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Content Note:

This episode touches on mental health, religious disaffiliation, family stress, and folk healing practices, including a brief discussion of an attempted exorcism.

Ever wonder what happens when a devout Catholic upbringing meets a restless, science-first mind? In this episode, we sit down with Isela—a self-described fronteriza raised in the U.S.–Mexico borderlands—to talk about stepping away from church, finding grounding through therapy, and what “spiritual health” can look like when you don’t subscribe to a single creed. The conversation moves easily from holiday foods and Guadalupe processions to panic attacks, somatic stress, and the quiet relief of letting go of religious guilt without letting go of cultural roots.

Isela shares stories from a goth adolescence, her parents’ separation, and a moment of family crisis that led her mother to seek help from a folk healer in the hills of Juárez. What followed wasn’t a dramatic exorcism, but something far more ordinary: limpias, tarot cards, incense and herbs—and payment in cigarettes and a tall beer. Years later, a card reading from that visit would map uncannily onto Isela’s shift away from bench science and toward public health and community work.

Together, we talk about agnosticism as a posture of curiosity rather than certainty, how to respect personal experience without turning it into doctrine, and why cultural humility matters when engaging spiritual practices that don’t belong to us. We also get practical—what well-being looks like when mental, physical, and financial health are all in play, how chronic stress shows up in the body, and why therapy, grounding skills, and safe relationships can matter as much as any ritual.

If you’re reevaluating faith, sitting with doubt, or figuring out where science and spirit meet in your own life, this conversation offers clarity without clichés—and permission to keep asking better questions.

If this episode resonated, follow the show, share it with a friend, and leave a review with your biggest takeaway.

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In this Long Steep, we brew gratitude slowly and intentionally—through theology, psychology, and lived experience. No buzzwords, no toxic positivity, no “be grateful for your trauma” energy. Just real tea.

We start with what gratitude actually is: a state, a trait, an act of reciprocity shaped by context and choice. From there, we trace how gratitude shows up across traditions:

• Christianity, through prayer and gift-of-life theology
• Islam, through shukr of heart, tongue, and action
• Buddhism, through mindfulness, interbeing, and katannuta
• New Age practice, through ritual, shadow work, and personal agency

We honor Indigenous cultures without speaking over them, acknowledge harm without reframing it as “growth,” and explore how gratitude practices—from candle offerings and prayer, to journaling and daily reflection—can help reorient attention without denying pain.

We also get real about the science: gratitude can support wellbeing, habit change, and resilience (Emmons & McCullough, Seligman), but results are mixed. Context matters. Autonomy matters even more.

If all you take from this episode is one honest moment of peace, that’s enough. Gratitude doesn’t need to fix everything—it can just soften something.

Sip along, share it with someone rebuilding their grounding, and tell us what you’re grateful for today (or not). We’re listening.

Follow @ReligiosiTea everywhere it appears.

Follow me on Instagram and Threads: @ReligiosiTea

You can use the link at the top of the show notes or email me at [email protected] to share your stories, thoughts, insights, reactions, and much more! I'm waiting for you to spill your ReligiosiTea!

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Content Warning: This episode includes discussion of parental death, grief, childhood emotional hardship, spiritual disappointment/anger toward God, anxiety, depression, and references to ghosts/hauntings and spirit work. Please listen with care and step away if you need to.

In this episode of ReligiosiTea, Adren sits down with his lifelong friend Raven to sip through a decades-long journey of grief, gods, ghost hunting, and the quiet kind of magic that helps you keep going.

Raven shares how losing both parents cracked her world open and pulled her toward the underworld—toward Hades, shadow work, and a spirituality that holds both darkness and light. We talk about being a kid begging God for happiness, feeling betrayed when prayers seem unanswered, and what it’s like to move from bitter to better without pretending the hurt was “for a reason.”

