Clay Martin On The Power of Psychedelics For Struggling Veterans

Summary

Podcast Summary: The Clay Travis and Buck Sexton Show
Episode: Clay Martin On The Power of Psychedelics For Struggling Veterans
Release Date: July 2, 2025

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Introduction

In this compelling episode of The Clay Travis and Buck Sexton Show, hosted by David Rutherford of iHeartPodcasts, Clay Martin joins the conversation to discuss the transformative potential of psychedelics in aiding struggling veterans. The episode delves deep into Clay's personal journey, the challenges faced by veterans, and how psychedelic therapy, particularly psilocybin, can serve as a powerful tool for healing.

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Guest Background and Personal Struggles

Clay Martin shares his background as a veteran and the mental health struggles he faced post-service. Reflecting on his transition from military life, Clay highlights the stigma surrounding mental health issues among veterans.

Clay Martin [04:22]: "We don't talk about weakness or trying to tough it out. We're still on a team, and that silence can be suffocating."

He recounts his personal battle with health problems, including a severe blood clot that led to prolonged hospitalization and a restrictive medical regimen that exacerbated his mental anguish.

Clay Martin [05:00]: "I spent a year and a half on blood thinners, not even allowed to do cardio. It was like watching myself fall apart."

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Introduction to Psychedelic Therapy

Clay details his introduction to psychedelic therapy, sparked by conversations with fellow veterans and exposure to emerging research in the field. Initially skeptical due to his rigid beliefs, Clay eventually embraced psilocybin as a means to address his mental health challenges.

Clay Martin [07:10]: "Listening to my friends discuss microdosing mushrooms as therapeutic really piqued my interest. I started researching and eventually took the plunge."

He shares the hesitancy he felt, influenced by his straight-laced background and societal stigmas associated with psychedelics.

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Personal Experience with Psilocybin

Clay describes his first experience with psilocybin in vivid detail, emphasizing the profound clarity and emotional reconnection he felt afterward. This experience marked a pivotal shift in his mental state and inspired him to help other veterans.

Clay Martin [21:04]: "After my first session, I felt like my brain was resetting. The brain fog disappeared, and I felt an unprecedented clarity."
Clay Martin [25:18]: "The next day, I felt like I was 25 again mentally. My connection with my kids deepened in ways I hadn't imagined."

He elaborates on how psilocybin helped alleviate suicidal thoughts, providing a lasting solution rather than merely masking underlying issues.

Clay Martin [40:58]: "Psilocybin doesn't just offer an escape; it helps solve problems permanently. Unlike alcohol or weed, its effects are enduring and transformative."

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Establishing Path of Barbarian Spirit

Motivated by his transformative experience, Clay founded Path of Barbarian Spirit, a faith-based organization aimed at providing psychedelic therapy retreats for veterans. The organization emphasizes a ritualistic and spiritual approach, aligning with ancient warrior traditions.

Clay Martin [47:58]: "We created a sanctuary in the Ozarks where veterans can undergo psilocybin therapy in a natural, supportive environment. It's about resetting both mind and spirit."

He discusses the logistical challenges and divine intervention that guided the establishment of legally sanctioned retreats in the United States, bypassing the need to travel abroad for treatment.

Clay Martin [50:04]: "We’re legally protected under the First Amendment, allowing us to offer this as a religious sacrament. It's our way of giving back and healing our brothers."

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Impact and Future Plans

Clay emphasizes the profound impact psilocybin has had on veterans, citing improved mental health, enhanced familial relationships, and a decrease in suicidal ideation. He outlines the organization's vision to expand access through training a new class of priests and establishing franchises nationwide.

Clay Martin [52:16]: "Our goal is to replicate this model across the country, allowing more veterans to benefit from this healing sacrament. We're building a network of trained priests to facilitate these transformative experiences."

Additionally, Clay mentions the potential for parallel nonprofit initiatives focusing on medical research, aiming to bridge the gap between religious therapy and scientific study.

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Call to Action

Clay Martin concludes by urging listeners to support Path of Barbarian Spirit through donations, merchandise purchases, and spreading awareness about the benefits of psilocybin therapy for veterans.

Clay Martin [58:03]: "If you or someone you know is struggling, reach out. We're here to help, and with your support, we can expand our reach and save more lives."

He provides contact information and encourages engagement through their website and social media channels.

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Conclusion

This episode sheds light on a crucial and often overlooked aspect of veteran care—mental health support through innovative therapeutic methods. Clay Martin's advocacy for psychedelic therapy, grounded in personal experience and a deep commitment to his fellow veterans, offers a beacon of hope and a call to action for listeners to support this transformative movement.

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Notable Quotes:

• Clay Martin [04:22]: "We don't talk about weakness or trying to tough it out. We're still on a team, and that silence can be suffocating."

• Clay Martin [07:10]: "Listening to my friends discuss microdosing mushrooms as therapeutic really piqued my interest. I started researching and eventually took the plunge."

• Clay Martin [21:04]: "After my first session, I felt like my brain was resetting. The brain fog disappeared, and I felt an unprecedented clarity."

• Clay Martin [40:58]: "Psilocybin doesn't just offer an escape; it helps solve problems permanently. Unlike alcohol or weed, its effects are enduring and transformative."

• Clay Martin [47:58]: "We created a sanctuary in the Ozarks where veterans can undergo psilocybin therapy in a natural, supportive environment. It's about resetting both mind and spirit."

• Clay Martin [58:03]: "If you or someone you know is struggling, reach out. We're here to help, and with your support, we can expand our reach and save more lives."

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Resources Mentioned:

• Path of Barbarian Spirit: barbariansspirit.com
• Book: "Barbarian Spirit" (Published June 29, 2024)
• Donations and Merchandise: Available on the organization's website

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Disclaimer:
This summary is based on a provided transcript and aims to capture the essence of the discussion for those who have not listened to the episode. For a comprehensive understanding, listening to the full podcast is recommended.

