Former Senator Takes 10 Grams of Mushrooms Live

Brian Johnson, the longevity guy, he's trying to live forever, so he's taking 3 5 g psilocybin trips. I'm like, OK, this dude has a hole in his soul that he's trying to fill. Legally we've drawn a line between spirituality and religion. Religion is protected, spirituality isn't. Today we interview Steve Urquhart. He was a senator. He did 10 g of mushrooms and live streamed it, and he tells us all about it. I love psychic. Delics for helping show me that my sense of reality needed some tweaks. Walk us through what it was like when you were getting probed by governmental agencies. I said, Hey, I'm starting a mushroom church. If you decide to come after us, you know where I live, but don't think about interrupting a ceremony because you'll be the one inflicting damage and harm at that point. When you were in the Senate, were you taking psychedelics, if you're allowed to say that? Everybody has a story of being impacted by a loss of someone or somebody they're close to or a family member. Most of the religious teachers or prophets that almost every religion looked up to had some kind of plant medicine influence. You have this big population of Mormons where I think more of us have left the fold than are currently in the fold. Used to be tough. If you left, you're a heretic.

Why did a senator do the world's most important mushroom trip for science? Today we interview Steve Urquhart. He was a senator. He did 10 g of mushrooms and live streamed it, and he tells us all about it. Tune in to find out more. Steve, welcome to the podcast. The man who did the most important mushroom journey in the history of the world. Yes, absolutely. Thank you. Good to be here and thanks for the lid. I'm loving it. Yes, you rock it well. And we sent an extra one for your wife. I hope she likes, I know she loves it. Awesome, awesome. Well, I, I've been dying to, I haven't actually watched the 4 hour live stream, you know, and we'll get into, you know, your whole story, but I think I just want to start here. What even sparked wanting to live stream? Yeah, so are y'all familiar with Brian Johnson, the longevity guy? Yes, OK, so I saw his, um, thing where You know, he's, he's trying to live forever, so he's taking all these supplements, and he's uh doing plasma transfusions with his son and with his father, and, um, so he found psilocybin, and he's taking 3 5 g psilocybin trips, and he was saying that it's the most scientifically studied mushroom trip in the history of the world, and So, you know, all of a sudden I just see the Saturday Night Live skit in my head and uh he has his helmet to measure brain waves, brain activity, so, you know, I envision a disco ball helmet and so that's how it got started is we just wanted to uh mess with it and have some fun.

But then very quickly um we started to get a little serious about it and so I saw a picture of Brian on his Mormon mission and so I'm like, oh, OK, you know, I grew up Mormon and left the fold and I'm like, OK, this dude also has a hole in his soul that he's trying to fill with something and so we kind of moved past the Brian Johnson stuff, we sort of did, we sort of didn't, so there were still elements of uh The Saturday Night Live skit, but then, uh, on top of it there was some sort of serious stuff and it was, uh, you know, I, I don't think I recommend that set and setting for anyone else, but um I kinda like chaos, so for me it was, it was fantastic. I loved it. That's cool. So it seems like it started as kind of a parody, but then your direct quote was, I believe, oh Brother Johnson, you also have a God-sized hole in your heart you're trying to fill. So did you sort of see yourself in Brian and then it became more of like a almost a collaboration where you're both kind of on the same mission or like what was going through your head when you saw that photo of him on his mission?

Yeah, oh, I very much doubt he thinks we're on the same mission here, but you know, I don't know, we've never talked, and so, no, it's just I, uh, Very quickly after I talked with a bunch of friends, I'm like, oh my gosh, we have to do this. Then I saw a picture of him on his mission um to Ecuador I think it was and uh has his missionary name tag and so, you know, it's a pretty low grade uh intent to just spoof someone and so quickly moved past that and you know I kind of forgot about him and uh that that was the motivation. But, uh, you know, it, it's, yeah, I offer him grace, a peace on his journey. I don't think he's hurting anyone, so, uh, you know, a lot, a lot of, and, and I actually, I, I am a bit fascinated by the guy and so it does seem to me like he's on a, a bit of a spiritual quest, which I think that, uh, if we, you know, change, broaden our definitions of spirituality and religion.

I think a lot of us who find psychedelics were on that spiritual quest. Can you walk us through people that haven't watched the full live stream, you know, going through the experience, going, hey, settle down. Going through the experience, did you blend them up? Did you, you know, use a little bit of lemon to help like digest it more? Like how was the setup? Who'd you have watching over you and what was your, did you have a specific intention you said because 10 g is not a. You know, just to go to a concert dose, like if you're gonna go in, I imagine, let's set a, let's set a strong intention. So I got the idea and then uh immediately I talked to my so I talked to Sarah, my wife, and she said this is stupid I don't. I don't wanna play any part in this and so I'm like, OK, I need a better audience and so I went to my friend Brooke Lark and I said, Brooke, man, I just have the worst idea you've got to do this with me and so she was instantly in and she produced it and she pulled together a bunch of people and some of them I knew really well and some of them I barely knew and so.