Raven shares how loss pulled her toward the underworld’s symbolism—endings, wealth, and what grows unseen—and why a raw plea at an altar felt like the first time she was truly heard. We unpack core values of kindness and community, then dig into shadow work as a practical way to face jealousy, fear, and anger without flinching. She explains how ghost hunting became spirit work, why protection is non-negotiable, and what respect looks like when you’re dealing with the dead. If you’ve ever wrestled with God after unanswered prayers, her journey from resentment to gratitude offers a grounded, compassionate map.

The episode also gets specific about mental health tools. Affirmations—used as daily glamour magic while doing makeup—shift self-talk and rewire behavior, helping with anxiety, routines, and care for the body. We connect belief to better habits, gratitude to resilience, and boundaries to peace. Expect real stories, a few laugh-out-loud ghost moments, and clear takeaways you can test today: set protection, research before you open any door, and speak to yourself like someone you’re responsible for. It’s candid, funny, a little spooky, and deeply human—like sharing a pot of tea with a friend who’s survived the storm and is finally ready to tell the story.

If this resonates, follow and subscribe, share it with a friend who’s navigating loss or rebuilding their faith, and leave a review with your biggest insight or question—we’d love to hear the practice that changed you.

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You can use the link at the top of the show notes or email me at [email protected] to share your stories, thoughts, insights, reactions, and much more! I'm waiting for you to spill your ReligiosiTea!

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Content Warning: This episode discusses symptoms and impacts of psychosis, including hallucinations, delusions, cult dynamics, moral panics, religious trauma, and references to mass suicides and violence. It also touches on stress, trauma, and contemporary political upheaval. Please listen with care, and step away if you need.

What if a single vision could ripple through millions of lives? In this Long Steep, Adren takes you to the uneasy edge where faith becomes certainty, certainty becomes prophecy, and prophecy collides with a hyperconnected world hungry for meaning. With warmth, rigor, and a pinch of irreverence, we steep in the phenomenon of religious psychosis—what it is, what it isn’t, and why the line between sincere devotion and sudden fracture matters.

This isn’t just diagnosis; it’s interrogation. Along the way, we move through Jerusalem Syndrome and India Syndrome, the mechanics of charisma and cult formation, godspousing, moral panics, and even the dancing plague of 1518. RaptureTok becomes our case study: one pastor’s dream-whispered date, failed prophecy, and the viral movement that sold possessions and courted ascension. Through it all, we ask: are we watching psychosis, or witnessing a social epidemic dressed in prophecy?

Highlights in this steep:

• Defining psychosis versus sincere spiritual experience
• Hallmark symptoms, novelty, and impairment thresholds
• Differential diagnosis and ruling out substances
• Stress, trauma, and place as triggers for visions
• Charisma, cult logic, and godspousing distinctions
• Skepticism, isolation, and family fractures
• Social epidemics, moral panics, and contagion (the dance plague)
• RaptureTok analysis: prophecy, spread, and aftermath
• Politics of salvation and Christian nationalism
• Crisis response, red flags, and grounding practices

At the heart of it: faith can heal and anchor, but it can also fracture under pressure. Learning the signs—and cultivating compassion—helps us safeguard both belief and well-being.

So pour your tea, enter the CaTeadral, and steep with us. If this conversation challenges or helps you, subscribe, share with a friend, and leave a review. Your stories shape future episodes—drop a comment or find Adren on socials @ReligiosiTea.

Between vision and delusion lies the thinnest veil—sometimes holy, sometimes broken, always human.

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What happens when traditional religious spaces no longer feel authentic? Marie's spiritual journey takes us from Catholic pews and saint cards to a deeply personal practice centered on finding the divine within herself.

The tension between our need for connection and our need for authenticity drives this conversation. Marie describes how her path evolved through Catholicism, Protestant Christianity, and monastery living before developing her current practice. With remarkable candor, she shares how institutional religion began feeling like "a skin that wasn't comfortable" despite her lifelong spiritual devotion.

