The Pros And Cons Of Plant Medicines, The Truth About Pharmakia, Spiritual Growth & Much More

My name is Ben Greenfield and on this episode of the Ben Greenfield Life Podcast, one of the biggest barriers to the growth of, say, like belief in God, Christianity, the Bible, etc. A lot of these things I hold dear that are a core part of my beliefs is plant medicine. And the reason for that is it's very easy to put your faith in being able to have God or the Gods at your beck and call. Being able to divine, being able to experience God, but not ever truly know God, Faith, family, fitness, health, performance, nutrition, longevity, ancestral living, biohacking, and a whole lot more. Welcome to the show.

Ben Greenfield is a New York Times best selling author of 17 books and as a health consultant, speaker and former collegiate water polo, tennis and volleyball player. Ben also has achieved 13 Ironman triathlons and obstacle course race finishes. Ben has been voted by greatest as one of the top 100 most influential people in health and fitness. But beyond these athletic accolades, I know Ben to be a deeply spiritual, spiritual man who uses a connection to God, higher power to achieve what many could only dream of. I've been bouncing around inside of Ben Greenfield's orbit and consciousness for 10 plus years now. And in true divine timing, it took something both polarizing and controversial to bring Ben and I together for this Wellness and Wisdom episode, number 462. Today, Ben and I are asking a profoundly important question for any human being on a spiritual or faith based path. And that is should you stop using plant medicines? We're dropping in about wisdom on microdosing the muscle of faith and how to grow your spiritual strength. This is the Wellness and Wisdom podcast and I am Josh Trent. If you haven't subscribed, just tap the button that says subscribe wherever you're listening so you can get the best free podcast episodes from us multiple times per week. Now listen, I'm not anti or pro plant medicine. I do believe that these medicines have special use cases. But the key is is that they are special and not to be abused. There are four in my experience, life saving lovers to pull when it comes to plant medicine. And because I know this podcast will ruffle feathers and upset many people who claim that plant medicine is a panacea, it's even more important that this must be said. Number one is set. Was the medicine prepared in a sacred way? Does the shaman or facilitator have the sacred experience from a trusted lineage combined with a pure heart? Look not just in what they say, but in what wisdom they themselves have embodied. This is extremely important. Second piece is setting. Has the space been properly cleared of dark energies and are all participants aligned with humility and curiosity? In other words, are there any participants who have not been properly screened that could bring dark energy to the space? Number three Intention. Has the participant done preliminary work to get very clear on their intention and most importantly to not come to the medicine with a disempowered wish as words are spells and medicine hears spells. Number four Integration. Is there a pre peri and post integration skilled facilitator to hold in safety for the ego dissolving that will take place for the participant? This is by far so so so important because too many people skip this very important step and they go away with no lessons learned. They had a radical experience but no lessons were learned. So with those four levers, those life saving levers, regardless of if you yourself have done plant medicine or ceremonies or entheogens or if you have a curiosity, this podcast is going to rip your hair Back with Ben I was able to spend some very intimate time with Ben, his wife and two boys at the Runga event in Austin this year. And I have to say, out of every person I've met in wellness and health, my experience of Ben is a clear mirror of actions and words and integrity. In other words, he walks his talk at the highest level of anyone I've ever interviewed and spent personal time with in over 500 interviews on this podcast. And this episode is close to my heart because if you've been following me for a few years or more, then you know I've had a dozen plus Ayahuasca, journeys, mushrooms and numerous other plant medicines for journey and microdosing approaches using these entheogenic compounds otherwise known as plant medicines. With all the content we've put out covering my trips down to the jungle and the A to Z of psychedelics, I felt a deep calling to interview Ben. I reached out to him personally. I said, Ben, I have to interview you about what you just said in public, this deeply controversial change that he recently brought to the public eye. Just a couple of weeks ago, Ben shared with the world a two part podcast series called why I Am no Longer Going to Be Using Plant Medicines. Now obviously this caught my attention and everyone else's attention because of what I've shared in the podcast about entities and dark energy that you open yourself up to when you sit with these medicines in the wrong containers. So in this podcast you will walk away with a deep intelligence around the clarification of exactly what plant medicines are for human beings and how they connect us with spiritual dimensions and consciousness the moral obligation that I share with Ben, that Ben felt to be deeply honest about in the public spotlight about why he is walking away from these plant medicines and maybe why you should too. The big warnings about plant medicines from God, from higher power, whether you are religious or not, and why there's no shortcut to climb your own mountain of spirituality. Or as Carl Jung, quoted by Jordan Peterson says, be careful of unearned wisdom. One of the most powerful quotes I know, every time I say it, my body gets chills. You'll also learn from Ben about the dark and light side of plant medicine, the wolf in sheep's clothing and why the devil hides in the church, and three key pieces of soul wisdom, why Ben only watches four or less movies per year, and why the Pixar movie Soul connected Ben and myself in a very powerful way. I know it's going to connect you to these lessons as well. We'll talk about the three biggest rocks for spiritual connection. So if you are a man or woman who is seeking deeper peace through spirituality, it may not always be in the jungle, it may not always be in a microdose. But I know that you're here with us because you are a wisdom seeker. You are a wellness seeker like I am. And this podcast will blow you away. It's going to be such a gift for your heart, mind and soul to experience. Ben is one of the best podcasters and health and wellness influencers in the world. And it's my honor to present to you this conversation with the one and only Ben Greenfield, right here, right now on the Wellness and Wisdom Podcast. Ben, this is going to be an exceptional conversation. I got to spend some time with you at Runga. For people that don't know you, you've went through a huge transition. Well, everybody probably knows you at this point, man. I would say Ben Greenfield, fitness. In 2008, 2009, especially in 2010 when I got involved in the Czech Institute and read how to Eat, Move and Be Healthy, your name popped up. So that's pretty old school. It's old school, yeah. That's back when I was a personal trainer. But today, what's near and dear to my heart is I've had some journeys with plant medicine. I think a lot of people in my audience and I guess in our world, you know, health, wellness, personal development, have all had some journeys. But these entheogens, these plant medicines, it really touched my heart. It really rocked my soul when I saw recently you had said two part series about why you're no longer going to be using plant medicines. And so, man, I just want to talk about this spiritual shift from plant medicine. It was June 1st that you decided to completely stop using or even endorsing plant medicines and entheogens. Why is that?