I didn't quite know what was gonna go on, I wanted to be surprised and I kinda caught wind that people were going to come into my bedroom and give me some sort of offering, some sort of gift, they were going to share with me and um you know that it made me nervous to tell you the truth, um. As as much as I'm like, you know, look at me, look at me when people do, I'm like don't look at me and uh so having she brought in a full film crew, lights, cameras, and um you know, most of my mushroom journeys now I don't wanna pick up other people's energy, I don't wanna have to mask around other people, so they're the deep ones are mostly solo or just with Sarah or people who I'm just really tight with so. Then it's pretty amazing, the night before, um, I'm just sitting up in, well, here at this table and I'm working on mushroom stuff, right? I, I, uh, grow mushrooms, I do mushroom kits, so I'm working on those.

And I was thinking, you know, tomorrow with all of these people around who love me and are bringing me gifts, this would be the perfect opportunity to do some deep work, but with the cameras, the lights, all the chaos, there's no way on earth I'm gonna be able to do some deep work. hm, if I were to do some deep work I'd do some, you know, so I went back to some childhood stuff and I'm like I think I've never really dealt with these things. That would be cool, but again there's no way and so you know it has to do when I was 6, my one of my older brothers committed suicide and I think I've just never addressed that and uh you know no adult at the time talked with me, it was, it was pretty messed up and so uh that night before I took the medicine, I kind of started processing this and so I wrote the words. If you're telling me something I'm probably not understanding it. I don't process too well, um, you know, verbally, orally, but when I see it, then it hits and so I wrote the words, you know, I went and grabbed paper and pen. I'm like, oh this is gonna be important, so I wrote down, uh, my brother was Ike. I said when Ike died that scared me. I think I've been scared ever since and so just seeing those words that I wrote, I mean I just started bawling and started feeling into it and Really did a lot of the work before anyone showed up and then there were a couple of really interesting quick elements while I was deep in the medicine that further did that work so again I don't recommend this way to anyone, but for me being surrounded by all these people, I did some profound work and put down some baggage that I've been carrying around for a long, long time.

That's so fantastic. That's, yeah, I can't imagine being surrounded by a film crew. I mean, that's so, it's, you know, if anybody's ever done a large dose, the bravery and just the surrender you must have went through coming out the other side like. When you finally came out a couple hours later, what were you feeling? Well, it's interesting, um, so right away, uh, two, Polynesian sisters came in and, uh, they were singing me, uh, some of their songs from Samoa and they were calling in my ancestors and I mean my, my loved ones and so. You know they had prepped and Sarah, Sarah, my wife, she actually got into this, um, when we started, when it started approaching and so they had names of my ancestors and so then they brought up the name of my brother who suicided and so all of a sudden I just do the tighten up. I'm like, oh man, I don't want this to be a public spectacle and so that made me nervous but it was so beautiful how they did it. I'm like, OK, this is cool.

So then the next person came in who I am really just getting to know, I don't know her that well, and so she did some channeling. And that instantly made me very nervous cause I don't wanna disrespect her or. She's giving me a gift that is meaningful, but I don't know where it's gonna go. Is she gonna start channeling my dead brother, which I'm not down with that, you know? So I'm like, oh man, cameras are rolling. I'm, I, I'm, I'm just like panicking at this point. And so, you know, it went on. So some of these things are kind of unsettling, I guess really unsettling, and other things were really calming, you know, someone. Climbed in a good friend and we're just giggling about stuff and so then I told him, um, I told him about the night before with my brother and he said yeah yeah I know and so I forgot that his brother had suicided a couple years ago and so I'm like oh dude, so I brought him in, gave him a kiss. I'm like how are you? and so he told me a story of how he processed that and I think this can only happen in psychedelics.

It was so beautiful the story he told that somehow I just instantly adopted it. It was my story and the way it healed him. I mean here I am, you know, a month and a half later I think I'm good, you know, it's just kind of like, oh, OK, that's cool, I like that, that's now mine, so there were some beautiful tender things, but after a while it, it was just too much, so, uh, there's this, there's this one part where Sarah is asking me, are you OK? and so I'm like I, I, you know, cause I don't wanna. I don't wanna say I don't know, you know, I don't wanna deny these beautiful gifts. This is a beautiful offering. So then Brooke, who's pronounced, she's like, Steve, just use words. Are you OK? So I have no words. So I'm like I. So, so Sarah says, hey Brooke, leave, leave me and Steve alone for a minute and so she says, what do you wanna do? I said, I want this to stop. I said, I'm done. I just need this to stop, but I told her beforehand I'm like, you know, I might hit that moment and I don't want it to stop. I want this to be good so if you can just help me change the channel and so that's a big thing, she's she's she's a really good guide. I am the world's worst mushroom guide. I've tried it a few times.

I'm a nightmare so I don't do it anymore, but kinda wild coming from the guy that has a mushroom church. I know, I thought I thought I could be good at this and I'm not, I'm definitely not, but so, uh, she, uh, so you know she snuggled up to me, snuggled for like 30 seconds, and so she said, hey, they're dancing out in the living room, do you wanna go dance? I'm like, that sounds awesome. You know, because that's the thing about my, I've been, I don't know if you've ever been in like group mushroom ceremonies where there's an agenda, have you done that? It's like the worst idea because no one can follow an agenda on mushrooms and so because your energy's up, down, and so when she said dance, I'm like, yeah, and so I was instantly fine. I just went outside and hung out with, with my people and, uh, so there was something very interesting too, so, um. At one point I just panicked because I looked around, so this again has to do with my, my brother's funeral when I was 6 years old. I'm at his casket. Sorry to go, you know, morbid and deathy. No, all is a part of this is part of the importance of mushrooms is this? Well, it is right.

