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Trauma, Mysticism, and Psychedelia’s Therapeutic Promise
Mystical undercurrents of personal loss, quantum consciousness, and the psychedelic renaissance
This is an excerpt from Sky Gods and the Recipe for Immortality: The secret influence of psychoactivity over science, society, and the supernatural.
Decades ago, my mother came home late from a party when I was seven years old watching television late at night. She came into the living room, asked why I was still up, and then said “Go to sleep, Mikey. I love you, goodnight.” Only a few minutes later, I saw her lying in a pool of reflective pink blood on the hardwood floor in our foyer.
From the gunshot wound in her side, her physical body became still and lifeless. Later that night, with multiple police officers by my side at a neighbor’s house, I reluctantly drifted into sleep. In my sleep paralysis, I came to exist in a strangely familiar room I’d never seen before yet seemed eerily familiar.
Physically, I was alone in the room although I was certain my mother’s presence was nearby. I tried so hard to catch sight of her but could only see darkness. In all of my later life, I’ve never had such a potent dream that seemed to be more real than reality itself. In the decades since this trauma — that mystical experience…
