# Sacred Substances, Sacred Wounds: The Intersection of Psychedelics, Adverse Religious Experiences, and Spiritual Healing ## Sacred Substances, Sacred Wounds: The Intersection of Psychedelics, Adverse Religious Experiences, and Spiritual Healing 2025 Conference Anthology Lisa L. Gezon, *Chair of the Anthropology Department, University of Alabama at Birmingham* ![Clouds parting](/sites/g/files/omnuum4346/files/styles/hwp_21_9__1920x825/public/2025-10/iStock-90705448.jpg?itok=m6iB-tA7) ## Sacred Substances, Sacred Wounds: The Intersection of Psychedelics, Adverse Religious Experiences, and Spiritual Healing ### Introduction The relationship between psychedelics and mystical experiences is well-established across diverse disciplines, including medicine,[1](#references) anthropology,[2](#references) philosophy,[3](#references) and religious studies.[4](#references) While much of this literature emphasizes the potential for psychedelics to occasion transformational, mystical experiences, little attention has been given to how psychedelics might heal wounds inflicted by religion itself. Drawing from a qualitative analysis of 19 participant interviews, this article argues that psychedelics facilitate healing from “religious trauma” by enabling reinterpretation of religious beliefs and traumas.[5](#references) I use Paul Ricoeur’s spiritual development framework to illuminate how psychedelic experiences can transition people from a “critical” to “post-critical” spirituality by facilitating the reinterpretation of old symbols through a new lens.[6](#references) I conclude by showing how this framework might be used to design psychedelic healing rituals that prepare religious psychedelic users for a potential transition into post-critical spirituality, or what Ricoeur calls a “second naïveté.” Before elaborating on the concept of second naïveté, I analyze participant experiences, showing how psychedelics have helped them reframe religious trauma. This analysis draws from two distinct data sets: First, it includes observations and interviews collected over two years of ethnographic fieldwork with a psychedelic integration group in the U.S. Deep South.[7](#references) This involved participation in weekly integration group meetings, a focus group, and 15 interviews. Second, it includes four interviews with people who responded to a call for participation from Ligare, a Christian psychedelic society. The Ligare participants and those from the integration group have had no interaction with one another. Each of the interviewees cited has read this analysis and provided feedback. The study was ethically reviewed and approved by my university’s Institutional Review Board (IRB), ensuring voluntary, confidential participation and the option to withdraw at any time. ### Adverse religious experiences and psychedelics Study participants in both groups reported adverse experiences with organized religion, including personal violations (e.g., sexual abuse), discomfort with the religion’s beliefs, and incongruence between religious positions and mystical experiences. Many of these experiences resulted in what psychologist Alyson Stone calls “religious trauma,” a form of “pervasive psychological damage resulting from religious messages, beliefs, and experiences.”[8](#references) These experiences led some participants to leave their home religion, while others continued in their home tradition but felt conflicted about its belief systems and its practices. Many participants reported that their psychedelic experiences helped them heal from these adverse experiences, though not without challenges for some. ##### Sexual abuse by religious leaders In this study, personal violations were a common cause of religious trauma, including sexual misconduct and abuse by religious leaders. Although this was reported by interviewees participating in various Christian, Buddhist, Muslim, and psychedelic religious or spiritual communities, I focus this short article specifically on study participants with Christian backgrounds. For example, Dave’s account represents and details how psychedelics facilitated healing from the trauma of early sexual abuse. Dave was raised in a Methodist church in a small midwestern farming community. He was a believer at a young age and very involved in church youth activities. In high school, he was the driver in a tragic car accident on the way back from an event at the Methodist Youth Fellowship, resulting in the death of two of his classmates. Dave was devastated, and his mother sought counseling for him. Unfortunately, the counselor, a defrocked Catholic priest, began sexually assaulting him under the guise of religious teachings, suggesting Jesus would approve of the abusive activities. This abuse occurred for two years. Several years later, emboldened by