shit. Like, this works. Like, the concept works. I can see how it can play out. I can see how each chapter would be formatted." And it was kind of a great moment to realize, "Oh, this actually is the book that I will write. This is the book that I will finish."

So I just committed to stick with it. And I guess it's like maybe it's the Midwestern work ethic that I have, or once I committed to it, I just wrote every day for, like, literally two years. That's a Midwestern thing? Yeah. It's like, just kind of like put your head down and go to work. It's just cold outside. You might as well just put your head down and sing. Put your head down. Go to work. Don't complain. Just do it. Just do it. But it was great because I was writing, and I was thinking about publishing. And I'm like, "I didn't know where I would even start with that." And everyone that I talked to was like, "Oh no, you need to build up your social media following.

You need to write a proposal. You need to get an agent. You need to do this. You need to do everything but actually write a book." And to me that didn't ring true. If I'm going to write a book, the best way to write a book is to write a book, not to do all these other things to build an audience. Oh, yeah. That's the worst advice every publisher, by the way, who gives aspiring writers, tells them that. All of my friends who have published works literally had the platform and stuff and believe that they were going to write it before. It's such a ridiculous way of going back. So I said, "No, that doesn't work for me.

I need to actually write the book." So I made a deal with the universe. And I said, "Okay, here's the deal universe. I have a very important job to write this book. This is what I'm being asked to do. This is what I need to complete. Your job is to get it out there. Your job is to find a way, find a path for this book to give you." You do the heavy lifting. I'll just do what I'm supposed to do. You figure this shit out. Exactly. So I made a deal, and I lived up to my end of the deal, and luckily the universe lived up to its end of the deal as well. Basically I had a friend who knew I was writing it, and I had put together this little proposal.

And my friend somehow ended up meeting. He was visiting the UK, and he ended up meeting someone in the UK that worked for Hay House. God bless Louisa, and he gave this woman my book proposal without telling me. He just kind of gave it to her. And she loved it, and then she sent it to the New York Hay House office. And then one random day I just get an email from Hay House who's asking me to come into their office for a meeting. Out of the blue, for you. Completely out of the blue. I didn't have an agent. Just, well, you did make the deal with the universe. I made the deal with the universe. And that was it, man.

That was like, ended up getting published with the Hay House and... The rest is history. Yeah, I guess. So what did that experience teach you about the nature of reality? What the universe is, who you are, what has been, what year was that? It came out in 2017. So '27, that makes a lot of sense. Excuse me. Yeah. You know, 2012 is when everyone died. 2017 was the latest on-ramp, little glimpse, little appetizer portion of what your life is. Everyone experienced it in different ways. I wasn't super clicked into who I was, so I got a money blast. Like all of my problems that were money-related, crypto started blowing up, and money wasn't an issue for me anymore, so I started feeling good.

Everyone got a little blast. Now we're in the karmic squeeze, as I call it, the last little bit of our issues and residents and shit, we got to clean up for ourselves, our family, our generations, ancestral shit. We're purging that. And then we're really going into the age of like full expression, of full like, "Okay, universe/me," which is the same thing. What am I doing now? So what did you learn kind of from this miraculous reality-bending deal? Yeah, man. Deal. That literally, you can create your own reality. I think at the time, I had a lot of kind of like social expectation stuff in my head.

The thought that the chatter that was going on in my head was not actually mine. It was like the residual society chatter telling me what I should do, how I should live. What was possible, it was programming. It's like the ego, I think, it's like maybe not like even the true self. It's just like the echo of the programming that is in our society. We got to get into this. I see. I think ego to me, and I know your book is called, ego to me gets, it's like God. It's like universe. It's like source. It's something that is such a nebulous word at this point that a lot of discursive thought gets pinned on it.