We could talk about the weather or we can talk about the shit that's, you know, really impacting our everybody has a story of being impacted by a loss of some someone or somebody they're close to or a family member. Yeah, yeah, well thank you and I never processed it. I mean, no adult really ever talked to me about it. I mean, I, I found out from my brother's buddy who told me that he said, hey, your, your brother's been fighting a bear and, uh, you know, the bear won and I'm 6 years old and I'm like I didn't know we had fucking bears in Houston, right? Yeah, the weirdest thing. So I'm, I'm, I'm at his casket and so I don't know what's going on. There's my, there's some wax figure that looks like my brother in a box and some I's, I'm like I am I doing? I don't think I'm doing this right. What am I supposed to be doing? So I looked over at my dad, man, my dad's just furious. He's just glaring at me and I have no idea, nor will I ever what was going on. And so that just gave me the yips for life. I constantly ask myself, am I doing this right? I, I don't think I'm doing this right. And so that happened when I'm out dancing in my living room. I'm looking around. We have a DJ there because, uh, uh, Brian Johnson Grimes did a DJ set on his. So I had a buddy come and he did a DJ set. And so, um, we were like budget Brian Johnson, and so, uh, I look around and I'm like.

I don't think this is good and so I went up to my friend Leah and I said are are we doing this right? I said I don't think we're doing this right and she said, what, what are we doing, Steve? We're just, it's a mushroom trip, what, what do you mean? And I said, well I think we're being irresponsible. I said what, what message are we sending out? I think we should stop the music and we should say some words and so she said, are you enjoying this? I said, I'm well yeah, I'm loving this and she said, well how about. She said you're the one who always says we can worship however what we want, we get to define our worship. How about we just call this unmitigated joy. And so I'm like, oh yeah, I don't need to worry about other people. I, this is what we're choosing to do right now, this is how we're choosing to worship, so again a month and a half later I'm asking myself the question, am I doing this right a lot less often, so those were two very quick exchanges, but uh because of psychedelics I I where the filters are down and.

We can receive things fresh, um, those two very quick exchanges, they hit deep and they've been very helpful and it's not just in the moment, you know, my wheels have been turning thinking about these two exchanges and helping me process and integrate and I'm talking to all my people about it and yeah just super, super fascinating, it was a blast, it was awesome, you know, I tell people if you don't if you've never really got stupid with me, if you never just sat around and giggled then. We're not that tight, you know, we, you don't really know me if, if, if you haven't just scratched your head and said this dude is an idiot, you know, cause I think we all do that, right? We have some front where this is my respectable, dignified human, um, but I just love being stupid and so in that scenario where we had a sexy nurse, we had all sorts of ridiculousness, um, I just really relaxed and then bam bam had those two very quick. Uh, interactions with these two wonderful people and, uh, some serious healing went on.

And that's just, that just goes to show how playful mushrooms are and when you become unplayful or you resist what you really want, you go down this spiral that becomes so heavy and just the simple redirection of what actually feels good, all of a sudden it opens you back up. And I like what you said about the unmitigated joy, was it? Yeah I think that's, you know, with your divine assembly, your main tenet is Something along the lines of, you know, your, what is it? Let's see if you have it. I can't pop quiz. I, I don't have it memorized, but what's the essence? The essence is. You are the the knower of your connection to God in the universe, and that's the only rule. Yeah, you do you, I'll do me. And that's, you know, I think psychedelics can show where we have all of these requirements of how we need to be or think or what we should do, and it's like breaking through those layers. And I think that's so important in everything in life. Like, who am I to tell you how you can like as like as little kids, like I love playing with this and you're told, no, you shouldn't earn this.

Then when it comes to spirituality or God or or connecting to the thing in essence that brings you life and joy or health, you know, people get like, well, I, I'm not doing it right or I need to follow this and giving the permission of like, no, like what, what, what feels good to you? I'm allowed to even ask that. I didn't know that, how simple that can be. I, I think it's important, uh, spiritually. Which also means religiously, I think, you know, legally we've drawn a line between spirituality and religion. Religion is protected, spirituality isn't, and uh that line, it's non-existent, it's bullshit, that's someone else's dogma. But um I think if we learn to stand our ground on our own spirituality and realize that if we develop that, that can be our religion, I think the world changes around us, um. You know there's one experience that I'm, I'm kind of proud of because it's, uh, again I'm a uh I uh I I've been a people pleaser my whole life. I mean, you know, I'm I'm borderline, I don't know what y'all know about that but so I'm, you know, I have this kind of poor self-image, uh, but then At other times I'll just light it on fire without caring at all, but so, um, this one dude after the Rolling Stone article came out, um, he's an older guy and, uh, just has, he's seen a lot of life.

Um, he's a great connector. He realized that two of his dear friends didn't know each other, so he said, Come to my place in Maui and hung out with his friend Roland Griffiths of Johns Hopkins and Ram Dass, and, uh, that, that's just who he is. It's how he walks the earth. He's very unassuming and humble, but, um, that article came out and he said, hey, I live in Salt Lake City now and I'd like to meet you. This seems interesting. So we had breakfast. And so he's throwing out all the names of people he's connected to, it's the Rushmore of psychedelia, you know, and he said, yeah, you know, the article came out and I've been talking with them and they, they wanna know who you are, what you're about, and so, you know, I think they were, uh, trying to see, uh oh, is this a, what is this, what's going on here so. Yeah, I said, I said, you know, man, you're talking about some people who are real heroes to me, it's amazing the work they've done and everything, their, their sacrifices, their brilliance, their efforts have us now to the point where I can do this and others can do this, and I said anything that they want to tell me, you wanna tell me, that would be very welcome, um.