Transcript

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[David Rutherford]

All right, everybody. Today's show is something that is obviously very near and dear to my heart. It's a component of the last 20 plus years in the GWAD and that's helping our brothers heal from what they've gone through. And so I really wanted to reach out and bring on not only one of my favorite shit talkers on X, but also one of the most dedicated guys that's leading the charge to really make a difference with, with soft members and their health and improving. And that's Clay Martin. So, Clay, welcome to the show, man. I'm so grateful that you came on David, brother.

[Ryan Seacrest]

Thanks for having me, man. I, I can't thank you enough for having me on here, man. This is awareness of this issue, what we're going to do about it now that we actually have a solution. Most important thing in my life.

[David Rutherford]

All right, let's just back up a little bit. Obviously, you know, when, when you left service, you know, how long did it take before you realized that what you were dealing with was not just, you.

[Ryan Seacrest]

Know, old age due to long, long time? Actually, I was, I was medically retired too, which brings about its own issues, is that, you know, there's all this mental stuff like you weren't ready to go and now you're kicked out the door and all this bullshit. But, man, I would say probably five, six years. One of the problems with us, man, is we don't talk about this. We don't talk about weakness or, you know, I go to the gym and I get no gains or I can't. We don't tell each other that I. We're trying to tough guy through it. Like we're still on a team for some reason. And there were a lot of things that I was experiencing that I didn't know. My teammates go through the exact same thing 200 miles away because, I mean, we never talk about it.

[David Rutherford]

Yeah, for me, it was this. It was when the suicide started to. To creep up, like.

[Ryan Seacrest]

Yeah.

[David Rutherford]

0809, 2010. And that's when I was just like, all right, what's going on? And then by 2015, I just started feeling a ton of it. And for me in 2016 is when I met a guy named Dr. Chris Free. And he's the one who wrote the book Operator syndrome.

[Ryan Seacrest]

Yeah. Oh, really?

[David Rutherford]

Yeah, yeah. We've been friends a long time and he was the one who really brought to my attention because he does a lot of work with the SEAL Future foundation and they really promote the vets program down in Mexico. And that's a great one, by the way.

[Ryan Seacrest]

Yeah.

[David Rutherford]

And. And then I started having all my buddies go through different forms of using, you know, natural medicine to help with that. When, when was your. When were you introduced to it and what was your primary reason you. You wanted to explore this?

[Ryan Seacrest]

Okay, so it's probably around like 2019, 2020. All right. I started having real, like health problems too. I ended up in the hospital. This should prepared. Before I got a blood clot down, it was in both lungs. That was a mess. By the time I got to the va, I spent like a year and a half on blood thinners. And in that I kind of felt I fell apart more than two because I had a year and a half where I wasn't even allowed to do cardio. They're like, hey, if your heart rate gets up, you know, you might just jar this thing loose and you'll die. So just kind of lay there and let you wipe through the hard part, you know? It was that bad. It was like, whoa. So that caused like a. Now that I can't do anything, not even maintenance. When I got out of office blood thinners, I think I realized more than what a mess I was health wise, because now, I mean, I can't make up any ground. And the term operators, I don't even think I heard that term until maybe 20, 20, 2021. But it covered everything. It's like, oh my God, somebody's act. But again, all this stuff that we're all going through, but nobody's talking to each other, we're trying to get a job or tough guy through this shit. And so I was. I will say I was kind of looking for a solution. And actually one of my buddies called me and introduced me to trans. They call it transcranial magnetic stimulation. Yeah, okay.

[David Rutherford]

Yeah.

[Ryan Seacrest]

So there was a charity that had it together and I went and did that. And it did help. I mean, it was. It was a little. It was a little gain. Like, it was like a 15% gain. And they gave me all kinds of, you know, supplements to go with it. And testosterone, if I wanted it, which I didn't actually take because I was afraid that if I took unnatural testosterone, it would damage my body's ability to make It. So it helped somebody. I think actually what it did was it gave me enough boost. I'm like, okay, I've got to do something about my health, and I got to look for something else. Around the same time, I was actually teaching a group of bitcoin nerds out of Texas how to shoot, right? So these guys are all. They're, you know, all successful, wealthy dudes, and they're, you know, cutting edge and all this other stuff. And as they're. They're talking to me or talking to each other offline, they're talking about, like, microdosing mushrooms and things like that, using it as a therapeutic and how much has helped them. So I finally asked for them, like, hey, like, hypothetically, like, what would that do? Like, oh, man, we've been waiting. Come here, dog. And a couple of them had actually already donated, like, a big amount of money to, like. Like, Vets Inc. Some of these other places are doing the Mexico things, and, like, we're seeing, like, basically results that are, like, incredible. So, like, yeah, if you wanted to, you know, give it a go, it would probably help you a lot. And so that's actually where I got my first, you know, stash, if you will. But, man, I would. I was still scared of it, bro. That sat in my freezer for a year before I had the stove do it.

[David Rutherford]

Wow. Wow. Had you ever done it before? Before you went in or. Yeah, didn't touch a thing.

[Ryan Seacrest]

Dude. I'm like the most Nancy Reagan guy that you ever met. Like, you know, like, I wanted to. I want to go in the military like, an early age. So, yeah, I was like, oh, no, you'll cut your face off with razor blades if you do any of that stuff. And you can't smoke weed because it's a gateway drug. I. I never smoked weed before I went in.

[David Rutherford]

Wow.

[Ryan Seacrest]

Yeah, it was that straight laced. So I. Man, I never even considered it. And I think to a degree, that actually made it scarier. Like, wait a minute, man. This is a big, big step.

[David Rutherford]

Oh, it's massive. It's massive. I mean, there's. There's so much. There's so much mysticism. Right. Is probably the best word affiliated with, you know, tripping your face off or, you know, whatever that is, right? It's all built up from the counterculture movement, Timothy Leary and all those guys. But, you know, I think for me, the big shift was, you know, I had these friends that it was crazy, like, when I used to do a show with some guys, Marcus Luttrell, back in the day. And, and, and he started talking a little bit about some of these therapeutics and I was just like, wait, what? There's like, people are taking a hallucinogenic and it's helping. And. And then what really kind of exploded. I remember reading an article about that guy, Tim Ferriss, one of the first big podcasts, and he raised like $17 million to start a veteran research program at Johns Hopkins.

[Ryan Seacrest]

Yes.

