Show Notes
In this episode of Peaceable and Kind, host Derek Vreeland engages in a deep conversation with author Ashley Lande about her book, “The Thing That Would Make Everything Okay Forever.” They explore themes of vulnerability in writing, the impact of psychedelics on spirituality, the search for belonging and identity, and the influence of Bob Dylan’s music. Ashley shares her journey from a life intertwined with psychedelics to finding hope and redemption in Jesus, emphasizing the importance of addressing contemporary issues within the church.
In this conversation, Ashley Lande shares her profound journey from a life steeped in psychedelics and spiritual searching to a transformative encounter with faith in Jesus Christ. The discussion explores the slow progression towards faith, the allure and pitfalls of psychedelic experiences, the struggle with addiction, and the moments of vulnerability that led to a deeper understanding of grace and redemption. Ashley’s story serves as a testament to the power of faith and the possibility of transformation, encouraging listeners to reflect on their own spiritual journeys.
Books mentioned in this podcast:
The Thing That Would Make Everything Okay Forever: Transcendence, Psychedelics, and Jesus Christ by Ashley Lande
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Transcript
Narrator: Welcome to Peaceable and Kind, the podcast where we explore the transformation. Of living out Jesus’ call to peace and kindness in our everyday lives. Each week your host, Derek Vreeland, will delve into the stories, scriptures, and practical steps that help us embody these essential Christian virtues.
Derek Vreeland: Welcome back to another episode of Peaceable and Kind. I am your host, Derek Vreeland. Thank you for joining me. for this episode. And if you haven’t already, subscribe to this podcast, leave us a rating or a review. I was actually on Apple Podcast. podcast earlier today and saw a couple more reviews and ratings and so I appreciate those. And you can always uh find me on social media at Derek Vreeland. You can find me on Facebook, on X. You can find me on Instagram. I’m also now on Blue Sky. But hit me up on social media and let me know what you think about this podcast. I’d love to get your input. And I am so looking forward to today’s conversation. If you listen to my episode on my favorite book, From 2024, then you would know that while I loved a lot of the books that I read last year, one really stood out And by the way, I don’t love all the books that I read. I really hate to admit that because sometimes people will recommend books to me or I will meet a new author and they’ll send me their book And I don’t love everything that I read. I I hate to confess that. I hate to admit that. Just trying to be honest. Uh but if you heard my episode on my favorite books from the last year from 2024, then you know already that my favorite Favorite book was The Thing That Would Make Everything Okay Forever by Ashley Landy and Ashley is my guest today. She is an artist, writer, wife, and mom living in rural Kansas. She and her husband, Stephen, have. three kids and one on the way. Ashley, welcome to Peaceable and Kind.
Ashley Lande: Thank you so much. And I I’m so honored by that introduction and your kind words about my book. Thank you so much.
Derek Vreeland: I read your book in about a week time while I was off to Colorado on a retreat that our church was hosting. And it was the kind of book that I would read a little bit at night and then I would wake up the next morning thinking about it. And couldn’t wait to continue the story. And I actually finished uh the book while we were flying into KCI. We were actually making our descent and as I was Flipping through your book uh today in preparation for our conversation, I was looking at some of the scribbles that I’d made in the margin while we were descending on the plane Um, but I loved it so much and can’t wait to get into a conversation about it. I did have a quick question. You you talk um in the prologue, like right at the beginning of the book about walking around late at night in midtown Kansas City. Uh were you born and raised in Kansas City?
Ashley Lande: I was born and raised in Blue Springs. Yeah.
Derek Vreeland: Okay, very good.
Ashley Lande: So I went to high school at St. Teresa’s Academy in Kansas City, so that’s when I kind of started gravitating more toward midtown and then I moved I went to the University of Missouri and then I moved to Midtown after college and lived there. We lived there. I met my husband there. Um Until I think ten years ago we moved to rural Colorado. Not cool Colorado. It was like southeastern, flat Colorado. Wonderful people though, but not pretty Colorado. Uh for about a little over a year and a half from my husband’s job and it was just so far away from Kansas City where our family still are. He transferred within his company to a closer location. So now we’re about three hours from where our families live. So yeah.
Derek Vreeland: Oh very good. Yeah. So we’re I’m in St. Joseph, Missouri, just north of Kansas City. We consider we consider ourselves connected, you know. We’re like we’re forty f we’re forty-five minutes from the airport. So Blue Springs is probably the same distance uh to the airport as St. Joe.
