Vision Battlesword [00:00:00]:
Good afternoon, Mandarin man.

Mandarin Man [00:00:02]:
Good afternoon, Vision.

Vision Battlesword [00:00:04]:
How are you today?

Mandarin Man [00:00:05]:
Fantastic.

Vision Battlesword [00:00:06]:
Excellent.

Mandarin Man [00:00:07]:
I'm excited to be here.

Vision Battlesword [00:00:08]:
Yeah, well, thanks for sitting with me today for a sacred conversation. I've been looking forward to this for a long time. We've been trying to schedule this for a long time.

Mandarin Man [00:00:15]:
That's right.

Vision Battlesword [00:00:16]:
And here we are finally. So I just want to start by asking you to quickly introduce yourself. Who are you? Mandarin Mann.

Mandarin Man [00:00:25]:
Sure. My given name is Eric Frye. I'm from Alabama originally. Consider myself an investor. Polymath, the generalist, lover of life, seeker of community and truth. Yeah. And a very, very good friend of vision battle sword, and I'm honored to be here.

Vision Battlesword [00:00:49]:
Yeah, I agree with that. You are one of my best friends and I'm just so happy to have an opportunity to talk with you. Like, we talk all the time and get into all these kind of fascinating explorations of different concepts, language and philosophy and life and relationships and everything we like to talk about. And I am Vision Battlesword. I'm the founder of Sacred Light and the creator of Intentional, Autonomous Relating and the host of Sacred Conversations. So we agreed that we wanted to talk today about church. Does that still feel good to you?

Mandarin Man [00:01:28]:
Yeah.

Vision Battlesword [00:01:29]:
Cool.

Mandarin Man [00:01:30]:
You couldn't have asked a better guy. I've been in church my entire life. Tell me more in one way or another. Well, being from Alabama, of course, I was raised in like an evangelical southern baptist non denomination, just depending on what period of time, you know, I was, my parents were I involved with. Right. And so Methodist and then got out of the church, and now I'm back at a church here in town called red Rocks that I really, really enjoy. And I kind of say that, you know, Christ and I have an open relationship. Also sit in ayahuasca, which is where you and I met, and, you know, speak to my shaman every week.

Mandarin Man [00:02:17]:
And I. So I think church is something that is extremely important and. Yeah, yeah. Happy to talk about it.

Vision Battlesword [00:02:25]:
So red rocks is a christian church, correct?

Mandarin Man [00:02:27]:
Yeah.

Vision Battlesword [00:02:28]:
Nice. Well, I just. I guess I'll reciprocate just to kind of give you a background on myself because I don't think we've really talked about this in detail before. I was not raised with a church in my life. Both of my parents were raised Catholic, believe it or not. My mother actually was a nun.

Mandarin Man [00:02:52]:
Really?

Vision Battlesword [00:02:53]:
Yeah, for, I think, nine years, if I'm not mistaken. But she was in a convent before she met my father and they got married.

Mandarin Man [00:03:01]:
So there's no, just tangential, you know, why they're called nuns? Tell me, because they don't have anything.

Vision Battlesword [00:03:08]:
I don't get it.

Mandarin Man [00:03:10]:
Well, yeah, they don't have a wife. They don't have possessions, so it's none. Oh.

Vision Battlesword [00:03:15]:
Cause you have to give up everything. Give up everything to pursue the spiritual life.

Mandarin Man [00:03:20]:
I see.

Vision Battlesword [00:03:21]:
Well, anyway, my parents were both raised catholic, but in our family, when I was growing up, we didn't practice a religion, although there were occasional times when I would be taken to catholic church. Bye. By my grandparent, my grandmother specifically. And we had a kind of an interesting winter celebration. We engaged with the kind of traditional Christmas tradition, let's say. Or Christmas ritual would be a better way of saying it, but there was a little bit of a tongue in cheek irreverence to it. So we would have a Christmas tree, but my parents would put a Star of David on the top of the tree instead of, like, a five pointed star. And then we would refer to it as the Hanukkah bush.

Mandarin Man [00:04:20]:
Great.

Vision Battlesword [00:04:21]:
And my mom would always bring home at some point, some chocolate coins, the Hanukkah gelt. And we play dreidel, but we have no. There's no jewish ancestry.

Mandarin Man [00:04:35]:
Interesting.

Vision Battlesword [00:04:35]:
In my family. Interesting. It was just sort of like, just, I guess, just enjoying different cultural traditions.

Mandarin Man [00:04:42]:
Yeah.

Vision Battlesword [00:04:42]:
You know, like, those rituals, but not with a spiritual practice associated with it.

Mandarin Man [00:04:49]:
Right.

Vision Battlesword [00:04:50]:
That I remember.

Mandarin Man [00:04:51]:
Yeah. We've talked about this before. Like, the. The ritual stays, but the. What initiated the ritual has vanished. And I think that's interesting. Like, we know that it's important to celebrate this holiday, so we do it because everyone in the culture does it, but we. Yeah.

Mandarin Man [00:05:12]:
May be irreverent to it or we've lost, like, the reason it's like, why are we actually doing this anymore? You know? I think that's. I think that's very common in modern day life is, you know, my beloved fiance, who was raised Catholic, calls them Christers. Like, Christer Catholics, because it's Christmas and Easter, and that's the only time they go, you know, that's funny. Hanukkah Bush.

Vision Battlesword [00:05:39]:
Mm hmm. So that's my relationship to church.

Mandarin Man [00:05:43]:
Well, I guess you have one now.

Vision Battlesword [00:05:46]:
I do, yes. But so that's. I guess that's the. That's the interesting exploration for us to. To go on here. Yeah. I did not have any relationship with church for almost my entire life until very recently, when this spiritual path and my spiritual awakening started through the medicine work.

Mandarin Man [00:06:10]:
Yeah. So, yeah. Should we start with defining what is a church?

Vision Battlesword [00:06:14]:
Yeah, well, let me. Yes. But let's. I want to just drop in how we even got to this topic real quickly, because a while ago we were having a conversation, and you brought up a theory that had occurred to you, which is that Bucky's, the iconic Texas gas station, truck stop convenience store, like, I don't know, you can't even. None of those words do it justice, obviously, but the phenomenon known as Bucky's, you said, is a church. And then you started giving different evidence and examples for that, which that was what really started my whole thought process on exploring this concept of what is a church, because I had to agree with you. I saw what you were saying, and we started exploring it. It was really fun, and I'm sure that we're going to get back into that here shortly.

Vision Battlesword [00:07:13]:
But that awareness or that recognition really got me thinking more and more deeply about what church really is and what role it really has for us in our lives and in society. But I agree with you that a good place to start would be what is church.

Mandarin Man [00:07:37]:
Yeah, well, scripture says where two or more are gathered in my name.

Vision Battlesword [00:07:41]:
Mm hmm.

Mandarin Man [00:07:42]:
Where that's church. Yeah. So we're in church right now if we're talking about spirit and divine and things that are sacred. I think for many years I drank a lot of alcohol, and just a little plug for the listeners, I have written a book called the big Liquor Lie. So if you want to go purchase that, I'll be out soon. And I think a lot of people that go and kneel before the illuminated backlit bar is a version of church. And, you know, I think people who turn on football on Sundays, you know, that could be considered church for many people, the New Orleans saints. Right.

Mandarin Man [00:08:22]:
Or so, you know, in my view, it's very loosely defined because I don't, like, want to be exclusionary, that, you know, my christian God is the right God or the mother ayahuasca is the right Sacramento, or, you know, who am I to say, what is church and what isn't church? I would just, like, encourage everyone to find their version of something holy and sacred and share that with their friends and their family and whoever feels called to it. So that's what I would say at church is, you know, if it has a physical thing, great, you know, physical building, surely that helps. And if you have a designation, a 501 designation, of course, you get the tax benefit there being a church. But can I want to say, because I think I said about the Bucky's thing, and I think it would be good to kind of just play that out, like, with that experience. I said, it's a ceremony. And then we talked and we joked about calling this episode church of Bucky's. And so what happened was I was in Bastrop, going out there daily, working on this house. I was flipping.

Mandarin Man [00:09:38]:
And on my way back into town, I would swing through Bucky's. You know, we don't have one here in Austin. And I originally kind of hated Bucky's because I was just like, it's like, I hate Walmart, and I hate going to the gas station. Why the hell would you put them together, you know? But they say for, you know, right in the middle, they have the brisket part, whatever deli.

Vision Battlesword [00:09:56]:
The barbecue pit.

Mandarin Man [00:09:57]:
The barbecue pit, right, the barbecue pita. And I kept hearing something, you know, what are they, people are yelling over there, and they're saying, fresh brisket on the floor. And then the people were responding, fresh brisket on the floor. And it was about the third day in there. I heard that it just kind of man hit me like a ton of bricks. I was like, this is very sacrificial and spiritual. And because all the tenants of a ceremony are there. We have a sacrifice.

Mandarin Man [00:10:30]:
We have a call and response. We have heat, right, the lamps and the fire of which the pig or cow was cooked upon. And we have this incantation that's repeated periodically, and then there's an exchange of resources. And it's. So the question that really piques my interest, or that really kind of gets me going is like, is it a ceremony? Because we've created a ceremony. The guy that created Bucky's, or I don't know who he is or whatever, or is it. That ceremony is so ingrained in who we are, it will manifest through our actions in time if we just have enough awareness to, like, recognize it, you know? And I want to say that latter is true, but I think it's interesting to me that they're the biggest gas, you know, this gas station, whether intentionally or unintentionally, honors these. These things.

Mandarin Man [00:11:38]:
They put the sacrifice, the animal sacrifice, right in the middle of the store. It's their. One of their biggest, probably money drivers. They had this call and response that the employees engage in, and they're the biggest gas station in the United States.

Vision Battlesword [00:11:54]:
Are they?

Mandarin Man [00:11:55]:
I don't know if they are. By the dollars. Probably not. Of course, they're chevron in Texaco. But as far as, like, awareness, people, you know, love it. And, you know, there were people. They told me there were people going in there, and I'm getting on a tangent now, but they had this, like, Valentine's Day cup, and there are people, like, waiting, like, 02:00 a.m. for the shipment to come in because they could go buy them for $20 and then sell them on eBay for 120.