Well, I suppose before replying to that question, I should probably clarify what I mean when I say plant medicine, because I had a lot of people reach out to me and be like, oh gosh, I use ginkgo biloba for memory. And I. And I cook with nettle extract and I take oil of oregano for a stomach problem. What are you saying, Ben? Why can't I use plant medicines anymore? My reply to those folks was that I chose to use that terminology simply because that's the language that's spoken right now in the spiritual and the health industries, largely when referring to entheogens, psychedelics, hallucinogenic compounds, etc. And I suppose I probably could have said I'm no longer going to be using psychedelics or something like that, but I think that any astute reader or listener kind of knows what I mean when I say plant medicines. And I'm not saying like don't use herbs for healing or something like that. And so when I refer to plant medicine, what I'm specifically referring to are the compounds from the plant kingdom that people have traditionally used since the dawn of time for divining with the gods, for witchcraft, for sorcery, for the occult, for astral projection or astral travel, and for a wide variety of activities that specifically involve interacting with a spiritual dimension, interacting with entities, interacting with angels, with demons, with big G, God with little G, God. And that's the way that many of the compounds that are used recreationally or in party formats these days were traditionally used for a very long time, right, for religious activities and for spiritual activities, both black magic and white magic. And so this would include LSD or any of these so called lysergamides, psilocybin, wachuma, and many of these cacti derivatives, dmt, Ibolga or ibogaine. Some synthetics I think would probably fall into that category as well, either synthetic forms of DMT or high dose recreational ketamine. Obviously LSD could be classified as a synthetic as well, and that's not an exhaustive list per se, but generally I'm referring to the type of things that in often somewhat small doses, can shift your state of consciousness dramatically and cause what most people would refer to as a journey or as a trip. Now anybody who's actually used those type of medicines to journey. Well, I should say this. Very few people who have used those medicines to journey deny the existence of a spiritual dimension. Very few people will claim that it's simply a flooding of the synaptic cleft with excess levels of serotonin or dopamine or something like that, or just a simple surge of DMT from the pineal gland. Very few people I know who are former atheists who have used plant medicine, who are any longer atheists because they see God or they experience an entity or they experience something that proves that there definitely is a spiritual dimension. And it appears that some elements of the plant kingdom are the portals via which the spiritual dimension interacts with a little bit more of the earthly, tangible dimension. And I think that's very interesting. It's actually, for me personally, having been in that space many, many times, it's intriguing. It's intriguing that gods, entities, spirits, angels, demons, whatever you would want to refer to them as, actually choose to interact with human beings through the ingestion or the application or the smoking or the vaping or the use of certain plants. And that just appears to be one of the chosen methods of interaction with human beings. Now, the reason that I am putting up a great big red warning flag now around those substances is particularly when it comes to the recreational use of them, often in an unsupervised set and setting or in a container that I think is somewhat dangerous without supervision, is that when you enter into a spiritual dimension like that, when you begin interacting with entities like that, you open yourself up to a great deal of influence, influence from either those spirits or, or influence from the shaman or the facilitator who is overseeing your experience. For example, New Yorker magazine recently did a nine or ten part podcast series on how rife the plant medicine industry is with people taking financial advantage, power, advantage, sexual advantage, et cetera, over, over other people. You know, usually it's the facilitator of the shaman who is somehow taking advantage of the other person. And that can include placing a curse on them, placing a hex on them, you know, basically taking a small amount of their hair or other tissue. You know, if you're down in the Amazon, for example, to cause you to keep coming back and keep making money off of you, or using you sexually or whatever the case may be. And I don't necessarily think that all shamans and all facilitators would fall into that category, but you do carry the risk of being influenced by another person. And perhaps even more seriously, you carry the risk of being Influenced spiritually and what we often call schizophrenia or psychosis or bipolar certainly can have a neurochemical component to it. But I think that when we witness that in people who have experimented with or heavily dose themselves with plant medicines, I think that I would go so far as to say that part of that might be some type of demonic influence or influence from a. From a dark spirit or dark energy that that person experienced during a plant medicine ceremony.

Now, yes, I've been there myself and I have to jump in because, wow, Ben, I mean, oh my God. The level of input that we're all receiving from plant medicines has grown and grown and grown. So that here in Austin there is like the Onnit tribe and Aubrey Marcus, who's brought plant medicine, you know, first and foremost on the scene here. I feel like, really. But me personally, like, I had a couple really incredibly dark experiences down in Costa Rica and that was what was tugging at my heart to have this conversation with you. I thought about all the ways in which I have been a proponent of plant medicine. And like you said, plant medicine doesn't always involve nettles or some of these adaptogens that we consume to make us healthy. Plant medicines that you and I are speaking about right now are psychedelics. These are things that bring people to four and fifth dimensions and beyond. I gotta talk about this because when I spent time with you at Runga, there wasn't the normal conversation of psychedelics that usually happens at events like that. And I felt like maybe there was a shift already happening with you anyways. But it wasn't until June 1, a little bit of time after we saw each other, that you really had a deeper connection with God, a deeper connection with the Creator of all things. So before you go any more into the science or any more into the dark, the darkness of plant medicine, what was the shift in your heart, in your being, in your human expression that allowed you to have this conversation with God and say, okay, I'm taking a break or I might be done completely.

Oh, you know, I just had a bad trip, bro. Not really. No. That's kind of funny. I've never really had a bad trip. I've certainly, you know, I've had 20 plus hour plant medicine experiences. You know, ego, death ceremonies, things like that, that I wouldn't classify as pleasant, but that I don't think necessarily were bad trips. But the closest I ever got to a bad trip was taking too big of a hit on a DMT pen in the forest and having some imaginary snakes coming down from the trees that I now, upon further reflection, going back and studying a little bit more about what these medicine actually entail spiritually. You know, that. That obviously was some type of entity. But back to the root of your question. When you saw me at Runga, I was kind of deep in the throes of researching a lot of this, because what actually caught my attention was, you know, I read the Bible. That's part of. Part of my morning routine. You know, I do breath work as you do. I play nice music. I like a channel like soaking worship, which kind of shifts you into a nice state to be. To just be in kind of a deep devotional and spiritual state. I'll burn some incense or some essential oils. I read the Bible. I pray. I go through a devotional, and, you know, I just kind of have a spiritual workout each morning. And I guess it was probably maybe four months ago that I came across a passage when I was reading the Bible about what it called pharmacia. You know, gosh, I was. I was born as a Christian. I went to Sunday school. You know, I read the Bible probably like four or five times all the way through. And I've seen that word before, but for some reason, it kind of tugged at my heart when I read it. And I'm like, gosh, you know, I've seen this before. I've read it. I've always thought it was just kind of like, I don't know, like witchcraft or sorcery or something like that, but, you know, which I've. I've never. I've never done. You know, I don't write a broom and wear a pointy hat or cast spells on people. And I'm not worried, but. But, you know, I read about it, and it's kind of lumped into the same category as some of these things that kind of scar the soul, like, you know, like adultery or murder or some of these things that we might consider to be, like, bigger problems than, like, you know, telling a lie or stealing. Like, there's certain things that I think we humans just have a gut reaction to, and we're like, that's. That's something that can definitely leave you in a dark place. And pharmakea is constantly lumped into that category when it's spoken of in the Bible, which it is spoken of, gosh, dozens of times. So it's obviously something that if you do believe in the Bible, and that's obviously a pretty big assumption here, I realize people. People are listening. They don't believe the Bible is True. Or maybe they don't have a relationship with Go.

Well, I mean, we've done a huge series with Paul Chek where we did like probably four hours unpacking that everything is God, that all is made in the image of God. So whether you believe in the book, the Bible, there are universal teachings that have nothing to do with religion and everything to do with spiritual awareness, spiritual awakening.