Be very curious in that, I said, but I do wanna create one bright line. I said I've spent my life with other people telling me how to worship and that's in Mormonism where you're assigned to God, you're assigned beliefs, you're, you're assigned everything and you know you're you're entitled to personal revelation if like you can't find your keys, you know, and then you can pray and be led to where your keys are and stuff like that and um that's an uncharitable view, but it's. My perspective, at least how I lived is not too far from the truth, but so I told him I said, I said I'm not gonna do that anymore, so anything they wanna tell me that's wonderful, but if, if they wanna tell me how to worship they can fuck off and so he just smiled and he said I think we're gonna get along just fine and uh that's that's where I am. You know, again, I have these tendencies. I'm like I don't, I don't think I'm doing this right, but for the most part, uh, my worship is between me and my version of the divine, and we're having a lot of fun figuring it out.

So what are the other tenants that you have in the divine assembly, and, I imagine it's not very strong in terms of regulation, but more about guidance and how people can connect further with spirituality through whether it's psychedelics or their own spiritual practice. So, um, OK, let me give you a little more of the history leading up to the answer of there are no other tenants. Uh, I, so I was in the Utah House of Representatives for 8 years. I was in the Utah Senate for 8 years, and, uh, my last 3 years there I fought for LGBTQ rights, and that meant fighting against the Mormon Church and its religious liberties and So, um, I'm, I'm tripping balls and so don't call people when you're doing that. That's always a good idea. It's a good rule, but of course I, I called someone. I stay off your phone. That's a hard rule, stay off your phone, but, uh, I violated that and, um, so I called a constitutional law genius and, uh.

You know, a law professor and um I said, yo man, religious liberties, blah blah blah and I said I think this is religion and you know if it can protect the bad stuff it can protect the good stuff and so he uh he just said, Steve, Steve, Steve, Steve, he said let me just tell me at the end of this overlong story that uh you're starting a mushroom church and I'm your general counsel. I'm like yeah that's it and um. So I told my wife and uh there seems to be a pattern here she said that's a dumb idea. I don't want any part of that her her exact quote is we just left one weird ass religion the world doesn't need another one and uh so that's what I was hearing from a lot of my people and they're like no please no let's just can we just do mushrooms and hang out and so. It, I am an activist at heart and so a lot of the divine assembly comes out of political activism, you know, I don't hide that for a second. That's the reason every church incorporates, that's the reason every church does a lot of the things it does because there are laws that protect them and so, you know, then what my people are saying is they're like just don't with these religion leads to predation, it leads to loss of autonomy and So I said, well I think I really have something here, sit with me, let's let's discuss this and so that's what we came up with is just the one tenet which, which is, um, uh, each individual can commune with the divine and receive guidance.

And so That being the case, no one needs me or anyone else to lay out other tenants and so, you know, you look at the case law and OK, what is a protected religion and it's almost all protected unless you wanna do psychedelics and then they're gonna do, you know, a cavity search and really they're gonna probe there. About how, how sincere your beliefs are and where the sincerity really comes in for the divine assembly is if you just say I'm a member of TDA I get to do psychedelics that probably won't stand if you are brought into court. But the real meaning of the divine assembly, it comes in someone's personal creed that's where you can write your own scripture you can receive your own revelation, lay out the things that you believe that you don't believe the things you do, the things you don't do, and so there it can be absolutely as specific as a person wants, and I think that is a real meaningful spiritual religious exercise is to figure out what is it all about.

Can you walk us through what it was like when you were getting probed by governmental agencies to prove your, your genuine belief in the religion? Because you said that they'll come after you and like really make you prove it. What's that like? So I've never had that. Oh really, we've just kind of let you be. Yeah, we've been doing this for 6 years and so, um, you know, when, when I even before I started this, I contacted uh the county attorney for Salt Lake County, a friend, I mean, you know, remember I was in the legislature 16 years and so I'm Utah's one small town and so I know a lot of the figures here and so. Um, I said, hey, I'm starting a mushroom church and, uh, that could put us on a collision course, so can you do us both the favor and, uh, look and see what kind of issues you're having with mushrooms. I said, uh, you know, and then let's talk about religion because I don't think we're gonna give you anything that you need to worry about, we're gonna work hard, um.

You know, to have a lot of safety and if, if there aren't. Safety concerns then it really shouldn't be government's concern, I said, but if there are concerns then uh we are protected by religion so you can't come after us. If you do decide to come after us, you know my phone number, you know where I live, come after me and let's let's do the dance. I said, but don't think about interrupting a ceremony because you'll be the one inflicting damage and harm at that point. And so that's just the kind of conversation that I have with, uh, law enforcement in Utah and officials and I don't because we have this relationship. I don't think it comes off as disrespectful. I don't intend it to. That's just where the law is because this is religion, they have to be hands off and so he, uh, said, OK, cool, I appreciate this, and he put his chief deputy on it and, um, that deputy looked up the instances Salt Lake County has had with magic mushrooms and they really don't go after magic mushrooms if it's a cheap add-on where they're busting for something else, then they'll add a charge and.