Mandarin Man [00:12:21]:
And so energetically, they, you know, something that equally is important that I talk to. I go to a men's. I go to a christian men's group, and we're reading this book called the Ruthless Elimination of Hurry. And it's about using cellular phones. And, you know, one. The second chapter is about keeping the Sabbath sacred, which the jewish culture has done, I think, in a much stronger and more beautiful way than the christian culture. We've seen it now with Bucky's, and we also kind of see it with chick fil a. People who choose to honor whatever church means for them are rewarded.

Mandarin Man [00:12:58]:
Spirit tends to reward that. And so I think that's pretty, pretty interesting too.

Vision Battlesword [00:13:02]:
Hmm. Well, there's a lot there that you kind of brought out for examination. Is church a place?

Mandarin Man [00:13:11]:
No, no, no. I think it's a feeling. It's an appreciation for life. Like, I'm choosing to take time and turn off the phone or put away. Like, we're all choosing to focus our awareness on this thing that is holy.

Vision Battlesword [00:13:35]:
Okay.

Mandarin Man [00:13:36]:
Right. Synagogue. Call it what you will. We're choosing to give our attention to a holy thing.

Vision Battlesword [00:13:46]:
Well, what's the difference between church and ceremony?

Mandarin Man [00:13:52]:
Probably not much. We have songs in both, right. We sing songs. We have a sacrament. Generally, if you're taking communion, of course we have an appreciation for something that's sacred. And probably an appreciation. There has to be, I think, some connection to a God or deity or spirit. You know, like with the psilocybin ceremony, the sacrament is the mushroom.

Mandarin Man [00:14:24]:
You know, with the christian church, the sacrament is, of course, communion and the bread and the wine and. Yeah. So I don't know. That's a good question. What do you think?

Vision Battlesword [00:14:33]:
Well, I was just noticing that, well, first of all, I was noticing that you brought the bucky story back to your original insight, which, thank you for reminding me that it was. Your original insight was that the serving of the brisket takes the form of a ceremony. And then it was only through our conversation after that that I think I mainly expanded the concept to, oh, it's not just like the brisket ceremony, but that Bucky's is a church.

Mandarin Man [00:15:03]:
Yeah. It was so funny. The church of Bucky's.

Vision Battlesword [00:15:05]:
Yeah. Yeah. So I still want to make that case.

Mandarin Man [00:15:08]:
Yeah, well, and what I was so upset about is someone who. I mean, I give myself a six out of ten in intentionality. You know, I'm pretty fast and loose, but I'm always trying to be more intentional. And it was like, I didn't agree to this. I was like, fuck, they got me like, here I am pumping gas and buying the sandwiches, you know, or getting decaf coffee in my case. But when did I agree to this? And that was kind of surprising.

Vision Battlesword [00:15:34]:
Yeah, that's interesting. But then I noticed that when you were talking about what a church is, what you were describing was people coming together to focus their intentions in some sort of spiritual practice. And to me, that fits the definition of a ceremony. But I'm wondering if church is like a container where ceremonies happen, or if there's anything about church that has to do with an organization of people coming together for spiritual practice, for example, to share ceremonies.

Mandarin Man [00:16:13]:
Yeah, I would say that church is the instrument through which the song of ceremony is played. Right. Like, and so can you have a ceremony outside of church? Sure. If you want to continually and routinely have ceremonies, it would benefit you to have a church.

Vision Battlesword [00:16:33]:
Or. Yes, I see that perspective. Or is it possible that wherever it is that we are having a ceremony or coming together two or more gathered for spiritual practice, is church in that moment, that particular place, time, setting, space, whatever, that's church for us right now? Or is church, again, about some form of organization of spiritual practice?

Mandarin Man [00:17:08]:
Yeah, I think that's religion.

Vision Battlesword [00:17:11]:
I see.

Mandarin Man [00:17:12]:
Yeah. And I think also, as we're still in this defining kind of process of the conversation, there should be a change that's involved. The way you feel after church or after a ceremony should be different than that of what you felt before. And I mentioned it briefly, but like, you know, Alcoholics Anonymous, definitely a church. We say the twelve steps.

Vision Battlesword [00:17:41]:
Serenity prayer.

Mandarin Man [00:17:41]:
Serenity prayer. You know, and then each. It's funny because I've been to a lot of different AA meetings in different places, and each kind of have their, you know, one. And back in Alabama at the end, they hold hands and keep coming back because it works. It works if you work it. Yeah. Okay. So some of them.

Mandarin Man [00:17:57]:
Some of them necessarily say that every.

Vision Battlesword [00:17:59]:
Time, but that's an invocation. That's ritualistic. It's got all the characteristics of ceremony.

Mandarin Man [00:18:09]:
Or church, and yet the sacrament is absent is coffee. That's true. It's cigarettes. Yeah, the sacrament is coffee. That's right. Funny.

Vision Battlesword [00:18:21]:
That's interesting. Okay, we're honing in on something here because we keep. You keep bringing it back to. Well, let me just say this. Can you have church? Can you go to church and there not be a ceremony?

Mandarin Man [00:18:37]:
Oh, I think millions of people. I think there are millions of people go to a service every week.

Vision Battlesword [00:18:45]:
What's a service?

Mandarin Man [00:18:47]:
You know, where they sing songs, there's a message. We sing a few more songs, we.

Vision Battlesword [00:18:50]:
Take an offering different than a ceremony. How?

Mandarin Man [00:18:53]:
Um, I think service is what, a spiritual. And now a little bit of judgment coming in here, I'll admit. But, like, service is a. Is where a religion is a false attempt at ceremony.

Vision Battlesword [00:19:06]:
Oh.

Mandarin Man [00:19:07]:
You know, it has all the underpinnings of a ceremony. But were you actually changed?

Vision Battlesword [00:19:13]:
I see.

Mandarin Man [00:19:13]:
And so two different people can sit in the same service, and one person's in ceremony, and one person's just at a service.

Vision Battlesword [00:19:20]:
This is really good distinction, the distinction between a service and a ceremony. This is really important because that seems true to me, that a church is somewhere where you can go to receive a service, but not necessarily a ceremony. And you can have a ceremony that doesn't necessarily happen in a church or in church.

Mandarin Man [00:19:43]:
That's right. Yeah.

Vision Battlesword [00:19:44]:
Interesting. And then what about ceremony that's not even spiritual? Can you. Can you have a ceremony that is. That is not inherently spiritual practice? Like, what about a graduation ceremony?

Mandarin Man [00:19:56]:
Oh, sure. Yeah, yeah. Or like the ribbon cutting of a new business. Yeah. I mean, I'm a bad man. Or man is a bad. You know. You know, if you ask Eric Fry, maybe you get a different answer.

Mandarin Man [00:20:07]:
But I think everything is spiritual on some level. Like, I just imbue life with a spiritual, sacred nature, and so. But the question was, can you have a ceremony that's not spiritual? Yeah, yeah.

Vision Battlesword [00:20:23]:
We just named a couple. Right. Ribbon cutting, graduation. There's a lot of things that we do that are referred to as a ceremony.

Mandarin Man [00:20:32]:
Yeah.

Vision Battlesword [00:20:32]:
But that don't seem to include any element of spirituality.

Mandarin Man [00:20:37]:
Right. Yeah. Well, now, see, now we're surfing the murky waters of language.

Vision Battlesword [00:20:43]:
Isn't that what we do?

Mandarin Man [00:20:44]:
That's what we do. Yeah. I'm a lady. Yeah. Because. Yeah. It's just so slippery. What we call things, you know, and the energy behind the words.

Vision Battlesword [00:20:58]:
That's more important to me.

Mandarin Man [00:20:59]:
Yeah, yeah.

Vision Battlesword [00:21:01]:
Maybe it is spiritual. Maybe there's a hidden spirituality, even in a ribbon cutting or graduation. Or maybe it's like what you were talking about with the difference between a service and a ceremony and things that we've talked about before. Like, do you remember that day that we created the phrase, let us not forget the richness in every ritual?

Mandarin Man [00:21:24]:
Yes.

Vision Battlesword [00:21:25]:
What we were talking about that day is how our rituals, sometimes the original meaning gets lost.

Mandarin Man [00:21:31]:
That's right.

Vision Battlesword [00:21:32]:
And we're just going through the motions of something. That's some traditional practice that gets passed down to us from generation to generation. We don't even know why we're doing it anymore. And something like a church service where the spirituality is divorced or disconnected maybe is a better way of saying it for certain people if they're going to church just to, let's say, fulfill an obligation or a sense of obligation or as a social activity or for whatever reasons they're doing it, where, okay, stand up, sit down, kneel, sing, say the words, or even at an AA meeting, same thing. You could go through all of those motions and not actually receive the nourishment or the transformation or awareness or expansion of your awareness that is available there. That would be losing the richness in the ritual, or that would be receiving a service without a ceremony. But maybe the reverse is true. Maybe there is richness in some of these rituals that we just have forgotten.

Vision Battlesword [00:22:45]:
Like, why do we go through a ribbon cutting or a christening of a boat? I imagine you like that one a lot.

Mandarin Man [00:22:54]:
Oh, you know, I love the high seas.

Vision Battlesword [00:22:56]:
Breaking the champagne over the bow. Or again, the graduation, receiving the diploma. Funny hat that you throw in the air. I don't even know why. Like, I would be curious to go and discover the historical roots of the meaning of some of these rituals, but certainly we're not thinking about it. Nobody's really paying attention to it. But what if there is something spiritual going on there?

Mandarin Man [00:23:22]:
Yeah.

Vision Battlesword [00:23:23]:
What if that is a true, proper ceremony? We've talked about? We were actually just talking about it a little bit before we started the sacred conversation about marriage.

Mandarin Man [00:23:34]:
Yeah.

Vision Battlesword [00:23:34]:
How much deep meaning, I feel has been kind of forgotten in our traditional marriage ceremony.

Mandarin Man [00:23:42]:
Yeah. Oh, well, it doesn't. I mean, if you can undo it with the stroke of a lawyer's pen, what does it really mean?

Vision Battlesword [00:23:50]:
Yeah.

Mandarin Man [00:23:50]:
You know, and again, I think what I like was coming up for me now is, like, that awareness component. Like, okay, we have gathered everyone we know and love to this thing to say, we are bonding ourselves to one another forever. I need your awareness to bear witness to this event, because later in life, I might need you to remind me, hey, buddy, you made a promise to this person, and I traveled 400 miles to see you make that promise. And so you better, you know. You know, that. That, I think, is a true component. And, you know, it's tough to, like, talk about these things without having a certain amount of judgment around them, you know, because you look at divorce rates, et cetera. And, yeah, we have, it's like, actually over and over.

