Psychedelics and the Soul

There is a growing libertarian tendency in the Red States as it regards mind-altering drugs.  Many have legalized marijuana in some form, and now Missouri and Oklahoma are considering legalizing psychedelic mushrooms.  This is the kind of thing we expect from amoral Leftists (some of whose States and cities have already decriminalized dangerous substances like these), but it is difficult to harmonize with any kind of conservative/traditional ethos that the Red States say they support.

The damage to the human body and mind is appalling enough, as reports from legalized drug utopias like Oregon, that resemble something of a cross between a zombie horror movie and a mafia documentary, reveal:

On the issue of reducing addiction and overdoses, Oregon’s decriminalization of drug use has been a tragic failure. Overdose deaths rose by over 33 percent in Oregon in 2021, the year after the law was passed, compared with a rise of 15 percent in the rest of the United States. As for the claim that the law would provide a pathway to treatment for addicts, less than 1 percent of the people eligible for treatment under Measure 110—a paltry 136 people—ended up getting help. In fact, out of the 2,576 tickets written by police for drug possession, only 116 people called the help hotline to get the ticket waived, with the vast majority of the others choosing to pay the minimal fine instead. As Coelho warned, without the threat of incarceration and the mandatory court programs that come with an arrest, addicts seldom have any interest in getting treatment.

The impact of decriminalizing drugs did not stop with addiction and overdoses. Police in Portland report that all categories of crime jumped in reaction to Measure 110. Drug addicts need money; they got it by stealing items and reselling them, so property crimes rose. Once a drug market opens up, drug dealers move in to service it. As a result, the streets of Portland are awash in guns and drugs. With drug dealers battling for turf, gun violence increased. Portland recorded 90 homicides in 2021, shattering the old record for annual murders in the city. “We’ve seen more guns than we’ve ever seen in our investigations,” a Portland police supervisor bluntly stated. “Almost everybody is armed. . . . Criminal organizations are robbing other criminal organizations. That’s kind of our big push right now—trying to stop the gun violence and the drug violence that goes with it, because they’re hand in hand. It’s not one or the other. It’s not related to the pandemic, it’s not related to Covid, it’s because we have a criminal environment that’s tolerated and allowed to flourish here.”

But there is a deeper danger lurking here, a danger for the human soul, as these psychedelic drugs open the door for demonic influences to enter the lives of individuals and society as a whole:

Drugs are never worth the risk because they place us in a hyper-vulnerable cognitive state, ripe for demonic manipulation.

The idea that psychedelic drugs are purely hallucinatory in nature is mostly a weak secularist-skeptical position, designed to be knocked down by more sophisticated yet more dangerous spiritual positions that recognize the spiritual potency of these substances while downplaying (or entirely ignoring) the dangers. These drugs can bring you into contact with spiritual reality, but in a manner rife with misinterpretation, ego-inflation disguised as humility, confirmation bias, or even more openly demonic forms of deception.

There are differences between them. Some, like psilocybin mushrooms, represent a specific demonic personality. LSD is corrosive to the foundations of a stable human psyche and can open up portals for demons to come through. DMT tends to bring humans into contact with a specific class of demonic entities and/or into a specific demonic realm. Even marijuana is highly inadvisable, as it can have a lower grade effects similar to psychedelics.

I know several people who do not recommend psychedelics to others, but still feel that they have had God speak to them through a psychedelic. In my estimation, this is less an advertisement for psychedelics and more a testament to how the Holy Spirit can choose to work through whatever it wills.

“Respectable experts” have begun pushing hard for a normalization of psychedelics. We have to see through this façade. Many of the scientific studies these types cite utilize faulty methodologies. The personal stories about how psychedelics solved this or that physical or mental problem are not proof that these substances should be used (remember the pragmatic fallacy). Advocates for psychedelia often pretend to be worldview-neutral spiritual/scientific seekers, which is an absurdity. And when they do express their metaphysical commitments, it’s often laughable New Age pablum.

There is no good reason to decriminalize drugs that affect human consciousness in this way.  Louisiana, all the other Southern States, the Great Plains States, and all the other Red States and counties need to firmly close the door on these legalizations. 

Do we want to be the Garden of the Holy Spirit or the playground of demons?  Sometimes the choice really is that simple.