[David Rutherford]

And that was based on. There was a study that had done for using psilocybin to treat people that had terminal cancer and found immeasurable therapeutic effects to improve end of life care. Yes, end of life care, that's right.

[Ryan Seacrest]

No, it's absolutely awesome. Yeah.

[David Rutherford]

And so when. So now it's sitting in your, your freezer for a year. What was the threshold point for you? What was the thing that got you over the line?

[Ryan Seacrest]

This is actually hugely important. And this is part of the reason that I've been so vocal about it now is because a lot of those dudes, like, I, I didn't know. I had never heard like, Marcus, Rachel talk about it. Apparently this is like more widespread than I knew. But not a lot of those guys had. Had talked about it yet to in my knowledge. And certainly none of like my peers had. Like my brother. Turns out that after I did this, like, a bunch of were like, oh, yeah, man. Yeah, it's awesome. I just didn't tell you for some reason, like, ah, thanks. Thanks, Dick.

[David Rutherford]

Well, it's that shame, right? It's like, oh, I'm. I'm a druggie or I'm something wrong with me. It's that same. It's that, it's that shame of am that's built in.

[Ryan Seacrest]

Right? Well, I think there's a couple other things that go along with it too. I'd actually never considered that, but that is a piece of it. The other parts are, man, this is, this is true. This is definitely true for us soft guys. I was scared to do it because my thought process was something like this. Like, you know, I'm technically a mass murderer. Like, I'm good at it. All right. Do I really want to pour? Because you know what the A loosening does? Never done it before. Am I going to pour that on this guy? Like, what am I going to fucking do? Like, if I decide that I'm going to go crazy, they're going to need to sit in like five counties or the SWAT teams to get me where I'm at. You know, it's going to be, it's.

[David Rutherford]

Going to call in the National Guard for you guys.

[Ryan Seacrest]

But you know what I mean?

[Unknown Speaker]

Like, seriously, once.

[David Rutherford]

Once that barbarian. Barbarian spirit is unleashed, they're going to find. They're going to find hatchets in five states.

[Ryan Seacrest]

You don't know. You don't know that you're going to lay down and you just think from like watching bad after school specials and shit, like, I might go crazy. No, you're not, man. But you don't know that. The second part. I've heard a number of my peers say this too. They're afraid. I was afraid of this too. They're afraid they're just going to turn them into a pussy, basically because we've seen all this hippie, oh, peace and love bullshit and we're kind of all afraid. I'm going to take this and I'm going to wake up and I'm not going to be able to kill a grasshopper again. I'm going to be walking through life like a Buddhist monk. And I like that edge about me that is part of us. That like, killer instinct and all those things. That's a piece of us that we don't or we can't let go of, really. So, I mean, I was a little bit concerned. Maybe we'd take that away too. Let me see, what else? Yeah. And then, you know, just like the standard fears, like, I'm going to be an addict. I'm going to be a psilocybin. Yeah. That's not even a real thing, but, you know, that could be. And yeah. So I was. I was. I mean, I was scared. I was. Honestly, I was afraid of it. And that's why it sat for so long. What. What finally pushed it over the edge for me. Like, I got to do something. I was just kind of in this spot of like, I wasn't like deeply suicidal, anything like that, but I'm like, I just know now and again, I think that TMS helped me get to this point. Like, I know I'm a fucking mess. I know that I'm not handling life well. I know that I'm not loving my kids as much as I could. And I just got this brain fog and this lack of ambiguity. I'm just a fucking disaster. I don't recognize myself anymore.

[David Rutherford]

Wow. I mean that. I think in all the guys that I've talked to that have been in that. In our state, in that state where you're. It's almost like that hope is dwindling. The reservoir of that willpower to want to keep that edge. Right. And work because you still have it in your head. But you the it's not as easily attainable as it was when you're in right. Because you know, every day you wake up there's, you know, from zero dark 30 till middle of the night. There's it's planned out and you can just execute now you got to figure out it on your own.

[Ryan Seacrest]

Right?

[David Rutherford]

Let me so when, when you, I mean obviously, if, if you don't mind, would you talk about, would you talk about, you know, that first experience?

[Ryan Seacrest]

Yeah, sure.

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To just talk to you a little bit about is our our new Embrace Fear curriculum that's available on davidrutherford.com it's a part of the FrogLogic Institute which is going to be an emerg emerging group of of of core products or core curriculum that I've been working on over the past 30 years. The first in line is is learning to embrace your fear. Fear is the number one emotion that impedes us from achieving anything that we truly put want to put our minds to right. It's that emotion that's wired in. You've been taught it your whole life. It's it's that that that one thing that you really have to get ahold of. Now. Here's the deal. It's there's no such thing as fearless. So please go to davidrutherford.com, check out go to courses and sign up for your Embrace Fear curriculum. This is a five week or five month course. I recommend it doing it over the course of five months. And this course is designed not only to help you understand your fear, to accept your fear, to begin to retrain your brain with the fear, to test your fear every day, and then ultimately to live with courage and to deal with your fear as a motivational component to go help you achieve your purpose in life. So don't waste time. Go to davidrutherford.com and check out our Embrace Fear curriculum. Thank you.

[Ryan Seacrest]

So I did it in a way that I don't necessarily recommend for everybody else, but this is what happened, so I'm going to talk about it. So I don't even think I talked to my wife about me doing this. Maybe I, like, vaguely talked to her about it, like, months in the past. And my wife was wildly opposed to it for this reason of. She did a lot of recreational hallucinogenics when she was way up. She was, you know, a teenager long before we knew each other. And so she had this kind of fear to have seen the bad side of things. All right, what you know can happen. That's usually where it happens. So she wasn't really on board with it, and I was kind of like, you know, fuck, I have to do this. Like, I also don't think she understood, like, how bad of a spot I was in, because we tend to mask that, our wives.

[David Rutherford]

Absolutely.