Mandarin Man [00:24:47]:
Like, yeah, why do we throw the hats? You know, I think there's a lot of examples of rituals and ceremonies that we've lost the underpinning meaning, which is, I think, a real tragedy, you know, and I think that's what the meaning of this podcast is. I think in some parts, to get these, the truth back in the beauty of life and, you know, taking a day, you know, we do it in meditation. You want to take ten minutes or 20 minutes to like, just honor my own awareness at night and like, just, you know, analyze myself or whatever. There's tons of different types of meditations. And so to take a day to, hey, why do I live the other six days? Like this is, you know, let's reflect on that. You know, let's slow down and, and, yeah, so it's, it's important. And, and, yeah, I think the, as someone who is, you know, newly engaged and planning my wedding and getting very excited about it, like, I really like, you know, we're thinking, thinking through every component where we want to have it, who we want to be there, who do we want to officiate, what musicians do we want to play. Like, it's so important and beautiful.

Mandarin Man [00:26:04]:
And I think it's kind of sad that we've, one, diminished it to one day where there are a lot of cultures, they have a week of celebrations to bond these two people. They really want to bond them together. And two, that it's become such a commoditized thing. Like the, you know, wedding industrial complex is like massive and you only need to, like, get on the knot or some of these websites to see that. And so what's unfortunate is that there always seems to be the financial, you know, the ultimate church is the church of money that we all, I don't want to say worship, but, like play into or like, are a part of, you know, kind of like, like with the bucky's thing. Like, I didn't choose to be part of this ceremony. It's like, for better or worse, we all chose to be part of this money church. I mean, it says that on the money in God we trust.

Vision Battlesword [00:27:01]:
Yeah, I like all those little explorations and like you said, that's what we're doing. We're just trying to put the pieces together into the most complete truth that we have available.

Mandarin Man [00:27:13]:
I'll say one thing to come back to the church topic that I thought of earlier when you were speaking, is that. Yeah. I was dragged to church against my will, generally as a child, for many, many years, and there was nothing spiritual about it other than a few occasions where I've decided to give my life to Christ or felt compelled and moved by maybe a production of Easter Sunday production or some kind of event like that. And then only now in my adult life, since I've started going back to church, do I really, really, quote, unquote, get it or, like, feel it or, like, really feel. And I am wondering is, like, how much of this is, like, nostalgia for childhood gone, right, that I'm trying to come back and then how much of it is spirit? So a couple of things that play there. One is like, yeah, free will and choice is important to, you know, like, my father, who I love dearly. You know, they really tried to show us the christian way and how to be, you know, you tithe and, you know, do unto others and these sort of things, but. And so I had to go out, kind of become that prodigal son, which is, I'm sure I don't know if you're familiar with the story of the prodigal son.

Mandarin Man [00:28:30]:
Yeah, kind of lose my way, spend my inheritance, you know, explore atheism, explore hedonism, explore all the trappings of hedonism to only in the fullness of time, come back to the original faith that my parents brought me into. And now I truly appreciate it and enjoy it and invest in it. From an outsider's view, nothing's different except for my willingness to be a participant in it. So I think that's.

Vision Battlesword [00:29:06]:
Well, you were called to it.

Mandarin Man [00:29:07]:
Yeah. Yeah.

Vision Battlesword [00:29:09]:
And it seems. I mean, to me, it seems like, natural that we're not. If we're not ready for something, you know, if we're not at that part of our process, part of our unfolding, that we're even available for that kind of spiritual experience, then it's just gonna be empty.

Mandarin Man [00:29:29]:
Yeah. Yeah. Well, how much does a child who has very little trauma need it as an adult? We've got scars and scrapes and bruises from the road of life, and so, yeah, I need some spiritual guidance. I need mentorship. I need a weekly remembering of the sacred nature of life that you may not need so much as a child.

Vision Battlesword [00:29:50]:
Well, it's almost like children are born into a spiritual state, a state of. A state of natural spiritual communion, if you will. And then it's only over time that that gets beat out of us or that wears away or that, you know, lose our innocence as they say. Right, right.

Mandarin Man [00:30:10]:
So my question. So I have a question for you. What? As someone who didn't grow up in the church. Do you think there is something inborn in us that desires a relationship with God?

Vision Battlesword [00:30:36]:
Yes, I do. Yeah. Thank you for asking that question. And that will be a long and storied answer which we can explore here in a few different ways. But first, I think I just want to say my experience through life, even in times when I would have described myself as a, let's say, hardcore atheist, we'll just say, which was for much of my early adulthood, maybe mid teenage years to mid twenties, I would have described myself that way. I was very much into the new atheist authors like Sam Harris and Christopher Hitchens, Richard Dawkins and so forth. And even in those times, I have to admit I believed in something. I have to admit it's almost like the old saying, there's no atheists in the foxhole, right? There's no atheists on the plane with the burning engine.

Vision Battlesword [00:31:50]:
That's when you find out what you really believe deep down. And I have to admit I always secretly prayed. I always did. And maybe I would reframe it for myself or maybe I would rationalize it for myself, has a placebo effect or psychological self programming or even maybe in a later more sophisticated approach putting out consciousness vibrations into the quantum field or whatever scientific trappings we want to put around that, which I'm not saying that I don't believe in scientific trappings, and I quantum fields and all of that sort of stuff, I believe in that. I believe that's all part of this mystical, magical, or rather I guess I really should say mysterious is a better way, this mysterious universe that we find ourselves in and that we are part of. But for me, my spiritual awakening happened in my mid to late twenties when I had a very, very powerful experience with psilocybin mushrooms. That was what cracked me open initially, like it has for many people, plant medicine of some sort. If it's not psilocybin, maybe it's ayahuasca, maybe it's peyote, who knows? Or something else.

Vision Battlesword [00:33:18]:
And there's all sorts of different ways of reaching that same place, that spiritual, or maybe you call it psychedelic state, through meditation, through breath work, through experiences of profound natural beauty. There's all sorts of different ways that people get access to that. For me, that first experience that was so profound that I could no longer rationalize it, let's just say happened for me, you know, with that medicine when I just, I was in touch with. I was in contact with something that I could only perceive through a spiritual frame. And that really began my kind of long journey to church of sacred light.

Mandarin Man [00:34:08]:
Yeah. It makes me wonder like if God sits up or out or in and says, what weapon do I want to use on this guy?

Vision Battlesword [00:34:21]:
Or tool.

Mandarin Man [00:34:22]:
Tool, yeah. What tool do I need to use on this being to get him to remember who he really is and what he really is. Yeah.

Vision Battlesword [00:34:36]:
So. But I want to. I'll be happy to come back to that because obviously it can't. I mean, it's got to be something, part of something we talk about if we're going to have a discussion about church. But I want to come back to the kind of bigger picture around like. Cause that conversation was really interesting for me. I feel like we're really extracting some nuggets there of awareness around church and ceremony, service, ritual. What I wanted to ask you is sometimes a church is called a house of God.

Vision Battlesword [00:35:12]:
What do you think about that?

Mandarin Man [00:35:15]:
Well, he's got to live somewhere. A house of God. I don't have any strong opinions on it. It seems. I mean, there's an inherent arrogance in religion and that most of them say this is the way and so they all kind of have their own house of God, you know, but Christianity is the top of that list as far as I'm concerned. As far as arrogance and connection to a religion, but. Yeah, I don't know. I don't have a big.

Mandarin Man [00:35:57]:
Why do you ask? I don't have a big feeling about that.

Vision Battlesword [00:36:00]:
You know, I'm just still trying to get to a clear definition of what church is. I mean, I know what it is in the legal sense.

Mandarin Man [00:36:09]:
Right.

Vision Battlesword [00:36:10]:
But that's not really what I'm mainly interested in from a spiritual sense or just a sense of getting as close as possible to the truth.

Mandarin Man [00:36:19]:
Yeah.

Vision Battlesword [00:36:19]:
And so I'm just thinking of different ways that people refer to church.

Mandarin Man [00:36:23]:
I see.

Vision Battlesword [00:36:24]:
I've heard people say that nature is their church. What do you think about that?

Mandarin Man [00:36:31]:
Yeah, yeah, I love that. I'll say that some of my most, and I think many people's most profound moments in life is when they were in nature and somewhere maybe they've never been before. Right. Like a new or the first time they see the grand canyon or. Yeah, I mean, I love that. I think I. Another thing we haven't talked about that. I think is important to the conversation is prayer.

Mandarin Man [00:37:05]:
That's where church and the language meet and divination and incantation. And I would think maybe an even more important question is what is prayer? Because church, I view church as just the cauldron in which the alchemy happens. Is it a, you know, like here in your living room? Is it, you know, St. John's Cathedral? I can. I think it can be any of those, any of those things. There's like this also, like, yeah, you need to go to church or take you to church or, you know, that's kind of an idea. And so it seems to be kind of an instructive place where spiritual instruction happens. Like, I think a church is.

Mandarin Man [00:37:53]:
Church is like a spiritual school, you know, and maybe you don't necessarily know which lesson you're going to get, but you know, you need to be there. I think that's very similar to. You don't know what insights you're going to get in a psychedelic ceremony until you take the medicine. You know, we can have intentions and, you know, wishes and aspirations and such. But yeah, so that I think if, you know, that's part of the definition, too. It's like an academic, there's an academic component to a church. You know, we call it Sunday school, you know, so we can add that as like third or fourth definition.

Vision Battlesword [00:38:35]:
What about, what about like the role that it serves in a community? Like as a community center?

Mandarin Man [00:38:44]:
Yeah, that's interesting because what comes up for me now is like a lot of atheist or secular people will say, you know, we don't need these churches or we should tax the churches or what good are the churches when philanthropically they're the biggest arm we have in the United States is the gifts and giving of churches. You know, and I definitely will admit there is like a white savior. There's like the savior component in is and I'll get back to community, but like, is going down to. Out to Africa to come to Jesus, you know? Is that the best use of those funds?

Vision Battlesword [00:39:24]:
Well, that's more like. I'm almost a missionary.

Mandarin Man [00:39:26]:
Yeah, sure. But, yeah, I think the church has a really, really strong component of community. Like, you know, there's this idea of the third place. You heard this?

Vision Battlesword [00:39:40]:
No.