the exposure of widespread sexual abuse by Catholic priests, Dave confronted his abuser by writing to the ex-priest’s employer, who then fired him. Both the traumatic accident and the abuse shook Dave’s faith, and he decided to leave the Methodist church. He later joined the United Church of Christ (UCC) after the birth of his first child, inspired by an uncle and the UCC church’s values of openness and inclusivity. Within the last few years, Dave has taken MDMA and psilocybin with his new therapist and has described those experiences as some of the most meaningful in his life. Dave told me the experience helped him forgive himself and feel more compassionate toward his abuser. He attributed this forgiveness and healing to a psychedelic-occasioned mystical experience. The experience also made him feel that the spiritual world really exists, instead of simply being located inside his mind. He believes it allowed him to transcend into a spiritual realm where love is the essence of all existence. Dave appreciates psychedelics for opening new ways of thinking and creating profound, healing change. ##### Tension with belief systems For many participants in this study, religious trauma stemmed from feeling confused, bitter, and angry over religious teachings that did not make sense or that felt like personal affronts. Liz, for example, grew up Catholic before becoming born-again and joining a charismatic Christian church at the age of 19. In college, she was shunned for having a queer relationship by her college Christian youth group. Reeling from the judgment, she found solace in a self-destructive relationship with drugs and alcohol. After college, she moved and joined a church she described as having a “highly controlled religious environment.” She was asked to leave that church after she broke their curfew. She later joined a nondenominational church, which she remained a part of for 20 years. Liz then left that church about six years before I interviewed her, after the leadership disapproved of her oldest child coming out as queer. That experience made her realize that neither she nor her child was fully accepted in the community. She currently attends a United Methodist Church. Both Alcoholics Anonymous and psychedelics helped Liz heal the resentment and anger that she had developed towards religion over the course of her life and purge what she called “fear-based thinking.” Her therapist, who was also in recovery, recommended psychedelics as a part of couples therapy. The psychedelic therapy made her feel seen and loved, resulting in a deep sense of healing. She reports feeling fully accepted by God, and she reports having a better spiritual life after psychedelics: “It’s been life-altering for me…. There was just so much healing without even words.” The experience was so valuable that she now wants to “help others with psychedelics in some way.” Another participant, Ben, grew up in a conservative Southern Baptist church in a small Deep South town, attended a Christian college, worked as a pastor, and went to a conservative nondenominational Protestant seminary. From a young age, Ben felt a deep spiritual connection and a calling from God, but he began questioning religion while in seminary. Exposed to diverse beliefs and orientations, he struggled with the church’s stances on LGBTQ and justice issues. When he was going through a divorce, he found that his personal struggles were both assuaged and exacerbated by his church’s emphasis on the importance of marriage. He said, it’s “almost like \[those beliefs\] put that sadness \[and shame, guilt, and embarrassment\] on steroids. \[It\] makes it way harder than it should be.” After his divorce, Ben fell into a deep depression and realized he no longer believed in God. Ben’s experiences with psychedelics were less obviously positive than Liz’s. During his depression, he saw a therapist who happened to be Christian and who suggested psychedelic-assisted therapy. Desperate and isolated, he first tried psychedelics at an ayahuasca retreat. This experience helped him shift out of his depression. He explained: “I had this very cathartic forgiveness moment where I got a visual image of Christ in that kind of unconditional love.” His experience was not entirely positive, however. He experienced unwanted sexual attention from one of the retreat leaders and developed severe panic attacks immediately following one of his ayahuasca journeys. He remains cautious about advocating for psychedelics, acknowledging both their benefits and risks. ##### Incongruence between church doctrines and mystical experiences Some participants perceived a disconnect between their church’s stances and the mystical experiences they found with psychedelics. The love and acceptance they felt with psychedelics contrasted with the