Reality, Psychedelics, and Christianity

Reality is the state in which things are. Reality is truth. Reality is the being of all things as they are, and not as they are not. This should be simple to understand… but the problem is that our comprehension of reality requires us to understand it, meaning our understanding of reality is always being processed through our perception. It is always passing through a filter.

Although, if one thing can be certain it is this: reality is real. Reality 'exists'. This must be true because beyond the human existence and our subjective interpretation of our surroundings, the existence of all things remain; with or without us. There is a state in which things are, beyond (and without the need of) human understanding or observation.

Now, “noumena” is a term that means “a thing as it is in itself”. The idea of noumena implies there is a set of defining qualities of a thing that are completely objective to what it really is, void of subjective interpretation. Something being as it is.

This is an incredibly intriguing concept because it is simple, yet impossible to ever know. A thing may never be known as it is, because it will only be known as we know it. Science attempts to measure, calculate and discover noumena through objective standards, but regardless, no matter what standards we create to observe our reality, we are always processing reality through a filter. Through our perception.

So how can we ever know something soley as it is? In fact, I don’t know if we ever fully can. Hopefully through sound judgment, good sense, reasonable measurement and adjudication we can align our understandings as closely as possible to the noumena. By these means we can align our perception of reality as close as possible to actual reality. Sometimes we may hit the mark, but sometimes we may miss. Although, what something is in its fullest state and down to it’s very essence is only knowable to God. We will only ever be able to grasp part of the whole picture.

So why am I writing about this?

Well, originally, I set out to write on Christianity, and my personal moral perspective on psychedelics. And yes, long story short, I took a psychedelic, psilocybin (shrooms) to be exact. I believe my actions in doing so is a big moral taboo for Christians. Considering this, I would like to say that I do not accept the recreational use of such substances, nor do I reject it. Psilocybin is a powerful and extraordinary substance, and I think it is a wonderful tool and gift of enjoyment for the human kind. However with great power comes great responsibility, and to this date, I think it must be used with extreme caution and sacredicity. We as people love to rob the good, the true, and the beautiful of their sacred properties and exploit things for our own pleasure, forgetting that pleasurable things have not been placed in existence for the single self, but as part of creation as a whole. This is why debauchery and the overindulgence of pleasure corrupts rather than edifies… It is not good to take too much from this world. Even the things that give us great satisfaction are to be treated with respect and without obsession because even good things can be distorted for evil. We are not to become fixated on the things of this world because one day all things will perish.

Shrooms most certainly could be exploited and distorted for evil purposes, intentionally or unintentionally. As much as it can be a tool for us, it can also be a tool for evil spiritual forces, just as anything can be a tool for evil spiritual forces. Take sex for example, this is one of the biggest devices Satan uses for entrapment. Sex is a very sacred and beautiful human thing which unifies two individuals physically and spiritually, and it is incredibly pleasurable. However when sex is misused, it becomes one of the most effective spiritual devices for destruction of the soul.

With this in mind, I don’t think shrooms are inherently evil and I believe they can have good healing and spiritual properties. As Romans 14:14 states, nothing in itself is evil. Where the problem lies, is that God created everything with a purpose and simultaneously created things to be enjoyed and experienced. It turns out that shrooms and the experience they evoke is very purposeful and also powerfully pleasurable. As humans, we neglect the purposes of things and exploit them for their pleasures, latching on to the worldly effects and abusing them. God created many things with meaningful purposes but he also also wanted to make those things incredibly pleasurable out of his love for us. God’s loving heart and generosity to give us pleasure simultaneously put a lot of responsibility in the hands of man. However, it just so turns out that in regards to ALL THINGS, when He created us, God put a lot of responsibility into the hands of man, SO MUCH that he appointed us over the works of His hands and put all things in subjection under our feet (Hebrews 2:7-8)

So, it is unfortunate when there is pleasure that we take it for granted and abuse it, fixating on it, rather than fixating on what God intended with the substance or (e.g.) with sex. I believe as humans we should always be reaching for what God intended, and we must be careful not to become wrapped up in the things of this world. Pleasure is a common idol and causes us to place our personal desires above the desires of God. So noting that shrooms and psychedelic experiences may be pleasurable, it is very important to understand what psychedelic substances' purposes may be, (spiritually and of this world) and remain cautious in consumption of something so powerful.