Mandarin Man [00:39:42]:
So in the, you know, the last century you had your job, which was not remote, you had your home, and then you had a third place. For some people that was the bar. For some people that was church. For some people that was the barber shop. For some people that may be the park, you know, and we've lost this third place, and a lot of people who work from home, they've lost second place, too, you know, and so that, I think, is a real good place for church, in whatever religious form, has an opportunity to come back into and really highly needed to come back into the community, you know, like, I. One reason I was interested in going back to church was one. It just was like, it was right down the street from my house. I was like, oh, that's interesting.

Mandarin Man [00:40:31]:
I heard about it in the sauna or something. I'll go check it out. You know, and I went on Easter last year, so it's almost been a year now since I've started going back. But, yeah, I was seeking more community in a structured and routine and what, I think positive way. And so, yeah, I think the church has always been a very strong part of community, and I think it's sorely needed, you know, in today's age and society.

Vision Battlesword [00:40:59]:
So is it important or necessary for a church to have a specific building that it performs its services or ceremonies or rituals or community gatherings in?

Mandarin Man [00:41:15]:
No, but it surely helps.

Vision Battlesword [00:41:16]:
Yeah.

Mandarin Man [00:41:17]:
Yeah. You have an address. You have a place you can find. You have a place that's out of the weather.

Vision Battlesword [00:41:23]:
Oh, and also, it just jogged my memory. A church is a sanctuary. Mmm. A church is.

Mandarin Man [00:41:32]:
Love that word.

Vision Battlesword [00:41:34]:
Like, do you remember the Highlander? The movie Highlander?

Mandarin Man [00:41:37]:
There can only be one.

Vision Battlesword [00:41:38]:
Yes, there can be only one. There could be only one, but also holy ground.

Mandarin Man [00:41:43]:
Holy ground.

Vision Battlesword [00:41:44]:
Holy ground.

Mandarin Man [00:41:45]:
Moses, they're not allowed shoes. You're standing on holy ground.

Vision Battlesword [00:41:48]:
Right. The apparently space aliens who for some reason come to planet Earth to have sword fight duels so that they can behead and then capture each other's power essence in the Highlander universe cannot fight on holy ground.

Mandarin Man [00:42:06]:
Right.

Vision Battlesword [00:42:06]:
That's one of the rules.

Mandarin Man [00:42:08]:
I love that.

Vision Battlesword [00:42:09]:
So if you can make it to a church, you're, like, on base. But, okay, all kidding aside, or, you know, fictional scenario aside, that's a real thing that. I mean, historically speaking, that's a tradition that has been respected and honored. I mean, even in wars. Right, right. Like, you know, we can come through, we can take ownership of this village, this city, this property, whatever, but we can't go in the church.

Mandarin Man [00:42:39]:
Right.

Vision Battlesword [00:42:39]:
That's holy ground.

Mandarin Man [00:42:41]:
Yeah. I love that. Hmm.

Vision Battlesword [00:42:43]:
Something interesting about that.

Mandarin Man [00:42:45]:
Yeah.

Vision Battlesword [00:42:45]:
And that's something. There's something that's a feature of church that isn't ephemeral, that isn't two or more people gathered here. There anywhere that's a specific place that's designated sacred.

Mandarin Man [00:43:00]:
Yeah, it's interesting. It's quite beautiful. And to play devil's advocate, not that he needs any advocates, but when you look at the big three, Islam, Judaism, Christianity, Hinduism, you know, it's funny that we there are so, like, I mean, I'm curious, and I'm sure we could find this statistic, like, how many people on the planet, of the 8 billion people call themselves something more than half, probably a lot more than half.

Vision Battlesword [00:43:31]:
By call themselves something, you mean identify with an organized religion, correct.

Mandarin Man [00:43:34]:
Yeah. How many do you think? What percentage?

Vision Battlesword [00:43:37]:
Oh, my goodness. Oh, I'd say at least 90.

Mandarin Man [00:43:41]:
Okay. Yeah.

Vision Battlesword [00:43:42]:
So, I mean, I think there's very, very, very few self described atheists on planet Earth. Yeah, it just seems like it to us, because.

Mandarin Man [00:43:53]:
Austin. Whatever. Yeah. So the question, like I said, to play devil's advocate, the question is, or have we been evolutionarily primed? Because those were the people who survived, the people who believed in a spirit and honored the gods. That's who survived. And we have these mono. These, like, you know, monolithic, massive organizations. Now, from that, you know, we divide time by the birth and the death of Christ.

Mandarin Man [00:44:30]:
Right. The birth and death, you know, in. And so it's a funny question, and I would actually say there's a little, you know, Carl Jung, who I love, he did research on this, and he tried to prove the existence of God, and he never could obviously, quite do that. But he did notice his patients, those who believed in a God didn't matter which ones got better faster. And I. So it's almost as if either we were designed this way by a creator, or if you're a big bang believer in evolution, we evolved for some reason to believe in a higher spirit. So, of course we're going to build churches, and of course we're going to honor the church in a time of war. It's so deep to who we are, and I think that would be.

Mandarin Man [00:45:26]:
That is what I think we all need is some looseness, you know? I mean, this is the way. And I don't really care who you pray to or what you pray to, but I think you'll be happier if you pray to something. And I do feel like we're in church, but I also felt that way when I was drinking six days a week, you know, honoring the gods of agave with the mezcal. Like, I felt like we were doing something special because it's almost an honoring of the present moment. You know, you're cutting out space and time for a ceremony in this sanctuary to honor something. And in the end, that's really just your life or life itself that we are honoring. And you can do that with the beer. You can do that with, you know, conversation.

Mandarin Man [00:46:24]:
Like, one of my, one of the mandarin man's favorite quotes that he was given in a meditation at some point was conversation is the altar upon which we sacrifice the present moment.

Vision Battlesword [00:46:40]:
Wow.

Mandarin Man [00:46:41]:
Yeah, it's one of my favorites.

Vision Battlesword [00:46:43]:
Who said that?

Mandarin Man [00:46:44]:
Mandarin man.

Vision Battlesword [00:46:45]:
Wow. Smart dude.

Mandarin Man [00:46:47]:
Yeah, he eats a lot of fruit.

Vision Battlesword [00:46:48]:
Does he have, like, a book of quotes published that I could read?

Mandarin Man [00:46:53]:
I've got a Google Doc.

Vision Battlesword [00:46:56]:
Nice.

Mandarin Man [00:46:58]:
It's just so important. And that's the prayer. Like, we think that, oh, we bow our heads at the end of the day before dinner, but I would argue that we're constantly praying to. Every time you open your mouth, you're invoking the word. And that's, you know, the word was. The word was God. You know, that's genesis. That's as old as it gets in the christian religion, in that lineage anyhow, you know, and how did God create the planet? He spoke it into existence then he created us in his image.

Mandarin Man [00:47:32]:
So can't we also speak things into existence? You know, abracadabra. That's what that means. As I say, it becomes. And that's another. Could I wish something for us all? It's like we appreciate the power of the word.

Vision Battlesword [00:47:51]:
It's so interesting that you brought that up and said exactly what you just said, because it dovetails perfectly from a conversation I had with angel on manifestation. And she brought up the exact same idea of each word being an invocation, using that specific word in both the spiritual and magical sense. And I love this idea. I'm going to start replacing aho at the end of my prayers with abracadabra.

Mandarin Man [00:48:22]:
Abracadabra.

Vision Battlesword [00:48:23]:
I feel like I love that. Yeah, that's sacred light.

Mandarin Man [00:48:26]:
Yes, abracadabra.

Vision Battlesword [00:48:27]:
That feels good. But another thing that was coming up for me is, as you were talking, is just thinking about how religion is just absolutely unavoidable. It's just unavoidable. Even the new atheists that try to twist themselves into knots, and like I say, I counted myself as one of them for maybe ten years. But even as much as you try to twist yourself into knots, bend over backwards, you know, doing the I'm not spiritual limbo. You just can't. You're always involved in a ceremony, you're always involved in a ritual, whether that's the church of science, you know, where, you know, you're worshiping evidence or energy or the laws of the universe or whatever that may be. Or like you said, the church of Joe's pub.

Mandarin Man [00:49:25]:
Yeah.

Vision Battlesword [00:49:25]:
You know, we're always enacting. The point is whether, whether there's a spiritual element or a sincere or intentional spiritual element to it or not, we almost can't help ourselves from invoking and practicing the trappings of religious practice.

Mandarin Man [00:49:43]:
And we're back at Bucky's.

Vision Battlesword [00:49:45]:
Exactly.

Mandarin Man [00:49:45]:
Yeah, I like that. It's unavoidable.

Vision Battlesword [00:49:48]:
It's unavoidable. It's almost like we're wired for it. You know, it's, it's like, it's like baked in to our source code so deep that it just expresses itself.

Mandarin Man [00:49:59]:
Yeah.

Vision Battlesword [00:50:00]:
In some way.

Mandarin Man [00:50:01]:
Yeah.

Vision Battlesword [00:50:02]:
You always are gonna find something to pray to. You're gonna find something to worship. Mm hmm. You're gonna find some sacrament to take. Like you said, the football game.

Mandarin Man [00:50:11]:
Yeah.

Vision Battlesword [00:50:12]:
The AA meeting. The list goes on and on and on. But, you know, the question is not, do you have church in your life? The question is just what church are you in at any given time?

Mandarin Man [00:50:22]:
Who are you tithing to?

Vision Battlesword [00:50:23]:
Yeah.

Mandarin Man [00:50:23]:
Yeah.

Vision Battlesword [00:50:24]:
It's fascinating, but I think that it can also be true that our religious practice, let's say, can be very empty of true spirituality and true community.

Mandarin Man [00:50:39]:
Yeah.

Vision Battlesword [00:50:39]:
And it seems to me that that's the function that's, again, talking about the richness in the ritual and how we throw the cap in the air at graduation, and we have no idea what the symbol, what that symbol even means, or what it is that we're celebrating precisely, or basically, we're going through motions that we don't really understand in a perfunctory way, mechanically. The same can be true of our religious practice or our pseudo religious practice, which it seems to me those institutions and instruments did serve a purpose for us in society. They developed for a reason. It's almost like an appendix or a tailbone.

Mandarin Man [00:51:25]:
Right.

Vision Battlesword [00:51:26]:
It's not just a useless organ. It was there for a reason at some point, and it may or may not still serve a function that we've just forgotten or that we haven't rediscovered yet. But it seems to me that there's something really important that we revealed around a church as a designated sacred site. It's a special, it's holy ground, it's a place, it's a specific place where we can go to be safe, to find sanctuary, to receive charity, to receive service, to gather in community, to receive education, all of these different things that we've brought up that the physical place of a church, like, what role that actually serves in our society. But then additionally, it is an organization. It is both a house of worship and a way of organizing to come together for spiritual practice, which serves a purpose for us as social animals and spiritual animals, spiritual beings, how we focus our intentions, how we pool our collective energy and our collective consciousness to increase the potency of that connection source.