Yeah, exactly. And back to what I was saying earlier, like, even if you don't believe in God and you don't believe the Bible is absolute truth, anybody who's listening who has dabbled in plant medicine would probably agree that there is a spiritual dimension of some sort that exists. Like, it's just hard to be a materialist, a pure materialist, materialist from a rational, logical standpoint, and have also done plant medicines. And I just. I just think it's very difficult. So I may not be able to make a case, you know, right now during this podcast, that the Bible is the absolute truth or, or that my God is your God. But I say that in the religious literature that I read every morning, I keep seeing this word pharmacia popping up. So I'm like, I should look into this a little bit. You know, I'm 40 years old. I use things that I know some people call pharmakia, like LSD and psilocybin and wachuma and ayahuasca. And, you know, I've journeyed many, many times, you know, since. Since the age of about 31. And so I started to look into it. It turns out that really the. The definition of it is using drugs to divine with the spiritual world. Using drugs to interact with the spiritual world. That's what the definition of pharmakia is. And thought, oh, gosh, how many times have I been flat on my back, slobbering with an eye mask and music pumping through the speakers, talking to God or saying, what will you show me? Or what's the next path of my life? Or what should I do next? And hearing the voice of God and seeing lights and interacting with entities. And for me, it's only ever been pure love and light and resulted in amazing fruit in terms of my business breakthroughs, the expansion of my mind, the dissolution of the ego to a certain extent. And so I've always thought that because the fruits have been nothing but positive, that this is great for me to be able to pop some pills and enter into the spiritual dimension and come back with amazing amounts of knowledge and insight. That's great. But then when I started to study this, I realized, well, gosh, the reason that there's a big warning flag around this in the Bible at least, or the reason that God, for some reason, doesn't want us to use drugs to enter with the spiritual world is because, yeah, it works out for a lot of people, including myself, for a certain period of time. But you're in a really dangerous place every time that you are using these substances for that purpose. And I think that God knew that. I think our Creator knew that. And I think that he did put these substances, you know, psilocybin or ergo or certain fungi or ayahuasca or, you know, whether synthetic or natural heart openers, you know, like MDNA or Wachuma. Like, I think that these things were placed on this planet for a specific reason. I'm a creationist. I believe the Earth was created by higher power, by an intelligent being. I don't think that certain things were placed on the planet that were not good. As a matter of fact, if you read in the Bible, it says all things were placed there for our good and for our benefit. Everything was placed there for a reason. But I think that in both ancient and modern times, there are certain compounds that we bastardized and used for purposes that go beyond God's original intention for them and thus put ourselves in a space where either a, we're subject to influence from dark entities that can cause things like poor decision making, psychosis, schizophrenia, addiction, attachment. There are obviously some horror stories of, you know, I've seen guys coming to ayahuasca and chopping their genitals off or, you know, people committing murder under the influence of drugs. And I really realize, like, that's a. That's like a pretty extreme use case for most people. It's just maybe, you know, a little bit of a change in their personality or their decision making or maybe mild psychosis or something like that. But, you know, I think that even if that doesn't occur, because that never occurred with me, right? I always have had amazing, amazing experiences and breakthroughs and insights. I think the bigger problem, and this is. This is my main concern, and this is what Aldol Huxley knew. This is what Aleister Crowley knew. This is what Timothy Leary knew. This is what a lot of the forefathers and proponents of the plant medicine movement knew. As a matter of fact, I was even listening to a recent interview on the Plants of the Gods podcast with Paul Stamets. And I forget, the other plant medicine researchers on that podcast, they talk about this as well. One of the biggest barriers to the growth of, say, like, belief in God, Christianity, the Bible, etc. A lot of these things I hold dear that are a core part of my beliefs, one of the biggest barriers to those are or is plant medicine. And the reason for that is it's very easy to put your faith in being able to have God or the gods at your beck and call. Being able to divine, being able to experience God but not ever truly know God. Being able to experience a deep spiritual awakening but never actually go through the blood, sweat, the tears, the chopping wood, the carrying water, the hard work that actually develops true spiritual enlightenment.

I've said this before, I've said this before, but I'll say it again. Jordan Peterson quoted this from Young and he said that we have to be careful of unearned wisdom. It's exactly what you're saying. Because if I can have God on a beck and call just by going to a ceremony or just by making like a financial investment or just wanting to be part of a tribe because they're all doing plant medicine, that's not necessarily going to make me a heretic. That's not going to make me somebody that actually knows God through life experience, through real challenge, blood, sweat and tears, doing the spiritual practices. I mean, if all is God, if all is God and God made all these things, why would it not be possible, Ben, for God to protect us from energies and entities during properly facilitated or protected ceremony? In other words, why couldn't God protect us if we did the right prayer, if we had a relationship with God, from energies and ceremonies?

Yeah, God does. God does protect you. I think that's why I've never had a bad trip. You know, whenever I've journeyed, I've had a Bible at the bedside. I've gone into deep prayer sometimes for weeks leading into the journey. I've prayed on the armor of God. I've recited the name of Jesus and Yeshua and cleansed the room of any evil spirits and been very careful about who's facilitating an experience. For me, you can certainly be protected by God. Problem is, for every one of me who's going to do that, there's going to be 10 people who go in unarmed, not knowing what they're doing, subjecting themselves, or potentially putting themselves into a situation where they're subject to dark influences. And I really don't want to be the person who's standing up on a pedestal, my platform, and saying, yo, Psilocybin is amazing, baby, you're going to go discover yourself and I just don't want that burden of being responsible for someone who doesn't do all those things that I've done and winds up really, you know, being in that state that I think God warned us about originally, which is the. The evil influence you can be subject to via the use of pharmakia.

Dude, I remember you were on London Real. I think it was 2014, and that was like six or seven years after I read Paul's book and I started hearing about you and I. And I went into this space in my own heart where I was like, okay, if Ben and this. I was very moldable at that time. This is before I even launched a podcast. I was like, if Ben can do it safely, then I can probably do it too. And I was very impressionable at 34 years old. I think about what you said on the show. I think you said something on Brian's show like, I'm here to help people climb their own mountains. Well, if any of us are trying to climb a mountain of spirituality and we can perceive, quote, a shortcut or unearned wisdom, I think this is really what I want to unpack with you. This unearned wisdom, this shortcut. We can't shortcut spirituality. You have to lead a life that is strong in many different facets in order to connect with God or even find a meaning of what God truly is. Can we expand that?

Yeah, yeah. So, and by the way, remind me, because we should come back to the fact that I do think, as I was starting to talk about, that there is a use case for these compounds. And I think there is a time and a place we can talk about that. But let's address what you've just asked me first. So, you know, the idea here is that when you use plant medicines and you're interacting with God and seeing the bright light and love, and you're experiencing God in a far different way than you ever may have, you know, whatever in Sunday school or in church or during a prayer time or a nature walk or whatever. It's really profound. That being said, you know, I should throw the little caveat in there that, you know, when you hear about Satan or you hear about Lucifer, what does Lucifer mean? It means light bearer. Right. And, you know, a lot of people think that, Think that demons and Satan, it's all dark energy and blood and horns and crunchy things and thorns and. Yeah, certainly, you know, people who have experienced that, especially people have experienced that in plant medicine, know that to be the case. There are universal symbols of evil that we all just kind of like, you know, you see like a goat with horns or blood coming out, you know, the, you know, seeping from somebody's eyeballs, you know, all these universal things we see in horror movies, I think there's a reason that, that we see them because there is a universal symbology of evil. But I also think that, you know, even the Bible says this, right? That Satan masquerades as an angel of.

Light, and the best place for the devil to hide is in the church, right?

And let's, let's say that you believe in the creation story of Adam and Eve, you know, and this, this serpent, you know, offering Eve, this, this forbidden fruit. There's no way it was some, like, ugly, horrific serpent that she would have recoiled from and run away screaming because it was so horrific to look upon, right? It was probably a very, very beautiful, like, dragon or serpent or something that was just like dazzlingly beautiful, right? So. So when I say experiencing God in plant medicine, sometimes you're not experiencing God. Sometimes you're experiencing something the polar opposite of God that is trying to be portrayed as light and love and purity, but is in fact not. But let's say that it is God that you're experiencing. You then set yourself up for this scenario in which you have this expectation that in order to talk to God, in order to experience God, in order to hear his voice, rather than doing as I was this morning, right upstairs, 10ft from from where I'm walking on my treadmill right now, sitting on the back patio, look out into the trees, closing my eyes, breathing through my nose, opening myself up to the voice of God, praying, looking out over the trees and seeing his beauty in creation, hearing his voice, writing in my journal the type of things that God is revealing to me as I'm sitting there. Instead, you set up this expectation that to really, truly have that spiritual experience, basically have to do drugs. And furthermore, the problem with this is also that if you look at, say, like the early Christian church, there is a subset, a sector called Gnostics. They're basically like early Christian mystics who claim that there is like this secret power, this secret knowing, this secret way to God that was only accessible to certain people, only the chosen few. But if you look at Jesus Christ, I mean, he basically, he hung out with poor people, destitute people, people who didn't have access to all the fancy riches and drugs and secret knowledge. His whole message was like, salvation and spiritual enlightenment and the path to happiness through God is totally free. It's Totally free. And you don't need to be, like, sacrificing bulls on an altar. And you don't have to have some Levite priest going into the back into the holy of holies and burning incense and putting on oil, which, you know, probably was a little bit psychedelic. If you go back and look and look at some of the research behind that, like the new path to salvation. The reason that Christianity was called the Third Way or the Way is because it was all of a sudden this new thing that didn't require, like, drugs and oracles and temples and priests and priestesses. It was just like this free path to salvation. And over the past few months, I've been questioning, do I want to be the guy who gives the impression to, let's say, billions of people in India or Africa or poor people in America or Canada or Mexico or wherever else that really, to truly find God, got to be able to afford a trip to the Peru to do ayahuasca, or you gotta grow some fungi or find some psilocybin and do that. Or you have to go through some type of facilitation ceremony or go to a ketamine clinic, whatever. Like, no, that's not what you need for spiritual enlightenment.