So even before we started, that's what I've been is open book with law enforcement and I think that that has paid a lot of dividends for our community, um, you know, I had, uh, I won't name names on this one, but a, uh, very, very, very, very prominent, uh, law enforcement figure in the state, um, he said, hey, I want you to teach me about psychedelics. And I said take the afternoon off and psychedelics can teach you about psychedelics. He said he he said no, no, no, not, not yet. And he said, he said, I know the good, he said I'm not stupid and he's very far from stupid, he said, um, but you know they are illegal. I know that they can cause some harm, he said I need someone who I respect who's. Who's uh informed about this to educate me and I said that's that's incredible that's I, I really respect that that's the question that prosecutors should be asking because you know I'm sure you two know there's some harms out there, man. I mean, uh, um, psychedelics, they ramp up suggestibility and with that vulnerability you throw in religion shit gets weird instantly when you call it religion.

And there's some serious predation that goes on in psychedelic spaces, especially religious psychedelic spaces, and I think especially the ones that do religious cosplay where they're adopting all the Abrahamic. Uh, indicia of religion, which if you wanna be legally safe, that's what you do, cosplay, a recognizable church, but I think with those you bring in these power dynamics and um when I, when I speak at conferences instantly people hate me, um, some love me, some hate me because I say, you know, this is great that we're getting some recognition of psychedelic religions, I said. But the ones that really are worried about legal safety and they go around that with all the religious cosplay, um, I said we're seeing and I think we're going to see tremendous predation in those spaces. I said I grew up Mormon and I said people know there's, there's sexual abuse there are things that go on in Mormonism if you think for one second.

That your church, if you get any size, you're gonna manage that better than the Mormon Church which has records and follows these people, if these records follow us from birth, you know, one leader talking to others and you know, a community that really it, it does hate that stuff and it really wants to ferret it out. But they have a lot of it because of the power dynamics. I said we're gonna have this in psychedelic religion and this is why I promote the mystic path where everyone enters with their full autonomy and they just zealously guard that, yeah, because you've also said that you don't think mushrooms should be legal. So is that part of the reasoning why like there should be some. religious aspect around it or some ceremony. Yeah, I think that's an old quote. Um, I've, I've changed on that. I think that these, these substances should be fully legal, um.

You know, I think part of, part of that is society has changed a lot, it's changing fast, and the more it gets destigmatized, thank you for this podcast, your efforts. I mean, everyone out there pushing and pulling. I think that we have, um, What do we call it, a container we have, um, we're to a point where people who want to explore psychedelics, it's not that hard to find responsible ways to do it and so if we just turn them all loose and say, hey kids have fun, then yeah we could have some serious problems, um, you know, in, in, in a few cases, but now. You know, people who are going to be irresponsible, they're gonna be irresponsible with hammers, with cars, whatever it is, but there now are so many ways to do these safely, um, that yeah, let's go ahead and let's go ahead and legalize them all. I think we need really good high quality mushroom shops with good mushroom tenders.

To educate people, you know, go in there, teach people all the different strains, you know, organic and just teaching like, you know, and versus cannabis. Mushrooms have so many applications for whatever you're working on, and so, It's such a beautiful like the way people could arrive into it if they had nice mushroom chops and, you know, really took people through education of all the dosing and strains and had people like start with this and that, it, you know, would be totally revolutionary. And yeah, of course, you could take a 50 mg, you know, cannabis edible and you're gonna have a bad time, but like you gotta really try to just like turn a blind eye and throw that in your mouth. Yeah, like how Amsterdam used to be. Yeah, yeah. What I'm curious though is, yeah, I just wanna say, are y'all familiar with Church of Ambrosia, Zide Door, David Hodges out of Oakland? No.

So you'll, as, as I, as I lay out the story, you will remember it, um, so Oakland, they decriminalized and then after they decriminalized, uh, uh, some of these substances, well, Oakland police went in and raided Zide door, um, you know, took a torch to the safe and, uh, they, they took money, they took, so at the time, David, um, was distributing to members, sharing with members. Uh, cannabis and mushrooms, he has since added DMT and that's the model that you just described, um, where that's mainly what it is, is education and hey you be safe, but you figure it out, you and the divine, and so he takes a mystic approach and but that that's Oakland now this will blow your mind, um, here in Salt Lake City, it's actually South Salt Lake. We have two brick and mortar shops, one called uh Salt City Sanctuary, the other called Black House. You walk in and it's a church, and they're both churches, and you join the church and you can get dried mushrooms, uh, ounces of them, you can get cannabis, um, flour.

And you can get DMT carts in Salt Lake City. Now they're both mind-blowing. It's amazing, huh? Yeah, that's uh we, we gotta take a tour. Yeah, so, so times, uh, times are changing now. Those have both been raided, um, by South Salt Lake, um, the, the charging documents, they're not as severe as, as you might expect with the kind of volumes they were doing, but nonetheless they do have a legal dance ahead of them, and that will be very interesting to watch, but, um, you know, I, the, the guy who runs Salt City, um, a friend of mine, we used to. He's a DJ and we used to go out in the desert and uh he would put on dances and that was before I started Divine Assembly and then he DJed our very first uh Divine Assembly gathering. It was during COVID and we had these small groups that were linked together on Twitch TV and he uh Uh, DJed once, so I'm very proud of him and, uh, it'll just be interesting to see where those cases go and, but again hats off to the people who are out there fighting in the arena and pushing the boundaries. Those are the ones who's, those are the ones who changed the laws.