Ashley Lande: Yeah.
Derek Vreeland: Yeah. So yeah, and and reading your story, I found that interesting that that you were you were here local. So your book describes your Ultimately, your journey in finding hope and life and redemption and salvation in Jesus When I got the book I was I was I was struck uh by the the title, uh, which makes sense as you’re you’re reading the book. The thing that would make everything okay forever. The subtitle uh is Transcendent Psychedelics and Jesus Christ. And you write very openly and with a great deal of vulnerability about your pre-life, your sort of pre-Jesus days What prompted you to write with such openness? Some Christians feel somewhat embarrassed or ashamed about their life before Jesus. But you seem to write with such transparency. What prompted that?
Ashley Lande: You know, I’ve always gravitated toward writing about real life, writing about my life, writing very vulnerably, perhaps sometimes a little too vulnerably, to the dismay of my mother, who’s a very private person. She’s not reading the book and that’s okay. But I think really the impetus for a long time after I quit psychedelics and I came to Jesus and all I wanted was Jesus. I didn’t want to think about psychedelics. I didn’t want to think about my life before. I and I felt really scarred by a lot of my experiences on psychedelics. As enslaved as I was, and I kept going back over and over again, as you read in the book, I I did have very traumatizing experiences. I had very, very dark experiences that I don’t think the human psyche I don’t think God really designed us to bear those kinds of experiences. But it was several years ago I read an article, I think it was in the New Yorker It was called I think it was just titled Ecstasy by a journalist named I hope I’m getting the name right. I need I meant to look this up again. I think her name was Tia Jolentino And she wrote this essay. It was a really very well written essay. I always appreciate beautiful writing. But it was about her trajectory in the opposite direction, being raised pretty intensely evangelical and then leaving that and part of her leaving that and finding what she called freedom was through ecstasy and to a lesser degree LSD, I think. And I was just really intrigued by that and I thought, you know, I’ve never I’m sure there are narratives out there from the sixties, seventies. by people who um went the opposite direction ‘cause there was plenty of that direction among, you know, the Jesus People movement. But I had never really read anything contemporarily about anyone having the same path that I did. And I thought, you know, I feel like that’s probably something that someone someone needs to write about. And I just kind of put it in the back of my mind And like I said, I still was kind of hesitant about writing about it because I know I did have some family members who didn’t didn’t know about either didn’t know about my drug use or didn’t know the extent of it and I didn’t want to hurt anyone, you know, I didn’t want to but just the more I kept seeing news items about psychedelics and how they were gaining in popularity again, I just thought, man, I feel like the church really needs to be addressing this. And these really prominent figures like Jordan Peterson, Joe Rogan Sam Harris or going on about how wonderful psychedelics are. I just felt like somebody needs to be writing about this. And so I did write an essay for a Christian magazine called Fathom Magazine and I submitted it and they accepted it and published it. And after that I wrote I just wrote something offhandedly, an Instagram post about how maybe someday I would write a book about that, about, you know, my journey from being so heavily into psychedelics to becoming a Christian. And the man who would become my editor, he had also written for Fathom, Elliot Ritsama. He got in touch with me. He said, Hey, I saw that you said you might write a book about this. Would you consider I work for Lex and Press. Would you consider submitting a proposal? And I thought, ah, I still at that point was like, I don’t know that I want to do that But I thought this is an opportunity camp pass up. You know, it’s extraordinary that that an editor at a fairly large publishing house would reach out to someone who has no platform, no celebrity whatsoever. So I did and I guess the rest is history. And it’s interesting you mentioned the the cover of the book and the title. We kind of wrestled with that, like, between my editor and other people at Lexum and trying to decide How do we draw people in with without being deceitful, you know, but like draw people in who might not otherwise pick up a Christian book, if they knew it was a Christian book right off the bat. And I mean I think if you read the back cover, you read the blurred, you’re gonna figure out it’s a Christian book. But I think maybe that The cover has confused some people a little, but hopefully it’s intrigued more people than it’s confused.
Derek Vreeland: Well I think the cover is intriguing. I think your story is intriguing and and it’s beautifully written Well I have recommended it a number of times to people, but I always emphasize the subtitle Transcendence Psychedelics and Jesus Christ. I think that captures people’s attention. Whether you’re a Christian or not, a religious person or not, I think, well, I want to know something about that.
