Developing a Relationship with the Divine

Why the dialogue with divinity is a core component of psychedelic integration (and how you can foster it)

For as long as I can remember, I was a proud atheist. So much so that when I attended my sister’s communion as a teenager, I stubbornly stayed seated, unwilling to walk up to the front to partake in the ritual. My grandfather gave me the furious looks. My whole family didn’t understand why I couldn’t just play along for the sake of my sister’s ceremony. It felt existential.

That’s how deeply I had ingrained my identity as a non-believer. Throughout my youth and early 20s, I was exclusively interested in science and the material world. I had no doubts that at the end of the human life, what awaited us was simply “lights out”.

My world view has obviously evolved a lot over the past five years.

It’s evolved for one reason, and one reason only: I got new evidence.

The thing about mystical experiences (psychedelic and non-psychedelic ones alike) is that they are experiential. Contrary to religion, which teaches beliefs that you may choose to adopt or not, spirituality teaches through personal experience.

So, if, like me, you have a deep-rooted aversion to anything related to organized religion, please do not let that stop you here. There is a lot of nuance. And if you are deeply religious, please stay and don’t let my (past) aversion get in the way between you, me, and the Divine.

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The Divine Nature of Plant Medicine

In some ways, the hardest thing to integrate about the psychedelic experience is not the trauma it brings up, the stuck emotions it helps you process, or the beliefs it can reveal.

In some ways, the hardest thing about the psychedelic experience to make sense of is the fact that these substances exist to begin with. Not only do they exist, they exist abundantly in nature.

You can eat, drink, or smoke a plant, fungus, or animal secretion that produces an altered state of consciousness that may trigger the following experiences:

• Hyper-personalized memories that have left an emotional imprint on your psyche come up

• You experience the interconnectedness of everything in existence

• Your ego dissolves, followed by the transcendence of it

• You travel to the consciousness of other beings on this planet

• You travel to other places in our universe (beyond planet earth)

• You meet and dialogue with foreign entities

• You speak to deceased loved ones

• You alter your consciousness in ways completely foreign to the regular waking state, e.g. hearing colors

• … and so much more

Whatever your experience may be, making meaning of it is a big portion of your integration. If you don’t believe in the existence of a greater intelligence, how do you explain the fact that chemical compounds in nature can create these experiences?

Plant medicine experiences are incredibly diverse, but there’s one universal truth they all share: they leave you with the insight that there is a greater intelligence at work.

Because of that, they’re commonly called entheogens, which comes from the term "god within."

Whatever you may call it — a higher intelligence, the Divine, Source, or even God. The label doesn’t matter, what matters is its formless and nameless existence. The experience of this intelligence is what gives plant medicine all of its profundity and power. Researchers at Johns Hopkins showed early on that the degree to which people had a healing experience with psilocybin mushrooms depended on whether or not they had a mystical experience during their journey.

If the belief in the Divine is not something that’s been a part of your worldview prior to your mystical experience (which probably for most, it isn’t), it can be a tough pill to swallow. It may be the most foundational belief you hold about the world, and when its challenged, many other fundamental beliefs will be challenged.

How to Connect with the Divine

Once you’ve got a glimpse of the Divine — which, in my opinion, is the greatest gift psychedelic medicines have to offer to us — it’s impossible to disregard. It will haunt you.

Yes, there are those that eat 5 grams of mushrooms and come out of it denoting it simply as “a crazy drug experience”, but quite frankly, that’s not most people.

Most people leave with the impression that what they experienced is more real than the real world. Hence, the need for a strategy to integrate this reality into your life and develop an intentional relationship with it.

The activities involved in doing so may look a lot like practices found in religion (in fact, I will share one of those with you in a bit). Keep in mind, however, the key difference that a religious practice is outside in, it’s prescribed, it’s grounded exclusively in beliefs, whereas a spiritual practice is inside out, it’s grounded on experience. Of course, one can be both religious and spiritual at the same time.

Here are some of the most common ways to connect with the Divine:

• Prayer

• Meditation

• Singing and Chanting

• Dance

• Ceremony and ritual

• Time in nature

• Time in silence

A Simple Daily Practice to Connect with the Divine

Earlier this week, I spent a few days at a Jesuit Retreat Center in Northern California. The organization I work for, albeit being spiritual more so than religious, hosted an outing for one of the psychedelic non-profits we’re incubating. My boss opened the retreat by telling us the story of Ignatius, a picture of whom hung right behind us on the wall.

He also shared a practice that deeply resonated with me. I’ve started implementing it, so I’ll share it today in the hopes that it will resonate with some of you, too. I’m in no ways Catholic, but that shouldn’t prevent me (or you) from getting inspiration from those pieces that resonate, and leaving all those that don’t.

The Ignatian Examen

Ignatius of Loyola was a Spanish priest who renounced his worldly life to dedicate himself to the spiritual path. It was his belief that the Divine was always present in every little pocket of our worldly experience, speaking to us on a daily basis.

Ignatius developed a method to facilitate that dialogue. It’s a simple daily practice called “the Examen” that follows five steps:

1. Connect with the presence of the Divine and express gratitude for it.

2. Set the intention to understand how the Divine is connecting with you through your life.

3. Review your day by going through the last 24 hours, recalling specific moments and your feelings at the time.

4. Reflect on those moments in the past 24 hours that connected you with the Divine, as well as those that drew you further away from it.

5. Look ahead to the next day, and contemplate how you may facilitate the connection or dialogue with the Divine more deeply in the next 24 hours.

It’s short and sweet, I like doing it at the end of my yoga practice during savasana.

I’ve found that self-care, journaling, therapy, coaching, and all of these tools are great and necessary for integration — but the most important part for me has been the relationship with the Divine.

The most foundational work of integration, as I’ve realized, is that of building that relationship. It will generate the soil in which all the other seeds can be planted, seeds that will give you access to all the answers you already hold within.

What are you favorite ways to connect with the Divine?