The Gospel of Direct Experience

Trust the Soul: Lucille Tures on Christian Mysticism After Spiritual Abuse

We welcome Dr. Lucille Tures, psychologist, spiritual director, teacher, and founder of Theama Institute [https://www.theamainst.org/], for a conversation about Christian mysticism, spiritual abuse, and the life-long work of integration. Lucille shares her experience growing up in a Christian mystical environment, her later involvement in a coercive spiritual community with a narcissistic mentor, and the painful but generative process of helping rebuild that community around trust rather than control. We explore why beautifully "correct" theology and powerful mystical experiences can become entangled with subtle forms of authority, performance, and manipulation—and why Lucille came to believe that spiritual communities must learn to trust the soul rather than override it. The conversation also turns toward Lucille's writing in The Whole and the Holy [https://lucilleisadoratures.substack.com/], her understanding of mysticism as the ongoing tension between gnosis and mystery, and her vision of integration as central to theosis: the reconciliation of the divine and human through the messy, sacred reality of being fully ourselves. Episode Highlights [00:00] Introduction Jeff and Michael introduce Dr. Lucille Tures, her work with Theoma Institute, and her writing on psychology, theology, mysticism, and integration. [03:11] Mystical Beginnings Lucille describes growing up in a Christian mystical household where angels, altars, and spiritual experience were treated as natural rather than strange. [06:28] What Is Mysticism? Lucille offers a working definition of mysticism involving experiential relationship, a unitive goal, and a non-dogmatic openness to mystery. [14:48] Inside a High-Control Spiritual Organization Lucille reflects on her experience in a coercive mystical community and how beautiful theology can still become entangled with control, performance, and spiritual abuse. [23:16] Trust the Soul After a painful communal reckoning, Lucille describes rebuilding spiritual community around the radical principle that each person's soul contains its own deepest guidance. [28:37] Integration as Theosis Lucille explains why psychology and spirituality cannot finally be separated, and how the work of becoming fully human is also the work of divine transformation. [31:02] Gnosticism, Eden, and the Fall The conversation turns to Gnostic readings of scripture, the story of Eden, and Lucille's understanding of the Fall as an inner experience of separation rather than a literal divine punishment. [36:23] The Problem of Evil Lucille discusses evil, harm, misperception, and the need to name destructive patterns without projecting them only onto other people or opposing groups. [45:45] Hope and Shadow Lucille closes by reflecting on what gives her hope: the shadow coming into the light, the possibility of shared values, and the beauty of people learning to know and love themselves well. Continue the Conversation What did you think about this conversation? Tell us at gospelofdirectexperience@gmail.com or reach out at: https://www.gospelofdirectexperience.com/#contact.

Real Good Drugs: Molly Baskette on Psychedelics, Calling, and Leaving Church Well

Molly Baskette has spent decades helping progressive churches come alive. A longtime UCC minister, preacher, author of Real Good Church, and self-described transformation junkie, Molly has recently made a major vocational turn: leaving parish ministry and stepping into work as a psychedelically assisted spiritual care provider. That's plenty to talk about right there! But we also discuss calling, burn out, and leaving church well: not in bitterness or collapse, but with loads of gratitude, honesty, grief work, and devotion. We also reflect on the gifts and limits of the church, the pastoral persona, depression as a spiritual signal, and why direct encounters with God, with the body, with nature, and with non-ordinary states of consciousness may be exactly what many Christians are hungry for. Find Molly: https://www.mollybaskette.com/ [https://www.mollybaskette.com/] https://mollybaskette.substack.com/ [https://mollybaskette.substack.com/] Episode Highlights [00:00] PART 1: Introducing Molly PART 2: Psychedelics [03:39] Outside Approved Channels * Molly and Michael discuss why psychedelics and other mystical experiences often feel off-limits in church culture. Molly traces her psychedlic path from its vanilla origins to her most recent powerful encounter. [14:20] Real Good Drugs * Molly describes her call to support psychedelic journeys as a form of spiritual midwifery. [17:08] Here's the Next Call * Molly reflects on depression, microdosing, and the slow unfolding of a new call beyond parish ministry. PART 3: An Exit Interview for the Christian Church [21:00] Gratitude * Molly reflects on leaving church well—with gratitude and a desire to end before burnout became collapse. [26:40] The Pastoral Persona * Jeff, Molly, and Michael reflect on the pastoral persona: the useful, powerful self ministers create to serve others, and the inner work of recognizing it without letting it consume the whole soul. [36:01] Smallatics and the Cutting Edge * Molly names the exhaustion of church administration and the relief of moving toward work where more energy goes directly to liberation, transformation, and helping people come alive. [39:05] Contact with Spirit * Jeff, Michael, and Molly wonder whether the church's hunger for justice also needs a deeper hunger for direct contact with Spirit. [47:58] Devotional Revolution? * Molly reflects on the shift from discipline to devotion, and Michael wonders what it would mean for a whole culture to be broken open and reassembled by love. Continue the Conversation What did you think about this conversation? Tell us at gospelofdirectexperience@gmail.com [gospelofdirectexperience@gmail.com] or reach out at: https://www.gospelofdirectexperience.com/#contact [https://www.gospelofdirectexperience.com/#contact].