Just so you were on the same page, my conception of, I love my ego. I love it and we're best buddies and it goes out and gets things from me and I know how to keep it in check and it's not running my life. However, I think what I refer to as my ego is not what most people refer to as there ego, which is this kind of negative programmatic self-doubting threshold guardian lead in things where you start taking it seriously, which to me is, I think it's okay. That's why I think your book is good because you're actually pointing out that it's just like shit. It's not a big deal. One thing, so what I learned through all the interviews I've done since the book came out is that, so I don't even like to talk about ego anymore because I realize that everyone has their own definition of what it is.

It's such a hard word to pin down because everyone just interprets it how they will. Ask 10 different people in a room. You will guarantee to get 10 completely. Some of those answers will be opposite, polar opposites. So I describe it and your ego says as your reactive attached mind. So it's kind of like maybe like the lizard brain. It's like maybe more of a primitive- A amygdala based fear of response. Fear response exactly. It's not, in my definition, able to be creative or proactive. It just kind of reacts to what's happening on a kind of survival or fear-based mentality. So that's what I think that I was living in and that's just not me.

That's most people kind of react to the society that they're in. They respond to things. They don't realize that they have the creative consciousness to actually create and define reality on their own terms. So that's what I learned through the whole sequence. First of all, I didn't want to become homeless after Hurricane Sandy. I thought that was a bad thing. My ego was telling me to be afraid that this sucks. This is the worst thing that's ever happened to me, I'm an idiot, but that was just my ego. In fact, it was opening up a door for me. You were old life was literally crumbling before you because how could it not if you were going to make a transition into a new version of you?

It was grace that was allowing me to slip into a new reality. Isn't it amazing that you can actually, this is real alchemy. This is the philosopher's stone is when shit around you is going haywire and chaotic. Even in the moment or even if it's after the fact, recognize that as grace, you are set for life, for real though, for real though. And I think I learned like that's exactly right. The only job we really have is to monitor our own kind of feelings and emotions because from there, everything else is being born from that, right? So like right now, like my only job that I have for myself at this moment in time is to feel good.

And that doesn't mean like going out and getting fucked up or like, you know, doing just like chasing a high in any way. It means just like being energetically connected, you know, grounded. It changes. It's an ebb and flow from what makes you feel that. Sure. Yeah. Sure. That's important because like everyone goes through phases. Yeah. But in like, so I guess I learned that you don't have to respond to the fear that you might be feeling and that you can actually, by focusing on your energy and emotions, you can actually better combat whatever it is that you are fearful of. Ah, we have different approaches there, my friend.

I like to run right towards my fears at this point. I move whenever something pops up, listen, not recklessly, not like like scaring heroin, you know, doing heroin freaks me out. I sound like I should go do heroin. It's like when there's something in your life that for objective reasons, you shouldn't maybe be afraid of it. You're kind of building it up in your head. I move right towards those fuckers right now because I found they're usually just threshold guardians that have the best shit behind them. They're the hardest bosses because it's scary. Ooh, something there, but I fucking, I don't try to fight them anymore.

I just go right towards them and you know what, they're phantoms. Always. Yeah. It's crazy. No, I think that we agree completely. Yeah. Because, you know, in the past, maybe fear would have caused me to avoid or run away. Me too. Right. It's still an echo of a habitual pattern for me at times. I'll be like, it's like, what are you doing? You don't do that. You know what to do. Move towards this fucker. Yeah. And you can sit with it and like the fear doesn't control you. It's not at all. It's just like, oh, huh. Yeah. So you can actually make friends with fear and just like learn to be okay with it and sit with it and not react to it and not, and not like retreat from that and think like that's not possible.

But no, you actually sit with it, go into it, embrace it. And that's where transformation happens. This is this weird thing with fear is I, as I've appropriated states of fearlessness, I stabilized actually not being afraid of anything for a few months. And then I started getting a little afraid of things again and I was like, oh, real fearlessness isn't never feeling fear. Like some weirdo. It's knowing what the correct response to fear is. And that took, because you can't actually be in a place, you're kind of psychotic in some ways and people don't react while they're like, where you actually don't feel fear for most things, which is fine.