However, just because I believe shrooms have good healing and spiritual properties, doesn’t mean I think the substances in themselves are spiritually enlightened. Just like everything, they are connected with our creator and are part of the universe, but I dont think in themselves they hold mystical properties. Simply, they hold properties that function as God designed, in relation to how all things function in our universe. Shrooms are not a magic potion or anything of the sort, yet simply part of God’s creation in which all things are spiritually intertwined, and psilocybin is a tool with an intended purpose. But what is the purpose?

(Well just like (e.g.) fire, there are probably many purposes.)

I think part of that purpose is that they help open one's mind (scientifically and spiritually) and can create spiritual experiences which are VERY real and unfairly could be disregarded soley as “trips”. If one decides to use shrooms for good purposes, for Christian purposes, one will obtain Christian results. But if intended for purposes of bad practice, the results will be of such. They are not actually 'magical mushrooms' that carry you onto the path of enlightenment, they are just mushrooms which elicit a profound chemical response in the brain. The results of that checmical response is still on the self, and one self’s relationship with Christ, and it is up to the person if the tool is used correctly, and inline with a righteous path.

In case you are a Christian reading this and are still fully against any possible moral correctness that could come from something like psilocybin, I have written out an analogy which portrays how I see areas of moral “grey”:

For example, in the most simple sense, fire can be used for warmth and light and can also be used to destroy. In both circumstances, “fire” does the same thing, it burns. Yet it can burn for good or burn for evil. For a more complex example, I would argue that the context and reasoning for one person who consumes psilocybin can be completely different to another person’s context and reasoning for taking the substance. Thus, one person may be acting in bad practice, while the other may be acting in goodness. The action of each individual may be the same, but the situation and the heart condition of each individual may be wildly different. This is where actions can draw serious lines of grey. Let’s say an individual purposefully lights a wildfire and it begins to spread and destroy a forest. Then, firefighters come in and begin to light even MORE of the forest on fire. Little do we know, the fire fighters are actually burning the surrounding areas to help stop and contain the larger fire. The fire is burning, consuming, and destroying the forest in both incidents and each was purposefully caused by man, both burn down the forest, yet, the context and reasoning behind the use of fire completely determines whether the individuales are acting in malice, or in goodness. It takes one looking at the bigger picture to see what is good and what is bad, (thankfully this is why God is Judge, not man).

Now, stick with me here, I am about to tie in my paragraphs about reality in the beginning:

I read this article, “A Christian Approach to Psychedelics” by Rod Dreher that stated something so interesting that I cannot think past it. It is the idea that our brains are not the transmitters of our consciousness, but the receptors of it. When really, if you think about it, consciousness is simply a synonym for soul. It is the part of us that makes us, us. Think about it this way, our brain is the vessel that carries our consciousness, rather than produces it. A vessel does not create it’s driver! The body/brain did not create its own consciousness. Our souls/consciousness will exist apart from the body one day, and if this is true, then most certainly our brain did not create our consciousness or our awareness of self, God did. Who we are is not determined by our brains, but by something beyond this world.

Why this matters is that our brains control how our consciousness perceives reality. Our brain absolutely controls our perception and how we take in the world. The brain is simply a tool; a functioning piece of our biology. Just as a hand works well for picking things up, the brain works well for understanding, comprehending, thinking, and trying to relate information to oneself, and one’s self-aware existence. The brain perceives, and one’s consciousness concludes, decides, and well, consciously connects perceived information.

