Shawn Ryan: There's A Battle For Your Soul, It's Happening Right Now

Shawn Ryan says he enlisted in the U.S. Navy at 17, went directly into the Navy SEAL pipeline, trained at BUD/S, served with SEAL Team 8, and spent five and a half years in the Navy. He explains that “SEAL” means Sea, Air and Land, and that the training includes BUD/S, jump school, SEAL Qualification Training, and another year or two of preparation at a SEAL team before deployment. SEALs train in diving, jumping, demolition, land warfare, small-unit tactics, and environments ranging from deserts and jungles to winter conditions. He recalls first seeing war-related chaos in Haiti in 2004 after Aristide was removed from power, where prisoners had escaped, bodies were in the water, and sewage ran through the streets. In Afghanistan, he arrived after Operation Red Wings, the mission later depicted in Lone Survivor, in which a compromised sniper element was ambushed and helicopters were lost. Dissatisfied with the limited combat opportunities, Ryan arranged for his platoon to support conventional units in Iraq, training them in surveillance, mission planning, sniper positions, insertion, and extraction before hunting insurgents attacking supply routes. He says the SEALs taught him that people can accomplish far more than they think and can function under extreme stress, but also left him addicted to adrenaline and vulnerable to drinking, fighting, and the culture surrounding those environments.

The conversation turns to Ryan’s belief that podcasters and influencers can be compromised through proximity to political power, platform manipulation, or planted guests. He says the Trump administration understood the power of podcasts during the election cycle and that public appearances—such as being invited to the White House, football games, or events where people are photographed together—can create the appearance that a creator belongs to a political “team.” Ryan says he declined such invitations because he believes they can capture a person’s public identity without the person recognizing what has happened. Ryan also suspects that some guests and hosts are inserted into the podcast circuit, although he says he has no proof. His example is a previously unknown person who suddenly receives enormous traction by discussing current events, making one memorable prediction, or delivering one sentence designed to be clipped and spread. He says a guest can speak for hours while the actual “mission” is a single viral line. Ryan also believes intelligence personnel may work inside major platforms under ordinary employee cover, though he says the companies themselves may not know. He points to his own show’s absence from YouTube’s “popular podcasts” section despite receiving roughly 150–200 million monthly views and ranking highly on Spotify as something he finds suspicious, while emphasizing that he otherwise has a good relationship with YouTube. Steven says the idea now seems logically plausible to him rather than automatically dismissible as a conspiracy, and references Annie Jacobson’s phrase “speculative narratives.”

Ryan says he supported Donald Trump and wanted him to win, but did not make an official endorsement. He explains that he also tried to bring Kamala Harris onto his show before the election. Her team initially discussed an outline but rejected subjects Ryan proposed; after she lost, she eventually appeared without guidelines and, in his view, spoke more candidly, including saying that Joe Biden had put her in a difficult position. Ryan says Trump’s podcast appearance had no comparable restrictions. Ryan now says he has changed his opinion of Trump because he believes Trump has gone against what he promised and that little happening politically makes him happy. Discussing Iran, Ryan says he cannot see a positive outcome for America and reports that former military colleagues believe the operation serves another country’s interests, primarily Israel’s. He rejects the public explanation that nuclear weapons were the real reason for the conflict but says he does not know the actual motive. He is also worried that the United States is damaging its alliances through tariffs, unpredictable policy, and insults toward other countries. He compares America’s behavior to dealing with “a schizophrenic” and says China may be benefiting by remaining calm while the United States self-destructs. Ryan is unsure whether he will participate in the 2028 election unless a credible third party emerges. He wants to make a project called “50 states in 50 days,” visiting poor areas in every state to show domestic poverty and question why so much money is sent overseas while Americans remain neglected.