But don't you think it's not just the only access point to God. It is a. As long as it's done in a very safe way. It is a one path to God. It's not the path. The path to God is what you write about and endure. The path to God is what we all do when we pray and meditate. The path to God has many different flavors. It's not the only one. And I get why you're sharing with people that. That it is not the golden ticket. It is not this thing that's going to connect you with God ultimately. But I do think that I have had so many profound experiences that have shifted the course of my life, my podcast, my relationship. I, too, share an opinion, like you, where I actually deleted a lot of our content on the channel about plant medicine. We were paid for on a media trade to go down to a place in Costa Rica that I can't say here live on the podcast, because the owner has a lot of money and he will say, sue me, but you know exactly. You know exactly what I'm talking about. And we've had a lot of colleagues go down there. And that was the place where I absorbed an entity. And I.

We.

We absolutely will get back. Ben, like you said, to the microdosing aspect and to the Safe use of some of these things and the use cases. But I'm called to share this because I deleted all the content because of what I felt. The dark energy, the demonic energy down there really was. And. And it was something where I was duped. I was fooled, you know, And I have full, complete humility when I say this plant medicine is not for everyone. And I would say it's probably not for most, because the spiritual maturity that one has to have in order to integrate the lessons from these medicines are so high and are so contextual on their life experience and how applicable they are to being, I guess you could say, psychologically controlled, that I had to eat my lunch. I don't wish my experience on anyone else. It took me almost two years to heal the psychic entity, the attachment that I had. I had to go to our friend and colleague Paul Check, and he taught me a specific prayer and different ways in which I got rid of that energy. But it took me to a place where I had just gotten with the mother of my child. Now, I had felt my son wanting to come in, and there was this demonic energy that was basically attacking my soul. It was attacking my soul. And when I went into Paul's house, he said, oh, it looks like you have a black crocodile on your body. And, I mean, right then I knew, because I had felt like this, almost like a psyche had been shattered, like some kind of energy was in my system. Now, if you'd have told me, Ben, before that that entities were real, I would not have believed you. I had to actually experience it myself. So I too, am like you, where I am extremely cautious about sending people there. And we had to delete a lot of content. And I did an entire podcast about a death and rebirth about why I believe that these medicines potentially can help but also can harm. So I just want to say thank you, man. Thank you for having the balls to go back on so much content that you've produced. And I'm curious what comes up for you when you hear the word entity? I'm reading a book right now called Watiko, and I don't know if you know Paul Levy, but this is about the mind virus that plagues our world. So what do you see from the dark side of the plant medicine and your experiences?

Yeah, back to what you were saying about how it being a path to God. Not the only path to God, but a path to God. I totally agree with you. You know, back to my own experiences of it only ever being light and love and great spiritual enlightenment. Back to Many atheists who I've talked to who have come to know God through plant medicine. I mean, it was really, really hard for me to know all of that. But then to say, no, I just can't get behind it anymore. And you know, the reason for that is because, yeah, you can go in protected, you can go in, you know, whatever. Let's say you're Christian, washed by the blood of Jesus Christ, you got a Bible out, or you've surrounded yourself with only positive energy. You know, the shaman is total white magic shaman, not a black magic shaman. And you can go in there. But let's get even more woo here. I mean, if you go back and you like read the Bible and the story of like the fallen angels. I know Satan left heaven because he was jealous of God and he wanted to be God. And he took a certain number of these angels with him, you know, the nephilim, you know, and there were originally, if you look at Jewish lore, I think it was about 72 different gods. And you know, there was the Father and, and the Son, Yeshua, you know, Yeshua and Elohim. You know, those are a couple of the, of like the early great gods, like the big G God. But then there were a lot of little G gods underneath God who kind of like came down to earth and scattered and became a part of the spiritual world with which humans interact. Well, let's just say, let's just say you're a young earth creationist. Maybe you believe that all happen 8,000, 9,000 years ago. Who the hell am I to think that I can go into that world and be able to be smarter and more elusive than a demon who's been playing around with humans for the past 8,000 years, right? Who am I to say, oh, I'm just going to put a Bible at the foot of my bed. I'm going to go, I'm Ben Greenfield. I pray, bro. Like, I've been a Christian for 40 years. I got this, this demons got nothing over me. Me. Well, you know what, I just think it's playing with fire. And so if you say, well, it's a path to God, I completely agree with you. But is it the appropriate path to God? No. And furthermore, even if I think it is, and I, gosh, I've gone to God a lot of times, I've gone to God, both in medicine and out of medicine to ask this question, right? Because before I really decided to swear off, I actually did some journeys where I went straight to God and I asked him every single time what came back over and over and over again was, no, no, no, no, no, this is not the way. This is why God wrote about it in the Bible as forbidden pharmacia, because he knew how attractive it was. And yet in the end, how much of a train wreck that it would cause or how much of a displaced trust and faith it would cause for people to put their faith and their reliance upon how they could become spiritually enlightened other than the free act of just placing your burden at the foot of the cross, saying thank you, Jesus and walking away. And I realize I sound like a total Bible thumping Jesus freak saying this. You know, just my background. I'm happy to stand by my religious convictions just because that's who I am. And if I believe it, I believe it. But even again, even if you're not a Christian, if you don't believe in the Bible, you are still entering into a spiritual world where these spirits know what the hell they're doing. You don't play around with them. Yeah, you might have them at your beck and call, but they've got you at their beck and call too, and can do with you what they please. And you just have to know that and be aware of it. And, you know, again, I'm painting with a really broad brush here, I realize. And there are certain scenarios where I do think there's an appropriate use for these type of things. Okay, let's say, for example, you want to have an amazing conversation with your lover in which your heart is open and you have kind of that truth serum going through your bloodstream, and you just want to sit with her and have an amazing conversation, perhaps make love later on, perhaps not. But you just want to be in a really, really nice space, go ahead. I mean, if you want to take 150 of MDMA and sit with your husband or your wife in bed and talk with them for hours, fine, that's great.

But it's just you and your lover. It's not a huge group of people.

