Psychotherapist and educator Dee Dee Goldpaugh joins Revel Spirit Radio to discuss their book, Embrace Pleasure: How Psychedelics Can Heal Our Sexuality. They explain the book’s premise that everyone has a birthright to pleasure and a positive relationship with sexuality, that sexual trauma includes broader cultural shame and body policing, and that psychedelics can support embodied healing by helping people reconnect to their bodies, question entrenched narratives, and access deeper connection and spirituality. The conversation contrasts Western clinical and for-profit pharmaceutical models with indigenous and community-based ceremonial approaches, emphasizing ritual, integration, love, vulnerability, and the healing power of groups. We talk about queer experiences, the history of psychedelic conversion therapy, and the need for safer, more equitable access, harm reduction, and medicine testing, while noting real psychiatric and contextual risks.

Arthurian scholar John Matthews joins Rebel Spirit Radio to discuss "The Prophecies of Merlin", his new book co-authored with the late Martin Haverkamp, based on a 1498 printing that preserves rare, unfamiliar Merlin material. Matthews explains Merlin’s roots in the 6th-century Welsh figure Myrddin the Wild, Geoffrey of Monmouth’s influential prophecies. and how later “prophecies” were often written after the events to enable political and religious critique, including attacks on church corruption and accusations involving the Antichrist. He highlights new portrayals of a more human, morally complex Merlin, stories involving Morgan le Fay and multiple Ladies of the Lake, post-mortem “Voice of Merlin” episodes, a flying stone tale, demon-parentage traditions, and links to the Grail, Prester John, and India.

n this episode, I welcome counselor and trauma-healing specialist Norma Burton and lucid dreaming practitioner and filmmaker Nisha Burton to discuss their book Navigating Liminal Realms. They define liminal realms as the in-between space connecting ordinary waking reality with non-ordinary reality (dreamtime), and describe the book as a training manual for safely navigating these states—especially as interest grows in psychedelics and shamanic practices. They emphasize preparation and “psycho-navigation” (learning universal and personal maps of the psyche), developing a safe container, and beginning integration before psychedelic ceremonies. Norma explains how trauma can fragment the psyche, how shadow material forms through splits between persona and unconscious, and frames healing as a gradual process akin to soul retrieval that individuals must do with guidance over time. Nisha and Norma describe lucid dreaming and drumming journeys as substance-free precursor practices that build agency, trust in inner guidance, and skills for meeting shadow material, including techniques for dream recall, reality checks, sustaining lucidity, and working with nightmares. The conversation also addresses Western tendencies to externalize authority, the importance of self-responsibility, decolonizing mind and soul, honoring lineage to avoid appropriation, and the idea that current global changes (including AI and climate crisis) reflect a collective liminal time calling for inner work and wholeness.

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Norma Burton https://normaburton.com/

Nisha Burton

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Navigating Liminal Realms

Inner Traditions

https://www.innertraditions.com/navigating-liminal-realms

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