'Live Not By Lies': The Docuseries

Angel Studios considering funding non-fiction series based on the book

I have some good news to share with you. You know Angel Studios, which is behind the summer blockbuster Sound Of Freedom? They are considering funding a documentary series based on my 2020 bestseller Live Not By Lies. The idea of my production team is to make it into a series, featuring interviews with the former dissidents (those in my book, and others) who can talk about what it’s like to live under totalitarianism, and what skills we should develop to prepare for it, should the worst come to us. Time is of the essence, as most of these people are old. One of the main ones I interviewed for the book, an old Hungarian woman who was a hero of the 1956 revolution against the Soviets, has already passed.

Here’s the message the producers have asked me to tweet:

Hey friends, we are turning my book LIVE NOT BY LIES into a documentary series in partnership with @AngelStudiosInc. Please help support the project by visiting https://angel.com/live to "Express Interest" and spread the word that this important series is coming soon!

It’s very important that you click on that link and simply acknowledge that you are interested in seeing a documentary series based on Live Not By Lies. This is how Angel gauges fan enthusiasm for the project. If you liked the book, or if you didn’t read it but think the issue is important, please take a few seconds to do this. You will not be asked to donate money, and as the fine print says, if you try to donate now, they won’t accept it. There is a thing that allows you to say how much you would be willing to invest (not donate — invest) if the project is approved, but you can say zero dollars, and that’s fine.

Please consider doing this! It takes only a few seconds, but it means the world to me, and to the cause of memorializing these stories from men and women who were witness to some of the worst the twentieth century inflicted on people, and whose hard-won wisdom we desperately need today.

Why Not To Do Psychedelics

A man who writes under the pseudonym Owen Cyclops writes at length about why people should not do psychedelic drugs. By his own account, he is extensively experienced with these drugs. He is also a convert to Christianity, but says he decided that people should not mess around with these things before he became a Christian. Excerpt:

Modern Western psychedelic users use psychedelics with a particular aim in mind: to gain wisdom. If you had to fit them into an archetype, they are almost like philosophers, or maybe alchemists. They have a substance or a tool (psychedelics) that does something to them, and they want to use this tool to gain insight about themselves, or about their world. But this is not the context in which traditional forms of shamanism used substances. Traditional shamans are much more like doctors or diplomats. There is a spirit world which they can access through the use of substances. While there, they can do things like negotiate the fate of souls or ask for better weather or heal physical and other wounds.

It may seem like a subtle point, but these two perspectives are completely different. They have essentially nothing in common except the use of psychoactive substances. The modern Western psychedelic user isn’t usually doing LSD in order to ask real spirits that live on another plane to fix his friend’s kidneys or to send rain. The traditional shaman also isn’t sitting in the jungle on ayahuasca in order to gain wisdom or just to become a better person. They are doing different things and the link between them is a fantasy of the modern Western psyche.

If you talk to certain shamans in the Amazon, some of them dread doing ayahuasca. They view it as something horrible that they go through in order to make these necessary deals and to gather important things for their tribe (we’re not talking about knowledge or amorphous emotional outcomes). They are not doing it for introspective or wisdom-gaining purposes. There is no link between modern Western psychedelic use and shamanism except the fact that they are both (in this case) using substances. But they are using them for different reasons. 

A kid in Brooklyn doing mushrooms in his apartment has genuinely nothing to do with the man in the Amazon using ayahuasca, even though he imagines that he is part of the same ancient lineage. The models and specific cases of shamanism you can study today do not paint anything like the picture that a modern Western psychedelic user generally imagines.

I have a chapter in my forthcoming re-enchantment book in which I touch on the use of psychedelics, and counsel strongly against dabbling. I speak from youthful experience. I fooled around with LSD in college — it was the only drug I did. The first time I dropped acid was in the spring of my first year in college, 1986, and I did it because I was bored and very depressed over unrequited love. My new roommate had two tabs of acid, and had never done it either. He too was bored, and we were both young and dumb.

The thing is, it was fun, and it helped me unexpectedly. The doors of perception opened up for me, and I saw the world totally afresh. It was like I had been living in a dark, wet, concrete cell, and I had been set free into a lush spring meadow. I realized a second time through intuition (the first was two years earlier, at Chartres) that God really does exist, and my doubts were illusions. I am embarrassed to admit it today, but using psychedelics that one time has something to do with my becoming a Christian. Some people drop acid and want to read Aldous Huxley. I went to the bookstore looking for C.S. Lewis, but found Soren Kierkegaard, and was on my way.

