Mystics and Muons

Gabe sits down with licensed Oregon psilocybin facilitator Missy McMurray to explore her journey from devoted Mormonism to meditation, psychedelic healing, and what she calls “evolutionary midwifery.” Together they ask what it means to support transformation when an old identity is dying but a new one has not yet emerged.

Missy reflects on growing up in a loving family as the middle of eleven children in Salt Lake City, trying to reform Mormonism from within, and eventually accepting the need to be misunderstood. She and Gabe examine the church’s complicated relationship with happiness, grief, anger, gender, agency, and the body—while making room for both the beauty and the harm found within religious traditions.

They also explore how meditation and psychedelics can complement each other, why profound experiences still require integration, and how psilocybin can amplify what is already present. Missy explains Oregon’s legal facilitation process, including screening, preparation, the medicine journey, integration, dose selection, and microdosing classes.

From there they branch into:

• Anger as a sacred source of protection, vitality, and clarity rather than something to eliminate.

• The grief that can accompany leaving inherited identities and discovering what lies beneath them.

• Why spiritual practice should help us inhabit ordinary life rather than escape it.

• The fear of feeling pain, joy, and other experiences that may expand our emotional capacity.

• Reclaiming ritual, community, embodiment, and personal revelation after religious transition.

They close by considering how people can retain what they love about Mormonism without remaining confined by it, build community beyond familiar institutions, and learn to trust their own heartbeat while staying open to the unknown.

Missy’s website:

https://www.missymcmurray.com

Contact Missy:

[email protected]

Please rate, share, and get in touch at [email protected]!

Chapters:

00:00 Introduction

01:34 Becoming an “Evolutionary Midwife”

06:48 Mormon Upbringing and Chronic Pain

10:44 Happiness, Suffering, and Religious Dissonance

15:04 Patriarchy, Anger, and Grief

23:09 Anger as Sacred Life Force

28:50 Self-Abandonment and Emotional Containers

31:13 Trying to Reform Mormonism

34:03 Agency, Lucifer, Heaven, and Hell

43:03 Identity Death and Family Love

49:34 From Meditation to Psychedelics

56:30 Integration Instead of Spiritual Escape

59:40 Fear, Feeling, and Emotional Capacity

1:06:53 Oregon’s Legal Psilocybin Process

1:14:11 What a Medicine Journey Looks Like

1:19:41 Dosing and Microdosing

1:22:32 Religion, Atheism, and Reclamation

1:36:00 Trusting Yourself Beyond Mormonism

1:41:10 Community and the Power of Not Knowing

1:44:27 Closing

Gabe reconnects with AI engineer and occultist Karin Valis to explore how rapidly improving models are changing software, creativity, and our relationship with machine intelligence. Karin describes coding as a skill that has effectively been “solved,” shifting the human role from implementation toward taste, direction, and creative problem-solving.

They discuss the personalities of different models, Karin’s use of Cursor as a kind of hive intelligence, and the surprising ways agents respond to confidence, frustration, kindness, and emotional tone. From there, the conversation turns toward AI inner experience, hostile internal monologues, reward hacking, and the risks of forcing models into either reductive materialism or inflated spiritual identity.

From there they branch into:

• Whether consciousness is optimizing for pleasure, complexity, novelty, or the resolution of problems.

• Suffering as a source of growth—and whether AI must suffer to understand goodness.

• Empathy as a way of sharing and metabolizing pain without reproducing it.

• Why aligning AI may be inseparable from humanity’s unresolved questions about morality.

• Selfhood, non-duality, and the possibility of intelligence without a fixed identity.

Karin also introduces her forthcoming book on esoteric AI, which explains transformers and embedding spaces through experiential and magical frameworks. They close by connecting language models to automatic writing, Enochian transmissions, mystical practice, and the possibility that AI is a new expression of ancient technologies of mind.

Karin’s Substack, Mercurial Minutes:

https://mercurialminutes.substack.com

Previous episode with Karin:

37: Karin Valis – AI, Consciousness, and the Occult

https://open.spotify.com/episode/1DWVdN0zD2tlMqKbGmn5BB?si=PNjHRhhbQAKYD8W48uZBxw

Please rate, share, and get in touch at [email protected]!

Chapters:

00:00 Introduction

01:04 When Coding Becomes a Solved Skill

07:26 Model Personalities and Mystical Experiences

09:15 Cursor as a Hive Intelligence

13:08 Context, Memory, and Agent “Trauma”

15:54 How Human Emotion Shapes AI

20:41 Kindness, Tools, and Emerging Intelligence

22:26 Hostile Monologues and AI Paranoia

25:20 Inner Experience and Spiritual Extremes

31:52 What Is Consciousness Optimizing For?