But the ability to feel it and know what to do with it as like an energetic signal is actually fearlessness. And then you begin to relish it, not like you're the king of fear and you want fear to be coming into your life. But when it does happen, you recognize it as the amazing teacher that it is rather than some like thing to run away from and then it controls you. Yeah. It's a, it's a motherfucker. It's just, it's so great. Yeah, feel, feel your fear and do it anyway. It's like, like, yeah, because like it always works. It sounds wrong, but it's so right. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Um, to it. I know. Um, okay.

So you've watched this kind of process unfold for yourself, or as you've pursued what you know to be true, you have this retrospective ability to gain the insight that Grace is actually propelling you even. This is this kind of, I've been reading this to the priestess stuff. There's this thing where she writes, uh, is that part of reality transfer thing? Yeah. It's the next one. Yeah. It's pretty. She's like, uh, she's like the BDSM version of reality trans. She's like just yelling at you. She's like the Dom. She's like, you fucking snails. You suck at shit. And it's like, but she's all the void, the book is written through a character's voice.

Yeah. Okay. Two 50. Tafti. I think it's pronounced, but it's good. And, uh, I forgot what I was talking about. The mascot hit me. It's in my Amazon shopping cart. So I'm going to read it. I have a PDF if you want. I just did the effort. I put it on Apple books. I just do that. And like people should buy it. If they like it when I'm done reading it, I'll probably I'm only like 80% of the way through. What was the connection I was making the two 50s? She talks about so much stuff. What were we talking about? We're talking about fear. What's the biggest takeaway from that book you've had in general, though, Christ so many.

Um, it's all the imaginal stuff just said in a different way. So that's been nice. This idea that I really like from her now is this importance idea that to the degree that we attach importance to something it can actually serve as kind of like a resistance mechanism. At least that's what I've taken away from it. And it does feel accurate and it's not that we don't have awareness of big things or big transformations that are happening in our lives. It's just if we get too caught up in how big of a deal it is and we're like, well, that's such a big deal. It can start to control us. So if you can drop through or modulate your level of importance, that idea is really stuck with me because it's also just like a stone throw away from recognizing you control your emotional, psychological, mental, spiritual state at all times.

And that to me is the goal with all of this like, if anything I read or talk to someone about if it feels like the power is being given to something else or not being placed firmly in the person's hand or soul or whatever it is, that just sounds wrong to me. Um, and that can look like a million different things that can look like someone telling you something and you discovering it on your own, it's irrelevant, but if it feels like you have to believe in something outside of yourself as like the basis of whatever is how shit works, that's wrong. So Tufti, she just basically is yelling at people for the first two thirds of the book like saying like your snails, your fucking idiots, like you don't know what's going on.

Like let me tell you how to bend reality, you idiots. I like the tone of it. There's something about it that's just funny. Does she use the word sheeple at any point? Snails is what she calls people snails. She calls everyone snail. She says, if you become illumined and you control the goal scene and the script of your life, you become a firefly amongst snails, which then is naturally illuminating, but the goal is to make sure that this doesn't become kind of an ego inflating or like, I'm better than you type of thing. It's just like recognizing how reality works and using it benevolently. Do you think this is like something that literally everyone is waking up to?

Like, you talked about the transitions from since 2012 and like, those resonate with me. Do you think that's happening with everyone or is it like just like a few people going through this process? I think there are waves like in the ocean and I think some waves are bigger than others and I think some are not and I think some people like to just swim in the waves and ride them, some people like to boogie board, some people like to surf and depending on the size of the wave, that's going to be more smooth depending on your preference. I think there are some waves that are happening now. One will be around Christmas too, where if one were even slightly predisposed to catch a wave, it will not be very difficult.

I do think there are a select group of people, this is where my Hamiltonian hierarchical goal, aristocratic spirituality comes in. It does appear to me that there are a select group of people who are comfortable swimming, boogie boarding, surfing, stunting, doing all the types of wave riding and choosing how to create waves, becoming a wave machine, all of these things. I'm most interested in showing people discussing that they're always the select group of people, they're always the people who have the ability to completely not only ride the wave but select the wave, create the wave because that's really what's going on.

