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

Episode Overview

• Former Navy SEAL and CIA contractor Shawn Ryan joins host Steven Bartlett to trace his journey from extreme combat and infiltrating Colombian cartel networks to building one of the world's largest podcasts, The Shawn Ryan Show.
• The conversation explores how intelligence agencies and political administrations manipulate modern media, detailing how planted podcast guests insert viral narratives and how political elites "capture" independent creators.
• Ryan reveals his profound disillusionment with both US political parties—including his shift against Donald Trump's foreign and trade policies—and explains why he is pivoting away from politics to cover the Bible book-by-book.
• In a deeply personal second half, Ryan recounts how a recent ibogaine and 5-MeO-DMT trip plunged him into a 90-minute experience of "hell," triggering three months of supernatural oppression, five Catholic exorcisms, and a radical restructuring of his business and family priorities.

Key Concepts

• The Psychology of Extreme Stress and Adrenaline Addiction: Ryan enlisted in the US Navy at age 17 and spent 5.5 years serving on SEAL Team 8 and SEAL Team 2. The SEAL training pipeline takes a couple of years: BUD/S is 6 months if unhindered, though Ryan got rolled back and spent about 9 months there, followed by jump school, SQT (SEAL Qualification Training), and 1 to 1.5 years training at a SEAL team before deploying. His first deployment was to Haiti in 2004 when President Aristide was pulled out of power, where Ryan witnessed sewage in the streets, escaped prisoners, dead bodies floating in water, and cars on fire. He then deployed to Afghanistan in late September or early October 2005 following Operation Red Wings (which occurred June 28, 2005, and was the biggest loss in SEAL team history at the time, with 1 survivor after a sniper hide was compromised by a goat herder). During the 2005–2006 timeframe in Afghanistan, Ryan's OIC (Officer in Charge) farmed his SEAL platoon out to conventional units being hit by roadside bombs and suicide bombers on supply routes; every time they went out with conventional units, they killed the terrorists within 24 hours. After leaving the Navy, Ryan became a real estate agent after reading Donald Trump's book How to Get Rich, failed miserably, and transitioned to government contracting—starting with a small State Department gig, getting picked up for a CIA contract through Blackwater, jumping to SOC, and finally becoming a direct contractor for the CIA with no middleman. This trajectory illustrates how operating in high-stakes environments expands human capability under stress while simultaneously creating a severe psychological dependency on adrenaline.
• Post-Contracting Spiral and Cartel Infiltration in Colombia: When conventional military and intelligence work ended, the lingering addiction to adrenaline drove Ryan toward self-destructive thrills. At age 34, after CIA contracting, Ryan moved to Colombia (starting in Cartagena and camping out in Medellín) for 2 years. Rather than dealing drugs himself, he chased the rush of setting up and infiltrating drug dealing networks to figure out who the players were. During a 3-, 4-, or 5-day cocaine bender, he went into Barrio Antioquia (a Medellín neighborhood with police checkpoints where taxis wouldn't go) to a homeless camp of insane people under a bridge called Puente de los Locos and threw a huge stack of cash into the air, nearly getting trapped by hundreds of people. His penthouse doorman, Freddy (whom Ryan bribed with coke, booze, clothes, and groceries), warned him that the police were after him, had photos of him throwing money at the bridge, had planted a bug in the light fixture outside his door, and had set up an observation point in a building across the street. Ryan performed an SDR (Surveillance Detection Route) to a couple of internet cafes, bought multiple plane tickets to different places, and left Colombia within 12 hours, never to return. While in Colombia, he also called his mother on Mother's Day thinking he was overdosing on cocaine because his ankles were swollen from poor blood circulation and time started slowing down (a friend had told him that when you are on speed and things slow down, you are on the edge of overdosing). A major turning point in cleaning up his life was trying to help his best friend kick an opiate addiction (though the friend ultimately succumbed to his addiction years later; an on-screen community note clarifies that opiates are natural drugs derived from the opium poppy that relieve severe pain by blocking brain signals and differ from synthetic opioids, carrying high risks of addiction or overdose).