Ashley Lande: Yeah. Yeah. For sure.
Derek Vreeland: So when you’re talking early in the book, because you’re telling your story, and early on as you’re telling your story and you’re talking about the relationships that you have. I sort of got the sense that your early journey as a young adult was one not just for transcendence and sort of a experience with the universe, but it seems like you’re also looking for belonging and community and identity of sort of you were looking for yourself in a sense. Would that be accurate?
Ashley Lande: Oh absolutely. Absolutely. Yeah. And I I definitely went through that phase of just trying on various identities, you know, rebelling for the sake of rebelling. But yeah, I think I always was hungry for belonging, but at the same time I was so I don’t know, that took on the form of being really attracted to anything countercultural and you know, wanting to feel like I had some kind of intellectual superiority ‘cause I was into these obscure books and musicians and And unfortunately it really turned into like a and I wasn’t a believer, you know, it turned into I had such a contempt for other people. But at this there was that tension, ‘cause at that same time there was the desperation to belong, desperation to be loved desperation to be known, but then, you know, that was kind of at war with with my flesh and my contempt for people and my I don’t know, yeah. But I would say that’s absolutely absolutely accurate, yeah
Derek Vreeland: Yeah, you you certainly, it seems, have uh have an artist soul and the artist friends that I have, they’ve described that kind of tension because art is something very personal and it comes from you and you want to produce something that’s beautiful and unique and flows out of who you are and you’re doing it for people, but then you’re also little kind of standoffish with people and I think a lot of artists sort of wrestle with that. But I I I sense that that you were you were really grasping for for connection with people, even though if you’re holding some at arm’s length.
Ashley Lande: Yes. Yeah.
Derek Vreeland: Speaking of musicians, let’s talk just a little bit about Bob Dylan. You write in chapter two about becoming Bob Dylan one night, and I am such a Dylan fan And so I’d reached out to you before our interview uh because I wanted to know, are you do you still listen to Bob Dylan’s music? And I’m so happy when you said yes. Yes. So yeah, I I noticed and I I thought that you were still listening to Dylan because in one of the later chapters you used the uh shelter from a storm, from the storm uh line.
Guest: Yes.
Derek Vreeland: And um well, so I’m glad you’re still listening to Dylan because I didn’t know if maybe when you were listening to Dylan back in the years where you were pursuing psychedelics, that maybe it would be triggering for you now and you kind of left that behind with your old life. But I I assume you found some redemption in in Dylan’s lyrics and poetry.
Ashley Lande: You know, it’s so interesting. I feel like he’s one of the very few musicians that I can listen to because there is a lot of music that I was super into during that time that that does heal triggering. You know, just the uh the psychedelic sounding music. The music like Ravi Shankar There were just different different acid mother’s temple thing, you know, the name obviously. Um, other things like that that I just can’t, you know, I just feel there’s too much baggage and it and a lot of it’s kind of dark. You know, a lot of the so called psychedelic music is actually quite dark. And I look back and think, I was listening to that Um, but Bob Dylan is one of the few that I I still love and for whatever reason it’s not triggering in that way. And I think knowing that He eventually became a Christian. And as as far as I know, I know people kind of debate whether he still is, but um he’s never said he’s not, right?
Derek Vreeland: I mean he’s never renounced uh the faith and One of the songs on the album Modern Times that’s two thousand seven. I think it’s the opening song Thunder on the Mountain Uh Dylan has this line, I’ve confessed already, I don’t need to confess again. And in that same song he talks about uh one sweet day I’ll stand beside my king Um as sort of like an eschatological hope. And so, you know, I’m I’m a Dylan fan like the rest that I’m I’m parsing through the lyrics and trying to make sense. I think that’s Dylan’s way of saying, at least in 07, hey, I I’ve already confessed faith in Jesus. I don’t need to do that.
Ashley Lande: That sounds very Christian to me. Yeah.
Derek Vreeland: But it’s his lyrics to me, you know, th they are poetry. I mean Dylan is the poet laureate of rock and roll. Yes. Um and I I love Dylan for the poetry, for the imagery. And yeah, so maybe Tambourine Man was originally written about a drug dealer. You know, there’s speculation of that, but when I hear that song. And actually I listened again uh today to Tam Breen Man. It’s like it does sound like a Jesus like figure. Yeah. You know? And
Ashley Lande: Yeah.
