Spiritual Therapeutics in Today's Religion of the Self*: Psychedelic Chaplaincy? Yes, it is here.
- 24 hours ago
- 3 min read
The Religion of the Self - Identity and Experience
As a society, have we slipped over the edge unintentionally and now exist in an abyss of darkness?
Today we have a culture of the self-subscribed. Usually given with a tone, so common today, of virtue signaling. Today, it's all based on one's experience and self-proclaimed identity. There are dangers in creating experiences that have a claim of the Mystical with psychotropics or neurostimulation in today's religion of the Self.
Who We Are: Our Interpersonal and Transcendent Nature
We were designed with an interpersonal nature, born with a body that developed from a physical relationship of two sexually different individuals.
We were created with a transcendental nature, a soul in a permanent personal relationship that began with the very breath of our Creator. Mother Theresa did not need 'experience' to keep loving and acting. She had the belief and love of Christ through faith and hope, which she and her sisters expressed in deeds of charity, helping bring the kingdom of heaven here and relieving suffering through loving acts.
Yet today, the culture tells us this body is changeable; it's only a template; it is who we think we are that counts, for we can recreate our nature and call it an Identity. If we come to believe, we will perceive and act differently from what we are, even removing or adding parts of the body to mimic the endless choices of the gender spectrum; thus, one who can now separate oneself from their very self will be the result. Whatever we can conceive, we believe, we now can have.
Ideology of the Self-Identity and its Doom
Yet today, the culture ignores or outright denies the transcendent or relabels experiences as a 'spirituality of personal expression' not as 'neural correlates with being' enhanced by psilocybin. There is no creator; we are just happenstance, a product of evolution.
Moreover, this belief proclaims we stand at the pinnacle of evolution due to an infiniteness of the human consciousness in a mind embodied within the brain/body proper that is a genetic expression of a world existing at the survival level of the fittest, void of the need for interpersonal relationships beyond just objectification, or so it implies.
Following this current cultural anthropological ideology, the what and the whom we think we are, and the what of our true nature, will eventually break into an inner conflict. The struggle beneath the underbelly will expand beyond sustainable levels, leaving one in the wake of exhaustion. When this virtual world collapses, one will face an unfamiliar reality, hitting an existential wall that is both frightening and searing.
The religion of self as the 'One' living in a transformative moment of beingness, feeding as a consumer of gluttonous gratuitousness. What we are left with is a narcissistic, zombified spirituality expressed in a religion of one.
The Future is Near: Sci fi
In the not-so-distant future, what will soon be on your pharmacy's shelf, similar to the health food store's litany of teas for every kind of malady, a pill for Spiritual Awakening. If one desires a shortcut to experience the mystical without God, the entrepreneurial biotech companies will be ready to provide. Soon to follow will be Big Pharma, with CVS becoming the new sacred drive-by space for the non-religious seeking relief. Independent cannabis dispensaries will soon be adding new products to their stock, and eventually, their small mom-and-pop shops will be absorbed by the retail giants' acquisitions.
The Danger Signs Should be Evident: The Invitation
How many times have we ignored or pushed it down, yet it returns again and again as if something else or Someone else calls? It rises up from within (in the body from the soul) as a sense, not yet an emotion, a pre-feeling, something housing a transphysical element. As if a glow of warmth hovers, seeking to penetrate the pale coldness that settled within, this is the Holy Spirit. The God of our creation, the God of love, is calling. The choice is ours to answer.
Have we gone mad?
*Center for the Study of World Religions brings psychedelic chaplaincy to the forefront
"A global resurgence of scientific, medical, and public interest in the therapeutic and transformational potential of psychedelic drugs, plants, and fungi is raising questions about the availability of spiritually responsive care, including the emerging field of psychedelic chaplaincy, in clinical and community settings where psychedelics are used." ....."Jeffrey Breau, program lead of Psychedelics and Spirituality at the Center for the Study of World Religions (CSWR) said psychedelic chaplaincy is a necessary and developing field that holds promise for addressing the need for spiritually attuned care."
Comments