I can’t say I recommend psychedelics

Ask a church receptionist #6

seems like a narc tbh

Welcome to another installment of Ask a church receptionist, a monthly column where I answer your questions about the Bible, Christianity, and who really shot JFK (it was Bigfoot).

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Dear church receptionist,

What are your thoughts on the use of mind-altering drugs and natural substances such as psilocybin (magic mushrooms).  Some people swear by their potential health benefits to overcome a host of mental maladies.  Some say it opens the door to a spiritual realm at odds with the faith.  Does the Bible offer any clear prohibitions or admonitions on the matter?

—Josh

Greetings my groovy brother,

This is one of those things I have no firsthand knowledge of, since the closest thing to “drugs” I’ve ever done is tobacco and alcohol (both of which I swore off for good years ago, because I am, as my alma mater’s fight song will tell you, “the squarest”), so I reached out to my friend Ashley Lande, who used to be a heavy user of psychedelics but then gave them up to follow a guy named Jesus. (Her memoir The Thing That Would Make Everything Okay Forever: Transcendence, Psychedelics, and Jesus Christ will be out in October; I can confidently say it will be worth the preorder!). Ashley had this to say:

Yes, the Bible does have a surprising amount to say about psychedelics, both directly and indirectly (the latter is open to interpretation, of course).

Directly—the Greek word “pharmakeia,” which we find in Galatians 5:20 and Revelation 18:23, encompasses the practice of using drugs to conjure altered states of consciousness, which historically have been used in the practice of witchcraft/sorcery, despite the narrative that such drugs have always been used in the therapeutic “inner healing voyage” manner they presently are, i.e. by wealthy Westerners traveling down to Peru for ayahuascha retreats.

God does not look kindly on pharmakeia, and I believe this admonition—like all of God’s admonitions—is for our own good and protection. Psychedelics can cast an enchanting spell, and seem to afford transcendent experiences. But they always give you more than you bargained for, and will take you places you never wanted to go and which, frankly, may scar you for life.

I also think it’s telling how they reliably lead to pantheistic perspectives—C. S. Lewis calls pantheism “the oldest heresy,” and the one humans revert to in the absence of revelation, which I find interesting considering the obliterative “ego death” nature of a psychedelic trip, which can be terrifying, and for which I find analogy in Jesus’s parable in Luke 11 about the unclean spirit finding the man’s house “swept clean” and bringing seven of his buddies back with him to dwell there, which leads me to another point: psychedelics give users an illusion of control. We can ingest something and have an almost instant “spiritual experience.”

But there are forces at work which are beyond our control. As an ex-hippie-turned-Christian once warned me (I traveled the same road), “Psychedelics take us places we were never meant to go.” Acid casualties are real, and tragic. Some people never come back.

The spell is enchanting. The temptation—to be like God, knowing good and evil—is, sadly, perennial. But you always get more than you bargained for.

As for the therapeutic applications, I have less to say on that but I’m extremely cautious and skeptical, plus that whole world and the shady financial interests behind it is full of propaganda and rot.

So, there you have it. Ashley comes on a little stronger about this stuff that I would, but she has direct, unpleasant, experience with psychedelics, so you can hopefully understand her zeal to warn people away. Y’all are here for my thoughts (and some butt jokes), though, so if pressed, I would add the following (after the break):

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Psychedelics like LSD and magic mushrooms are known for inducing transcendent spiritual experiences in their users—leading a lot of people to use them as part of their “spiritual journey”—but as I see it, there are two possibilities. Either:

1. The transcendent, ecstatic experiences they induce are just illusions created by basic brain chemistry, or

2. Psychedelics genuinely open your mind to the spiritual realm (so what you see when you trip is, in some sense, “real”).

If #1 is accurate, there’s no real spiritual benefit to these things, aside from possibly as an introspective aid (but I’m pretty confident that most of us would benefit from less introspection). I’m open to the possibility that #2 is true (though obviously impossible to prove scientifically), but even if psychedelics do let you see into the spiritual realm, that doesn’t mean you’ll see anything that you’ll be glad to have seen.

Think about it this way: Your five (-ish) senses allow you to see into the physical world. They allow you to see beautiful sunsets and hear gorgeous symphonies and watch profound Ingmar Bergman films and hear stirring speeches by the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.—but then again, they also allow you to smell feedlots and feel kicks to the groin and read tweets from Neo-Nazis and be lied to repeatedly by corporate PR departments. There are a range of experiences to be had in the physical realm, and we’re not necessarily better off for experiencing all of them.

The same seems doubly true for transcendental experiences, since there are a whole lot of metaphysical beings out there who (a) are far more powerful than you are and (b) don’t necessarily wish you the best. (The Christianese term for these beings would be “demons,” but if you want to call them something cooler, like “eldritch gods,” I won’t stop you.) So, yeah, opening the door to the spiritual realm sounds cool—until you remember that the spiritual realm is just as full of assholes as the normal realm is.

I, personally, have never had beef with seeking out transcendental experiences through mystical disciplines like fasting, solitude, prayer, meditation, etc. (though, again, I lack much experience here)—but that sort of thing, for my money, amounts to following a straight, steady path toward the divine. Doing psychedelics is more of a lazy shortcut—randomly ripping open doors into the beyond in hopes of seeing something cool. Which—again—there are a million ways that kind of behavior can go sideways on you, in life as in drug use.

And really—if I could get up on my soapbox for a minute—when I encounter someone who’s constantly chasing after these transcendental experiences, my question is always…why? If you believe there’s a divine, and that divine created you for a purpose, shouldn’t your primary goal be to live out that purpose, not just constantly seek out more and more mystical experiences? You can probably find endorsements of mysticism (though not drug use) in Scripture if you’re looking for them, but you’ll find a lot more verses praising sobriety and telling you to serve those in need. Religion, after all, is a lifelong discipline, not a theme park ride.

In other words: If you’ve encountered the divine (whether through drugs, spiritual practice, or anything else), cool. More power to you. Now what are you going to do with that newfound knowledge?

High on my own supply,

—the church receptionist 🕹🌙🧸

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⬅️ In case you missed it: Gonna tell my kid this is a short story

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I can recommend at least one healthier way to induce hallucinations

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