Marie's spirituality transforms everyday moments into sacred experiences. Her morning begins with intentional wordlessness and a powerful self-love affirmation. Her evenings become devotional as she disconnects from technology, cares for her home, and bids goodnight to her children. Through these rituals, she cultivates what philosopher Gabor Maté describes as our two essential human needs: connection and authenticity.

Particularly fascinating is Marie's perspective on physical wellbeing as the foundation for spiritual health. "The body is the link to how I get to experience my spirituality," she explains. "How clear and healthy I am being with my body is how clear and healthy I can connect to the highest version of myself."

For anyone questioning their relationship with institutional religion or seeking more authentic spiritual connection, this conversation offers both validation and practical guidance. Marie's journey reminds us that spiritual growth often requires embracing competing truths and developing compassion for every version of ourselves.

Ready to explore your own spiritual path? Listen now and discover how finding your divine truth might transform your wellbeing in unexpected ways.

Follow me on Instagram and Threads: @ReligiosiTea

You can use the link at the top of the show notes or email me at [email protected] to share your stories, thoughts, insights, reactions, and much more! I'm waiting for you to spill your ReligiosiTea!

Spill your ReligiosiTea directly with the show host! Let us know your reactions, stories, and more!

This episode discusses heavy themes related to war and religion, including:

• Graphic descriptions of mental health impacts such as PTSD, depression, moral injury, and substance use
• Mentions of death, grief, and suicide
• Discussion of bombings, displacement, and healthcare collapse
• References to Christian nationalism, Zionism, and religiously-justified violence
• Exploration of spiritual psychosis and religious delusion
• Some biblical language may be emotionally triggering depending on personal religious background or trauma

Listener discretion is advised—especially for those with lived experience of war, religious trauma, or moral distress.

What happens when faith becomes a weapon?

In this episode of ReligiosiTea, we venture into the paradox of holy war: how religion, often associated with peace, becomes the banner under which violence is sanctified. From the Crusades to current conflicts in Gaza, the language of God has long been used to justify conquest, displacement, and destruction. Politicians invoke divine mandates—like “those who bless Israel will be blessed”—to rationalize interventionism. Meanwhile, the machinery of Christian nationalism fuels both foreign and domestic policy, emboldening militarism with biblical flair.

But this isn’t just a history lesson. It’s a reckoning. I peel back the layers of rhetoric to ask: what are the actual human costs of faith-fueled warfare?

We dive into the psychological aftermath—PTSD, moral injury, collective grief—and the collapse of healthcare systems that follow in war’s wake. We explore how trauma distorts memory, how soldiers and civilians alike carry wounds that don’t bleed, and how war erodes not only bodies, but beliefs. There’s a reason veterans flinch at fireworks. There’s a reason entire generations disappear behind silence and addiction. And there’s a reason some people stop believing altogether.

This episode also touches on the concept of spiritual psychosis: what happens when a person—or a government—uses faith to detach from shared reality. When religious delusion becomes a political driver, policy becomes prophecy, and violence becomes divine command. We’re not just talking about isolated extremists. We’re talking about the shaping of geopolitics through warped moral vision.

And of course, I turn to the Bible itself. “Blessed are the peacemakers.” “Turn the other cheek.” “Live at peace with everyone.” These passages exist alongside verses used to justify genocide and conquest. So which scriptures get remembered—and why? What agendas do they serve?

Through it all, I’m asking one thing: how do we cope when the sacred becomes weaponized? And is there a way to return to faith—not as a justification for war, but as a source of healing?

This one’s heavy. Bring tea. Bring salt. We’re going to need both.

Follow me on Instagram and Threads: @ReligiosiTea

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In this Long Steep episode, Adren Warling unpacks the legacy of Francis, the chaos of Trump’s papal cosplay, the rise of Pope Leo XIV, and what it all means for public health, queer dignity, climate collapse, and the politics of salvation. From ordo amoris to holy smoke, this is where theology meets theory, and faith meets fire. Whether you're Catholic or just spiritually nosy, this episode is for you.