After leaving contracting, Ryan moved first to Cartagena and then settled in Medellín, Colombia, where he spent about two years drinking, using cocaine, and immersing himself in criminal networks. He says he did not mainly deal drugs himself; the rush came from building networks, identifying who controlled whom, and inserting himself into dangerous systems. He describes the period as the most dangerous thing he had done because he no longer valued his own life. He was not suicidal, he says, but was pursuing a thrill and believed that if the environment ever became boring, he might simply die there. Ryan recounts going into Medellín’s Barrio Antioquia, an area he says was difficult to enter because of police checkpoints and known for cheap, high-quality cocaine. During a several-day binge, he went to the Puente de los Locos, threw a large amount of cash into a crowd near a homeless camp, and nearly became trapped by hundreds of people. After returning to his penthouse, his doorman Freddie told him police were looking for him and had photographs of him throwing money at the bridge. Freddie also said police had requested Ryan’s passport details and planted a listening device in the light fixture outside his apartment, with an observation point in a building opposite. Ryan scrubbed the apartment, disposed of the cocaine, performed a surveillance-detection route through several internet cafés, bought tickets to different destinations, and left Colombia within 12 hours. The close call did not immediately end his drug use; he later visited Panama, Costa Rica, and Honduras, including San Pedro Sula because it was then considered one of the world’s most dangerous places. A turning point came when he tried to help a close friend overcome an opioid addiction. Ryan began therapy partly to set an example, and says therapy helped him solve problems simply by explaining them to an apparently unbiased person who asked a few questions.

Ryan says he pursued ibogaine after becoming consumed by business and failing to be present with his wife and six-month-old son. He wanted to slow his mind and stop relying on sleep medication and other substances. After his first ibogaine treatment, he says he stopped drinking hard alcohol, sleeping medication, and Adderall, and found it easier to be present with his family. He has now gone more than four years without alcohol and says he has no vices. His second ibogaine experience, followed the next day by 5-MeO-DMT, was radically different. Ryan says he “visited hell,” although he saw no fire or conventional imagery. Instead, he experienced total emptiness, extreme fear and anxiety, the absence of God and Christ, and what felt like eternity. The experience lasted roughly an hour and a half and felt like an exorcism. He says his body contorted in ways that seemed impossible, and a military friend who heard him later said he had never seen a human body move that way. Ryan interprets the experience spiritually rather than as only a drug effect. He believes psychedelics can provide psychological benefits and help people see solutions to complex business, family, and relationship problems, but may also open access to a spiritual realm humans were not meant to enter. Since the experience, he says he has had nightmares, strange coincidences, objects falling from walls, and other events he regards as supernatural. These experiences have drawn him back toward Catholicism and Christianity. Steven describes himself as agnostic but curious, having moved from a Christian upbringing through a New Atheist phase to uncertainty about what exists beyond the material world.

Ryan says two priests have performed a series of exorcisms or spiritual interventions, which he understands as prayers intended to identify and remove oppression. He distinguishes possession—when a person is not in control of body or mind—from oppression, in which the person remains in control but experiences attacks involving health, finances, family, or faith. The priests, he says, have used prayers in Latin and English and watched for reactions to particular passages to determine what they are dealing with. They believe his situation is oppression rather than possession. He describes one sequence at his in-laws’ home: after a nightmare that made him angry at the Catholic Church, he began a prescribed prayer routine and a picture frame flew from the wall during the St. Michael prayer. At Mass shortly afterward, he experienced what he describes as an immediate allergic reaction after taking Communion. Ryan sees the timing of these events as evidence of a spiritual battle over his soul. He says the situation has been hard on his wife and family, but that influential former military personnel have contacted him to say they experienced similar events and thought they were alone. Ryan plans to reduce his podcast schedule from two episodes a week to one, spend more time with his family, and use his platform to examine every book of the Bible over several years. He says one advertiser ended a long relationship because it would not appear alongside faith-based content, but he refuses to abandon the subject simply to protect revenue. His new business, Glacier, is a privacy and digital-security app with a VPN, secure DNS, and disposable phone numbers. He says the secure DNS blocks data from being sent to data brokers and that burner numbers can be deleted and replaced when abused. Both men discuss the tension between ambition and family. Ryan warns that business can destroy a family because children know when a parent is physically present but mentally absorbed in work. He says money cannot buy peace or happiness, and that a good life means creating memories with one’s spouse and children. Asked what love is, he answers: “Love is what you’re willing to die for,” identifying his family as that priority.