Attaching to God: Neuroscience-informed Spiritual Formation

105 Psychedelics and Jesus: What Makes Everything OK? (with Ashley Lande)

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Many spiritual seekers are becoming psychonauts, experimenting with psychedelics. But will that trip lead where we think it will? 

I had the pleasure of sitting down with Ashley Lande about how her long and winding journey in and their the world of psychedelic experimentation eventually led her to Jesus, the only one who really makes all things OK. 

Ashley Lande is a writer and artist living in rural Kansas with her husband and four children. She is the author of the memoir The Thing That Would Make Everything Okay Forever: Transcendence, Psychedelics and Jesus Christ.

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Introduction to Psychedelics and Spirituality

Geoff Holsclaw: Many spiritual seekers are becoming psycho knots. They're experimenting with psychedelics and other drugs as part of their kind of spiritual journey. But will that trip lead them where they think it will? Today we're talking about psychedelics, transcendence, and Jesus. I'm Jeff Hols, and this is the Attaching to God.

Guest Introduction: Ashley Landy

Geoff Holsclaw: Podcast brought to you by Embodied Faith, and today I'm really excited to have Ashley Landy on. She is a writer and artist living in rural Kansas. I don't know if I've had anyone on the show from Kansas. I'll have to check my records, but she and her husband have four children as she is the author of the memoir.

The Things or Lemme Get It the thing that would make everything Okay forever. Transcendence, [00:01:00] psychedelics and Jesus Christ. It's a great cover. It's a great book. It's written as a memoir. But thank you for being on with us today.

Ashely Lande: Yeah. Thank you so much for having ma'am. Happy to be here.

Geoff Holsclaw: So I don't remember how I heard about you. It was probably on. Back when it was called Twitter, now it's called X. Someone talking about something. And I saw some of the stuff you were working on, or maybe it was in some of the journals or magazines that you've written in. But I was like, oh, I gotta get Ashley on the podcast when her book comes out.

And then I totally missed it. Like the book came out, I think you said in October, and then I saw it, I think, oh, you know what it was like at the end of the year book awards and people talking about it. I was like, oh. Her book came out and I missed it, so then I reached out to you. 

The Journey Behind the Book Title

Geoff Holsclaw: So I'm so glad that you could be on, but could you, let's just start off with that title.

'cause you bring it up throughout the book as naming that thing. So your title is that thing that would, and I'm trying to say urgently, like I think you mean it, the thing that would make everything okay forever. What are the diff what is that getting at? What was the different kind of journey that you were on?

What were [00:02:00] you looking for? And you can go all the way back or start wherever you want on this journey.

Ashely Lande: Sure, and it's actually an interesting story behind that Title I, the working title I had was something totally different. It was phrased from a opulent song outside the Gates of Eden and it was actually my. Editor and his team, the editorial team that he came back when I was in the middle of writing and he said, Hey, we've been discussing the title and outside the Gates of Eden is, a lot of people might not know the reference.

And also there are several other books that have similar titles. And I also, I don't know, he didn't mention this, but I don't know if, I don't think Bob Dylan would care, but I don't know if there'd be a copyright issue or anything. But, he said, why? What about, you used this phrase several times throughout your book.

What if we make the title the thing that would make everything okay forever? And it was just like a revelation. I said That is that's perfect. That's absolutely perfect. And it's interesting. 

Early Experiences with Psychedelics

Ashely Lande: It was a phrase that I used a lot back [00:03:00] then, back when I was taking psychedelics all the time in my early and mid twenties.

It was, to me it just embodies what. I was searching for through psychedelics what and what the human heart longs for. And it's interesting there, I try not to read too many reviews just 'cause I'm too sensitive. And it's a, it's, when you write a memoir, it is a, and I'm sure any writer, artist, creator is attached to their creation, and you hate to see it torn down by people, which fortunately has not really happened.

But, it is deeply personal. But anyway, there was someone who wrote an otherwise positive review on Amazon who said something about, I'm afraid Ashley is, I thought this was really strange language. Ashley is making the same kind of idol out of Jesus Christ that she made out of psychedelics as and posturing Jesus as the thing that would make everything okay forever.

And I thought that was an odd criticism, but, ​

i, obviously Jesus isn't [00:04:00] a thing, but like Jesus ultimately will make everything okay forever like that. That is truth. That's our hope. That's what our hope is in. And I don't know if obviously, everything is not okay forever here and now because Jesus has not returned and hasn't restored everything that, we're not in the new heavens and the new earth.

We're still. In a fallen state but that is, yeah, that's where my hope lies. And to me it was just interesting, like when I was heavily into psychedelics and seeking truth through psychedelics and seeking transcendence through psychedelics it just always seemed like there was this elusive hanging fruit, that I would, if I just tripped one more time, like I would reach it somehow and I couldn't have even articulated.