When Pope Francis died on Easter Monday 2025, the world lost more than a pope—it lost a spiritual disruptor. His papacy reshaped how Catholicism approached environmental justice, poverty, and global inequality. And now? An American cardinal steps into his sandals.

Francis wasn't just noteworthy for being the first Jesuit pope or the first from Latin America. His leadership style – living in a Vatican guest house, traveling by bus with cardinals, and consistently prioritizing the marginalized – embodied a different vision of spiritual authority. His landmark encyclical Laudato Si' directly connected environmental degradation to public health outcomes, exposing how pollution and resource scarcity disproportionately harm vulnerable populations.

What made Francis truly revolutionary was his willingness to challenge power structures while remaining firmly within Catholic tradition. He never endorsed same-sex marriage or abortion, but shifted focus away from sexual ethics toward economic justice and care for creation. His famous confrontation with American Vice President JD Vance over the concept of "ordo amoris" revealed competing visions of Christianity – one that arranges love in hierarchical order versus Francis's universal embrace that refuses to rank human dignity.

The aftermath of Francis's death brought peculiar American spectacle – from apocalyptic Reddit threads to President Trump's AI-generated images of himself in papal regalia. This bizarre theater revealed something profound about the intersection of religion and politics, showing how easily sacred imagery can be weaponized to promote nationalism and exclusion.

Now Pope Leo XIV (formerly Cardinal Robert Prevost), the first American pope, steps into this complex legacy. With his background in canon law and missionary work in Peru, Leo embodies tensions within Catholicism – between preservation and progress, between doctrinal conservatism and social justice. His papacy arrives at a pivotal moment when questions about climate crisis, migration, healthcare access, and economic inequality require moral frameworks as much as policy solutions.

Whether Catholic or not, we all have a stake in what emerges from the Vatican in coming years. When religious authority shapes how billions understand their responsibility toward the vulnerable, the sick, and our common planetary home, the conversation around faith and health becomes one we ignore at our peril.

Follow me on Instagram and Threads: @ReligiosiTea

You can use the link at the top of the show notes or email me at [email protected] to share your stories, thoughts, insights, reactions, and much more! I'm waiting for you to spill your ReligiosiTea!

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Content Warnings:

This episode contains discussions of:

• Mental health struggles, including depression and anxiety
• Religious trauma and themes of spiritual disconnection
• Paranormal experiences and supernatural encounters
• Death and illness, including family health crises
• Guns and references to firearm use
• Sexual and sensual content, including dream experiences involving desire and boundaries

Please listen with care and step away if you need to. Take what resonates, and leave what doesn’t.

Episode Description:

What happens when the God you were raised to love never speaks back—but a wolf god does?

In this deeply personal episode, Brittany shares her spiral journey from Baptist churches and childhood guilt to sigils, scrying, and self-resurrection through witchcraft and Norse mythology. After years of struggling with depression and anxiety—and a strained relationship with her preacher father—Brittany began exploring alternative spiritualities that not only made space for her questions, but talked back.

We explore:

• The misunderstood story of Fenrir, and what it means to feel rage and still be sacred
• How Freya became a guide for self-love, boundaries, and feminine reclamation
• The difference between being told what to believe and feeling something for the first time
• What it means to “work with” deities, including dreams, offerings, and shadow work
• The grief of religious disconnection and the strange empowerment of supernatural experiences

This deeply personal conversation explores how alternative spiritual frameworks can transform mental health when conventional approaches fall short. Having struggled with anxiety and depression for nearly two decades, Brittany found that therapy gave her tools she couldn't effectively use until discovering witchcraft: "It helped me pinpoint all the problems I needed to focus on. Everything they taught me in therapy before, I now figured out how to utilize properly." 

We dive into fascinating aspects of Norse mythology, including the misunderstood story of Fenrir and the multifaceted nature of Freya. Brittany explains how these deities became active collaborators in her healing journey, helping with everything from anger management to self-love. "When I practice, I feel on top of my game," she shares. "My entire attitude shifts and I love it." 