judgment and focus on moral codes that they experienced within their church communities. Jackie’s case illustrates this well. She was raised as a charismatic Evangelical Christian in the U.S. South before earning degrees in religion and anthropology. Jackie first turned to ketamine in a clinical setting to help with severe depression. Later, she took psilocybin and had a profound spiritual experience. Her religious trauma emerged from her church’s rejection of her psychedelic use. Despite her 30-year friendship with her pastor, she was excommunicated from the church after revealing she had taken psychedelic substances. This painful experience led her to theologically explore whether using psychedelics is a sin. She now believes that condemning psychedelic use contradicts trust in God’s power and Jesus’s teachings of love and compassion: “Sometimes you have to ignore rules and just love people, and thereby actually be doing the work of Christ.” After this rejection, she began studying psychedelics and religion in a PhD program, but she left the program after a year and returned to her small town. Beyond her rejection by the church, Jackie faced challenges integrating her psychedelic experiences into her life. She reflected on the contrast between explanatory frameworks based on religion or mental health, describing how she saw what she “knew to be the demon of lust,” which troubled her for months. Unsure if it was a literal demon or her way of processing childhood trauma, she questioned whether psychedelic experiences are genuine spiritual encounters, psychological processing, or both. ### Second Naïveté and Reconciliation t was Ben who brought to my attention “second naïveté,” a concept often attributed to Paul Ricoeur. Ricoeur outlined a three-stage process of spiritual development, charting progression from “first naïveté” through a critical stage and into a second naïveté. The first naïveté, or “pre-critical stage,”[9](#references) is marked by a naive embracing of scriptures as objective truths. This is followed by a “critical stage,” marked by disillusionment and a rift between scriptural teachings and lived experiences. Finally, the second naïveté involves reconciling criticism and restoring the potential of scriptures for symbolic meaning-making. According to philosopher Áron Buzási, the second naïveté represents “the possibility of *creation*, and the *balance* between conflicting interpretations.”[10](#references) Ricoeur explained that a second naïveté occurs when dismissive criticism of early religious beliefs (the first naïveté) is transformed into a generative and restorative criticism. He writes that “\[I\]f we can no longer live the great symbolisms of the sacred in accordance with the original belief in them, we can…aim at a second naïveté in and through criticism.”[11](#references) The participant stories detailed above bear a striking resemblance to Ricoeur’s framework. A typical participant’s early experiences with the church were emblematic of the pre-critical stage; participants were acculturated into the church from childhood and generally accepted the church’s beliefs and teachings uncritically. The examples above illustrate how the move from the first naïveté into the critical stage can be instigated by religious trauma and increasing disconnection between an individual’s beliefs and the beliefs of the church. Notably, these examples also show how psychedelic experiences can transition people from the critical stage and into the second naïveté. The psychedelic experiences ushered in a renewed connection with symbolic religious ideals—most notably, love—and away from the literal teachings or actions of the church. This transition is characteristic of the move from the first to the second naïveté. For example, Dave’s story closely aligns with the three stages of Ricoeur’s framework. Psychedelics allowed him to come into a second naïveté by allowing a new, symbolic connection with a spiritual realm comprised of love. Ben, too, despite the challenging aspects of his experiences, found psychedelics positively transformative. He said, “I had this very cathartic forgiveness moment where I got a visual image of Christ in that kind of unconditional love.” After his first ayahuasca retreat, he had felt at ease with his decision to stop trying to be a part of his Christian religious community, though he noted that his experience of Jesus’s love made him “a lot more open-hearted to the faith of \[his\] past and the Christian tradition.” Since his last journey, he has been back to church and found that, despite the panic attacks, he felt “a lot less shame about who \[he is\] as a person in this space.” He explained that “probably the psilocybin opened my heart and I feel this more gracious spirit, you know?” Ben’s reconsideration of the value