A Portal to the Great Mother: Clark Strand & Perdita Finn on the Rosary
The Gospel of Direct Experience
What if the rosary is not a relic of patriarchal religion, but an ancient spiritual technology—older than Christianity itself—designed to open a living relationship with the Sacred Mother? In this episode we're joined by Clark Strand and Perdita Finn, founders of The Way of the Rose and co-authors of the book by the same name, for a deeply embodied conversation about the rosary as a portal: tactile, erotic, ecological, and alive. Drawing on paleolithic bead traditions, Marian devotion, mystery cults, Buddhism, and direct visionary experience, Clark and Perdita reframe the rosary as...
info_outline
The Age of Disclosure: UFOs, Psyops, & Ontological Shock
The Gospel of Direct Experience
We finally discuss the new documentary The Age of Disclosure and what it suggests about UFOs, government secrecy, and the possibility of non-human intelligence. Already convinced of the reality of UFOs, your hosts explore the deeper challenges of disclosure itself: psychological operations, selective truth-telling, and the difficulty of knowing what to trust when intelligence agencies are shaping the narrative. We discuss why so many credible insiders are speaking publicly now—and their suggestion that there's more—much more—they can't say. Drawing on UFO research, the work...
info_outline
Christianity as Mystery School
The Gospel of Direct Experience
What if Christianity began not as a set of doctrines to believe, but as a mystery school—an initiatory path meant to awaken direct experience of the divine? In this episode, wel trace the ancient roots of the Christian story through the lost mystery traditions of the ancient world. From the Eleusinian rites to the “dying before you die” experience, we explore how Jesus may have carried forward an older, hidden stream of spiritual practice—and what it might mean to recover those inner mysteries today. Episode Highlights [00:00:49] Inner vs. Outer Mystery We open the episode by...
info_outline
At the Edge of Collapse and Connection: Victoria Loorz on Wild Spirituality
The Gospel of Direct Experience
Jeff and Michael sit down with Victoria Loorz, author of , founder of the , and co-founder of the , for a conversation about finding the sacred beyond church walls. They talk about the experience of hearing God beneath an oak tree, encounters with owls and vultures, and why wilderness has always been the place where spiritual transformation begins. Together they explore what it means to face ecological and institutional collapse without turning away—to grieve, to stay connected, and to treat even loss as part of the holy cycle of life, death, and renewal. You can learn more about Victoria...
info_outline
Beyond the Psychedelic Renaissance: Devotion, Birth, and Spirit with Justin Levy
The Gospel of Direct Experience
Psychedelics are often framed today as medicines for trauma and therapy—but what if they are something more? In this episode, we sit down with Justin Levy, founder of , Oregon, to explore psychedelics as a path of devotion, surrender, and cultural rebirth. Justin shares his journey from early rave experiences to work with kundalini, capoeira, and ayahuasca, and how these threads wove together into a living spiritual practice. Together we ask: How do psychedelics invite us to crack open and encounter Spirit? What does it mean to center devotion rather than therapy? And how can we midwife a...
info_outline
The Time Travel Episode
The Gospel of Direct Experience
In this episode, Michael finally shares the wild story he’s been holding back for decades: the day in 2006 when he slipped from a meditation session in his Queens apartment back through time—waking up in his 15-year-old body in 1990. Was it something like a dream, an out-of-body journey, or actual time travel? Jeff and Michael follow the thread from memory and synchronicity into questions of how we experience time itself—linear, cyclical, radial, and kairos. Episode Highlights [00:00:50] Waking Up in 1990 Michael quickly jumps into the story that frames our whole conversation. ...
info_outline
The Psychedelic Renaissance with Nicholas Collura
The Gospel of Direct Experience
In this episode, we speak with Nicholas Collura—a board-certified chaplain, spiritual director, and Enneagram teacher—about the unfolding intersection between psychedelics and contemporary spirituality. We explore what the so-called "psychedelic renaissance" means for spiritual direction, Christian practice, and the broader search for meaning in a disenchanted world. Topics include integration, cultural appropriation, mystical experience, the challenges and risks of reintroducing visionary substances into modern religious life, and what psychedelics might reveal about the gaps—and...
info_outline
The City & the City by China Miéville: Seeing What We've Been Taught to Unsee
The Gospel of Direct Experience
In this episode, we explore The City & the City by China Miéville as a powerful metaphor for cognitive blind spots, social conditioning, and spiritual perception. Drawing on Miéville’s layered, dual-city setting—where citizens are trained to “unsee” an overlapping world—we reflect on what it means to overlook not just people and places, but also inner experiences, spiritual insights, and hidden possibilities. Using the novel as a lens, we talk about religious experience, social breach, the boundaries of acceptable belief, and the psychological costs of seeing too much. We...
info_outline
Spiritual Direction (in a Shattered World)
The Gospel of Direct Experience
What is spiritual direction, really? In this episode, Jeff and Michael explore the practice not as a professional technique or spiritual luxury, but as a vital response to living in a fragmented, disenchanted world. Drawing on their own experiences as directors and directees, they talk about the invisible agreements that shape the space, the role of intuition, the balance between presence and expertise, and what it means to create a container where something deeper—call it spirit, God, or presence—can actually show up. Along the way, they touch on remote viewing, trickster dynamics,...
info_outline
Ask Us Anything—Live!
The Gospel of Direct Experience
Welcome to our very first live AMA episode—unscripted and full of spirit. Listeners showed up with real questions about prayer, mystical experience, cryptids, and the strange space where the psychological meets the spiritual. We talked about what it means to pray when God no longer fits, how to trust the knowledge of the heart, why some people encounter the sacred and others don’t, and whether Bigfoot might just be a messenger from beyond (seriously). It was thoughtful, honest, sometimes strange, and fun! Thanks to everyone who joined us live—and if you missed it, we hope to see you...
info_outlineIs it possible to encounter something beyond the boundaries of our everyday reality? From mysterious UFO phenomena to encounters with supernatural beings, this episode explores the uncanny, the unexplained, and the power of the paranormal to transform us. What do these experiences mean, and what happens when they disrupt our tidy worldviews and safe spiritualities? Join us as we dive deep into personal stories, cultural myths, and spiritual traditions that connect the mundane with the mysterious.
Main Topics
- The Ariel School UFO encounter
- Cross-cultural and historical accounts of encounters with beings from other dimensions.
- The spiritual, psychological, and physical impacts of modern UFO and contactee experiences.
- A deep dive into the Ariel School UFO encounter in Zimbabwe, its implications, and its lasting effects on the witnesses.
- The parallels between mystical religious experiences and contemporary UFO phenomena.
- Personal stories from Jeff and Michael about encounters with the uncanny, from shadowy beings to Bigfoot sightings.
- How modern worldviews shape and limit our understanding of these profound experiences.
See the full show on the website. While you're there, sign up for our mailing list to keep up to date on the all the lastest from the show and your hosts. We’d love to hear about your own experiences—reach out anytime via the website!