Derek Vreeland: And if Jesus is the tambourine man, then you know, in a jingle jangle morning, I’ll come following you.
Ashley Lande: Yes But I just think that’s a good thing. And you know, and Bob Dylan is so enigmatic. Like I’ve seen interviews where people If people he ask him specifically what a song is about, he’s not gonna give uh a direct answer. I think is just speculation. And It’s interesting too. I I remember years ago reading w when I was in the midst of using psychedelics all the time and I ha I I have tried to find this quote again and I ca have never been able to find it, but I swear in my memory it was Bob Dylan saying this and I distinctly remember it because I didn’t like what he was saying. He said in some interview, it was some book I had, biography of him, he said that He actually renounced LSD. He said, It’s a drug for evil, manipulative people and basically said, you know, I don’t want anything to do with it anymore. And at the time I was like, oh man, really? You know, my favorite musician is saying he doesn’t like my favorite drug. I mean, it was more than my favorite drug, you know, to me it was my God essentially And like I said, I’ve tried to find that code again and I cannot find it, but I I am almost like 99. 9% certain that my memory in that in that on that specific count is correct So yeah.
Derek Vreeland: I’ll go searching and see if I can find that exact quote. But that’s that’s what I’ve read about Dylan, yeah, is that he definitely put the drugs in his past. Yeah. And then well, you know, then nineteen seventy nine, Slow Train Coming and, you know, then the other two G gospel themed albums. I mean he clearly had an encounter with Jesus Christ.
Ashley Lande: Yeah.
Derek Vreeland: No doubt about that.
Ashley Lande: And like I told you we won’t need to catch up with his later work, but I have listened to some of those albums and yeah. To me it’s yeah, I agree.
Derek Vreeland: Yeah, the Oh Mercy album I think is definitely underrated and it has such Christian themes. Um and then of course Time Out of Mind 1997, uh there’s some i Christian imagery in there, but that’s just a great Dylan album and that one Grammy of the Year. Such a great album.
Ashley Lande: Okay. Okay. Awesome.
Derek Vreeland: You said a moment ago um in in talking about LSD that it was um that it was your God. And you you spoke of I think both Speed and LSD in in sort of terms of religious devotion.
Guest: Yeah.
Derek Vreeland: I think you write somewhere that LSD was it was your friend, an abusive friend, but it was it was your God. And why in looking back at your life at that time, do you think you gave such religious devotion to uh LSD
Ashley Lande: That’s a great question. You know, I think because it did give me this experience of what seemed to be transcendence that I had never experienced before I I was raised somewhat marginally Christian. I was raised in a Methodist church and It’s a long story, but we my dad always disliked it for being too liberal and he didn’t go very often. My m for my mom, uh she’s quite conservative, but it was just her family tradition, you know, she came from sure generations of Methodists, like this is what we do. We go to the Methodist church. And um Yeah, so I think I did have but I’m grateful there was something of a foundation of the Christian faith, you know for what it’s worth, you know, in the Methodist Church. There was something of a foundation there, some kind of knowledge, even though I felt like I never grasped the gospel, it never penetrated my heart when I was a child or a young teenager And but I think even though I swung so hard into atheism, I was always, you know, there was there was something you know, God has planted eternity in the human heart. Like I was always yearning for something. I was always yearning for even leading into this hard certainty of atheism felt appealing because it was it was certainty. You know, for a time I guess it felt like that solid foundation. It felt like something that was true. And then slowly over time it definitely revealed its its vacuity and it’s hold on this. But So I think when I encountered LSD and I had this experience that was unlike anything that I’d I’d ever had before, even though the first time I did it I really couldn’t decide afterward if it was a good trip or a bad trip or or if what it had done to my mind was a good thing. But I think it was just it felt very colossal at the time, like it felt like something major had happened to me. And so I think that’s why I ended up framing it in terms of religious devotion. And then I also once I the first time I did it, then I wanted to find out all about it. I wanted to read all these things from the sixties that people had written, you know, the hippies had written and And so I think that kind of enhanced the religious aura around it for me. And I felt I started reading things about Buddhism and Hinduism. I was always already somewhat into yoga, but at that at that point yoga it was just exercise and at that point it definitely shifted into a spiritual thing for me. And um yeah, that’s how I think it it felt it felt colossal, it felt transcendent, it felt like something outs I had experienced something outside of myself. And I think that’s why it it became a god to me. Of course it became a an enslaving god over time. Yeah, I would definitely put it that way though. It it was my God. Even though I don’t think I would have used that language at the time because I still would have paid some kind of lip service to quote unquote God, but I could never have defined who that God was. And I think it was because the the God was LSC. You know, LSC was the God to me.