When you were in the Senate, were you psychedelic curious or taking psychedelics? If you're allowed to say that, that maybe statute of limitations is is over. Um, so, Uh, you know, we joined, so yeah, my, my family situation was a bit messy growing up, and, uh, we joined the Mormons, I think, because they knocked on the door before the Jehovah's Witnesses. I think my mom wanted some stability and, uh, there's a lot I do love about the Mormon Church and there were a lot of really great people who took an interest in me and my brother and and my mother and so I'm very grateful. For that, um, But, uh, you know, at the end of the day it didn't do me a lot of good, but, um, you know, anyways, it's just been a battle of finding out who I am, what am I about, and finding my individual autonomy and it's, it's, it continues to go, it trying to, I think that my spirit my natural spirituality was stepped on by that.

Um, religion can be a great way to order our spirituality so we can figure out how do we exercise it, how do we develop it, but it also can become a bit of a cage, and I got trapped in that cage, and so, uh, I left Mormonism, at least in my mind, in my soul, uh, around 2009 or so, and that had been my moral ethical compass for my entire life and so. When I no longer believed I didn't really have a moral or ethical compass and so I say that I escaped Mormonism through the sewer. It was, it was, it was a nasty path, um, you know, it was dishonest to everyone around me. It was dangerous and so my last three years in the Senate, I was drunk and or stoned every single day and that would be off, you know, oxy and, um, it was, it was gross. It was a horrible existence and uh. It was only after I got out of the Senate, um, 2017 that I found, uh, psychedelics and Uh, you know, it was amazing, my very first trip, I'm sitting in a garden with God and, uh, I realized that God really, really loves me and, uh, You know, female, and, uh, she was just she was all about me and I, I just kept messing with the garden in my mind. I just kept recreating it, you know, like Degas, like uh Monet, like Van Gogh and so God was just thrilled and so then she said to me, how do you see it? and I said, well, I'm, I'm not an artist and so she said, yes you are, so, OK, well if God says you're an artist.

So I just redid the garden and it was it was the most beautiful thing I've ever seen in my life because it's what my mind thinks is beautiful and God, God couldn't breathe, she was so amazed and I realized. OK, God loves me. I mean God loves me more than God loves anyone who's ever walked this earth and so I'm like that's a lot of ego, you know, I'm like this, this is these are delusions of grandeur. I need to stop this so instantly, you know, this hot winds blowing, just turning everything into dust and I'm just sitting on cracked earth, right, and I'm like I did this. Something about me, I did this. I was hanging out with God. It was great. God loved me, feeling good, and now it's just cracked earth. I something toxic about me. Well, you know, that's, I didn't know the borderline stuff. That's what you do as a borderline. You reject any amount of love and so I don't know about you guys, but a lot of the things I see in these trips, I'm like I have no idea what's going on. I don't know what it is and.

But I remember it and then process it over months, years, and I realized, OK, well I'm, I'm hanging out in, in the garden with Sarah, my wife, right? and that's the first time I'm really allowing myself to see her and seeing her is feeling the love that she has for me. I mean, God bless this poor woman, she does love me more than anyone who's ever walked this earth. And uh just feeling that and then I had these experiences subsequently where I see each of my kids starting with my youngest who is the kindest human and she's the easiest, right? She of the people I love she scares me the least and uh so. I just see her and I really see her in my mind, right, with psychedelics well this can't be real, this is a drug experience, no man, you guys know this, it's more real than the reality I carry around 24/7. I see the love she has for me and I can.

I just haven't allowed myself in my life to feel love like that, so I mean I have goosebumps now telling the story. I just, I, it's like rapture to be filled with a love you didn't know existed. So then I go through each of my kids and then Sarah and I feel the love they have for me and so that's been my journey is to learn to love, which largely means to receive love and so, you know, all the, all the cliches that become powerful and true it's like God is love and. You can't love anyone more than you love yourself. Well, these things are hitting home to me and so I think I now walk the earth in, in heaven. Heaven is a place of unimaginable peace and happiness. Well, that's where I am. I didn't know that this kind of peace and I mean I sleep at night and uh it's, it's just beautiful and I love psychedelics for helping. Show me that my sense of reality needed, it was off, it needed some tweaks and then as part of that, I don't think there's.

Psychedelics, I guess there are some magic cures, right, where people take them, they see some things and they're healed there. I mean, I kind of described that on New Year's Eve with two of those experiences where I'm like, oh I heard it and it changed, but I think a lot of it is work and it points out the work and so I realized my sense of reality is off, so I got into something called dialectical behavioral therapy which. On, on a foundation of mindfulness helps me better tolerate distress, regulate my emotions, and have better interpersonal interactions and so, you know, I think that's the work is we see some things and sometimes we can self-correct and other times we're like, OK, I, I need professional help with these things. But that combination to me in my life, that's every bit as miraculous as any of the miracles that Jesus performed and so this is my sincere faith, it is my sincere worship and I believe it as much as any Christian or any Muslim, any anyone believes their faith.