What it was. And I think to me back then, it would've been a what? It wouldn't have been a person, I don't know, a state of enlightenment, a state of being something. And anyway, so that title just like really fit. It fit so well. Like I said, it was [00:05:00] just a revelation when my editor wrote that to me as far as things like the whole story that God was writing in my life and that was happening coming full circle in Jesus Christ.

Geoff Holsclaw: A lot of people have pitched this conversation to me over the last two years and I've resisted. People have been like, oh, psychedelics psilocybin mushrooms are now part of my spiritual practice. And I know this is. A lot of people are experimenting or wondering about these things, and I've resisted because I've always been like, I think you're a little too early on your journey to then speak into, not you, but like the people who are pitching me.

And so then when I came across your work in reflections, I was like, ah, I think here's someone, because you didn't start this as like a Christian, like you were adding it onto your spiritual practice. You were outside the church and you were. Experimenting at all the different things.

So it wasn't just psychedelics, it was also the real deep sense of like meditation and all these different, so you were in that whole world. So could you just explain just a little bit about [00:06:00] you were talking about that. The title, but like that kind of urge and in your subtitle you talk about transcendence and you talk regularly about how psychedelics create this kind of unity with the world or existence.

You were like trying to press through the veil. So can you just talk a little bit about that and then maybe then where it started going wrong?

Ashely Lande: Yes. Yeah. And I think you hit the nail on the head with people being really early in their trajectory with psychedelics. Psychedelics tend to create. Acolytes they tend to create enthusiasts. If you have a good experience initially, some people have a bad trip right off the bat, they're done.

They're, I've known people and I've heard of people who've been so damaged by an initial experience that they never go back. But yeah it. Tends to create. 

Disillusionment and Negative Experiences

Ashely Lande: And for me it was, I was I mean I was in love right away with psychedelics. Like I was an enthusiast right off the bat. I was evangelical about psychedelics.

Like I was preaching to people about how wonderful psychedelics were and if [00:07:00] psychedelics could just, if everyone could just take psychedelics, it would change the world. And I remember there's this really disillusioning. Moment. There are many disillusioning moments along the way, but and it's rather disillusioning to read the history of psychedelics and, read about people ea them in the sixties.

And like I said, that trajectory of use, there's this enthusiasm and I quote a lot in my book, there's this really, I dunno I recommend it with some content warnings. This memoir from Fictionalized, memoir from that was written in, I think 72 called Be Not Content by William j Cradock. And unfortunately he doesn't come to Christian conclusions at the end of his book, but he is very, it just displays that trajectory really well of there's so much promise in the beginning. There's so much it seems like there's so much potential for wonderful things to happen, for lives to be transformed through psychedelics. And then slowly over time there's this disillusionment with really negative, scary [00:08:00] experiences toward the end.

And like I said, unfortunately his memoir is a little nihilistic and he doesn't come to Christian conclusions, but, Really good at showing that trajectory and I feel like I'm totally getting off track. I'm gonna blame it on pregnancy brain. I also like to say I lose my train of thought 'cause I did so many drugs.

But 

Geoff Holsclaw: No. That's okay.

Ashely Lande: core of your question that you asked before I started talking?

Geoff Holsclaw: No, I, you were right in it. I, for the psychedelics. 'cause you mentioned this quite a bit, it's not like other drugs. And it's. And not, and you did wrestle throughout the early parts of the book being like I'm not really an addict, and things like that.

And that's part of the myth Us I think, a little bit. Could you speak into that a little bit for the people who either, don't understand how, people make some of these distinctions? For you it felt going back to the way, the Nature's Drug in instead of these manufactured ones and things like that.

Could you fill that out just a little bit, just those thought processes and

Ashely Lande: Sure. Yeah.

Geoff Holsclaw: Or how others do.

Ashely Lande: And that's really at the center of psychedelic culture, although there is a lot of [00:09:00] polydrug abuse within psychedelic culture. I knew people who used all kinds of things but there was this kind of delusion that you could keep going that well. Psychedelics are, you are using psychedelics in the pursuit of enlightenment.

You are using psychedelics in the pursuit of transcend, in the pursuit of transformation and becoming a better person, becoming a more loving person. Reaching, yeah, some kind of state of enlightenment. So there is very much this. Quote unquote psychedelic exceptionalism when it comes to the idea of using a substance.

And I've seen that even among some Christians who have experimented with psychedelics it's not the same as heroin or cocaine. And in a sense that's true, it, they aren't psychedelics aren't, don't have the physiologically addictive quality that. Something that's just, dumping dopamine into your brain would have, or opioids, something like that.

But it's subtle and in a way [00:10:00] it's just as insidious, I think, because it almost, and I might have written this in the book, I can't remember, but I feel like I. And I would've paid a lot of lip service back when I was use using psychedelics to quote unquote God. Of course, I couldn't have defined who that God was, and if someone started talking to me about Jesus, I didn't want, I didn't want to hear any of it.