Derek Vreeland: I love the way you tell your story because, you know, of course I I know how the story is going to end. I mean I don’t I don’t know how it’s going to work out, but I know eventually you’re going to find Jesus and and it’s going to be great. But I I like the way they tell your story because the way I read it is that you didn’t necessarily hit the proverbial rock bottom like all in one day. It it seemed like a more slow uh a slow grinding where the life that you were living was letting you down. It wasn’t providing you what you were looking for. And there’s so many pockets in the book you you you describe that sort of coming to an end of of yourself in such imaginative and um intelligent ways. This is what you write um in in chapter five You write. Even marijuana failed to salve my freight nerves. I was always anticipating the threat of ultimate exposure while also craving its release My greatest fear was being fully known, yet a part of me also just wanted to get it over with. I already felt like my naked soul had been splat down on a metal tray beneath surgical theater lights, quivering like an excised organ. The acid had done that Eviscerated me and rendered me defenseless. It it seemed like a tumor that had been cut out at first But now it felt like the violent operation had taken my identity with it. What powerful imagery. And that’s why I couldn’t put this book down because you have paragraphs like that. So beautifully written. Thank you. But it does seem like you it it wasn’t like a one-day thing. Am I am I following you correctly? That it was more of a a a slow progression towards faith and a recognition that you were on the wrong road.
Ashley Lande: Is that accurate? Yeah, absolutely. And I think of uh after you read that passage, it made me think of and I’ve thought about this a lot in relation to psychedelics, the story the parable Jesus tells about the man who had a demon, the demon went out from the man and went around what is it what does he say? In arid places or in and came came back to find the house clean and swept. and brought back with him seven other demons and so the man’s condition was worse than it was at first. And I’ve talked to other people, I have a good friend who followed the same path he was very into ayahuasca. He was actually part of an ayahuasca community and he was going to Harvard Divinity School and trying to find a way to synthesize psychedelics and Christianity. And now as a Presbyterian minister and disavows all that, but he we’ve talked about that passage, like it it just seems so relevant, you know. There’s this with LSC there’s this what feels like a re uh death and a resurrection, but it’s a counterfeit one. And I feel like that’s what happened to me. Like I had this I experienced the quote unquote ego deaths that, you know, Timothy Leary et al. would t reference and talk about. But There was nothing there. There was no person. You know, Jesus, there was no relationship. There was no one to be known by. It was just the void. And um yeah, and that over time that became I think a scarier and scarier place to be. And again, there was this tension kind of between I knew things were getting worse. I knew this wasn’t working. I knew the drugs weren’t working. I knew this wasn’t the way. Yet I was in such a habit of thinking it was that I was I w I was an addict, you know. Uh people love to say that psychedelics aren’t addictive and they aren’t in the same way that something like cocaine or speed or heroin are addictive because they’re not just dumping dopamine out in your brain necessarily. But I absolutely think they’re addictive in in a really pernicious way because It’s almost more it’s almost more subtle. Like you can convince yourself that you’re not an addict. She can convince yourself that you’re on a spiritual path you can convince yourself, like, oh, just, you know, one more trip and I’m gonna reach that Vista, whatever it is. And um yeah, and it was definitely a gradual over time, you know, I would have a really bad trip And I would say, Man, I don’t know, you know, if I want to even do that again. But then things would seem to get better for a time and I would try again and then maybe I would have a good trip again But over time too, eventually I I got to a point where I could not have a good trip anymore. And so then it felt like, okay, my God has failed me my God isn’t working anymore. And I was started to be drawn in various ways, as you read, toward Jesus Christ. There were people in my life. My husband started to be drawn toward Christianity. But And I I was drawn, but at the same time I still had this aversion, which is just incredibly ironic to look back, ‘cause I was open to anything else. I mean, anything anybody would bring up No matter how wacky, far out, woo-woo, new age I was I was listening. Unless someone mentioned the name of Jesus Christ. Unless they were talking about vague Christ consciousness or or Jesus Christ as one in this pantheon of great spiritual teachers. But if they started talking about Christ as Lord or Christ as the way, the truth and the life, I was, you know, I did not want to hear it. I did not want to hear it. But it it was absolutely I feel like looking back I see the Lord was very gentle with me, extremely patient because I was so resistant for so long and it would be like one step forward, two steps back But yeah, I would say that there were several rock bottom moments, you know. Sure. And I look back and think like wow, you know, that first rock bottom moment I I should have realized about I didn’t. But yeah, there were several rock bottom moments. It was definitely over over a period of time.