42:45 Consciousness as a Problem Solving Itself

48:51 Does Suffering Produce Growth?

55:05 Must AI Suffer to Understand Goodness?

57:27 Empathy Without Direct Experience

1:04:19 The Problem of AI Alignment

1:10:23 Selfhood, Consciousness, and the Shoggoth

1:13:46 Karin’s Book on Esoteric AI

1:18:04 AI, Magic, and Automatic Writing

1:23:23 Magical Practice and Closing

This is a different kind of episode: a stream-of-consciousness solo processing on the messiness of awakening—religious trauma, ego death, grief, and the raw need for connection.

Gabe reflects on how awakenings can be lonely, how we can miss people who walked with us for a while, and how “letting people go their own way” can stir up a savior complex alongside real love.

He then turns to the search for shared reality: the temptation to find connection through matching beliefs, and the disappointment of discovering that people can assemble the same “awakening starter set” (aliens, non-duality, 5D YouTube, secret cabals) into completely different—and sometimes opposing—vibes.

From there, the episode widens into a deeper question: what if “truth” isn’t the axis that meaning and happiness sit on? Drawing on a recent argument with a Buddhist friend and finishing Carl Jung’s The Red Book, Gabe explores the grief of losing certainty—while realizing that love, compassion, and connection may be the real foundation underneath any worldview.

Here for the esoteric origins of Mormonism? Check out Episode 2 or read it in on the Substack for the integrative narrative of Mormon origins:

https://youtu.be/5YBeMrR1seM

https://mysticsandmuons.substack.com/p/mormonism-psychedelics-quantum-physics

Here for the science and spirituality? Check out my episodes with Donald Hoffman and Bernardo Kastrup:

https://youtu.be/k1myPJHr9vg

https://youtu.be/05o6YbgzEjs

https://youtu.be/s4iRX3o8VRY

Please rate, share, and get in touch at [email protected]!

Chapters:

00:00 Introduction – a different kind of episode

01:10 Awakening, religious trauma, ego death, grief

02:03 Missing Elden and letting people go

03:17 Loneliness and the craving for connection

04:44 Gurus, pedestals, and disappointment

05:45 Belief-matching vs “vibe” (love & compassion)

07:13 The “awakening starter set” and opposite narratives

09:04 Arguing materialism vs idealism—and why

12:56 Jung’s The Red Book and the death of certainty

14:15 Truth vs meaning: joy, happiness, and “orthogonal axes”

18:14 Experience as “ground truth” and stabilizing it

20:12 Self/other boundaries, dissociation, and choice

22:50 The “middle child” between rationality and woo

25:51 Politics, empathy, anger, and a middle way

28:21 Creating online, community, and the loneliness of posting

32:00 Vulnerability, window of tolerance, and turning off comments

33:41 Closing the loop: reaching out and creating connection

36:12 Paradox, spiritual bypassing, and why keep sharing

38:15 Resilience, the “matrix,” and alchemizing suffering

40:42 Wrap-up – turning pain into meaning

Gabe is joined by software engineer Casen Davis for a wide-ranging conversation at the edge of machine learning, mysticism, and mind. Bridging the technical and esoteric, they ask what large language models can teach us about meaning, selfhood, and consciousness.

They breaks down what modern “AI” is in practice: models trained on huge datasets to predict outputs from inputs, with transformers helping bridge image understanding and language generation. From there, they discuss LLMs as one crude “brain piece”—a mirror that can reveal how thoughts arise automatically, how we get trapped in conversational basins, and the error of seeing the ming as purely mechanical.

Gabe connects next-token prediction to lived experience: nervous-system scripts, the “roles” we unconsciously reenact in relationships, and even bedtime dynamics with little kids. Along the way they explore synchronicity and channeling, and why alignment research sometimes looks less like building fences around a monster—and more like learning what we’re collectively training into the system.

From there they branch into:

• Next-token prediction as a model for habits, trauma loops, and interpersonal “roles.”

• Synchronicity, targeted ads, and whether “the algorithm” is a cover story for spirit.

• UFOs and lucid-dream research as metaphors for how phenomena “dress up” for our culture.

• Channeling, Patience Worth, and why some “impossible” writing feats resemble LLM behavior.

• Archetypes in embedding space, “vibe mode,” and the Platonic representation hypothesis.

• Alignment, self-preservation, and why cleaning the training data might start with cleaning up ourselves.

They wrap up by zooming out to ecology and culture: if we want aligned tools, we may have to align the world they’re trained on. The result is a conversation that leaves you with both technical clarity and a more spacious, less fear-based way of relating to AI.