Mandarin Man [00:52:45]:
Yeah. Yeah. And I think for a lot of people, including myself, it's to help give life meaning. You know, you said something that I can't just ignored, that I thought of worship. You know where I believe that word came from? The warships. Right? Because we get in the war. Get in the ships of war to fight for our gods. And so that's the power of worship.

Mandarin Man [00:53:18]:
You know, the gospel is the godspell, right? Go tell the godspell. And the word is the spell. And so. And then when you get. And so how do we. Yeah, it's kind of. It's kind of like the religions and the churches and the ceremonies. It's to optimize or expediate our individual power in a collective way, because one voice is strong, but 100 voices are stronger.

Mandarin Man [00:53:55]:
And then you vibrate those voices in the mode of a song even stronger. And that's what the real church, like when I. Like, I went back to my church. I went back to church just out of guilt almost. I was like, you know, my mom wouldn't be happy if I. She knew I never went to church. And, you know, and this place is right here, so I'll go. But I was served emotionally, because when you start singing those songs and you hear the message, you're moved.

Mandarin Man [00:54:25]:
You're like, mmm. You know, you hear something that just hits your. Hits your heart, and you're like, mmm, man, that's good. I needed that spell. I needed that. Those magic words, in that order. I needed to hear that, because now I'm richer and I have a better purchase on my own life. And that's the magic of service or ceremony or preaching, like, good preaching, you know, that's the magic of prayer is.

Mandarin Man [00:54:56]:
And I think we've lost that. And that emotion, like, moves you to act. And so I think they found they, you know, early on when language. I mean, God, if we could suss this out, it'd be great. If we could. If we were there, we could have seen it. Like, they figured out that these sounds have power. Like, when I say this, it means that.

Mandarin Man [00:55:17]:
And then you go and get that. And so there it's somewhere along the way, we lost that connection to spirit. And so in some ways, unless you're mute, like you're a spiritual being, like you're invoking the word all the time, you know, just in your daily life. And so the way in which we speak and whether it has a positive slant or a negative slant, it's very important, like, our self speak and how we speak to others and. Yeah, that's all. That's all church, you know? And that's like, man, like, you know, when Kevin gives the Arcanas, that's your direct message from spirit to you. And I. Yeah.

Mandarin Man [00:56:07]:
I mean, every time I get moved to close to tears and I'm not a very good crier, he'll get me in ceremony with that word. That's why I have a dream so powerful, because Martin Luther King Junior could speak with the power. It's a mix of tone and pitch. It's like the content has to be good, but the way in which you say it has to match the quality of the content. And.

Vision Battlesword [00:56:43]:
It'S an incantation.

Mandarin Man [00:56:45]:
Yeah. Incanto to sing. To sing. Yeah. Yeah. So the whole thing's just real beautiful. Really lights me up.

Vision Battlesword [00:56:55]:
Yeah. You're just kind of highlighting for me how important and powerful the connection between religion, spirituality and music and ceremony and church. Like. Yeah. The element of music is so fundamental to church, I think.

Mandarin Man [00:57:18]:
Yeah. Well, so fundamental to life here on planet Earth. Like I said. Said this many times, but it's, you know, everything here vibrates, right? Like, if you look at. Look at physics, like this is a couch vibrating as a couch, right? Like this is vibrating as a table. And then, you know, and so on this earth shaped vibration cake, music is the icing because it's vibrations for vibrations sake, right? We're using the medium of the art of life on top of itself. It's like sheer power. You know, they think.

Mandarin Man [00:58:00]:
You know, they think some of these, like, have you seen those, like, vibrate, those sonic machines where they can, like, move, like, lift things, they can suspend. There's, like, rocks, like, suspended in space.

Vision Battlesword [00:58:15]:
Really?

Mandarin Man [00:58:15]:
Yeah, they think that's how they make the pyramid. They made the pyramids. Maybe.

Vision Battlesword [00:58:19]:
That's what I've heard, but I didn't know we had a machine that could do it now.

Mandarin Man [00:58:22]:
Yeah, well, it could have been AI and I got duped, but who knows? But, I mean, if nothing else, you've seen the sand.

Vision Battlesword [00:58:28]:
Yeah.

Mandarin Man [00:58:28]:
On the vibration plate.

Vision Battlesword [00:58:29]:
Right, of course.

Mandarin Man [00:58:30]:
And, you know, it's no mystery to me that. Oh, you know, meditation like, you know, the monks did it. The christian monks did it.

Vision Battlesword [00:58:42]:
It's totally believable to me. That frequency resonance, vibration, like that can levitate objects. It's totally believable to me.

Mandarin Man [00:58:52]:
Well, and there's a real cool association between the language and auditory appreciation and connection to the present moment because we call it hear, right? We hear with our ear. And where do we hear? Right here. It's localized. And so, yeah, that bridge between the language and church and emotional movement. Like, you hear the. And that's why back to Christmas. And we all love those songs. So, I mean, some people hate them, but whether it's like handle Messiah or I saw momma kissing Santa Claus, like, because we.

Mandarin Man [00:59:41]:
Because they're special in that we only use them once a year. Right. And then we have all those moments of childhood, you know, anxiety before Christmas Eve or whatever, you know, associated with them. So they're very, very, very powerful.

Vision Battlesword [00:59:58]:
Yeah. All of those associations. Like, there's so many things, especially as the so called Christmas season has been expanded, expanded and expanded, you know, but there's so many different associations that you now have that they. That's created, intentionally created as they pump the modern hymns of the Church of Santa.

Mandarin Man [01:00:22]:
Modern hymn.

Vision Battlesword [01:00:23]:
These are the hymns of the Church of Santa. The Church of Santa, of course, is every store, every retail outlet, every department store, every mall that you go into. This now becomes holy ground for these designated months. At this point or weeks of the year. This is now holy ground. We denote that the ritual has begun because the hymns will be repeated on repeat over and over again until they get hopelessly stuck in your head as earworms. And then you form all of the associations to the shopping, to the chocolate, the searching, to the candy, to the. To the.

Vision Battlesword [01:01:06]:
To the. Yeah. All of the different kinds of food that are the special seasonal foods and, ooh, the special seasonal liquors we have.

Mandarin Man [01:01:13]:
Oh, of course.

Vision Battlesword [01:01:14]:
Can't forget about those. And, yeah, we just. We just have got to have it. We've got to have our religion.

Mandarin Man [01:01:22]:
Yeah.

Vision Battlesword [01:01:23]:
You know, even.

Mandarin Man [01:01:24]:
Don't fight it. Quit fighting it.

Vision Battlesword [01:01:28]:
Yeah, that's interesting. Let's see. Oh, so I would like to flesh this out a little bit. The Church of Bucky's.

Mandarin Man [01:01:39]:
Okay, what is it?

Vision Battlesword [01:01:42]:
What is the belief system of the Church of Bucky's? What are the ceremonies? What are the rituals?

Mandarin Man [01:01:47]:
I don't know, man. I mean.

Vision Battlesword [01:01:49]:
All right, well, I'll play along. I'll tell you.

Mandarin Man [01:01:51]:
Yeah, please go ahead. Sure.

Vision Battlesword [01:01:53]:
All right. Well, it absolutely has to do with clean bathrooms. Yeah, that's part of our worship. Our worship practice has to do with cleanliness. Is very close to godliness.

Mandarin Man [01:02:03]:
Yep.

Vision Battlesword [01:02:04]:
Go ahead.

Mandarin Man [01:02:04]:
I've got one availability. Come. We have how many pumps? Yes, there is room for you at the Church of Bucky's.

Vision Battlesword [01:02:15]:
There you go.

Mandarin Man [01:02:15]:
Yeah.

Vision Battlesword [01:02:16]:
Now you're getting into it.

Mandarin Man [01:02:17]:
Yeah.

Vision Battlesword [01:02:18]:
Right. Of course. We've got the centerpiece of the house of God. The central altar is, of course, the barbecue pit.

Mandarin Man [01:02:27]:
That's right.

Vision Battlesword [01:02:28]:
This is where we perform the daily, even hourly sacrifices.

Mandarin Man [01:02:32]:
Fresh brisket on the floor.

Vision Battlesword [01:02:35]:
Fresh brisket on the floor.

Mandarin Man [01:02:37]:
Yeah, that's right.

Vision Battlesword [01:02:38]:
Yes. So we welcome everyone in to receive the sacrifice as well as the.

Mandarin Man [01:02:44]:
The feast for weary travelers.

Vision Battlesword [01:02:46]:
Yes.

Mandarin Man [01:02:47]:
Yeah.

Vision Battlesword [01:02:48]:
Farnyan, we've got a patron or maybe an idol. I don't know what you want to think about Bucky the beaver.

Mandarin Man [01:02:56]:
The beaver.

Vision Battlesword [01:02:57]:
Bucky the beaver is, you know, not only a logo, there's giant bronze. Bronze looking statues.

Mandarin Man [01:03:07]:
Yeah. Well, they have a guy in a suit inside who you take pictures with.

Vision Battlesword [01:03:11]:
Yeah. But usually only on Christmas or no holidays.

Mandarin Man [01:03:17]:
No, I think he's there, like, every Saturday.

Vision Battlesword [01:03:19]:
Oh, really?

Mandarin Man [01:03:20]:
I mean, I saw him in Bastrop. He was? Yeah.

Vision Battlesword [01:03:22]:
Are you sure it wasn't a holiday weekend?

Mandarin Man [01:03:26]:
It might have been. I don't recall.

Vision Battlesword [01:03:28]:
Well, if they're doing it every Saturday. Church.

Mandarin Man [01:03:32]:
That's right. We're back at the Sabbath.

Vision Battlesword [01:03:35]:
Saturday service.

Mandarin Man [01:03:36]:
Yeah.

Vision Battlesword [01:03:38]:
Something about fudge.

Mandarin Man [01:03:40]:
Well, and they have. Yeah, they have the fudge bar, too. That's on the back. That there is represented duality. Right. The savory of the meat and the sweet of the chocolate.

Vision Battlesword [01:03:50]:
There you go.