But I, God became. A reality or a state of mind, a state of transcend, a state of being high to be accessed. Like it is not like I was in submission to this God at all. It was God was getting high. Like I liked getting high on psych psychedelics. I liked what I felt in psychedelics most of the time.

Increasingly not toward the end of my use, but I, yeah. And so it, it was like God became. Or God was a thing to me, God was a state of being. God was the the state that I experienced while on psychedelics. I [00:11:00] remember even having friends, actually the young man who introduced me to LSC, he loved introducing people to LSC.

That was like one of his favorite things to do in life. And someone else that he introduced to LSC told me that. This young, this other, this friend he had who introduced LSC was so mystified by the experience. And my friend said to him like all the stuff you grew up hearing about who God was and what God was like, that's not true.

This is what God is, this is it. And that was totally the attitude that I embraced as well like this. But the problem, obviously, so many problems with that. But. Once that LSD essentially became, my God that God was not trustworthy, like I would have these mind-blowingly, transcendent experiences and then I would also have incredibly hellish nightmares experiences that were pretty traumatic.

That would sometimes take weeks if not months, [00:12:00] to rebound from and try to.

Geoff Holsclaw: Wow.

Ashely Lande: Yeah, try to, there's a lot of talk too in the psychedelic therapy world about quote unquote integration, and people will say there's no such thing as a bad trip, and if you have a bad trip, it's just revealing things that are within you, which I think is such a.

I know gaslighting is an abuse term too, contemporarily, but that truly is gaslighting. But yes, there is such a thing as a bad trip. And it can be incredibly traumatizing and some people can, some people don't psychologically come back from it. And yeah I still wonder there, I've always had problems with anxiety since I was a child.

That's just always been a struggle that I've had. But I do often wonder if. Those struggles were exacerbated and possibly greatly exacerbated by using psychedelics, which is terribly ironic because that's one of the conditions, anxiety, depression, these things that, psychedelic therapy is being [00:13:00] offered as a remedy for, and I think that's, yeah, I think it's really dangerous.

'cause it can go so many different ways. It's just, it's unpredictable psychedelics are wildly unpredictable. And going back to the thing about trajectory, I think a lot about even people who were, you might've heard of Terrence McKenna, he's like a huge figure in the psychedelic world.

He's pa been passed away for. Gosh, a couple decades now, I think, but he's someone who's quoted a lot. Joe Rogan loves him. Just a really, probably on the sa of the same stature as Timothy Leary, if not even greater in, in the psychedelic world, psychedelic theory and philosophy world and, even he, he was absolutely evangelistic about mushrooms in particular, and he had, I read an article several years ago, I was shocked by, he apparently had a really nightmarish trip toward, toward the end of his life where he was totally inconsolable, really bad trip, and he felt like the mushroom had betrayed him, like in the [00:14:00] mushroom.

It was something that he had always trusted and I just that I so identified with that. LSC was my God. LSC was something I worshiped, something I, but increasingly along the trajectory of my use, I felt like I could not trust LSD. And so what a profound contrast. I still struggle to trust God in Jesus Christ, but it's such a profound contrast there.

Geoff Holsclaw: Yeah. I want to hear a little bit more definitely wanna talk about that shift then. 

The Illusion of Control and Seeking God

Geoff Holsclaw: But just to review, and I meant to say this at the beginning, but there is a lot of now medical research on the therapeutic benefits of psychedelics. Ketamine, my wife and I, we have a good friend who actually her psychological and her body were shutting down and it was terrible.

And, and she did get ketamine injections with some other therapy and it actually, it, it definitely helped her, but which is, and ketamine and psychedelics are actually doing very different things, but, we're not talking about that precise kind of conversation about [00:15:00] that the pros and cons of that.

But I think what you were saying, I just wanna summarize like that, that seeking of transformation and transcendence and then there is that kind of mythos of it's not addictive. It doesn't cause brain damage. So this is like a good kind of thing. So thank you for explaining that, but.

Before we get to the kind of moment of you have this beautiful moment of just like playing outdoors with your children and having this, this almost trip without tripping but and connecting with God. But you tell the story a little bit like God was at work.

What were the different ways where you found or retroactively saw God's kindness to you in the midst of your journey? Are there different times where. Afterwards, you would just see a God at work even before you would've named it that way.

Ashely Lande: Yeah, for sure. And I see one thing I see, just looking back on, there were so many reckless decisions that I made and I don't know why, I certainly didn't deserve to be preserved through those reckless decisions, but I was, and I definitely look at that as God's hand. And I remember in particular, there was one night I [00:16:00] was tripping by myself and I was probably 22, 23.