Take that same dose of mdma, put on an eye mask, put on some headphones, lay flat on your back and say, hey, God, here I come, here I come. I'm coming into the spiritual dimension. All right, let's see what God has to say to me. And that's a different scenario. Right? So even the container and the intention matter. Another example would be psilocybin. Right. You know, I. I will take psilocybin in small amounts for increased sensory perception, for creativity, for awareness, even as a little bit of a heart Opener, Right. And I'm nowhere near a psychedelic or hallucinogenic stage. Right. And that would be, you know, something like a stamen sack, for example, like an example of microdosing. You could say the same for like a small dose of Wachuma as a whole heart opening microdose or LSD for a focus microdose. Like, I again think that those type of uses are just fine. I also think that when we get to the heftier doses, in addition to something like couples therapy, eyes wide open with each other, not having a purpose or an intention of diving into the spiritual world, you could also take these larger doses and say that they could be applicable in a few use case scenarios. For example, medically supervised end of life therapy, or someone who has cancer, fear of death, and they just need to be dissolved for a little while and feel that fear go away. I've seen that occur many times and I've seen it have benefit. I could possibly, I would say as I continue to study this, eventually decide that even that is too risky and that perhaps we need to embrace the pain and the suffering and the fear of death rather than just trying to melt it away with drugs. But I could see end of life therapy being another use case. I can see supervised trauma therapy, such as a medical ketamine administration also being a potentially appropriate use case, but again, only in a really tight set and setting and only with really good therapy and integration afterwards. Right. And so some of these things I either haven't fully made my decision on and I'm leaving the door open for them, or I feel like, you know, I might make a more complete decision later on. But so end of life therapy, couples therapy, trauma therapy and microdosing, I still see some use cases for those. And then finally, and this is kind of interesting if you look at the traditional use of a lot of these plant compounds, because I, you know, I've talked to many facilitators who have kind of switched to a purely synthetic approach and found that that dark energy doesn't seem to exist.

What do you mean synthetic approach?

So a synthetic approach would be. Sasha Shogun has had a, had a few synthetics that he had produced towards the end of his life that were. They have like an entheogenic feel to them, and I'm not speaking from personal experience anymore, I'll get to that in a second. They have like an entheogenic feel to them, but they're more of like a nootropic, smart drug type of compound that shifts the brain in a very Similar way as an entheogen or hallucinogen might, but without that dark energy that you might get from plant matter, from the spiritual world. The term right now being used for these in the industry is Clairegenics. And I've, I've kind of sort of used stuff like that before, but never without the addition of some type of plant medicine component. Because I do know some people, including some pretty strong Christians and folks who are using clairegenics not to journey and divine with God, but kind of like to get some new personal insights, business breakthrough, stuff like that. I'm leaving the door open for that as well and likely will try something like that towards the end of August, early September, just to personally experience that and say, okay, well this, this would fall into the same category as plant medicine or it wouldn't. And that's about the only, like heftier dose type of thing I'm keeping the door open for. But even that I haven't made a decision on. So obviously some of this stuff is still a bit loosey goosey. You know, we can't do just baby talk here. Black and white, all or nothing. But, you know, the main big takeaway message here is we got to be careful. Like there, there's, there's. We're playing with fire with a lot of this stuff.

Yeah, the set and setting is just two pieces, but also the intention is a big one. This is something that nobody really talks about. I mean, I've heard you talk about it a few times. We've had different people on the show to discuss this. I think about where intention actually comes from. If someone's intention is pure, it's coming from their heart and soul. It's not coming from their ego. I'm not here to bastardize the ego. I think the ego is a beautiful thing when it's integrated. But if I have a pure intention and I go into a ceremony, let's just say with my wife or with. For the single people, someone you're dating who you're considering to have a family with, and you have a pure intention from your heart not to see what you can get out of them, not to see how far you can get as far as your success, that is just as important, I believe, as set and said in. So you've never had a entity attached to you. You've never felt the presence of darkness and had to fight it off in any way.

I think probably one time a little bit, I felt that there was like a dark energy in the room. I felt as though I was Kind of like battling against something wasn't necessarily battling against something that I felt wanted to take over my body. I could just sense a presence in the room. And this was during a medicine experience. But I never came out of it feeling as though I carried that with me. I never came out of it feeling scarred. Like anytime I've ever run into anything even remotely like that, I've simply like recited the name of Jesus and you know, and sometimes I'll sing a song or recite a Bible verse and like, you know, again, I think that I wrote about this in the article series that I did about all this. Like, I think that I shouldn't say I got lucky. I think that God protected me and that the experiences that I've had have simply been something that will hopefully allow me to say, go to my twin 14 year old sons and warn them so that they don't make the same mistakes as I did. And so that eventually one of my followers or fans or one of my sons or anyone else doesn't wind up exposing themselves to some type of dark entity. Because that's playing with your soul, your eternal soul. And so I think it is important and you know, when, when I. Yeah, when I think about my sons, I just feel as though, you know them to know that they can go to God anytime they want without drugs and they can have breakthroughs and insights and discoveries and downloads and divinations from God without being in the plant medicine space. I think that's a good gift that I can give them.

I feel into something I've read many times and it's Isaiah 45, 7. This is from the King James Version. It's I form the light and create darkness. I make peace and create evil. I, the Lord, do all these things. Now I'm curious what comes up for you there because for me what I hear is not just that all is God, but every single thing, even the conception that I have of God is also God. It's the intelligence of God. Literally, if God is nothing and everything at the same time, and you and I are this unique point of consciousness and of course this wisdom is passed to me on by our friend Paul. Check. If I am that unique point of consciousness and we are all in a big theater here, then if I'm doing things from my heart and I'm living my life from my heart, of course the lessons I learn along the way are going to shape that, then I have to accept, Ben. I have to accept that sometimes in life terrible things happen. And for me the entity happened For a reason. Otherwise I wouldn't be able to know what it is and warn people about it. Right. Thank God I got out of it. What comes up for you when you hear Isaiah 45:7 about the light and the darkness? If God actually created the demonic energy in the world, that's all God too.

Yeah, God draws straight with crooked lines. That's not in the Bible, but it's certainly something I've experienced many times in my life. Like the path to the top of the mountain is a zigzagging path and often results in you being exposed to or you making mistakes that eventually form you into the person that you are. Right. God by fire. And furthermore, God could have created a world in which everything was perfect and he could have written out a story for our lives and had us act out that story as little automaton puppets with no free will.

Yeah.

For some reason the intelligent being decided to grant us free will. Probably because if we are made in the image of God, we have this desire to create. We have this desire to have some amount of self actualization. We have this desire to be kind of like the God that created us, which obviously goes wrong sometimes when people commit horrific atrocities for money or power or fame or anything else that brings them closer to godlike status versus just filling that eternal hole in their soul with daily union with God, speaking with God and embracing a little bit of a healthier approach to being godlike. But ultimately, because we are made in the image of an intelligent being, a creator, a God, we do have this free will. And the nature of that free will means that we can make a lot of mistakes, we can commit a lot of evils, and God allows that to happen. And furthermore, God typically has some reason that he allows it to happen. Sometimes it is so that he can eventually be glorified by revealing the healing or the salvation that he offers to us after something bad happens. Sometimes it can be to teach us more empathy or more sympathy, or teach us how to love people who may not be like us or who may even, you know, have severe physical or mental debilitations. Right. And so God allowed, for example, you know, God allows babies to be born with, you know, with diseases or with conditions, say like down syndrome, for example, and he could have caused every human to be born perfect, but he didn't. And I don't know any parent who has had a child with down syndrome who hasn't had their life transformed into, into one of beauty and love and the ability to, to just love any human being in a Much, much greater way than perhaps they would have ever done had they not been so intimately involved with a human being who by the world's standards, was broken but needed love in any ways, right? So sometimes God allows evil to have him to teach us unconditional love. And I won't deny that there certainly are cases, and this is kind of like the God of the Old Testament, things that kind of rubs people the wrong way sometimes. I think God does sometimes punish by allowing evil things to happen. I think sometimes, if you look at, I don't know, maybe in the Bible.

But is it really a punishment or is it just cause and effect based on wisdom?