[Ryan Seacrest]

Yeah. So. So finally I'm like, hey, it. I. I gotta do this. I gotta do something. So I basically waited for a night for her to go to bed early, which doesn't really happen that often. And I'm like, I'm gonna go to my garage with its concrete floor, and I make, like, a little nest out of lawn chair cushions and. And I'm like, I'll, you know, lock the door and hope I don't remember how to open it. And I'm gonna do this, and whatever happens, happens. Hopefully I don't die in the garage like a. Like a total dumbass. You know, Man, I'm. I'm also, like, scared of the. The mushroom. So I'm. I'm treated like sear school. Like, at, like, noon, I take something, I rub it on the inside of my arm. Like, if I have an allergy, like, like four. Like. Like four hours before I take a little bite, chew it up and spit it out. Make sure I don't, like, break out in hives or some.

[David Rutherford]

Yeah, yeah. So that's so true, dude.

[Ryan Seacrest]

It is. It's us, man. That's us. So it's ridiculous in retrospect, but I did. I did all this st. So night comes, she's in bed. I'm like, oh, I can't sleep. Go downstairs, lock the garage up, and I take, like, half of my dose, which is. So I had. I had, like, four and a half grams around. I took like two and a half of it. And I'm kind of like, okay, here we go. Let's. Let's see what happens. And it takes so long to kick into the first time. You just be like, oh, I'm immune to this. Like, nothing happens.

[David Rutherford]

I was like, I'm a team guy. I need 10 times the amount, right?

[Ryan Seacrest]

And it turns out for me, quite the opposite is true. Like, I probably could have just taken that two and a half and I'd have been flying so like an hour and 20 minutes and I'm just like, everything's visual and I'm like, oh, here we go. And, yeah, it was wild.

[David Rutherford]

Can you describe some of what did you do to keep your mind engaged? Like, you know, you, you, you hear people talk about it all the time. They say, all right, go into it with intention. You know, let, you know the, you know, let the medicine work on you. And you don't try and work the medicine, you know, all these things. And had you done research prior to it as well?

[Ryan Seacrest]

Not really. I had, I talked to my buddy who's, who's, he's one of the civilian guys, but he's got a lot of experience, like 10 years of experience. This, like, you know, hundreds of thousands of dollars with, like, high level guys. So he's got, I mean, a lot of experience. And he kind of talked me through it. So, you know, it's not like I was completely alone as far as what to do, but still, I didn't tell him. I didn't like, call him prior to or anything. And this actually kind of crosses into the space where I'm at now. The difference between there's, there's three ways that you can use these things, and that's, you know, recreationally, which I don't recommend for anyone therapeutically. And then ritually, and, and honestly, most, most therapy is, is closer to ritual. There's, there's times where you're like, laying on the shrink's couch. That's different. All the things that the guys do in Mexico and, and things like that, like ayahuasca, is that a close mix of like, ritual and medicine? It's kind of that gray area between.

[David Rutherford]

Yeah, it's interesting when I, when I, for a little bit of time, I, I was, I, you know, I knew the Aubrey Marcus over at, on it, sponsored my, my podcast for a little bit. And, you know, that was right when he was really breaking out. That's when Joe Rogan was having all, you know, the mushroom expert on all the time. And it really kind of like, gained this, you know, momentum societally to where you started seeing it all over the place and. But still there was this resistance within the veteran community, I think, because of all those things you've already described. But it's like you said, somewhere around 20, 20, 21, 22, you know, kind of like after the COVID thing.

[Ryan Seacrest]

Yeah.

[David Rutherford]

Really woke everybody up. And like, wait a minute, man. There's another approach. That's when it kind of exploded. So, you know, I, I. When you. When I always hear about going down, and I've had a lot of people go down to Peru and do the deep in the Amazon type of ritual stuff.

[Ryan Seacrest]

Yeah.

[David Rutherford]

You know, some guys were like, man, it was a lot. I'm not sure that was good. And then, you know, all the Mexico guys have all said they loved it, and I think I probably have, you know, 40 friends that have done it now, and. But then there's this other aspect, this therapeutic side that I don't think gets a lot of attention. Can you talk a little bit about the therapeutic aspect of it?

[Ryan Seacrest]

I can to a degree. I can talk about that personally with me, but actually in a legal context, because of what I'm doing now, I cannot. We had to stay very firmly in the religious space because that's where we are. But I will definitely say, for my first time. So my first experience was crazy. That's part of the reason I wrote the book. It was absolutely bonkers. Very visual, very visceral.

[David Rutherford]

Can you tell the audience the name of the book, too, and when you wrote it?

[Ryan Seacrest]

Sure. The name of the book is Barbarian Spirit. Actually just checked the date yesterday. It came out a year ago, June 29th.

[David Rutherford]

Congratulations on that, by the way.

[Ryan Seacrest]

Thank you, brother. So, in fact, you know what? I'll skip over the story part of that and get to what I saw as the benefit on the backside of it. So mine was intensely. I mean, super intensely visual. It was crazy. And it was also a very religious experience for me, which set a lot of these other things in motion. But on the side, like, the health side, when I walked out of that the next day, man, for the first time in, like, I. I can't even tell you how long I felt like me again, if that makes any sense. I felt like I had, like, hit the reset. I felt like I was 25 years old again mentally. Now, unfortunately, my body wasn't still 25, but my head was so clear. I mean, I swear, for like, two weeks after I was done, I could feel like, actually feel like my brain, like, growing back together is what it felt like had so much clarity. The brain fog was gone. Ambition, it's not. It wasn't like crazy. It wasn't like drug. But it was like an ambition, you know, where it should be for where I'm at in life. I felt good. I slept amazing. This has been something I've seen a lot of other dudes, too, their first time sleep. Guys haven't slept in 20 years. Now they're sleeping like nine hours a night, like a baby. And the biggest thing I would say on, like, the, like, the feeling side of things, I felt like a different connection to my kids that I'd never had before.

[David Rutherford]

Yes.

[Ryan Seacrest]

And that. That alone was worth, like, the price of admission.

[David Rutherford]

I love that. That's my favorite piece I hear the most. Right. Is that I can finally look at my child and connect with them on the level that they need, as opposed to being the ultimate protector, the.

[Ryan Seacrest]

Right. All this other shit.

[David Rutherford]

Yeah, all that. You just let that go and now all of a sudden you're communicating with them and they feel it.

[Unknown Speaker]

Right?

