Conversations with Avant-garde Sages - The Wizard LLC

Conversations with Avant-garde Sages
they're at, and most of the time that means buying into their
problem's definition, and working with that. I had a patient one
time that was very skilled at helping people back in the '60s. She
did a lot of speed, I mean a lot of LSD, and she said she became
very adept to helping people get out of bad trips. And the way she
did it was by entering into it with them, and then gradually talking
them out of it from there. And that’s how it feels to me sometimes
in therapy, I go into the bad trip with them, and then I try to
gradually help them take steps towards a better or higher
understanding about it.
TRIP: How old are your kids?
RICHARD YOUNG: My children are grown, they're 32 and 30.
TRIP: Were you able to broach spirituality with them, say when
they were in their teens?
RICHARD YOUNG: Yes. We provided our children with what we
felt was an important basic starting point, which was we took them
to church, but even as we did that I was I was talking with them
about some of these other understandings. I'll never forget one
day when my then younger son, who was probably seven at the
time, came back from Sunday School and he'd gotten in trouble I
think with the teacher because he had shared something that the
teacher didn't agree with. So he was running it by me, he said,
"Dad, is it true that God loves everybody?" I said, "Yes, I think
that's true, son". He goes, "Well then he must love the devil too".
Of course my head's thinking is this the time to tell him there's no
such thing as the devil, no, probably not. So I resisted the urge
and I said, "Okay, yeah, I guess that's true, I guess God must love
the devil too". He goes, "Okay, fine, that means that the devil will
be in heaven with us". And off he went; he had puzzled that
through that nobody gets left out. And then one time I was
teaching a class on comparative religions at the church, the adult
education program, and my then older son who was probably
about 12 or 13 at the time he would sit in on those classes. And I
was talking about the perennial philosophy and I was talking
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