And I had gotten into a habit of tripping primarily by myself. I would do it with different friends sometimes, but I just remember sitting there one night and I was, super high, like visual, crazy visuals like manolas and geometric latts overlapping and falling into one another, and everything that I loved and enjoyed.

And I remember all of a sudden just feeling this wave of profound loneliness. Yeah, I was having, what I thought at the time was this incredibly transcendent experience. I thought that I was hurdling towards some kind of ultimate truth, about the universe, about reality, about myself, about others yeah, about the nature of reality.

Yet I was incredibly lonely. I had increasingly alienated some friends that I had. I, and I had built my own world around my psychedelic experiences, and that world was. Pretty unintelligible to other [00:17:00] people. That's another thing about psychedelics. Like even when you're doing them with other people, you're still it's still this very individual isolated in a way.

Even though oftentimes people, if they're having a good experience, they'll feel like they're one with everything. But you still you can be sitting right next to someone, and I have had that experience sitting right next to someone who's having a hellas trip and you're having a wonderful trip.

And so I, but there was that moment when I felt that profound wave of loneliness that I heard, and I don't know if I could claim that it was an audible voice, but heard you don't have to keep doing this to yourself. And I, it was so strikingly different from my own thought processes. It was so strikingly different from, I felt like I, it almost my.

For raise and into psychedelics. It almost had taken on this, in my mind, it had taken on this cosmic significance. Like I was, like I said, I was hurdling toward this truth that no one else had [00:18:00] grasped in the entire history of the universe. And so I felt of course I have to keep going, This is I'm on a mission. And so to hear that, it was such a. It just so distinctly came from outside myself. It's not a thought that would've risen organically, from my own mind. And so I look back on that and I, and it was so kind and tender, and I look back on that and I definitely think of that as God's hand.

As God's voice. And I didn't quit, but I remember I broke down crying in that moment. And like I said, it just felt so kind and tender and merciful. And so that's definitely one of the moments I look back on and think wow, god told me to quit pretty early on, but unfortunately I didn't heed his wisdom yeah.

Geoff Holsclaw: And at one point I think you said that it felt God was telling you that LSD is not your friend or something like that that it was time to say goodbye. Was that another moment where you felt like, there's this kind gentle nudging of

Ashely Lande: Yes.[00:19:00] 

Geoff Holsclaw: not your friend, this is not helping you.

Ashely Lande: Yeah. And that was actually years later. That was probably not long before I actually did stop and I remember, yeah, that was an interesting moment because I felt like God was saying it's time to quit. It's been time. And I, that was how I responded was, but LSC is my friend and I think I wrote in the book, like I did think of LSC was my friend, but it was my.

Extremely mercurial, unpredictable friend who sometimes, would seem to bless me, sometimes would seem to punish me. And so wildly unpredictable friend, not a good friend, but it just had been so many years. But at that point that this is how I seek transcendence. This is how I experience God.

This is how it's done. And I don't know any other way. And, but yeah, that was also definitely one of those moments.

Geoff Holsclaw: Yeah. You were, as you were getting closer in a sense [00:20:00] to following Jesus you were in the orbit of the church a little bit through your husband who was on a spiritual journey too. And it sounds like there was a tuck between like living in control and living out of control. You talked about like how on the one hand, tripping.

Was a way to connect with transcendence. But you said you were like still in control of it and it would the, and that God was scary in a sense 'cause you couldn't control God. Could you talk a little bit about that pull and that struggle

Ashely Lande: Yeah. And yeah, and it's ironic.

Geoff Holsclaw: and if I said that wrong, you can change it. I'm not trying to put words

Ashely Lande: no, that's right. That's right. It's just interesting 'cause there was always this tension between I, you don't necessarily have control over where. A psychedelic trip is gonna take you. You really don't. But there's this illusion of control as far as like this.

I can take this material thing in order to experience something outside of my normal consciousness, something outside [00:21:00] of my normal reality, something that I would call God, something that I feel is transforming me and teaching me something. So there was this weird tension of on one hand, I didn't control it, but on the other hand, I felt like I did control it.

And so it was very scary to like, when I started attending church and I did have, we went to a Methodist church when I was growing up. My, when I. Hit the teenage years. My sister quit going. My older sister had just a lot of issues during her teenage years in particular, and she quit going, and then my dad quit going.

And so I wouldn't say it was I think, not to trash my parents. They did the best that they could. It wasn't a particularly strong foundation, like when I have friends now who will say things about. Purity culture and DC talk. And I'm like, I was not aware of any of that stuff.

Like I, we weren't that kind of Christian, we were just like mainline Protestant, Christian never went to youth group or anything. But, [00:22:00] so I did have some, like I said, there was, but there was some foundation of it wasn't completely foreign to me church and God and Jesus, but, I had never understood the gospel. I had never really read the Bible. Like I remember we had memorized Psalm 23 in Sunday school, but beyond that, I had no idea what was actually in the Bible. And so when I started going to church with my husband, very reluctantly, and I. Just hearing all this language, it just seems so impenetrable it seems.

