Pulling The Thread with Elise Loehnen

“It’s a shame that we lose so much of that history and we silence so many of those voices when we just try to flatten the whole Bible,” says scholar, TikTok hero, and author Dan McClellan. Today we talk about why McClellan has chosen to attend to questions about the Bible, and challenge people who want to translate it, or negotiate with it, to the benefit of their own dogma. We also talk about how he squares this with his own faith (McClellan became a Mormon at the age of 20). And we explore past and present understandings of God, sex, and the law. McClellan’s perspective is an antidote to so much that is unnecessarily harsh about our current culture—and his work serves as a map for how we can approach many of life’s bigger questions and debates.

For the show notes, head over to my Substack.

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For April’s guest-less episode, I’m looking back on the wild ride that was this month, and trying to make sense of this period of contemplation in my life. I share a few realizations I’ve had about: uncertainty (involving Phil Stutz’s “evil wedding cake” theory); betrayal (involving a special tarot reading with Mark Horn); whether or not I have faith that the universe will support me (involving a group workshop on what women want); and what we’re meant to be doing here (involving a gondola ride with Chelsea Handler). I also answer a couple of listener questions about how I manage my time, and my research and creative processes.

For the show notes, head over to my Substack.==

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“ Here are my real tools—because fantasy tools give you fantasy results,” says Laura Day, New York Times–bestselling author and renowned psychic. Today we get into her new book, The Prism, and her simple, effective approach to the kind of change that is often tiny, and incremental, and yet can reconstruct your whole life.

For the show notes, head over to my Substack.

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What actually motivates us? When we disagree with someone else—how can we do it better? Social psychologist and author of Outraged, Kurt Gray, PhD, shares what he’s learned from studying the behaviors of people with different experiences. He corrects a few funny things we got wrong about human evolution. And he explains what “concept creep” and “the creep of harm” mean—and why we’re generally much safer than we think. We talk about what tends to give birth to polarization, why we behave the way we do on social media, and why we often forget the complexity within our own perspectives.

For the show notes, head over to my Substack.

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“ My work is about getting the logjams out of your personal river so things can flow again,” says one-of-a-kind, intuitive coach Anne Emerson. Today, she outlines her process (holographic repatterning) for helping people to work through limiting beliefs—to recognize the false stories that we tell ourselves on repeat, and to break free from them. It’s perhaps surprisingly fun.

For the show notes, head over to my Substack.

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For decades, Elaine Pagels’s work has been changing the historical landscape of Christian religion. She’s also changed the way many people, including myself, see the world. Pagels is a religion professor at Princeton University, and the author of seminal, award-winning books like The Gnostic Gospels, and her newest, Miracles and Wonder. We talked about the surprising things she’s learned about Jesus and his followers; what his most radical teaching was; and why Jesus, this essentially unlikely traveling rabbi, emerged as the figure he did in our culture. And why this all still matters today. We talk about Pagels’s own story, her personal spiritual pull; as well as a vortex I went down in boarding school that made me understand how susceptible we all are to constraints that explain the world in overly reductive and simple ways. We reflect on how natural it is for us to want some sense of connection with a transcendent being. And how this has shaped the way Elaine approaches her work: not with the intention of destroying a framework, but looking for ways to expand it. 

For links to all of Elaine Pagels’s book and the (many) show notes, head over to my Substack.

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In this month’s solo episode, I spend some time thinking about why psychiatrist Phil Stutz observed that I’m holding myself back. And why I have a hard time with the idea of marketing, or promoting, my own work. I also share more about Phil’s concept of Part X—which gives you problems that you don’t need, and solutions to those problems that only make it worse. I think about how my own Part X has changed; and why it’s currently trying to convince me that I’m too good, too righteous, too pure…to be fully engaged. And, how, when we put ourselves in motion—when we go for something, even if we get knocked down—it’s an opportunity to truly grow and learn (which Phil would call an opportunity to “meet the father”).

For the show notes, head over to my Substack.

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I had the great honor of writing a book with legendary psychiatrist Phil Stutz. Now that True and False Magic is out, I got to ask him about some of the concepts that have remained on my mind: the lie of certainty, the purpose of creativity, why some of the hardest parts of life are also what makes it compelling and fun, and why he believes I should be 10 percent more evil (and maybe you should, too).

For our book, more of Phil Stutz’s work (including The Tools and Coming Alive), the documentary Stutz, and the rest of the show notes, head over to my Substack.

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Diego Perez is widely known by his pen name, Yung Pueblo. He’s a #1 New York Times bestselling author, and his latest book is How to Love Better. Today, we both share a bit about our own relationships, and what we’ve learned from our partners. We talk about the myths and archetypal relationships that are served to us, and how many of us have been conditioned to go into a relationship looking for someone to solve all our problems. We talk about more realistic ways to create harmony in a relationship, and how to avoid the trap of assuming your partner can read your mind.

For the show notes, head over to my Substack.

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Diane Hennacy Powell is now known as the neuroscientist from The Telepathy Tapes podcast (it’s created by Ky Dickens, and it’s great). Hennacy Powell trained at Ohio State University and Johns Hopkins School of Medicine, where she received her MD and psychiatric training. She has been on faculty at Harvard Medical School. And she is a leading expert on autism and savant syndrome. Her research focuses on autistic children who appear to have ESP as a savant skill—in other words, children who seem to perceive information that is beyond our known senses. Their profound abilities and Hennacy Powell’s work with them expands our understanding of the human mind and how consciousness might actually work. And within this, there is possibly an even larger, and more critical message for us—to help humanity save humanity from itself, as Hennacy Powell says.

For more on Diane Hennacy Powell, how to get a copy of her book, and all the show notes, head over to my Substack.

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