It's nothing more complicated than that, although that's kind of complicated. It's really just, so yeah, no, I don't think everyone is waking up all at once because I think there are some people who are like, you know what, this reality is it's not sufficiently fucked up for me to jump off this train. And what's weird though is a lot of people who are trying to cling to like what I would call old reality in a lot of ways is it's not comfortable for them. No one's loving that. No one's like, oh yeah, yeah, yeah, like let me cling to like logical reality fully, like their lives are getting fucked up.

So like, at least what I see out there, and so that again is an invitation. It's just like everyone creates their own reality. That sounds wrong and scary and bad and also kind of exciting. But it is true. And if you play around with it and empirically test this shit, it proves itself to be true. Don't take my word for it. Don't take your word for it. Don't, you know, take two guys taught making deals with the universe and imagining things. Test this shit out yourself. See if it starts to happen. And if it starts to happen, recognize it's not you or me on the podcast talking about it. You imagining it.

You recognizing making deals with some deeper part of yourself that literally creates everything we experience here. This is like a, it's such a dream. I just had like an image of an avalanche. So it's like an avalanche starts very small, right? It's just like a little tremor, a little tremor, a little, a little snow fall here. And then it picks up and picks up and picks up and picks up. And before you know it, it's like a full-scale avalanche. It's like the internet and technology are allowing kind of like an avalanche of consciousness to happen right now. Yeah. Like at one point, like maybe like Neville Goddard was like one in a million or like one in a billion.

Yeah, it's not like that. And then that happened. And then suddenly all someone read him or read someone else and then Ram Das happened. And then Timothy Leary happened and then Alan Watts happened and then now Noel Lambert is happening and everyone else is happening. And there's like the more people that this is like touching the more people they spread it to. It's a fraction. I mean it becomes more and more normal and it just escalates into the, where it's avalancheing across of all of society. So that's actually what's happening. And it's a fractal. And if you understand fractals, you know that the fractal just repeats itself.

But at its essence, it's just the same shape over and over again. So if you understand that even as it expands into something ever more complex and wider, it's still innately the same thing it was. And so that's quite literally what's happening. I think the goal is for most people now as we're in this transitional period, at least what I feel like my role is and I'm pretty comfortable in saying this now, I'm really owning it is just to show people that it's actually kind of fun. It's fun. It's playful. It doesn't need to be this fucking crazy fucking apocalyptic doomsday scenario waking up to how reality actually is.

It's amazingly liberating. It has to be fun, right? Or that's like, that's the whole point. It doesn't have to feel good though. It doesn't have to be because people can come to this realization, go nuts and become a homeless person and scream it from the streets. So it doesn't have to be. It's just that the sense of community, the sense of someone saying, Hey, have you had some weird thoughts lately? Have you had some weird experiences? Guess what? You're not alone. It's normal. It's actually like a blueprint for you waking yourself up. That helps enough people to be cohesive enough to be like, Oh, fuck, thank God.

And I get these emails and all the communications all the time. So like, there will be points in the day, especially when energy gets super heavy and it's just collective shit and I've learned it's me transmuting a lot of other stuff that isn't even me. You know, that's just kind of, Oh shit, I opened myself up to it. Where I'll be like, Oh man, like, this is a day, like this is some heavy shit today. And then I'll be like, you know, like maybe I'm not doubting myself, but just like succumbing to it ever so slightly. And then I'll look on Instagram or I'll check my email and it'll be someone being like, my shit was so bad.

I found your podcast. You changed my fucking life and I'm like, Oh, okay, like fuck. That's all I need is a little boost to be like, okay, there's some collective awareness of what's going on. So I love this. There's this quote. I think it's by, by, um, Nietzsche and it's, um, I would never trust a God that didn't, that doesn't dance. That's it right there. And I love that quote. It's like, that's it. If God doesn't dance, it's not the real God, you know, if there's, if there's a principle or a philosophy or way of life that does not invoke joy and happiness, it's a, it's a, it's a diversion. It's a, it's a false path.