I was like, I don't understand this. One big stumbling block for me was the idea of sin. 'cause there isn't. There isn't an idea of sin in the new age psychedelic yoga world. It's just, it doesn't exist. If anything, it's we've like that Crosby Stills in Nash song, which technically is a Joni Mitchell song, but she wrote it, but.

We've gotta get ourselves back to the garden. Like we've strayed from our consciousness of who we really [00:23:00] are, and we've gotta return to that. We gotta remember who we really are and that we're perfect and whole and we've got to get ourselves back to the garden. It's not like we need a savior.

It's like we are working toward enlightenment ourselves. And so it was di on one hand though, I was at such a point and that was another huge struggle and point of tension, like I was at such a point of desperation. At that point, I felt like my grand quest on psychedelics had failed. I was tired of yoga.

Struggling with Spiritual Fatigue

Ashely Lande: I was tired of meditating. I was tired. I was tired of trying to save myself, like I was really tired of it. Very weary, but. Like I said, all this language about sin. I was like, I don't understand this. Even though I could feel the heaviness and the burden of being unable to save myself and feeling like I.

I was broken and the world was broken and there was no amount of positive thinking or telling myself, oh, it's all just yin yang and light and darkness and you [00:24:00] need the darkness for the light. And, no amount of that new age, eastern mysticism, rationalizing was working anymore.

I was like, no. The world is messed up. I am messed up. But like I said, that language was just. Still, I still felt like I can't get in here. Like I can't. And part of the problem too was that I still had this idea of I guess you could call it perennial philosophy. All religions lead to the same place.

Like they're all just like a lens through which we view the same journey and the same destination. And so I was still working from that framework. And Jesus was not having that, obviously. 

The Turning Point: Understanding the Gospel

Ashely Lande: Like it doesn't, and so there was that, that yeah, that moment that I wrote about in the book on the front porch where I felt like.

The understanding of the gospel came to me as a gift really. There again, it was like something, external, like I couldn't grasp it on my own. I couldn't [00:25:00] intellectually understand it as my, on my own, and it came to me as a gift and it was beautiful and humbling and but it was also such a profound relief, like such a profound relief.

Geoff Holsclaw: When I was and I want to get to your kind of the story then of how that changed your conversion or however you say it. But when I was reading your story and the things you were talking about and referring to as the psychedelic, I was thinking of St. Augustine and how he on his journey, he had encountered these people the neo plaus who had these rich kind of practices and meditation and, the goal of becoming one, and throughout the process he came to this place of they have the right truth, but they don't have the proper way. And I was feeling like the same thing, like those urges and the seeking is not wrong. And that longing to be connected is right, but that the path is not the way, and Augusta was referring to Jesus as the way, the truth and the life.

We don't just need the truth, we actually need the proper way. And while you were [00:26:00] talking or when I was reading I just had that sense, but could you then talk about how did you make that change? How did the, you know this from, the mystery of psychedelics because Christ is just as mysterious in one sense.

But what was different?

Ashely Lande: Yeah. So I had is and sorry, was that in confessions that he wrote

Geoff Holsclaw: Yeah. That

Ashely Lande: Okay.

Geoff Holsclaw: I don't remember which book, but, 

Ashely Lande: I need to reread that. I've, I read it. I've always just so intimidated by August, and I still

Geoff Holsclaw: for sure.

Ashely Lande: Augustine, and I'm like, I'm

Geoff Holsclaw: Oh no. This is for you and for every listener. You can say it both ways. Don't let any snooty academic say that there's a right way. It's, you can say Augustine, and you can say, Augustine, they're

Ashely Lande: such a relief. Okay.

Geoff Holsclaw: yeah. You are not doing it wrong. Nobody's doing it wrong, except for the person who's telling you that it's

Ashely Lande: Because you know when you get a word or a name in your head one way, it's so hard to change it. And I'm like, okay, Augustine, I was always intimidated. And then I said, I was like, I'm gonna try reading that a few years ago. And I was [00:27:00] like, oh, this is not. Like a dense academic thing at all. This is really accessible and really touching and really beautiful.

But yeah, I need to go back and read it again. 

Reflections on Psychedelics and Parenthood

Ashely Lande: But yeah, the, so there were several things that were converging at the same time. Like I said, I was at this point of desperation where I felt like psychedelics had not worked, like they had not delivered on the promises that they seemed to offer in the beginning.

And. And the more I, tried to, and I was also at a point where I felt like I, I couldn't really have a good trip anymore. Like those initial experiences where it felt like my mind was being blown and, everything was turned upside down and which is good and bad, but I wasn't having those experiences anymore and.