Now, relating this concept to shrooms, when psilocybin turns down DMN (Default Mode Network) in the brain, this means your brain is able to communicate with other parts of your brain that it normally doesn’t (or cannot) communicate with. This is not a conscious action, this is something that happens within the brain, changing how the “tool” works. Now you see, what DMN does on a day to day basis, is that it blocks out sensory information and helps maintain your ego, sense of separateness, and subjectivity. Now, when you are tripping, DMN is suppressed, and you are able to perceive the world without these barriers or limitations typically present in your brain, (may I remind you, these barriers and limitations that probably exist for a good reason on a day to day basis).

This suppression of DMN caused by psilocybin does not alter your soul or your consciousness, but does alter your perception. The world around you is not actually changing, but how you see it and experience it, is. So, considering how reality is always being perceived, who is to say, when you “hallucinate” you are even hallucinating? Or seeing things which are not there? When people see sounds as colors, when people see movements, and vibrance, and perceive the connectedness of all things, who is to say that is a hallucination and not a state in which things are? When our perception shifts, and we are able to see these things, isn’t it possible that all those things are in-fact real? Not hallucinations at all? Maybe, simply, they are outside our normally perceived notions? But does that mean we should disregard them as real solely because they are not “typical”?

Newly perceived observances due to the suppression of DMN could be part of the noumena of all things. The new perception of things, could be a part of how those things are as they are in themselves. Why can’t sounds make colors? Because we perceived they cannot? Well certain experiences may certainly be a challenge to that. How do we know when we take psilocybin that we are not seeing and perceiving something(s) that we normally cannot perceive? Can’t it all still be reality?

Who is to say the reality of our perceived material world only exists how we perceive it? I mean, we know the spiritual world exists and there is much cross over with our own world, yet we cannot see what is spiritual. What I’m trying to challenge here is how much does our perception influence what we believe really is.

And what about the feeling of being "connected spiritually" evoked by psilocybin? This is a common phenoumena and consensus regarldess of the consumers beliefs. Shrooms, "opening of the mind to the connectedness of the universe" is a common consensus drawn by users and the perceived notion that things are intertwined by some "force", "energy", "nature", or "God". If this observation is universally common to almost all psilcybin consumers, isn't it possible that there is some grounding of truth in the observation? A possibility that in this new state of perception things could still be seen as they are... but from a new angle?

I believe it is possible that maybe God protects our consciousness from this open-spirituality on a day to day basis. Yes, maybe he keeps us from seeing extreme goodness, but maybe also keeps us from seeing extreme spiritual evil (haven’t you heard of a bad trip?). But who is to disregard these moments as hallucinations and apart from reality when in fact they may also just be part of reality, just as real as what we are perceiving now. Everything is perceived regardless. We only know things as we know things, so who is to describe the experiences from someone as unreal, just because they are not experiencing the same thing themselves? This is not to say that one perceived reality is more real than the other, but simply to acknowledge the fact that both instances are real. If our brains were constantly in a state of suppressed DMN, then our perceived experiences now in our current state of normalcy would be considered some “distorted and inhibited” hallucination.

Again, I’m speculating. I’m not trying to say shrooms open up your mind to see the “real world”. Don’t twist my words like that, that would be some bullshit. What I am saying is, maybe our perception can really alter our understanding of reality much more than we think, and that the state in which things are, might be much greater/different than what we typically perceive them to be on a day to day basis.

All and all this just goes to say that Shrooms can be a powerful and wonderful tool, but also a dangerous one. If you are not grounded in what you believe, an open mind may just carry you down spiritual currents in any which direction. But maybe what I am trying to get at is that, what is “normal” or “usual” may not necessarily be a good way of defining what is real; for reality and the state of all things, is always perceived. So maybe these ideas can help challenge what we think and know about our universe, and be a solid argument to push people away from ideas of materialism and into the understanding of the spiritual.

Of course, everything comes down to the self and the self’s relationship with our creator. Psychedelic experiences may be defined as real or not, but at the end of the day Jesus is still our only savior. Although just maybe, maybe we need to challenge our own perceptions and experiences a little more, and open our minds to realize the “spiritual” is something very intertwined into our everyday existence, and the state in which things “are” may not always be so easily notioned.

–There is always a bigger picture that we are not seeing.