I am ashamed to admit that I didn’t stop there. I dabbled with it off and on through my college years, with pals, but no experience was like that first one. In the end, I quit, because it seemed like a foolish risk to take with my brain, and for so little reward. I would just as soon never talk about this, but I don’t want to be accused of being a hypocrite when the book comes out, and somebody who knew me in college says, “Hey, isn’t that the guy who worked for the Reveille who I saw tripping that time in the Bayou?”

Looking back, I consider myself very lucky. I took real risks because I didn’t think of any potential down sides — and because I wasn’t any kind of committed Christian then, I certainly didn’t think about the spiritual dangers. There was no damage (that I know of), and I got off spiritually scot-free. I now strongly believe that all psychedelic drugs soften the borders around the Self — that is, around the conscious mind — and make it possible for negative spiritual entities (okay, demons) to gain access to one’s soul. In my forthcoming book, I include an extensive interview with a man who used the drugs at one point intentionally in occult worship. I thought I had published an interview with him on Rod Dreher’s Diary, but I guess not. It’ll have to wait for the book. Anyway, it’s as scary as, well, hell, and he strongly, strongly warns against doing the drugs.

I also had an interview with a Christian lawyer who was pressured into eating a cannabis edible at a social gathering. He had never done any drugs before, but had an out of body psychedelic experience that was hellish, literally. Yet he met his guardian angel, who told him never, ever to do this again, because psychedelics give you access to realms in which you can lose your soul.

Leaving The Occult

While I was looking for a post from Rod Dreher’s Diary, I found this one from a couple of years back that included a letter from an Orthodox convert who left the occult. This blog has more than twice as many subscribers now as it did when this first appeared, so I’m going to post the link again, with this excerpt:

And once a member, I saw the full rituals and the summoning of the Watchers, and I was shaken by a very real demonic presence. It was as if we were surrounded by dragons, large lizard-like beings that were not kindly disposed. I wanted to know what they were calling, and why, and what the relationship was and they seemed a little dumbfounded. That's when I realized they didn't really believe what they were doing. It was spiritual LARPing. It was like babies playing with matches. They had embraced something vaguely therapeutic, that gave them a sense of identity and indulged their passions. And summoned demons.

I'm not into woo-woo. I approach all notions of miracles, angels, demons, with a deep sense of skepticism. In two decades in the occult, I became adept at not rolling my eyes when people talked about energy, faeries, and other nonsense. And that skepticism and tolerance spiritually numbed me, because now I realize I don't react to blasphemy or spiritually unhealthy environments. I'm working on that, with the help of my spiritual father. But yeah, I don't see ghosts and demons lurking in every dark corner.

So what do I mean when I talk about demons? I don't like talking about this, but maybe I should talk about it. It's inviting something in, and that something is dark and has a heaviness to it. It's something that sits and lurks, like the spiritual equivalent of an oil slick. It's scary, especially the first time, but often it isn't as scary as whatever very real need you have that drove you to this. It feels benignly malevolent, as if it isn't particularly interested in you, but doesn't exactly mean you well either. And it's easier the second time, and the third, etc... You romanticize it, like a spiritual drug that offers you the illusion of control. It doesn't really bring you what you want, but you cling to any small perceived success as vindication. Your life becomes more confusing, more filled with lies and cognitive dissonance. Everything feels like an illusion. Your relationships suffer. You realize the ritual and the "magic" isn't doing anything so you seek a relationship with the demon, but the demon doesn't want a relationship. It wants to consume you.

The demon doesn't want a relationship. It wants to consume you.

With some distance, I now believe that the real goal of demons is to drive you to suicide, so you are theirs forever. 

I think priests may not always know what to do with these people. So when someone tells you they are from an occult or pagan background, here are some things you need to assume and assess right off the bat:

+ This is a person who is deeply traumatized and is in recovery. Treat them with the same caution and care as someone coming out of rehab for heroin addiction. Spiritual damage isn't as obvious as the marks left by needles and razor blades, but you can safely assume they are deeply damaged.

+ You don't have to convince them of the reality of evil, but it's going to be hard to convince them of the reality of good. The idea that God loves and forgives them is going to be incredibly hard for them to accept.