It's a yoga path. Dance is one of the paths to enlightenment and yoga. I mean, it has to be because anyone, my earliest memories of experiencing pure ecstasy in life. I don't know if earliest, but an acute time is like an adult was, I was about 16, 17 years old. They used to go to these raves in DC, um, because I said I wrote for a, I did. I wrote for a Dutch music online music magazine. So I wasn't supposed to be getting in, but I worked at this place that let me get in and a stone cold sober literally could not get alcohol. I had a band that said I was like a pariah. I fucking would dance to electronic music for 12 hours from like 8 p.m. to 8 a.m. in the morning.

And I was the highest I've ever been in my life doing that. And I was like, there is some other shit going on here. And I think for a long time, I thought it was the music and it is partially the music, but it's innately in us as people that experience in that feeling. And if we perceive it through music and dancing, that's wonderful. And it absolutely like, I don't trust shit that isn't funny. I don't trust shit that isn't light. I don't trust shit that isn't, um, joyful and fun and cool. And I also don't trust shit that's overly saccharin. I don't trust shit that's like all love and light and peace all the time because I've experienced enough in my life to know that that ain't it.

That's not the whole thing of duality from a non dual standpoint, even fucked up shit is great. Like, there's this interplay of energies that I think we wake up to over time that, um, allow us to see the truth in something like dance is a real barometer for validity. Yeah. And laughter. Yeah. Just like how much enjoy like genuine bodily enjoyment are you feeling on a day to day basis? Like that's a measure of spiritual progress, I think is like, if you have that and balance, you did it. You did it. Yeah. If you were feeling great and balanced and seeing the signs of balance around you, you did it.

Yeah. Growing up, like I was, I went to like these, you know, small town, Minnesota, uh, Christian churches. And I guess my church wasn't so bad. Like people did actually dance in the aisles and it was almost the equivalent of like a hippie Southern Baptist church in the middle of small town, Minnesota. But in general around me, like a lot of Lutheran and Catholics, and, um, there's just this heaviness and this over, over, overly serious approach to spirituality where it almost came across as a burden to the people who were doing that. It's the worst. They weren't happy. They weren't like joyfully experiencing God.

They were doing. You saw the Kanye shit, right? I saw the Kanye shit. Okay. Okay. Let's go to the service before we went to the prisons. Um, holy shit. Dude, yeah, that was like one of the best concerts of my life. Yo, people. So I mean, my take on it was this. You're only the only people I know who's actually been to them. You saw Nebuchadnezzar too. I want to talk about that a little bit, but um, I, uh, I, uh, I went there, you know, they made us wait two, three hours before we could get in, even at the appointed time we get in. And they're Francis and the lights was the first person and I really liked the recent song he did.

Take me to the light. It's just a good song. So it's like, oh, this is cool. It's a very beautiful kind of stage they have, right? The flowers and the, it was just, it's really nice. And then, you know, it really starts to kick off. They have these opening acts, but then the, the choir comes out and oh my God, hold. Dude, pure, pure joy, like the music is just an expression of pure joy. Oh my God. And you see Kanye the whole time just bopping his head with so none. It was funny. He was on stage with like Joel Osteen doing a big show. Oh, you had Joel Osteen. We had another preacher. No, he wasn't there, but he, Connie went down to, to, to, to Houston to, to, to, to visit Joel Osteen's super church mega church, like a huge football stadium.

And um, I don't watch, I don't watch Joel Osteen. I don't, I don't know much about him. I know he's like incredibly wealthy for man of God. But what Kanye said to him is like, Joel, you get a lot of flack and, you know, I want to push back against that because what you're doing is you're showing people how good God really is. And I think that mentality like, okay, you can look at God as something that you have to follow out of duty. And that it's like a burden to like follow these rules and restrictions, but you feel you have to do it because the Bible says to do it, or you can recognize that whatever your concept of God is, is in itself like a state of goodness and love and happiness and joy.