I just felt like I was treading the same rut over and over again. And I was becoming disillusioned, especially once, one thing, big thing that changed was the birth of my, our first child, [00:28:00] our son, and I was just, as any new parent I was, I did have some postpartum depression in the beginning and that was really difficult.

But then once that. That I came out of, that I was just being overwhelmed with love for this child and starting to think about all these beliefs and philosophies that I had embraced about many of which were either derived from or, made sense alongside my psychedelic experiences, seemed to match up with the reality that I had experienced on psychedelics.

That we are, we're all one, and that we are all God somehow, and that when we die, we don't retain our individual existence, like we don't retain our individual identity. And actually that's the goal of enlightenment, is losing your individual identity. And we're just reabsorbed back into this oceanic consciousness, into the all.

And I would look at my child, this [00:29:00] child that I love so much, and who was completely an individual, and you just, you, when you have a baby, you're just, you know how it is. You're just in love with every little thing about them. And so thinking. Okay, this love that I'm experiencing for this child, I don't want him to lose his individual existence.

Like I, I don't want him to be reabsorbed back into the all, I don't want his, yeah, I don't want his individual existence to be obliterated. Isn't there some way that this can last forever? Isn't there some way that this isn't there some way that what is truly good can last forever? I. And it suddenly, it didn't feel like that anymore.

With those theories, it didn't feel like being reabsorbed into the all was a good thing. And so that was a huge change, just weighing this new reality that I was experiencing with my love for my child, with the philosophies that I embraced. 

A Friend's Tragedy and Spiritual Awakening

Ashely Lande: And another thing that happened my, my husband wanting to go to church, [00:30:00] which was shocking, and I really resisted really hard for quite a while.

And then I also had a childhood friend that I reconnected with once I had a child and she had two children and we started meeting up for play dates just every couple months. And her, her younger child, her daughter got leukemia and died very quickly. It was like three weeks diagnosis. She was gone.

And my friend would try to talk to me about the Bible and about Jesus, and I'd just be like, whatever in my head. And I'd counter her with my new age take on what that might mean. What that passage in the Bible might mean. And but then once, once Joella died.

And I was actually newly pregnant with my daughter, and when I was first pregnant with my daughter, I was, I just wasn't sure. I wasn't ready to be pregnant again. I wasn't sure I wanted to have another child at that time. Of [00:31:00] course, that's completely different now. I can't imagine life without my daughter, but, I remember going to Joelle's funeral when I was just maybe eight weeks pregnant and feeling like, even though I didn't believe what my friend believed yet, I thought this is a really good person. This is a really pure, wholesome, good person. And if, if it were me in this, like why isn't she bitter?

Like why isn't she angry? Why isn't she denouncing everything that she believes? And how is she being. Is she and her husband, like, how are they being sustained through this incredible tragedy? And so that, that really got me thinking that got me there. There again, like I said the collision of reality with my belief system, I thought like I don't have any kind of sustaining truth that could sustain me through this level of loss and tragedy.

I just don't have that. And in, in the new age, psychedelic philosophies, I embraced. I also, I had no [00:32:00] category for this kind of tragedy, like where is the redemption in my belief system? There was no redemption for that happening. And yeah.

Geoff Holsclaw: you talk a little bit about how you're, like, at one point I just realized like the reincarnation train as well as the kind of transcendence to, the non, I forget the non, all the just the union,

Ashely Lande: Yeah. Yeah.

Geoff Holsclaw: the destruction of the person. It's like that doesn't really take tragedy seriously.

And there's also not an answer for the tragedy. That's what I find so unique about, the Christian story and faith in Christ. And is that like you were talking about your children, like there's a place like God, within. The Bible and creation. There's this overflowing gift of creation that's different than God, but is still seeking to be connected with God.

And that like what you were saying with your children, like I wanna celebrate that they can be in union with God through the Spirit in Christ, but they're also always gonna be themselves. And that's [00:33:00] not what is part of these other kind of transcendent stories. And that that's just so beautiful that was part of your like, oh, I want my children to always be themselves.

As well as can we take tragedy seriously without just saying something like suffering is just in you as your state of mind that

Ashely Lande: It is just an illusion and it's just, yeah. Yeah.

Geoff Holsclaw: And as you said right at the beginning Christ is making all things okay. But that doesn't mean they are now. Could you just walk us through just that kind of end, because it was such a great, a moment of like how it is well, got thrown into a playlist and then it like showed up as you forgot, as just that was actually, that was very like a Augustine kind of hearing kids.

In his story, he was in this dejected kind of time and he was grappling with God and then he heard children singing

Ashely Lande: Oh, I do remember that part. Yeah.

Geoff Holsclaw: a certain song and it reminded him of scripture and he picked it up. And that was, but it was, it is very similar to what you just said. Now, now you're probably feeling intimidated oh, Jeff keeps bringing up Augustine.