Robert Bly and the Alchemy of Poetry with Haydn Reiss

Documentary filmmaker Haydn Reiss joins us to talk about Robert Bly, poetry, translation, longing, grief, and the mysterious art of finding the right words for what the soul knows. We explore Bly's cultural impact, his gift for speaking to the hunger of men, the strange alchemy poetry can work in a life, and what it means to preserve voices that still have the power to change us. Along the way, we also discuss William Stafford, Rumi, Coleman Barks, and why poetry may matter even more in dark and distracted times. Watch the Films Visit Haydn's Poetry Docs YouTube channel [https://www.youtube.com/@PoetryDocs/videos] to watch his outstanding documentaries on Robert Bly, Rumi, William Stafford, and others for free in celebration of the 100th anniversary of Robert Bly's birth. Episode Highlights [00:51] Introduction to Haydn Reiss [02:16] the Alchemy of Robert Bly * Haydn reflects on first encountering Robert Bly in the early 1990s and describes the strange, clarifying alchemy Bly could work simply by reading the right poem at the right moment. The conversation explores Bly's spiritual depth; his impact on men hungry for grief, vulnerability, and meaning; and the way his poetry reaches past analysis and straight into the heart. [14:37] "Good Ingredients" * Haydn reflects on his path from Hollywood into documentary filmmaking, his nerve-racking decision to approach Robert Bly before he had ever made a film, and the devotion that eventually shaped Robert Bly: A Thousand Years of Joy. Along the way, he shares his creative philosophy (start with "good ingredients.") [21:11] Rumi and Coleman Barks * Haydn tells the story of how Coleman Barks drew him into making a film about Rumi, and how marriage unexpectedly gave him the key he needed to approach that world: love. The conversation explores Rumi's arrival in the West, the challenge of translation, Coleman's singular voice and presence, and how some translators convey not just the language of a poet, but the experience itself. [32:23] Singing in the Dark Times * Drawing on Bly's The Sibling Society, Haydn reflects on the pressure to conform, the loss of depth and originality, and the uneasy fact that there may be no grand solution—only the difficult work of trying to live truthfully and keep singing in the dark. [40:17] William Stafford and Just War * Haydn reflects on making his film about William Stafford's conscientious objection during World War II and on the hard questions Stafford's witness still raises about war and determining the "right thing to do." This is not a simple anti-war argument, but a deeper exchange about just war, opposing views, political simplification, and the need for a moral imagination willing to slow down and wrestle with what is actually right. [48:10] People Like Us * As the conversation comes to a close, Haydn reads Robert Bly's poem "People Like Us." Continue the Conversation What did you think about this conversation? Tell us at gospelofdirectexperience@gmail.com [gospelofdirectexperience@gmail.com] or reach out at: https://www.gospelofdirectexperience.com/#contact [https://www.gospelofdirectexperience.com/#contact].