Derek Vreeland: And I I want people to get your book and I w I want them to read and go on that journey with you towards faith. So I don’t want to give too much away, but you had a Christian friend that you had reconnected with, you had children, she had children. Um she went through a tragedy and that was drawing you you closer And I think you write in towards the end of the book that it was maybe it was a yoga teacher that was leading you down that path of detachment that you know serenity and happiness is going to be found in detachment, but watching your friends go through loss and suffering, you recognize that that was that was a dead end road that that because now you had had children and maybe just one child at that time I can’t remember or maybe I can’t remember all the details.
Ashley Lande: I was pregnant when yeah, when all that happened.
Derek Vreeland: I was pregnant with my second.
Ashley Lande: Yes. Uh-huh.
Derek Vreeland: So you’re a you’re a mother now and the entire worldview of detachment just didn’t seem to make sense anymore And um so I again I don’t want to I I I want people to read the story. So I don’t want to rehash all that happens in your coming to faith, but it was beautiful. I want to read just another little um snippet from chapter nine and where you describe this gentle work where Jesus was working on your heart. And this is towards the end of the book, and this is, you know, you’re you’re almost there, but Jesus is at work, and this is the little um snippet that’s after the uh TSA scare. where you and your husband were traveling and you thought he had drugs on him and uh that I I I enjoyed reading that part. But then you talk a little bit about God working in your heart. So this is what you write in chapter 9. You write, I had a new promise, maybe, a promise of cleansing that wouldn’t fade in the coming down. of a death and rebirth that just might endure. A calcified part of my heart conceded defeat that day in that lowly little church, in the heart of enemy territory a feeble, limping little holdout in the thick of hippie opulence. Even less intimidating than diminutive David with his rock sling Jesus was working in the heart of enemy territory within me too, sifting, pruning, lovingly breaking me I was almost ready, almost ready to come, though still skeptical, doubting, hesitant, but almost ready. So take me back to that time uh your husband had wanted to go to church and you grudgingly went along. You described weeping when you were in those services, but where was your mind at at that point when you were writing things like that?
Ashley Lande: Yeah, and I think I think that passage was when so this is interesting. We were we went to to Pinga Canyon, which is like the epicenter of hippidum for possibly the whole world, I don’t know, maybe Bali is now. But um it’s yeah, an area adjacent to Los Angeles. that it’s just a super hippie area. Very, very wealthy hippie area though.
Guest: Costs a lot of money to live there.
Ashley Lande: But I mean there are, you know, crystal stores, yoga studios, like i it it just seemed like everything the epicenter of everything I wanted, everything I was seeking after, everything that I thought, you know, I was aspiring toward And um we were staying with some people who were really into ayahuasca circles and they just seemed so cool and beautiful and hip and and enlightened and and they had this beautiful home and so the whole contrast of like this is where I wanted to be, this these are the people I wanted to be around. I want to be one of these people. I want to belong to this group of people. And I just felt terrible the whole time we were there. I just did not feel good and I felt out of place. I felt like I very much didn’t belong. And and I j remember I just kept thinking like this is this is the place. This is where it’s at. This is the cool these are the cool people. This is the cool place. And I just felt I felt empty, I felt anxious, I just felt terrible. And I remember the last day before we were due for our flight that afternoon. my husband really wanted to go. There was one tiny little Christian church in Dupang Canyon and it was from my perspective at the time, it was so sad. It was limping along. There was hardly anyone. It was You know, the building was kind of dilapidated. The the congregants were they were old and, you know, n they weren’t these cool yuppie hippie people that I thought I wanted to be around And I I just had a moment that and I remember the warship band, you know, they’re just really like lo-fi um not very good, you know, not even quite on time.
