Michael Ellick

Hello?

Is this Bobby?

Yes, it is.

At its core, the science, you can't argue with.

My name is Michael Ellick.

I currently live in Bainbridge Island, Washington.

I work in Seattle.

I am a minister, but was at the time I'd served as a Tibetan Buddhist novice monk and

attendant to a teacher for years that led up to this experience, maybe in part.

I was raised inside of a, you know, evangelical Christian context.

And like a lot of people raised in an evangelical Christian context, I totally abandoned it at some point in high school and thought it was all nonsense.

And so I decided that I was going to be a poet and an artist and a writer and had nothing to—no interest in—

sort of a Judeo-Christian framework, always felt like a religious person deep down.

I always felt like a spiritually inclined individual and fascinated by the depths, but not Christian.

And at some point, 18, 19, I had what can only be described as religious experiences that changed my worldview and pulled me out of

a traditional Western materialist framework.

I was...

Following 18 and a series of religious experiences, spiritual experiences, I was actively seeking out ways of making sense of those experiences, some of which happened while I was awake and some of which happened in a dream setting, but shook me enough.

So I studied comparative religion and philosophy as an undergraduate.

I was a double major.