Mandarin Man [01:03:51]:
You know, and they have. You know what the nuggets are, I think they're called. I never actually.

Vision Battlesword [01:03:56]:
Beaver nuggets.

Mandarin Man [01:03:56]:
Beaver nuggets, right. Okay. They have scented candle. Beaver nuggethe. Who would want such a thing? Just to call you back in. Light that candle. You know I need some beaver nuggets.

Vision Battlesword [01:04:11]:
Right.

Mandarin Man [01:04:11]:
Run over to the bucky candle. Yeah. What I'll say about this is I kind of, I don't know, scoffed. I just thought it was kind of silly, you know? But I'm a good american consumer, so I have to admit that what I kind of begrudgingly attended at first became a ritual.

Vision Battlesword [01:04:34]:
Yeah.

Mandarin Man [01:04:35]:
And I would go every day.

Vision Battlesword [01:04:36]:
Me too. Oh, every day.

Mandarin Man [01:04:37]:
Like, well, when I was on this project and bass drop. Like, I kind of finished the day there. You know, let's go buy buckies.

Vision Battlesword [01:04:43]:
Yeah.

Mandarin Man [01:04:44]:
You know, and look and, like. Like, learn to love it. You know? Like, I'm a fan now. Yeah, sure.

Vision Battlesword [01:04:50]:
It absolutely became a ritual for me as well, and I think many other people, but, yeah. So what do we got? We got candles.

Mandarin Man [01:04:56]:
Like candles, sacred fire.

Vision Battlesword [01:04:58]:
There's also something about the fact that you can get every single thing you could possibly need and many, many things you don't need there. Like there's. There's something strangely, there's something. There's. There's something core to the religion of Buc ees that this gas station convenience store is so huge and massive, you can pretty much furnish a home. I mean, you can buy a full size smoker. Yeah, you can buy. Go ahead.

Mandarin Man [01:05:33]:
So that there's something interesting in that, that you're kind of implying that a lot of this is useless or superfluous.

Vision Battlesword [01:05:43]:
When there are some things that are superfluous, but there's also things that are very useful.

Mandarin Man [01:05:48]:
Oh, gasoline. Very useful. Of course, you know the reason that thing exists. Gas station first, you know, but trucks, 18 wheelers, not allowed.

Vision Battlesword [01:06:00]:
Correct.

Mandarin Man [01:06:01]:
Which is an essential part of the US economy.

Vision Battlesword [01:06:04]:
And so it's like, well, no, they are allowed. They just have a different entrance.

Mandarin Man [01:06:09]:
Oh, is that right?

Vision Battlesword [01:06:10]:
Yeah. Which is, again, another reason why Bucky's is so successful and people like it so much is because they think about the customer experience. You know what I mean?

Mandarin Man [01:06:21]:
Right.

Vision Battlesword [01:06:21]:
Because like, they're so. They're so focused on. On creating this amazing gas station experience. They've created a completely separate island for.

Mandarin Man [01:06:32]:
Trucks for 18 wheelers.

Vision Battlesword [01:06:34]:
Yes, yes. And there's. There's signage that directs them. Don't come in.

Mandarin Man [01:06:38]:
Right.

Vision Battlesword [01:06:39]:
The consumer side. You guys come over here on the truck stop side and don't create congestion or inconvenience for anyone. Yeah, but they're not inherently a truck stop in the same way that, like, loves.

Mandarin Man [01:06:51]:
Correct.

Vision Battlesword [01:06:51]:
Or pilot is where they're. I don't recall there being like showers. They don't come on over the intercom. Like number 42, your stall is ready. It's not a truck stop like that. But you can stop your truck there.

Mandarin Man [01:07:03]:
Right. Okay. Okay.

Vision Battlesword [01:07:04]:
But the ritual piece. I remember when I first moved to Texas, discovering Bucky's. And this is all, I think this is also part of the church, part of the religion. I discovered Buckees because I moved to Austin. And then I had reason to go on a business trip to Houston. So I was driving to Houston one time. I was going back and forth to Houston pretty regularly there for a little while because there's a very large Hewlett Packard campus in Houston. And also I would have clients there sometimes.

Vision Battlesword [01:07:36]:
So I'd make that trip pretty regularly. The first time I did, I, like many other people, my first introduction to Bucky's was the billboards. Right, right, the billboards. So I see this billboard, you know, that has some kind of quip. I don't remember what the first one I saw was, but it's got some kind of quippy little turn play on words. And, you know, it says whatever it says, like, clean bathrooms are right around the corner. And then it says, bucky's, 146 miles. I'm like, they're advertising what is Bucky's? And it's 146 miles away.

Vision Battlesword [01:08:14]:
And then it's almost like Buc ee's is clearly a modern Burma shave campaign. Okay? So in the early to mid 20th century, there was a company called Burma shave that made shaving cream and shaving products.

Mandarin Man [01:08:30]:
Okay.

Vision Battlesword [01:08:31]:
And one of their kind of marketing strategies was putting signs on the roadside in, like, long stretches of highway where you've got nothing better to do and, you know, then look at a sign, and they would put, what? Burma. The Burma shave real estate. They would put a sequence of signs that would create, as you passed it at high speed, it would kind of create almost like a little slightly animated effect with different words that would create a little joke.

Mandarin Man [01:09:03]:
Right, okay.

Vision Battlesword [01:09:04]:
And it would be like a rhyming, almost like a limerick.

Mandarin Man [01:09:06]:
Okay.

Vision Battlesword [01:09:07]:
I can't remember, unfortunately, my dad used to say him to me, oh, funny. But I can't remember anything right off the top of my head. But it would always end with, use Burma shave or choose Burma shave or whatever. So it'd be like, you know, something funny. Use Burma shave.

Mandarin Man [01:09:24]:
Right, right.

Vision Battlesword [01:09:25]:
So Bucky's, the, Bucky's billboards are like that because at a much, much greater, like, relative distance, you know, instead of being 20 signs within a mile, they're spaced out, like, at hundreds of miles.

Mandarin Man [01:09:39]:
Right, right.

Vision Battlesword [01:09:40]:
But they draw you in.

Mandarin Man [01:09:42]:
They draw you in like missionaries.

Vision Battlesword [01:09:44]:
Yes, yes. Even from this huge area of hundreds of miles away, like, you know, there's a sign that says clean bathrooms coming up. You can hold it.

Mandarin Man [01:09:56]:
Yeah. You know, what's coming up for me now is like, back to the Highlander. There can only be one, like, we want, we demand the best gas station.

Vision Battlesword [01:10:07]:
That's it. No, no. Yes, absolutely. And the signs instruct you not to go anywhere else, but you can wait.

Mandarin Man [01:10:17]:
Yes.

Vision Battlesword [01:10:18]:
We're only 147 miles away. Plan your trip so that, like. And I would actually do this. I would plan my trip to make sure that I needed gas or that I didn't need gas before I was.

Mandarin Man [01:10:32]:
Going to get to the bandwagon effect, too. It's like, everybody wants this thing. I want this thing. Yeah, I'll be part of it. I should not be left out.

Vision Battlesword [01:10:40]:
Yeah. And then they entice you with the fudge and with the jerky and with the brisket and the bathrooms of. And everything else, and they create this mystical. There's a mystery. Cause that was my first, you know, my first introduction to Buc ee's was like, what the hell is this place?

Mandarin Man [01:11:01]:
Right, right. Yeah.

Vision Battlesword [01:11:02]:
You know, and I had to find out. I'm like, okay, I gotta go there. It's almost like the roadside attraction at a certain point where they hook you with, like, what is the. What's the one in West Texas when you're headed out towards El Paso on the border?

Mandarin Man [01:11:16]:
No, sounds border.

Vision Battlesword [01:11:18]:
No, there's one that's called the thing.

Mandarin Man [01:11:20]:
The thing.

Vision Battlesword [01:11:21]:
I think. I think it's called the thing.

Mandarin Man [01:11:24]:
It's a gas station.

Vision Battlesword [01:11:25]:
No, no, no. It's. It's. It's a mystery. Oh, you have to go there. You have to go there and pay $5 to find out what the thing.

Mandarin Man [01:11:31]:
I love this.

Vision Battlesword [01:11:33]:
Yeah.

Mandarin Man [01:11:33]:
Oh, I gotta find that.

Vision Battlesword [01:11:34]:
But Bucky's was kind of like that because I was like, well, I've got. I've got to find out.

Mandarin Man [01:11:38]:
Yeah.

Vision Battlesword [01:11:38]:
You know, I certainly can wait 147 miles to get gas and go to the bathroom, and I'm gonna find out what this place is all about. And then, of course, when I got there, like, cue the holy music. I was like, oh, my goodness, this place is awesome. You know, it's like, got everything I could possibly need. And this jerky is fantastic.

Mandarin Man [01:11:59]:
Yeah, I mean, they have Rice Krispie treats with fruity pebbles in it.

Vision Battlesword [01:12:05]:
Right?

Mandarin Man [01:12:05]:
Like, awesome. You know, and just. Yeah.

Vision Battlesword [01:12:08]:
Anything they've got home canned. Canned goods in mason jars, like pickled quail.

Mandarin Man [01:12:13]:
Pickled by who?

Vision Battlesword [01:12:15]:
Probably in a factory somewhere. I'm guessing they've got, like, authentic looking mason jars of pickled quail eggs and okra and carrots and cucumbers and things like that. Anyway, that was my introduction to the church of Bucky's, and I was a convert immediately. I converted. I got on my knees, you know, I bought the fudge.

Mandarin Man [01:12:37]:
And so as I build my church of fruit and. Or, you know, whatever else in sacred light, like, what are the knowledge or the wisdom we can distill from the church of Bucky's clean bathroom?

Vision Battlesword [01:12:51]:
Like, make sure the bathrooms are clean. That's the first piece that's good. Yeah, no, that's. I love that idea or that question. And, well, there's a few things about Bucky's that, it seems to me, make it more than that, make it a true church, not a false church in the sense of, it's not just, to me, this is my opinion. But it's not just a savvy commercial enterprise. It's not just a, you know, really good idea with a very, very clever marketing gimmick around it that actually, you know, produces a good experience and has good prices and good products. And in other words, it's not just purely like a successful business that has these kind of, like, little trappings of the kind of things that we've identified are oriented around religious practice.