And I think with traditional, like, like you're saying, it takes both things because, you know, I imagine you can't get to that conclusion or even have that realization to be even working on this conclusion you had if it wasn't for psychedelics. You could be going to therapy and all that, and it, it really just pulls the curtain back to see behind and go, OK, those are the things going on behind the scenes I need to now work on. And yeah, sometimes you have a, a revelation that changes you forever, but most times, It's showing you where there are areas to work deep, and if you're willing to, you can really change your life and the people's lives around you. Something I wanted to touch on though is with the divine assembly, say I want to join. I love how, you know, you write your own scripture, you should write your own gospel, and do you have prompts or questions that People can ask themselves who are listening. To write their own.

Um, so just to get them. Yeah, yeah, and so we talk a lot about creed writing, we call it. A creed that people can do and so we have a uh summer festival, we've done it 5 years, it's a week up in the mountains. Um, we now have 700 acres, uh, an hour west of Salt Lake where we gather often. We gather, um, On Sundays in a few different locations and then online uh uh on Mighty Network, uh, if people download Mighty Network, the app and join Divine Assembly, the Divine Assembly, then there's something in there that talks about creed writing and so we do try to, uh, give some people ideas on how to get started on that. And it's really a fun exercise and um.

You know, I think that's a great religious path is to be thinking, you know, in Mormonism and maybe a lot of religions there's some they say pray always and I'm like what would I, how do you do that? How do you have other things to do? Well, that's because it wasn't authentically mine, whereas now I think I do pray always, I think I worship always cause that's just how I walk the earth. I'm looking for the wonder of birds and frogs and clouds and you know these. Beautiful hairless monkeys we've become and there's just so much beauty around us that I'm constantly worshiping the, the, the people, the things around me and uh you know that that's something that I keep exploring in my creed where instead of religion being something out there, it's different, it's aspirational. It's just becoming more and more, it's, it's how I walk the earth and so I think that I constantly am becoming a better person, um, for others to be around and my sense of peace and a lot of this is because of the creed where it's, it's not bad to have some, you know, like Brian Johnson did on his trip with all the things that he's measuring, um, I think it's OK in our mind to have some.

Measuring sticks and some gauges by how, how well am I getting. Along with Sarah, with the kids, how much am I interacting with them? How, how much, uh, happiness am I bringing to the people around me and, you know, am I bringing in money to pay the bills? Am I helping around the house? How many times am I doing the dishes and cooking meals and so it's just simple things like that where, uh, for me. In in large part because of the creed where I get to remind myself how I want to be that my religion it's becoming something that I just am 24/7. Do you have a lot of Mormons that reach out to you now and they're kind of, you know, curious a little bit? Tons, yeah, tons, it's fascinating to watch what's going on in Mormonism, um, you know, if I have any, uh, any tribe on earth, that's it, it's Mormons, and we are so divided, you know, the ones who continue to go to the mainstream branch that is headquartered a couple blocks north of me, uh, at Temple Square.

And then, but you have this big population of Mormons where I think more of us have left the fold than are currently in the fold and so, uh, you have, it's a very dynamic population and it used to be tough, you if you left then you know you were uh. You're a heretic and, and you lost so much of your community, you lost family, it was really tough to leave. Well, now it's pretty easy to leave and it's a lot more fun to leave. You get a 10% pay increase, you get a second Saturday every week and um, but there's more, there's more, uh, interaction between active Mormons and people who have left the official fold and that's showing up. In the pews, people who are going on Sundays, um, where it used to mean Mormon you did certain things you didn't do certain other things, and now you just can't predict that you have people who go every week and they just kind of do it their way and they don't really care what a bunch of older men in the building are saying they should and shouldn't do so Mormonism has very mystic origins.

And it's just so exciting and fascinating to me to see it return to those mystic roots where members even though they show up every week, they can be in bishoprics, um, they just kind of do it their way and uh it's, it's fascinating to watch. Do you think JC Smith would be proud? Um, God, that's an interesting question, you know, I think early, early Joseph Smith would have because I think this was so, uh, uh, you know, this is what American scholars have noted is the origins of most religion, religions, they are quite mystic, someone has an experience, but then what do they immediately do they say this is the experience you all need to have. Right, and so my, my very first experience with psychedelics, I'm sitting in a garden with God and God happens to be my wife and so I guess I could set up a religion where everyone needs to worship my wife, um, but, uh, you know, so Joseph Smith and then some of the early members they were having these, uh, disintermediated these direct experiences.

But then it just became more and more dogmatic that this is exactly the experience you need to have, so less opportunities for mysticism. So I think early Joseph, oh man, he would have been stoked watching some of this, and there's a lot of good scholarship coming out suggesting that uh. He, he might have been using magic mushrooms. There's this ceremony in the Kirkland Temple where all these people are having visions after they had the sacramental wine. And if you've read Brian Murescu's book The Immortality Key, uh, you know, spiked wine. Um, has, has been a religious tradition for a long time. So yeah, I think Joseph would feel very at home with a lot of what's early Joseph with what's going on, um, in Salt Lake City, but then later Joseph, when he created the church and just had convinced himself that God uniquely talked to him and, uh, that he was the prophet getting word for others, then no, I think.