But could you just walk us through that story about it as well? 'cause it was connected to the death of that child and, 

Ashely Lande: [00:34:00] yeah. So my friend, I might've, and I might've heard it as well growing up, but I didn't remember it, and so my friend Carrie, who was the mother of Joella who, who passed away from leukemia, she and I kept emailing just here and there after Joella had passed away. And she told me that.

The song, the hymn it as well had really ministered to her and her husband in the wake of Joel's death. And they had actually perform, he plays guitar and she sings, they had performed it in front of their church. And so I thought, huh, that's, that's interest. And she encouraged me to listen to it and I thought.

Okay. And so I, like I said, you mentioned I put it on a playlist and then I forgot about it. I didn't listen to it in the moment after I that read that email, and then there was a spring day I was sitting on the front porch. My children were playing, my daughter was probably, I don't know, six months to a year at that time.

So my son would've been between two and three, I think. [00:35:00] And. I had the window open, so the, and I put on that playlist and the music was coming through the screen and I, that playlist was still just like a mishmash of, some weird psychedelic music that was barely listenable and then that, so I wasn't really even paying attention.

And it was just this beautiful spring day. Things were starting to bud, things were starting to rise up from the ground. There were buzz on the trees. The weather was just perfect. 

The Final Attempt and Realization

Ashely Lande: And I was sitting there and thinking about, and I had, at that point, I had my last great attempt at having.

A, a big psychedelic trip, and it had failed miserably. I had grown my own mushrooms and I thought, if I'm praying over them, praying, whatever I would've conceived of as praying at that time, probably sanskrit chance that I learned in yoga and telling them I love them and just, I don't know, all manner, things like that.

And I thought, I'm putting this, these vibes into these mushrooms. Like I'm putting good energy into these mushrooms. This is [00:36:00] gonna guarantee that I'm gonna have a good trip. And I took care of set, quote, unquote set and setting, which is a big thing in the psychedelic world. Everything was ready, everything was perfect.

And I still like. As soon as those mushrooms hit and they were strong too, I was like, Ugh, dang it. This is the same place. It's the same place. Here I am again. I don't wanna be here anymore. I don't wanna do this again. I thought this was what I desperately want. I don't wanna do this again.

And it was just like this void of meaninglessness and even the, even among all this fantastical visual, stunning visual, phenomena. It was just this emptiness at the core of it. And so anyway, this day on the Porsche in spring, that was after that catastrophic trip. I say catastrophic. It was just, it just felt nihilistic.

It just felt like this is my last attempt to make psychedelics work again if they ever did, make them do what they're supposed to do. And I was sitting on the [00:37:00] porch. I was all of that was weighing on my mind, the fact that we were going to church, but I still wasn't understanding it.

And all of a sudden that song came on and it was this really beautiful acapella rendition. I. And I just started thinking about, I started it was like my attention just snapped too. And I hadn't even really been listening to the music, like I said. And I just started thinking about, and there was language in that hymn about, my sin is nailed to the cross and I bear it no more.

And I felt like I finally understood what. What the gospel was like, what sin was, and like I said earlier, that I could not save myself and I was so sick of trying to save myself. And that was another thing, like you said, where do I see God's hand? And I definitely see God's hand. And there were a handful of times where my husband and I would quote unquote microdose when our children were in our care.

And to, I guess now microdosing, people think like a 10th or a 20th of a dose is microdosing. I don't really [00:38:00] understand that 'cause. If you believe that psychedelics do something through the psychological phenomena that they produce, like I don't see how that would even do anything. Like I said, that's contingent on if you believe that's how they work.

But we would take like half of a hit of LSC, and I, so I think back on that and thank you God for keeping my children safe. Like what? What a terrible, reckless thing. And it was also all wound up in that moment was realizing like, I am no better than a drug addict. Like I am a drug addict, just because I think there's some kind of exceptionalism in psychedelics.

Like I am a drug addict. And so it was just this and I started weeping. It was just this beautiful moment where, like I said, I felt like the gospel pierced my heart like and the beauty of Jesus Christ and who he was. I've been wrestling for a while with, because I had started reading the gospels and I was just like, who is this guy?

It was just so startling. 'cause like I said, when I was growing up. Yes, we would go to church and I'm grateful that I [00:39:00] did have some kind of foundation, but I never actually read the Bible. So to actually read what he said and be I don't even know how to describe Fortunately many other people have done so much more adequately, but when you first encounter Jesus Christ in the gospels, it's so he's so attractive and mysterious and confounding and.

I could not shoehorn him into any of my already existing categories. I couldn't shoe shoehorn him into my pantheon of gods, of oh, all these people are manifestations of God. And so like I said, it was just the beauty of who Christ was and what he did and the beauty of his sacrifice, what he did for me, it was like I finally.

I finally understood. It finally pierced my heart and my soul, and it was overwhelmingly beautiful.