Vision Battlesword [01:13:50]:
I really think that there's a spirit to it. And there's another word that I was going to get into pretty soon, which is culture. There's a cultural aspect to it that really feels sincere to me. It feels like whoever created that and is in leadership in that organization, the sincerity of a mission. And, yeah, you could call it like a nakedly capitalist mission in a sort of way, but the mission really is to serve the community. Yeah, it feels like, and especially the, the one, one piece of that that really, like, highlights that for me is their compensation plan for their employees. You know what I'm talking about?

Mandarin Man [01:14:36]:
Yeah, yeah. They have it posted.

Vision Battlesword [01:14:38]:
Yeah.

Mandarin Man [01:14:39]:
As you walk in, and it's like store managers, 200k plus.

Vision Battlesword [01:14:44]:
Yeah, it's a thing. It's a gas station.

Mandarin Man [01:14:47]:
Yeah.

Vision Battlesword [01:14:47]:
That you can work at as an entry level associate and make a living wage.

Mandarin Man [01:14:51]:
Yeah.

Vision Battlesword [01:14:52]:
Like a truly, like a, like a truly living wage.

Mandarin Man [01:14:54]:
And they seem happy, the people that work there, you know, and there's a. A ton of them.

Vision Battlesword [01:14:58]:
Exactly. It's like a good job.

Mandarin Man [01:15:00]:
Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Vision Battlesword [01:15:02]:
It's really interesting.

Mandarin Man [01:15:03]:
And another thing, you know, it's both. Right. Like, is the product the best? Yes. Is. And they've really taken something that's kind of, you know, gas stations are like where you get lotto tickets and cigarettes and, like, you just. You have to stop, you know? And I think that's an interesting thing. I mean, this is tangential, but, like, with Tesla and the electric cars, like, there's an affluence to that experience where I don't have to go to a gas station. You know, I charge here.

Mandarin Man [01:15:35]:
I charge at my home. I can stay away from those, like, dirty places where there's, like, lewd things on the. Written on the bathroom wall and, like, bubblegum all over the floor. Or whatever. But so there's the experience of it being like the best user experience. And then when you compound that with like. But I guess the question is, can you have that without having the best wages? And I don't know that you can. But getting back to the idea of church and really, I mean, this is like hierarchy 101.

Mandarin Man [01:16:13]:
It's like we want a King Buc ee's is king gas station, Amazon is king e commerce. Right? Like apple is king phone. You would argue with that. But you know, like. And so we kind of, and it's like, I mean, it seems very fundamental to the human experience that we want this. Like there's safety in knowing that. I go to Bucky's, I get satisfied. You know, I click Amazon.

Mandarin Man [01:16:47]:
The thing will be here in 6 hours or whatever tomorrow, you know, and, you know, you could argue, is that the best for our society or not? You know, I don't know. I don't know. Do we go to, do we fast forward 100 years in every gas station on the planet? Sabucky's? I don't know.

Vision Battlesword [01:17:05]:
Maybe, you know, that's when, that's when the organized religion, you know, goes over the, over the peak and goes into their downfall.

Mandarin Man [01:17:17]:
Right.

Vision Battlesword [01:17:17]:
You know, when it gets too big, when it, when it actually does become a monopoly or when it, or when, or when the culture changes and it becomes messianic or not messianic. Excuse me. When it becomes missionary or crusading in the sense of wanting to be only wanted. Wanting to be the only one.

Mandarin Man [01:17:37]:
Right, right.

Vision Battlesword [01:17:38]:
You know, like in the sense of Bucky's is not like that. It's not aggressive like that. It's like, yeah, we want to be the only place that you stop for gas and everything else you need. But the way we're going to do that is just by being fucking awesome.

Mandarin Man [01:17:55]:
Right.

Vision Battlesword [01:17:55]:
You know?

Mandarin Man [01:17:55]:
Yeah. Yeah. How many Bucky's pairs of underwear do you own?

Vision Battlesword [01:18:01]:
I only own one. Do you really at this particular moment? But that comes back to the ritual. I'd never, I never actually finished myself story.

Mandarin Man [01:18:08]:
Oh, sorry.

Vision Battlesword [01:18:09]:
Because part of my ritual, it's not your fault I didn't finish it, but part of my ritual, when I was going back and forth to Houston, this was before they built some of the ones on I 35 going north to Dallas. I would stop, generally I would stop at the bucky's in Luling, which I think might be the original, but I'm not 100% sure. And then they built the one in Bastrop, which is much bigger, but I I would always, always, always. It was my ritual. Even if I didn't need gas, even if I didn't need anything at all, anything else at all, I would always stop, both coming and going. I would always make a stop at Bucky's to get a souvenir. What I was.

Mandarin Man [01:18:52]:
Sacrament.

Vision Battlesword [01:18:53]:
A sacrament. Wow. Yeah. I had to make an offer to.

Mandarin Man [01:18:57]:
Give to who or just to keep.

Vision Battlesword [01:18:59]:
As a kid, sometimes I would give them his gifts, but sometimes I would just. I just liked to collect Buc ee's memorabilia. Like, I had to have a buc ee's shot glass. I had to have a buc ee's coffee cup. I still have my pair of Bucky's underwear, but I only wear those for special occasions.

Mandarin Man [01:19:18]:
I dare not ask what those occasions are.

Vision Battlesword [01:19:20]:
I bought Buc ee's pajamas for somebody. You know, I could get a bucky's towel. Like there's. Well, I mean, it's endless.

Mandarin Man [01:19:27]:
Yeah.

Vision Battlesword [01:19:28]:
You know, there weren't enough trips to Houston in the universe for me to run out of souvenirs to get Bucky.

Mandarin Man [01:19:33]:
Right.

Vision Battlesword [01:19:34]:
But, yeah. Isn't that interesting that I really did make an offering? It was a religion. It is a religion to me in that way.

Mandarin Man [01:19:41]:
Yeah. Yeah, it is. And in lieu of what was historically religion in this country, I think we've moved towards a secular way. But that desire in us to attend the church is still there.

Vision Battlesword [01:19:58]:
Yes.

Mandarin Man [01:19:59]:
Yeah.

Vision Battlesword [01:20:00]:
Yeah.

Mandarin Man [01:20:00]:
And so, yeah. How do we capitalize on that?

Vision Battlesword [01:20:02]:
Well, it's funny you use that word, because that's kind of exactly what seems to be happening is. Right. That instinct in us is getting capitalized.

Mandarin Man [01:20:11]:
Yeah. Yeah.

Vision Battlesword [01:20:12]:
Through sports, through brand loyalty, through, you know, all of these different ways that we've been mentioning.

Mandarin Man [01:20:20]:
Do you think people would meet that with resistance? Oh, my football team, it's not like a church, just football. You know, my, you know, Taylor Swift, she's not my idol. She's not my God or whatever. You know, I don't know.

Vision Battlesword [01:20:37]:
Like, I think some people would probably acknowledge it openly, and I think some people would be offended.

Mandarin Man [01:20:44]:
Yeah.

Vision Battlesword [01:20:45]:
And probably everything in between.

Mandarin Man [01:20:46]:
Yeah.

Vision Battlesword [01:20:47]:
But you remind me, though, there's some sports teams and there's some sports cities that are a lot more religious than others in that way. But I remember in Boston, I used to work for a company that was based in southern New Hampshire, very near Boston. And I spent a lot of time up in New England. And I went to a Patriots football game one time as a work function, as a business function. And I remember crossing through the parking lot where I parked my car on my way in to, you know, to the stadium to go to the loge that I was going to be watching a game from. And I remember passing by this tailgating party, you know, a group of people tailgating. And there was somebody. It was like, this group of people all gathered around this one, like, larger vehicle that someone had even, like, kind of build a platform on top of.

Vision Battlesword [01:21:39]:
Like, these are serious fans. Like, they go every friggin Sunday, you know what I mean? Sunday. And this guy was up on top of this platform, up on top of his vehicle, like, literally reading this poem about, like, this worshipful poem about the Patriots, which is funny. It's one of those funny things about so and so. Number 23. Well, they're heroes. They're different heroes. They're different saints.

Mandarin Man [01:22:08]:
Yes.

Vision Battlesword [01:22:09]:
Right.

Mandarin Man [01:22:10]:
The jersey has been retired, but the spirit lives on.

Vision Battlesword [01:22:14]:
Yes, yes, yes. Like going through this recitation, this incantation of the heroes of the sports team, both past and present, and everyone is listening and sometimes even doing this call and response piece to it. And it didn't occur to me in that moment, but now that memory coming up for me now is just. It's so obviously church.

Mandarin Man [01:22:40]:
I mean, it makes you wonder, you know, the Atlanta Braves, the team of the nineties. There's a lot of that.

Vision Battlesword [01:22:52]:
Fascinating. Well, we've been going for a while, and I feel like there's probably an opportunity to kind of bring this to a conclusion, a satisfying conclusion. There is one other element that I wanted to explore. No, but I don't know if you got the time or.

Mandarin Man [01:23:15]:
Bro, I got it. A call on spirit for energy. Tell me what's on your mind.

Vision Battlesword [01:23:25]:
What's the difference between a church and a cult?

Mandarin Man [01:23:28]:
Mmm. Well, I don't necessarily. I mean, the implication in your question is that. And I think the implication in our culture is that cults are bad. Are cults bad?

Vision Battlesword [01:23:47]:
I didn't make any such implication, but I merely asked the question.

Mandarin Man [01:23:50]:
So there's some fun language stuff here, right?

Vision Battlesword [01:23:52]:
Indeed.

Mandarin Man [01:23:53]:
Your cult. Well, you reverse that, it's culture.

Vision Battlesword [01:23:56]:
Well, I don't think it's a reversal. It's just adding letters to the word.

Mandarin Man [01:23:59]:
Yeah, well, yeah, but I agree.

Vision Battlesword [01:24:02]:
Yeah, there's.

Mandarin Man [01:24:03]:
So we're in a cult. You're in a cult already. It's called culture.

Vision Battlesword [01:24:05]:
Right.

Mandarin Man [01:24:06]:
And so the difference between a cult and a church is one we've agreed is above board and one is too risky, and we need to shut it down.

Vision Battlesword [01:24:22]:
I haven't agreed that a church is always above board. I think we've just defined, we've been working to define what it is, but I don't think that necessarily implies that it's good or bad. Right.

Mandarin Man [01:24:36]:
Right.

Vision Battlesword [01:24:37]:
It could be a church that is an organization for people to come together to practice spirituality and also a designated place of holy ground where we have services and ceremonies that could be doing, like, harm to people, let's just say. Or it could be serving people and bringing love and light and positivity into the world. I think it could go either way.