It might be cause and effect, natural consequences of one's decision. But yet, I mean, if you read like. If you go to the Bible and read like Joshua or Judges, where, you know, the Israelites are, like, going through the land of Canaan, burning people and killing them by the sword, and basically God's commanding that because these people are so evil and they've done such atrocities that God is literally using other human beings to punish them. And then you also see, like, hailstones and fire and like, random armies struck dead literally by, like, angels of God. And so. So you also see God not only using humans to punish other people, but God directly punishing other people. And that kind of makes people squirm. They're like, I don't know why I want to worship that God, but the fact is that the world is a little bit different now and things kind of changed. If you look at this from a Christian standpoint, with the emergence of a deity that came to earth and died and was buried and was resurrected for our sins. And suddenly everyone. Everyone is in. There's not like the Israelites and the Gentiles or, you know, or the foreign armies that are doing evil and the good. It's like every single person is loved by God and offered this free gift of salvation, and evil has been bound. And that's. That's my personal belief, is not that we're in some type of apocalyptic scenario where the world is going to get more and more evil and we're going to hell in a handbasket, I think death has been defeated. I think Satan has been bound. I think demons and Lucifer can still do damage to people. But I think ultimately this planet's going to get better and better and better and better as more and more people realize that salvation is free and that God loves them so deeply that he offered that free gift of salvation to everyone. And I think, unfortunately, one of the Things that could stand in the way or impede the progress of that is people placing their faith in plant medicine rather than people placing their faith in the free gift of salvation through Jesus Christ.

Well, Ben, you know, I myself don't identify with a God being in the sky, a dude wearing a beard. But I have felt, and I do feel on a daily basis, this connection with a higher power. And I call it God, I call it universe, I call it higher intelligence. My. The way that manifests in my life is through a beautiful son that I have who's a year old, a loving relationship. This platform continuing to grow and having the opportunity, Ben, to speak to people like you. Like, it's really, really amazing. If you'd have told me when I was a personal trainer banging out sessions and gyms in 2009, I would have never even imagined that I could be at this place. But you know what the deciding factor has been throughout the entire journey? Man, it has been always opening my heart to something that I don't understand, to something that I feel that I can't always touch, that I can't always smell, but it's always there for me, like this palpable energy that when I ignore it, I notice my life starts to go south. When I love it, when I open to that energy, my life starts to unfold in a beautiful way. And I want to talk about your book, too. This is Endure. If you guys are watching on YouTube, tools, tactics, habits for spiritual stamina. You and I share an affinity for my favorite movie in the world, and that is soul. And I loved reading that chapter in your book because I thought, okay, yeah, you had these great. These three things, these three gems you pulled from it. One was stop and smell the roses. Next is the grass is always greener. And then three, find your spark. That movie touched me in a way that I can't even share with words. Why did that movie mean so much to you? I think you only watch like four movies a year. So for you to watch that movie, movie that was a big deal, that really spoke to your soul.

Yeah, literally and figuratively. I suppose it's this idea that there's a lot more to us than just flesh and blood. It's kind of related to everything we've been talking about for the past hour. The existence of a spiritual world. And sometimes we can ban the about terms like God and Jesus and angel and demons and Satan and heaven and hell, and forget that we ourselves are light beings. We ourselves are spirits. We're just a soul with a shell on top of it for a little while, right? We're an eternal soul. And that cartoon animated film, I suppose it could be called, I really liked it because it just made me think more and more about how everybody has this unique spark inside of them. Everybody is a light being. And like, when I'm talking to you, Josh, you know, you're not just like Josh Trent, you know, with, you know, your beard and your hair and your skin and your eyes and everything else, like you are an actual light being. And when you look at people and you see through the flesh and you see, you know, and this sounds kind of woo and ethereal, but you see them as like blue sparks of. Of light in almost the same way that you would think of, like, I don't know, a nymph or a fairy or something like that, to use terminology people might be familiar with. But an actual soul, an actual spirit, all of a sudden, it changes a lot the way that you interact with people. That person begging your groceries at the grocery store, they're an eternal soul. That is, C.S. lewis once said, an immortal soul with the capability of being a horrific monster or an incredible immortal being. Right. Same thing for that homeless person holding a cardboard sign on the street corner. Same thing for some politician who you might severely disagree with or even mildly hate. Like anybody, anybody who you come across, we have any feelings towards good or bad. These are eternal souls. These are light beings. And I think that more people would benefit from considering their human beings, their fellow human beings in such a way. Every single one of us is unique soul, unique spark. Every single one of us has a unique purpose. And I think that that film just did a really good job showing that.

Yeah. And it doesn't have to mean that you are a multi billionaire for you to have a spark. Like having a spark could be just playing the guitar on your back porch. It could be you going hiking with somebody that you care about.

If I could interrupt you real quick. You know, this is kind of like some angst I've been having lately because I've been meditating quite a bit upon my own platform. And I have many people at the helm of the ship, so to speak, who are steering things towards greatness and expansive network, global content, media empire, et cetera, et cetera. Josh, what I really like to do is play cornhole with my sons in the back patio and of like, read a good fiction book and play guitar and sip some wine and make love to my wife and go take care of the goats and chickens and just basically, you know, live A simple yet extraordinary life. And that's my spark. Right? And that doesn't mean I also don't want to be. You know, to use another biblical analogy, I realize I'm throwing a lot of those out there. I don't want to be like Jonah and the story of Nineveh, who God calls him something great, and he's like, no, I'm going to run over here because it's safe and comfortable over here. Like, I'm constantly checking myself and asking myself, well, would me just sitting at home, whatever, writing books and doing a podcast in hand with my kids, squander whatever platform or calling that God has given to me? But at the same time, I think that you've just started to make the point that your unique spark doesn't have to be billionaire, you know, world changing status, even though. So really you are changing the world if you're loving even just one person. Because it's back to that eternal soul analogy. If you've loved just one person, if you've helped just one person find happiness for eternity and realize that they are an eternal soul, an eternal being, well, that's an infinite gift that you've given to someone that goes on for all of eternity. That's greater than any amount of money you could make or fame you could have or followers like that.

It's so beautiful, man. I feel that in my cells. And I think about your journey in, like, 2010 is when you first started. When did the website come out? It was the old site, Ben Greenfield Fitness. Now it's Ben Greenfield Life.

Back in the day, I think I coded my first website in 2003. I don't recall when I launched the podcast, but it's been a while.

Then I think about your voice on London Reels, where I think the world got a bigger look into your life and your psyche and now your courage and your ability to talk about your spiritual awakening, talk about what spirituality actually is, and especially with Endure. I feel like I'm curious how you feel. Spiritual awakening is kind of similar to what the effects of melatonin are. You know, we wake up in the morning and melatonin makes us a little groggy. And then eventually we wake up and we realize that a lot of the things that we've believed about society are actually not real. What is something that you used to believe about society and through your spiritual faith has allowed you to see it as a lie?

Well, this might open up a can of worms, but one thing I've realized through my faith is that people aren't inherently good when left to our own volition, we make a lot of mistakes. We get selfish, we covet, we lie, we steal, we kill. We set up these pie in the sky socialistic or communist societies where we think that if we just encourage everyone to share, spread the wealth and take care of each other, that everything will be just fine. We embrace what, for example, the hippie plant medicine movement of the 60s would have embraced, that all we need is love and we're truly capable of that. And I've just seen so many times, people who rely upon their own goodness, people who do not realize that we are fallen creatures and that we do need some kind of higher power or intelligent being to be able to help us. People who think that we humans can just do it on our own. You never see things go right. You never see things go right. And yeah, I know where you and I are living in a country that we was founded upon Christian principles and a constitution influenced by Christianity, albeit with the separation of church and state, so that the state wasn't able to commit the horrific religious atrocities that, you know, the many elements of the Catholic and the orthodox and the Protestant Christianity committed over hundreds and hundreds of years. It's sad what many people will do in the name of God. Yet the idea of simply forming a society around absolute morality and truths influenced by an intelligent being is something that I see over and over again as a really, really good way for society to operate. And, you know, there were certainly times in my life when if you were to ask me if we're just like, good and we're capable of being good on our own, I would have said, yeah, yeah, we just love each other. But the fact is, you know, I actually think that that is a myth, that it is false that we need more than to just be good. And furthermore, we can't just be good on our own. I don't think human beings are capable of it.