Only only one person gets to talk to God and that person translates it to everyone else, yeah, I think most of the religious. Teachers or prophets that almost every religion looked up to had some kind of plant medicine influence. At least if you trace it back far enough, like you said, wine. What we think of wine, you know, back then was totally different. It wasn't. Spiked, uh, you know, grape juice that's fermented. It was a mix of herbs that were psychedelic and Yeah, people drinking wine wasn't the same as it is now. Yeah, yeah. Tell us about the festival coming up. When is that? So, um, yeah, we do a couple of things, we just did one Psychedelics in the Beehive a couple weeks ago, that's a winter festival and, uh, what we tend to do is we have, uh, various workshops, presentations, we have DJs, we, we want it to be. More of an something where we're experiencing it, we're moving our bodies and we had Paul Stamez out a couple of years ago. Paul's a, a good friend and uh always worth listening to and we just, we packed a huge hotel ballroom and people loved it, but we're like, you know, there's a lot of talk in psychedelics and if anyone wants to hear.

People talk about psychedelics. There's so much on social media, there's so much on the internet, it's better if maybe we, we lack opportunities to get together and shake our tail feathers together and hug each other and touch each other and have real direct conversations and so that's where we have moved the winter beehive festival and that's what we've always done in our summer festival and so that is uh Utah's revival. And uh you know people can find it uh what is it, our revival.com, I should know all these things, but anyways, Utah's revival, it's up in the mountains and we peg that to the summer solstice, it's 4 days, 3 nights and um it's it's a lot of fun, you know, presentations, uh, groups during the day talking about Creed writing and we have sound baths, meditation. Uh, just discussing different things and then at night we have music and, uh, year one we had music all night but we tend to attract for whatever reason a lot of neurospices and uh all of our artists, they were just pissed at us, they couldn't sleep so now we uh have no amplified sound after 10:00 p.m. but we have silent disco that goes 10 to 2.

And that just getting together and it's a small festival, we have about 700 people and over the course of 4 days you're gonna keep bumping into the same people which is a great way for introverts to meet and connect cause you have a bit of a conversation and OK well that didn't hurt too much and then you see them the next day you follow up, you go a little deeper and I love walking around Salt Lake and I'll see people arm in arm just best friends and. Think I know where you guys met. You met at revival or you met at TDA, and that, that makes me very happy. I think that's the, the plague of our current times is isolation. And if TDA can work with psychedelics to overcome isolation and connect people, I think that's a big victory. Hm, that's fantastic. 11 more thing, what is the vision for TDA that you see in the next 5 to 10 years? Um, you know, I think the short answer is who knows, let's just, uh, we're, we're big on slow growth and organic growth. I, uh, caught myself at one point, you know, we quickly got up over 20,000 members and I was talking about that and I just sounded like other churches, so now I have no idea how many members we have, um, I think the ideal congregation size of TDA is 2 or 3 and that keeps changing, you know, hang out with these 2 or 3, go over with these 2 or 3, and um I want TDA to be very easy to join, they can go to the divine assembly.org and um you know, just sign up with an email, name and email, and I want it to be equally easy for people to leave, uh, like I said, there's a huge cost to leaving.

Some religions and well that tends to trap people which can make them put up with stuff they shouldn't put up with and that's what I love about TDA is if you ask some of my closest friends who I hang out with if you say are you, are you part of TDA then almost always they go. Uh, yeah, yeah, I think I am, right? And so we're, we're not a top-down organization, we're patterned after mushroom mycelium, which, uh, the, the individual hyphae. They can break off and they're completely viable and so I don't want us to be the one true anything, the big anything, just do we fit into the world around us and there's so much cool stuff going on in Salt Lake in Utah right now that I just kind of want us to be a place where we can bring those various elements together and you know, in doing that, are people members of TDA are they not? Well, who cares, you know, are we just hanging out with people and providing something.

That folks find beneficial. I love it. We have folks who they'll show up. We haven't seen them for 2 years, 4 years, and who cares, right? I mean, Mormonism, if someone doesn't show up, then it's like, uh, how have you been, you know, we assume you've been out doing satanic things, um, but here it's just like, oh my gosh, how are you? It's so great to see you and so I want it to be super easy for people to. Join with us, use us, connect with us, help us in ways that feel good to them, and then they shouldn't. I don't think people should need a religion to, to walk the earth happily and so I do think a lot of people, we give them comfort where they're like, yeah, I'm a member of TDA and I never go and I've seen that a lot of people, they'll, they'll come up to me like, you're, you're the TDA guy. I'm like, yeah. And uh they said cool, that's my church, they say I've I've never been to anything but that's my church and I think that it does bring mental peace for a lot of people to just think.

I have a group I could go, but I have other things going on that are better, but I could go if I wanted. Yeah, you have community without the pressure. Yeah Well, Steve, thank you so much for giving us your time and sharing all this and we really appreciate it. Yeah, thank you. This is, this is, this is awesome. Um, yeah, I've checked out a bunch of your podcasts getting ready for this, and I love the vibe that y'all are putting out there. Keep it up. Thanks, man. I appreciate it, man. Yeah, it was great to have you on and to be able to chat with you and thank you for wearing your brand new mushroom sauna hat. Hopefully you and Sarah enjoy them. We will, yeah, hopefully we'll see you at the summer fest. Please, please, that'd be a blast, man. Tough, tough to beat Utah in the summers up in the mountains, for sure, I bet. For sure. Cool. Thank you, Steve. Thank you. Take care, bye-bye. See you, see you.