In this episode of The Xanadu Review, I sit down to talk with the witty and insightful Stephen Bradford Long. We discuss our shared experience as the sons of pastors, the inside baseball of growing up in the church, the nature of faith, religious experiences, the nature of community, the psychology of “the bound and the unbound”, trying to recreate religious community in secular spaces, bad science vs bad religion, the nature of consciousness, the failure of the new atheism movement, satanism, sexuality and identity, mental health & mental illness (the science and fetishization there of), the over-medicalization of the human condition and an atheist and former satanist discussing the positive aspects of christianity.
Your bit on having a panic attack, is wild. Would never have guessed that with you.
I’m the guy whose brain does not grasp the concept of god.
Also, with speaking in tongues. I didn’t think it could be taught. I thought it was evidence that the Holy Spirit has baptized you and was speaking though you. Makes sense that it’s taught though, as I believe particular brains are wired for speaking in tongues.
Yeah I had a period of my life when I was doing a lot of drugs and working a lot of hours. I had a Tony Soprano moment for sure. Sometimes the mind and body just have enough
I think my brain manifests this in the form of depression.
I get anxiety and worry, I just never had anything resembling a panic attack. I did go through a few years of a lot of mdma and lsd. It was a discovery phase for me though. That’s when I broke into F&B work as a food server. Good money and easy work for non-introverts (read as not fully introvert, not fully extrovert). I think the natural openness of F&B people helped disperse the anxiety of that time of discovery.
It’s just now that I’m realizing the depths of family fuckery. Which is fine because I’m on more stable ground. If I had realized all this at that time, things could have turned out differently.
Yeah pretty much lol. I had just left food service a few years earlier and got my first "real" IT job where I was responsible for 40 sites across my state doing 10-12 hours days for shit money. But yeah, everyone's brain is wired a little different.
"what people are experiencing is what is happening in the brain" -- once I understood this about mystical/spiritual/religious experiences so much made sense. "Felt knowledge" and awe experiences that are so frequently exploited -- most destructively by cults that spur these on and attribute it to themselves, naturally. Very well said.
Your bit on having a panic attack, is wild. Would never have guessed that with you.
I’m the guy whose brain does not grasp the concept of god.
Also, with speaking in tongues. I didn’t think it could be taught. I thought it was evidence that the Holy Spirit has baptized you and was speaking though you. Makes sense that it’s taught though, as I believe particular brains are wired for speaking in tongues.
Yeah I had a period of my life when I was doing a lot of drugs and working a lot of hours. I had a Tony Soprano moment for sure. Sometimes the mind and body just have enough
Gabagool moment.
What were you doing for work at the time?
I think my brain manifests this in the form of depression.
I get anxiety and worry, I just never had anything resembling a panic attack. I did go through a few years of a lot of mdma and lsd. It was a discovery phase for me though. That’s when I broke into F&B work as a food server. Good money and easy work for non-introverts (read as not fully introvert, not fully extrovert). I think the natural openness of F&B people helped disperse the anxiety of that time of discovery.
It’s just now that I’m realizing the depths of family fuckery. Which is fine because I’m on more stable ground. If I had realized all this at that time, things could have turned out differently.
Yeah pretty much lol. I had just left food service a few years earlier and got my first "real" IT job where I was responsible for 40 sites across my state doing 10-12 hours days for shit money. But yeah, everyone's brain is wired a little different.
"what people are experiencing is what is happening in the brain" -- once I understood this about mystical/spiritual/religious experiences so much made sense. "Felt knowledge" and awe experiences that are so frequently exploited -- most destructively by cults that spur these on and attribute it to themselves, naturally. Very well said.