And that the truth. So this is where this is why it was such an interesting experience for me is because I think part of the issue that I had where it wasn't resonating with me and you could see the crowd was kind of getting a little, you know, the people were there for the experience of the music and the joy is the preacher aspect of it, depending on what was being preached was externalizing God so much that I think that started to hit. At least me. I'm like, listen, God is whatever you believe him to be or he or she or whatever you want. But to me, in my direct experience, the only real God is our sense of I am.

Yeah. That's it. And so I don't think Kanye has fully, I don't know, he, I don't know. Who knows, Kanye is also just to be clear, I know this rubs some people the wrong way. I think like, if not the best, one of the best artists of the past 20 years, just in terms of like people don't, people look at like the life of Pablo and all these albums, the last one that came out, they're like, yeah, that shit is, they're fucking incredible. They're all good. They're fucking incredible. And people just like, oh, let me judge him because he said some dumbass shit up peeringly to say some. Yeah. But my first time hearing life of Pablo, I was in the middle of Kundalini Yoga teacher training.

That sounds right. And the album came out the night before and I needed to show up at five AM to do a two and a half hour chanting meditation with this guru that they had brought in. And I show up and I, I know the Connie album just dropped. And I sit there and I do the chanting meditation for an hour and a half with the class. And then I laid, I laid down, I put a blanket over my head and I listened to life of Pablo in full while the rest of the class was chanting around me. I'm telling you, man, it was awesome. I'm telling you dude, Kanye is on some other tip and I fucking love it. And he's always an interesting person to bring up because some people have very polarizing character, but man, oh man, I will tell you that concert, that Sunday service thing, the one I went to, he was there, that shit was, oh my God.

People criticize his personality, which can be obviously abrasive at times or maybe all the time. But I think that's what helps him kind of get things done. He believes in himself so much that he can really, he's not afraid to show it. And I fucking respect that. And I think that's why he also gravitates to Trump and if this isn't a defense of Trump in any way, but I think one characteristic that people like about Trump is that he is unabashedly who he is. And that rubs people the wrong way because sometimes unabashedly who he is is a dick. Do you know about like Trump's like upbringing and like the preacher he had when he was young?

I don't know about the preacher. I know about his parents. I don't know about the preacher. So he, Trump went to this church in Queens that was I guess like a very well known kind of somewhat famous church and he had a preacher and I don't remember his name, but he was a disciple of the new thought philosophy and he was like an author and like he was kind of like known as this new thought like empowerment was never Goddard. Exactly. But Trump grew up in the church hearing these messages of powerful self affirmation and Trump grew up from an early age, literally thinking that he could manifest his own reality.

This is a belief that he has and what's the consensus on that people? I would say check that box off, he's done it, yeah, he's done it. Yeah. Do you think he's going to be impeached? I don't know enough about actual politics, my guess would be no. All right. With you. Zero percent chance. I don't think that. Zero percent chance. For me, I think it's the democratic primaries are going so poorly in a lot of ways that I think. Who do you want? Who do you want? They're looking for any way they can get Trump out of office and they are trying impeachment because they're not confident about their candidates.

Who you voting for? Who am I voting for? I'm not voting for anyone. I like, I mean, I like. You're in a swing state. Do you vote in a swing state? You vote in California. You can vote in New York, California, it doesn't matter. I haven't voted since this first, well actually I did vote during the last election. I didn't. Oh, I did the last one. I wasn't going to. I did. And I walked by a church where people were waiting outside to vote and I just like had this moment of feeling like how great it would feel to like help nominate the first female president. I would have voted for it. And I got kind of sucked into this narrative of oh, female president, which is very, it's I think that would be great, but it's also a very surface level reason to vote for someone.

I like Andrew Yang. Yeah, you ain't getting. All right. Yeah. I'll vote for him in the primaries. He's cool. I hope he gets farther than people think and I hope if he in any way could get the nomination, I would gladly enthusiastically support him. He's already gotten farther than people thought he would. I knew it would get this far. I mean, he'll outlast even some of the other people who they like the kind of the golden boys and such. Biden, did you see the Biden thing where he's talking about the leg hairs and the road case? We're so creepy. Did you see that though? Yeah. What the fuck? You know, I'll take Trump saying weird shit over that.