Yeah, I think that in order to have a healthy relationship, you can't just say, oh, well, love will always guide us, right? No, that's not true. Like, there's wisdom when we learn how to love. And so if love was enough, then divorce rates wouldn't be 70, 80%. Like, that wouldn't be the case. So how do you stay sustainable personally with your own spiritual growth without shaming yourself, without telling yourself, I got to do more, I got to do more, I got to do more. Or does that come up and how do you deal with it? In other words, how do you stay sustainable in your Own spiritual growth.

Oh, well, by the nature of me knowing and acknowledging that I'm not good, that I can't do it on my own, that I need God's help. It's incredibly humbling, right, to be able to just be on my knees each morning and say, God, I give everyone and everything to you. I give everyone and everything to you. I can't do this. I can be good on my own. I can't be the father that I want to be on my own. I can't be the husband that I want to be on my own. And although this might sound like the total polar opposite of a positive affirmation, I'm a fallen creature and I would commit great evil if I were left all to myself. I know it's. But there's this great confidence that despite all of that, I am loved unconditionally. I've been offered a rescue line that's free. And that all I need to do is rely upon the grace of God and his love to be able to help me be good. Even though I'm not inherently good, I can rely upon God's grace and help to be as close to good as I'm able to be. Well, I think that that gives you a great deal of hope in your life because all of a sudden, you know, you don't have to do it on your own. You don't have to do it on your own. You can rely upon a higher power to help you be the person that you want to be. And just, you can't do it without that higher power.

You know what? I've always felt as just like the most mysterious question that turned into a certainty. It was people that are atheists, people that believe. They're like, there's no such thing as God. God doesn't exist. And then I ask them, well, why do you think that? And the majority of their answers are something like, well, there's no proof. And I said, well, that's interesting. If there's no proof and that's the basis used to make your decision, then show me the proof that there isn't. Show me the proof that there isn't a God when I hold my son. There's no way you could share with me that that didn't carve out a space for God in my own heart. No way. There's nothing you could tell me? No research you could give me? Like, I just know that feel. I know that I know what that feels like. And so have you had people ratios.

Based on Fibonacci sequences? Built into each of your son's fingertips and the helical structure of DNA and all these intense, extremely complicated mathematical patterns and mathematical rules such as, such as PI, for example, built into the universe. It's very difficult for that to randomly occurred.

Yes. And also the same scientists, scientists that came up with all these theories, if you were to tell them, hey, what does it feel like? And what's the mathematic equation when you hold your son or daughter, they wouldn't be able to tell you. There's no way they'd be able to share with you the mathematic output, the logical linear output of what love truly is. And I know we're getting to the end of the show here, Ben. So, like, I think about the biggest rocks that we could all move, both myself and us here in the community and also just as a society, I think if we just focus on the 1, 2, 3 biggest rocks that involve our spiritual intelligence, then we will be this beautiful society, this dream world. We will have it, we will live it, we will live heaven on earth. What would you say? And I know I'm trying to reductionize an incredibly thick and wisdom packed book, but if you had to reductionize it down into three, you know, take a breath from 30,000ft, what are the biggest rocks that we can move? When we look at being spiritually connected and being disciplined spiritually.

First know that despite you maybe having been given the impression that you can only go to God through a priest or at a church or at an institution, or by slapping a specific religious label upon your forehead, back to what Jesus said. I believe it was when he was speaking with a woman at a well about the water that can truly cure thirst. And he said that you can worship God in spirit and in truth and that Jesus lives in your heart. And I think many, many people don't realize that everything, no matter where they're at in the world, exists for them to be able to commune with God with absolutely nothing. Right back to plant medicine with no drugs, no plant medicines, no building, no brick, no mortar. And yeah, there's benefits of having a community and being able to maybe go to church and sing songs with people, et cetera. Like, that's all lovely, but I think the first biggest thing is that God is freely available to you anytime, any place. And it's pretty darn cool that you can talk to a deity, a freaking deity again, without any drugs sitting in your backyard. And that's just, it's like overwhelming once you start to think about it. So that would be One I would say that. Another would be that despite you and I both commenting earlier that, you know, we can't just do this love thing all on our own, we certainly do have something we live by in the Greenfield house that's, you know, written on the mission statement on our wall. And part of our lives is that love does cover all. Love does cover all. We're so tempted to be bitter. We're so tempted to not forget. We're so tempted to hold grudges. It feels good to have some kind of angst and drama and some type of argument in your life. Many of us are conditioned to experience that. But, man, when my sons and I have a disagreement, when my wife and I have a disagreement, when someone in my company and I have a disagreement, it always comes back to at the end of the day, love, love, love. You love that person. You set aside any disputes, you humble yourself and you forgive and you are forgiven. And I just wrote a song about this, right? Like love. Love endures, love strives. Love is everlasting. Love covers all. So just understand that that's the most pure and powerful emotion that you can have. I realize it sounds kind of woo. I think the reason for that is a lot of people know it, but not a lot of people practice it. Right? Your wife drinks all the coffee and leaves you none, and you want to be upset with her the rest of the day. Instead, you walk up to and you give her a big hug and you say, I love you so much. You're the greatest thing that ever happened to me. Right? That's. That's what I'm talking about. Literally acting it out in your day to day life. So love covers all would be the second one. In addition to being in full union with God anytime and any place. And I think if I could, I could name one more. I think that, Gosh, just thinking about all the. All the different ways that I could go with this, but I would say. That many people, especially in the social media era, where you can see other people living out what appear to be amazing and extraordinary lives, and this is reminiscent of what you and I talked about regarding the Pixar movie Soul. You were made for a reason. You were made for a reason. You just have to unlock it. You have an ikigai, you have a plan to be there. You have a purpose. And it's so simple to have grass is always greener syndrome like we were talking about earlier. And it's so simple for you to look at other people living out their purpose. And I just Wrote an article about this on my website. Yeah, other people have their purpose, right? They're an engineer, they're a doctor, they're an architect. They're an astronaut. They're a gardener, you know, and what am I? Gosh, all I know how to do is just, like, write shit, right? Like, I can write, and it's very easy for me to think, why can't I make a cabinet like him? Or why can't I paint a watercolor masterpiece like her? But never underestimate the power of the unique skill sets and the things that come easy to you, because that's how you can love the world the most. You just have to intimately become familiar with what it is that you're good at, and then unashamedly take that and run with it in the spirit of not monetizing it, but loving with it. And so find your purpose. Find your purpose and know that you never have to be ashamed of that purpose. And that would be the third.

It's beautiful, man. And, you know, I have a new King James version Bible in the guest room here in the studio, and I flip through it sometimes, and just this morning, I was like, hey, God, show me exactly what I need to see. Show me exactly what I need to see. And it came up on Mark 1124, which is like, maybe it's because I've opened it to that page before, so that's why it opened up there. But it's so powerful, and it's. And it's a beautiful way to end with your reflection. And therefore, I say unto you, what things soever ye desire, when ye pray, believe that ye receive them, and ye shall have them. What is your interpretation of that? How has that played out in your own life? Your podcast, your business, your family? You could call it law of attraction. You can call it manifestation. But that Mark 11:24 specifically, how has that played out for you?