[David Rutherford]

They know the difference.

[Ryan Seacrest]

Oh, yeah. Hell, yeah.

[David Rutherford]

When dad's got the armor on and then when dad's, you know, available and.

[Ryan Seacrest]

Right.

[David Rutherford]

That, I think is the most positive aspect of it, I think.

[Ryan Seacrest]

Oh, me too. It's changed my relationship with my wife so much too. For the positive. Like, all for the positive. I feel like it's like this. I don't remember if this was an original thought or some real estate, but it's relevant. It's almost like. Like we turned off all these emotions and shit when we fought the war. Right. We had to because dudes were dying. And it doesn't matter if your teammate got zapped yesterday, we're going fucking back out today, and you can mourn for him when we get home. And, you know, people getting fucked up and we do. We just. It's a western way of warfare, too. It's very cold, very calculated. And that's required. I mean, that's actually something they beat into us and something they select for so that we can be the guys that we are. Is. Are you this kind of heartless fucking killing machine? For the most part. And the war just makes that worse because we have to now actually do these things. We turn our emotions off. And I think in a lot of ways, like, we forget or we don't know how to turn them back on. Then that is something else. It's a side effect of the. Of this. That's really what I felt like it was. For me, it didn't like, all come rushing back at once, but I did feel like I could actually have like a, like a real, like, emotional connection to my children and wife after that.

[David Rutherford]

You know, it's, It's. I never like before I went in, man, you know, I always laugh when I tell people this, but, you know, I was an art major in college, right. So, you know, as a. I'm a hippie who can kill you, right?

[Ryan Seacrest]

Yeah, yeah.

[David Rutherford]

And, and, And I go into teams and I was petrified that I was gonna lose that aspect of myself and, and, and very quickly got to, you know, the transformation began and you just, you have to. You have to allow what. It's, it's almost like. It's almost ritualistic in, in and of itself, right? The training is ritual.

[Ryan Seacrest]

Oh, yeah. Hell yeah.

[David Rutherford]

Right? And you think about those bonds, or not so much the, the bonds that are being laid down through those instructors, and then all of a sudden the, you know, now. Then you go to war, and now it's. It's a whole nother level of that. Oh, yeah, you know, that, that, that barbarian spirit, like you describe it, can, can you talk about what that, that, that means for people? Because there's going to be a lot of, especially young, young men that listen to this that, like, they're infatuated with. With, you know, guys like us. They're. Infatuated is a hard word, but, you.

[Ryan Seacrest]

Know, I know what you mean.

[David Rutherford]

They look up to us. They aspire to have that sense of.

[Ryan Seacrest]

Yes.

[David Rutherford]

Confidence and the ability and Brass. Fear. Can you describe that barbarian spirit? A little bit?

[Ryan Seacrest]

Sure. And this is, this is actually something else that came out of the psilocybin. It came from. My first time actually, was this like, deep, deep connection to like an ancient warrior tradition that I, I could not have fathomed in another way, but it showed me. It showed me what it called the blood bridge, which is back through, you know, DNA and back through time, back through history. Like, this is who you are and this you're related to. And, and that was. I mean, that was amazing. And I think that's part of the calling now for me to help our brethren, specifically with this is. It wakes that up in them and it's a good thing. It's all a positive thing. I think you have to have some. Well, let me rephrase that. I know you have to have some real world experience and real world strength. You have to train these things. You have to be good with weapons in the real World, all this stuff. I, and this is also why I don't think, I cannot imagine giving this sacrament to like a 19 or 20 year old. They don't have the things that they need yet.

[David Rutherford]

No, not at all.

[Ryan Seacrest]

If you spend your youth. All right. Growing that. All right. When you pour this on top, it does, it takes you to like a different place mentally. And it's, it's very positive too. It shows you. It's basically almost like another selection process. Like, okay, you went up through these things and now you can have this too. This, this kind of power on top of spirit power on top of your physical power. So it is great. I mean, it's fantastic.

[David Rutherford]

It's almost like an enhancer for all of the hardship, all of the sacrifice, all of the bloodshed, you know, because, you know, that's the one thing I, you know, I get into these kind of philosophical, metaphysical discussions with civilians all the time.

[Ryan Seacrest]

Yeah.

[David Rutherford]

And trying to help them understand. Right. To create some link for them to. Maybe it's. They all have a degree of empathy, but they don't have a degree of understanding.

[Ryan Seacrest]

Right. Yes.

[David Rutherford]

Right.

[Ryan Seacrest]

Yeah.

[David Rutherford]

And so trying to say, hey, man, this stuff goes way, way back. I mean, right. Not only the warrior spirit, but I mean, there's, there's all kinds of, of connections to, to plant medicine that, that goes back thousands of years.

[Ryan Seacrest]

Oh, right. Greeks, Romans, you know, pre. Those civilizations, all the South American civilizations. It's funny, they've been finding these little spoons on all the Germanic warriors. They're calling them basically their methamphetamine spoon. But they were attached to their keith finders, attached to their war belt in front of their sword. And they've tested it now a few times, and that is for some substances like this. And it was such a part of their stuff that it's buried with them on that belt.

[David Rutherford]

Part of the ritual that they're burying, right?

[Ryan Seacrest]

Yes. Yeah. And it looks like they probably actually carried those to combat with them too. To take that along with the, the sword and the ax. It's wild.

[David Rutherford]

All right. Do you think we can, you know, talk Sephardic into maybe like issuing this?

[Ryan Seacrest]

Be totally deaf? Well, actually, this is a funny thing. This is real. We, I think that we have a, I think all these things came together, but we have a very slim window with this administration that there's a possibility that we could see at least pilot programs of this as both a pre deployment and a post deployment kind of what's prophylactic, if you will. And that would be so amazing. Because that's actually part historically with the warrior class of what this was used for too. For instance, I think it was Comanches or Apaches. But one or the other, when they came back from war parties, they didn't get to go back to the village, all right? They went outside of camp with the medicine man, all right? He'd feed them some whatever they had, peyote, whatever it was for a couple days and kind of wash that shit off of them and then they could go back to civilization.

[David Rutherford]

Yeah, the Han blasea. Yeah, that's right.

