Episode Transcript
Speaker 0 00:00:00 My name is Joel Lesi, and I am the founder and host of Unraveling Religion, a podcast about spirituality, mysticism, psychology, and religion. I'm here today with Henry Carella Henry, can you tell me a little bit about your podcast?
Speaker 1 00:00:14 My name is Henry Crit. I'm a retired psychiatrist. A podcast is Alchemical Dialogues, unscripted conversations mostly about current social and cultural topics with an emphasis on humanism and spirituality. We've invited you, uh, to be a guest on Chemical Dialogues, and you've invited me to be a guest on Unraveling Religions, and it's a wonderful collaboration that we've developed. We really gravitate towards people who are doing really interesting work.
Speaker 0 00:00:44 What are some of the other topics that you feel most impassioned about that you've done in our
Speaker 1 00:00:49 Chemical, um, empowerment, uh, lean Bebe, a friend of ours from Montana, is writing a book on finding her true self and actualizing that. We have a friend, John Earhart, who's talked about the importance of Montessori principals in a, an exciting school program he developed with his colleague Monica Smith in Rochester. We have an upcoming, uh, podcast with, uh, John Erhardt coming out as gay. We've had Iqbal Lewis talking about his path. My Sufi teacher, uh, Shahab David less talking about spiritual transformation.
Speaker 0 00:01:23 Henry, can we talk a little bit about how we collaborate?
Speaker 1 00:01:26 Mm-hmm. <affirmative>? So one of the podcasts that you were part of was a panel discussion about differences and similarities between religion and spirituality, where we resonate with something much greater than ourselves, right? And for some people that's religion. I call it spirituality or mysticism. Others may call it humanism. Making our awareness of that grow and become meaningful. That's what Chemical Dialogues is about
Speaker 0 00:01:53 For me. Unraveling religion is definitely about the practical application of mysticism, and the mystical tradition is found in every religious construct, from Islam to Christianity, to Judaism, to Hinduism, and especially in Buddhism. What is mysticism in relation to psychology, religion, and its practical application. And so, and then I just want to talk a little bit about, I want to ask you the question, um, how are we at this place, you and I with our, our, uh, our collaborative, uh, podcast in your work? Uh, how did we get to this place?
Speaker 1 00:02:27 Me and you?
Speaker 0 00:02:28 Me and
Speaker 1 00:02:29 You, you started it.
Speaker 0 00:02:30 I did, I did.
Speaker 1 00:02:32 <laugh>, I think before we had El Chemical Dialogues, uh, you had Unraveling Religion and you invited me on as a guest. We talked about one of the favorite podcasts on Unraveling Religion is the one we did on Dreams,
Speaker 0 00:02:46 The show that we did in 2017, if you can believe it. Personal and universal dream meaning and integration. Waking a conversation with Dr. Henry Gu Ella. In that we spoke about psychology from a religious, mystical, and spiritual perspective and dreams, the relation of Freud, Yung, and Sufism to what Dreams Teach Symbols. Where does meaning stop archetypes the unconscious, what quote unquote considered accidents and symptoms or neurosis, and the balance of our actions as a tipping scale toward what is good.
Speaker 1 00:03:16 How long was that podcast?
Speaker 0 00:03:18 Uh, it was an hour.
Speaker 1 00:03:19 We covered a lot of material. Yeah, we did. In terms of, if you're interested in exploring the human condition, especially emphasizing what we call spirituality and its integration with psychology and, and humanism. Uh, we're welcoming to all people. You don't have to, you don't join Amber Light. You just come, you can join classes and there's a small fee for some of the classes, but it's not like you're a car carrying member of Amber Light International. We're, we don't want to be that formal.
Speaker 0 00:03:50 And so we are two old friends who go back a love farm way, I'm sure. And, uh, that we walk hand in hand in this journey you expressing through Amber Light and, uh, chemical Dialogues and me through Unravel Religion. We share our curiosity with others, and I hope, I hope people will join us.
