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...
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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...
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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...
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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. ...
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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...
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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...
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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,...
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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...
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Jumping on the Bridge of Faith with Emma Mcilroy
The Gospel of Direct Experience
In this powerful and personal episode, we sit down with Emma Mcilroy—queer feminist, immigrant, entrepreneur, and CEO of —for a conversation that dives deep into faith, identity, capitalism, and surviving life's darkest valleys. Emma shares her journey of reconciling her sexuality with her faith, the near-death experience surrounding the birth of her son, and how a private, hard-won relationship with God became her unshakable bridge. We explore what it means to wrestle with faith, lead with integrity, and hold onto Spirit in a world that often demands compromise. Episode Highlights ...
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When You Make the Two One: Gnosis & Healing the Duality
The Gospel of Direct Experience
What if the path to salvation isn’t belief—but integration? Building off our last episode, Jeff and Michael unpack a mysterious saying from the Gospel of Thomas about making “the two one,” and explore how ancient Gnostic wisdom speaks to our divided modern selves. Jeff shares a concluding dream that becomes a portal into the deeper meaning of inner and outer reconciliation, while Michael reflects on the radical claim that knowing yourself might be the same as knowing God. Episode Highlights [00:01:54] Gnosticism & Direct Experience Jeff and Michael introduce the Gnostic theme...
info_outlineWhat 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
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We open the episode by introducing the concept of the inner and outer mysteries. Jeff reflects on his "self-initiation" as a mystic. We contrast the living, experiential “inner mystery” with the outer, dogmatic forms of religion that dominate both conservative and progressive Christianity.
[00:14:35] Christianity’s Forgotten Roots
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We trace how Christianity may have grown from the ancient "mystery schools” of the Mediterranean world—traditions that used ritual, theater, psychedelics, and more to guide people through some sort of dying-before-you-die experience. We discuss the striking similarities between stories of Jesus and earlier myths like Isis and Horus, and the theological mischief of time-traveling demons. We conclude that the Jesus story carries forward a much older initiatory wisdom—one meant to be lived and experienced, not "believed."
[00:30:39] Christianity as a Living Mystery School
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Further "conclusions" from the previous section, included the idea that we are meant to become like Jesus, not just believe in Jesus.
[00:38:55] Lost "Indigenous" Mysteries
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We reflect on the loss of the ancient initiatory traditions that once formed the spiritual heart of Western culture. We explore the idea that early rituals in the Eleusinian Mysteries may have included sacred plant medicines—technologies for direct encounter with the divine. We grieve how this indigenous wisdom was outlawed, forgotten, and replaced by flat, literal religion. But if the mystery could born in as unlikely a place as Galilee and Judea, could it be reborn here and now?
[00:47:50] Reawakening the Mysteries
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We close by asking whether the ancient mysteries are reemerging in our time. We reflect on the idea that true initiation may come not from institutions but from Spirit itself—the same living intelligence that once guided the mystery schools. If those mysteries are still alive in the inner world, then perhaps the Spirit will give them back.
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