Embracing Faith and Sharing the Journey

Geoff Holsclaw: Thank you for sharing that. That's so great that all of us have this seeking to maybe run away from our own brokenness and the brokenness of the world and we can wrap it up in a quest for [00:40:00] transcendence and, but then you, when you just said, yeah, this is who I am and Jesus still loves me and he's still taking care of it. And the sin is wiped away, and you could be made clean. And that's true for all of us. I just, I love that. Thank you so much. Do you have any last, as we wrap up, are there any kind of last kind of things that you would, really want people to know or for people who are, know people who are on this journey or just how to be, the gospel or to in this kind of landscape?

Ashely Lande: Yeah. It's really hard. I feel like I've been asked that question several times, and I feel like I still haven't formulated a really solid.

Geoff Holsclaw: Fix it, Ashley. Come on.

Ashely Lande: And what I, earlier last year I spoke at the Apologetics Canada conference and it was really shook me up how many parents came to me and said their grown children, like in their twenties and thirties were experimenting with psychedelics and what could they do? And I felt like I didn't have.

I didn't have a great answer for them other than pray, but I think it, [00:41:00] it's difficult because I think when someone first starts doing psychedelics, they feel like they've discovered this really novel, amazing thing. And but when you start, like I said, there were so many disillusioning moments for me, and I think at the beginning, I would not have listened to someone who cautioned me, who had never done psychedelics.

And that's what, that's the irony is like there's a hubris behind it too when people start using psychedelics. Oh, I remember I divided the whole world into like people who have done psychedelics and people who haven't, and people who haven't, they don't understand anything, but then it was really disillusioning to meet people who had done psychedelics who were like, not what I expected. Psychedelics should produce in a person, and I remember I, my boyfriend at the time, he was, he had done psychedelics, but he wasn't into them like, like I was. And he said when I was going on about oh, psychedelics are gonna change the world if everybody could just take them.

And he said, that's already happened. Like millions of people have taken psychedelics and what has changed, [00:42:00] so I think if you. Sorry, actually looking at the history of psych of psychedelics is really disillusioning, but I it's hard because like you said, you've had people come to you who say I've integrated this even as a Christian into my spiritual practice, and it's difficult to counter someone's subjective experience.

If they think something has genuinely. Enhance their life, made them better transformed them in some positive way. It's hard to say no. No, it hasn't. But I have just seen and know too much with the trajectory of psychedelics and how in the long term they never, I have never in the long term observed positive change in someone and.

In fact, quite the opposite. They're hugely destabilizing is another big problem. Even in small doses. I say they're really destabilizing and honestly I think that they opened spiritual doors that were not supposed to open. So if any individual came to me and [00:43:00] said which now I'm trying to think if that's actually happened, like people have certainly come to me and said, I've had a couple people contact me and say, I.

I am so damaged by my psychedelic use, and it was, there was one young man who said like he, he, a year later, he hadn't touched psychedelics. He still felt so damaged, and it was reassuring to him to see that, see me on a podcast and see that I seem to be a relatively psychologically intact person after the amount of drugs that I did.

And that was really heartbreaking to me. But if any individual were to come to me and said, Hey, I'm doing this, or Do you think I should do this? I would say I. No, I don't. No, I don't. I think you should wait on the Lord take heart and wait on the Lord. I just think that psychedelics take us places that we weren't meant to go.

They vouch safe knowledge that seems really seductive, but it's not. I just think there's some analogy, and I haven't totally hashed this out, and I, but I just think there's some analogy to the. Tree of the knowledge of [00:44:00] good and evil like that this is not, these are not places we're meant to go.

These are not experiences that we're meant to have these open spiritual doors that we're not meant to open. And we all, we get more than we bargained for with psychedelics. Yeah, like I said, I don't feel like I have the best answer, but tho those are my feelings and my thoughts. Yeah.

Geoff Holsclaw: You say that, and my brain's somebody has already written a book about how the tree of knowledge of good and evil was taking psychedelics. I bet that book's

Ashely Lande: Oh, I bet. Yeah, I

Geoff Holsclaw: Where can people keep track of the work that you're doing or where can they find you? As we finish off here,

Ashely Lande: Yeah, I'm on Twitter and Instagram. I've really neglected social media platforms though. I'm probably most.

Geoff Holsclaw: probably good for your mental health.

Ashely Lande: Yeah. Yeah. And I have a very neglected website as well, Ashley landy.com. I used to write a lot on Instagram and I used to write, I have a blog on the website, but I just haven't done much in the past couple years having a toddler and now another baby.

But I am reachable. [00:45:00] Yeah. By email by social media yeah.

Geoff Holsclaw: Again the book is the thing that would make everything okay forever. It's a very great read. Thank you for all the time that you put into that. It's beautiful. And thank you for jumping on with us

Ashely Lande: Yeah, thank you so much. I enjoyed it.