• Political "Capture" of Independent Media: Administrations use proximity to power—such as White House invites, rides on Air Force One and Marine One, or exclusive photo-ops—to absorb independent creators into a political tribe. Ryan points to the first Epstein file release at the White House, noting that influencers who showed up holding binders were instantly "captured," signaling they belonged to a tribe and could no longer be viewed as free thinkers. Prior to the 2024 election, Ryan offered Kamala Harris's team an interview (reported in The Washington Post); her team wanted to restrict topics, Ryan offered to let them pick the topics while he developed the outline, and they backed out at the last minute, whereas Donald Trump's team gave zero guidelines. (Bartlett notes that when Harris came on DOAC after losing the election, she had zero guidelines, swore, and said Joe Biden "kind of screwed me over.") Despite hosting Trump, Ryan has changed his opinion since the election and is unhappy with everything happening right now, stating Trump has gone against what he said he would do. Ryan's former military colleagues believe the US is involved in the Iran situation for Israel's interests, which Ryan thinks probably has the majority of the interest—rejecting JD Vance's claim (from a prior DOAC interview) that the US is the "senior partner," though Ryan hedges that he does not know the real reason Trump engaged in conflict with Iran and that anything he says would just be speculative. He also references "Professor Jiang" (a game theory professor who appeared on DOAC) regarding the breakdown of the petrodollar and US power structure, hedging on whether losing superpower status will cause lawlessness and currency collapse ("Look, that all might happen. It might. I don't know."). Additionally, he criticizes US trade policy with Canada as "schizophrenic," noting Biden rejected the Keystone pipeline—forcing Canada to make deals with China—and now Trump is penalizing Canada with tariffs Ryan estimates at 25% to 50% to 100%. To counter foreign spending, Ryan proposes a project called "50 States in 50 Days" to film the poorest parts of every US state and call out Senators, Congressmen, and Governors.
• Intelligence Infiltration and the "One-Sentence" Media Operation: Because a guest can get 100 million views off just one good podcast performance (as every other podcast calls them afterward), top podcasts have become prime targets for intelligence operations. While Ryan admits he has no proof ("Yes. I have no proof, but yes"), he explains how planted guests can sit for a 2-, 3-, 4-, or 5-hour interview where the actual intelligence "mission" is simply inserting a single sentence they hope gets clipped and goes viral, or making a geopolitical prediction after doing 50 podcasts in a 2-month span and texting the host later when it comes true to build credibility. He recounts interviewing Blerim Skoro (recruited out of prison as a CIA asset to infiltrate Islamic terrorist cells/Muslim Brotherhood and divert weapons caches), who out of left field claimed Russians were getting nuclear warheads into the US; Ryan challenged him on-air about whether he was sent just to insert that one sentence, and notes ICE recently detained Skoro to deport him (hedging: "Which if he was an asset and actually did all that stuff for us, which, you know, I think he did..." and "I'm not saying that he is or isn't one. I'm saying that's what it looks like when it happens."). Bartlett adds a claim that there are planted spies living in New York City right now with families, jobs, and businesses having money funneled to them by foreign countries to prop up a fake life. Furthermore, The Shawn Ryan Show is #3 on Spotify (as of recording day), has been #1 on YouTube several times, gets 150 million to 200 million views a month, and has more US views this week than Joe Rogan has, yet never appears in YouTube's "Popular Podcasts" section. Ryan attributes this to early discussions on terrorism and suggests intelligence operatives work as moles using covers as ordinary employees at YouTube, Meta, or TikTok—while hedging, "I'm not going to say we got shadowbanned..." and "I'm not saying that the companies even know..." Ryan also cites journalist Annie Jacobsen calling conspiracy theories "speculative narratives."