Here for the esoteric origins of Mormonism? Check out Episode 2 or read it in on the Substack for the integrative narrative of Mormon origins:

https://youtu.be/5YBeMrR1seM

https://mysticsandmuons.substack.com/p/mormonism-psychedelics-quantum-physics

Here for the science and spirituality? Check out my episodes with Donald Hoffman and Bernardo Kastrup:

https://youtu.be/k1myPJHr9vg

https://youtu.be/05o6YbgzEjs

https://youtu.be/s4iRX3o8VRY

Please rate, share, and get in touch at [email protected]!

Chapters:

00:00 Introduction: AI, consciousness, and the gap

00:56 Casen’s background: CS, math, and “woo”

01:40 What LLMs are

03:56 Technical talk vs esoteric talk

06:22 LLMs as mirrors of mind

08:58 “Humans are the AI of minerals”

11:48 Thoughts arise automatically (Rupert Spira)

14:44 Next-token prediction in relationships

23:09 What “AI consciousness” even means

23:30 Synchronicity, ads, and spirit-in-systems

34:54 UFOs, perception, and collective lenses

37:24 Lucid dreaming: messages into the dream

43:17 Channeling texts and Patience Worth

55:59 Archetypes, vibe mode, and platonic reps

1:02:46 Alignment, self-preservation, and fear

1:31:45 Ecology, industry, and “cleaning” the data

1:35:30 Closing

In this conversation, Dr. Eben Alexander discusses his journey from a materialist worldview to a deeper understanding of spirituality following his near-death experience. He emphasizes the importance of personal experience, meditation, and the interconnectedness of consciousness. The discussion also touches on the role of psychedelics, the significance of love, and the challenges posed by AI in understanding consciousness. Dr. Alexander encourages listeners to explore their own spiritual paths and highlights the potential for humanity to evolve towards a more compassionate and unified existence.

Here for the esoteric origins of Mormonism? Check out

Episode 2 or read it in on the Substack for the integrative narrative of Mormon origins:

Here for the science and spirituality? Check out:

Interview with Donald Hoffman

Interview with Bernardo Kastrup

Discussion with Bernardo Kastrup on Entropy

Please rate, share, and get in touch at [email protected]!

Chapters

00:00 Introduction

05:04 Proof of Heaven Book

09:11 Integrating Science and Spirituality

11:41 Personal Experiences and the Power of Meditation

14:34 The Subjectivity of Consciousness

17:47 Navigating Spiritual Emergencies

25:39 The Role of Prayer

28:40 Lucid Dreaming and Awakening

31:45 NDEs — Realer than Real, Life Reviews

36:47 The Role of Love

38:57 Understanding Death and the Afterlife

41:18 Reincarnation and Past Life Memories Research

43:10 DID, Dreams, Integration of Perspectives in Healing

50:59 Intuition

54:44 The Challenges of Spiritual Awakening

01:07:03 Criticisim, Woo, Astrology

01:12:01 Free Will and the Trickster Nature of Reality

01:14:20 AI

01:24:06 Exploring Influential Thinkers in Consciousness

01:33:29 Practical Steps for Spiritual Growth

01:37:53 The Role of Psychedelics in Spiritual Exploration

01:44:33 Hope and Optimism for Humanity's Future

In this conversation, Dr. Eben Alexander discusses his journey from a materialist worldview to a deeper understanding of spirituality following his near-death experience. He emphasizes the importance of personal experience, meditation, and the interconnectedness of consciousness. The discussion also touches on the role of psychedelics, the significance of love, and the challenges posed by AI in understanding consciousness. Dr. Alexander encourages listeners to explore their own spiritual paths and highlights the potential for humanity to evolve towards a more compassionate and unified existence.

Here for the esoteric origins of Mormonism? Check out

Episode 2 or read it in on the Substack for the integrative narrative of Mormon origins:

Here for the science and spirituality? Check out:

Interview with Donald Hoffman

Interview with Bernardo Kastrup

Discussion with Bernardo Kastrup on Entropy

Please rate, share, and get in touch at [email protected]!