The episode also explores practical elements of witchcraft - from scrying and sigil-making to protection protocols - while addressing important considerations like cultural appropriation and misinformation in spiritual communities. Brittany's advice for newcomers emphasizes research, protection, and developing personal discernment. Whether you're curious about alternative spirituality or seeking ways to enhance your own well-being, this conversation offers valuable insights about finding authentic connection with the divine. As Brittany wisely notes: "No matter what deities or religion you rely upon, you need to have a one-on-one relationship. Don't let anyone tell you otherwise."

This episode unpacks the emotional, spiritual, and mental health impact of finding a belief system that works on your terms—even when it means leaving everything you were taught behind.

Follow me on Instagram and Threads: @ReligiosiTea

You can use the link at the top of the show notes or email me at [email protected] to share your stories, thoughts, insights, reactions, and much more! I'm waiting for you to spill your ReligiosiTea!

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In this episode of ReligiosiTea, host Adren dives into the complex relationship between prayer, cognitive processes, and health outcomes. From its mental benefits to the potential for stress reduction, prayer can shape how we process emotions and handle challenges—even in clinical settings. Adren also explores the intersection of religion and science, discussing how biases can influence the research around prayer and health. Plus, we take a closer look at the practice of praying for others and how that might impact well-being too. Join us for an enlightening conversation on the spiritual and mental health benefits of prayer—whether you’re religious or not!

Key Takeaways:

• Prayer can have mental health benefits, including stress reduction and improved cognitive function.
• The relationship between prayer and health is complex, with biases influencing research findings.
• Praying for others may have unique effects on both the person praying and the person being prayed for.
• Positive social networks in religious contexts can improve overall well-being.

Resources Mentioned:

https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC6369522/#:~:text=More%20than%20just%20an%20aspect,%2C%20planning%2C%20and%20social%20cognition.

https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC2802370/#sec1-6

https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC4216772/#:~:text=Furthermore%2C%20support%20from%20church%20members,17%20and%20lower%20mortality%20rates.

Follow me on Instagram and Threads: @ReligiosiTea

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Lucy's faith journey unfolds like many roads less traveled—winding, marked with detours, yet always finding its way back to a divine center. As a Christian attending a Baptist church, she describes herself as "more spiritual than anything," embodying a relationship with God that transcends religious formality.

What makes this conversation remarkable is Lucy's candor about the ebb and flow of faith. "I've had times I've strayed from God, questioned things or felt distant," she shares, "but no matter how far I drift, I always find myself being pulled back." This magnetic return forms the backbone of her spiritual experience—an authentic relationship rather than rigid adherence to tradition.

Lucy's approach to Christianity centers on "living in love" and inclusiveness. Her favorite biblical story—the adulterous woman from John 8—reveals her connection to Jesus's protection of the marginalized and his reminder that none are without sin. This understanding shapes her welcoming perspective: "God loves everybody...black, white, Mexican, gay, transgendered."

The conversation takes a fascinating turn when Lucy discusses her Graves' disease diagnosis. Despite the autoimmune condition affecting her eyes and heart, she never blamed God—a response that surprised even her colleagues. When her condition mysteriously went into remission without medical intervention after losing insurance coverage, Lucy sees divine intervention at work.

Perhaps most compelling is Lucy's blending of traditional Christianity with other spiritual elements—using crystals and sage in her home while contextualizing these practices within her Christian faith. "If I sage my house, I pray to God to protect my house," she explains, finding harmony between seemingly disparate traditions.

For anyone exploring faith, Lucy offers refreshing advice: be yourself, find a denomination that aligns with your values, and "don't judge a church based off of the people...judge it based off of how you feel when you're there." Her testimony presents contemporary faith as something deeply personal yet universally accessible—where imperfection is expected and authentic connection matters most.

Follow me on Instagram and Threads: @ReligiosiTea

You can use the link at the top of the show notes or email me at [email protected] to share your stories, thoughts, insights, reactions, and much more! I'm waiting for you to spill your ReligiosiTea!