What is religious trauma and how can psilocybin therapy help you work through it?
The concepts of God and of the human soul have inspired magnificent achievements in the arts and sciences, and few of us go through life without at some point contemplating both possibilities and what it means for us as mortals. Our relationship with the concept of God (or no God) and the human soul (or no soul) plays a big part in how we see ourselves, how we choose to interact with the world, and how we allow the world to interact with us. Unfortunately, many of us learnt about such existential matters through external sources, which imparted either incomplete, or distorted ideas about God and the soul.
Religious trauma occurs when a person’s experience of religion in childhood or adulthood causes them to feel ashamed, fearful, controlled, hypervigilant, and “not good enough”. Religion and spirituality exist in part to provide humans with moral guidance, along with comfort and reassurance in the face of life’s trials. However, authoritarian, dogmatic, or cult-like religious or spiritual groups and belief systems can have a negative effect on the human psyche.
The hallmark of authoritarian religions and groups is the overarching message “follow the rules and you’ll be rewarded, don’t, and you will suffer the consequences”. Such groups tend to promote divisive “us” and “them”, “saved” and “the unsaved” narratives. Another punitive message is that if you leave the group, bad things will happen to you. This is classical conditioning at its finest, where religious and spiritual leaders (knowingly or unknowingly) use reward and punishment as a brainwashing mechanism to control their followers. This can engender high levels of anxiety, obsessive compulsive thinking, depression, low self-esteem and self-worth, and self-doubt among people who are or were members of dogmatic organizations.
Sausage company founder Jimmy Dean once said, “God is bigger than people think”. Religious trauma is the “crime” of having what people think (about God, your soul, life, death, good and evil) imposed upon you. If you’re seeking freedom from what people have told you about "how life works", then a psilocybin experience could be a good first step towards a renewed existential outlook. Psilocybin therapy can help you work through religious trauma by opening the door to a more experiential and personal encounter with the transcendent. During a psilocybin experience, rigid beliefs may dissolve, and you might discover new insights that can help you exchange dangerous and harmful dogma for new and more empowering beliefs.
By Michele Koh Morollo, NUMEN NoSC Therapies
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