Mandarin Man [01:25:01]:
Yeah.

Vision Battlesword [01:25:02]:
Cults certainly have gotten a pretty bad reputation in our culture, which also, there's a distinction, I think, to be made there between cult and culture. What's the difference? So if we assume that maybe it's possible that a church or a cult is not inherently good or bad, like one's not good and the other is bad necessarily, what's the difference between the two?

Mandarin Man [01:25:28]:
Okay, I've been thinking about that as you've been talking. And I think the percentage to which it occupies your action. Right. Like a church, you go one day of the week. A cult you devote to every day except for maybe one day of the week. Right. They kind of flip flop them. And I think it's easy to lose yourself in a cult because there's like this echo chamber effect because you're not going back out into the world and your job and your family or whatever to only return to church on Sunday.

Mandarin Man [01:26:07]:
You're in this cult day in, day out. You're living there. You're, you know, you really excuse the bad joke, drinking the Kool Aid, you know, like. And so I think that's, you know, I've never been a part of a occult, I think, you know, I'm, you know, I got big. And we haven't talked much about this, but the mandarin man, the moniker is, you know, I've done a lot of healing of my physical body through the eating of fruit. And I follow this guy named Doctor Robert Morris in Florida. He's a, he's a biochemist, but he's also like a nature path and promotes fruit fasting and fruit eating because it's very hydrating and the body, it puts his body in a state of alkalinity where it can heal itself. And so people might say, oh, Eric's in like a fruit cult.

Mandarin Man [01:26:54]:
Yeah. But aside from that, I've never really considered myself in a cult. You know, I think in ayahuasca ceremony, the first time I showed up and everybody was wearing white, I was like, oh, is this a cult? Yeah. But now that I know, that medicine and that practice much more intimately. I don't think it's a cult per se, but I think that would be my personal definition, is when you sacrifice the rest of your life for this organization to the detriment of your. I don't wanna say productive, but your normal life, you know, I don't know. Did you see the HBO show the Val about NXivm?

Vision Battlesword [01:27:33]:
No.

Mandarin Man [01:27:34]:
It's very, very good.

Vision Battlesword [01:27:35]:
Yeah.

Mandarin Man [01:27:36]:
And challenging and. But, yeah, that was a cult to the point of where women were branding themselves with the initials of Keith Raniere, the founding member of the cult, under the guise of a leadership, you know, leadership group. Leadership empowerment organization, you know. Yeah, he got real nasty there at the end, and he's in jail, you know, as he should be. And so I think there's a play like. Like the church has definitely taking a backseat in our culture in 2024, you know? And so I think you'll see more cults and more other organizations fill in that. That space, you know? And I think there's a room for, you know, ethical cults. Do you know Jamie Wheel?

Vision Battlesword [01:28:27]:
Yeah.

Mandarin Man [01:28:28]:
Yeah. You know, he's a kind of advocate of that. Like, in some ways, you know, I think he. I think he. I don't know him very, very well, but.

Vision Battlesword [01:28:39]:
So a cult is kind of like a church that goes too far in a way. Or rather, a cult is maybe like an organization that hijacks the church impulse in people, but creates an all consuming lifestyle based around it.

Mandarin Man [01:29:00]:
Yeah.

Vision Battlesword [01:29:00]:
Okay.

Mandarin Man [01:29:00]:
Yeah. I think a spiritual practice, unless you're a clergyman or unless you've devoted yourself to being a principal member of this religion organization, a church and spiritual practice should enhance your regular life or your everyday life. And I think a cult, as you correctly pointed out, it hijacks that component of our psyche or our beingness that desires connection to source or connection to God and makes it like this is the only thing that you care about. Like, it's almost like you get this high from a spiritual practice and then that's the only thing you want.

Vision Battlesword [01:29:45]:
Well, it seems like another thing that cults hijack, or rather like a. Like a need that people have that is filled or served in some ways by church or by spiritual practice, is a need for belonging. So there can be that what people are seeking that they might find in a cult or a church is they're seeking connection to God, source, spirit, whatever you want to call that. They're also seeking belonging. Belonging to a group, a tribe, a community, society, that human connection, element, relationship. They may also be seeking safety. Like what we talked about, the church is a sanctuary. And it seems like maybe a cult is almost like a kind of a dysfunctional version of that, which seems to meet those needs for people.

Vision Battlesword [01:30:43]:
But it comes as a faustian bargain where it's exploitative. It's like, sure, we'll meet your need for safety and belonging and spiritual experience, but the cost is everything.

Mandarin Man [01:30:58]:
Yeah, yeah. You know, it's. Andrew Huberman has this quote about addiction that it's the continual narrowing, narrowing of things you enjoy until there's only one thing that gets you off anymore. And that's whatever this addiction is. And I think cults are like that too, kind of. You know, like you used to like doing x, y or z, but now you just focused on the cult. You're focused on this one thing, if that one thing is good. And, you know, there are need that there is a need for clergymen, right, and leaders of organizations that are of spiritual nature.

Mandarin Man [01:31:39]:
You know, I mean, you're that in your church, right? You're the. The tip at the end of the spear, so to speak. And so, yeah, I mean, I'm two thumbs up to cults. Like, as long as they're, as long as they're good. Like, be, you know, be passionate about something and like what you. You know, if you want to create something, go create it. If you can get other people to come along and create that with you, kudos to you. You know, we do a good job, for better or worse on planet Earth, to shut down things that get deranged.

Vision Battlesword [01:32:10]:
Yeah.

Mandarin Man [01:32:10]:
Don't. Yeah. You'll be found out. And. And, I mean, it took far too long with the Keith Raniere thing. Did you see holy hell?

Vision Battlesword [01:32:19]:
No.

Mandarin Man [01:32:20]:
It's another good documentary about. I forget what. That cult. They all end the same.

Vision Battlesword [01:32:24]:
Yeah.

Mandarin Man [01:32:24]:
The leader starts having sex with the members.

Vision Battlesword [01:32:27]:
Yeah.

Mandarin Man [01:32:28]:
And you abusing his power. You know, and you say that about the catholic church, too.

Vision Battlesword [01:32:32]:
Yeah.

Mandarin Man [01:32:32]:
You know, which is what? The biggest cult on the planet, probably the church. You know, the catholic church, you know, I mean, and so, you know, power corrupts. Right. And, yeah, it seems like there's one.

Vision Battlesword [01:32:45]:
Other piece to it, too, because I'm starting to think about other kinds of cults, or at least things that we call cults. Like, there can be political cults, right? Yeah, there can be. You, you know, some people would even call, like, there's a cult of Apple.

Mandarin Man [01:33:01]:
Sure.

Vision Battlesword [01:33:01]:
There's a cult of Google.

Mandarin Man [01:33:02]:
Yeah.

Vision Battlesword [01:33:03]:
Cult of Elon. Cult of. Oh, big time Rogan.

Mandarin Man [01:33:07]:
Oh, big time. Of course.

Vision Battlesword [01:33:09]:
And it's not to say that any of these people or businesses or organizations are necessarily, like, creating a cult or encouraging that. I don't mean to, I don't mean to imply that at all, but there's a cultish or a cult like impulse for people to follow something and to follow something or someone without questioning. Like, there's. I feel like that's. That's an essential part of cult's behavior.

Mandarin Man [01:33:37]:
Right.

Vision Battlesword [01:33:37]:
Is there's a.

Mandarin Man [01:33:38]:
There's a scrutiny.

Vision Battlesword [01:33:39]:
No longer questioning, but just following.

Mandarin Man [01:33:43]:
Yeah. And I'll just to circle back on something we said earlier in the power of word, because you mentioned Rogan. We. He's become so popular because he uses the word wisely and at lengthen. Right. And so I think that kind of. It's like we. We.

Mandarin Man [01:34:01]:
That's the magic spelling these spellcasting for 3 hours at a time with tons of different people. Yeah. I mean, it's just interesting, you know?

Vision Battlesword [01:34:12]:
Yeah. Okay. After all this exploration. Eric Fry, mandarin man my good friend, what are your thoughts about church? What's a succinct encapsulation of what you feel that we've learned here today?

Mandarin Man [01:34:26]:
Yeah. You know, I'll just say that I'm happy I'm going again. I love all types of churches and encourage that. I think we need more of them. I think some of the most beautiful buildings on the planet are churches and good mosques and cathedrals and. Yeah. And I'm just lucky. Yeah.

Mandarin Man [01:34:50]:
To be. I feel very lucky to be here with you, brother, and sit and chat with you. And I think whether you. Whether you. Yeah, kind of what we've gotten to is whether you want it or not, there's. You're in a church, you know, and you're doing ceremony, you're holding ceremony, and, you know, everyone has these little relics in their life that are special because so and so gave it to me or I found it here, even if it's rocks or I. Diamond ring, you know, which is still just rocks, but, yeah. So I think the church is going to see a.

Mandarin Man [01:35:31]:
I think whatever the church was in our community that has disappeared to some degree. Something will fill that place.

Vision Battlesword [01:35:41]:
I agree with you. I think. I think we are on the cusp of a revival, a new revival.

Mandarin Man [01:35:49]:
Hallelujah.

Vision Battlesword [01:35:50]:
I think that's happening. You know, I think that churches like sacred light and others here, Coldplay, others here in Austin and many other places are an example of this kind of revival, bringing back the meaning, the richness in the ritual of what church is and means to people in terms of how it. The role it fills in their life, the nourishment, the needs that people are getting met, especially those three, I think that we talked about, which is spiritual communion, community and belonging and safety. A place to go when you have no other place to go.

Mandarin Man [01:36:41]:
Right.

Vision Battlesword [01:36:41]:
I think that's really what church is all about. And I think that we can create that wherever it is that two or more gather. And also, like you said, God needs a place to live, too.

Mandarin Man [01:36:54]:
Yeah. I love it.

Vision Battlesword [01:36:56]:
This was really great. Thank you so much for this conversation. It works.

Mandarin Man [01:36:59]:
Brother. Honored.

Vision Battlesword [01:37:00]:
Yeah. Really rich exploration for me. I learned a lot and I just always enjoy talking to you. But anyway, this has been a great conversation.

Mandarin Man [01:37:09]:
Yeah, brother, thanks for having me.

Vision Battlesword [01:37:10]:
Yeah.

Mandarin Man [01:37:11]:
Let's do it again.

Vision Battlesword [01:37:13]:
Love you.

Mandarin Man [01:37:14]:
Okay. Abracadabra.