[Ryan Seacrest]

Yeah, it's, it's there exactly. It's actually thought that some of the crusaders had a ritual like this too. They just kind of kept it quiet. So, yeah, it's not, it's not without precedent.

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[David Rutherford]

Thank you for joining. I apologize for the interruption, but we gotta give a little love to one of our main sponsors. That's Firecracker Farms. If you want to spice up your diet, spice up your food and want to get rid of those traditional hot sauces that are pretty boring. What I recommend is you check out Firecracker Farms and what they do is they infuse the three kings of hot peppers into their beautiful salt shakers into their salt that you can put on your food. Food all day long. Every morning I put it on my eggs and every time I have chicken, steak, pork or whatever, I'm dropping that Firecracker Farms hot salt on my food and it really spices things up. Now the thing that I love most about this is it's a family owned business. My friend Alex and his children, they all get together. His wife, they, they produce, they raise these peppers in their farm. They make it all together, they box it and they Send it out together. So this is the type of company that you truly want to get behind and support, right? No more Meg, no more all that. You want an organization that's making a product with love, designed specifically for you to help spice up your diet. All right? So check them out at Firecracker Farm. Punch in your promo code, which is rut15. That's Romeo Uniform Tango 1 5, and you'll get some love not only in your salt, but also in a discount. So check them out. Firecracker Farm. You know, one of the things that I find fascinating is when you dig into the history of how the government came crashing down and made all these things schedule one drugs back in the late 60s. You know, meanwhile, they're doing these experiments on people right, In Ashbury, giving them massive quantities of lysergic acid, right. To see what happens to them.

[Ryan Seacrest]

Right.

[David Rutherford]

It's just. It's crazy. But, you know, I think now we are seeing the most recent one was, you know, Texas House and Senate overwhelmingly with that guy Hubbard, who is connected to Morgan Littrell and Governor Perry, to really dig in a $50 million allotment to begin researching ibogaine as. As. As a substance to help this.

[Ryan Seacrest]

The. The only thing that scares me about that one is ibogaine. And I have not used ibogaine, but ibogaine is incredibly powerful. But it actually comes with a health risk where, like, they make those guys wear, like, heart monitors and shit and have, like, a real doctor around when they do. I. I kind of wish they'd started with something else, but I'm glad they're, A, doing something, and then. And B, that's. This is one of the things you discover, too, is all these. All these sacraments have different uses. And for, like, what is it, opioid addiction? Ibogaine is without question. It's the one. I mean, it's. It's the one. And I guess ayahuasca is a close second, so, I mean, there's incredible value in these things. I hope that that turns out great in Texas. You know, this is exactly what we need right now.

[David Rutherford]

I. I agree. Can you talk a little bit about some of the reason why you're a proponent for psilocybin as opposed to the others for, you know, instead of going to the va. Yeah. What? Getting your handful of psychotropics in your, you know, SSI uptake inhibitors and your Valium and all your. Right. That's gonna kill you, right? Why psilocybin?

[Ryan Seacrest]

Because in my opinion, most of those things mask Problems, and it's actually the same thing that the weed and alcohol does. I'm not coming down on weed and alcohol either. They have a use, but mostly those are an escape thing. You come home, drink a bottle of what I used to do, because alcohol is not a drug and weed is. Drink a fifth. All right, get home from work, whatever, crack open some booze. I escape my problems for eight hours. I wake up with a hangover. Now I got to deal with those problems again, cycle back through the day and do it again. Weirdly, psilocybin especially solves problems. They're over. When you do it after you've been through your ritual, whatever, it actually makes those problems go. It's a permanent lasting effect. Now, depending on how deep your problems go, you may need some more cycles of it over the course of months and years, but it actually makes things better. So you don't need that stuff anymore, which is, I believe that's actually one of the reasons they've gone so hard in. The pain about keeping it illegal is. I mean, you're trying to upset a trillion dollar industry, you know, for big pharma. It's funny, actually, Psilocybin was still legal in the UK up until 2005.

[David Rutherford]

Are you kidding me?

[Ryan Seacrest]

I didn't know that at all. You had to sell it in raw, not dried form, but yeah, it was totally legal. You go to a farmer's market and buy psilocybin up until 2005.

[David Rutherford]

That's insane to me. It is, absolutely.

[Ryan Seacrest]

It's wild.

[David Rutherford]

But that's what you're up against. You're up against people that they can't make any money off you, so they're gonna keep you, you know, keep you down.

[Ryan Seacrest]

Well, I mean, that's actually, that's really the funny thing, like with, with our veterans program and what we're doing. The, the cost, almost all the cost is in bringing the guys out and keeping them fed for three days. Like the cost of the, the sacrament itself is like 50 bucks. I mean, it's nothing. Wow.

[David Rutherford]

Wow. Tell us about the program you're running and first, like why you wanted to start it and then what, what, what, what the program entails.

[Ryan Seacrest]

Sure. And let me cover for you. Also why I use psilocybin while we're talking about that, because I kind of skipped over that in the last question. So a while back, as soon as I did psilocybin the first time, I was like, I want a way to get this to my, my brothers and I did, you know, off the Books very quietly. Like, some of them, like, my close old friends would be like, all right, man, come on. Or, you know, I started getting the calls in about, like, man, I'm gonna. However it goes, I'm gonna kill myself. Like, yeah, hold on. Let me have this one. For, like, if you. You have to phrase things differently, depending on the guy. If he's gonna kill himself, like, I'm just gonna hop myself. It's me. Like, hey, man, you're gonna kill yourself anyway. Why don't you just hang out for a minute? I'm gonna come over, we're gonna get high as on some different stuff, and it's gonna be totally cool. And if it's not, you know, whatever, I leave on Monday. You can off yourself. I'll even wait in the parking lot. I'll call the cops so your wife doesn't find your body. Be great, show up. Bam. Getting the sacrament eight hours later. Like, that was amazing. Holy shit. Do you want to kill yourself? Like, no, I know that life is too amazing, awesome. I'm going home. So I knew that.

[David Rutherford]

And it is that intense.

[Ryan Seacrest]

It is.

