Book 3 of Tales of Aurduin, The Alchemist and the Eagle, comes to a stunning cliff-hanger conclusion this week with chapter 36, "The Gathering." Pulled by a mysterious force people from across the world of Aurduin gather in the center of the world at Jeaniaurduin with the certain knowledge that the God Child, Miraanni, is about to return from her year's embodiment within the earth. The religion formed in her name, The Tal, expects that she will return to lead them into battle in the already-escalating holy war against the Jolao Empire. However, no one could expect what happens when she re-emerges with an gift for an unlikely recipient ...

I hope you've enjoyed this past year+ of sharing The Alchemist and the Eagle. We'll continue with the final book of the series, The Fifth Temple, with more audiobook chapters between interview episodes.

This week we take a deep and detailed dive back into the topic of entheogenic religion and psychedelic spirituality with author, Matt Zemon, who is also the executive director of the Council on Spiritual Practices. Matt's here to share all about his new book, Ordinary Mystics: Psychedelics, Faith, and the Reclaiming of Direct Spiritual Experience. We cover a lot of territory from the primacy of spiritual experience with entheogens, what the law, Constitution, and courts have to say, examples of churches claiming their religious freedom rights such as the Church of the Holy Light of the Queen here in Ashland, and others. We also discuss how and why protecting and supporting entheogenic religious freedom became a passion for Matt. You can learn more about him and his books at his website, www.mattzemon.com.

And for those who want to explore this topic more, I've got an entire playlist at the Entheogenic Evolution YouTube channel dedicated to in-depth conversations and talks on this: Psychedelic Churches, Religions, and Spirituality

And ... coming up on Wed Nov 18th 4-5:30 pm Pacific time, Mindscape Psychedelic Institute is hosting me for a conversation about 3 short-acting and powerful psychedelics, DMT, 5-MeO-DMT, and Salvinorin A. To register for this free online Zoom event, use this link here

My guest this week is Alan Romano, LCSW, who is an author and certified psychedelic therapy provider in Florida. He's here to share about his new book, Healing Beyond the Limits of the Isolated, wherein he develops and explores his novel approach of Functional Systems Regulation Theory. As his book has many interesting and provocative details and accounts of his own, often trying, experiences, I spend a lot of time asking him to share more about it here with the podcast audience as well as how it helped inform his approach of FSRT. You can learn more about Alan and his work at his website