Let the Dead Be Your Teachers with Perdita Finn

What does it mean to live in relationship with our dead? In our episode "Speaking with the Dead," we discussed Michael's recent contact with his deceased best childhood friend. We knew we needed someone with real experience and insight to help us think through the meaning of that encounter, so we called on Perdita Finn [https://takebackthemagic.com/]. You may remember Perdita from our episode "Portal to the Great Mother," where she and her husband Clark Strand joined us to talk about their rosary practice. But alongside that work, Perdita has spent decades in relationship with the dead. She is the author of Take Back the Magic: Conversations with the Unseen World [https://www.hachettebookgroup.com/titles/perdita-finn/take-back-the-magic/9780762482511/?lens=running-press] and Mothers of Magic: Summoning the Wisdom of Our Ancestors [https://www.hachettebookgroup.com/titles/perdita-finn/mothers-of-magic/9798894140667/?lens=running-press], out May 5. Together, we reflect on altars, offerings, intuition, death denial, miscarriage and abortion, addiction, depression, and the reality that the dead are not gone, but still capable of guiding, helping, and teaching us. Perdita's substack [https://substack.com/@perditafinn] Perdita's Instagram [https://www.instagram.com/perditafinn/] Way of the Rose [https://wayoftherose.org/] Way of the Rose Facebook Group [https://www.facebook.com/groups/wayoftherose] Episode Highlights [00:51] Introduction to Perdita * Michael welcomes Perdita Finn back to the podcast. [03:19] Michael's Contact with "James" * Michael briefly recounts the striking experience of contact with his deceased childhood friend "James," first discussed in Speaking with the Dead, and explains why that experience led us to invite Perdita back for this conversation. [05:50] Making Space for the Dead * Perdita describes her daily practice of praying with the dead, offering worries over to specific ancestors and spirits, and creating altars as places where relationship with the dead can deepen and take form. [13:20] No One's Alone * Jeff reflects on how different this way of relating to the dead feels from the distant, top-down spirituality of his childhood, and the three explore the dead as a diverse, personal, and responsive community—specific beings with distinct personalities, perspectives, and powers, eager to help if we learn how to be in relationship with them. [24:35] You're Not Crazy * The conversation turns to intuition, imagination, and spiritual permission. Michael and Perdita reflect on how many people already have experiences of the dead, but lack the language, validation, and cultural permission to trust what they know. [29:05] Play, Desire, and Prayer * From Santa Claus to family stories to ancestor altars, Perdita reflects on prayer as specificity, mockability, and play—something less like following rules and more like learning to trust desire and imagination again. [33:34] Why We Fear the Dead * We explore the West's fear of the dead, our estrangement from death itself, and the ways modern culture trains us to avoid the body, grief, and the ongoing reality of those who have died. [40:25] We Never Know What We're Looking At * Through stories of miscarriage, abortion, addiction, suffering, and apparent "worthlessness," Perdita argues that we do not know what a life means or what a soul may be doing for others beyond what the surface of a life appears to show. [46:32] The Whole Earth Is an Ancestor Altar * Perdita tells that the whole earth is a graveyard, an altar, and a place of relationship with the dead. The conversation closes by reframing depression, grief, and mortality as possible sites of revelation rather than mere negation. Continue the Conversation What did you think about this conversation? Tell us at gospelofdirectexperience@gmail.com [gospelofdirectexperience@gmail.com] or reach out at: https://www.gospelofdirectexperience.com/#contact [https://www.gospelofdirectexperience.com/#contact].

Baptizing Yourself: Meggan Watterson on Thecla, Love, and Spiritual Authority

In part two of our conversation with feminist theologian and bestselling author Meggan Watterson, we explore the radical story of Thecla from the Acts of Paul and Thecla. Refusing the roles assigned to her by society, Thecla claims her own spiritual authority by baptizing herself in the arena designed for her death. Tied to our exploration of Thecla is a conversation about love as the deepest spiritual power: not love as sentiment or romance, but love as force that arises from within and cannot be controlled by institutions or empires. Drawing on the Gospel of Mary and traditions of mysticism, Meggan describes the "spiritual eye of the heart" and the dangerous freedom it offers. Toward the end, conversation turns to our own moment, especially the ongoing reckoning around Jeffrey Epstein and the voices of survivors. What does spiritual courage look like in a world where systems of power still protect abuse? And how might the ancient story of Thecla speak to that struggle today? Episode Highlights [01:41] Love from Within * Meggan reflects on love as a spiritual power rather than just an emotion or relationship. The conversation explores love as the "eye of the heart," the force that connects worlds, grounds mysticism, and teaches that real love is ultimately sourced within rather than found in another person. [10:51] Thecla's Self-Baptism * This section centers on The Girl Who Baptized Herself and the story of Thecla as a model of embodiment, self-worth, and spiritual authority. Meggan and the hosts discuss how Thecla refuses patriarchal power, baptizes herself, inspires other women to rise up, and reveals a suppressed lineage of female spiritual leadership. [26:51] Feminine Power and Collective Reckoning * The conversation widens from Thecla's story into the present, including the erasure of the feminine in Christianity and the need for spiritual and cultural reckoning. Meggan connects Thecla's witness to survivor truth-telling, systemic abuse, righteous anger, and the search for a more collective, love-centered transformation. Continue the Conversation What did you think about this conversation? Tell us at gospelofdirectexperience@gmail.com [gospelofdirectexperience@gmail.com] or reach out at: https://www.gospelofdirectexperience.com/#contact [https://www.gospelofdirectexperience.com/#contact].