[David Rutherford]

Like, you see it on their faces, and that's what's so insane. And it's that. What is it? It's. It's deeper than relief. It's. It's. It's revelatory, right? Like, it all kind of falls off him. And now all of a sudden, there's like, oh, wait, you mean there's a solution? There's a. There's an opportunity.

[Ryan Seacrest]

Exactly. No, it's 100% like that. You. You also know your job's done. You're like, yeah, this is. This guy's good. He's straight. Like, I can leave right now. He's good. So I wanted a way to get this to my guy and everyone, actually. The suicide epidemic that we're seeing in the United States, period, not just amongst veterans. I mean, it's insane. Some cases, it's gone up, like, 52% in the last 20 years. These are actually things that I wasn't thinking about, though, from probably the first year that I used psilocybin, and it was about maybe six or eight months ago that I felt the calling, like this kind of calling to. To start this. This. This church. And it had to be this way for a variety of reasons. And it kind of. In a weird way, it kind of had to be me, too, because I already wrote something that's very much counts as a holy book about psilocybin.

[David Rutherford]

Yeah, man.

[Ryan Seacrest]

And it's. It's also weirdly I think why he gave me an odd path like, like why he came to me in this Norse pagan tradition which didn't make a lot of sense at the time. You know, I was gonna run with it because that's what happened right?

[David Rutherford]

When you're called, you're called, right?

[Ryan Seacrest]

Even when it's, when you're done with like that you'd be like, couldn't you like pick something that was a leisure like no, I can't. It doesn't work that way.

[David Rutherford]

You know that from long time.

[Ryan Seacrest]

Oh yeah, yeah, exactly.

[David Rutherford]

Don't get the easy path, brother.

[Ryan Seacrest]

But it does give us a, a, an ironclad, you know, link to a 10,000 year old tradition of using psilocybin specifically. So, you know, honestly too, I've, before I started this I tried a couple other things. Like I tried lsd. I didn't really care for it. There are people that can use that as a therapeutic or in a ritual manner. I won't just because I don't think that it agrees with our systems, what we need. MDMA is also great. I do work with that one as well. But I firmly believe that psilocybin is the sacrament that you use first because it's such a wide spectrum thing. It helps with so many things as well as it's the one that turns suicidal thought off like a light switch. And it's funny because I didn't think of it as the suicide off switch until about six, eight months ago I started putting the paperwork together to do this, this organization. I had to go back and think, I'm like, wait, it does do that. That actually did that for me and it did it so well that I never thought about it again. Like I forgot that that was even. Yeah, it was like in a race that it had ever been a thing forever and I, I don't know how many dudes you know that have, that have, that have had this one. I wasn't like hyper depressed, like I'm going to kill myself. I did go through that phase like when I first got out for a minute. But I, you know, I wasn't going to go through with it. The second one that I see amongst veterans is the. They get to this point where they just like wake up and they're like, what am I doing man? Like I already did the, the cool height, you know, I was riding helicopters. Now I'm going to work at the crab macaroni and cheese factory. Maybe it's just all over. I've seen help with that One, and I've been through that one, too. Now, neither of those two were going to affect me after my sons were born, because now I'm so committed to them. But the third one, I actually went through this one as well. I'm calling it suicide by other means. You seem like that, like, the weird. Like, there was an absolute legend of the Special Forces regiment that overdosed on heroin six months after he retired.

[David Rutherford]

No.

[Ryan Seacrest]

Yeah. And at the time, like, what the. What the. Like, heroin and you don't get it, but once you've been retired and you're out of the system and you're having all these things, all this flood and survivor's guilt, like, it's like, oh, fuck. And, yeah, I get it now. Like, he offed himself. He just. It just didn't. It's not going to show up in the stats. That's what he did. Or, you know, drinking and driving at, you know, incredibly high rates, because you don't fucking care. A lot of guys die that way, too. That should count in the suicide column. But, you know, I would say I was past that one, too, the one that I was still having. And this is so fucking weird, the impulsive thoughts. So, you know, I've been around guns my entire life, and I did, like, gun journalism for a while. I. Very tired. I was a competitive shooter, so, I mean, there's fucking guns everywhere. Like 15 guns in my office right here. About, like, I don't know, two or three times a week, I would just be, like, walking by something and I would have this impulsive thought and be like, you should pick that gun up and shoot yourself. And it'd be like, you know, I'd be like. Like, oh, fuck. Like, wait, hold on. No other symptoms? No depression? No. Just. I don't know what the fuck it was, but it was. It was. It was all the time. You know, it wasn't like every day, but it was. It was frequent psilocybin turned that off to the point that I forgot it even happened. Until I started looking at suicide statistics again. I'm like, oh, man. Like, how many guys have. How many guys have a. Had that same impulsive flight they come from tbi? I think it's actually, like, demonic whisper now. Maybe we're a little damaged from. From being over in the land of gins or whatever, but how many dudes have gone through with it? And of course, there was no symptoms. It's just an impulsive, snap decision, but it makes that one completely go away. Yeah, I mean, some wild. So. So what I did is I founded this organization. We're calling it Path of Barbarian Spirit and it is a faith based organization. But what we're doing is we're going to build a, a small retreat on some land that I've already bought in the Ozarks. Psilocybin itself in my experience, also works best in nature anyway. It's very much like a primal enhancer.

[David Rutherford]

Absolutely.

[Ryan Seacrest]

And then you also, we think about like us like the hard that we did, especially like training. All right. When you were going through BUDS and I was going through the Q course, it wasn't about like technology and goggles. It was doing hard in the woods with some and getting bit by ticks and chiggers, being a cold ass ocean, all this like nature stuff. So would put veterans back in that type of environment and we're using yurts instead of buildings. So it's, it's still, it's like being in a tent.

[David Rutherford]

Yep.

[Ryan Seacrest]

It puts them back in this natural space that really helps the reset on the back side of the ritual. I mean, it's amazing.

[David Rutherford]

I, I, you know, the, what I love to hear is, I love to hear that these stories like yours because it means that dudes are, are not giving up there. And then not only are they not giving up, but you're in that same Green Beret spirit. Right. You're, you're, you're freeing the oppressed. Right?