+ They may cling to the church tenaciously, to the point of legalism, and while they are as prone to convert silliness as anyone else it may be that they are drowning and this is the only life raft they can find.

+ They are going to be embarrassed of their past and full of confusion. While they may need medical care, including mental health, they are in real need of spiritual guidance and will need some time to learn to trust you. Pagan/occult communities are full of broken people who hurt each other a lot.

+ They need a path by which to process their past and put it in perspective. Dismissing demons as not real or worthy of consideration isn't helpful for someone who has encountered them face to face. The Lord of Spirits podcast, hosted by Fr. Andrew Stephen Damick and Fr Stephen de Young, is an excellent resource.

+ They need tools to help them ground themselves in spiritual reality, because it will take awhile for them to feel spiritually safe. Holy water, praying to St Michael, a prayer rule, etc... They need whatever they can get. The level of support they need here, especially wanting things blessed, might feel silly to you but will bring them great comfort.

+ Accepting the salvation of Christ isn't going to make their lives easier. Baptism, chrismation, and communion doesn't solve everything. Perhaps more so than the average convert, they need to see this as the beginning of recovery and salvation, not an end goal. Especially if they come from occult traditions with levels, where there is always another goal to work towards.

+ You can't assume some basics with them. They may need a deep dive on morality and what is expected of a professing Christian. Don't assume they understand sexual morality, especially if there are people in your church who aren't abiding by church teaching (having children with partners they aren't married to), because they are going to be really confused by this and afraid to ask because they remember that weepy old lady from their Sunday school class. There may also be a need to go over things you normally wouldn't, like drug use and the Orthodox view on ethnicity. They may come from a background where psychedelics and racism were normalized, but may be afraid to discuss this.

+ They likely won't understand how to be in community and will need more guidance on how to engage in parish life than some converts.

+ They've had a lot of smooth talkers tell them what they want to hear. They will appreciate your being straight with them and correcting them.

+ I and II Corinthians are really important for them to read and study, because St Paul is demonstrating how a spiritual father loves, corrects, and instructs people like them.

Life On Her Tiny Island

Here’s a neat story from The New York Times about a middle-aged New Age woman who bought a small cabin on a tiny Maine island, Duck Ledges, and who lives there part time. It’s not luxury living:

“What you feel here is the gentleness of the grace of nature,” she said. “Instead of feeling small in this vastness, being on the island makes you feel that you are part of the vastness.”

Nevertheless, Ms. Gale has a gas-powered Yeti generator and a backup generator, plenty of food and fresh water in case she’s stuck for a few days — remember there is no running water — and the comfort of a sturdily-built cabin that has survived many storms.

She has decorated with a couch, a table, a vintage-style metal cooler and framed art; and the interior, with its simple décor and windows on all sides looking out on the water, has the coziness of a ship’s cabin. There is a loft for sleeping. There is a composting toilet behind the cabin (there’s no indoor plumbing, either).

Inside, Ms. Gale fired up a Camp Chef propane stove and boiled a pot of water for tea. Then she cooked a lunch of pasta with fresh-caught lobster brought over in the cooler. The day had turned pleasant despite the weather.

I would love to live in that cabin, though the lack of running water would be an inconvenience I probably wouldn’t want to deal with in the end. I fantasize a lot about building a retreat like that small cabin, in a semi-remote area — ideally on or near to water — and filling it with books and icons, a comfy leather armchair, a decent kitchen, and a bed with thick blankets. Get me a dog and live the rest of my life there, alone. The problem is that old people get sick, and need to get to the hospital. At least maybe I can build or buy that little cabin at some point, and use it as a retreat for months at a time.

I’m not sure why I’m this way, but I look at that tiny cabin on that speck of land in the water, and want to go to there something bad. I used to be very social, and never wanted to miss a party or anything like it. Now … not. Quietness, stillness, solitude seem to be the thing I like most. Put me a wooden stove, rugs, and a dog in a cabin by the water, and I’ll be like an oyster chilling in his shell. Can’t leave it in winter? Fine by me, as long as the wood and the food holds out.

Caveat: not in a place where it is hot, and not in a place where Sasquatch is going to slip up on me at night. I hate me a Sasquatch. Somewhere like Vashon Island in the Pacific Northwest seems perfect, but you know that place has as many Sasquatches as Chalmette has Yats.

How about you, readers? Do you have an ideal place you would like to live (I’m talking about in terms of the kind of house)? If so, what would it look like?