The Veil and the Trespass

On Psychedelics and the Counterfeit of the Sacred

It begins, often, with light.

Not the quiet, natural light of dawn that softens the stone of a monastery wall, nor the flickering flame of a vigil lamp echoing eternity in its silence, but a sudden, searing radiance, unasked for and unearned. A radiance that overwhelms. That promises unity. That unveils visions of divine presence pulsing in leaf and cloud, blood and breath. The soul, staggered by such brilliance, believes it has touched the hem of the eternal.

I, like many others, have had such an experience.

But St. John of the Cross, the doctor of the night, would urge restraint, perhaps even sorrow. For he knew, as few ever have, that not all that dazzles is divine.

The Counsel of the Desert Saints

The Christian mystical tradition, East and West alike, speaks with a grave and unified voice on the danger of extraordinary phenomena. Whether visions, locutions, raptures, or their chemical imitations, the saints caution that such experiences, however luminous, are not to be trusted in themselves. They are the by-products of grace, never its proof. They are signposts, not destinations. And when sought for their own sake, they become the soul’s greatest peril.

John, the Carmelite mystic of 16th-century Spain, was unequivocal: “Any appetite for spiritual sweetness, even in divine things, is contrary to the way of the cross.” In his Ascent of Mount Carmel, he lays the foundation for a severe but liberating truth: that the soul’s journey to union with God requires the emptying not only of sin, but of spiritual consolation itself. To cling to ecstasy, even the kind that seems holy, is to resist the refining fire of God’s true work.

The more the soul seeks experiences, the further it strays from God.

The Cross, Not the Rapture

The subtlety here is everything. For John is not condemning mystical experience—he himself was seized by them—but rather the will to possess them. The difference is as vast as that between receiving and grasping, between gift and theft. Psychedelics, no matter their promise, tend to turn that which is sacred into spectacle. They impose the flame rather than await the wind.

And yet, we must acknowledge: the reports are not all illusions or deceptions. There are those, many of them sincere and deeply wounded, who testify that psychedelics have helped lift them from the grip of trauma, PTSD, or addiction. They speak of a sudden loosening of internal chains, a glimpse of coherence where once there was only chaos. Some encounter what seems like God. Others, a love so vast it reorders their sense of being. And perhaps—perhaps—these moments contain real grace.

The Angel Who Wounds

But Christian mysticism does not deny that evil may wear the mask of healing. It warns that the deceiver often comes not with fangs, but with balm. “Satan himself masquerades as an angel of light,” St. Paul writes, and herein lies the deeper peril: that the initial fruit may seem good, even holy, only to lead the soul down a darker path cloaked in brilliance. As with any seduction, it begins in comfort and ends in bondage.

The mystics would ask: by what power was the healing granted? Was it accompanied by humility, surrender, purification—or by fascination, exaltation, control? Did it lead to the Cross—or merely to further sensation? For even “goodness,” if severed from the Giver, becomes a lie. The tree in Eden was called the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil. The temptation was not ugliness. It was a counterfeit holiness, bypassing obedience.

Guarding the Veil

And here is the boundary: God has ordained certain thresholds by which the soul must pass to encounter Him rightly. These thresholds are not arbitrary. They are protective. They preserve the mystery of the human person, body and soul knit together in reverence. The path to union is not via pharmacological rupture, but kenotic surrender. The tradition warns us: to force open the veil is to trespass into sacred space uninvited. And to enter that holy place without purification is to risk encountering powers the soul is not prepared to meet.

In the East, the hesychast tradition of the Orthodox Church offers the same counsel. The Philokalia warns repeatedly against “prelest”, or spiritual delusion, whereby the soul mistakes demonic or psychological manifestations for divine illumination. St. Gregory of Sinai and St. Nikitas Stithatos both speak of the danger of “imaginary lights” and “false peace.” When a monk is granted a vision, they write, he must assume it is a temptation. Only after rigorous testing, by obedience, asceticism, and spiritual direction, can it be accepted as real.

The Mask of the Deceiver

This skepticism is not cynicism. It is the reverence of those who know that God, in His mercy, veils Himself as often as He reveals Himself. For it is not the eye, but the heart purified by suffering, that sees God. As Christ Himself said, “Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God”—not the curious in mind or the chemically altered in perception.

The Israelites, having heard God’s voice from the fire, still demanded a golden calf. Even Peter, on the mount of Transfiguration, misunderstood glory, wanting to build tents for the vision rather than follow Christ down into the valley of the cross. “This is my beloved Son,” the voice declared, “Listen to Him”. Not to the visions. Not to the ecstasies. But to Him—who would soon be broken, silent, humiliated, crucified.

No Sign but Jonah

In that moment, heaven did not burn with colors. It trembled with obedience.

And this is perhaps the final word on the matter. Psychedelic states, even when they unveil something real, cannot give us the courage to obey. They can intoxicate, but they cannot purify. They can produce awe, but not endurance. They can reveal beauty, but they cannot teach love. Love, as the Cross teaches us, is not luminous—it is cruciform. It is slow. It is hidden. It does not delight in signs but endures through silence. “An evil and adulterous generation seeks for a sign,” said Christ, “but no sign will be given it except the sign of Jonah”. The descent into death, and the emergence into new life, three days later, unseen by human eyes.

The Garden Must Be Tended

The mystics knew this well. St. Teresa of Avila warned her sisters not to desire visions. “If they come, they come. But if not, then praise God, for He is drawing you closer through dryness.” Meister Eckhart spoke of the need to be “empty of all creatures,” including the spiritual ones. Even the Seraphim, Isaiah tells us, cover their eyes in the presence of God. Why then should we demand to see?

To the seeker, then, who considers using psychedelics as a spiritual path, the mystics offer neither condemnation nor ridicule, but a deeper invitation: Wait. Surrender. Be poor in spirit. God is nearer than your breath. You need not rupture your consciousness to touch Him. You need only let yourself be undone.

There is no shortcut to union. There is only the long, narrow road. The one that leads through the desert. Through the absence. Through the slow dying of self. And then, quietly, through the veil… where He has been all along.

Hidden. Humble. Radiant with a light too holy to be seized.

---