[Ryan Seacrest]

Yeah.

[David Rutherford]

Like, and the oppressed is our brothers in their minds. The oppressed is more importantly the oppression of their souls.

[Ryan Seacrest]

Yes.

[David Rutherford]

From what, what they volunteered to do, to expose themselves to. So I love the fact that you're, it's a, it's a religious in nature aspect to it because I mean, you know, you go back and you think about, you know, some of the greatest, you know, warrior cultures in history. They all have that component built into.

[Ryan Seacrest]

Yes.

[David Rutherford]

But yet in the modern era, you know, seeming even post World War I, when you know, you had all those guys rioting in D.C. because they're like, hey, you screwed us over.

[Ryan Seacrest]

Right.

[David Rutherford]

That's the commonplace now. And so once again, it's on us to take care of our brothers in a way that's ritualistic, that, that, it, that has that barbarian spirit, that has that warrior ethos still ingrained in it and, and getting rid of all the other, what is it? It's, it's, it's, it's, it's deeper than the lie or the, the, the illusion of support of the VA or whatever. It's just like, it's like we're done with you.

[Ryan Seacrest]

Yes.

[David Rutherford]

Like you've served your purpose and, and for us now it's like, no, no, no, no. Your purpose is even more important now. What are some of the things that you guys talk about in those retreats?

[Ryan Seacrest]

Well, dude, this is actually, let me back up one step. For instance, this is hugely important. This is one of the other ways that I know it was divine intervention is because I'm not this smart. There is, there's actually an obstacle also. Like I love what like, like Vets Inc. Is doing and Heroic Heart. Some of these other. I love. But there's a, there's a, there's a built in problem with it and that's that a lot of dudes will not go to Mexico and they will sure as fuck not go to Mexico to do drugs in a sketchy situation with people that they don't know. And that's what it sounds like. No matter how I church it up. If this is a healing retreat, that's how I would have thought about it, honestly, like three years ago when I started. So we've been like, hey man, we got to go to tj, be like the fuck we are like, like we're not. And I understand why they've done this and I understand why they continue to do this. But it's divine intervention in that he gave me a pathway that we can legally do this in the United States because we're not a therapy. We are first Amendment and a Restoring Religious Freedom act protected religious activity. And so we can bring guys to us in the fucking woods in Arkansas and we are 100 legit and able to do this. And I'm actually looking at us as like the, the paramedics of this thing. We can give them this first little dose. All right, Some guys, this is going to be enough. Some guys are going to stick with the, the spiritual path that I'm on. That's cool. That's awesome. Some guys are gonna, it's gonna pass them just enough. They're gonna know that they have, I mean, real problems that we can't fix. And they need to go to Mexico and get one of the other therapeutics or they need to go to a, a real like head shrink and not me religious guy and get some, some, some therapy. And that's all totally cool. We're totally gonna make that work. Yeah. So I mean it's, it's been amazing.

[David Rutherford]

Well, I mean, Clay, I, I just once I, I just, it snapped in my head. I was like, oh my God. You know, he's, he's got this whole thing. It's a program. It's focused. He wrote the book. I was just like, man, I. I just gotta bring him on so he can share with us with. With the people out there and let people know what's going on and that they're in particular our. Our brothers that are all struggling right now. So thank you so much for coming on and for sharing what you're doing. Is there any way people can donate to, like, your church or.

[Ryan Seacrest]

Yeah, yeah, absolutely. So we have. If you go over to barbarianspred.com there's a page for donations. We have a gifts that go up right now. We've actually developed some. In fact, we got some laying on the desk here. We developed some merchandise specifically for this. Because, yes, we need money, we need that. But the other thing we need to do is raise awareness. This is happening. So we made some stuff that is specifically for raising awareness that psilocybin solves this problem. So that's my 22Gramsby22Bishop sticker. It's a twofold thing. Yeah, we need OPfund to build our shit out and bring guys in. We also need all the guys to know like, this works because there's other ways to get. And, man, people are hurting right now. Fuck, bro. If you are hurting right now, probably start calling. Somebody's got something. Somebody can square you away. And you're going to love this next part. This is honestly, this is where we apply the Green Beret model to future for this. This is not intended to be like one little church in the woods. We got to build that first because we had to have a base of operations. We are looking at the concept of training our own priest class to be able to do this and have their own franchises all over the United States. And honestly, after we fight the first couple of legal battles, it's not even denominational at that point. Like, we're going to have Christian priests to come out of this. We're going to have Buddhist priests to come out of this. That's fucking totally cool. All right. We will still keep you in our circle of protection here. We will show you how to do these rituals and these focused things. It will help you raise funds for your franchise when you get there. We're also looking, in the near future, building a parallel nonprofit. All right. There are things that we can do on the religious side and there are things that people can do on the. On the medical research side. Never shall those two cross. But if we build a nonprofit that's parallel that we can staff with, you know, some, some ex officer nerds and, you know, neuroscientists and probably a shrink or two. All right? They can't come over and dictate protocol in the church. I have to do that. But hypothetically, on the backside of this, if any of our guys, once they've gone through this or while they're going through this, would like to come over and share their brain scan data in an anonymous way or talk with these people that do medical research, very much off of my camp, in the camp next door. We can do a lot of damage in a very short amount of time.

[David Rutherford]

Wow. Well, Clay, I wish you all the best, man. I'm praying for you and your team and I just can't thank you enough for coming on and sharing this. Where, where can people follow you and how can they get in touch?

[Ryan Seacrest]

Mostly we've got a contact point [e-mail] I spend a lot more time than I should on Twitter. I'm way off the.

[David Rutherford]

Please don't stop that.

[Ryan Seacrest]

I can't. I'm an addict.

[David Rutherford]

Awesome.

[Ryan Seacrest]

We're not great on the other social media platforms yet, but we're, we're getting there. But yeah, I mean, yeah, please come check us out. Look at what we've done. Got a couple bucks. Help us out, buy some merch. Just tell your friend, tell your friends that this works. That's going to help us carry momentum into this.

[David Rutherford]

Awesome. Thank you, brother. God bless you.

[Ryan Seacrest]

All right. Thank you, brother.

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