• Editorial Gatekeeping and Un-Aired Episodes: Protecting audience trust requires killing episodes when guests fail basic credibility checks or push unverified narratives. Ryan discloses he took the COVID-19 vaccine, didn't like it, and regrets taking it, which heightened his sensitivity to medical misinformation. He has a handful of episodes he never aired: (1) a guest claiming the COVID-19 vaccine was developed in a lab and patented prior to 2020, who kept switching the word "COVID" to "SARS vaccine" when referring to the patent (Ryan hedges, "Maybe it was real. I don't know," while an on-screen community note explains that the SARS vaccine targeted SARS-CoV-1 during the 2002–2004 outbreak, whereas COVID-19 vaccines fight SARS-CoV-2, making them two distinct vaccines for genetically different viruses); (2) a supposed expert on the World Economic Forum who couldn't define what the WEF actually is (business vs. non-profit); and (3) a woman a couple of months ago claiming she worked for the CIA who hid behind classification for everything except talking about how to beat a polygraph.
• The Dual Edge of Psychedelics and Spiritual Oppression: While psychedelics are widely praised for interrupting trauma and addiction, Ryan warns they can also lift a protective spiritual veil with terrifying consequences. (Bartlett discloses he worked in a mental-health-focused psychedelics business for 1 year between leaving his first company and starting the podcast; an on-screen community note adds that ibogaine treatment uses a natural African plant extract to rapidly interrupt addiction by blocking opioid withdrawals and cravings, but carries severe heart risks and must only be explored in controlled, legal medical settings.) Ryan has done ibogaine treatment twice (taken as a pill derived from a root in Gabon, Africa, followed a day later by 5-MeO-DMT), plus psilocybin a handful of times and 5-MeO-DMT a handful of times. He did his first ibogaine treatment when his son was 6 months old because he couldn't be present due to business stress; coming out of it, he effortlessly quit drinking alcohol, sleep medications, and Adderall, has not had a drop of alcohol in over 4 years, and has zero vices today. However, during his second ibogaine and 5-MeO-DMT treatment about 3 months ago, he states he visited hell for about 1.5 hours (which felt like eternity): experiencing total emptiness, no fire, nothing visible, maximum fear and anxiety, no God, no Christ, a feeling of abandonment, and his physical body contorting in ways a human body shouldn't (witnessed by a friend who is a MARSOC GWOT veteran). Ryan hedges on the exact mechanism ("Do I know what it is? No. Do I know for certain that it came from psychedelics? I'm not saying that it did come from psychedelics. That seemed to be the trigger point..."), but notes that for the past 3 months he has experienced supernatural events, recurring nightmares about his family being destroyed, and synchronicities.
• Deliverance Protocols and Religious Realignment: Following his psychedelic crisis, Ryan moved away from an agnostic worldview (defined by an on-screen community note as thinking the existence of God, the divine, or the supernatural is unknown or unknowable) and returned to Catholicism (noted on-screen as the largest branch of Christianity, serving over 1.3 billion members globally, led by the Pope, and practiced through seven holy sacraments including the Eucharist). Having been baptized on Easter in 2024, Ryan has recently undergone 5 exorcisms with 2 different Catholic priests (whom he calls spiritual mentors). They diagnosed his state as "oppression" (external attacks on surroundings, finances, health, family, and faith while retaining control of mind and body) rather than "possession" (loss of control of mind and body), and put him on the Liber Christo Method—a structured four-phase Catholic deliverance protocol developed with exorcists, recited at 6:00 AM, 12:00 PM, and 6:00 PM. Ryan recounts that while at his in-laws' house in Maine, he woke from a vivid dream where a Catholic bishop he was considering interviewing sent him cryptic homosexual messages, making him hate the Catholic Church. When he began his 6:00 AM Liber Christo prayer regimen, right as he started the St. Michael's prayer, a picture frame flew off the wall. Within 2 hours, at 7:00 AM or 8:00 AM Sunday Mass with his security/spiritual mentor ("Hindo"), seconds after taking Communion, Ryan's face turned bright red like a tomato with veins popping out of his forehead in an instant allergic-like reaction. Convinced this is a real-time battle over his soul, Ryan—who has read about half the Bible while understanding 5% to 10% of it—is launching a multi-year podcast series breaking down every book in the Bible, kicking off with Cardinal Burke (noting another set of wild supernatural events occurred the night before Burke's interview).