of the church in his life represents his journey toward a second naïveté. His mystical experiences with psychedelics facilitated a potential shift in his relationship with Christianity—one in which he could embrace a renewed understanding of the sacred while also feeling emotionally safe. Other participants embraced alternative religious practices in their second naïveté, as they connected with great symbolisms of the sacred outside of their original faith traditions. One participant told me, “Part of my journey was to push away completely from what I was taught to be true as a kid and to question everything…. What I understand now, after having psychedelic journeys, is that Jesus lived in the vibration of total love, radical love, radical acceptance of people.” Liz’s journey also led her to leave the Catholicism of her childhood and the charismatic Christianity of her young adulthood. Psychedelics have led her to a more fulsome spiritual life in the United Methodist Church, without the fear and resentment toward religion that marked her earlier experiences with religion. Others in the study crafted their own spiritual paths during their second naïveté. They no longer consider themselves Christian or part of an established religion but draw from the wisdom they find across traditions. ### Ritual Containment, Spiritual Healing, and Re/sacralization The process toward a second naïveté is not inevitable or uncomplicated. Jackie’s integration, for example, is ongoing. She still loves Jesus and seeks to merge Christianity with psychedelics, but she feels discouraged by the lack of support in her small town. She is tempted to leave psychedelics behind to fit in, struggling with being seen as the “Christian mushroom girl” by her friends. “This bridge of holding these two things together is a really hard thing to do, and I don’t know whether I want to be the pioneer,” she told me. Some challenges Jackie faces may stem from the lack of community integration resources to help process experiences and provide a sense of community.[12](#references) Ricoeur’s spiritual development theory charts how people’s relationships with religion may shift throughout their lives. Psychedelics seem to facilitate this process by moving people—particularly those who experience religious trauma—from the critical stage and into the second naïveté. Yet, as Jackie and Ben’s stories illustrate, this process of reconciliation is not guaranteed. How then might psychedelic facilitators support people as they move through a process of spiritual development? One possibility is to incorporate ritual elements into talk-based integration processes. Ritual containment during psychedelic preparation and integration may help prepare religious participants for otherwise unimaginable (and potentially challenging) psychedelic experiences. As anthropologists of religion note, rituals can make the ineffable or the mystical comprehensible.[13](#references) Rituals also help participants connect private experience with public and collective experiences, sometimes achieving a state of *communitas*, or deep social connection, for the performers. In her analysis of how God becomes real to evangelical Christians, Tanya Luhrmann (2020) argues that the ritual combination of narrative and performance is a way “to take what must be imagined seriously.”[14](#references) Given this anthropological analysis and the experiences of this study’s participants, ritual practices might support a transition from the critical stage into a second naïveté. Rituals can be used to make the ineffable aspects of this transition more concrete, provide an embodied connection to community, and help psychedelic users incorporate the intangible aspects of the second naïveté into their lives. ### Author Biography Dr. Lisa Gezon is Professor and Chair of the Anthropology Department at the University of Alabama at Birmingham. Her areas of research interest have included various topics in environment and health. She has done research on the drug khat in Madagascar (*Drug Effects: Khat in Biocultural and Socioeconomic Perspective*. Left Coast Press, 2012), and she co-authored a textbook on drugs (Carrier, Neil & Lisa L. Gezon. *The Anthropology of Drugs*. New York, 2024). Her current ethnographic research is on psychedelic integration groups in the U.S. South, and she is developing projects on ketamine use. ![Headshot of Lisa Gezon](/sites/g/files/omnuum4346/files/styles/hwp_1_1__480x480/public/2025-10/lisagezon.jpg?itok=J2WFHfqe) #### Footnotes 1 Roland R. Griffiths et al., “Psilocybin Can Occasion Mystical-Type Experiences Having Substantial and Sustained Personal Meaning and Spiritual Significance,” Psychopharmacology 187 (2006): 268–83; Roman Palitsky et al., “Importance of Integrating Spiritual, Existential, Religious, and