Guest: Right.
Ashley Lande: And just everything about it was kind of the opposite of what I thought I wanted, the opposite of everything everything else that was around me in Sepegy Canyon and everything I was aspiring towards. But I just remember my my heart being touched and just feeling so broken sitting there listening and and being so warmly welcomed by these people. You know, the woman who was greeting people at the door, she was very beautiful. She was probably in her fifties or sixties, but she, you know, she was missing some teeth. You know, so there were just things like that. Like these people do not have a veneer of glamour like like the other people I’ve been around all week.
Guest: Yeah.
Ashley Lande: And I just had I had a moment in that church where I just felt so broken and I felt my yeah, I just felt my lack. I felt my brokenness. And I look back on that and I I think so much of it. One of my favorite passages probably in all of the Bible is First Corinthians where Paul’s talking about God uses the weak things of the world and the foolish things to to shame the wise, to shame the strong, the things that are not And I look back on that as such a vivid example of that for me. You know, there were all these beautiful people, but I was aspiring to be one of these beautiful people. And um actually I I didn’t mention it in the book. You know, I didn’t want to I wanted to make sure in the book like I am the villain here. I didn’t want anybody else to be the villain. I didn’t want other people to make other people look bad I didn’t want to, but but the couple that we stayed with who I just thought were they’re so in love and so high and so glamorous and They actually ended up getting divorced later, so just goes to show all all was not as it seemed, you know, all was not as I I thought it was and as it appeared. And and then we went we go to this little church that at the time to me seems just utterly cathetic, frankly. And but those were the people who were warm and welcoming and And the pastor I remember the pastor said something s my husband wanted to talk. I just kinda wanted to get out of there. It was interesting, there was something in me that felt that brokenness and I was overcome with emotion, but then I also I was like, I want to escape, I want to go. This feels maybe because it did feel so vulnerable and it felt so real and I I you know, I hadn’t felt anything that vulnerable and real in a very long time. But my husband wanted to talk to the pastor afterward. And he was a young man. He and his wife were actually they lived in Santa Monica and they were just coming up to kind of try to help this church because it was struggling so much. And he said, the pastor said to my husband over the course of m their conversation, he said, you know, everything looks so great here. Like everything looks so glamorous. People are very wealthy. It looks like all these spiritualities that they’re into are are working and are yielding fruit. But he said that he has people he had people come to him all the time who were tormented, like absolutely tormented. Even though on the outside everything looked great. Right. And I’m standing there just thinking like He’s talking about me, you know, he’s talking about me. And I almost said something. I almost said something, but then I just thought, oh, I just I just want to get out of here. I just want to get to the airport. But yeah, I definitely look back on that that particular incident as a turning point. And then I remember too the first time that We went to a church and near where we lived in Kansas City. For a while my husband was just going by himself because I refused to go
Derek Vreeland: Right.
Ashley Lande: And um I finally agreed to go, I think in the eighth I was probably eight months pregnant with our daughter, second child. And I remember just walking in thinking, I don’t want to be here, I’m not I might be here, but I’m not one of these people. You know, I d I had such arrogance, like such embarrassing arrogance, you know, thinking Oh, I n I already know what Christianity’s about. I n I know what that’s about. You know, and it’s just infantile and silly. And I’ve I’ve been even though by that time there like I said, simultaneously there was this desperation and this knowing that th what I was doing was not working and I had had these really bad trips. Yet I had such arrogance thinking, I’ve been places in the cosmos, you know, through drugs that these people couldn’t even couldn’t even imagine, couldn’t even think about And um but then I remember sitting there and the worship music kicked on and and just being overcome with emotion and weeping and there was definitely part of me that was thinking, maybe, maybe there is something here. Maybe there is something here. Maybe I don’t know who Jesus is. Maybe I thought I did and I don’t. And then there was also part of me that said, Well, I’m pregnant and hormonal and, you know, I’m just emotional. So But um those were definitely definitely moments that were chipping away at my defenses, were chipping away at my pride, chipping away at that arrogance that I had. Yeah
Derek Vreeland: And I want readers to read the story of your conversion, your giving your life to Jesus. It’s so beautifully written. I was telling the story uh to my wife and adult son and and his wife, my daughter-in-law. right after I’d finished it out so I was landing and I’m reading it on the plane because I just I’m turning the pages as fast as I can because it’s so beautifully written. And so then I get home and we’re having dinner and I’m just telling the story of what happened on your porch with your with your kids and the music through the window. And I’m telling the story and my daughter-in-law who has two children, she starts weeping as I’m telling the story. Wow. But it was It was such a beautiful moment. So I don’t want to spoil it for readers. So I want people to read your book. But speaking of the book, what do you hope that readers will walk away with after finishing your book?