Well, I think that some people hear something like that and they say, gosh, I've been praying for a Ferrari for the past three months, and it hasn't happened.

How have they been praying? What words are they using?

Yeah, not only what words are they using, but also comes back to the intent, comes back to the heart. That verse needs to be contextualized with the idea that if your heart is in the right place, you will ask for the things that you deserve to be given or that you should be given right in many cases. Gosh, I've had, like, gut issues for, like, four years. You know how many times I've prayed for God to just make my gut just, like, work perfectly, right? God, you know, just, can I just, like, go out and eat whatever I want and, you know, can I just wake up in the morning and, like, I'm not battling some gut issue and that hasn't happened, right? And then when you step back and look at it, I've been able to help so many people with stomach and gut and digestion issues because I've learned so much. I have been kept humble knowing that my body is not perfect, that I am somewhat broken, that, you know, I'm not all. That I'm not Superman, right? I've been able to basically know that I am a human being in need of God. And so sometimes the prayers aren't answered because God knows that you actually need something better, and that's actually not what you need to be praying for. And then the flip side of that is the faith component. I think some of us pray, but we don't really, really truly believe. That doesn't mean that if you really, really truly believe that God can make it happen, that's going to happen again. Because he might have a different plan for your life, or he might be drawing straight and crooked lines in ways that you cannot fathom. And it's all going to work out amazingly for you. And eventually your prayer is going to be answered just in a different way than you anticipated. But A, you must have your heart in the right place, and B, you must have faith that God can do anything. And that's the way that I interpret that verse.

I think about the way that people pray. So it's like they're coming from scarcity. If a human being is coming from scarcity during a prayer, during a meditation, then isn't that all of what God hears is that that person is in scarcity? So what I get from 11:24 is if I want something, if I truly desire something from my heart, I'm actually thanking God. I'm thanking the Creator in that moment for the very thing that I desire. And. And I'm also feeling it in my cells that it's already here. Now, some people would say that's loa. I think that loa and the secret took it to a whole kind of wonky, weird level. But. But when I hear Mark 11:24, and even what I heard from you, sharing the. The words in which I pray, I mean, I'm casting a spell. The words in which I pray are so, so important. Because if I'm saying God, you know, please heal me from this, Please heal me from this. Can we reframe it? Ben? Can we use different language? You know, can we actually say something like thank you for this incredible gut health. Thank you for my. All the different bacterias. You could list out all the different from the bacteria tides and the firm cuties. How do we do that? How do we. How do we actually use words with 1124 in the scripture to have right now, even if it doesn't feel like, quote, we're worth it?

Yeah. That comes down to, as you know, the biology of belief. This idea that you certainly can manifest to a certain extent by accepting that what you truly desire is going to come or has already come to you. I think that we know that the body's biology shifts in a certain way. Again, back to the Ferrari analogy. I think we have to apply some wisdom and discernment to this and there's some exceptions to. To that. But yeah, I think that if again, you have the faith and you have the belief, when you ask and even tell yourself this is happening, this has happened, that can certainly shift things dramatically, even from a biological standpoint. With the song from the old Moses cartoon, There can be miracles when you believe.

You heard it here first. Ben singing from a cartoon. Ben, this has been awesome, man. I really appreciate you. And this is the last question I'm going to ask you today. For all of us, we've been on the edge of our seat and it's something that I'm learning how to integrate in my own life. Right. For me, my greatest lesson right now is physical, right? But in this pentagon of wellness, there's the physical, mental, emotional, spiritual, financial, self. And out of all of those points of the pentagon, imagine a house. Imagine, right, the house that you live in, or if you choose to live in a Pentagon style house, what does it mean to you? What is the meaning of all of this? How do you create meaning in the world? When we look at wellness, you know, how does Ben Greenfield define wellness? What does well being actually mean to you?

Oh, well, to me, that's pretty simple. Well, being is caring for yourself in such a way that you can love as many people as possible with that unique purpose that you've been given, is not living as long as possible or crossing the finish line of as many triathlons or Spartan races as possible, or looking as good as possible in your swimsuit at the beach. It is. And all those things might be a natural consequence of you taking care of yourself. But ultimately it's, how can I equip myself to be able to help as many people as possible. You know, it's kind of like that, put your oxygen mask on first type of thing. And, you know, it's like, like Jocko Willink says, you know, discipline equals freedom. Well, by finding discipline in each of those different categories, the freedom that you create is the freedom to be able to go forth and love and help a lot of people. And that's my primary motivation to stay well is I love what I do, and I want to be able to do it in just like a clean, crisp, pure, efficient way as possible each day. And I feel like, like my well being allows me to do that.

Do you feel like you made me. You made me really almost take a internal deep breath on this one. You did. Do you feel like freedom is also your ability to share with others yourself and God, that you maybe don't have something figured out or that you have a limiting belief? In other words, is freedom also being vulnerable?

Oh, my gosh. Absolutely. And I mean, you're talking to a guy whose shadow self is about the most egotistical, arrogant, unvulnerable, bulletproof person possible. Right? Like, that's. I grew that shell being homeschooled K through 12 and thinking I was the weird one. So every time I was in any public situation, I had to project myself as knowing it all, having it all figured out out, and basically figured out imposter syndrome and how to tackle that with confidence really, really fast. Right. But of course, the shadow side to that is a tendency to have difficulty with vulnerability. I have found, though, that radical honesty, vulnerability, showing your true emotions and admitting when you don't know or when you're wrong is indeed one of the most freeing things a human being can do.

And it's practical, too, because whenever somebody's lost, all they have to do. I have a call in, like, couple minutes with one of my guides from the Vision Quest. And I know that you know him, Tim Corcoran and Mark Tollefson, and I'm speaking to him right after you. It's no. It's no surprise. Anyways, I'll leave y' all with this and then, Ben, please tell people where they can get the book and follow you and the podcast and everything else. But the thing I want to leave y' all with is that if you're in the middle of the forest and you're lost, just stop. Just stop. Stop and breathe. You're going to be found eventually. As long as. As you stop. I think so many of us, Ben, we get caught up in this manic action where it's like, well, if I'm not happy, I have to do, do, do, do do. And it's actually not the case. I think that all of us could learn from many pages in the book, but there were some beautiful lessons in there that I have highlighted that we'll share about@wellnessforce.com community. You guys can also go to joshtrent.com podcast so joshtrent.com podcast Ben where can they get into Endure? Where is the actual URL for Endure?

Gosh, that's a great question. I think it's get indoor.com but BenGreenfieldLife.com has all my stuff.

Okay, I got the book. It's shop BenGreenfieldLife.com Products Forward/Endure. Ben, thank you so much for coming on the show. I've enjoyed watching you walk on the wisdom.

Josh thanks for having me. So there's two events coming up. You go to both of them. I'm going to go to both of them. Obviously I'm going to fly to Texas, then fly over to Lexington. The Texas event, called Runga, is October 13th through the 15th. The wild health one is October 22nd. Go to both. I am. Obviously you can also check BenGreenfieldLife.com calendar for all of the events that I'll be teaching at this year. So I hope to see you there. More than ever these days. People like you and me need a fresh, entertaining, well informed and often outside the box approach to discovering the health and happiness and hope that we all crave. So I hope I've been able to do that for you on this episode today. If you liked it, or if you love what I'm up to, then please leave me a review on your preferred podcast listening channel, wherever that might be, and just find the Ben Greenfield Life episode. Say something nice. Thanks so much. Means a lot.