Theological Components in Psychedelic-Assisted Therapies,” JAMA Psychiatry 80, no. 7 (2023): 743. [\[Return to Section\]](#section1) 2 Michael J. Winkelman, “Shamanism and Psychedelic, Religious, Spiritual, and Mystical Experiences,” in *The Oxford Handbook of Psychedelic, Religious, Spiritual, and Mystical Experiences,* ed. David Yaden and Michiel van Elk (online edn, Oxford Academic, 2024), . [\[Return to Section\]](#section1) 3 Chris Letheby and Jaipreet Mattu, “Philosophy and classic psychedelics: A review of some emerging themes,” *Journal of Psychedelic Studies* (2022): 5(3), 166-175. [\[Return to Section\]](#section1) 4 Ron Cole-Turner, *Psychedelics and Christian Faith: Exploring an Unexpected Pathway to Healing and Spirituality* (Wipf and Stock Publishers, 2025). [\[Return to Section\]](#section1) 5 A. M. Stone, “Thou Shalt Not: Treating Religious Trauma and Spiritual Harm with Combined Therapy,” *Group* 37, no. 4 (2013): 324. [\[Return to Section\]](#section1) 6 Paul Ricoeur, *The Symbolism of Evil*, trans. Emerson Buchanan (Beacon Press, 1967), 352. [\[Return to Section\]](#section1) 7 See also Lisa L. Gezon, “Community-Based Psychedelic Integration and Social Efficacy: An Ethnographic Study in the Southeastern United States,” *Journal of Psychedelic Studies* 9, no. 1 (2025): 8–19. [\[Return to Section\]](#section1) 8 Stone, “Thou Shalt Not,” 324. [\[Return to Section\]](#section1) 9 J. Jansons, “What Is the Second Naiveté? Engaging with Paul Ricoeur, Post-Critical Theology, and Progressive Christianity” (presentation, Australian Lutheran College, 2014), 1. [\[Return to Section\]](#section1) 10 Á. Buzási, “Paul Ricœur and the Idea of Second Naivety: Origins, Analogues, Applications,” Études Ricoeuriennes/Ricoeur Studies 13, no. 2 (2022): 48, emphasis in original. [\[Return to Section\]](#section1) 11 Ricoeur, *The Symbolism of Evil*, 351. [\[Return to Section\]](#section1) 12 Lisa L. Gezon, “Community-Based Psychedelic Integration and Social Efficacy: An Ethnographic Study in the Southeastern United States,” Journal of Psychedelic Studies 9, no. 1 (2025). [\[Return to Section\]](#section1) 13 Roy A. Rappaport*, Ecology, Meaning, and Religion* (North Atlantic Books, 1979). [\[Return to Section\]](#section1) 14 Tanya M. Luhrmann*, How God Becomes Real: Kindling the Presence of Invisible Others* (Princeton University Press, 2020), 56. [\[Return to Section\]](#section1) #### Bibliography Buzási, Á. (2022). Paul Ricœur and the Idea of Second Naivety: Origins, Analogues, Applications. *Études Ricoeuriennes/Ricoeur Studies*, *13*(2), 39-58. Cole-Turner, Ron. *Psychedelics and Christian Faith: Exploring an Unexpected Pathway to Healing and Spirituality*. Wipf and Stock Publishers, 2025. Gezon, Lisa L. “Community-based psychedelic integration and social efficacy: An ethnographic study in the Southeastern United States.” Journal of Psychedelic Studies 9, no. 1 (2025): 8-19. Griffiths, R.R., Richards, W.A., McCann, U. and Jesse, R., 2006. Psilocybin can occasion mystical-type experiences having substantial and sustained personal meaning and spiritual significance. *Psychopharmacology*, *187*, pp.268-283. Jansons, L. (2014). What is the Second Naiveté? Engaging with Paul Ricoeur, Post-Critical Theology, and Progressive Christianity. *Presentation at Australian Lutheran College*. Letheby, C., & Mattu, J. (2022). Philosophy and classic psychedelics: A review of some emerging themes. *Journal of Psychedelic Studies*, *5*(3), 166-175. Luhrmann, Tanya M. *How God becomes real: Kindling the presence of invisible others*. Princeton University Press, 2020. Palitsky, Roman, Deanna M. Kaplan, Caroline Peacock, Ali John Zarrabi, Jessica L. Maples-Keller, George H. Grant, Boadie W. Dunlop, and Charles L. Raison. 2023. “Importance of Integrating Spiritual, Existential, Religious, and Theological Components in Psychedelic-Assisted Therapies.” JAMA Psychiatry 80 (7): 743. Rappaport, Roy A. “Ecology, Meaning, and Religion.” (1979). Berkeley, CA: North Atlantic Books. Ricoeur, P. (1967). The symbolism of evil (Vol. 18). Beacon Press. Stone, A. M. (2013). Thou shalt not: Treating religious trauma and spiritual harm with combined therapy. Group, 37(4), 323-337. Vallely, A. (2021). Culture and psychedelic psychotherapy: Ethnic and racial themes from three black women therapists. Journal of Psychedelic Studies, 4(3), 139-141. Winkelman, M. J. (2024). Shamanism and Psychedelic, Religious, Spiritual, and Mystical Experiences. #### Suggested Citation Gezon, Lisa. “Sacred Substances, Sacred Wounds: The Intersection of Psychedelics, Adverse Religious Experiences, and Spiritual Healing .” In Psychedelic Intersections: 2025 Conference Anthology, edited by Jeffrey Breau and Paul Gillis-Smith. Center for the Study of World Religions, Harvard Divinity School, 2026. © License: CC BY-NC.