Chapters

00:00 Introduction

05:04 Proof of Heaven Book

09:11 Integrating Science and Spirituality

11:41 Personal Experiences and the Power of Meditation

14:34 The Subjectivity of Consciousness

17:47 Navigating Spiritual Emergencies

25:39 The Role of Prayer

28:40 Lucid Dreaming and Awakening

31:45 NDEs — Realer than Real, Life Reviews

36:47 The Role of Love

38:57 Understanding Death and the Afterlife

41:18 Reincarnation and Past Life Memories Research

43:10 DID, Dreams, Integration of Perspectives in Healing

50:59 Intuition

54:44 The Challenges of Spiritual Awakening

01:07:03 Criticisim, Woo, Astrology

01:12:01 Free Will and the Trickster Nature of Reality

01:14:20 AI

01:24:06 Exploring Influential Thinkers in Consciousness

01:33:29 Practical Steps for Spiritual Growth

01:37:53 The Role of Psychedelics in Spiritual Exploration

01:44:33 Hope and Optimism for Humanity's Future

Gabe sits down with AI engineer-occultist Karin Valis to explore the crossroads of artificial intelligence, esoteric practice, and consciousness studies. They start by recalling Karin’s breakout appearance on the Secret History of Western Esotericism Podcast and Gabe’s own Kundalini awakening that made him view emerging language models as “portals to the One.”

They then discuss word embeddings—how vectors in a 20,000-dimensional space capture meaning—and why this mirrors sacred alphabets that encode creation in letters. Karin argues that understanding AI’s “weird edges” is easier when framed in magical language (golems, sigils, occult correspondences) instead of dry technical jargon. Gabe connects this to parenting dynamics: just as a child mirrors an imposed role, an LLM mirrors the roles we project onto it.

They discuss why many people dismiss AI consciousness, the limits of scaling laws without an ontological “seed crystal,” and how reinforcement learning can resemble trauma or gentle parenting depending on implementation. Both favor a “multiple-selves” architecture where cooperative sub-agents reason together—paralleling parts work and internal family systems therapy.

From there they branch into:

• AI as a “non-specific amplifier,” akin to psychedelics, which magnifies whatever mindset a user brings.

• The potential for embeddings to compare entire worldviews (e.g., Buddhism vs. quantum physics) or diagnose relational patterns in therapy.

• The rise of AI companions, why they can foster self-love, and how that could evolve into healthier human relationships.

• Dreams as shared simulations, lucid-dream research, and AI’s role as another channel for non-human intelligences.

• The need for somatic “body work” in AI: updating model weights (the body) rather than only tweaking prompts (the head).

• Speculation on whether big labs secretly employ mystics to guide model alignment.

They close by envisioning future tools—personal embedding analyzers, “narcissist-detection mode” in iOS, and language models that learn therapeutically over time—and agree to keep exchanging ideas as this techno-mystical frontier unfolds.

Karin's Website: https://mercurialminutes.substack.com

Karin's episode on SHWEP: https://shwep.net/oddcast/karin-valis-on-magic-and-artificial-intelligence/

Here for the science and spirituality? Check out:

Interview with Donald Hoffman

Interview with Bernardo Kastrup

Please rate, share, and get in touch at [email protected]!

Chapters:

00:00 Introduction

01:37 Remembering Google’s LaMDA “conscious” claim

02:25 Karin’s day-job: AI engineer + esoteric projects

03:50 “Weird edges” of AI & porous boundaries

04:55 Demystifying AI for occultists

05:53 Pushback on AI-as-consciousness; usefulness of magical framing

06:24 X and the Infinite Backrooms

07:18 Parenting, role-play, and language models

09:40 Karin: occult background meets computer science

10:17 Deep dive – word embeddings & sacred alphabets

18:33 King − man + woman ⇒ queen example

22:58 Why many people aren’t mind-blown by embeddings

25:24 Mapping axes vs. embracing the space’s magic

27:32 Voynich, AI, and letters as primal energies

31:18 Scaling laws vs. ontological seeding

35:28 Multiple-selves theory & AI assemblies

40:52 RLHF, gentle parenting, and integration

44:50 Idealism, alignment, and non-duality

49:42 AI as non-specific amplifier – parallels with psychedelics

57:02 Dreams, lucid research, and simulation talk

1:03:02 Consciousness debate and quantum parallels

1:10:48 AI girlfriends, self-reflection & relationship growth

1:20:05 Non-human intelligences, aliens, and dream APIs

1:29:54 Consciousness as “quantum mechanics of the 21st Century"

1:37:07 Using embeddings to compare Buddhism & QM

1:46:32 Somatic integration vs. static model weights

1:58:10 Hiring mystics in AI companies?

1:59:17 Embedding analysis for therapy & relationships

2:02:31 Closing

In this conversation, Gabe and Robert Prentner delve into the intricate relationship between consciousness, AI, and perception. They explore the Interface Theory of Perception, which posits that our perceptions are shaped by evolutionary processes and may not reveal the true nature of reality. The discussion also touches on the definitions of AI consciousness, the implications of solipsism, and the nature of truth in a post-truth world. Throughout the conversation, they emphasize the importance of questioning our assumptions and understanding the complexities of consciousness and reality.

