Ezra Klein

It was more frightening than that.

It was more frightening than that.

Well, even better. I'll give you a little bit. I'll give you a little bit. I wonder how happy our editors are going to be about this conversation. Oh, I think they're happy. It felt for... a very punctuated period of time, like a veil had been ripped open and you could feel how

Well, even better. I'll give you a little bit. I'll give you a little bit. I wonder how happy our editors are going to be about this conversation. Oh, I think they're happy. It felt for... a very punctuated period of time, like a veil had been ripped open and you could feel how

terrifying these forces really were this is not the part where i'm a mysterian this is a part where some things are very hard to know where to put and i've been trying to figure out what to do with this within my own tradition right i'm you know in terms of what i'm seeking i'm actually seeking something closer to home not something completely open but it has to also feel real to me i need to feel some gnosis from it as is put in the book but do you have to

terrifying these forces really were this is not the part where i'm a mysterian this is a part where some things are very hard to know where to put and i've been trying to figure out what to do with this within my own tradition right i'm you know in terms of what i'm seeking i'm actually seeking something closer to home not something completely open but it has to also feel real to me i need to feel some gnosis from it as is put in the book but do you have to

Well, I feel I do.

Well, I feel I do.

Here's, I think, where the question of organized religion becomes then complicated, right? As I said, it comes from a part of Judaism that is not the one I grew up in or even really know how to find out there. It's definitely there. I can find it. I can talk to people in Judaism about it. But it's stranger. And the reason it felt— You mean the mystical part of Judaism?

Here's, I think, where the question of organized religion becomes then complicated, right? As I said, it comes from a part of Judaism that is not the one I grew up in or even really know how to find out there. It's definitely there. I can find it. I can talk to people in Judaism about it. But it's stranger. And the reason it felt— You mean the mystical part of Judaism?

Yes, a much more mystical part of Judaism. Hold on. Let me finish my thing. And in part because I had so little experience with that, I had to actually find the structure for what it was later. Yeah. that it didn't feel like something my own mind had just invented, right? Whoa. I don't know if that got caught on the camera, but part of the ceiling tape just fell down in front of Ross.

Yes, a much more mystical part of Judaism. Hold on. Let me finish my thing. And in part because I had so little experience with that, I had to actually find the structure for what it was later. Yeah. that it didn't feel like something my own mind had just invented, right? Whoa. I don't know if that got caught on the camera, but part of the ceiling tape just fell down in front of Ross.

You can take your signs where you get them. Okay. There you go. This would be better on video, this particular episode. Yep, yep. So, and then you go to... Sorry. Things happen. Then you go to your sort of space that's more organized. And what you're seeing doesn't track that at all.

You can take your signs where you get them. Okay. There you go. This would be better on video, this particular episode. Yep, yep. So, and then you go to... Sorry. Things happen. Then you go to your sort of space that's more organized. And what you're seeing doesn't track that at all.

One perception of these drugs or medicines or whatever you want to call them is that they're pretty profound spiritual technologies, if you believe in them from that perspective, as opposed to you believe they're just inducing some sort of random firings of chemicals. So you might imagine this is something that in a world that got disenchanted,

One perception of these drugs or medicines or whatever you want to call them is that they're pretty profound spiritual technologies, if you believe in them from that perspective, as opposed to you believe they're just inducing some sort of random firings of chemicals. So you might imagine this is something that in a world that got disenchanted,

You would want these big traditions to try to take on, to try to build some containers of safety and knowledge around them. But they seem like a thing that can pretty reliably create an experience that actually connects people in a very profound way to their home tradition. Now, it can do other things too, but as you say, that's true for a lot of things in religion.

You would want these big traditions to try to take on, to try to build some containers of safety and knowledge around them. But they seem like a thing that can pretty reliably create an experience that actually connects people in a very profound way to their home tradition. Now, it can do other things too, but as you say, that's true for a lot of things in religion.

Why should they not be used as that? Why treat them as a cult as opposed to perhaps like a somewhat providential thing that emerged at this time when people badly need the help of things that create a kind of re-enchantment and breaks the shell of logic that makes for many faiths so difficult?

Why should they not be used as that? Why treat them as a cult as opposed to perhaps like a somewhat providential thing that emerged at this time when people badly need the help of things that create a kind of re-enchantment and breaks the shell of logic that makes for many faiths so difficult?