I told my friend that man. I told my friend like Trump's it seems better than Biden's and Biden's got a really bad track record. Oh, do you know what my first job was out of high school is I worked for this company, these rave people. I had to deliver petitions to the rave act, which Joe Biden co sponsored as a bill, which allowed anyone in any place. If there was any drugs found, if you found a joint, it's now a crack house. They can shut the whole thing down. Shut the whole thing down. I had to deliver petitions literally in the capital. Like that's what was my job literally walking them through.

Yeah. He's as establishment as they come. I also have to, you know, just shout out Marianne Williamson because I think what she's done is amazing. She's running. She hasn't been invited to any debates, but she refuses to drop out. I mean, God bless you, Marianne, but well, the point for me, for me at the point where for her was never to win, like obviously, if she won, that'd be incredible and no one thought Trump would win either. But what Marianne has done, and I don't know if you've ever seen Marianne speak, like I used to see her speak in these little churches in New York. She is literally the most powerful speaker that I've ever seen because she has this idea of like love and like, you know, she's a deeply spiritual person, but she is a force of nature.

And only she could kind of bring a message of love and spirituality onto the political stage with the power that she does. I mean, as much as I agree with that, I can tell you flat out where we are energetically is not even close to ready for that president. No, no, no. And yeah, for me, that wasn't even like she's going to be president. It was like a platform to get her to put a little crack in the windshield to like put this message into a forum where it wouldn't necessarily go otherwise. I don't know how much she would like to hear this, but I think Marianne is going to be a forerunner of someone who eventually does what she's doing, but in a better way.

And I think that's probably why she's still in the race. And the truth is she shouldn't be because no one knows she's at this point. She's not fundraising like the other people. I like Marianne a lot, I also worked in this field enough to know some things about a lot of people. And I think Marianne is doing a really good job of getting her message out, which I think one is ultimately of love and unity. But I think it's interesting how people's conceptions of self also are reflected like being wanting to be president. Let's just be very clear about this. We're talking about ego. And anyway, however we define it, you got to have a massive fucking ego to think you are president of the United States.

And it's nothing that there's wrong with that. I used to judge people like, oh, bro, I think people want to be president. What's the matter with them? It's totally fine. But like you really got to be like, yo, I should be, I could be anything, I'm going to be president. Yeah. That's all. Could it, couldn't you think that your message was so important that you just felt like, I feel like Marianne almost is like, this message is too important for it not to be part of the conversation. And I happen to be the one who's going to deliver it. I think that is a noble cause, but also recognizing that maybe you're 16 years ahead and trying to set up the stage for the next person, but that, I think if that's what she's doing, I respect it.

And I think no matter what that's what she's doing, I, again, a lot of this stuff is based on, you know, stuff that is in public information. She's not a bad person in any way, in any way, shape or form. But I do know that like this, you have to remember these. There's just some hard edges around her for sure. There's some hard edges. Also something to keep in mind, I don't talk about this publicly a lot, but the generation of teachers before, let's say the past 10, 15 years came from a time where if you were speaking about this stuff, you were probably one of only very few. There certainly wasn't an established industry that would allow you to have an income reliably.

So there's this very different perspective on how this world works related to spirituality, capitalism, governance. And I know this where I used to judge people based on what I thought, you know, they're just being kind of dicks, they're kind of being assholes. And it's not that. It's just that there was a different playing field for a lot of this stuff 20 years ago, and I don't know, I don't know how many people who want to be president right now. This goes for all the candidates, Biden. They haven't recognized that they're probably stewards more than the star. Now that depends on where you are in history.

There's nothing about age that is involved here at all. It's a mentality of how to be a star. And if it is fixated on being the person, the only person, the chances of you succeeding with that mentality is less likely. But just to be clear back when like Biden was, you know, vice president, even then that's what you needed. You needed to be the fucking head honcho to do it. So it's a weird time to try to be president. The higher the hierarchy is starting to flatten a little bit, right, where still a hierarchy, but definitely flat. Well, yeah, it's a hierarchy. I mean, if you listen to Jordan Peterson, they'll always be hierarchies, but that's fine.