• Sacrificing Near-Term Incentives for Alignment, Privacy, and Presence: Living in alignment with core values often requires forfeiting immediate financial rewards and media dominance. When Ryan announced his Bible series, a life insurance company that had advertised on his show for years—and had just met with his team to deepen their partnership—canceled their contract because they "don't advertise on faith-based content." Bartlett parallels this sacrifice of near-term incentives with past guests Jimmy Carr (who left a great job to do pub jokes for 5–10 years for no pay) and Derren Brown (who did card tables in Bristol for 10 years). Ryan also expresses deep guilt over struggling to be mentally present with his 2-year-old son (who wants to play trains) and his 5-year-old son because running a top podcast is a 24-hour-a-day business where his brain is always switched on. Consequently, he plans to reduce his podcast schedule from 2 episodes a week to 1 episode a week to spend more time with his family and focus on building businesses like his newest venture, Glacier—a privacy and digital security mobile app featuring a VPN, secure DNS, and burner numbers (inspired in part by past guest Byron Tau, who believes Iranians attacked a US base by buying everyday marketing data from a data broker to tap into US soldiers' phones). *(

Quotes

• At 0:08:53 - "What you realize that you can accomplish as a human being is far more than I think what the normal person thinks. Your ability to work in stress, in extreme stress, goes through the roof. There's another side too, I mean you get addicted to adrenaline, you get addicted to those type of environments." - Explaining the psychological duality of Navy SEAL combat and high-stress contracting.
• At 0:10:41 - "You know, they did not understand that the minute that happened, they were captured." - Describing how independent media influencers lost their credibility as free thinkers by showing up at the White House holding Epstein binders.
• At 0:12:00 - "I'm not doing any of that shit. Like I know what this is. You're trying to capture me and put me into a group. You know, you can't allow that to happen. Otherwise you hit a ceiling, and the minute that happens, you've hit the ceiling." - Explaining why he turns down invites to the White House, football games, and rides on Air Force One and Marine One.
• At 0:13:08 - "You could talk to somebody for two, three, four, five hours, you know, but the mission, you know, the piece of—it may only be one sentence that they know is going to hit, that they know, you know, they're hoping gets clipped." - Detailing how intelligence assets use long-form podcasts to plant a single viral narrative.
• At 0:17:04 - "Intelligence work is, you know, is the primary job, but the cover is, 'Oh, I'm just an employee at YouTube.' You know what I mean? 'Oh, I'm just an employee at Meta. Oh, I'm just an employee at TikTok. Oh, I'm just an employee—' but it's a mole inside the organization that nobody really realizes is happening." - Suggesting how intelligence operatives may infiltrate major tech platforms to influence content visibility.
• At 0:20:21 - "I'm just, you know, to put it plainly, I'm not really happy about anything that's happening right now. I think he's totally gone against what he said he was going to do." - Expressing his post-election disillusionment with Donald Trump's administration.
• At 0:27:08 - "Why the fuck are we sending all of our money to all these foreign countries instead of taking care of our own people? It's disgusting. Our politicians have totally abandoned us." - Explaining the motivation behind his proposed "50 States in 50 Days" project to document domestic American poverty.
• At 0:35:08 - "I know that people trust me. I couldn't live with myself if I found out that guy was totally full of shit, feeding a bullshit narrative for whatever, and then you got people, you know, either taking it or not taking it based off what he said." - Explaining why he killed an un-aired episode featuring a guest making unverified claims about COVID-19 and SARS vaccine patents.
• At 0:41:02 - "It wasn't the dealing, I never really dealt. It was more setting up the network that gave me the rush, and infiltrating networks, and figuring out who the players are, and all that, and being able to insert myself into the middle of all of that." - Revealing what drove him to infiltrate drug networks during his two years living in Colombia after leaving the CIA.