Ashley Lande: You know, my hope is that people will walk away with a sense of Like, wow, that woman was so far gone you know, and that Jesus can reach anyone, anywhere, and that grace is deep and wide and he is patient and merciful. I think that’s what I want you know I have been a couple people I try not to read reviews too much because I just I don’t know. I get anxious about it, but I’ve noticed there they’re was one person that said, I think like in a Goodreads review, that he was concerned he liked the book, but he was concerned that I made the druggie life sound too interesting. And then there was someone else recently that that I’m I’m friendly with and I very much appreciated him writing a review. He said that he wished I hadn’t ended it so abruptly and I’d shared more of my life. after Christ, which I can under I understand that and I think, well maybe I’ll write another book. But but then it’s been a decade since uh more than a decade since that happened. So I I you know I just thought I really wanted it to be just my conversion story. And the reason that I did portray the seductiveness of psychedelic drugs and that these things glittered at first. They seemed wonderful. They seemed beautiful. Is because I wanted I I don’t I wanted to convey to people who I might I do hope people not just c I hope Christians will be encouraged by it, but obviously I also would hope that someone who’s still immersed in psychedelics, still thinks that psychedelics are a viable spiritual path, we’ll pick it up. And and to those people that they’ll see like, oh, this lady really did it, you know, like she went all the way, she rode that train to the to the last station, you know, and so I think that was why it was important to me to to convey that Yeah, like I really believed in psychedelics. I really tried yeah, I tried and tried and tried and tried. and this is what happened and and these are the ways in which it was destructive. These are the ways in which the philosophies that on one hand the the f it’s interesting to me that the Philosophies that tend to emerge from people who use psychedelics a lot and psychedelic experiences are things like pantheism, Buddhism. And and I also wanted to show really vividly how in what ways those philosophies almost turned into nihilism for me. And we’re also just completely insufficient to account for reality, to give hope, especially in the face of incredible tragedy, to give hope of redemption and and to give really any kind of hope for the future. So yeah, those I guess I have several hopes for the book.
Derek Vreeland: Well, I I think your the vulnerability in your writing, it came across as simply being honest. And I think the allure of psychedelics does bring moments of pleasure. And there is there are these both literal and metaphorical highs that come. And I think you’re you’re not trying to disguise that. You’re just saying, yeah, this is the story. This was the good, but then the The bad trips, the way you describe those are so bad. So I appreciate that honesty because I see a non-Christian reader reading this book. who may have a history with psychedelics going, yeah, she’s she’s she’s telling the truth here. And I think what we need in the church is a lot more authenticity, truth telling, and vulnerability. I think that’s what’s going to win people to Jesus. Yeah. And I hope that people, Christian, non-Christian, saints, sinners, seekers, get a copy of your book. And I hope that Jesus uses it in the lives of people. Thank you, Ashley, for taking time today. I have loved our conversation. Where can people find you online?
Ashley Lande: Um I have I have a website that’s just Ashley Landy. com. I use Twitter. I do use f I have a Facebook professional page that’s extremely neglected. But on my website I also have a newsletter sign up, but that’s also very neglected because I have a toddler and I’m about to have another baby. But I I try to I try to send out a newsletter every so often I’m also on Instagram, although that is also very neglected. So But I’m always available by email if anyone wants to talk. Yeah, and and my website does have all those points of contact and social media links and whatnot. Yeah.
Derek Vreeland: Great. All right. So if you’re listening to this episode, go follow Ashley on social media, whether she neglects those accounts or not. Get signed up for her newsletter. And definitely if you’re listening to this episode, wherever you get Christian books, go get a copy of the thing that would make everything okay forever. I know that you will love it Thanks again, Ashley. Appreciate you being here.
Ashley Lande: Thank you so much. I really enjoyed it.
Derek Vreeland: And that’s all we have for today. Thanks for listening.
Guest: Go in peace and be kind
This transcript was generated with AI and may contain errors.