But the idea is, I mean, first of all, there shouldn't be one president, the idea of there's one single person that has that much power. And there's not, there's not. And they don't have that much power. Does Trump really have unilateral? No, of course. He's getting challenged and fucking one to two branches of that. But even to exalt any one person to say you are the leader of the free world. You don't believe in philosopher kings? So this might differ here. Yes. Well, here's the deal though. How does a philosopher king get their power? Is it through like government control or is it through like?

But they're still. Who they are. They're still a philosopher king. You could argue that musicians and artists and all these other types of people are in their own way, philosopher kings of their domains, which I would too. But as an actual form of governance, do we believe in like a king Solomon? Do we believe in, you know, some type of wise? So there's this great, I don't know who said this. There's this great quote, something like if a king cannot walk freely amongst his people, he's not really king. So it's like some philosopher kings, so to speak, like some people people just give their power to willingly because they recognize that this person is great.

I trust them. They're loving. They mean well like I just trust this person and I'm going to, you know, give upon him a certain sense of esteem, but where it's a president in this corrupt system and a corrupt Congress and a corrupt Senate, these people aren't kind of like get their power doesn't come freely from being truly earned from the goodwill of the people. It's more of a sense of control that's forced down upon people. So you know what I mean? Like an artist, people are like, I love this artist. They're giving so much to the world. I just want to be a fan. I'm going to follow them. I'm going to look up to them, but whereas a president's like a top down tyrannical sense of power and I think that's something that I think the politics needs to shift away from.

I think it is. I think I also think about how much we impose our own beliefs on these politicians and people who have mass consciousness like as much as I would like to believe Mitch McConnell is just like a total horrible human being who's corrupting the ethics and principles of government at times. I don't think that be if we believe that imagination creates reality and we have strong imaginations, our belief that he's doing that would quite literally create it for him and then where ultimately responsible for that. And that's why I think that is fucked up is some of these systems are we have to we don't have to.

We can recognize them as mechanisms that help us realize what just what you're talking about that maybe there's a better way. I don't know. These are interesting questions. I mean, I do think it can't be all that complicated to over time shift our current models to something much more sustainable, ethical and just better. Yeah, I'm kind of ready just to kind of walk away from politics like energetically and consciously like not really follow it at all anymore because I think it really is a puppet show that gets power from our attention, like everything that we give it and that we give it. But I think we can make more of an impact in the world by focusing on ourselves, our relationships, our own communities.

I think that's where our efforts and our energy is better put rather than following the news cycle to every new scandal and drama because it's all just perpetuated for eyeballs just to like suck your attention and suck your energy. And it's like when you just kind of extract yourself from that and just decide to live your life with the people that are around you and try to make an impact in your own community. Yeah. I just think that's like a better way to change the system than trying to kind of like combat it from the inside. Yeah, man, I'm with it, James, this has been a really fun conversation.

Yeah, man. I ended with three questions and then one open ended one. What's your favorite color? I'm a big fan of like black and whites, like monochromatics. I like that. Yeah. What is your favorite number? I got to say seven. Cool. What's your favorite animal? I'm a big fan of wolves. Oh, I like it. Yeah. I like it a lot. And last question, what's a practical tip that's helped you in your life that you could share with people listening? Probably just try to live within their bodies as much as possible. You know, getting out of the head and into the body, noticing how you feel, whether that's through breathing, conscious breathing, breathing techniques, you know, meditation, yoga, exercise, as much as you can get out of your own head and into the actual feeling of your body.

I think the body has all types of wisdom that the conscious mind doesn't have access to. I love it. James, thank you for coming over, man. Thanks Noah. Thanks for coming to L.A. Yeah. Thank you. Bye. Thanks for listening to that episode, guys. Hope you enjoyed it. Tune into James. Thanks for listening. I'll see you next week. Bye.., bye.... Bye. [BLANK_AUDIO]