• At 0:50:17 - "It's amazing how many of your own problems you'll work out yourself in your head just by telling somebody who has a, you know, seemingly unbiased opinion, you know, just with a couple of questions." - Reflecting on the value of therapy in helping him process trauma and transition out of his destructive post-contracting lifestyle.
• At 0:57:32 - "It was the most amount of fear that I'd ever felt in my life. It was the most amount of anxiety I'd ever felt in my life. There was no God, there was no Christ, there was—and it felt like eternity, and this went on for an hour and a half-ish." - Describing his terrifying experience of "hell" during his second ibogaine and 5-MeO-DMT trip three months prior.
• At 1:08:01 - "I mean, a lot of people say, you know, 'It lifts the veil.' Yeah, it lifts the veil alright, but maybe we have that veil over us for a reason." - Warning about the unseen spiritual dangers of using psychedelics after experiencing three months of demonic oppression.
• At 1:19:36 - "This is the spiritual realm playing out in real time. A battle over, uh, over my soul." - Framing the supernatural phenomena and physical reactions he experienced around Catholic Mass and his upcoming Bible series.
• At 1:27:01 - "You just can't buy peace and you can't buy happiness. You have to create it yourself and you're not going to create it with money." - Reflecting on why massive financial and media success failed to bring him internal peace.
• At 1:29:26 - "You only get one shot at this. You're everything to them. And if you're not there, somebody else will be everything to them." - Discussing fatherhood and the urgency of being mentally present for his 2-year-old and 5-year-old sons.
• At 1:37:37 - "The first thing that comes to mind is love is what you're willing to die for." - Answering Steven Bartlett's closing question on how he defines love after a lifetime of combat and spiritual transformation.

Takeaways

• Refuse "tribal capture" to protect your long-term credibility: Turn down status-driven perks, exclusive political access, or group affiliations that pressure you to compromise your independent voice, recognizing that joining a faction immediately places a ceiling on your reach and trust.
• Scrutinize long-form content for planted "one-sentence" narratives: When consuming or hosting interviews—especially with intelligence or geopolitical figures—watch out for sensational, out-of-left-field claims dropped hours into an otherwise credible conversation solely to generate viral clips.
• Kill projects or content that fail basic verification: Prioritize your audience's or clients' trust over sunk production costs by refusing to release work when a source shifts terminology, hides behind unverifiable credentials, or cannot define core concepts.
• Audit your post-achievement habits for adrenaline substitution: If you are transitioning out of a high-stakes career or intense life chapter, actively monitor yourself so you do not unconsciously manufacture chaos, substance abuse, or dangerous environments just to replicate a familiar stress response.
• Use unbiased therapy to untangle internal knots: Leverage talk therapy not necessarily for complex clinical directives, but as a structured sounding board where answering a few neutral questions allows you to hear and solve your own thoughts out loud.
• Approach psychedelics with extreme caution and medical oversight: Recognize that while substances like ibogaine and 5-MeO-DMT can interrupt severe addictions, they carry severe physical heart risks and potential psychological or spiritual destabilization that should never be treated casually.
• Implement structured daily routines during periods of mental or spiritual crisis: When overwhelmed by anxiety, nightmares, or spiritual distress, anchor your day with disciplined, time-blocked protocols—such as Ryan's 6:00 AM, 12:00 PM, and 6:00 PM prayer regimen—to regain stability.
• Accept short-term financial losses to stay aligned with your core mission: Be prepared to let go of lucrative partnerships or sponsors (like the life insurance company that dropped Ryan over faith-based content) rather than censoring a creative or personal pivot that matters to you.
• Restructure your workload to protect presence with your family: If a 24/7 career keeps your brain constantly switched on around your children, deliberately scale back output—such as cutting production from twice a week to once a week—while your kids are still young enough to want your time.
• Harden your personal digital security against data brokers: Protect your personal and professional privacy by using tools like VPNs, secure DNS, and burner numbers to prevent commercial data brokers from harvesting and selling your location and communication habits.