A Christian Took Psychedelics: What He Saw Will SHOCK You | Joshua Zatkoff

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Reflection

An account of psychedelic experience framed in dramatic terms deserves careful, sober reflection rather than either fascination or outright dismissal. Christians have long recognised that altered states of consciousness can produce vivid and sometimes disturbing content without that content being straightforwardly reliable evidence of spiritual truth. Scripture repeatedly warns believers to test spiritual experiences rather than accept them uncritically: 'Do not believe every spirit, but test the spirits to see whether they are from God' (1 John 4:1). That counsel applies as much to drug-induced visions as to any other unusual experience, since compelling does not necessarily mean true or good. Whatever Joshua Zatkoff describes, the wiser response is not to build theology around a single dramatic episode but to weigh it against the settled teaching of scripture and the wisdom of the wider church. Curiosity about the boundaries of consciousness is understandable, but Christian discernment asks a harder question: does this experience draw a person nearer to Christ, or merely further into spectacle?

Questions to sit with

• How do you evaluate the reliability of an unusual or altered spiritual experience?
• What does 1 John's instruction to 'test the spirits' look like in practice?
• What would distinguish an experience that draws someone toward Christ from one that is mere spectacle?