Mormons on Mushrooms
Mormons on Mushrooms is a storytelling podcast hosted by Mike and Doug, where we explore alternative methods for healing and living a fulfilling life—especially in the aftermath of losing faith, certainty, or identity.
We cover a wide range of topics, from music, mythology, and pop culture to spirituality, psychology, psychedelics, and all of the magic and mystery that life has to offer.
Episodes
32 episodes
You're Falling In Love With Yourself (#239)
Mike opens up about unemployment, the fear of an uncertain future, and the old Mormon voice that still wonders whether life falling apart means he has wandered from the path.Then comes a three-night bender involving dissertation-celebrat...
Maybe I'm the Skunk Man (#238)
If you can’t trust the skunk man, who can you trust?Doug’s latest wildlife crisis leads us into Idaho politics: official rifles, declaring English the state language, restricting ballot initiatives, reproductive rights, and the strange v...
It’s 2026. Grow Up. (#237)
Mike is back from two weeks in Europe—and possibly the most soul-filling trip of his life. Attending his first gay wedding in a Scottish castle brings his anger toward the Mormon Church rushing back: an institution that stands against love and ...
“God Is One Kinky-Ass Motherfucker:” Remembering Carolyn Elliott (#236)
Five years after first releasing our conversation with Existential Kink author Carolyn Elliott, we return to Episode 40 in memory of a guest whose warmth, wit, and ideas have stayed with us.We begin with a new introduction refle...
It's Season Seven, Baby! (#235)
Six years, six seasons, and one slightly delayed anniversary later—we’re back, baby.After a summer filled with concerts, funerals, psychedelics, work transitions, travel plans, and an unreasonable number of DoorDash bananas, we catch up ...
The Reckoning! (#234)
A week after The Reckoning — the biggest show of their lives — Mike and Doug are still riding the high. They recap it all: the nerves and lost voices beforehand, playing with a real band for the first time, the moment 30 people got up to dance,...
King of Bottlerock (#233)
Mike's first music festival. Three days in Napa, LSD at noon, a boathouse on the river, and strangers keep asking if they're playing here. They're not — but something about being mistaken for rock stars at Bottle Rock makes June 13th feel inevi...
The Mechanic and The Mystic (#232)
A week together in Idaho has a way of surfacing things. Doug hears himself on a recording and has to sit with what he finds. Mike discovers he's more mystic than mechanic — and that statues find you when you're ready. Also: golf, piercings, six...
Gross Blessings or Net Blessings (#231)
The church is changing the names of it's young women age groups and is suing Mormon Stories, and somehow all of it connects — tithing scams, Prop 8 money, the MAGA cult, and what happens when you've been off the hamster wheel long enough to act...
Bunker Bros (#230)
This week: a surprise visit from a ghost of missions past — and Doug's suspects a group effort to bring him back to the church. Also, the question of what you'd actually do if money wasn't the thing, Mike turns 46 and has some feelings about it...
The National Parks w/ Brady and Meg Parks (#229)
Mike and Doug sit down with the legendary Brady and Meg Parks from The National Parks to talk about writing and recording a new album on their own—late nights in a backyard studio, kids asleep inside, and songs coming together in a cha...
Do I Need to Apologize for My Life? (#228)
Mike and Doug bounce from Neil Diamond, the Oscars and current events into a wider, more personal conversation about privilege—where it shows up, how it gets talked about, and how it can mess with your sense of self. Along the way, they circle ...
Waves of Grief (#227)
Mike and Doug talk about grief. After the sudden loss of a close friend, the conversation turns to the strange waves that follow death—the contractions of sadness, memory, anger, and love that move through the body if you let them. They reflect...
Vices and What Makes You You (#226)
Mike and Doug explore what it actually means to be yourself in a world constantly offering scripts. What begins as a conversation about shrinking, privilege, and cultural pressure turns into something more personal: what makes you the most you?...
Let Jesus In...to Your Bedroom (#225)
Mike and Doug reflect on the Super Bowl halftime backlash, Bad Bunny, and the manufactured outrage of the 24-hour news cycle, using it as a doorway into something deeper. The conversation moves through Mormonism, colonialism, whiteness, sexuali...
Try Again (#224)
Mike and Doug recount a cathartic, slightly unhinged weekend in Utah full of music, laughter, rituals, and deep connection. From a racist Uber ride and wandering the Joseph Smith Memorial building to writing a new song about living again, the e...
Our Best of 2025! (#223)
Mike and Doug are joined by Adam as they wrap up the year with a loose, live Best of 2025 episode. They trade Top 10 lists covering standout movies and TV (Knives Out, Severance, Sinners), music and concerts, s...
A Very Merry Mormons on Mushrooms Christmas Special (#222)
Mike and Doug sip eggnog and red wine, trade stories, and play a handful of original Christmas songs—some joyful, some aching, all deeply felt. Along the way they talk Santa, Jesus, solstice, grief, family, belief, and what it means to reclaim ...