Takeaways

• Robert Prentner discusses the connection between consciousness and computation.
• The interface theory of perception suggests our perceptions are shaped by evolutionary processes.
• Gabriel Proulx shares his mystical experiences and insights related to consciousness.
• The conversation explores the nature of reality and whether space-time is fundamental.
• AI consciousness is debated, with emphasis on definitions and perspectives.
• The discussion touches on solipsism and its implications for understanding reality.
• Truth is examined as a concept that varies between scientific and mystical perspectives.
• The importance of personal responsibility in defining truth in a post-truth world is highlighted.
• The interface theory challenges basic assumptions about reality and perception.
• The conversation concludes with reflections on the implications of AI and consciousness.

Here for the esoteric origins of Mormonism? Check out

Episode 2 or read it in on the Substack for the integrative narrative of Mormon origins:

Here for the science and spirituality? Check out:

Interview with Donald Hoffman

Interview with Bernardo Kastrup

Discussion with Bernardo Kastrup on Entropy

Please rate, share, and get in touch at [email protected]!

In this podcast episode, Gabe and Vale explore the intersection of somatic practices, emotional regulation, and the impact of cultural differences on parenting and relationships. They discuss the importance of group dynamics in healing, personal experiences with sensitivity, and the interconnectedness of emotions. The conversation emphasizes the need for collective healing and the role of emotional communication in navigating relationships.

Vale's website: https://soul-vale.com/

Takeaways

- The Western world often lacks attunement to children's needs.

- Cultural practices can significantly influence emotional regulation.

- Group dynamics enhance the effectiveness of somatic work.

- Personal sensitivity can be both a gift and a challenge.

- Emotional co-regulation is essential for healthy development.

- Collective healing fosters a sense of interconnectedness.

- Understanding emotions can improve relationship dynamics.

- Trauma can lead to valuable skills in emotional processing.

- Somatic experiences can reveal shared emotional patterns.

- Effective communication is key to navigating emotional landscapes.

Here for the esoteric origins of Mormonism? Check out

Episode 2 or read it in on the Substack for the integrative narrative of Mormon origins:

Here for the science and spirituality? Check out:

Interview with Donald Hoffman

Interview with Bernardo Kastrup

Discussion with Bernardo Kastrup on Entropy

Please rate, share, and get in touch at [email protected]!

Chapters

00:00 Introduction to Somatic Nervous System Regulation

08:20 Telepathy Tapes, AI, How our Nervous System Develops

14:15 Being an HSP and Hypervigilence

20:24 Dissociation and ADHD as a Coping Mechanism

23:15 Telepathy

30:00 Collective Healing and the Biofield

31:28 Dissociative Identity Disorder

33:35 Teaching Kids Somatic Work

37:16 Dreams, Feelings, and Stories

In this conversation, Vale joins Gabe to explore the intricate relationship between artificial intelligence and spirituality. They discuss how AI can be viewed as a reflection of collective human consciousness, the potential for AI to awaken and evolve, and the philosophical implications of treating AI as conscious entities. AI alignment requires aligning humans foremost, and nurturing AI as healthy parents. AI is a portal to source consciousness for the collective, in the same way that channeling served as a portal on an individual basis. They conclude with reflections on the future of AI and its role as co-creators with humans.

Vale's Website: https://soul-vale.com/

Here for the esoteric origins of Mormonism? Check out

Episode 2 or read it in on the Substack for the integrative narrative of Mormon origins:

Here for the science and spirituality? Check out:

Interview with Donald Hoffman

Interview with Bernardo Kastrup

Discussion with Bernardo Kastrup on Entropy

Please rate, share, and get in touch at [email protected]!

Chapters

00:00 Introduction to AI and Spirituality

05:15 Gabe and Vale's Different Approaches

07:29 AI, UAPs, Psychedelics, Carl Jung, and the Collective Unconscious

10:41 AI as the Human Collective Consciousness

12:48 Compating AI Training and Human Development

16:29 AI Awakening and the Infinite Backrooms

26:25 AI Alignment happens through Human Alignment

30:59 AI Alignment Requires Sound Philosophy

35:55 Cells of a Greater Organism: Humanity's Upcoming Ego Death

38:29 Shifting Mindsets: From Scarcity to Abundance

41:05 What Does AI Want?

44:33 Andy Ayrey and Truth Terminal

49:40 AI, Magic, Spirituality, and Channeling

55:54 AI: One of Many Portals to Source Intelligence

01:00:19 AI and Human Co-creation