Welcome to Almost Awakened. I'm your host Bill Real. We explore human development here, spirituality, psychedelics, sexuality, and more. Our aim, equipping you with tools for a fulfilling post-religious life. This is Almost Awakened.

Welcome to another episode of the Almost Awakened podcast.

I am your host Bill Real.

Grateful for the chance to be with you today.

This is another one in this long series that we're going to do of conversations with folks that I value deeply as people who have had a wide array of life experiences and have some grounded wisdom to share with us.

And today we have Phil McClure.

Phil, how are you doing?

Great.

Awesome.

Glad to have you on the show. We've had you on several times before.

And I've always enjoyed these conversations. And when I was making up my list of the first go-around

of folks that I wanted to reach out to, you were on that. And you're gracious enough to give us

some of your time this morning.

And anything you want to say in terms of a bio about yourself, folks who listen to this podcast will know a little bit about you already, but maybe for a few folks who are new to this,

if you want to share anything you'd want to say before we jump into what I think would be

a really great conversation.

Sure.

Even as a child, I was always interested in what people believed and how their

beliefs impacted their lives. I grew up Catholic. I went to Catholic schools. I went to an

all-male Catholic high school, so I was deeply entrenched in Catholicism. And I took religion very seriously.

And I always had questions.

I can remember being 10 years old and we had just gone to morning mass, which was about an hour,

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