This week on Death and Disco, Emily sits down with Dr. Eric Russell, a psychologist, plant medicine educator, and integration coach who helps purpose-driven leaders and seekers reconnect to themselves through intentional work with psilocybin and microdosing. The two met on a winter solstice pilgrimage through Egypt, and that shared soul-land becomes the throughline of a conversation about the deaths we survive while still breathing. Together they dive into alchemy, not the medieval-castle kind, but the ancient Egyptian art of transformation that turns the lead of our pain into the gold of our purpose.
Eric walks through the seven stages of the alchemical process, from calcination (the moment life gets turned upside down) through dissolution, separation, conjunction, fermentation, distillation, and finally coagulation, mapping each one onto the shadow work, ego death, and rebirth we move through in real life. He shares his own catalyst, getting fired from a big-tech career, and how psilocybin became the medicine that helped him uncover the survival programming underneath his perfectionism. Emily brings her own alchemy: the death of her identity as a wife, the ego death that followed career success that no longer felt alive, and the fierce work of asking the ego to take a seat so the higher self can drive the bus.
The conversation stretches from the deeply personal to the collective, touching terror management, narcissism, and the survival wiring that keeps humanity stuck in competition instead of communion. Eric closes with the wisdom of Isis and Osiris as a template for alchemical love, and a deathbed reflection that lands on the one truth underneath all of it: life is about how we love one another. Sacred meets disco. Shadow meets light. And, as Eric puts it, in order to heal, you have to feel.
Join Eric's Alchemical Love Retreat Egypt!
● Use code EMILY1000 for $1000 off before end of July: https://drericrussell.com/egypt-retreat
Key Takeaways
● Alchemy is the ancient Egyptian art of transformation, and spiritual alchemy turns emotional pain into purpose through the same multi-stage process that turns lead into gold.
● The seven stages (calcination, dissolution, separation, conjunction, fermentation, distillation, coagulation) each mirror a real inner death and rebirth on the path to wholeness.
● Most people stall at stage one, slipping into victim mode or numbing out, and never find the courage to move through the full process of change.
● Ego death is not about killing the ego but relinquishing its grip, asking the part that has been driving the bus to take a seat so the higher self can lead.
● Psilocybin and microdosing can act as their own catalyst, peeling back layers of survival programming to reveal innate self-worth that needs no external validation.
● True transformation requires feeling the full spectrum of human emotion, grief, anger, fear, and all, rather than spiritually bypassing them.
Connect
● Podcast Website: https://iamemilybingham.com/
● Emily on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/iamemilybingham/
● Join the YOLO Year Waitlist: https://iamemilybingham.com/yolo-waitlist
● Dr. Eric Russell: https://drericrussell.com/
● Eric on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/drericrussell/
#DeathAndDisco #DeathMedicine #NoOneGetsOutAlive #EmilyBingham #LoveAndGrief #Alchemy #EgoDeath #PlantMedicine #Psilocybin #ShadowWork #Transformation
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